Proprietary or open source NVidia drivers?

[Kevin J. Cummings]

On 10/13/2010 01:55 PM, Valent Turkovic wrote:
> I would like to ask any NVidia Fedora users do you use open source or
> proprietary NVidia drivers?

I use the RPMFusion packaged proprietary drivers on my GeForce 6200
video card.

> Why do you use driver that you use? Have you tried the other one? What
> are the benefits and disadvantages to both of them?

Because I need support for the XvMC video extensions which are not (or
were not) implemented in the nouveau driver for MythTV.  In the future,
I'll be looking for VDPAU support from my next nVidia video card.

> If you use proprietary drivers how do you install them? Which package
> or packages need to be installed? Which repository has best
> proprietary NVidia drivers?

The RPMFusion drivers were easier for me to get working than the ATRPMs
ones, when I first configured them.  I stuck with them out of convenience.

> I’m asking because Fusion Linux [1] ships only with default open
> source drivers but if NVidia users wish I can also include proprietary
> driver and have it pre-installed by default. I don’t have any NVidia
> hardware running Fedora so any donations are also welcome

I have an ATI card in my laptop.  That was a misteak.  I had to use the
proprietary ATI driver (fglrx) until ATI dropped support for my card.
It never ran video as well as my server with the nVidia card (and the
radeon was a better video card and the laptop had a better CPU,
supposedly).  I played with the radeonhd driver for a short time, but
fglrx was always more stable.  Now its using the AMD open source driver
(x11-xorg-drv-ati?) and seems to be stable on F12.  I used to have
problems with googleearth hanging if I didn't use the fglrx driver.  Now
that seems to work OK with the open source driver (F12).

> Pick your poison.

Indeed.

> [1] http://fusionlinux.org/

-- 
Kevin J. Cummings
kjchome at rcn.com
cummings at kjchome.homeip.net
cummings at kjc386.framingham.ma.us
Registered Linux User #1232 (http://counter.li.org)