On Mon, 19 Mar 2012 14:40:34 -0700 Mark Knecht <markkne...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > I have no problem with you or anyone else running nouveau. None at all. > > I do have a problem with someone saying 'it's time for everyone to > give up nvidia-drivers' without demonstrating they know the full > impact of what they are suggesting. Had Cheng Renquan suggest 'Maybe > people who don't need anything other than basic X capabilities should > consider running nouveau' I wouldn't have even chimed in. > I think the main complaint is that the Nvidia drivers are closed binary blobs while Nouveau is an attempt to create an entirely open source driver. The spirit of free software demands that we support these open initiatives. Actually, until recently, I was very happy using the legacy open source xorg nvidia driver known simply as as "nv." It is still available in Gentoo as x11-drivers/xf86-video-nv. Since I do not do gaming or other intensive graphic activities, I could get by nicely with just nv. However, the nv driver does not seem to support the latest hardware too well. On one of my machines I have a card based on Nvidia GeForce 210. Although the nv driver works with this card, it does not enable the Xv extension and consequently the graphic response is poor. On older cards nv does work quite well for ordinary purposes. Frank Peters
