Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
On Thu, 2003-11-27 at 11:42, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am contemplating buying a laptop of some sort, to develop on. I was wondering how many of you are using an x86 laptop and how many are using a ppc laptop :) I own an Apple iBook running Yellow Dog Linux, but I do not run a patched low-latency Kernel, 'cause I use portaudio for my application, so I don't know much about this. But other thatn that, it works very well, the only problem I experienced in the audio world, referred with 'groovit', I was unable to compile it. Standby-mode and the volume and brightness keys works very well. External VGA does not work, so I have to boot up macosx when doing presentations. -Richard
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
I read: I think this an urban myth, the Nvidia drivers may be proprietary but they are well functioning. I think this is a pretty rural comment, there is more than x86, where are the nvidia binaries for 2.6, and personally I really don't feel like loading a binary only module. regards, x -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Postmodernism is german romanticism with better http://pilot.fm/special effects. (Jeff Keuss / via ctheory.com)
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
Hi, CK wrote: I read: I think this an urban myth, the Nvidia drivers may be proprietary but they are well functioning. I think this is a pretty rural comment, there is more than x86, where are the nvidia binaries for 2.6, and personally I really don't feel like loading a binary only module. These are also valid arguments but they have nothing to do with the stability and quality of the nvidia drivers which is what I intended to comment about. /Robert regards, x
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
I read: These are also valid arguments but they have nothing to do with the stability and quality of the nvidia drivers which is what I intended to comment about. right, sorry this was sort of pre-coffee cheers, x -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] Postmodernism is german romanticism with better http://pilot.fm/special effects. (Jeff Keuss / via ctheory.com)
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
On Thu, Nov 27, 2003 at 11:42:16 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: I am contemplating buying a laptop of some sort, to develop on. I was wondering how many of you are using an x86 laptop and how many are using a ppc laptop :) It looks to me as if Apples laptops are rock solid and don't suffer from buggy ACPI to start with. Or is this extra quality just a myth ? I'm probably getting a powerbook for my next machine - they are well built (a lot of people run them at work), the screens are not particularly high res, but they make up for than in weight. The newer ones require kernel 2.6 AFAICT to get the video running properly, but that shouldn't be a huge problem. I haven't check up to see if suspend is working properly - thats a crucial isue for me. I guess the more of us who buy them the quicker the endianness problems will be fixed, ppc-linux-audio-user? :) - Steve
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
Am Donnerstag, 27. November 2003 11:42 schrieb [EMAIL PROTECTED]: I am contemplating buying a laptop of some sort, to develop on. I was wondering how many of you are using an x86 laptop and how many are using a ppc laptop :in I am using a Powerbook G3 500 and a G4 1.25 both with gentoo. They are simply great, quiet, cool, powerful (at least the G4 one) machines :-) The new AlBooks DO have mic-in and line-in again! Stay away from nvidia on any non-x86 platform, you will never get a decent driver for those graphics-boards, whereas ATI-drivers at least offer good 2D-performance on newer chips and eventually will offer full OpenGL-support. (read: ATI is more helpful than nvidia, though their support of the dri-project lags a bit behind their x86-binary-only-drivers) Have fun* Niklas
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
On Mon, Dec 01, 2003 at 10:12:24AM +, Steve Harris wrote: I guess the more of us who buy them the quicker the endianness problems will be fixed, ppc-linux-audio-user? :) :) I was thinking along the same lines ;) v
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
Es geschah am Donnerstag, 27. November 2003 11:42 als [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: I know some applications are not ported yet to ppc and suffer from x86-isms, but that should be fixable I guess :) It's not only orphaned asm lines but also endian dependent code that makes a lot of trouble on non intel machines. It seems that lot of programs suffer this problem, but there is one project that takes very care about endian correctness, what was it name? Hmmm... ah, yeah it's called LinuxSampler I think. ;P Anyway, whatever brand or type you'll choose, I recommend you that it has an ATI graphics chip, so you don't have to install extra proprietary opengl drivers for X like it's the case with Nvidia, it should have no shared memory and a good display; I wouldn't take one with a resolution lower than 1280x1024, I chose one with a resolution of 1600x1200. Regarding the sound chip they're all more or less the same (anybody with another experience?). Usually and surprisingly (at least to me) sufficient for low latency output, but for quality you will buy an external sound device. And instead of having the best, fastest, overkilling CPU I would better spend that money in RAM (at least 512MB, better more). Best regards Christian
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
Hi, Sunday 30 November 2003 19.00 skrev Christian Schoenebeck: Es geschah am Donnerstag, 27. November 2003 11:42 als [EMAIL PROTECTED] schrieb: I know some applications are not ported yet to ppc and suffer from x86-isms, but that should be fixable I guess :) It's not only orphaned asm lines but also endian dependent code that makes a lot of trouble on non intel machines. It seems that lot of programs suffer this problem, but there is one project that takes very care about endian correctness, what was it name? Hmmm... ah, yeah it's called LinuxSampler I think. ;P Anyway, whatever brand or type you'll choose, I recommend you that it has an ATI graphics chip, so you don't have to install extra proprietary opengl drivers for X like it's the case with Nvidia, I think this an urban myth, the Nvidia drivers may be proprietary but they are well functioning. Actually there are opensource drivers for nvidia chips, it is true though that only the proprietary drivers support OpenGL. The situation isn't much different with ATI, tbough there may be open source OpenGL enabled drivers, last time I checked it was a real pain to get them to work and they don't support all cards. (For the record I'm running ATI cards(7500 and 9200) these days but I don't have any problems using nvidia cards. None of which are on laptops though...) it should have no shared memory and a good display; I wouldn't take one with a resolution lower than 1280x1024, I chose one with a resolution of 1600x1200. Regarding the sound chip they're all more or less the same (anybody with another experience?). This is interesting, I guess you are running the chips with ac97 compatibility drivers? I've always thought ac97 cards where badly functioning, perhaps times have changed. Good to know. Usually and surprisingly (at least to me) sufficient for low latency output, but for quality you will buy an external sound device. And instead of having the best, fastest, overkilling CPU I would better spend that money in RAM (at least 512MB, better more). Fan noise, which is very much releated to the CPU power is also something to think about. Some laptops are noisy to the point that they are unusable for audio-work (or just about anything). /Robert Best regards Christian
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
On 2003.11.30 21:52, Robert Jonsson wrote: Fan noise, which is very much releated to the CPU power is also something to think about. Some laptops are noisy to the point that they are unusable for audio-work (or just about anything). /Robert this is no issue for ppc-laptop, at least on my ibook the fan sleep almost ever... all the heat is dissipated through the bottom surface. the only noise is the hd spin btw consider that new apple laptops dont have a card with line input or so, only a headphone out, and you'll be obligated to buy some sort of audio usb/firewire device. i've got an imic, but it dont work with jack for format issues, i dunno what.. maybe bit packaging, and the plug layer of alsa dont help and yes, many audio tools are still little-endian-only- compliant when that'll change? this is UNIX, we can rack-mount tens of sparc doing massive number crunching ;) wil --- Il jazz e' lasciare che la luce brilli, lasciarla essere. -- Keith Jarrett
Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
Es geschah am Sonntag, 30. November 2003 21:52 als Robert Jonsson schrieb: I think this an urban myth, the Nvidia drivers may be proprietary but they are well functioning. Actually there are opensource drivers for nvidia chips, it is true though that only the proprietary drivers support OpenGL. The situation isn't much different with ATI, tbough there may be open source OpenGL enabled drivers, last time I checked it was a real pain to get them to work and they don't support all cards. Fact is I had serious crashs caused by the Nvidia opengl driver, although I have to admit that was one year ago and on the other hand I have a Radeon 9000 where opengl works just fine with a normal X installation. I had to drop one chipset line into XF86Config-4 for the Radeon to work, but that's nothing compared to the Nvidia stress. Best regards Christian
RE: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:linux-audio-dev- [EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Christian Schoenebeck Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 7:19 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] [OT] linux audio on PPCi Es geschah am Sonntag, 30. November 2003 21:52 als Robert Jonsson schrieb: I think this an urban myth, the Nvidia drivers may be proprietary but they are well functioning. Actually there are opensource drivers for nvidia chips, it is true though that only the proprietary drivers support OpenGL. The situation isn't much different with ATI, tbough there may be open source OpenGL enabled drivers, last time I checked it was a real pain to get them to work and they don't support all cards. Fact is I had serious crashs caused by the Nvidia opengl driver, although I have to admit that was one year ago and on the other hand I have a Radeon 9000 where opengl works just fine with a normal X installation. I had to drop one chipset line into XF86Config-4 for the Radeon to work, but that's nothing compared to the Nvidia stress. Best regards Christian I use Dell Inspiron 8200 with NVidia's Geforce4Go (64MB) and in the last 2 1/2 years only had once a problem like that with one particular release of the drivers. Simple downgrade (and later upgrade to the fixed drivers which were released promptly resolved that without a hitch). In addition, Nvidia's drivers, although proprietary, have a nifty installer that automatically detects the platform and install proper version of the driver (and/or recompile the non-proprietary aspects). I heard somewhere that some of the Linux distributions now ship with these drivers included. As far as the noise is concerned, Centrino notebooks are now the best for noise-free high-performance settings. 1.7GHz Centrino notebooks beat the living daylights outta 2.4GHz P4 desktop in performance, mainly because they are a complementary mix of P3 performance and P4 scalability. They also offer great battery life (sometimes even upwards of 5+ hours per battery). My notebook is 1.8GHz P4 and it rarely kicks in a fan when working with it. It usually does so when playing highly demanding 3D games. Dell laptops also have nifty but Dell-unsupported Linux tools that enable you to control the CPU and Fan throttling hence enabling you to completely shut them off (obviously if you fry your laptop in the process that is your own problem). I've used this feature without any problems so far and the P4 downclocked to 1.2GHz is still plenty fast (although lately I've been topping off the cpu with my real-time stuff, something that really annoys me :-). To give you a perspective on this matter, on the last conference I had the laptop on-stage with 2 batteries in it charging (hence extra heat was being generated) set between two pianos. Since my piece was not first on the program, some bright soul decided to cover both pianos with the thick protective piano cloth. When I realized this in the middle of the concert I almost screamed thinking that my laptop would end up in a pile of smoldering goop, especially considering the fact that the darn thing was turned on with the power management disabled (I wanted to make sure that the screensaver or some stupid thing did not impair my performance) and on top of that charging the batteries. I was very pleasantly surprised when my number finally came to uncover the cloth from the pianos and the laptop and realize that my laptop was completely cool, if barely warm to the touch. Fans never kicked in. I like Dell for one more reason, their support/warranty is awesome. Sure, here or there you stumble across a pretty mentally challenged tech support person that asks you stupid questions and guides you through the steps that defy common reasoning, but most of the time they are very prompt (whenever I had to get my laptop fixed, the tech person would come to *my home* the very next day with the necessary parts, even if that had to be the whole motherboard and fixed it within minutes -- Disclaimer: I live in US, not sure how it works in other countries) and helpful. On top of that, when everything fails (i.e. they have no idea why laptop does what it does), they provide you with a whole new system! I initially bought a refurbished Inspiron 8000 P3 800Mhz with an old Ati Rage 4 Mobility (32MB) (their refurbs get a great price/value ratio and the same support as the new models) and throughout the years when it broke to the point they had no idea what was wrong, they replaced it with the current Inspiron8200 1.8GHz P4 at no cost to me. I also was able to upgrade the video card by myself (from geforce2go to geforce4go -- Dell has the spare parts division where you can get this kind of stuff) without a hitch, although this may void your warranty if you screw something up. Anyhow, Dell really worked well for me. Some other people were perhaps not as lucky as me and may have had pretty rotten experiences
