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Creative GPLs X-Fi Sound Card Driver Code
An anonymous reader writes "In a move that's a win for the free software community, Creative Labs has decided to release their binary Linux driver for the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi and X-Fi Titanium sound cards under the GPL license. This is coming after several failed attempts at delivering a working binary driver and years after these sound cards first hit the market."
Maybe I'm a tool for having one of these cards (Ok, probably I'm a tool), but the giant amount of bullshit I have to go through to get it working in Ubuntu is really the only remaining things keeping me from booting into it more than a couple times a week. With the free Codeweavers SW and this in the pipeline, I can't imagine a need to boot into Windows too often anymore.
Honestly, being a casual Linux user, sound card support is not the defining factor holding back Linux adoption. While Ubuntu goes a long way to improving the user experience with Linux, even to get it to a 'standard' setup, I needed to use the console no less than 5 times. That's *needed* to, there was no GUI way to do what I was trying to do. While I personally have no problem doing that, I shudder at the idea of talking someone like my father through it. The day that I can combine Linux stability with ease of use... that will be the year of the Linux desktop. Driver integration and support goes a long way to doing that, and a flushed out menu system will put it over the top.
The summary is misleading. TFA says that the source is available on their web site.
FWIW, you can't use the GPL if you don't make the source available.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
While Ubuntu goes a long way to improving the user experience with Linux, even to get it to a 'standard' setup, I needed to use the console no less than 5 times.
Which "standard" issues required the console, if I may be so bold to ask?
Don't tell me to get a life. I'm a gamer; I have LOTS of lives!
There was a story a while back about some company differentiating their normal and absurdly-expensive hardware pretty much entirely by having crippled drivers for the normal version. (the story was about them attacking some guy who published tweaks to make the drivers for the expensive version work on the normal version.) I think I recall that being the Creative X-Fi, if that's correct it could probably explain the closedness but not why they suddenly changed their minds.
Honestly, being a casual Linux user, sound card support is not the defining factor holding back Linux adoption. While Ubuntu goes a long way to improving the user experience with Linux, even to get it to a 'standard' setup, I needed to use the console no less than 5 times. That's *needed* to, there was no GUI way to do what I was trying to do.
While I personally have no problem doing that, I shudder at the idea of talking someone like my father through it. The day that I can combine Linux stability with ease of use... that will be the year of the Linux desktop. Driver integration and support goes a long way to doing that, and a flushed out menu system will put it over the top.
I have come to disbelieve in the mystical power of the GUI. The GUI does not solve all problems. It can not provide radio buttons and check-marks for every situation. And it does not invoke a state of bliss for helping the wayward neophyte in a state of confusion. I accept that some will see this as heresy.
Granted - I've long been a heretic. The command line is what ultimately turned me from Windows to Unix. But I understand that I am not a "normal user" and so I was willing to accept that GUIs are generally Good Ideas. And I still think they are; I used them in my Linux environment all the time for a lot of tasks. But there are times when it just doesn't work as well as a command line.
This isn't a Linux concept. Various proprietary Unix environments have long straddled the fence between GUI and command line. And that includes today's most celebrated consumer Unix environment: MacOS X. Even Microsoft has given the command line increasing attention. And that's not even covering such dark arts as registry hacking.
But wait! Most users never see a registry hack! Yet Linux must always resort to the command line. Right? Not in my experience.
It's probably due to my particular interests - but I've always found a reason to dig in to the guts of a system. Either I'm doing something unique for my own use, cleaning up after having broken something, or cleaning up after someone else having broken something. And that's always required a registry editor or a command line (and sometimes a command line even when a GUI option was available as I just found it easier). And when I'm not doing something too out-of-the-ordinary, I've found the base Unbuntu install gives me a perfectly suitable environment. The clicky-clicky magic is baked right in. Here. Today.
And when it doesn't? Its often a cruddy driver involved that trips up Ubuntu's autoconfig magic. That "driver integration" goes further than given credit for.
That doesn't mean "Linux" can't use improvement. There's plenty of room for it. Cruddy drivers included.
This is unrelated to the parent however.
My Mum used to do data entry on punch card terminals (or something like it), she would tell me about how in the day she wrote a program to add more then one zero when she pushed the zero key because she was lazy to press the key multiple times, however even with all this she still can barely use a modern GUI machine and she used to be scared of computers.
It puzzles me to this day that she could do these difficult things before but now she can barely operate a much easier PC.
Yes,what you said is true,but you miss a subtle but very important point. That is this: often the user doesn't HAVE to fix anything in Windows. Why? Because if there isn't a cousin,uncle,brother that "works on Windows" there is a guy down the street like me with a shop that'll be happy to take their money to just make it go. Folks get a Linux machine and it is just them,Google,and a big scary CLI. And they don't like that. So they run back to Windows.
Let me give an example: I got a neighbor down the hall that is a graphic designer and engineer. Damned smart,used to work at NASA in Houston on the shuttle mockups. But he comes and pays me to come over any time he has the slighest networking problem. I told him I would be happy to show him the basics so he wouldn't HAVE to call me when he had a problem. His answer? He looked at me like I was crazy and said "Why in the WORLD would I want to do that? I'm busy doing the stuff I enjoy,like helping the rocket club design and build new instruments and doing graphic art for clients. I HATE messing with all those Windows nuts and bolts. I'd much rather just pay you,who actually like to mess with that junk,than to take time out of my busy life to deal with something I hate. Life's too short for that."
Which is why ANY CLI at all is too much. The second someone like him(which I have found is the vast majority of my clients. The really DON'T want to know, just pay me and make it go away) ran into a problem that required CLI,and he couldn't find someone to do it,the Linux machine would be returned or sat out on the curb. Hell,I've found the vast majority of Windows users don't even know what CLI or regedit are. They call someone or drop it off somewhere and then the box just works again. And that is how they like it. So while the uber geeks may like CLI,as far as Windows goes I've found that even the power users don't like delving too deep into the guts. They'd just rather pay me and make it go away. And that of course is how I like it!
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.