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Uncategorized Friday, June 29th 2012 at 3:10 pm

Nvidia Loses 10 Million GPU Order, Still Refuses To Play Nice With Linux

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Nvidia‘s refusal to cooperate with the Linux platform is costing them way more than bad press; it is also costing them a lot of money. The Chinese government dropped their order of 10 million Nvidia GPUs because the drivers were incompatible with their system architecture. This could easily be solved if Nvidia would just release the source code, but as usual, they refused. The order went to AMD instead.

The Chinese were looking for 10 million GPUs for their pilot school PC project that will be running Linux. The problem was, although Nvidia’s GeForce / Quadro drivers were available for Linux x86 and x86_64, the Chinese needed it to work with MIPS. Since it will cost them millions of dollars to port the codebase, they needed the source code from Nvidia to make the drivers compatible with the system. Nvidia refused.

Between their source code and at least $250 million, Nvidia chose to keep their precious code. It’s like they’re not even a business anymore. I mean, come on, making your source code open source won’t do any harm.

Ask AMD, they just sold 10 million of their officially-based open source driver GPUs.

(via Phoronix)

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  • Linuxlol

    No one cares about Linux.

  • Murph0613

    Which only means that YOU don’t care about Linux.

  • Jack Bond

    Linux isn’t that great for home use.

  • fail

     only if you have no idea how to use Linux

  • linuxrules

    android = linux

  • Biroccio

    If no one cares about Linux, why Valve’s Gabe is porting Steam on Linux?

  • Biroccio

     If no one cares about Linux, why Valve’s Gabe is porting Steam on Linux?

  • http://www.facebook.com/wayne.john Wayne John

    I wonder if there is more behind NVidia’s thinking than what appears on the surface. What if, and this is totally tin-foil hat thinking, but what if there’s code that can identify what the user is looking at…or snapshot screengrab type stuff…

    That would be a great reason to lose orders of this magnitude, and ride the bad press like it’s your last wave in for the day…

  • Karl Thompson

    the main issue with no linux support isnt just home pc’s but that most smartphones use linux under the android platform and nivida arent supporting the hardware that is released as on linux, thier gonna lose out if they dont change they ways

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/XXBTYWRG5ZV74J6HAZHPKOMKD4 MadsyB

    Lol who says the chinese are looking for a home use OS? Windows is the everyman’s OS, works for gamers and most every peice of the market. But when it comes down to servers, and there are a ton of server databases, it’s mostly all running on a Linux based OS. Even Android runs on linux, so just shut your faces people, shut your unarticulated one-liner type reasonings.

  • Anonymous

    I was just thinking about Nvidia crappy support for linux, and they should some loose business over it, and it happened :P. Fortunately I have amd card on machine I have linux installed and it works alright.

  • Davidpetersonharvey

    Man, EVERYONE cares about Linux! Android OS is a Linux-based system. One of the hot topics for Android users is how to run Ubuntu Linux on Android machines so they have a full operating system with real computer software instead of limited power of Android apps. Also, Mac systems are POSIX compliant, which means they are basically Linux machines.

  • Davidpetersonharvey

    Like I posted above, Android OS is Linux-based. Mac is POSIX compliant, so it’s basically Linux. Linux servers are known to be more reliable and have more uptime than Windows servers. We’re running two home grown Ubuntu Linux servers for my business here using old office PCs and they are great! I wouldn’t try to do the things I’m doing with a Windows Server OS and it would cost me a lot more. Ubuntu has both a desktop and a server edition and they’re both FREE! You can also install the desktop version and install a LAMP server easily using tasksel.

  • Lulz

    “home use”… hahahahaha, you’re funny! 7 out of 9 computer devices in my house run Linux and do better than the two windows 7 pc’s!

  • justsayin

    China bought 10 million GPUs for a “school project”.  Linux or not, I have to wonder what that entails…

  • http://twitter.com/uncliggett Jonathan Liggett

    Why would giving your software to the chinese ever make any financial sense?  Hey chinese, here is my intellectual property free for you to copy. Go ahead, I don’t value the business i created over the past 20 years, and I totally trust your intentions and track record when dealing with other people’s intellectual property.   

  • No one

    Linux is 1% of the total PC market share.  So shut the F up Linux users.   Be lucking NVIDIA supports you at all.

  • Bsdsolarux

    bye bye proprietary Winblowz.

  • http://www.thebluemint.net/ TheBlueMint

    you would if you were nvidia….

  • YouFail

    We’re talking PC right here..

  • YouFail

    No one cares about Linux LOL. It’s freaking free, yet no one wants it lol.

  • YouFail

    “7 out of 9 computer devices in my house”… Look, no one cares!! lol Linux is FREE yet it has been 1% for ages. No one cares about it! Not even netbook users want it! ROFL

  • YouFail

    Let’s see how that move turns out, lol! If people really care about Linux (and it’s FREE), why it’s still 1%? lol

  • YouFail

    Lol, always invoking Android, a mobile OS, to defend Linux. Look, We’re talking about LINUX HOME DISTROS. Yeah, those that have been 1% for AGES! It’s free yet no one cares! lol