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Re: Graphics cards with Free drivers



On Tue, 2008-04-08 at 15:49 +0000, A J Stiles wrote:
> On Tuesday 08 Apr 2008, Dean Hamstead wrote:
> > the reverse engineered nvidia driver is working now,
> >
> > cant recall the name of it.
> >
> > is there any reason you cant use with nvidia blob? 
> 
> Yes:  it's a binary blob, i.e. it doesn't include any Source Code.  That is a 
> fairly compelling reason not to run it, I think.
> 
> > the basic 'nv' driver will work for most nvidia cards, but its largely
> > just rudimentry 2d support.
> 
> Please define "most".  (That's the driver I'm using on my machine at work, 
> which is fitted with an older nVidia card.)  I want to be certain that 
> whatever I buy will work correctly with 100% Free software.

SUPPORTED HARDWARE
       The  nv  driver  supports  PCI, PCI-Express and AGP video cards
       based on the following NVIDIA chips:

       RIVA 128              NV3

       RIVA TNT              NV4

       RIVA TNT2             NV5

       GeForce 256, QUADRO   NV10

       GeForce2, QUADRO2     NV11 & NV15

       GeForce3, QUADRO DCC  NV20

       nForce, nForce2       NV1A, NV1F

       GeForce4, QUADRO4     NV17, NV18, NV25, NV28

       GeForce FX, QUADRO FX NV30, NV31, NV34, NV35, NV36, NV37, NV38

       GeForce 6XXX          NV40, NV41, NV43, NV44, NV45, C51

       GeForce 7XXX          G70, G71, G72, G73

       GeForce 8XXX          G80, G84, G86, G92


> > there is nvidia drivers for 32bit and 64bit, no need to cut your teeth
> > on reverse engineered drivers unless you have some compelling reason to
> > buy an amd64 and run an older card.
> 
> Unless and until the European Union step in and rule binary-only drivers to be 
> illegal, anyone who uses them is entirely at the mercy of hardware vendors -- 
> vide recent developments with Creative sound card drivers in the Windows 
> world.
> 
> I care about not being shafted that way myself, and I care about other people 
> not being shafted in future.
> 
> -- 
> AJS
> delta echo bravo six four at earthshod dot co dot uk
> 
> 
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/ Jo Shields <jms@osc.ox.ac.uk> \
| Systems Manager,              |
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