Date: Mon, 14 Feb 2005 14:29:11 -0800 From: Rick Stevens <rstevens@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Subject: Re: What's a good video card? To: For users of Fedora Core releases <fedora-list@xxxxxxxxxx> Message-ID: <42112637.9050608@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii; format=flowed Aleksandar Milivojevic wrote: > Bruno Wolff III wrote: > >> For a lot of people, video cards will have improved enough in that time >> frame, that they will just buy a new card. > > > You mean for people that play games (mostly under Windows) and need to > buy latest and greatest every one or two years? For the rest of us, I > don't see any reason why we would fork $100 every couple of years for > new video cards, when the old ones work just fine (and more than fast > enough, thanks for asking). Then stop upgrading the kernel. M$ doesn't update their kernel as often as Linux does so ancient Windows drivers on old hardware stick around longer. I've even heard people buy new hardware, then whine because the maker doesn't provide a driver for Winblows 3.11! IMHO, Windows drivers have an artificially long lifespan due to M$ not fixing things that are known to be broken. Linux is more fluid because the kernel gang never stops tweaking things in an effort to make things better, faster, more reliable, etc., etc. If you don't like the lifespan, then freeze your kernel at some level where you know support exists for your hardware and get on with your life. I've had to freeze kernels because of some software issues with new kernels and because the apps couldn't be updated. Yes, those machines lag farther and farther behind, but they're stable and they work. Do I want to update them? You betcha! Can I? No. ------------------------------------------ This is very annoying. But, the general attitude among the developers is that old cards should be obsoleted because "nobody is using them anymore." This causes some unpleasant side effects such as thinking that non-working software is the cause of problems and not broken hardware. I fell for this trap, partially courtesy of this list. Somebody who probably did not know any better criticized me for using "antique" video cards, and that is why my X server was unstable. After going through about 7 video cards over several weeks of mind-numbing wasted install time, it finally dawned on me that this "antique" card crap was probably an uninformed pat answer. I reinstalled with RedHat 7.2 and duplicated the instability. Memtest worked great, so it was probably a failure in the video subsystem or bus. AGP and PCI cards both failed. I purchased a new motherboard, and the very first card (which had failed with the old system) worked just fine. So much for the obsolete driver theory. And as for freezing the kernel, this is also a pat answer, and a somewhat uninformed one at that. The USB support is horrible on RedHat 7.2. It works much better on Fedora Core 3. Sometimes you have to upgrade, but the pat answer is fine if you only surf web. __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Read only the mail you want - Yahoo! Mail SpamGuard. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail
