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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.
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?
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.