My second hand ATI is serving me well, very nice support in fedora. Radeon HD 3870, hooked up to 2 24" monitors, runs nicely even though it's quite old. Not sure I'd want to support nvidia...
Bianca - on my phone, please excuse my brevity On Aug 25, 2012 4:32 PM, "Ben Sturmfels" <[email protected]> wrote: > Adam Bolte <[email protected]> writes: > > > On Sun, Aug 12, 2012 at 07:50:00PM +1000, Ben Sturmfels wrote: > >> I see they've already raised $8M in pre-sales though, so perhaps > >> there are other free software organisations that would benefit more > >> from a donation right now. I'm thinking instead of buying a video > >> card from Think Penguin [3]. > >> > >> [3] > https://www.thinkpenguin.com/gnu-linux/geforce-9500gt-1gb-pci-express-20-video-card-gnulinux > > > > I just noticed... it's an Nvidia card you are talking about. This gives > me > > mixed feelings. Sure supporting free software drivers and stores that > find > > such hardware is great, but supporting Nvidia? <shudder> > > > > I'm assuming it's still the case that Intel drivers are 100% free > software for > > at least some of their newer cards, although obviously the performance > won't > > be the same. > > > > AMD makes cards that have excellent free software drivers, and (unlike > Nvidia) > > they release the specs... however most modern AMD cards rely on non-free > > firmware - firmware that isn't built into the device's ROM, but instead > needs > > to be loaded by the driver during initialisation. > > > > Even so, it seems to me that AMD is doing far better at helping the free > > software driver communities than Nvidia ever has. I have a Radeon HD 5870 > > (which I purchased with Bitcoin) with 6 LCDs hooked up to it at work, > running > > the free software drivers. The performance is great. I can play OpenArea > with > > max detail at 7680x1024, 60fps (I use v-sync or it would likely be much > > higher). There are some FoV issues in doing that I haven't completely > > resolved, but it's quite impressive to see. > > > > Note: It appears that newer Nvidia cards also require proprietary > firmware, > > until free software drivers are reverse-engineered. > > http://nouveau.freedesktop.org/wiki/InstallDRM#Firmware > > > > I would like to put more pressure on AMD to release the code for their > > firmware though, or at least see as much effort put forward to develop > free > > firmware for AMD cards as we have seen from the Nvidia > reverse-engineering > > guys. > > Thanks for pointing this out. Yes, it's certainly an imperfect choice. > Buying one of these Nvidia cards support Think Penguin, a new vendor who > sells hardware compatible with fully-free software. On the other hand, it > results in some profits for Nvidia, who are extremely unfriendly to free > software. > > Choosing an AMD card means I'm giving some profits to AMD, who offer > dramatically better support for free software. On the other hand though, > I'd be required to use proprietary firmware. > > In terms of my personal freedom today, the Nvidia card would be the best > choice. For encouraging free software-compatible hardware in the longer > term though, I don't know that there's a clear answer. > > Ben > > _______________________________________________ > Free-software-melb mailing list > [email protected] > > http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb > > _______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list [email protected] http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb
