Re: linux 3d applications keep crashing

On Sun, Mar 15, 2009 at 6:41 AM, Robert Huff <roberthuff_at_rcn.com> wrote:
>
> Garrett Cooper writes:
>
>>       So instead of lurking and complaining, why not contribute to
>>  the cause?
>
>        While I sympathize on the complaining ... the response is
> problematic.
>        I see two ways to contribute to the main problem, which is lack
> of usable code.  (For the moment let's discount "testing" and
> "documentation".)
>        One could help with one of the open source drivers.  Worthy
> project, but a lot of work involving a skill-set beyond even many
> coders experienced in other fields.  (I'm assuming none of these
> drivers are on the cusp of a magic moment where lot of good things
> suddenly happen and it's a coast downhill from there.)
>        The alternative - which sounds seductive but may have its own
> issues - would be to fill the Nvidia requests and let them write and
> maintain the code.  Again, worthy project (which might have
> collateral benefits).  Again, a lot of work.  And an even more
> esoteric skill-set.
>        If you have some other way a person with limited technical
> skills can contribute - tell!  I'm getting closer to buying a new
> system, and I'd love to have a modern graphics card running at full
> capacity.  And, as long as it didn't explode in their faces, I think
> many others might be willing to help as well.

Well, some ways which someone can help are:
- Interface with nVidia to say `hey, your driver's broken and you have
a bunch of users out here that you're leaving cold in the wind that
use your product!'. I've already tried that on the forums by didn't
receive that much support...
<http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=87932>. If we don't note
a problem, I'm pretty sure that because we are a third-tier platform
they'll assume that it's business as usual with us, e.g. we don't need
support. Saying something like `your driver doesn't support 64-bit' or
`you guys suck' without providing hard data, probably won't help our
cause as it's all been said before. That's why I specifically asked
for a more up-to-date driver without GIANT locking and built against a
more recent release like 6.x (yes, it's still being built against 5.x
and I have NFI why...). These intermediate steps would relieve the
burden required by folks who choose to run the blob drivers as more
people could use their stuff.
- Provide resources (hardware, money) to developers like Robert and
Roman to help make development easier and speed up the entire process.
- Test out alpha and beta patches. Sure, we may not like the
instability, but as long as we can provide feedback to the developers
on whether or not the patches work, that should be sufficient. This
should be OK though if you run CURRENT because it is bleeding edge
anyhow...
- Review and possibly test our the pmap-like interface patch that was
provided to the list a while ago, because that helps nail down one
requirement that the nVidia folks needed.

My 2 cents,
-Garrett