RE: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi

[mailto:linux-audio-dev- schrieb: but nvidia open pain to although Radeon to that's I use Dell Inspiron 8200 with NVidia's Geforce4Go (64MB) and in the last 2 1/2 years only had once a problem like that with one particular release of the drivers. Simple downgrade (and later upgrade to the "fixed" drivers which were released promptly resolved that without a hitch). In addition, Nvidia's drivers, although proprietary, have a nifty installer that automatically detects the platform and install proper version of the driver (and/or recompile the non-proprietary aspects). I heard somewhere that some of the Linux distributions now ship with these drivers included. As far as the noise is concerned, Centrino notebooks are now the best for noise-free high-performance settings. 1.7GHz Centrino notebooks beat the living daylights outta 2.4GHz P4 desktop in performance, mainly because they are a complementary mix of P3 performance and P4 scalability. They also offer great battery life (sometimes even upwards of 5+ hours per battery). My notebook is 1.8GHz P4 and it rarely kicks in a fan when working with it. It usually does so when playing highly demanding 3D games. Dell laptops also have nifty but Dell-unsupported Linux tools that enable you to control the CPU and Fan throttling hence enabling you to completely shut them off (obviously if you fry your laptop in the process that is your own problem). I've used this feature without any problems so far and the P4 downclocked to 1.2GHz is still plenty fast (although lately I've been topping off the cpu with my real-time stuff, something that really annoys me :-). To give you a perspective on this matter, on the last conference I had the laptop on-stage with 2 batteries in it charging (hence extra heat was being generated) set between two pianos. Since my piece was not first on the program, some "bright" soul decided to cover both pianos with the thick protective piano cloth. When I realized this in the middle of the concert I almost screamed thinking that my laptop would end up in a pile of smoldering goop, especially considering the fact that the darn thing was turned on with the power management disabled (I wanted to make sure that the screensaver or some stupid thing did not impair my performance) and on top of that charging the batteries. I was very pleasantly surprised when my number finally came to uncover the cloth from the pianos and the laptop and realize that my laptop was completely cool, if barely warm to the touch. Fans never kicked in. I like Dell for one more reason, their support/warranty is awesome. Sure, here or there you stumble across a pretty mentally challenged "tech support" person that asks you stupid questions and guides you through the steps that defy common reasoning, but most of the time they are very prompt (whenever I had to get my laptop fixed, the tech person would come to *my home* the very next day with the necessary parts, even if that had to be the whole motherboard and fixed it within minutes -- Disclaimer: I live in US, not sure how it works in other countries) and helpful. On top of that, when everything fails (i.e. they have no idea why laptop does what it does), they provide you with a whole new system! I initially bought a refurbished Inspiron 8000 P3 800Mhz with an old Ati Rage 4 Mobility (32MB) (their refurbs get a great price/value ratio and the same support as the new models) and throughout the years when it broke to the point they had no idea what was wrong, they replaced it with the current Inspiron8200 1.8GHz P4 at no cost to me. I also was able to upgrade the video card by myself (from geforce2go to geforce4go -- Dell has the "spare parts" division where you can get this kind of stuff) without a hitch, although this may void your warranty if you screw something up. Anyhow, Dell really worked well for me. Some other people were perhaps not as lucky as me and may have had pretty rotten experiences. In the end it is best to investigate by yourself and if the company offers a 30-day return policy (like Dell and some others do), I would definitely use that kind of opportunity to familiarize yourself with the laptop before making my purchase final. Personally, I prefer to stay away from the "desktop replacement" computers from the companies like Sager and others that carry same-looking chassis notebooks with different names, since they usually have desktop processors whose fans are constantly on and have generally low battery life. They also tend to feel very fragile (IMHO) and are really heavy. Soundcards no matter what laptop you get will have awful S/N ratio, mainly because of the compact design and interference with other components. Also beware of the various ground-loops and noises that are generated from the charging battery, external powered USB devices, as well as crappy internal design. I was lucky enough to solve all of these issues on my laptop by either: a) unplugging my laptop from the power supply during performance and with 2 batteries I had 4+ hours of heavy-duty use (something I never needed anyhow). b) use external soundcard (i.e. RME HDSP) prettier than any of the x86 offering (although obviously "De gustibus non est disputandum") but are (contrary to the Steve Jobs' "distortion field") generally a lot less powerful in terms of number-crunching (with the exception of the G5 offering which has not yet made it into the portable world), are not as sturdy as they would like you to believe, and suffer from the "feature" deficiencies, such as lack of Line-in, Mic-in connectors for the internal soundcard (which, naturally, is a sane decision on their part because Apple did realize it is impossible to make a decent internal card for a laptop, yet it is also a decision that implies you having to purchase an external soundcard before being able to do anything constructive). Endian-ness I believe will solve itself. With more people coming into the PPC Linux camp, there will be theoretically more developers which will provide these generally very simple fixes to the existing software. Hence this should not be a detriment to considering the Apple platform in the long term sense, but may prove to be somewhat debilitating in the short-term. Hope this helps! Best wishes, Ivica Ico Bukvic, composer & multimedia sculptor http://meowing.ccm.uc.edu/~ico