Comments on: Personal Philosophy Problems http://pthree.org/2006/10/04/personal-philosophy-problems/ Linux. GNU. Freedom. Tue, 02 Dec 2008 15:28:23 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7-RC1 hourly 1 By: Steve Dibb http://pthree.org/2006/10/04/personal-philosophy-problems/#comment-9053 Steve Dibb Thu, 05 Oct 2006 14:28:53 +0000 http://www.pthree.org/2006/10/04/personal-philosophy-problems/#comment-9053 I'm somewhere between two and three, but I always lean towards practicality when necessary. At work, I use the free Xorg nvidia drivers (nv) which work just great for everything I need to do. I can still watch movies too, but if I do anything other than bzflag I'm screwballed. So, at home I use the proprietary nvidia modules. Even when it comes to the proprietary drivers on Linux, I still think it boils down to two distinctions: Those that are releasing them upstream and those that are hacks that are binary wrappers around a windows device. I absolutely *hate* the binary wrappers around windows drivers. They are always buggy, there's nothing you can do generally, and you're really stuck. The ones released from upstream though, I'm actually okay with, and they listen to feedback and release stuff on a regular basis, so I'm happy. I wish they would fully open their specs, but I realize from a practical standpoint they can't do that either. Anyway, that's it for drivers. For other software, I only run games. Even then, only games that have been ported to Linux again by upstream (Unreal Tournament, Neverwinter Nights, etc). Sure I could run wine, but why bother when its such a hassle? I have a windows box that I use *just* for gaming. So, I guess my take is a bit different -- I'm not totally fine with proprietary software on my linux install, but if upstream releases it then it smoothes me over quite a bit. Of course one thing I forgot about is the whole win32codecs thing, and flash. I could live definately live without flash, I think. I rarely use the win32codecs much more (though I wouldnt notice anyway, since they play fine in my 64-bit browser). That's just one of those necessary evils. Fortunately WMV9 support is getting added into ffmpeg so that's one less huge binary blob to depend on. And then Real already releases a semi-open source version of RealPlayer (Helix Player) for Linux which is very nice of them, which leaves QuickTime (Apple, natch) which we'll never see because Apple and OSS ... well, don't get me started on their lip service. I’m somewhere between two and three, but I always lean towards practicality when necessary. At work, I use the free Xorg nvidia drivers (nv) which work just great for everything I need to do. I can still watch movies too, but if I do anything other than bzflag I’m screwballed. So, at home I use the proprietary nvidia modules.

Even when it comes to the proprietary drivers on Linux, I still think it boils down to two distinctions: Those that are releasing them upstream and those that are hacks that are binary wrappers around a windows device. I absolutely *hate* the binary wrappers around windows drivers. They are always buggy, there’s nothing you can do generally, and you’re really stuck.

The ones released from upstream though, I’m actually okay with, and they listen to feedback and release stuff on a regular basis, so I’m happy. I wish they would fully open their specs, but I realize from a practical standpoint they can’t do that either.

Anyway, that’s it for drivers. For other software, I only run games. Even then, only games that have been ported to Linux again by upstream (Unreal Tournament, Neverwinter Nights, etc). Sure I could run wine, but why bother when its such a hassle? I have a windows box that I use *just* for gaming.

So, I guess my take is a bit different — I’m not totally fine with proprietary software on my linux install, but if upstream releases it then it smoothes me over quite a bit.

Of course one thing I forgot about is the whole win32codecs thing, and flash. I could live definately live without flash, I think. I rarely use the win32codecs much more (though I wouldnt notice anyway, since they play fine in my 64-bit browser). That’s just one of those necessary evils. Fortunately WMV9 support is getting added into ffmpeg so that’s one less huge binary blob to depend on. And then Real already releases a semi-open source version of RealPlayer (Helix Player) for Linux which is very nice of them, which leaves QuickTime (Apple, natch) which we’ll never see because Apple and OSS … well, don’t get me started on their lip service.

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