One complaint that many have about Linux is that they wonder why video card drivers in Linux don’t seem to work that well. On their Windows side the video card seems to operate a bit faster or better than when running that same hardware under Linux. Of course if it does not work well under Linux then it must be Linux’s fault, right? The reality is that there is a deeper issue that has to be looked at when looking at video card drivers.
When a manufacturer makes a driver, they have two options. They can make the contents of that driver open or closed. If it is open, then people can see the code and tweak it to work better for their computer. If it is closed, the manufacturer will guess about what settings, like the operating system the user will use, and do the tweaking themselves.
Certain companies only program their driver to work with Windows and refuse to let others port the driver to other operating systems. The port would not require any efforts on the manufacturers’ part since the Linux community would do all the work. However, some companies are not willing to share this information.
How can Linux fix this? Really there is no practical way to fix this problem. What a user must do as a personal choice is to only buy graphics hardware from companies willing to share the hardware information with Linux community. The sharing will not hurt their sales but only open up a larger market of potential buyers. If the company does not want more customers, that’s their problem.
Be careful that the Linux kernel is not blamed when in reality it is a closed source driver issue. As Linux gets more popular there have been certain companies that have opened up the market to Linux users. It is only a matter of time before this practice becomes more common.
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