But as a consumer, you _do_ give a fuck!

Making the wrong consumer choice here matters, because it can take you from a good, functioning PC to one that works far less effectively.

You're right in that you shouldn't have to give a fuck, that they should all - in support terms - be drop in replacements allowing you to balance up cost vs. performance, but the Linux team have tried awfully hard to make it that way without being able to reach a compromise with GPU producers.

In the meantime, Linux gives you a choice of external GPUs at varying levels of freedom and support. That's more than nvidia gives you.

You're right, I do care. I care first about what works, and the choices available to me. At that time, Nvidia was working at the performance and stability required and nothing else. Today the landscape has changed significantly and there is actual choice. I don't care so much as to lower the bar of what is acceptable.

Nvidia may have had the more powerful video cards, but at least AMD's video cards had functioning drivers for Linux. If you bought an Nvidia card to use on Linux back then, you were paying more for a worse card.

Not sure what rock you lived under: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2934504/why-you-should-avoid-... http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=bioshock-...

Again: Today however, it's genuinely refreshing to see AMD's driver efforts and overall offering as a company.