Nvidia sucks, sucks, sucks !

[linux]

Today's Calvin and Hobbes rerun made me think of someone....

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/

Ed

Kim Lux wrote:
> I'd like to thank Nvidia for wasting another hour of my life this
> morning !  I am pretty sure that if it wasn't for Nvidia and their
> stupid, idiotic driver system that I could have saved enough time in the
> last 2 years to go on a week's vacation !
>
> Yesterday I absentmindedly ran "yum update".  Stupid me, I didn't watch
> it and apparently a new kernel got installed (2835).
>
> When I rebooted this morning, startx wouldn't run without a bunch of
> errors !  Hmmm... uname -a tells me, surprise, we are now running kernel
> 2835 !  Yippee !
>
> No problem I think, I'll just reboot with 2798 and get to work.  So I do
> reboot, but something is messed up with X, startx gives me a bunch of
> errors.  The Nvidia driver is broken for 2798 too.
>
> So, I decide to rebuild the driver for kernel 2798.  After all, I built
> the Nvidia driver for 2798 only a couple weeks ago.  
>
> So I cd to my Nvidia installer directory, which one HAS to have if one
> is running an Nvidia card !  I do the ./NIDIA*8776.run thing and, of
> course the driver won't build !  What else is new !  Then I remember
> that I had to give it a kernel path last time.  So it takes me 10
> minutes to figure out that.  
>
> The driver still won't build !  Complaining about the stupid config.h
> problem again !  I go into the source and put in a dummy config.h file
> and it still won't build.  UGGGHHH  (At his point I need to point out
> the total stupidity of a Linux user needing to edit source code to get a
> driver to build let alone RUN !)
>
> I notice in the directory that I also have the 9625 version of the
> Nvidia installer.  I try that and it fails too.
>
> About this time I'm thinking that the Nvidia build should work for
> kernel 2835.  So I reboot with that kernel and try both installers
> again, with no success !
>
> And at this point I should point out that for some reason the Nvidia
> install script stalls on my computer from time to time.  So I have to
> ctrl C it and rerun it once in a while. 
>
> So, then I decide that I am being silly trying to build the driver in
> the first place as I've heard great things about livna and they have a
> driver prebuilt.   So I do a "yum install nvidia" and "yum install
> module-nvidia" of course if fails.  I've got the wrong package name.  So
> I shut down Linux and boot XP and go searching on the web to find that
> the package name is "kmod-nvidia".  BTW: I consider it a complete
> failure that I have to boot Windows to get my Linux box running !
>
> So, I boot Linux with kernel 2798 and run "yum install kmod-nvidia".  It
> tells me one of the dependencies is kernel 2798, the one I am running !
> I tell it to go ahead and install anyway.  It fails because it finds the
> 2798 boot files already installed !
>
> But I do notice that the file tag on the kmod-nvidia file reads "9629".
> Because I had to fool around with Nvidia crap two weeks ago when I
> upgraded to FC6, I know that the last available (beta) installer version
> was 9625.  (Lucky me !)  So there must be a newer installer available. 
>
> So, I fire up lynx.  Yeah lynx.  I have no X running, remember !  Back
> before I got smart about fooling around with nvidia stuff, I used to
> fire up Windows, download the new installer, burn it to CDROM, reboot
> Linux, copy the installer to my working directory, CHANGE THE
> PERMISSIONS !, and run it.  Now I run lynx.  I'm so much smarter now,
> thanks to Nvidia.   
>
> BTW: google doesn't work with lynx, nor does surfing some helpful
> websites.
>
> So, with lynx I navigate the nvidia site (a feat in itself) and find lo
> and behold installer 9629 has been released.  It takes 2 attempts to
> download it because for some reason once in a while downloads from
> nvidia don't work right with lynx.  The first download is proceeding at
> 1KB/sec.  I ctrl C that and navigate to the download again and the
> second time it runs at 400KB/sec.  
>
> I get the installer downloaded, but decide I want to build for kernel
> 2835.  So I reboot.  
>
> I run the installer.  It complains about wanting the X.org SDK
> installed.  Then it complains about prior versions of nvidia drivers
> being installed, possibly not from the installer.  I OK those messages
> and finally I have a driver that builds correctly.  I reboot and I get a
> graphical login screen.  Success. 
>
> Total time wasted, over an hour.  And this sort of game happens EVERY
> time one upgrades a kernel !  
>
> Its funny, we have people in the Linux community debating about whether
> Linux is ready for the desktop for the average user.  With this sort of
> issue still alive and well in Linux, the answer to that question is
> absolutely NO !
>
> In summary, I am totally frustrated with Nvidia with this driver
> situation.  I will never, ever buy a piece of Nvidia hardware again
> unless this situation is rectified.  I'd replace the Nvidia video driver
> I have but its built into the laptop that I otherwise love.   
>
> Nvidia, its time to realease some code to the open source community or
> suffer the consequences.  The present situation is totally
> unacceptable. 
>  
>
>