[linux-audio-user] Re: Hardware Recommendations

[cdr]

On Thu Mar 09, 2006 at 03:05:35PM -0800, Stephen Hassard wrote:
> Wolfgang Woehl wrote:
> >>ATI chipsets are crap in any mode. ;-)
> >Crap in what way?

> 1) You need a really recent kernel (2.6.16'ish). It'll have the fixed 
> timer support,

i think i  still have to boot with -noapic on Linux a 2.6.16-rc4-git10  to avoid weird timer issues, random 'spurius interrupt - nobody cared' crap in dmesg and timer running about twice as fast

> 2) Almost no distro includes the required kernel to get the board to 
> work nicely. Expect a serious PITA when installing your distro. It's 

the interrupts are so screwd that knoppix freezed every 2 seconds, for about 2 seconds, mouse and all. really was a hassle to get it setup with such interruptions to input and processing and networking. but it did eventually finish


now the biggest problem by far is ATIs horrible video drivers. they barely work in 2d: distortion artifacts when the cursor nears the screen edge etc. unfortunately you need the fglrx binary/taint/driver-from-hell to have a working VGA port or openGL, at least for me with 8.22.2.whatever and a mobility X300 or R200 or something

i wuld have definitely gotten an Nvidia chipset if i they had a small-form-factor Turion platform on the market. but all in all it works fine now, aside from video quirks (lots of apps will crash with 'bad_pixmap' type stuff, i cant use superkaramba, or anything that uses COMPOSITE for example, and forget about XGL/AIGLX)