On Friday 31 July 2009, Joseph Apuzzo wrote: > When it comes down to HW choices, there are only a hand full that > could be seen as non-Linux friendly ( Win-Modems if they still > exist, Mother Boards with Windows only chips aka see first email in > this thread ) So we are faced with the ethical question when > choosing new hardware, what is the best value and what also appeals > to my values. > This is the discussion I was hoping to have, can one balance > price/performance with FOSS/GNU ideals?
It all boils down to: A) How far down you want it to be OSS B) How much you're willing to compromise OSS for performance. RMS insists on only using computers that are fully OSS including the BIOS, which is why (last I heard) he uses an OLPC with the WiFi turned off (because it uses non-OSS firmware). Of course only some motherboards can accept Coreboot (aka LinuxBIOS) or Open Firmware, and not many of us are likely to go to quite that exent. (I wouldn't put it past Mike K though, because he actually can work down at the firmware level.) There aren't many videocards available that allow 3D and true OSS drivers, and the ones that are have so far shown a bit lower performance than the ones that require proprietary drivers. If you don't need a top-of-the-line videocard then you can choose one more at towards the OSS end. And of course what matters most in all of this is that you can get all of the hardware to at least *work* in your chosen distro. I'm going to try to shut up for the rest of the day now. -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Jul 1 - Linux High Performance Computing Aug 5 - TBD Sept 2 - Linux and HDTV
