Little Linux Systems For Whatever Ails Ya

An Anonymous Coward writes: "Looking for small pre-built systems for custom Linux-based projects or products? Look no further. LinuxDevices.com has assembled a handy reference list of small systems that can serve as ready-made platforms for prototyping applications, or as the basis of application-specific Linux-based systems and devices. The style, performance, and costs of these systems vary greatly."

Comments

ARGH!!!! 3D + TV-Out: Impossible under Linux?

[Spoing]

No small appliances include 3D hardware, good sound, and TV-out. Because of that, setting up a multimedia device requires adding additional cards. For sound, there are many choices. For video, there are no choices that are compatable with Linux and support both;

1. I. 3D (good, current-generation)
2. 
   

   II. TV-out (RCA and/or S-video)

That's why you see tech sites talking about how to make your own TIVO-style device, or how to make a traveling MP3 jukebox, but none that mention 3D games. Only Nokia's planned Media Terminal is supposed to have both, and adding a VGA-to-RCA converter isn't cheap.

Think that Nvidia, ATI, or Matrox have this fixed? Nope.

At first glance, most of the /. minions out there will probably say "big deal". Well, smarty pants, I dare you. I dare all of you all. Find such a card. After much searching, it turns out that you can have either 3D or TV-out, but not both.

Any GeForce, Radeon, or G400 can pump out great 3D. Some -- but not all -- can be tweaked to output video to a standard TV using the Linux frame buffer...but in the process, you loose all 3D hardware acceleration.

Yow. Scratch 3D.

Enable 3D, and the TV-out ports aren't supported.

As for projects that are actively attempting to address the TV-out problem, they do exist. Sourceforge hosts a few, and Freshmeat has pointers to a few more. None have it licked, though. Most TV-out ports have some propriatory muck that makes supporting them difficult at best. If we're lucky, one of these companies will release a Macrovision-encrusted, binary-only, x86, version sometime in the next couple years.

How depressing...what was the story about the Zerox printer driver? How is it that 20+ years later, something so trivial is still a sticking point.