[linux-audio-user] Re: The best distro for music creation

[Rob]

On Wed December 14 2005 13:01, Lee Revell wrote:
> and all free software.  It would be understandable if there
> was no 3D hardware available with open drivers but that's not
> the case. [...] They would rather have a 5% better
> framerate in some game than support free software.  

If 3D chipsets with proprietary drivers only gave the user 5% 
better performance, that would mean 3D chipsets with free 
software support are at about 95.2% of the proprietary chipsets' 
performance.  I would gladly buy a 3D card (or notebook with 3D 
chipset) that has 95% of the speed of a current NVidia or ATI 
card while having open drivers instead of proprietary.  (As it 
happens, I'm typing this on a notebook with an Intel chipset 
whose drivers are free, but it's also maybe 10% as fast as a 
"gaming video card."  I am in the market for a new notebook and 
would like to choose correctly.)

Could you provide some examples of 3D kit whose drivers aren't 
proprietary but which benchmark at 95% or better of NVidia or 
ATI?  I'd even take one that only measures up to a $40 card and 
costs $99, because I hate proprietary drivers too.  

Unfortunately, as with 802.11g cards and softmodems, I've done 
the research and have never come up with an acceptable solution.  
I'm curious as to whether or not you have actually done your 
homework on this issue.  I hope you have, because I'd like to 
have an answer when someone buys an nvidia card, has trouble 
with the driver conflicting with something else, and then goes, 
"Well, what else was I gonna buy?"

Someone recently posted to this very list asking for beta testers 
of a music creation program that required a pretty decent 3D 
card, so it isn't just gaming we're talking about here.

> Is the 
> highest purpose of Linux really just to run proprietary games
> and VST plugins using Wine?  If so then I'm wasting my time.

I gotta tell you, I do most of my gaming on consoles like the 
Gamecube and Nintendo DS, and music production and coding are 
way more important to me than playing games.  Nonetheless, I was 
overjoyed when I fired up a recent release of Wine last week and 
discovered it could finally run Hamsterball (on my lousy Intel 
chipset laptop to boot.)  

I think most people put gaming higher on their priority list than 
I do, but you can't assume someone will switch to Linux if what 
they do 10% of the time will still require them to boot into 
Windows.  I started out with Linux 11 years ago for ethical 
reasons, but my enthusiasm is due to pragmatism, not religion.  
It was only about 2002 before I started trying to move other 
people to Linux en masse, not because Microsoft got more evil 
but because Linux got to be capable enough for non-technical 
users, and there are still hiccups today.  

Gaming is by far the largest of these hiccups (AOL used to be, 
but people are more willing to drop AOL nowadays since it's so 
ridiculously priced.)  In those cases, I make them buy a copy of 
Windows and load it up with Openoffice, Firefox, Gaim, etc. and 
hope by the time they're ready for an upgrade, Linux will be 
ready for them.  

There are enough Linux users now that I think most of them are 
here for pragmatic reasons and not ethical ones anymore.  Most 
if not all people who believe in free software for its own sake 
aren't using Windows anymore.  Any strategy for encouraging 
Linux adoption that requires users to either (1) care about 
copyright ethics or (2) become more technical than they are is 
doomed to failure.

Rob