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

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
Received on Thu Dec 15 00:15:11 2005