What FOSS friendly video adapter should I buy?
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From: Nomen Nescio on 18 Apr 2010 08:25 I'm considering buying a new laptop, which will run mainly the Linux Operating System. After reading http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv&num=1 I'm pretty sure, that I will not buy any laptop with NVIDIA GPU. What chipset should I chose? My preferences are as follows (ordered according to priority): 1. Availability of the Open Source Driver, supported by the manufacturer, allowing to access all features of the GPU. I don't accept running closed source binaries as kernel modules or root owned processes. 2. Good video throughput, 3D acceleration, OpenGL support 3. Possibility to use the GPU hardware as numeric calculation accelerator. Could you suggest something?
From: Lusotec on 18 Apr 2010 09:29 Nomen Nescio wrote: > I'm considering buying a new laptop, which will run mainly the Linux > Operating System. > After reading > http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv&num=1 > I'm pretty sure, that I will not buy any laptop with NVIDIA GPU. > What chipset should I chose? My preferences are as follows (ordered > according to priority): > > 1. Availability of the Open Source Driver, supported by the manufacturer, > allowing to access all features of the GPU. I don't accept running > closed source binaries as kernel modules or root owned processes. > 2. Good video throughput, 3D acceleration, OpenGL support > 3. Possibility to use the GPU hardware as numeric calculation accelerator. > Could you suggest something? For your requirements you best (only?) option may be an Intel GMA. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_GMA#Linux Neither nVidia nor ATI support any Open Source Drivers (OSD) of relevant quality, and the OSDs that exit have lower performance than their closed counterparts. That said, a nVidia or ATI card with inefficient OSDs may still provide better 3D performance than a Intel GMA with a Intel's supported OSD. Regards.
From: sctvguy1 on 18 Apr 2010 11:47 Nomen Nescio wrote: > I'm considering buying a new laptop, which will run mainly the Linux > Operating System. > After reading > http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv&num=1 > I'm pretty sure, that I will not buy any laptop with NVIDIA GPU. > What chipset should I chose? My preferences are as follows (ordered > according to priority): > > 1. Availability of the Open Source Driver, supported by the manufacturer, > allowing to access all features of the GPU. I don't accept running > closed source binaries as kernel modules or root owned processes. > 2. Good video throughput, 3D acceleration, OpenGL support > 3. Possibility to use the GPU hardware as numeric calculation accelerator. > > Could you suggest something? Most people that post on these groups use the nVidia driver, and almost exclusively say that nVidia cards are THE cards to have. The driver is included with almost all distros to install. If my IBM M52 didn't have the Intel chipset(capable of using 256mb of the 4gigs of ram it has), I would be looking for an nVidia card with 512/1gig, since they are so cheap now(PCIe).
From: cassiope on 22 Apr 2010 11:18 On Apr 18, 5:25 am, Nomen Nescio <nob...(a)dizum.com> wrote: > I'm considering buying a new laptop, which will run mainly the Linux > Operating System. > After readinghttp://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=nvidia_kills_nv&num=1 > I'm pretty sure, that I will not buy any laptop with NVIDIA GPU. > What chipset should I chose? My preferences are as follows (ordered > according to priority): > > 1. Availability of the Open Source Driver, supported by the manufacturer, > allowing to access all features of the GPU. I don't accept running > closed source binaries as kernel modules or root owned processes. > 2. Good video throughput, 3D acceleration, OpenGL support > 3. Possibility to use the GPU hardware as numeric calculation accelerator.. > > Could you suggest something? Don't have any specific laptop recommendation, but the new Intel chips with the integrated graphics device are supposed to be substantially faster than the older Intel GPUs. I have a desktop with one of these - and it's plenty fast for my (non-gaming) applications. These are pretty new - I don't know if anyone's figured out how to use the GPUs for numerics. NVidia has been tightening the screws lately - they're going farther towards restricting open-sourcing of their drivers. ATI has been inconsistent in its support of FOSS drivers - probably better than NVidia, though their performance is not as good for gamers. In short - there's no universal answer. Good luck with your compromises!
From: Mark Hobley on 22 Apr 2010 17:28
Nomen Nescio <nobody(a)dizum.com> wrote: > 1. Availability of the Open Source Driver, supported by the manufacturer, > allowing to access all features of the GPU. I don't accept running > closed source binaries as kernel modules or root owned processes. > 2. Good video throughput, 3D acceleration, OpenGL support > 3. Possibility to use the GPU hardware as numeric calculation accelerator. Intel are the only manufacturer with working open source 3d drivers for thier current series of cards. ATI have provided the specifications for the drivers to be written, but at this time, the drivers are still in development. I have seen Intel cards working with accelerated 3d graphics and open source drivers and I was very impressed. Intel is your only option on a laptop computer at this time. I have not tried using the GPU as a numeric calculation accelerator, so you need to test this. Mark. -- Mark Hobley Linux User: #370818 http://markhobley.yi.org/ |