Linux 3.0

[geoffrey mendelson]

On May 29, 2011, at 11:24 PM, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:

>
> That's old news. That switch was over 5 years ago. Since then Linux  
> (the
> kernel) has avoided that long development cycles.

It may have been, but it took a long time to finally die.

I will say I was dumbstruck when I finally upgraded my RH 7.2 system  
(with lots of manual updates, extenstions etc) that I was using as a  
file server to a modern one (UBUNTU 8.04) and found my modem no longer  
worked. AFAIK host modems died a rather horrible death and were never  
ported forward.

To this day I have a hylafax server with no way to fax anything. My  
external modem as not compatible with my NGN line, and I've found no  
outgoing Voip service that allows a-law or u-law or digital faxing. :-(
>
> OSS was dumped long ago for licensing issues. They later went free,  
> but
> then re-rejected due to coding issues (doing too much in the kernel).

I really don't care. All I knew is that my TV cards stopped working  
and I had to stay with an old version of KnoppMyth or buy new cards.   
Since I have a YES MAX anyway, I decided that when it was time to  
upgrade (the computers finally died) to replace it with a WD TV Live,  
which was much cheaper, had a much easier to use inteface and works  
just fine.

> There were indeed initially devices with no (or no good) ALSA  
> drivers. I
> suggest that you come up with non-obscure devices that actually have
> better OSS4 drivers than ALSA Linux drivers.

Again I don't care. I'm happily using my Linux systems as servers. I  
was recently given a dual core system (stuck at 512m RAM due to old  
technology and a bad RAM socket). CPU fast, I/O and RAM slow, that I  
installed Windows XP and Ubuntu 11.04 on.

I put in the same video capture card I was using with KNOPPMYTH for  
all those years. The kernel recognizes it, it finds the right tuner,  
and I can watch TV. BUT I CAN'T HEAR IT and doing an exhaustive web  
search said that there was nothing that would properly read the sound  
from the card, nor merge it from an audio input if I used the audio  
out on it and looped it into a sound card.

That and the fact that my APEX digital TV stick, made by Geniatech who  
plastered all over their website that it had Linux support, does not  
work, even with the 11.04 UBUNTU, means that my TV watching, either  
off the air, or from my YES box will be done in Windows.

>> /dev/dsp using actual OSS drivers? Or ALSA emulation? The latter can
> also be done in userspace. No need to keep it in the kernel.
>

Well, wherever it CAN be done, it WASN'T. Sorry as the unoffical  
UBUNTU motto "it sucks to be you"

> There is now basically a single audio server (PulseAudio). This has  
> been
> the case for the recent 4 years or so. If you missed it, you must  
> have lived
> under a rock, and never really bothered trying ot configure a sound
> system.

Lived under a rock. A forced because there was no support for my TV  
card rock. A keep it in Windows if you want support rock. And now it's  
a it doesn't work rock.

> There's also Jack, but only for those who actually bother configuring
> and tuning it.


Not worth it.

I've spent 20 years inside operating systems before Linux was even a  
terminal emulator. Now spending time to get something simple like a  
sound card or video capture card to watch TV holds no appeal to me. I  
like the concept of FOSS (although I prefer the BSD license to the  
GPL), but I just want to have the darn thing work.

For me watching TV is more important than spending hours or days to  
get the TV card to work. Though I must admit getting the PS3 media  
server to work on my Linux system, in a managable and secure way was  
fun. I ended up setting a user id specifically for it, and having it  
come up in a VNC X server at boot time. So it will but up, run and I  
can pop in from another system to manage it. With it set up so that  
users can't delete files. :-)

On the other hand, why isn't it an UBUNTU package? It's a lot nicer,  
easier to use and set up than mediatomb, which is.

I also just acquired a BEZEQ internet radio, which is real fun. I had  
to hack the PS3 media server to support it, but it wasn't too  
difficult. Still it would have been a lot nicer if I did not have to.  
Now not only can I play internet radio streams and podcasts, I can  
listen to my MP3 library.

I'll admit for about 3,000 NIS I can get a decent system with a big  
hard disk, lots of RAM and a "full hd" LED monitor, but that's about  
2,900 NIS more than I can afford. So for now, I have to hope that  
someone's old system dies or just is too old for them to use, and they  
are willing to give it to me and I can scrounge enough to get it going.


Geoff.

-- 
Geoffrey S. Mendelson,  N3OWJ/4X1GM
Making your enemy reliant on software you support is the best revenge.