this post was submitted on 23 Jul 2024
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Linux

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Linux is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991 by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged in a Linux distribution (or distro for short).

Distributions include the Linux kernel and supporting system software and libraries, many of which are provided by the GNU Project. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free Software Foundation uses the name GNU/Linux to emphasize the importance of GNU software, causing some controversy.

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[–] dan@upvote.au 7 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (2 children)

AMD used to have the same issue - their drivers were proprietary and buggy (anyone remember fglrx?). The difference is that they did something about it. Their modern drivers are open-source and mainlined so it's easy for anyone to work on them. New kernel display/GPU features always come to AMD first, because the kernel developers working on the new feature can just add it to the AMD driver themselves.

Nvidia have open-source drivers now, but they're still out of tree (so they'll always lag behind the kernel) and AFAIK they have no plains to merge them into the kernel.

I appreciate Nvidia's efforts, and their newer drivers are much better than older ones (especially now that they support explicit sync), but they're just not as good as AMD's.