From owner-freebsd-multimedia@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Nov 28 01:29:22 2012 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [69.147.83.52]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 4FF6E1E7; Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:29:22 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from yuri@rawbw.com) Received: from shell0.rawbw.com (shell0.rawbw.com [198.144.192.45]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 05CE48FC0C; Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:29:22 +0000 (UTC) Received: from eagle.yuri.org (stunnel@localhost [127.0.0.1]) (authenticated bits=0) by shell0.rawbw.com (8.14.4/8.14.4) with ESMTP id qAS1TDOt059729; Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:29:16 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from yuri@rawbw.com) Message-ID: <50B568E7.5070305@rawbw.com> Date: Tue, 27 Nov 2012 17:29:11 -0800 From: Yuri User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; FreeBSD amd64; rv:17.0) Gecko/17.0 Thunderbird/17.0 MIME-Version: 1.0 To: VDR User Subject: Re: Support for "old" hardware (was:Re: kern/148741: [sound] Headphones are deaf (do not work) on Lenovo ThinkPad X300) References: <20121127231130.106340@gmx.com> In-Reply-To: Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Cc: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org, Alexander Motin , Dieter BSD X-BeenThere: freebsd-multimedia@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Multimedia discussions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 28 Nov 2012 01:29:22 -0000 On 11/27/2012 15:54, VDR User wrote: > You're being very dramatic and over-exaggerating. Also, Unix along > with all of its spawn has gone through significant change over the > years so if you're implying what people use today is the same thing > they were using in the 70's then that's being blatantly dishonest. > > Maybe in a perfect world all hardware would be supported forever. But > there comes a time when, for example, maintaining a driver becomes > counter-productive because there simply isn't enough of a user-base to > justify the resources spent doing so. Hardware evolves, software > evolves, computers evolve -- if you don't want to evolve with it then > continue to use the hardware & software from whatever era in computing > history of your choosing so long as you understand the burden of > supporting that stuff may ultimately rest on your shoulders. AC'97 is for ex. in Lenovo ThinkPad T60 that was still sold in 2007. It is entirely possible that the same chipset was used in later models and maybe is still in manufacturing. Quick search on http://www.bsdstats.org/bt/devices/class/04/subclass/01.html reveals that quite a few systems still use AC'97, particularly "82801AA 8xx Chipset AC'97 Audio Controller" is listed as used 631 times and in fact is the most frequently used particular type of the audio device listed on BSD stats website. I only wish more people shared their hardware with BSD stats. Also this T60 may be obsolete by the latest and greatest standards, but is still a very capable system, can easily run BSD or Linux and would be totally sufficient for someone who only needs to browse the web and check e-mail (read 95% of people). Yuri