[Tfug] BSD flavors

[Neil Short]

--- Matthew Patenaude <mnglfiddle at gmail.com> wrote:

> I know some of you out there use FreeBSD and what
> not. I was wondering how
> it does with hardware recognition. 

It does pretty well; but there is a difference that
you will notice here. The BSDs are actually more
devoted to  "open source" than are the distros.
Commercial product manufacturers have taken to writing
their drivers and closed-sourcing them; but making
them available for distribution with open source OSen
like Linux. They write the drivers and provide an API
that can be used by driver writers.... with the
stipulation that the pre-compiled blob of closed
source driver-software is circulated and what actually
runs the device.

So, NVidia, for example, might manufacture a network
interface card and provide a precompiled blob of
driver software that can be plopped into some Linux
wrapper and will run the device.

Linux distributors don't seem to mind doing this kind
of driver writing; so Linux - at least for that reason
- will have earlier support for the device. FreeBSD
will generally be close behind with this sort of
driver; but OpenBSD will refuse to use the blob and
will hack a fresh from-scratch open source driver for
the device. Therefore, OpenBSD will probably be last
with support of the device - but OpenBSD's will be
cleaner, smaller, faster and less buggy -- depending
on the hardware. What happens then is the other BSDs
adapt the OpenBSD driver - which may eventually
trickle back to Linux.

By the way, FreeBSD doesn't support Alsa. Every sound
device that runs on FreeBSD will run with its own
driver.

Generally, Alsa beats FreeBSD to supporting new sound
devices too.

I've had my laptop computer running FreeBSD for
probably a year now and only recently did I finally
have support for the on-board audio (Realtex 861)
which is supported by the new "high definition audio"
driver.

FreeBSD generally won't make decisions for the user
about what devices to fire up based on hardware. In
the  case of sound cards, you will need to follow the
instructions at

http://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/sound-setup.html

to even see if it will work on your box.

By the way, I just checked the snd_hda driver and it
looks like your ATI IXP 450 soundcard might be
supported. At least "ATI SB450" is supported; which
may be compatable.


http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/man.cgi?query=snd_hda&apropos=0&sektion=0&manpath=FreeBSD+7-current&format=html



======
Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and extol and honor the King of heaven, for all his works are truth, and his ways are justice; and he is able to bring low those who walk in pride.
Daniel 4:37


 
____________________________________________________________________________________
Finding fabulous fares is fun.  
Let Yahoo! FareChase search your favorite travel sites to find flight and hotel bargains.
http://farechase.yahoo.com/promo-generic-14795097