On Sun, 2006-01-01 at 18:03 -0800, Noah Roberts wrote: > On 1/1/06, Lee Revell <rlrevell@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On Sun, 2006-01-01 at 17:06 -0800, Noah Roberts wrote: > > > the new ones had a different "Conexant" chipset that didn't have any > > > viable Linux drivers - all alpha mode... > > > > It's also difficult to say what constitutes a "viable driver". Most > > people consider that a driver is viable if it supports the basic > > functions of the device, like playing audio, sending/receiving packets > > or displaying images on the screen. Then you have a shrill minority who > > consider a driver non-viable, broken or useless if it doesn't support > > EVERY single little feature of the hardware or do everything the Windows > > driver does. > > > > I guess my point is YMMV as always ;-) > > My definition of non-viable is crashes a lot, doesn't work at all (as > in this case), or is missing key features, and in the case above it > was two weeks of waiting before I could even get video w/o audio from > that card. I did some modifications myself to make it even get video > from the composite input. It probably works now...I put the thing up > and its been gathering dust for about a year or more. > Yeah that's a key thing to watch out for with Linux drivers: never assume that a device is supported because the previous generation of that device was supported - you have to match the model numbers carefully. There's no substitute for a first person account that the device works. Lately I've even heard that some wireless vendors will change the chipset in a way that breaks the old driver without changing the model number at all. Lee
