I’m building a new computer, but it won’t have a graphics card. It’s going to have integrated Intel graphics. Therefore it’s going to have an Intel processor. AMD is losing my business because they didn’t perform up to what I consider to be reasonable expectations. I don’t think nVidia performs all that admirably either.
It’s not merely the spirit of linux, but the development model as well, that requires openness. It makes no damn sense to be throttled by a piece of hardware that is essential to the system because its manufacturer refuses to work with the community.
Furnishing documentation is great, but that’s something that should have been done all along. The pace and scope with which many of the internals of a healthy, modern linux system changes demands flexibility that the two major graphics processor manufacturers are apparently unwilling to provide.
Off with their heads. I’ll be posting soon about how the intel integrated graphics perform, and I’m planning to have a rolling three month deadline for evaluating my discrete graphics card options. If at the end of March, June, etc. there is a victor amongst AMD/ATI and nVidia I’ll actually buy a card for the system. Otherwise I’ll continue to use the integrated graphics. So be it.