Re: The future of "nv" driver

[John Hasler <jhasler@debian.org>]

Mark Allums writes:
> Ah, a matter of taste, then.  (Debian tastes bad with Nvidia loaded,
> apparently.)

I wrote:
> No.  A matter of support.  Device driver bugs can cause crashes in
> apparently unrelated parts of the kernel.

Ron Johnson writes:
> I must not stress my system enough, because even using the nvidia
> driver, my machine is rock stable.

I didn't mean to imply that the Nvidia drivers were particularly buggy.
It's just that when kernels with Nvidia drivers do crash (whether due to
bugs in the Nvidia stuff or elsewhere) the kernel maintainers can't
properly debug it because the don't have all the source.  Since Nvidia
does have all the source they refer you to Nvidia.  They came up with
the "taint" device as a automated way to warn them of the presence of
closed-source drivers since the users often don't know.
-- 
John Hasler