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Re: debian can be better



Am 27.10.2010 23:32, schrieb Russell Coker:
> On Wed, 27 Oct 2010, Pedro Paulo Argolo <jamer.jamer@hotmail.com> wrote:
>>  needs better support video cards from Nvidia and ATI video boards
>> Intel. I had configuration problems because of that, and for a typical
>> user is a very embarrassing situation. ~: (
> 
> The change from "nv" to "nouveau" was a good improvement for my main system 
> (Thinkpad T61), 2D graphics performance improved noticeably although I do 
> occasionally get transient corrupted bitmaps.  Debian is dedicated to free 
> software (which precludes the non-free NVidia driver from being in main) and I 
> don't want the security risk of running binary-only software on my important 
> systems.

Most desktop users also want to have some 2D/3D performance, or special
features like tv out, xvideo acceleration etc etc.
nouveau is a good replacement for nv, but still far away of being useful
for powerful desktop users.

On the ATI/AMD side, the free radeon driver does a quite good job, but
since it uses KMS you have to disable KMS to get some performance
(radeon+KMS = quite slow)

The security side:
Sure, security issues could be "easily" fixed with open drivers, but if
I remember right, the only security issue with a closed-source prop. X11
video driver was 2-3 years ago with the nvidia one. And if there are
some new sec. issues, you can still switch.

> 
> I am not aware of anything that stops a Debian user from using a binary-only 
> Xorg driver.

Not supported by us, officialy, they are also not on our installation
cds (users have to activate non-free by themselve).

> 
> Intel video cards work really well in my experience, performance is great 
> including on 3D graphics with games such as Warzone 2100, Super Tux Carts, and 
> Tux Racer.  Given a choice I'd just buy a system with Intel graphics.

It may be great with such "historic" games, but don't try to play modern
games with intel HW ;)

> 
>> In this case I think
>> Debian should look a little closer to Ubuntu, referring to usability.
>> You can maintain a perfectly usable OS for both beginners and advanced
>> users of Linux technology, without changing the philosophy course
>> Debian.
> 
> Ubuntu aren't as much into free software.

ACK.

> 
> Speaking for myself I'm more than happy for people who want Debian with non-
> free software to use Ubuntu.  I think that they are doing a great job of 
> making a Debian-derived distribution that supports non-free software and is 
> easy to use.

I do not agree with you at all, but mostly because of some "religion"
reasons :p
Anyway for squeeze there will be (if nothing have been changed again) an
image with some non-free enabled (like firmware foo).


-- 
/*
Mit freundlichem Gruß / With kind regards,
 Patrick Matthäi
 GNU/Linux Debian Developer

E-Mail: pmatthaei@debian.org
        patrick@linux-dev.org

Comment:
Always if we think we are right,
we were maybe wrong.
*/

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