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I notice that the binary blob discussion is again on lwns front page. Recently I got a new portable from work and this gave me some new insight. In short: binary-only drivers are so bad people will buy other hardware.
The machine (a Lenovo Z61m) uses a X1400 ATI chip, so I have to use the ATI binary-only driver. Well. I'm trying to use it.
The amount of grief I'm getting from it would convince even billg himself that opensource drivers are mandatory in an opensource system. Strange errors pop up and you're just lost, googling only gives you forums where other poor users are trying to make it all work. Due to the dynamic nature of xorg and kernel development the driver will never 'catch up' and problems will keep popping up. And there is little I can do except complain to the responsible person and urge him to buy the Intel only portable next time.
If this keeps on Intel will just sweep the Linux hacker's market, and with it the heart and minds of a lot of people. My next machine will be an Intel, the first one in years, because I cannot get an AMD with a open graphics card, and I think I won't be alone in this.
The machine (a Lenovo Z61m) uses a X1400 ATI chip, so I have to use the ATI binary-only driver. Well. I'm trying to use it.
The amount of grief I'm getting from it would convince even billg himself that opensource drivers are mandatory in an opensource system. Strange errors pop up and you're just lost, googling only gives you forums where other poor users are trying to make it all work. Due to the dynamic nature of xorg and kernel development the driver will never 'catch up' and problems will keep popping up. And there is little I can do except complain to the responsible person and urge him to buy the Intel only portable next time.
If this keeps on Intel will just sweep the Linux hacker's market, and with it the heart and minds of a lot of people. My next machine will be an Intel, the first one in years, because I cannot get an AMD with a open graphics card, and I think I won't be alone in this.
