Re: [Cooker] Mandrake 9.1 Should be Delayed

[George Mitchell]

Buchan Milne wrote:

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1
George Mitchell wrote:
 

Buchan Milne wrote:

   

 

Ah, so this is a proprietary technology using non-free 'soundfonts'.
What happened to the old synthesizer OPL3 method used back in the 7.1
days?
   

Well, you are always free to develop free sound fonts (there are free
tools out there to do this), just as we need to develop more realy good
screen fonts.
 

That was totally free and worked without a hitch.  When the 2.4
kernel came along, it went away.
   

I am sure you can still do it, if you swap to oss and use the emu10k1
tools, but AFAIK the sound-font method produces much better quality.
 

And now the only posts so far
confirming /dev/sequencer allude to a proprietary thing from Creative.
   

And what proprietary software would that be (besides the sound fonts).

 

Sounds to me like we are going backward.  Does anyone else out there
have a totally free solution for /dev/sequencer or has that been taken
away from us?
   

Search for free (speech) sound fonts. In the meantime, use the ones that
come on your windows driver CD.
Of course, if you are to continue your crusade for replacing this sort
of thing with free software, please start reverse-engineering firmware
(ie the software for another device) for things like USB scanners etc.
The only difference between them and (say) your BIOS, or firmware for
CD-Writers etc is the fact that they are uploaded into volatile (instead
of flashable) memory. So, please replace your BIOS with an open-source
one first ... (since that is one your computer, not on a peripheral
device, hence restricts your freedom more than your sound card).
Buchan

- --
|--------------Another happy Mandrake Club member--------------|
Buchan Milne                Mechanical Engineer, Network Manager
Cellphone * Work            +27 82 472 2231 * +27 21 8828820x121
Stellenbosch Automotive Engineering         http://www.cae.co.za
GPG Key                   http://ranger.dnsalias.com/bgmilne.asc
1024D/60D204A7 2919 E232 5610 A038 87B1 72D6 AC92 BA50 60D2 04A7
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)
Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
iD8DBQE+bOdGrJK6UGDSBKcRAlOEAKCPrXt6G1sBSiRtaCIjkSI0uuq9LQCfZ+V0
V7JwDd+pPLBn0hWgERxjMTc=
=7hqV
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----


 

I have nothing against proprietary software in general or soundfonts in 
particular.  I only find it odd that cards that provide /dev/sequencer 
support under free software should see that support discontinued when 
the source is freely available.  So now the question becomes 'Does 
anybody out there have /dev/sequencer support without having to use 
soundfonts?'