nvidia

[Les Mikesell]

Timothy Murphy wrote:

>>>> The difference is
>>>> that closed source OS's rarely change their driver interfaces, so it
>>>> would be extremely unusual for something that already works and I have
>>>> put into production to suddenly fail due to an update.
>>> I find this an astonishing assertion.
>>> Surely the Linux kernel interface changes reasonably often?
>> I think you misunderstood. I said closed source - as opposed to Linux -
>> doesn't change driver interfaces often.  With Linux the kernel changes
>> continuously but it is up to the distribution what is shipped.  RHEL
>> maintains something stable.  Fedora doesn't.
> 
> But a closed source driver has to interface with the Linux kernel.

Most of my closed source drivers are used with closed source OS's and 
are simply not an issue.  The only one I use regularly with Linux is 
the vmware module which is moderated by having an interface of its own 
that can be recompiled if needed.

>>>> In fedora, this
>>>> has been a regular occurrence.
>>> Such as?
>> Firewire disk drives are my favorite example.  The MPT scsi controllers
>> on IBM servers and some Dells have also failed to work with several
>> fedora kernels.
> 
> Has this actually got anything to do with Fedora?
> Did Fedora modify the kernel SCSI driver in some way?
> Or is the driver not in the kernel?

Distributions generally don't ship every kernel exactly as blessed by 
Linus.   Fedora chose to ship things that didn't work.  It didn't really 
  matter to me if it was a fedora-local change or they just passed it 
through - I think some of each has happened.

> Just to repeat my argument.
> I would have thought a closed source driver
> was much less likely to keep up with kernel changes
> than a Linux driver.
> My (limited) experience with closed source Linux drivers
> is that they generally specify that they work with a given kernel.

Things work through the 7-year life of an RHEL (and thus Centos) kernel. 
  They sometimes work through the 2 week (or so) life of a fedora 
kernel. It's a strange model where you get the software for free but pay 
them (in the RHEL case) not to break it with updates.

-- 
    Les Mikesell
     lesmikesell at gmail.com