On 01/-10/-28163 02:59 PM, Ron Johnson wrote:
On 04/22/2010 08:49 AM, Stephen Powell wrote: [snip]I shall now avoid, when possible, computers with Nvidia graphics cards.Except that Nvidia's drivers are still *much* better than ATI's drivers.
Insofar as my experience goes I'd have to qualify that with a /sometimes/ they are better...
I've got a couple of fairly high-end Quadro graphics workstation cards that have given me fits in every distro I've tried. If I used restricted / blob / proprietary / whatever drivers -- whether I got them directly from nvidia or from distro-associated repositories -- the result was always that bits and pieces of the desktop environment would break from time-to-time. Trying to use Compiz under Gnome could be a nightmare.
Using the nv drivers has at least always left me with a reliable system, albeit without much in the way of glitzy special effects.
Right now I run a bunch of systems with ATI, integrated Intel, and the Quadro cards in them. I've settled happily into Debian Squeeze with Xfce. The desktop compositing in Xfce 4.6.1 even works with the nv drivers -- but very, very slowly. The far cheaper ATI and Intel graphics subsystems are snappy and responsive with the same environment. If I use the binary blob nvidia driver, I get fast, snappy -- and unreliable.
I don't like that. And I don't like nvidia's attitude. I came over to GNU/Linux because I was tired of feeling that I was being screwed over in the name of business models and IP. I won't be buying any more nvidia stuff, either.
Heck, I haven't even installed the non-free firmware to make wireless work in a couple of these notebooks.
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