[geeks] A Real OS? (was: Re: my capitalization.. etc.)

[S. Gwizdak]

> Who said kernel-mode drivers?  I never did.  I said drivers
> for XFree86.  nVidia doesn't have them for *BSD.

Cerberus /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers % ls nv*
nv_drv.o*
Cerberus /usr/X11R6/lib/modules/drivers % uname -a
FreeBSD Cerberus 4.3-RELEASE FreeBSD 4.3-RELEASE #0: Sun Aug 26
13:57:43 EDT 2001     wazm at Cerberus:/usr/src/sys/compile/CERBERUS
i386

There are XFree86 drivers for Nvidia cards for *BSD. However, I believe
there is some sort of issue around acceleration support.

http://gladstone.uoregon.edu/~eanholt/dri/
http://nvidia.netexplorer.org/news.html

> They have, but there's only enough demand right now for Linux for
> most hardware vendors.  The way nVidia provides their XFree86
> drivers is perfect for *BSD.  You won't hear people screaming
> about not having all the source under the GPL, either.

Nvidia distributes a special XFree86 driver that requires the
kernel-level drivers for Linux.

http://www.nvidia.com/view.asp?PAGE=linux

"The NVIDIA Accelerated Linux Driver Set consists of two packages
which you will need to download and install: the NVIDIA_GLX package
which contains the OpenGL libraries and the XFree86 driver, and the
NVIDIA_kernel package which contains the NVdriver kernel module needed
by the X driver and OpenGL libraries in the NVIDIA_GLX package (for
more details on the components of each package, please see Appendix C).
You will need to install both packages, with matching version numbers
(eg NVIDIA_GLX-0.9-6 should only be used with NVIDIA_kernel-0.9-6 and
not NVIDIA_kernel-0.9-3)."

XFree86 distributes a NV driver, and from my knowledge, it lacks in
the acceleration area.

> The lack of drivers is an OS issue.  If the *BSD groups can't
> convince the vendors of the demand, the drivers will never get
> written.

There are petition efforts for hardware for which people want
information/drivers for.

> The primary point is an operating system that can be used is
> superior to an operating system that can't be used no matter
> how better written the kernel in the unusable operating system
> is.

There are lots of very nice operating systems that are significantly
nicer in design than what has been mentioned on this list. Many of
these exist as academic projects whose ideas end up in some "popular"
operating system. Superiority is a ridiculous notion in this sense.
There are plenty of embedded operating systems that perform real-time
functions where usability is not a concern. My point is simply is use
what is right for the job. Allegiance to an operating system is fickle,
and causes people to be prone to undue prejudices when someone might
actually get something write. (Some of the *BSDs were at one time
notable for keeping legacy code even when better implementations had
been written.)