[linux-audio-dev] Re: Behringer

Jan Depner eviltwin69 at cableone.net
Thu Dec 2 00:52:38 UTC 2004


On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 20:15, Marek Peteraj wrote:
> On Thu, 2004-12-02 at 00:29, Jan Depner wrote:
> > On Wed, 2004-12-01 at 16:37, Dave Robillard wrote:
> > > On Tue, 2004-30-11 at 17:43 -0500, Lee Revell wrote:
> > > > No one said they were good.  I just said it was better than no support
> > > > at all, and whatever RME decides to do, they designed the hardware, it's
> > > > THEIR CHOICE.
> > > 
> > > No, it's not better than no support at all.  No support doesn't destroy
> > > Linux in the long run.  Try to think on a little wider scale than
> > > getting one silly little sound card to work in your specific (x86,
> > > running a "supported" version of the Linux kernel) computer.  There are
> > > more important things than trivial convenience for a small subset of
> > > Linux users (at the expense of all the other ones) you know.
> > > 
> > 
> >     My problem is a whole lot more important than 1 silly little sound
> > card.  As I said before, somewhere around 200 Linux systems with NVIDIA
> > cards and the proprietary driver.  The "more important" things you speak
> > of are important to you but not to me.  I don't belong to your church.
> 
> Jan no offense. But i don't care about your 200 linux systems.  
> Simply because if nvidia didn't care at all just like RME does with it's
> fireface, you would use windows on your 200 machines. But OTOH, if you
> had windows on those 200 machines before, had nvidia cards installed in
> those boxes, and in order to reduce TCO you went with linux instead of
> buying new licenses for a new version of windows, and were forced to use
> nvidia binaries because those machines had nvidia cards installed
> already, then that's kindof fine. Kindof because there still would need
> to be a very _pragmatic_ reason to ditch old versions of windows. But i
> certainly wouldn't advise people to go buy nvidia because of their
> "exceptional" binary drivers. Too careless.
> 
    I certainly agree.  We're using windows because I write about 60% of
the sonar/navigation processing software we use and I refuse to have
Windoze in my office.

> The problem is that there are not that many users still. And IIUC you're
> still somehow forced to do this and that with your kernel in order to
> get it to run, and it's still not runnnig 100% with every application(2
> or 3 people reporting problems here during this long discussion).
> If they discontinue your nvidia card then you're either stuck or need to
> buy another card, having no guarantee that the new one will work
> flawlessly(and it's probably harder to give feedback such as bugreports
> on binary drivers - if not anything else, i can imagine communicating
> with nvidia - and no chance for an attempt to fix it).
> 
   I would like nothing better than to switch to an open source driver
for exactly the reason you set forth.

> I think it's fine to use binary drivers if you have no choice as in - i
> had windows, switched to linux and heck no oss drivers!. But in that
> case, if you're an open source believer, you still should promote open
> source drivers. No matter how well the binary drivers are written.
> 
    I am definitely an open source believer and I promote open source
software and drivers.  I just can't tell my office that they can't run
the particular piece of 3D software that we need at a reasonable speed. 
The software will still run on open source drivers (even the nv driver)
but it's OpenGL and it's slower than molasses in January.


> 
> > 
> > > > You can't expect people to respect your choice to GPL the
> > > > code you write then bitch and moan when they decide to sell their
> > > > hardware under terms that make sense to them.  If you don't like it then
> > > > pardon my French but you can design your own fucking sound card.
> > > > 
> > > > Lee
> > > 
> > > If you don't like your software being free and open, then pardon my
> > > French but you can go design your own fucking operating system.  If not,
> > > you could at least have some respect for the ideals that are the reason
> > > for the creation of this one.
> > > 
> > 
> >     Children, children, try to be civil.  You miss the point Dave.  I
> > don't have to design my own OS.  Someone else did it for me and put it
> > under the GPL so I can use it.  Unfortunately RME didn't do that and I
> > can't force them to.  The software I write is also under the GPL so
> > someone else can use it anytime they want.  That, though, is my (and
> > Steve's and Jack's and Ron's and Patricks') choice.  Nobody twisted our
> > arms.  *If* I was in the market for an RME Fireface I would hope that
> > RME would put out *any* kind of Linux driver for it.  Eventually, if
> > someone were sharp enough, they'd reverse engineer it and then I could
> > switch to the open source driver.  I seriously doubt that anyone is
> > going to get the generic NVIDIA driver to run as fast as the one that
> > NVIDIA puts out and, until they do, I'm stuck with a closed source
> > driver.  I'm not going to cry about it though.
> 
> The point is not that someone might reverse engineer and do a
> worse/better oss driver. The point is that nvidia, ati, xgi, matrox
> *should* do open source drivers.
> 
    I agree but I can't make them even though we're a fairly large
outfit.

Jan





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