[wellylug] DSE & Linux

Ewen McNeill wellylug at ewen.mcneill.gen.nz
Tue Apr 20 22:03:50 NZST 2004


In message <4084D34E.5080707 at paradise.net.nz>, Vincent Cox writes:
>I agree, putting the penguin on the box can be a form of false 
>advertising.  I bought a Flyvideo 3000 Video capture/tv card which had
>a penguin on the box, it came with a disc with some kernel modules on 
>it.  No instructions on how to patch a kernel, and despite all my 
>efforts I could not get it going under 2.4 series kernel.  

I also have one of these cards from DSE, and it will work with a 2.4
kernel if you patch in v4l2 (which is built into Linux 2.6) and the
driver for the chipset (philips saa3174) -- both available from the
driver author's bytesex.org site.  It's working well for me on a patch
2.4.25 kernel, give or take reception issues with just rabbit ears,
and encoding speed issues (a Duron 700 is fairly strained for real time
encoding -- I can do about 17 fps rather than 25 fps, and have to turn
off some useful mencoder options to be able to keep up).

However that wasn't my point for posting.  

My point for posting was to mention that NZOSS has been trying to get a
"Linux Friendly" programme off the ground (for about a year), as a way
of certifying hardware which is easily used with Linux.  "Plug it in and
it goes" is pretty much the level they're aiming for.  It'd have a
different logo (not just a pengiun for Linux drivers, but something
indicating it's "Linux Friendly").

The major issue (at least when I was watching) was getting people to set
the standards (eg, must work out of the box with these distributions...)
and do the testing.  I'm sure they'd appreciate volunteers.

And FWIW, DSE were one of the main organisations pushing for such a
programme -- so they're aware of the issue.  There's enough warning
signs on the TV cards to indicate that while there is a Linux driver
available it's going to take some work.

Ewen

PS: Linux Friendly project: 
    http://www.nzoss.org.nz/portal/modules.php?name=Content&pa=showpage&pid=42




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