From alsa-devel-owner@alsa.jcu.cz  Mon Mar  1 22:50:35 1999
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Date: Mon, 1 Mar 1999 16:49:43 -0500
From: Arvind Sankar <arvinds@mit.edu>
To: Kevin Duffey <kduffey@inprise.com>, alsa-devel@alsa.jcu.cz
Subject: Re: (SB Live) Free drivers or not? (fwd)
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In-Reply-To: <3.0.32.19990301130329.00969bb0@mail.inprise.com>; from Kevin Duffey on Mon, Mar 01, 1999 at 01:03:29PM -0800
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On Mon, Mar 01, 1999 at 01:03:29PM -0800, Kevin Duffey wrote:
> 
> >greatest, but if you are worried that much about compatability, you
> >probably aren't worried about the latest and greatest.  Btw, are you
> >familiar with the library versioning scheme and how that relates to ld?
> 
> Ahh..interesting. Ok..so from what you said, if I write a program using
> glibc (I guess thats libc6 right?), then as newer glibc modules come out,

right.

> my program will still work under them? What about libc5 apps..do they work

yes.

> under glibc? Or did they have to be recompiled? 

it depends on what you mean here. If you keep around your libc 5 libraries,
there is no problem. If you don't, you have to recompile.

> 
> Familiar..nope. Not at all. I am "still" trying to set up Linux the way I
> want it, which is the basic kernel stuff, XFree86, Enlightenment and GNome.
> I haven't a clue yet as to how to do all this. My idea of learning Linux..I
> decided I was going to install the minimum on my Redhat so as to get it up
> and running. Then, I would download the latest RELEASE version of each item
> I needed. I found out there are a LOT of dependencies using RPM and I am a
> little pissed on trying to use it. So..I decided I would download the
> .tar.gz source files of each product, figure out how to compile them and
> what dirs they go in, and work from there. Any pointers on this would be
> appreciated. :) If you want to take the topic of library versioning offline
> and send me a private email, I am more than grateful. kduffey@inprise.com
> if you do that.

If you're new, .tar.gz is going to be more difficult. What's the point, anyway?
a .tar.gz is useful if you want a version later than the rpm, but apparently
you don't, or if you want to compile with special flags etc, for which you
can download the src.rpm and edit the spec, or you want a package for which
there is no rpm. This last is the only case which might apply to you. The
dependencies are the same as with rpm, except that nobody has spelt them out
except in a README. Also, rpms will sometimes include a lot of bugfix
patches. .tar.gz will not. You have to look out for yourself.

> 
> >	OSS is a standard right now.  If you write for OSS, you are
> >basically guaranteed to work on almost all platforms, unless you do it
> >wrong.  Of course, if you do it wrong, you'll always be screwed, so that's
> >not saying much.
> 
> True. OSS means giving out the source right? GPL is part of OSS, or vice
> versa? As long as source is available, anyone can compile it for their
> version and tweak it if necessary. As Eric said, its more common that when
> someone tweaks it in some way, they let me know about the change..etc
> right? So I could somehow incorporate that into a new release or fix. Is
> that how it usually works?

Yes. But the previous poster meant oss as in the sound driver, not as in 
open source software, which can hardly be called a standard. It's a
philosophy, maybe.

> I AM A BELIEVER!!! :) Ok..thats what I wanted to know about. I guess the
> next thing to figure out is what is mature or not. I understand the OS and
> X are matrue. But that article Eric (or was it you) sent out about what
> Linus said with binaries only. Basically, what you are pointing out is that
> as long as I offer or give source code, other people, like yourself, could
> compile the source and tweak it if need be, to make it work. For the most
> part, if my app follows, say GNome (or just GTK+) then it should work fine
> for years to come even if GTK+ changes? But..thats assuming GTK+ is a
> mature product..which from the looks of it..it is VERY mature compared to
> anything MS has! :)

m. I don't think its all that mature. But you dont _have_ to live on the edge.
You can use an old version of gnome for a couple of years. cant hurt. At least
you have a choice.

> I hear of Wine. Looks promising. Let me ask this. If I were to run an
> "exact" program made specifically for Linux and X, compared to one targeted
> for Win95/NT. Lets assume it has the exact same functionality, but they are
> two different platforms. Would the X version run faster, better, and less
> prone to crashes? I have heard a number of people say X and Linux are MUCH
> faster (what percentage if known??) than Windows. 
> 
> A buddy of mine has Linux and X running on a 486 Dx4-100 laptop with 28MB
> ram and says while its a little slow loading X, it runs much faster than
> Win 3.1 did..much less win95. And..it requires less space. IS this all
> pretty much true?

Yes. On lower end machines, definitely. I'm not too sure about the latest
pentium III or whatever, though. Probably depends more on how the software
is written on each platform. X was developed to be a network protocol, so it
does some redundant stuff when you have a standalone workstation.

But then, it was developed at MIT, so of course it rules :)

-- arvind

