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

[Liam Bedford]

Rick Moen wrote:

>
>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.
>  
>
damnit.. I though the madwifi drivers were proper open source drivers. 
Oh well, my decision
to get a prism GT card when I get round to it works out okay...

It's getting pretty hard to get a machine without needing proprietary 
drivers to enable full
functionality at this point:
radeon 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
nvidia (anything)
winmodems
wireless cards
proper chipset/processor speed stepping support etc (though at least 
most of those
are open, and you don't need the centrino binary only module).

>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.
>
>  
>
I'm not entirely sure that's all the truth. How do you deal with 
hardware/software like the madwifi
stuff which claims there's no FCC approval if they don't obfuscate some 
of the code?

I know Paul Jakma has been vociferous about non-free video drivers.. but 
I wonder how one is
supposed to act?

I have two options if I want to play Unreal Tournament 2004 on my laptop:
use proprietary drivers
use windows

(no, it wasn't available with a different video card hat would be 
supported).

It's easier to use Windows than install proprietary drivers (the ati 
fglrx drivers have horrible
configuration) in linux...

L.