nvidia cards are quite common, so one hopes this major limitation can be worked around. Perhaps we should get Torvalds to comment in his inimitable style on the situation.
I wish Ubuntu (or other distributions) would give out numbers how many people install the proprietary drivers. So many Linux guys seem to dismiss games and 3D (which is certainly also used for VR, architecture, 3D modeling, simulations - and not just for games), so I'm somewhat curious how much it matters on the Linux desktop. At least personally I know more people using proprietary drivers on Linux than not using them, but I guess that's to be expected for a 3D developer ;-)
For me the thought of losing nvidia driver support on Ubuntu is rather scary given the current state of all other 3D drivers (and certainly other Distro's might follow with Wayland). I hope the status of other drivers improves a lot before that switch or 3D on Linux will be set back a lot.
Now that Steam is supporting Linux (and possibly making a Linux/steam box), I suspect that they will be able to push for improved graphics drivers. In fact, If I remember correctly, while working on optimizing some of their first ports to Linux, they got Nvidia to improve some elements of the drivers.
Also, given the number of people using Nvidia drivers on Ubuntu, my guess would be that Ubuntu will not switch to Wayland until the compatibility issue is solved.
nouveau drops to Unity2d on Ubuntu 12.04 when using a modest pci-e GT520 card, so I shall try a 12.10 live cd and see what cooks. Thanks for the quote/still, I was aware of that one. There might need to be another outburst if we reach a situation where a future distribution can't work properly on hardware with nvidia graphics...
Torvalds was not referring to nVidia's video support for Linux when he made that statement; he was referring to their reluctance to cooperate with development efforts on their mobile chips, Tegra. nVidia has been far and away the best provider of first-class video driver support for free POSIX systems.
The X11 and Linux display landscape has changed dramatically over the last few years. I think that nVidia chose the wise strategy of "wait and see" to pinpoint what stabilizes and have since been working on porting pieces of their proprietary driver. The recent addition of XRandR 1.2+ support probably has more to do with the announcement of Optimus development than anything else, and this work is probably a precursor to a version that supports KMS and the other technologies that will be required for compatibility into the next five years of Linux desktop.
actually since then, nvidia tried to add optimus support to their drivers. they asked for dma-buf access, but got adam coxblocked by the free software fanatics
