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On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Duncan<1i5t5.duncan@×××.net> wrote: |
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<SNIP> |
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> Of course, I'd say another moral is to pick hardware that's FLOSS |
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> supported from the beginning, if at all possible. Sometimes it may not |
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> be, and then one has to decide whether it's worth the negatives to go |
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> servantware or not. It's a decision I'd make differently than many here, |
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> but it /is/ an individual decision. |
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> |
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<SNIP> |
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While I wholeheartedly agree - and whether or not someone takes action |
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on this agreement - the problem with Open Source is there is no real |
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commitment to support anything going forward, there is no commitment |
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to remove bugs if found, and there is no way to tell what the word |
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'supported' really means. It's up to the good graces and kindness of |
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those who write this stuff. |
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In the case of the Radeon 9100IGP chipset, it isn't that it's not |
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supported by the FLOSS driver - it was always supported, it's that a |
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certain FEATURE of the hardware wasn't supported. Now, if I had |
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purchased the machine specifically depending on this feature then |
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maybe I would have been more careful about understanding the level of |
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support, but the use of hardware changes over time. You buy a desktop |
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machine today and use it as a file server later. You buy a small |
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machine to use as a router and later decide to use it for MythTV. |
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Things change over time and we cannot always know how something will |
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be used, most especially I think with older hardware. We own it so we |
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try to use it. Better than scraping it and contributing to all the |
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trash problems we have on the planet. |
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Beyond all of that motherhood and apple pie stuff there's just the |
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problem of determining what the **REAL** quality and support is for |
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some piece of FLOSS. It's just nice people doing what they want to do. |
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It's great stuff, and amazing that we have what we have - operating |
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systems, desktops, applications - but it's not like we have real |
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quality control or a commitment to continuous improvement. |
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The current FLOSS radeon driver says there is support for TVOut on |
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this antiquated chipset.That is correct - it does work. However also |
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in truth, the picture on my TV is not pleasing and is so dark that in |
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many lighting conditions it is simply unusable. There are no xorg.conf |
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settings for changing brightness or contrast so I have no CPU level |
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control over it. Maybe it's an issue with this PC coupled with this |
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TV. Possibly it works better with other TVs. I don't know. The |
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developers do not seem inclined so far to help me out so I'm stuck for |
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now. |
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How do I address ALL of that prior to purchase? Look for someone using |
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the same hardware and driving the same TV? What's the chances? If I |
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cannot address ALL of it then it's still a shot in the dark. |
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Now, lest it sound like I'm complaining, I'm really not. I'm just |
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saying how I see the truth about this stuff. I prefer FLOSS when it |
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does what I need, but being FLOSS it may or may not be up to the |
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quality I can get from closed source support, especially in the area |
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of hardware support. If the closed source driver makes my wife happy |
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then who am I to tell her she cannot use it? Just because I'm |
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sys-admin for our midget little home network doesn't mean I want to |
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cook my own dinners or sleep on the back porch. We have wild animals |
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here. I'd like some guarantee of not being eaten at night! ;-) |
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Just my 2 cents, |
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Mark |
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