[ILUG] Help with nVidia drivers install FC2

[Bryan O'Donoghue]

> There's tonnes of proprietary software in the world. Many services you 
> use are driven by proprietary software, most electronic devices you own 
> have proprietary software. And there's nothing particularly wrong with 
> that, except that source is nearly always better.
> 
> If the FSF Free Software philosophy were some high-minded, 
> pie-in-the-sky idealistism, it's believers could not live in this world.


In my defence, what I'd respond to there, is that, in the real world, it's much 
easier for me to pop out to the shops in a Town like Tralee and *just buy* a 
card that works under Linux.

I'm trying to keep an open mind to what you're saying, but, I think that to 
'live in _this_ world' to coin the phrase above, means that, while it may have 
been possible to pick up a graphics card with an Open Source driver, from 
Dublin, it wouldn't have been very pragmatic. Yes, I could have bought from the 
internet, but, I don't usually buy hardware over the internet (I use Maplin, or 
  ITDirect, or the local equivalent), because, I think it would be very time 
consuming and frustrating trying to exchange/refund parts that didn't do what I 
needed them to do or were just broken.. so buying from shops is much *safer*.

> PC, you stand a good chance of being able to use it, not any other 
> device, to do tasks other proprietary devices refuse to do, should the 
> makers of their proprietary software decide that 3rd party interests 
> override those of their customers and societys.

Yes I'd prefare to have that theoretical control over the system. From where I 
saw it, there was a known Linux and FreeBSD driver, which would satisfy my 
'need' on a pragmatic level, if not 'higher theoretical' desire to have a 
totally open and controlled system.

> Hence, control of software on your PC is of prime importance in terms of 
> freedom.

I'll not dispute that. I will dispute my culpability for taking an easy and 
safe approach to achieve a goal for _me_ with calculated risk. One might 
equally argue that buying from vendors who provide even binary only drivers for 
Open Source systems promotes the proliferation of those systems... and that a 
sufficient amount of lobbying of corporations who support Open Source systems 
at the binary module level could lead to Open Sourcing of the closed part of 
the system.

Yast was closed source up until recently... therefore anybody who used SuSE, 
was similarly supporting the entire closed corporate mentality behind having 
yast as a magic setup tool. Sure SuSE contributed to things like reiserfs and 
while the corporate mentalities don't 'totally' equate.. I think there is 
sufficient correlation, to draw a comparison of sorts....

> I dont like the idea that in 10 years time I wont have that freedom 
> anymore because every Joe Soap user is fine with binary only drivers, 
> and the driver for my foo-dongle is no longer supported and wont work 
> with the latest Linux 7.2 kernel, but the hardware for my bar-widget 
> only has 7.6 drivers, which furthermore conflicts with the 
> vendor-supplied HAL needed to allow Linux to boot on my PC[1].

Unfortunately, I think that when Linux becomes more proliferic, that there will 
be alot more closed systems that simply run on top of it... because many 
programming houses couldn't/wouldn't be willing to give away their code and 
move their business model to one of support. Ergo, close source will always be 
'some' sort of fact of life.... well probably.

> I like my freedom, stop working to take it away from me[2]. :)
> 
> When you buy hardware you're voting with your wallet. So at least *try* 
> support hardware which is open. You dont have to sacrifice pragmatism - 
> that's a personal comfort level, mine is likely different to yours - but 
> at least *try* see if you can spend money on the open hardware first.

I did search locally quite extensively, the Nvidia card was the only PCI card I 
found, and fortunately it also had S-Video, which was the only *actual* 
requirement... yes... I'd have settled for running Windows... just to watch the 
occasional DVD and anybody who'd do without a DVD player on that basis... 
deserves not to have random_girl() for him to watch legally blonde, five times 
in a row.

> These HALs do exist, eg my Linux Netgear AP has a big blob of ARM code 
> which is essentially a mini RTOS, under which Linux runs, communicating 
> with this RTOS (called MVC) via a driver. In this case, it's for 802.11 
> AP functionality that needs RT, and for ethernet access, but essentially 
> this blob could do whatever it likes as it including sniff ethernet, 
> etc, as it can preempt the linux kernel. This mechanism of a binary-only 
> RTOS "HAL" could easily be applied to PCs in future. With "trusted 
> computing"[3] PCs, these HALs could become mandated and unavoidable.

Yes in theory.
However as a programmer, if someone in R & D came along and said, we're going 
to run Linux as a process under our own RTOS and you can write some code for 
the fun project... do you honestly believe *anybody* on the list would turn 
down a project which was a much _fun_ as that?

Equally, various parts of the hardware on your system could have trojaned code 
running inside of it. The Intel X-Scale for example, comes with chunks of code 
that get downloaded to the CPU and act as a 'network core'... it's not an 
FPGA... it's a <name escapes me>, but the same theory applies, the current 
generation of X-Scales could have trojaned code for Echelon running inside of 
them... perhaps with clever set of algorithms, which sends out random noise... 
that is actually 'magically' tokenised data that has been graphed at the 
network driver level...

And... when people ask me about using X-Scales or even when i get into 
discussions about 'what software should we use' in the professional sense... I 
never recommend anything other then totally open systems...

With all that said.. if the X-Scale was the only chip which could do the job... 
  I'd use it... with the nagging understanding that I'd compromised by using 
"magic" closed code from Intel.

You pays your penny. You takes your pick.

> 3. In the "your own PC doesnt trust you" sense, other than the issue of 
> who exactly "trusted computing" platforms would trust, it'd be a useful 
> thing to have.

Dermot, I'm no barrister, but doesn't the European copyright directive compare 
to the DMCA, which libdvdcss *is* as far as I can glean, basically illegal?

http://www.eucd.org/issues/eucd/

Importanly this link
http://www.eurorights.org/eudmca/WhyTheEUCDIsBad.html

http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=32001L0029&model=guichett
http://www.videolan.org/doc/faq/en/index.html#id2785102



-- 
Bryan O'Donoghue
Embedded Software Engineer

Europlex Technologies Ltd
Clonshaugh Business & Technology Park
Dublin 17
Ireland

T:+353 (0) 1 2500500
F:+353 (0) 1 2500590
E:bryano at europlex.ie
W:www.europlex.ie


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