jcox

As the IT technician in the University I work at, I get to spec new PCs
for our computer labs. We've just put in a new workshop and I went
for nVIDIA specifically because of this issue. There are 45 seats in
the lab with at least 5 more PCs to come so assuming ~$500 per
card that's $25,000 ATI lost because I'm not willing to be stuck with
a dud Linux box in future.

Maybe that'll make ATI sit up and notice...

PS This purchasing decision was entirely my own and in no way
reflects the general policy of my employer.

bug77

But they don't care about things like this as long as they can sign a deal with Dell and sell 500.000 crappy X1300 cards, no one will ever ask for any drivers besides what they get on CD with the computer. And it's not really ATi's fault the market is like this...

Netrat33

May I ask what type of video card your lab is using and for what?

__________________
A64 on Asus A8V Deluxe Bios 1.7
X800XTPE Stock speed (built by ATI)
1 Gig RAM
160 SATA seagate HD
MX1000 Mouse

jcox

But they will care if places like Munich and Korea go through with their
Linux migration plans. A whole city represents a big chunk of purchasing
power. OK, in the scheme of things my lab doesn't show on their radar
but at least its evidence that the ATI on linux snafu affects strategic IT investment.
What happens when Vista comes along and corporations face the prospect of a
massive hardware upgrade or to jump ship? What's quality Linux support worth
to them then?

Joovilhar

Well, I don't know about Dell, but Sun is already shipping its workstations with NVidia cards. Given that said workstations are certified for Solaris, SuSE and Red Hat Linux - plus Windows 64-bit edition, I guess it's not surprising that NVidia is the only game in town.

Given the excitement the industry has for running rock-solid Solaris apps on cheap and cheerful x86 hardware, you can rest assured that Sun will sell more than half a million of these workstations.

As has already been said, for the increasing number of government (and public) projects that are obliged to use open source (which will mean Linux for the most part), ATi is effectively ruling itself out. If ATi holds its course, it will find that 5 years down the road, its percentage of Linux users will still be around 5% (or maybe less), while NVidia's may be far higher.

This is good news for NVidia, as it means it will be able to command market share where ATi cannot compete due to a lack of driver support. But it will be bad news for ATi, who will find to its cost that Linux upgrade cycles are a lot slower than Windows ones - and all those potential customers it could have had are now happily using NVidia for the next 10+ years.

I expect a large exodus to Linux/Solaris/FreeBSD soon, as Windows Vista is turning a lot of people off. Combined with the need for massive and expensive hardware upgrades, a loss of control over their own investment and BS policies (like requiring a new OS licence if you change your motherboard), many companies may just decide that a non-Windows OS offers better value for money at the end of the day. Many more people will just stick with XP beyond its end of life date. Hell, I know people who are still using Windows 98 and NT 4.00...

madmatty

Before they can worry about linux support there has to be a linux that can establish itself as THE linux. There needs to be one distrobution that is distinctively linux that both ati and nvidia can support 100%. Lindows is probably the closest environment for this goal as it sells it sef as he complete linux desktop envonment that can rivel windows. With windows everyone has the same base instalation so that drivers can be implemented 100% properly which isnt true if everyone decided to migrate to what ever linux distrobution takes there fansy.

Vista is deffinatly going to make people think about what they want in an os before installing the insanely bloated desktop that is vista (well the x86 beta is insanely huge) and it doesnt even offer that much over XP bar a new UI which although looks prettier is no faster and just beggs for yet another system upgrade to cope with its requirments. The os is supposed to be just an interface, not a resource stealing hog thats takes all the power away from a new machine before we launch our apps and games that really need that power :/

All that said, linux is in no shape to take over from where xp leaves off so users are not likely to change sides. It has very little support and probably the most important aspect is the games. Unless youre fully IT literate linux isnt even a concideration. and i guess this is what ATI see's too.

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jcox

We mostly needed to support Maya and OpenGL across Mac and PC
(which means Windows now and Linux in the near future). Another consideration
was to accommodate Apple Final Cut Studio which at the time we spec'd this
up self-selected nvidia because it looked like Motion would only run hardware accellerated
with pixel shaders under OS X.4 + GeForce. Other areas support games design which obviously locks us into XP but since we can get bulk discounts on PCs to
one spec they got nvidia too.

The main point is that I have to think where we'll be in 5 years time -- these PCs
aren't like home games machines you can update every 12-18 months. I have to
factor in as much flexibility as possible which means upgrade paths _and_
migration paths. OK, ATI caught up in Linux support since we started the
lab project but they still don't do anything like SLI. Doubling up the old GPUs
so we only have to buy half the number of replacement gfx cards is a major
saving that we can't aford to waste so SLI support on LInux is a must have for us. We also won't be switching to Vista.
Ever. If at all possible.

If Macrodobe ever port Flash/Director/Photoshop to Linux I'll be immediately
relegating XP to a legacy OS and right now nvidia looks like the better bet.

SFOSOK

I would still have to say their x1900 series looks pretty damn good its just ugly, hot, and loud.I don't have linux but I feel bad for u that do. I guess Nv is the way to go for you guys for a while.

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*Warning* - Explicit Content Preceeding

Calson

This is not about user base, it's about perception. Sure, there may not be all that many Linux gamers compared to windows gamers, but that is not the point. When a company decides to migrate their 20,000 pc's to linux, all they will hear is that ATI doesn't support linux. They don't want to get into the details of what is or isn't supported. Therefore, those 20,000 pc's will have nVidia cards in them. That is a lot of lost sales for ATI. And, since most companies have about a 3 year replacement cycle, that is 20,000 lost sales every 3 years, that will be very hard to get back, because companies don't change their configurations just for kicks..

Netrat33

Once again I'm asking, what video card are you suggesting? Not brand, the video card.

__________________
A64 on Asus A8V Deluxe Bios 1.7
X800XTPE Stock speed (built by ATI)
1 Gig RAM
160 SATA seagate HD
MX1000 Mouse

Netrat33

Companies migrating is Linux lover's dream, but it's not happening. When they hear there is no real support for linux, not ATI cards, they wont switch. The migration you would most likey see if EVER would be towards Macs. Most likely they'll stick with XP for a long time, then when all the good press about Vista (if unless we get another "Me" edition) comes out, they'll move there.

__________________
A64 on Asus A8V Deluxe Bios 1.7
X800XTPE Stock speed (built by ATI)
1 Gig RAM
160 SATA seagate HD
MX1000 Mouse

ronnn

I really support the idea of linux and think Ati should offer good support. On the other hand - I have tried to install linux at least 6 times and I suck. I would almost welcome owning a vid card that had no support - as I will likely try again. ATi needs to support linux, but linux also needs to become more user friendly to gain a larger user base. This cut and paste or typing in large complicated commands just to install java or whatever is really 60's. The learning curve is just to much for simpletons like myself.


edit: Comparing this to the sli debate is just silly and has nothing to do with the subject. Both those companies have so many past sins, that an off topic flame war is always sure to follow.

rpb01r

But then, it doesn't say that Linux users affect _all_ decisions, just some. From a business point of view, I would be very interested in improving my market share by 5% --- this is make-or-break, particularly for my hypothetical big fat management bonus. However, it does imply that Linux users affect some decisions, and that would be an acceptable assertion. Indeed, if Joe Public knows a Linux user, he
probably knows him as "that computer guy" and will probably ask for his opinion. Windows users, Apple users, Solaris users and FreeBSD users will also have opinions.

Joe Public, however, most certainly doesn't go to sites like Tom's Hardware. Joe Public goes to the local computer shop and gets fleeced into buying some PC or other. That means he's probably going to his house with a generic box under his arm, some five-year-old onboard graphics adapter and a copy of Windows XP Home edition. Joe Public probably doesn't care about games for it either, because Joe Public has a Playstation or an Xbox for that sort of thing.

Just for the record, a friend of mine owns a computer shop. If a customer wants a machine, it'll have an Nvidia card in it. He's had some trouble with ATi cards on Windows in the past, so now he just doesn't use them. I don't know how many machines he's built, but his influence is carrying --- not to so many people on the global scale, but enough guys like him do make a difference. This is a little off-topic, but I'm just using it to illustrate a point. It depends who you irk. He might be a little irrational (he would only stock two brands of modem as he had trouble with the others) but then he has a degree of influence.

This gives carte blanche to Nvidia for Linux, and they'll quite happily mop it up. Looking around our labs here, there is only one machine with an ATi graphics card in it, and that's a Rage 128. Here's why: our suppliers have to make sure that when we put in an order for a thousand visualisation workstations, they've got to work. They will stick Nvidia cards in the box because they know they won't get support
calls from us.

Although I don't quite understand the general decision to keep drivers closed (there have been countless arguments with Nvidia by people elsewhere), by providing a half-decent driver they provide choice. ATi's best plan for improving "speed/image/stability for xp" would be to open their drivers. Anyone who has worked in computer hardware development will know that a massive proportion of time is spent on the drivers. If I, as a company owner, realise I can just make a reasonable driver, then release the code, and a bunch of guys will fix it up and maintain it for free, I'm going to jump at that chance.

Don't forget: servers need graphics cards too. Although no-one really cares about the 3D performance of a server (maybe that is a generalisation), people are going to want a more 'supported' card. Even if this is just a psychological choice, if card A supports Windows, but card B supports Windows, Linux and FreeBSD, and there's
little to choose between them, buyers will go for card B every time.

Take it easy,
-r

Calson

Munich: 14,000 desktops migrating to Linux
New Zealand's ministry of education put Suse linux on it's school's desktops

There are many other stories, like Paris' planned migration, or South Africa's revenue service. Read the news.. It is happening..

Netrat33

I know. And I've also read the stories of them hopping BACK because it's actually more expensive (time) using it due to lack of support.

__________________
A64 on Asus A8V Deluxe Bios 1.7
X800XTPE Stock speed (built by ATI)
1 Gig RAM
160 SATA seagate HD
MX1000 Mouse