On Wed, 2006-12-20 at 19:39 -0500, Chuckk Hubbard
wrote:
Windows
outperforms Linux on marginal hardware. This will probably
always be the case because such hardware is not designed to be correct,
it's designed to work with Windows.
On good hardware Linux should win.
I heard the opposite, that Linux's advantages are especially
noticeable on less fancy machines. But:
that is true in the general sense that linux will run on h/w that
windows has abandoned.
but its not the case where the problem is that the h/w is relatively
new, the chipset vendor has done nothing to facilitate a linux driver,
and nobody has had the time or motivation to reverse engineer one. this
is true for some significant bits of audio h/w.
then there is the problem of the Intel HDA "specification", which is
that in name only. it seems as if almost every new laptop that emerges
into the market has found a new way to wire the pinouts of a supposedly
"standard" HDA chipset, thus requiring more driver hacks.
http://www.gateway.com/home/products/ret/ret_MX6447.shtml
Will this work? If I can't use Linux audio on this machine then I
can't afford Linux!
there isn't enough information there to decide. the chances are good,
but without knowing the actual audio chipset, nobody can say.
According to ALSA Mixer GUI, the card is HDA ATI SB, and the chipset
is SigmaTel ID 7634. I'm guessing this means a driver is there, so
I'll keep trying...