I use an nVidia GeForce 8200 (published in ~2007) in my mediacenter and I don't have problems with drivers (v340.xxx legacy series: latest update is v340.107 https://www.nvidia.com/Download/driverResults.aspx/135161/en... ) on Arch Linux.

Same thing with a GTX 760 (currently using v390.42) on Gentoo: I kept that server running multiple times for many weeks at a time and never had crashes/weird things happening while doing GPU-mining, playing or just having the GPU idle while using the CPU.

As well with setting things up, I always just replaced the old card with the new one and that was it.

the post you reply to probably means support for gl regarding features and performance. a server and a media center will do fine even without proprietary drivers... well, until someone update the color stuff in v4l again.

Maybe? But then probably even AMD/ATI does not keep on tweaking their drivers more than nVidia to improve performance & OpenGL-compliance for all their 12 years old HW... (but I might be wrong).

>>a server and a media center will do fine even without proprietary drivers...

Honestly: not sure (never tried). My big question mark involving the GPU frequency scaling (maybe now an issue only with "Nouveau"?) when using video filters (e.g. framerate sync and/or nice upscaling filters).

So I haven't looked at this in a while but the usual way it's happened on linux drivers for nvidia cards is that they stop updates for X11, the linux kernel, and other parts of the system, even if they maintain the driver itself keeping it otherwise up to date feature and bug wise. This means that you'll be stuck at older kernel versions and older linux distro versions without a way to move forward on the proprietary driver.

Leading with an accusation of substance abuse isn't civil or productive. Your comment may well be factually correct, but your tone here is inappropriate.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

It's not an accusation of drug use.

"What are you smoking" is a US colloquialism that means that one's statement is so nonsensical that the most logical explanation is that the speaker was smoking marijuana at the time the statement was made (because the implied alternative is that the speaker is crazy or quite daft).

I am well aware of the colloquialism. My point is that it violates the site's comment guidelines.

'When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."'

This comment can be shortened to eliminate the first sentence, which is needlessly rude.

Please keep in mind though that this is not strictly a US site. To me (as an experienced, but non-native speaker) "what are you smoking" does not sound tongue-in-cheek at all.

Please keep in mind that this site is operated by a US VC, on US hardware and software, for a US audience residing in a few tech-centric US cities.

US colloquialisms are perfectly appropriate on this site.

> Please keep in mind that this site is operated by a US VC, on US hardware and software, for a US audience residing in a few tech-centric US cities.

And funded by a Brit :-)

Honestly, that's not how today's world works. Sites like Reddit and HN obviously have an international audience. It is not meant for people from tech-centric U.S. cities, but rather to be a sort of sales channel for YC, which BTW has well-known companies founded by non-Americans on its list, such as Gitlab, Stripe etc.

> on US hardware and software

Really? Are you sure there's not a line of free/open-source in there that's written by a non American? It runs on Linux, I presume, who's creator is Finnish and there are many non-U.S. contributors. If there's NGINX somewhere in the pipeline, now you're got some Kazakhstani/Russian code in there. If any part was ever touched by a JetBrains IDE, more evil Russians were involved etc.

Please keep the nationalistic rhetoric down.

P.S. Did you know that paper is a Chinese technology? Yeah, the same Chinese who keep the U.S. down by hyping climate change! I hope you're not using it! \s

"It runs on Linux, I presume, who's creator is Finnish"

Who currently lives and works in the United States, last I checked.

Not to say I disagree with your point, of course; just pointing out the irony of condemning someone for putting undue emphasis on a particular nation's contributions to something while inadvertently doing the same in the process.

The translated version (of course) of "what are you smoking" is used and known in my own language too. Surprises me that it's not universal as I thought it would be.

You don't think it's a little offensive and uncalled for to tell someone that it is inconceivable that anyone could be as stupid as they are?

You must be smoking some real good stuff if you think "What are you smoking?" is meant to be a literal accusation of substance abuse.

I am well aware of the colloquialism. My point is that it violates the site's comment guidelines.

'When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."'

This comment can be shortened to eliminate the first sentence, which is needlessly rude.

I don't disagree. That's not the objection your original response presented, though; rather, your comment implied a literal interpretation of "What are you smoking?", at which my own comment poked fun with a variation on that colloquialism.