Nvidia restriction for latest drivers
Nvidia restrict the users to be able for using more than 3 monitors.
Look this post from Nvidia forum:
https://devtalk.nvidia.com/default/topic/579449/basemosaic-v295-vs-v310-vs-v325-only-up-to-three-screens-/?offset=9
@Armworm: You should not devalue propritary drivers. This gives a bad taste. Similar to propritary companies devalueing free software.
Not everyone needs to power something like this:
http://play.esea.net/global/media_preview.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fawesome.naquadah.org%2Fimages%2F6mon.medium.png
From the less humoristic point of view it would be interesting which Intel- or NVidia based solution would be able to power 4 monitors ?
"You should not devalue propritary drivers."
Um; this is trisquel.info... Part of the free software movement.
Oh, yes because antifeatures included in proprietary software is sooooo good. Proprietary software is proprietary. It's nothing more than an attempt to treat people poorly and keep them subjugated and helpless. That is reason enough to speak negatively toward it. Keep it coming!
This will be my last post on this topic...I promise :)
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Um; this is trisquel.info... Part of the free software movement.
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Pointing out that proprietary software has its limitations and useful features might go away it not the topic here. Saying "Hey....closed drivers are bad...they can take away useful features" does not make them go away in the first place but for example having the option to say "Look, when using Noveau you can easily use up to 10 monitors as desktop" might be better.
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Oh, yes because antifeatures included in proprietary software is sooooo good.
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But still with all the antifeatures included proprietary software unfortunately is often still way better than its free relatives (e.g. Noveau).
Oh yes, also one needs to understand that both the feature and the hardware configuration in question here (two NVidia cards in SLI, two monitors connected to each VGA card and a seamless desktop) is a very special one.
AFAIK both free drivers (Nouveau and Radeon) do not really support multiple VGA cards in crossfire or SLI mode. So we have to be fair with the competition :)
If I understood it correctly, they removed a good feature just to make linux/kfreebsd driver suck like windows driver does? I don't understand why though; wouldn't customers hate them for doing that?
The point is that the feature they removed is of very limited use since only a very limited amount of users would need / use it anyway (quad head monitor setup combined with two GPUs running SLI mode).
Most peoples (including me :) run at a max 2 monitors or may be three monitors.
Unless extreme multihead configurations are your core business (e.g. Matrox) this means additional man power / QA activities to make this work in the "real world" plus there is currently no intel-based solution to provide quad head monitor setup with fully free drivers without hickups.
So IMO peoples need to be quiet......
Especially since Noveau (be informations available from NVidia or not) will have a hard time supporting SLI modes for a large variety of GPUs plus quad multihead setups.....
>The point is that the feature they removed is of very limited use since only a very limited amount of users would need / use it anyway (quad head monitor setup combined with two GPUs running SLI mode).
So, it's an anti-feature concerning a limited amount of people.
>Most peoples (including me :) run at a max 2 monitors or may be three monitors.
Free Software has inherent advantages, even though it sometimes isn't practically better.
When Free Software isn't (Practically) Better - Benjamin Mako Hill
Video: http://media.libreplanet.org/u/libby/m/mako/
Text: http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/when_free_software_isnt_practically_better.html
@ssdclickofdeath: Thanks...that boils down to the point I mentioned.
Now here is a positive example why to use the free driver and not the binary blob. But this time it's AMD / ATI:
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTQ4MDE
Man...companies are strange.....
I think free software is only partly helpfull here.
We also need libre hardware:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openshader/
http://www.hfday.org/hfd/open-hardware
Free hardware is useless at the moment. We have to wait till technology is good enough so we can make our own hardware or make sure the micro-circuits look really the way they should do.
If you buy hardware labeled free, no one can check if it doesn't contain malicious circuits.
Even lemote can spy on the 100% free yeeloong users; sad bad true.
>Free hardware is useless at the moment. We have to wait
If we but wait it will never get better.
>Even lemote can spy on the 100% free yeeloong users; sad bad true.
Maybe so but what's the Chinese government going to do to me or you? I'm much more worried about the US gov.
"If we but wait it will never get better."
This may not be true in this case.
I think technological progress of 3d printers and the equivalent scanning devices develop independently of our concerns about hardware.
People improve this technology for other reasons than ours, but nevertheless we will benefit without doing anything this time.
Intentionally crippling is bad, but these drivers are proprietary anyway, so they shouldn't be used in the first place. At the same time, if people get angry that they are being intentionally crippled, that could get "open source" proponents to work harder towards getting fully free drivers and firmware.
The worst case scenario is that Nvidia and AMD get pressured into improving the proprietary drivers and firmware rather than supplying free ones. So the worst case, in terms of freedom, is no change.