Frank Cox wrote:
it is about supporting fedora
users and providing something that works for them. It seems odd for
that to be such a controversial topic.
The main problem is support for a "black box", as you have been told many times
before.
Yes, people keep repeating that, yet they never produce any evidence to
show how much better and more reliable Linux 3-D video is on the
corresponding hardware than Windows or OSX with their binary-only
drivers. I've never experienced any problems with those myself.
A side-effect of this is that people are incented to purchase and use products
from "cooperative manufacturers" when they wish to use Fedora (or any other
Linux distribution). Personally, I use and recommend Intel motherboards
and video chipsets when anyone asks my opinion. (I don't know about you, but I
get asked several times every week.)
I'm just one guy, and who cares about my opinion? Apparently, folks around here
do. You can provide similar advice to the folks around your area who care about
yours. On a sufficiently large scale, the problem will eventually become
self-resolving as Nvidia and ATI and whoever-else will wake up and smell the
coffee and continue to sell video cards into the Linux market, or not.
Intel graphics currently work just fine out-of-the-box and will continue
to do so.
For some definition of working and some of their chips... Intel has
made a bunch of stuff that shares motherboard RAM and produces output
that isn't great. I haven't kept up with which is which.
Nvidia's and ATI's don't. Therefore, the correct decision is
obvious; if the purchaser doesn't research his purchase before putting his
money on the counter, whose fault is that?
Nvidia and ATI's drivers aren't included in the box. They could be.
"But it's a lot of money to spend to buy a new computer!" Indeed, it can be.
The more reason to look into what you're buying before making the deal.
"But we already have one of these unsupported video cards in our old computer!"
Well, it's unsupported. Your choices are to live with it or purchase a
supported card.
Or run an OS that respects its users enough to include the vendor's
drivers - which is what the majority do.
--
Les Mikesell
lesmikesell@xxxxxxxxx
