[Gllug] Graphics cards + open source or contributed drivers?

John Hearns john.hearns at clustervision.com
Wed Nov 12 16:45:32 UTC 2003


On Wed, 2003-11-12 at 17:15, Huw Lynes wrote:

> That may well be the case, but the open-source drivers don't have the
> capablities we need. As usual it's a question of compromise. We need the speed
> and are willing to put up with a certain amount of flakiness in order to get
> it. 

I'm going to weigh in here, and play the devil's advocate a little.

On a Linux group, I'm surprised not to find more discussion on the
philosophy of closed-source drivers.
I once heard Alan Cox speak quite eloquently on the subject.

And if I'm allowed to have a little bit of a rant (and I hope Huw
doesn't take this as anything aimed at him), we should discuss what's
happening now that Linux is definitely 'mainstream' and 'enterprise'.
I've said it on other lists, and I'll say it again, 'we' started using
Linux as it is open source - if you have an itch, you can scratch it.

I remember delving deeply into the kernel to find out about memory
limits for processes when we had jobs which exhibited memory leaks and
were running wild. We didn't alter the kernel - but we could have.
Or in a big computing environment you could (say) alter the scheduling
algorithm.


Anyone care to compare with commercial Unices where you have a
restricted
set of parameters you can change to tweak the kernel? 
I remember a kernel tweak on a Sparc being  A Big Thing.

OK, coming to drivers.
Huw's comment is quite right - his company needs the performance of
a closed driver to get their job done, and get the work out the door.
I won't say for one minute they shouldn't use them for some high-horse
reason of principle, which would be stupid.

Also recently I've seen people on the Fedora list asking about
kernels 'other that Redhat's'.

I just kinda fear a day when 'we' are not 'allowed' to change anything
and recompile a kernel.


But before anyone says it, no I'm not advocating (say) banks running
RHAS to dick around with recompiling and sticking on their own apps.
And I'm not saying that sysadmins should wily-nilly play with new
kernels on production systems.
Yes, the vendor supplied kernels are there for good reasons.
BUT in the spirit of open source we should understand what they are
there for, and have a general understanding of what goes on.

BTW, it should be obvious that the above rant is me speaking
personally, not for my employers.


John H.


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