Drivers for linux are rubbish

[IsawSparks]

It's just fine in the sense that you can watch the content just fine.

Of course that a native hardware support is better and preferable.

But for many people, it's not a good reason to abandon an open platform for a closed one.

You yourself are arguing that it's perfectly OK to do software sound mixing and other things on the CPUs because CPUs are so powerful today, but don't accept that doing HD decoding on CPUs is not a huge deal when the CPUs are so powerful today.

Mixing sound on CPUs IS fine because it doesn't have the overhead of decoding multiple HD video streams. It's not that I don't accept that HD Video can be decoded by the CPU, I just think it's a waste of clock cycles and leads to image quality degradation. Unlike you, I don't think it's 'just fine'. I think CPU driven HD Video decoding is ugly and slow.

That's not the point of this discussion though because Pulse isn't just about how sound is mixed but rather how dramatically better it is managed than when compared to other solutions such as ALSA or OSS. It's far more dynamic and abstracted which is why in my opinion it's the future of Linux Audio (even if Pulse itself isn't what stays around, its implementation style most certainly will).

As to the Gentoo comment, duh. He, however, was specifically citing Gentoo.

[curaga]

That actually does make sense, IsawSparks, you're contradicting yourself. How does mixing sound in software not do the same?

I just think it's a waste of clock cycles and leads to sound quality degradation

Fixed that for you.

The point is we have dedicated hw for both cases, doing sw is not ideal for either.

[IsawSparks]

That actually does make sense, IsawSparks, you're contradicting yourself. How does mixing sound in software not do the same?


Fixed that for you.

The point is we have dedicated hw for both cases, doing sw is not ideal for either.

Nice attempt, though not relevant.

There's no point to a dedicated hardware decoder in this discussion. We're talking about an Open Source Audio Driver for Linux. Not a closed source hardware platform for people to try and tell me I'm contradicting myself.

Beaglebox is open sourced dev kit but the Ti OMAP is not. Stop wasting people's time by trying to derail the conversation. Let me guess, you're an ATI fan too?

[energyman]

Right because Gentoo's way of working is just so user friendly. It's really put Desktop Linux on the map.

Don't get me wrong, Gentoo is great, especially for those who are reasonably experienced in building Linux from the ground up and want a more unified, modern approach, but it's not simple to use and its reliance on terminal sessions does scare many noobies off.

Desktop Linux has to be simple and streamlined and essentially almost entirely GUI. Gentoo has two out of three.

if your distribution does not provide an easy way to install drivers, then the distribution is broken.

[IsawSparks]

if your distribution does not provide an easy way to install drivers, then the distribution is broken.

Define 'easy'. The idea of opening a terminal freaks many people out. We're talking Desktop Linux.

[pingufunkybeat]

Beaglebox is open sourced dev kit but the Ti OMAP is not. Stop wasting people's time by trying to derail the conversation. Let me guess, you're an ATI fan too?

LOL, now he is a fanboi too.

Everyone who disagrees with you is a fanboi

[energyman]

Define 'easy'. The idea of opening a terminal freaks many people out. We're talking Desktop Linux.

there are point and click interfaces even for portage.

So, what is so hard about it that you are waxing about it?

[kazetsukai]

if your distribution does not provide an easy way to install drivers, then the distribution is broken.

If the driver vendor does not provide an easy way to install drivers, then the drivers are broken.

You're all forcing too much of the responsibility on the distro to make up for the shortcomings of the driver vendor. NVIDIA doesn't have the installation and performance problems ATI has, and has hardware video decoding built-in. This is what spawned this conversation.

[energyman]

IT IS the distros responsibility to make packages including those drivers.

and:
sh nvidia-driver-installer.sh
or
sh ati-driver-installer.sh is no difference.

You are complaining about irrelevant things.

[kazetsukai]

IT IS the distros responsibility to make packages including those drivers.

Negative. Proprietary drivers should never be a priority for a distribution maintainer, other than very basic testing.

and:
sh nvidia-driver-installer.sh
or
sh ati-driver-installer.sh is no difference.

Except one works and one doesn't?

People wouldn't be reporting trouble with the driver if there was none, and all I've heard on installing ATI drivers is that it is a headache.