Please wait...
The OSS drivers are good enough to turn it into a daily driver. Do does not need to be tossed into the dumpster, yet.
Sat Jul 20 2024 07:14:57 EDT from darknetuserStill, that computer is now officially EOLed for no good reason.
2024-07-20 07:18 from Nurb432
The OSS drivers are good enough to turn it into a daily driver. Do
does not need to be tossed into the dumpster, yet.
We are not tossing the computer to the dumpster since it is still useful to play Pokemon Yellow on it.
That said, I doubt this guy will want to move to nouveau because its support for the really old cards isn't that good afaik.
The OSS driver wont be a game machine i agree, but just doing 'stuff' and watching a video, its ok for. Could convert it into a file server or something too and skip the GPU totally. ( I assume the video is onboard.. )
To me EOL = dumpster food. Beyond usability. But since its an older game machine i figured the CPU and such would mean it was worth keeping around.
Still, that computer is now officially EOLed for no good reason.
Devil's advocate: if you think NVidia should still maintain old drivers, why can't the distro keep maintaining old kernels?
Anyway, I'm no OSS GNU zealot but obviously the least effort fix for everyone would be for NVidia to release their old driver source for the community to maintain. If they have some super secret sauce in there that they don't want to reveal, then they can split their modules into an open source layer that provides the closed source layer with a stable API to the rest of the kernel.
As I wrote that, it also occurred to me: I wonder how possible it would be to decompile their modules and update them? You don't have to understand everything about it, just the interfaces that change from kernel version to kernel version.
Honestly i dont think it would be a huge tech lift to support older cards longer. Sure, you lose out on neat features, and run into software that needs the new stuff, but the basic underlying architecture isn't really changing. Supporting old kernels, not sure that is a 1:1 comparison as long as the new one still works on your older hardware, which normally it does. ( 32bit/64bit discussion not withstanding )
And ya, at the least they could donate the old drivers source after retirement. But they wont do that, they are power hungry jerks.
Ok that was worded wrong. Separate the kernel line form the GPU line. i was meaning OSS and newer kernels pretty much support older stuff so its not a good comparison to GPU drivers.
And people DO reverse engineer those drivers, its why we have stuff like nouveau. Also im an idiot it seems as, it seems NVIDIA *IS* open sourcing something ... started a couple of years ago. I will have to look at the details more. If they really are contributing and not just pretending ( like so many do ), ill back off on my hatred, a little.
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-ope n-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
Ya it does seem promising. I was reading some more of it last night, i will back off on my dislike for them a little. Not totally, for other reasons, but they have stepped up from that angle, and ill give anyone credit when they do something right.
Still need to see how it can impact Debian.
Sun Jul 21 2024 13:32:54 EDT from zelgomerSpeak of the devil. I just coincidentally stumbled across this.
https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/nvidia-transitions-fully-towards-ope n-source-gpu-kernel-modules/
To me EOL = dumpster food. Beyond usability. But since its an older
game machine i figured the CPU and such would mean it was worth
keeping around.
Actually, it is an older office machine repurposed for games.
This guy is an IT pro, but not the sort who breathes and lives IT outside work (ie. not me) so I can guarantee he wants nothing to do with file servers or whatever. This computer is only good for gaming as far as he is concerned.
Personally, I consider a product EOLed when it has no more vendor support, but I will gladly keep using it within a safe context. I don't feel like putting working stuff in the trash bin.
Devil's advocate: if you think NVidia should still maintain old
drivers, why can't the distro keep maintaining old kernels?
Actually I think Nvidia should opensource the kernel modules to stop this nonsense. As fr as I know they have announced they are doing it. Then people could just try to maintain the foss module if they wantit to work with newer machines.
Also, I think we'd rather downgrade the kernel rather than waste our time supporting unmaintained software just because we want to play Pokemon Yellow
a couple hours per week.
Actually I think Nvidia should opensource the kernel modules to stop
this nonsense. As fr as I know they have announced they are doing it.
Then people could just try to maintain the foss module if they wantit
to work with newer machines.
Not having open source kernel modules doesn't really buy them anything anyway.
The real IP is the chip design and the firmware. The drivers just bind it to the kernel API.
(And yes, I know that binary firmware blobs make RMS unhappy, but that's a feature, not a bug.)
It also means they can trap you into their ( often paid ) development tools.
Mon Jul 29 2024 21:41:31 EDT from IGnatius T FoobarNot having open source kernel modules doesn't really buy them anything anyway.
The real IP is the chip design and the firmware. The drivers just bind it to the kernel API.
(And yes, I know that binary firmware blobs make RMS unhappy, but that's a feature, not a bug.)
Year or so report a bug, nicely "hey just to let you know with the current version it will slow way down after a bit and CPU use is like 75% on a 8 core xeon. if i close tab and reopen about 30 mins later, starts up agin" "its your fault for leaving the browser open too long, what do you expect" wtf. ok fine.
Next version, it goes away.
Year later, it comes back "hey saw this before and just to let you know after this new release it came back where its doing xyz when i do abc" "bla bla bla i dug out your post from last year and its your fault and you dont understand how it works bla bla" "um dude, ya i do know how it works, and i wasn't complaining or being condescending, just that it started back up with the this weeks release..and i thought you might like to know"
Trying to be helpful, get crap. Too many 'holier than thou' developers out there that feel their users are an irritant ( not here.. just a general statement )
"look we are opensource, come use our stuff its cool, and more features coming"
spend a year or so ...collecting ideas... free code.. free bug testing.. etc..
vanish.
Come back a year later
"buy our product"
****ers
...and if it's even remotely useful someone will fork the final open source version. Happens all the time.
In this case, it was. And ya, most likely will.
( was a low code python 'grid widget' for databases, including CRUD operations )
Sat Sep 28 2024 10:39:04 EDT from IGnatius T Foobar...and if it's even remotely useful someone will fork the final open source version. Happens all the time.