[Beowulf] visualization machine

[Joe Landman]

Geoff Jacobs wrote:
> Joe Landman wrote:
>> Geoff Jacobs wrote:
>>
>>> No nvidia for me unless they open up driver specs. Open drivers have a
>>> history of being very, very stable if not as fast. Nvidia does have good
>>> drivers, but I have definitely seen them experience problems.
>> Silicon Image SATA drivers are great examples of open drivers that have
>> been (in the past) terrible.  The tg3 drivers have been very bad (start
>> sending lots of packets and watch your CSW climb and climb and climb).
>> Forcedeth are still terrible, and are open.  The nv driver in X often
>> breaks on newer hardware (the laptop I type this on is a testament to
>> this problem).
> There is no magic bullet :)

... nor are there free lunches ... :)

> 
> I was referring specifically to graphics drivers. Sorry.

Whoops... the ATI drivers have been well ... um ... not that good (the 
open ones) for a long time.

> I'm surprised the nv driver has problems, as it is contributed to by
> NVidia.

Yeah, kinda shocked me ... laptop with a Quadro FX/360, and whammo ... 
no display.  Had to load the nvidia ones by hand to get a display. 
Hopefully (crosses fingers) Ubuntu 8.04 will fix this ... hopefully ... 
fix (as in not break!) this ...

> 
>> No, open-ness doesn't equate to good-ness.  Open-ness equates to
>> portability, ability to hunt for problems on your own and correct them
>> if need be.
> I find that open-ness tends to allow better integration (less problems
> when switching between kernel framebuffer and X, for example). As well,
> I don't like the idea of having hardware orphaned because it just got
> EOLed and NVidia or ATI is not going to support it in future driver
> releases.

Yeah, this does bug me too.


-- 
Joseph Landman, Ph.D
Founder and CEO
Scalable Informatics LLC,
email: landman at scalableinformatics.com
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