Open source graphics drivers as dafault

[nachoig]

OK, I know, my suggestion can be controverse, but it's necesssary.

In my opinion, Sabayon should be use open source graphics drivers as default. Closed graphics drivers doesn't provide a good compatibility with many graphics card. In case of nVidia, only GeForce 8 or more recent are supported. Ok, in the most cases is not a problem. But with AMD is a serious problem. Only Radeon HD 5000, 6000 and 7000 are supported, Also, the legacy drivers don't work with X.org 1.13. Another question: will Sabayon wait for an AMD's legacy driver for X.org 1.13?

This generates compatibilities problems, specially in the Sabayon's (post)instalation process. Result: no graphical environment loaded on startup. It doesn't combine with the "works OOTB's" philosophy. Nouveau and ATI drivers lack various features and have low performance, but they work on any situation.

For who wants the proprietary drivers, it's enough install mannualy using Entropy.

[micia]

Sabayon already uses open source drivers by default for AMD video cards, for the exact same reason you mentioned.
Proprietary drivers are only used for Nvidia video cards, problems arise only if the user carelessly updates its legacy video driver to a non-legacy version while having a legacy video card.

In my experience nouveau drivers result in many more problems than the closed source drivers, they simply don't provide a good support at all, often resulting into black screens for recent video cards, so I don't agree with this idea.

I'd rather suggest to provide an adequate masking for nvidia-drivers packages when a legacy video card is detected by the installer, and keeping open source drivers where they really do a better job than the closed source ones, that is, with AMD video cards.

[nachoig]

micia, thanks for your answer.

Personally, Nouveau for me is not a problem. I tested it with a GeForce GT 430. But I use nVidia closed drivers too, because it's better.

It's strange, but AMD closed drivers was installed here with Sabayon 9, with the same GeForce GT 430. I thinked that drivers has been used for AMD cards.

[micia]

With Sabayon X the switch to open source drivers has been made because of AMD limited support for not very recent video cards, as well as a number of other issues.
In the past Sabayon used to offer closed source drivers wherever possible.

[nachoig]

With Sabayon X the switch to open source drivers has been made because of AMD limited support for not very recent video cards, as well as a number of other issues.
In the past Sabayon used to offer closed source drivers wherever possible.

Thanks for explanation.

Cheers