proof that Linux ***

[Zare]

Linux usually has better driver support than FreeBSD. But, let's face facts, not even Mac OS X has driver support to rival Windows

Drivers are nothing without hardware, and hardware is nothing without application software. You can do top grade multimedia production on both of them. You can't on Linux, and even less on FreeBSD.

If FreeBSD had support for just one professional audio interface, with just one DAW program comparable to Cubase, let's say, in ports, it would have means to do professional audio. So it's not a matter of how many drivers do you have, only thing it matters is what you can do with your operating system.

Frankly, a new game or two, and composing, is the only thing that keeps Windows installed on this computer. I could live without those games, but not the latter.

 

[kpedersen]

Driver support is a major issue for me too. The solution is to stop so many hardware manufacturers using so many different chipsets. It always astonishes me why manufacturers use completely closed undocumented chipsets rather than open ones which don't even need driver disks on windows.

Due to bad design and insanity, Windows Vista and above don't fully support my old GeForce 4600 graphics card, so in this case Linux (some, some not) / FreeBSD do provide better support.

 

[ian-nai]

D
If FreeBSD had support for just one professional audio interface, with just one DAW program comparable to Cubase, let's say, in ports, it would have means to do professional audio. So it's not a matter of how many drivers do you have, only thing it matters is what you can do with your operating system.

Hmm...audacity is in ports (though I haven't used it there). In no way am I claiming much audio experience, but that seems like a really capable audio program.

You make a great point, though.

 

[gkontos]

My understanding is when you use a compositing window manager, without a proper kernel support, you can't achieve that.

I am not sure what you mean. But for video playback I use VLC on my Macbook my FreeBSD desktop and my wifes Windows7 workstation with the same results. I do use the nvidia driver so yes in a way a kernel module is loaded but I think that this is OS irrelevant.

 

[gkontos]

Speaking of driver support...

There is a difference in the way UNIXes handle drivers from Windows. While drivers can load as modules most of them are build in the kernel at least critical ones. But even modules interact with the kernel in a total different manner. This can not happen with Windows or any other closed source OS for obvious reasons unless Microsoft decides to invest time and money. Manufactures have limited resources an API usually but they know that they have to release a driver if they want to sell their product. This often leads to poor software implementation.

With linux on the other hand there are tons of developers out there trying to bring the new drivers and most of the time they do an amazing job. It is not that rare to see a device working better on a linux box than on a windows box. But unfortunately this support has lead to a very heavy kernel.

Personally I prefer FreeBSD the way it is with a kernel its modules and a world. Having a kernel only OS is something that really doesn't inspire me.

 

[wokko]

Hey guys, if you want a good Linux Distro to put on a laptop try Sabayon (Gentoo base).

All my the laptops I've had Sabayon installed with out any problems and if there is , an update of the system fixes everything.

 

[UNIXgod]

Drivers are nothing without hardware, and hardware is nothing without application software. You can do top grade multimedia production on both of them. You can't on Linux, and even less on FreeBSD.

If FreeBSD had support for just one professional audio interface, with just one DAW program comparable to Cubase, let's say, in ports, it would have means to do professional audio. So it's not a matter of how many drivers do you have, only thing it matters is what you can do with your operating system.

Frankly, a new game or two, and composing, is the only thing that keeps Windows installed on this computer. I could live without those games, but not the latter.

There is funding being provided for dvr support and such apps to be supported better on FreeBSD according to the last status update I read. I agree a push for multi track recording on FreeBSD would be awesome. I know linux has support for rme and m-audio cards. I don't know the reality of how well it fares to doing the same thing on windows or even mac. Last time I worked on a daw was a 400mhz mac running OS7. FreeBSD was around 4.3 and real time software synthesisers where just hitting the dsp plugin market.

I had an opportunity to play with some sort of jack interface on my buddies debian setup years ago. I remember it was cool as you could "pipe" the output of one program into the other graphically. He also had this cool mastering utility called jammin. Without support for the prosumer audio cards though it doesn't matter how many audio ports we have since they will all be stuck for post production purposes anyway.

shifting gears I recently picked up a lenovo x220 which I know currently has no video support under X as it's sandy bridge. I understand there is work being done on this as I am not going to be the only person effected. Will I still be able to run X with vesa driver? If not I'll run some sort of linux distro on the interim and ssh for my FreeBSD needs. Also is there a site to follow the progress of the sandy bridge graphics driver development?

 

[Zare]

I remember it was cool as you could "pipe" the output of one program into the other graphically

That's the way I've been doing it with Steinberg ASIO for the last 6-7 years. Basically you have physical sound interface channels, and a number of virtual ASIO channels. Route physical input into one virtual channel, then all sorts of programs can hook themselves to that channel to process audio in real time, and at the end you route it to physical output.

I know linux has support for rme and m-audio cards. I don't know the reality of how well it fares to doing the same thing on windows or even mac

...and support for E-MU Systems. There are several capable programs for multitrack recording and MIDI sequencing, however there's a huge lack of professional effects. Just take a look how many guitar effect/rig simulators you have in form of VST, how many in LADSPA. Again, it's not the issue of quantity, it's the lack of a single professional effect that can do guitar modeling, for example.

Without support for the prosumer audio cards though it doesn't matter how many audio ports we have since they will all be stuck for post production purposes anyway

I wanted to port drivers from ALSA for my E-MU sound interface. It's basically snd_emu10k1 but it requires firmware injection before device can operate. First of all, FreeBSD can't assign "real-time" privileges to standard user processes, meaning Jack or any other audio router won't really operate in low/no latency mode. Second of all, godddamn Linux and their ways, 90% of their audio software depends on ALSA. Yes, there's Ardour and Rosegarden in ports, just go and see what versions.

Will I still be able to run X with vesa driver?

It should run ok, if your panel has a native resolution supported by VESA standard.

 

[ahavatar]

I am not sure what you mean. But for video playback I use VLC on my Macbook my FreeBSD desktop and my wifes Windows7 workstation with the same results. I do use the nvidia driver so yes in a way a kernel module is loaded but I think that this is OS irrelevant.

For example, if you run Compiz and rotate the cube while playing a video. Is the video synced and flicker free? Stuff like this needs a kernel support and the recent Linux kernel started to support this. I don't know about Nvidia's closed binary driver, though.

 

[Zare]

I'm not sure why would I "rotate" a video in virtual 3D space on physical 2D medium. But I'm fascinated that someone is actually wasting expensive manpower on that pathetic eye-candy.

 

[ahavatar]

I'm not sure why would I "rotate" a video in virtual 3D space on physical 2D medium. But I'm fascinated that someone is actually wasting expensive manpower on that pathetic eye-candy.

I guess that you don't need that, but that does not mean others don't need it. For example, if someone does some 3D CAD works, having synced, flicker free 3D images and videos is definitely a plus.

 

[kpedersen]

I guess that you don't need that, but that does not mean others don't need it.

An issue arises in that people with fast desktop machines can still use the desktop without the 3D effects, however those who do not have fast machines *cannot* use the desktop at all if it has 3D effects.
If desktop environments impose these effects on the user (like almost all desktop environments are doing (windows and OSX included)) then it is effectively like not even having those environments available to us at all. Which is obviously a massive regression from like 5 years ago before all this nonsense started.

I think eyecandy is a virus that needs to be destroyed. Not to mention that it looks childish. Though perhaps this is due to the younger generation starting to take over lol

(central package repositories and online activation which are similarly stupid should also be destroyed).

 

[da1]

I'm not sure why would I "rotate" a video in virtual 3D space on physical 2D medium. But I'm fascinated that someone is actually wasting expensive manpower on that pathetic eye-candy.

That pathetic eye-candy is one of the main reasons why people are attracted to Linux. Rotating the cube while playing a movies proves that Linux can better make use of resources than Windows (another reason why people are attracted to it).

For those of us that do not use a X, it doesn't make much sense, but have in mind that 90% of the Linux community has a Windows background. I myself have started with Windows, went through Linux (several distro's) and ended up at FreeBSD and what attracted me the most, was compiz. The fact that I ended up with FreeBSD is a personal choice but I do not thik that more than 10% of the Linux users migrate to FreeBSD, the way I did.

Simply said, marketing helps

 

[adamk]

One of the things to bear in mind about kernel modesetting is that it's about much more than pathetic eye-candy... For example, Xorg provides no method for sync'ing to vblank normal 2D operations, making it impossible to get a truly tear free environment for any window, much less videos. Perhaps this is not a big deal for some, but it certainly is for others. Wayland should solve this problem, but requires KMS support in the open source drivers. How about effectively using all the memory on your GPU? That requires a memory manager, one of the features of KMS.

Of course, the Xorg developers don't want to do double the work, adding new features (and new hardware support) to KMS drivers and UMS drivers, so now we have a situation where the latest intel and radeon GPUs won't work with acceleration (or HD modes) in FreeBSD.

FreeBSD is currently trying to play catch-up when it comes to KMS (and only for Intel GPUs) while falling further and further behind, unfortunately.

 

[roddierod]

For example, Xorg provides no method for sync'ing to vblank normal 2D operations, making it impossible to get a truly tear free environment for any window, much less videos.

The Nvidia driver has an option for this. Quite frankly, I really have no idea what this vblanking and tear free environment means as I'm not into graphics that much. But I have enabled and disabled this option and really have noticed no difference either way. How would I test this to see if it actually works?

 

[adamk]

They actually have an option for this for 2D? Because every time I've heard the subject of 2D tearing brought up on the nvnews forum, the response from nvidia developers has been that it's not possible without compositing.

I can easily see tearing over here. I'm not sure if there's a way, other than by looking for tearing, to see if that option is doing anything.

Adam

 

[roddierod]

There is a option using the nvidia-setting program for sync'ing to vblank. I forget what section it is in off hand...not at my FreeBSD machine to check.

 

[adamk]

Right, that's going to be for 3D acceleration. You can test it by checking the output of 'glxgears' and seeing if it's the same as your monitors refresh rate.

Adam

 

[ahavatar]

I think eyecandy is a virus that needs to be destroyed. Not to mention that it looks childish. Though perhaps this is due to the younger generation starting to take over lol

Well, maybe I should have offered a better example than an eye candy like rotating a 3D cube while playing a video. I chose it because it was an easy example to make others understood.

The real issue is when you mix 2D and 3D on the same desktop, without proper kernel support, it can't be cohesive, synced and flicker free. It has nothing to do with the performance of the machine. And some people need to display 2D and 3D on the same desktop not for an eye candy but for a real work.

 

[kpedersen]

Indeed, getting 2D and 3D on the desktop flicker free is very important. I see it as a benefit having modifications in the kernel to improve this.
3D Modelling and stuff works great on FreeBSD, so keeping up to date with that sounds like a good plan.

However, having great 3D support on FreeBSD (as with any OS) runs the risk that people will use it for the hell of it, such as eye candy etc... Which is absurd.

Kinda like using a server as a foot stool... Sure you *could* but it isn't an ideal use of a server

 

[adamk]

There's actually quite a bit of useful functionality in what people seem to call "eye-candy". True transparency (being able to see behind a window without having to move it), zooming in on the entire desktop or magifying a portion of it, updated live thumbnails of windows, etc.

Adam

 

[kpedersen]

There's actually quite a bit of useful functionality in what people seem to call "eye-candy".
Adam

I think it is this argument that is winning out and causing Desktop Environments to get slooower and slooooooower.

Sure you can see what is behind a window because it is transparent... Good thing too because if you tried to actually move that window out the way you will probably overcook your CPU lol.

Was using Microsoft paint a few days back on Windows 7.. Even with all the eyecandy features and supposed functionality, I decided it was easier to boot up a windows 2000 VM and use an altogether much better older version of MS Paint. If this isn't a classic case of usibility regression... what is?

 

[vertexSymphony]

There's actually quite a bit of useful functionality in what people seem to call "eye-candy". True transparency (being able to see behind a window without having to move it), zooming in on the entire desktop or magifying a portion of it, updated live thumbnails of windows, etc.

Adam

Taking the load off the CPU for interface drawing is another win, also when it comes to video playing, or ... what about just doing some graphical computation ? (there is a very interesting academic background in this, not just "bling bling in my desktop" )

There are a lot of wins in having a proper (forget about eye-candy, that's just a side-effect and natural consequence of having things working), or at least minimal graphical support, but ... I see some people that tends to act with disdain when FreeBSD lacks in one area (and usually takes the question to another topics).

At the moment it's possible just with nvidia blob (btw, the version in ports it's a little outdated), not having opencl and cuda (just vía linux compat layer, stuff that saved me from linux/windows)

FreeBSD is just A-WE-SOME, but it kinda lacks in this department.

Alex.

 

[Crivens]

Soemhow I feel like piping in and doing some rant work also.

Some weeks ago, the laptop of my wife went connectors-up and was replaced by my old one. Simple transplantation of the disc and the ubuntu worked after setting up the new network interface. Some issues remain, which are that the system will still not boot when a DVD is in the drive (errors from the ata driver for the HD) and playing any DVD leads to a deadlock sooner than later.
Ok, so I was slapping in a new HD and tried Fedora F14 out, only that one will also deadlock during install. Ubuntu also shows this, and I am under the impression that it has something to do with GEM/KMS being now part of the kernel and not liking the R200 based graphics of both hardwares.

8.0 and 8.2 installed fine with no suprises. Ok, one suprise. You can install all of the DE of choice and then realize that you also have to install xorg to actually be able to use them :stud

So now checking if the account will be usable as before and if all linux software has a counterpart, connecting to the university VPN being one of the more important ones.

 

[B0o-supermario]

No match for BSD+fluxbox/twm