Subject: RE: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
From: Ivica Bukvic (ico_AT_fuse.net)
Date: Mon Dec 01 2003 - 06:48:12 EET
> -----Original Message-----
> From: linux-audio-dev-bounces_AT_music.columbia.edu
[mailto:linux-audio-dev-
> bounces_AT_music.columbia.edu] On Behalf Of Christian Schoenebeck
> Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 7:19 PM
> To: linux-audio-dev_AT_music.columbia.edu
> Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
>
> Es geschah am Sonntag, 30. November 2003 21:52 als Robert Jonsson
schrieb:
> > I think this an urban myth, the Nvidia drivers may be proprietary
but
> they
> > are well functioning. Actually there are opensource drivers for
nvidia
> > chips, it is true though that only the proprietary drivers support
> OpenGL.
> > The situation isn't much different with ATI, tbough there may be
open
> > source OpenGL enabled drivers, last time I checked it was a real
pain to
> > get them to work and they don't support all cards.
>
> Fact is I had serious crashs caused by the Nvidia opengl driver,
although
> I
> have to admit that was one year ago and on the other hand I have a
Radeon
> 9000 where opengl works just fine with a normal X installation. I had
to
> drop
> one "chipset" line into XF86Config-4 for the Radeon to work, but
that's
> nothing compared to the Nvidia stress.
>
> Best regards
> Christian
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)
>From what I've seen of the Apple laptops, they generally do look a lot
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
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