From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1Mgefz-0003O5-LN for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 13:06:03 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 15512E0800; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:15:16 +0000 (UTC) Received: from mail-yw0-f181.google.com (mail-yw0-f181.google.com [209.85.211.181]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D8764E0898 for ; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 18:15:15 +0000 (UTC) Received: by ywh11 with SMTP id 11so2090661ywh.16 for ; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:15:15 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=domainkey-signature:mime-version:received:in-reply-to:references :date:message-id:subject:from:to:content-type :content-transfer-encoding; bh=yxVQPJCHqZkFiAb0L3E+AI2+hwUqrhoTy0+cgTFpqhI=; b=iiJGnfDo0dTDSRYyTwcAMihqXAbrvMkXfhUkhcQcvEeJ1ql6ayh+Fkg6YkOdQxPU2o Q6YzZzYXYA6Hd96gBS0Ef+aD5GLDVPLAenPXuYZ6BmYvE05oremmGWulxURoCQfQk4/i zSS6bx4+oSgbKoOrNCHMsHNbspvfFCLBFEDs0= DomainKey-Signature: a=rsa-sha1; c=nofws; d=gmail.com; s=gamma; h=mime-version:in-reply-to:references:date:message-id:subject:from:to :content-type:content-transfer-encoding; b=M16SNkNtyqsJUhAO2xyf06/Q8xlJiPAKtxkl0ZDYs38zBWknfKuDJ2RfBk1FxyVlkf i0zOhAQ8ZvCU1EMiLejW7NDQNLyRi2lDEY+AUxD+PU3/fHP37hmkFN3nzZp8+u7R5rwY 5ZgmW4nUGHMLArtgRQITPTY0V+3WoxypIQAE0= Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org MIME-Version: 1.0 Received: by 10.150.115.12 with SMTP id n12mr310609ybc.145.1251396915590; Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:15:15 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: References: <200908250133.23329.volkerarmin@googlemail.com> <200908261813.52044.volkerarmin@googlemail.com> <652883.3253.qm@web65401.mail.ac4.yahoo.com> <5bdc1c8b0908270756n43c405d8m5806258ba68cf165@mail.gmail.com> Date: Thu, 27 Aug 2009 11:15:15 -0700 Message-ID: <5bdc1c8b0908271115s1802d80bnbf9dfd8efbde7664@mail.gmail.com> Subject: Re: [gentoo-amd64] Re: Heads-up: KDEers: Particularly kde3-ers, From: Mark Knecht To: gentoo-amd64@lists.gentoo.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Archives-Salt: d76595a5-2dff-44b8-aa41-982bdde8a007 X-Archives-Hash: 6d7886e49a4f87132c3bb0f00bd0b672 On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 9:52 AM, Duncan<1i5t5.duncan@cox.net> wrote: > Of course, I'd say another moral is to pick hardware that's FLOSS > supported from the beginning, if at all possible. =C2=A0Sometimes it may = not > be, and then one has to decide whether it's worth the negatives to go > servantware or not. =C2=A0It's a decision I'd make differently than many = here, > but it /is/ an individual decision. > While I wholeheartedly agree - and whether or not someone takes action on this agreement - the problem with Open Source is there is no real commitment to support anything going forward, there is no commitment to remove bugs if found, and there is no way to tell what the word 'supported' really means. It's up to the good graces and kindness of those who write this stuff. In the case of the Radeon 9100IGP chipset, it isn't that it's not supported by the FLOSS driver - it was always supported, it's that a certain FEATURE of the hardware wasn't supported. Now, if I had purchased the machine specifically depending on this feature then maybe I would have been more careful about understanding the level of support, but the use of hardware changes over time. You buy a desktop machine today and use it as a file server later. You buy a small machine to use as a router and later decide to use it for MythTV. Things change over time and we cannot always know how something will be used, most especially I think with older hardware. We own it so we try to use it. Better than scraping it and contributing to all the trash problems we have on the planet. Beyond all of that motherhood and apple pie stuff there's just the problem of determining what the **REAL** quality and support is for some piece of FLOSS. It's just nice people doing what they want to do. It's great stuff, and amazing that we have what we have - operating systems, desktops, applications - but it's not like we have real quality control or a commitment to continuous improvement. The current FLOSS radeon driver says there is support for TVOut on this antiquated chipset.That is correct - it does work. However also in truth, the picture on my TV is not pleasing and is so dark that in many lighting conditions it is simply unusable. There are no xorg.conf settings for changing brightness or contrast so I have no CPU level control over it. Maybe it's an issue with this PC coupled with this TV. Possibly it works better with other TVs. I don't know. The developers do not seem inclined so far to help me out so I'm stuck for now. How do I address ALL of that prior to purchase? Look for someone using the same hardware and driving the same TV? What's the chances? If I cannot address ALL of it then it's still a shot in the dark. Now, lest it sound like I'm complaining, I'm really not. I'm just saying how I see the truth about this stuff. I prefer FLOSS when it does what I need, but being FLOSS it may or may not be up to the quality I can get from closed source support, especially in the area of hardware support. If the closed source driver makes my wife happy then who am I to tell her she cannot use it? Just because I'm sys-admin for our midget little home network doesn't mean I want to cook my own dinners or sleep on the back porch. We have wild animals here. I'd like some guarantee of not being eaten at night! ;-) Just my 2 cents, Mark