News - Linus Torvalds has only one thing to say to NVIDIA, "F**K YOU"

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Declares his anger at a lack of NVIDIA support for Linux.

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NSFW !!!!!

I'm sure that on an individual level there are people in both NVIDIA and the Linux developer community that are in contact and get along, and that Linus isn't aiming his... finger... at any contributing individual from NVIDIA. Nah, he's going for the higher-ups ;)

Also, nobody should ever hire him to do PR, hilarious as that would be. Can you imagine the team that he and Ballmer would make?

This has always been a problem with Linux gaining mass acceptance, many evangelists are at best dull and at worst childish and prone to nerd-rage outbursts they should be ashamed of. Not the first such moment from Torvalds... you don't get this type of thing so much from MS/Apple and it ruins hard work the likes of Canonical and Red Hat do to make Linux mainstream and acceptable rather than something for mainstream-haters to protest with.

I disagree. NVIDIA can take it on the chin. He didn't make it personal. There's a PR win to be had in this somewhere.

I've watched a video of Linus stand in front of a room full of hundreds of Google employees, wherein he tells them he doesn't trust them because they're all stupid. Being controversial seems to work in his favour.

Linus Torvalds has always been direct, nobody is really bothered by it. You can't compare it really to CEOs of huge corporations because Linux itself is not a commercial product, and its direction isn't controlled by any one company. As for acceptance, the world pretty much runs on Linux now, even though it's generally not seen.

I guess he could fluff it up and say something like "I am disappointed with Nvidia" or something meager along those lines but I think it just shows he's genuinely angry with their behaviour and he feels he can express it as he chooses. If he had said the former they probably wouldn't have even taken any notice but with the attention his comments have gotten on the internet I don't think there's any risk of that happening now. Whether it will have a beneficial outcome is not so certain!

Priceless !!!
I never tried Linux but never really have the time to try it out .
It show's the guy is human and also passionate about Linux :)
A 5 star nexus rating i think ;)

Well nVidia has recently joined the Linux Foundation. So they're pretty much guaranteed to consider his criticism and respond.

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Originally Posted by teppic

Linus Torvalds has always been direct, nobody is really bothered by it. You can't compare it really to CEOs of huge corporations because Linux itself is not a commercial product, and its direction isn't controlled by any one company. As for acceptance, the world pretty much runs on Linux now, even though it's generally not seen.

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Accepted for certain workloads in the commodity datacentre and on appliances where the user is generally unaware of the underlying OS beyond the simple UI. Still not accepted as a general purpose or business desktop OS, Linux is very much still a "geek toy" on the desktop and it's far from pervasive even among those who have the technical ability to install/use it. Also not entirely accepted in high end workloads where a certain seriousness prevails and UNIX variants still have their niche. Big companies go to Red Hat for their Linux partly because that corporate sensible-ness and stability is essential, they can't be dealing with mouthy tirades.

Torvalds is a clever guy and has done a lot for computing but he needs to control his mouth and behave better so that people take him as seriously as his work deserves. He is far from unique in the Linux community too, a lot of people are put off Linux by the rude forum users and nerdy/beardy image.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

This has always been a problem with Linux gaining mass acceptance, many evangelists are at best dull and at worst childish and prone to nerd-rage outbursts they should be ashamed of.

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... oh you mean Richard Stallman? (Although hearing him being "interviewed" by Brian Lunduke was a hoot - seeing as the term "nerd-rage" seems to fit Mr Lunduke well)

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

Not the first such moment from Torvalds...

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No, the guy has a "talent" for blowing a fuse - wasn't it last month that the Gnome developers got a "Tovalds Trashing"? Therein lies the problem - if you get the reputation of being a whiny git, then people are going to stop listening to you. So maybe Linus needs to start picking his targets with more discrimination.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

you don't get this type of thing so much from MS/Apple and it ruins hard work the likes of Canonical and Red Hat do to make Linux mainstream and acceptable rather than something for mainstream-haters to protest with.

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MS? Erm - with Steve "Chair Missile" Ballmer and Apple with Steve "We're Going Thermonuclear Against Android" Jobs (I know he's RIP). So yes, both of those companies do "trash talk" with the best of them.

Linux IS mainstream - heck, I'm sure I saw some boxed sets in PCW last time I was in - although carefully hidden behind the OSX kits. Then again, there's a lot of servers out there with it on - some of which are keeping me in beer n' beans at the moment.

Getting back to the article Linus HAS got a point (imho). The last NVidia-based system I had to build was fine, up until the point that the NVidia driver set went in. After that it became a bit more complex to look after - with a couple of unexplained BSODs that I'm going to point the figure of blame towards the Geforce driver. And, remember that he's a bit of a celebrity, so his "outburst" will get column inches - even if that's unpleasant for NVidia. And (cliché coming) at the end of the day, if we - the Linux community - ends up with better support from NVidia then Linus has done his job.

Remember that NVidia wants to be a player in Android - also Linux - so they can't really decide not to support Linux in some form or another. They're a good company but putting a little more effort into Linux support wouldn't go amiss. Heck, if they were to do a spectacular job then perhaps that might kickstart the Linux gaming market ... with NVidia being the graphics platform of choice! ;)

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Originally Posted by crossy

... oh you mean Richard Stallman? (Although hearing him being "interviewed" by Brian Lunduke was a hoot - seeing as the term "nerd-rage" seems to fit Mr Lunduke well)

No, the guy has a "talent" for blowing a fuse - wasn't it last month that the Gnome developers got a "Tovalds Trashing"? Therein lies the problem - if you get the reputation of being a whiny git, then people are going to stop listening to you. So maybe Linus needs to start picking his targets with more discrimination.

MS? Erm - with Steve "Chair Missile" Ballmer and Apple with Steve "We're Going Thermonuclear Against Android" Jobs (I know he's RIP). So yes, both of those companies do "trash talk" with the best of them.

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Stallman is one of the better ones, but the key points are my qualifiers "MANY" and "SO MUCH", the bad evangelists spoil to the work of the rest, Ballmer and Jobs have been roundly blasted for their counter-productive outbursts as well which are arguably fewer in number and less severe than Torvalds who seems to not care a jot.

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Originally Posted by crossy

Linux IS mainstream - heck, I'm sure I saw some boxed sets in PCW last time I was in - although carefully hidden behind the OSX kits. Then again, there's a lot of servers out there with it on - some of which are keeping me in beer n' beans at the moment.

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Our definition of mainstream clearly differs, I would argue mainstream means used by a significant % of the market, true in servers, somewhat true in HPC, true in embedded... not true for Linux on the desktop. Torvalds being a child continues the impression that Linux is a toy for petulant geeks to rebel against Windows... not helpful.

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Originally Posted by crossy

Heck, if they were to do a spectacular job then perhaps that might kickstart the Linux gaming market ... with NVidia being the graphics platform of choice! ;)

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Last thing the gaming industry needs is ANOTHER platform to support, there is already too much developer work to support 3 consoles, PC, maybe Mac and make mobile versions and handheld spinoffs.

Is my memory completely off or has it been so long? I seem to remember people saying how much ahead nVidia over ATI/AMD when it comes to Linux support.

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Originally Posted by TooNice

Is my memory completely off or has it been so long? I seem to remember people saying how much ahead nVidia over ATI/AMD when it comes to Linux support.

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People are thinking of a totally different topic to the one Linus is bitching about.

See http://forums.hexus.net/software/246...ml#post2498269

Bitching seems appropriate.. Can't say I'm impressed by this sort of thing and I rather doubt many others are either.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

Our definition of mainstream clearly differs, I would argue mainstream means used by a significant % of the market, true in servers, somewhat true in HPC, true in embedded... not true for Linux on the desktop. Torvalds being a child continues the impression that Linux is a toy for petulant geeks to rebel against Windows... not helpful.

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I was referring to the computer industry as a whole - rather than (narrowly?) focussing merely on the desktop market. So yes, our definitions of "mainstream" are at odds -with me arguing that any OS that has widespread acceptance amongst industry leaders (e.g. IBM, HP, Oracle, MS, etc) should rightly be regarded as "mainstream".

I disagree with you, but fair enough - live and let live.

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Originally Posted by kingpotnoodle

Last thing the gaming industry needs is ANOTHER platform to support, there is already too much developer work to support 3 consoles, PC, maybe Mac and make mobile versions and handheld spinoffs.

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Erm, I didn't necessarily say that I was looking for support from EA, Activision et al. No, what I'm hoping for is a more "coherent" experience with the lead being taken by smaller, more nimble and more innovative players. Ideally what I'd like is to be able to buy a package and know that it'll work easily with Fedora, Mint, Ubuntu etc - all the major distros. Steam for Linux would be great.

I doubt very much that the "big budget" players will support Linux (Android excepted) since - to use your definition (since it's appropriate) - Linux is not mainstream and therefore not worth any real investment.

I'm going to agree with you though that Linus' continual bitching is NOT helpful. The only good thing that can be said is that since Linux is so "niche" to the man in the street, Linus' name carries no real recognition. Hence while us techno-literati may worry about the damage he's doing, in reality he's like a toddler throwing a tantrum in a shopping centre - most folks will tut and pass by without giving a second thought.