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DragonFly users List (threaded) for 2006-07
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Re: NVIDIA FreeBSD Kernel Feature Requests, interesting info for dfly?


From: W B Hacker <wbh@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 03 Jul 2006 07:06:34 +0800

Gergo Szakal wrote:

Bill Hacker wrote:

Personally, I think the 'bigger picture' is not just NVidia
intransigence, but that the majority 'market' is indifferent to brand or
even *presence* of video.

Leaving Apple out of the equation, the vast majority of all *BSD-flavor
boxes are servers or similar network / industrial 'black boxes', usually
housed out of sight in a separate room, if not on a separate *continent*
from the sysadmin, hence run physically 'headless'.

If X-Free/X-Org is not in the default build (and I hope it never is),
then why should *any* VGA maker worry about the *BSD 'market' beyond
80-column monochrome text capability?



There is DesktopBSD, PC-BSD which are desktop-oriented systems. With
DragonFly, one can make a cool desktop install CD with little effort.
Maybe desktop users will require this, especially if XGL will be (or is)
available for BSD systems.

These, and others, do *exist*, but are hardly a bump on anybody's radar.


Such 'desktop' *n*x as exists is pretty effectively divided between Linux in F/OSS and OS X, Solaris, AIX, Iris, HP-UX, etc. in vendor-paid-for drivers. Volume or market-share are no big deal if/as/when a major corporation s funding the driver code under an NDA.

But without the adoption of Linux by a number of major server vendors, even that one would not have enough 'market' share for a major VGA vendor to worry about.

After all - advanced VGA units generally work OK in VESA and and flat-memory modes, so are usually fine for 2D text & browser display as well as 80-column text with generic or legacy drivers. It's the acceleration, 3D, textures, and other 'pretty things' that aren't supported.

Whatever else a *BSD is, is certainly doesn't have much presence in the graphics design, Hollywood special effects, home entertainment or gamers arena.

Bill





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