Phoronix takes a look at nVIDIA’s SLI and nVIDIA’s efforts to support alternative operating systems, such as Linux, BSD, and Solaris, and how HP fits into all that. “While this NVIDIA SLI support can still be considered very much rudimentary compared against the Microsoft Windows support with the ForceWare drivers, which were introduced back on November 9 of 2004, there is no clear sight for how it will ultimately fair in the world of Linux. According to some information we have obtained from our sources and research, NVIDIA’s motives for Linux SLI may largely dissent from the public opinion. In this article today, there are a few comments we would like to share about the big green manufacturer and their outlook on alternative operating systems.”
The other day I was shopping for a network card, and I picked up a box which listed as supported most OS’s I ever heard of, dos, bsd’s, linux, os/2, windows, etc…
These days it’s all microsoft… Not microsoft? You’re screwed.
Damn. And seeing that nvidia is “the best” choice for linux these days. With friends like these…..
Linux SLI? Geee, who came first, the hen or the egg?
I’m sorry to say this, but if you’re after a gamingbox today (which most (Meaning not all, high end workstations excluded) high end graphics cards are for) you’re bound to use Windows. Seriously, any hardcare gamer out there who wants options will use windows, that’s a simple fact.
Now I do know and realize that Linux gaming is growing, but talking market share here is a completely different ballgame than servermarket AND desktopmarket. Let’s say Linux has 35% of the servermarket (Just an unmotivated figure) and let’s say Linux has 2% of the desktop market. I’d say they got 0,001% of the hardcore gaming market and maybe, just maybe 0,1% of the gaming market.
Surely people must see that Nvidia (and ATI for that matter) puts A LOT of time into their drivers. Following the Readme notes about each driver release, 95% of the fixes are Gaming+Video and like I said, this is the windows market.
If all this is going to be changed (which I DO hope), I would rather hit the Gaming companies and tell them to crossdevelop their games, and increase market share for gaming on Linux, then the drivers will come.
Besides, I thought Nvidia had in general become a lot nicer towards the Alt OS scene, having drivers for both Linux and BSDs.
Good point. You get those game companies to port their games and nvidia will follow.
… economics, which nVidia being in business to sell graphics cards, what else would you expect. It’s the same thing with ATI, Dell, Intel, etc. Businesses are only going to be interested in pooling resources behind ventures that show some prospect for profit gain.
That’s one thing that the FOSS Community needs to realize. You have to follow the money trail to see the true intentions of such large scale endevours as hardware support or even desktop preinstallation and sale. Notice how long companies have been offering Server offering for Linux … more specifically distros such as Red Hat or Suse … where it has been proven that there are profits to be made.
Even down to the only FOSS related hardware product I can think of … the Open Graphics Project … was started but abandoned due to the lack of financial profitability as seen by the hardware company from which it was started. They had to step back think about how to make the project more profitable and are now trying again.
Another thing that the FOSS Community needs to keep in mind is that ‘Businesses’ while help anything that they see will help them make money, do nothing with anything that has no relation to their profit margin, and will attack whether overtly or covertly once it becomes a threat. Once you keep that last statement in mind you will being to make more sense of actions you see being taken in the industry.
Its the same concept that makes Actors/Celebrities donate large sums of money and create foundations for the development and research of areas that is of direct interest to them. Special apperances in the community by high profile personalities? follow the money to identify the profit to be made or protected.
Do you have some link to story about OGP being abandonned?
Afaik, they have switched to the next phase near beggining of the year.
I should have used the term “put on hold indefinitely” as can be noted in the first paragraph of the email at http://kerneltrap.org/node/5073
“… recall back in February, I announced that Tech Source had changed their stance on the OGP. At that time, management decided that OGP would not be profitable within the time they wanted. They decided to put the project on hold indefinitely and pursue other priorities instead.”
The company was on board until it saw limited revenue potential, then it trottled back its effort … the point is that business is all about money, and thats pretty much the bottom line.
With XGL and perhaps more favourably to Nvidia, AIGLX, linux is enivitably going to become an important market that they will want to have a share in.
http://download.nvidia.com/developer/presentations/2006/xdevconf/co…
The last paragraph in their article they make it seem as though there’s some big conspiracy.
“What are nvidia’s intentions?” “will there be any more deals?”
Phoronix is acting as though linux has 30% of the desktop market and is just being ignored, while ignoring that this is exactly the type of thing that’s going to happen. It’s the way it’s supposed to happen.
Linux is not a company the way Apple is, so Apple can send it’s own spokesman wheras we really can’t. So it’s up to somebody else to be a spokesperson for us. Be it HP, IBM, Redhat, Novell, or whoever’s name you’d like to insert here.
nVidia would respond to marketshare if we had more of it, but until that time comes it’s up to our sponsors to do the talking for us.
Instead of running HP through the mud and asking stupid questions we should be thanking them for having a vested interest and pushing the ball further down the field.