Non-obvious binary driver install procedure

[aurynn]

There should be an intuitive wizard based on the autodetection to, at the user's
option, assist them in updating drivers to closed-source, higher functionality
drivers, such as in the case of nVidia and ATI graphics drivers.

At present, Synaptic allows me to install both the nvidia glx and the firegl glx
drivers. Why?

Why isn't there a "drivers" section in Synaptic, that filters based on hardware
that it can actually detect, but is still overridable?

[Dennis Kaarsemaker (dennis)]

This is only an ossue for closed-source drivers which cannot be completely
supported and therefor are not enabled by default. This will most likely not
change and there is documentation available on how to use the closed-source drivers.

[aurynn (aurynn)]

the Closed or Open nature of the drivers in question is irrelevant; Xorg was
able to detect that I have an nvidia card, Synaptic was able to load the closed
binary drivers correctly.

Were they open drivers, the same flaw in "Getting the right drivers for my
hardware" would still be present, as there is no MECHANISM for saying "Ah, you
have one of these, would you like to download better drivers?".
Closed and Open is not relevant to such a mechanism in the slighest, it's an
arbitrary constraint added by the closer of this bug.

[Dennis Kaarsemaker (dennis)]

If you feel that this should change, then discuss it on the -devel list. This is
not a bug but Ubuntu policy.