On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 16:13:35 +0100 Frank Barknecht fbar@footils.org wrote:
Hallo, Tim Blechmann hat gesagt: // Tim Blechmann wrote:
i couldn't get the nv driver running on my machine for longer than 2 minutes without graphics problems ... otoh, the nvidia drivers are easy to install, use and rock-solid
But are you sure, they will still run in two years?
the question is ... will my machine still run in two years :-/
i think, you'll have to differenciate a bit ... will they still run on "the same hardware" / "the same kernel"? most likely ... will they still run on kernel 5.0 ... not sure, but this is also not sure for open source drivers .... iirc some hardware support has been dropped from the linux kernel from 2.4 to 2.6 ...
i don't see any problems with using a closed-source driver, if there is no open source driver available / usable ... it's better than having no driver at all (which unfortunately is far more common in the linux world).
If people happily buy from vendors, who don't supply specifications for their hardware, then why should the manufacturers change their habit of keeping everything secret and closed up?
I only buy hardware with open source drivers. I understand, that sometimes this is not possible for some people, but whereever it is, linux customers should beware. Closed-source vendor drivers are a trojan horse. I would never let it enter my town.
well, imo, there are worse things than running a linux machine with one or two closed source drivers ... i'm more pissed by the bundled software, when buying hardware ... e.g. there are no decent laptops without windoze license ... having a closed-source software, that i paid for and that i actually use is fine ... but buying something i don't need nor use is a much bigger problem ...
cheers ... tim