Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
> On Tue, Oct 08, 2002 at 01:27:43AM -0400, Joshua Lee wrote:
> 
>>Charles Shannon Hendrix wrote:
>>
>>>That's not a solution.  If you need to do 3D work on an Intel/AMD
>>>system right now, nVidia is about the only game in town for the free
>>>UNIX systems.
>>
>>What about ATI and Matrox?
> 
> 
> What about them?  Last time I used either, the drivers were pretty slow,
> and there was no 3D acceleration.
> 
> I had a half-working Mesa setup on a Matrox, but it was never very smooth.
> 
> With Linux and nVidia, it just works.  I hate that because we need
> more alternatives for video cards (I like ATI Radeons better myself),
> and I hate to see this Linux-only stuff starting.  It's as bad as the
> Windows-only situation to me.
> 

...as he reached into his gunny sack to remove his beleagured whip, he 
eyed the flagging horse, sure that there would be some who would decry 
the flogging...

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every user of any free Unix-like system 
could simply install their OS on any sort of hardware and have every 
piece of hardware whir and whiz to it's perfect and harmonious acme?

Sure.

I believe we are getting closer to that every day. And I doubt if anyone 
would disagree.

Being the large corporation that it is, having swallowed 3dfx, nVidia, 
obviously, is going to do, at all times, what makes good business sense 
for nVidia. No one can really fault them for that.

Would this company have bothered with Linux drivers a few years ago? No. 
Why? Because they didn't see the need for it. But, now that their 
products are going into more and more x86 based systems, they understand 
that they have a growing market in the non-Windows sector. And enough 
folks made enough noise about the dismal performance of their expensive 
cutting edge video hardware that nVidia took the time to make very nice 
drivers for their hardware that supported a non-Windows OS. What OS 
would they pick? Hmmm... It probably doesn't hurt, either, that Dell, 
who uses scads of nVidia hardware, also has high end hardware that is 
avaible with Red Hat Linux preloaded. I'm sure that Dell had a few words 
with nVidia regarding this, too.

The point is: Let's give credit where credit is due. Don't wrech about 
the drivers not working on NetBSD. Traditional corporate support does 
not happen over night. Instead, we should commend nVidia for at least 
making the first effort. I am a user of their Linux drivers. I think 
they are wonderful. It has cut my reboots into a Windows OS down to 10% 
of what I was doing before I installed them. I sent them an email 
thanking them for making the drivers avaiable and providing good, clear, 
  documentation of the install procedure.

I'm not saying to lick anyone's boots, but I have learned over the years 
that a little bit of appreciation and patience can go a long, long way.

Cheers,
Jim

-- 
Swell Software, Inc.
Proud Makers of PEG - The Portable Embedded GUI