In the world of ideals - a 3d video card with open source drivers

Currently I'm in between semesters at college so I've been catching up on my reading. In the December 2005 issue of Linux Journal, it was reported that there was a recent discussion about NVIDIA support in the kernel by the kernel hackers. Chris Wedgewood urged folks to boycott NVIDIA graphics cards. This is based on the reasoning that the company is "hostile to free software". According to Jeff Garzik "They are tthe only company that gives me zero information on their SATA controllers". Open source consumers, in Chris's opinion, need to give NVIDIA a message they can understand - we won't buy your hardware if you won't open up your drivers so it works on my chosen software.

This reminded me of my long standing frustration with hardware vendors, ideals, drivers, and getting my games working in Linux. Currently I'm running with an ATI Radeon 9500, and the best 3D performance comes from the binary ATI driver, charmingly named fglrx. I think it stands for Frustrated Geeks Love Real X. Or something. On the one hand, I really believe in the open source model and software libre. I believe in its ability to encourage technological advances which in turn encourages healthy free market competition. On the other hand, I really like World of Warcraft and have college software proggies that require that Other OS. I don't want to reboot every day to get all my work done. In the current reality of software, many cool games and other pieces of software don't yet have a native Linux client. The way I see it, I have three choices (listed in my order of preference)

1 - Emulation, requires no m$ license

2 - Xen, requires m$ license

3 - Dual-boot, requires praying to avoid losing my soul

My "Windows only" required software for class dictates that #2 is my best option. I can run my "thank you for making your software only run on only one vendor's OS may I have another" Cisco emulator without having to reboot. My gaming habit requires that I also have a graphics card capable of good 3D performance. For a long time now, the choice has really between NVIDIA or ATI, arguably choosing between two proprietary evils. At least the 3D is working fab with Mepis 3.4, so I don't have the "it just won't go" blues about 3D anymore. (Side note - just had to do a minor bit of tweaking to the xorg.conf file to get the proper resolutions on the two monitors but 3D worked out of the ISO).

So what's a grrl to do? I'd love to go all open source obviously. It doesn't look likely in the near future. Fortunately, this is a piece of hardware I probably won't have to invest in for another couple of years. This is OK, considering the college loans. But I'm a forwarding thinking kind of person, so I've been thinking over the video card thing for a while, and recalled that there was a company making video cards with open source drivers. A quick Google search found their name again for me - which appropriately was mentioned on the kerneltrap site. The company is called Tech Source and they had been talking on the linux kernel list about a graphics card with an open source driver since October of 2004. They were aiming for availability around June of 2005, and I see at least one of their cards, the Raptor 2100T which supports Linux PCs. It looks to have great 2D capabilities, but alas, I don't see anything about 3D rendering. The other cards seem to only support 2D as well. The company itself seems to be focused on specialty graphics cards, does not seem to have anything designed for the consumer sector, and the site reflects this.

So it seems that for the moment, my current choice of ATI remains the best one for me to balance useability with ideology. I'm still hopeful for a 3D card made by a company that puts out stable, reliable open-source drivers. Whatever company does is going to get my money when I upgrade my video card. Dad always called me an idealist. At least I took his advice not to hold my breath for things like this.

The naming story

Just (finally) got some real content up on the personal website. Included is a story of how the name GrrlieGeek came to be, and I thought I'd post it here too since it turned into a half-rant.

This is the story behind the name GrrlieGeek.

It is also a story of my realization exactly how unequal women still are thought of and treated even today.

So it's early in the 21st century, and you'd think that America, land of the free (burp) home of the brave, would be a model for fairness between people of different cultures and genders. Ha. If I wanted my site and writings to be treated fairly by all, I would avoid mentioning my gender, culture, spirituality and a dozen or so other personal facts. By making plain the fact that I'm female, it is more likely that people will question that I know what I'm talking about, where if they assumed I was male they would assume I knew my stuff. There are all sorts of ways people still, intentionally or unintentionally, treat women differently, as inferior.

I've known about the glass ceiling and other womens' issues for years. When someone suggested to me that I should join the Linuxchix lists I learned a lot more about how women all over the world, even here in the USA, are still put down, paid less, patronized, and generally treated as somehow less than people. I'm lucky, my parents told me that I shouldn't let people tell me I can't do something because I'm female. I haven't experienced a lot of blatant sexism, although I've experienced some more subtle mistreatment. I hadn't really realized how in your face some subtle discrimination is. One moment, tho, really pulled it together for me.

The day was one like most any other day at that job. It was late in the afternoon, so only my buddy Chris and myself were there at the helpdesk. Ironically, he was the first person to show me linux (RedHat 7.x) and the first person in IT to really blatantly say something I recognized as the result of sexist thinking.

As we often did, we were talking about hardware and other geeky topics. Chris told me that "no offense" (which often precedes a comment you ought to take offense at) but he really couldn't take a female's interest in computers seriously unless she proved herself. He likened it to women who develop some knowledge of football just to impress the guys but who really don't give a flip about the game.

If it's not obvious, he thought that most women really aren't interested in computers, and the ones that profess this interest often are being dishonest. Fortunately, once he realized that yes, I really do have an independant interest in computers, he had no problem accepting that I'm good at what I do. He would tell me things like "oh, just do a ps on the processes, I know you've never done that before but it's pretty easy, you'll get it."

So on the day that Chris accepted that I am a geek in my own right, he said something like "Wow. You're a girl, and a geek. You're a girly geek!" And yes, for those who are wondering, he did proceed to do the expected and (jokingly) ask if I was single. Yes, kids, it gets tiring. His moment of realization seemed to me to symbolize this whole amazement that some people have that gosh, women are doing the computing thing and are good at it. Gollygeewiz. I decided to take on the nomiker as a badge of honor, adapted of course. I really can't use the word "girly" in relation to myself. I'm not "girly" in the way the stereotype runs. Suffice to say that pastels and baby pink just don't work here. So I changed it to be grrliegeek.

Grrl. Yeah, that's me. I like computers, I'm good at networking (system networking, not the social club kind). The only reason I keep a Windows 2000 partition around is to play World of Warcraft. Sometimes outspoken and non-PCeelie enough that my friends cry "Brooklyn voice Brooklyn voice!" Brave enough to be honest, and avoid "protecting" other peoples' feelings while being compassionate. A little rebellious, a little mischievous. And I like making people laugh, so I'm rarely too too serious. Grrlie.

I've been talked over, been interrupted and passed over because of my fleshy bits. I've had another clueless geek wannabe try to talk over me when a friend had a question about a router I set up. I have had a carpenter talk to my husband about installing a small cabinet when I was the one who would be grabbing the power tools and installing it. You get the picture.

None of this stops me from being good at what I do and knowing it. Good thing or I'd still be an administrative assistance without a yummy Mepis install on a cool painted-myself blue PC tower. I woulda never have majored in network administration either. Dean's list 4 terms straight, thanks. So all the naysayers and rude talk-over-ya people can kiss my lily white (ahem). I'm a grrl, I'm a geek, I know what I'm doing. Step AWAY from the keyboard.