[ILUG] OT: PCI TV tuner card for 50 bills

[Rick Moen]

Quoting Justin Mason (jm at jmason.org):
> Rick Moen writes:

> >Yes, the Pentium-M CPU part of the Centrino boards is great.
> >
> >The trick to appreciating them is the same as with motherboards
> >containing winmodem circuitry:  Pretend as if the underdesigned and
> >problematic part of the chipset just isn't there.  In this case, that
> >would be the software-dependent (winmodem-like) wireless ethernet
> >portion of the motherboard, which, as they say, sux0rz.
> 
> FWIW, the madwifi drivers are working very nicely on my brand new
> Thinkpad T40 ;).  I haven't plugged in my ethernet cable once
> since I installed it last week.
> 
> (kernel 2.6.3 fwiw.)

Personally, I simply wouldn't.  Off the top of my head, you have the
following long-term problems:

o  The kernel developers will ignore anything you say, because:
o  You're running unknown but highly intrusive and active code right 
   in ring zero (kernelspace) to emulate missing wireless firmware 
   and other hardware functionality.
o  Which should concern you, not so much on account of performance,
   but because mysterious and _unfixable_ problems may crop up at
   any time, including:
o  Future unmaintainability of your hardware support (for lack of the
   legal right to maintain key code, not to mention access to it).

I imagine you already knew that, but it doesn't hurt to mention such
things occasionally.  So, if I were in your shoes, I'd consider the full 
cost of the laptop to include the additional cost of a nice little prism
or orinoco card.

I'm actually considering adding a new essay to the Rants section of my
personal Web pages, tentative title "Your Hardware Sucks", explaining
for the benefit of people new to this game just how badly they lose by
insisting on using manufacturer drivers for proprietary fake-hardware
IDE RAID, madwifi drivers for Atheros wireless cards, manufacturer
drivers for gamer 3D video cards, manufacturer drivers for cruddy inkjet
printers, etc.  Not to mention winmodem sludge sold to the vast numbers
of people who don't know better.

My sense is that we as a community have suffered a significant clue
drain about that general topic, caused mainly by the loudmouth squadron
of Windows gamers who descended on us a couple of years ago, and can't
ever seem to shut up about their allegedly overwhelming and vital need
for high Quake2 frame rates.  So, it's time to clear the air.

-- 
Cheers,        "Linux means never having to delete your love mail."
Rick Moen                                              -- Don Marti
rick at linuxmafia.com