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Date:      Fri, 21 Jul 2006 19:13:07 +0200 (CEST)
From:      Oliver Fromme <olli@lurza.secnetix.de>
To:        freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: Improving FreeBSD's hardware compatibility
Message-ID:  <200607211713.k6LHD78t043628@lurza.secnetix.de>
In-Reply-To: <1153446852.80350@origin.intron.ac>

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Intron wrote:
 > Oliver Fromme wrote:
 > > Intron wrote:
 > > > Peter Jeremy wrote:
 > > > > Getting action from vendors has been unsuccessful in the past - the
 > > > > Free OS community (Linux + *BSD) is too small for vendors to be
 > > > > concerned about.
 > > > 
 > > > I cannot agree with you. Linux has achieved much more support from
 > > > hardware vendors than FreeBSD.
 > > 
 > > Interestingly, when I looked for a new laptop last year,
 > > it turned out that the number of laptops that ran FreeBSD
 > > was greater than those that ran Linux.  (I finally chose
 > > a Samsung X20-XVM 1600-V, which works perfectly fine for
 > > me except for the built-in winmodem [which I don't need
 > > anyway].  A Linux live CD didn't even boot on it.)
 > 
 > Have a look at http://linmodems.org/ before your assertion.

How useful is a Linux driver for the modem if Linux does
not even _boot_ on your machine?  And as I wrote, I don't
even need the modem, because I've got Ethernet and WLAN.

 > How many modems listed on that website are support by FreeBSD?

I have no idea (there are a few ports [e.g. ltmdm] which
support a few).  It's pretty much irrelevant.

 > > > You may look in Linux source code.
 > > > In linux-2.6.x/drivers/, there are so many hardware drivers.
 > > 
 > > Yeah, most of which are crap.  :-)   The raw number of
 > > drivers says _nothing_ about hardware vendors' support.
 > 
 > This is a problem of code quality.
 > But at least Linux community has so many volunteers/vendors to write
 > drivers.

Yes, which is the cause of the code quality problem.

Intron wrote:
 > I would write USB stack in C++

The existing USB stack is already quite heavy-weight and
inefficient.  There's no reason to make it even worse.

 > But on freebsd-hackers@, this idea encountered strong objection.

If you look at the archives, you'll notice that you're not
the first one suggesting to write (parts of) the kernel in
C++.  The reaction was always the same.

 > Do you believe that current Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP can process
 > analog TV in full frame size and full frame rate (no larger than 767x575,
 > 25 FPS, either of NTSC/PAL/SECAM) freely?

My 7-years old Pentium-II can do that.

 > Do you really believe that current Intel Pentium 4 or AMD Athlon XP
 > can process much higher bitstream HDTV?

Yes, that's certainly possible.  Maybe not if you write it
in C++, though.  :-)  *duck*

Best regards
   Oliver

-- 
Oliver Fromme,  secnetix GmbH & Co. KG, Marktplatz 29, 85567 Grafing
Dienstleistungen mit Schwerpunkt FreeBSD: http://www.secnetix.de/bsd
Any opinions expressed in this message may be personal to the author
and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of secnetix in any way.

"I have stopped reading Stephen King novels.
Now I just read C code instead."
        -- Richard A. O'Keefe



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