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Re: RE: Xi Graphics avail in India ??



On Tue, 1 Jun 1999, Rajesh wrote:

> By the way you have given a detailed account of How SiS6215 and Yamaha
> Sound Card are bad. You further say that they do not work properly under windows.
> But I am completly against you view. 

You are, of course, entitled to your own opinion, just as I am to mine.

> I purchased my PC 1-1/2 years back. It is a Zenith one up PC - 166MHZ and it came
> with SiS6215 and Yamaha Sound Card. Till now under Windows I never faced any 
> problems due to these two cards.
> 
> I have installed Red Hat Linux 5.2 from March PCQ 2 months back on my new
> Seagate 6.4 GB HDD. With the help of all the friends at Linux-India Mailing list I have 
> been able to successfully configure both the display and sound card and now everthing
> works smoothly.

If you carefully *read* my note again, you will miraculously discover that
I actually addressed this issue. Both the SiS6215 and the cheaper Yamaha
cards come in an infinite variety of flavours, as I discovered after
*lots* of research. 

You will probably find it surprising to know that right here on my desk I
have a SiS6215 card that will *not*, under *any* circumstances, work with
Xfree86. And don't forget that I *do* know how to make XFree86 work with
such a card. The point is that that there are minute differences -
probably at chip level (in Taiwan and China they do not have so stringent
name-component rules as in the USA or Europe) that stop the card in its
tracks. 

Another prime example on my shelf is a Yamaha card (one of 7 pieces) that
not only does not work under Linux, but doesn't work properly under
Windows 98 even if the supplied drivers are installed - Wave sound keeps
dying, and the card goes ito loops quite often. Amazingly, the card *does*
work under Windows 95 (but not OSR 2!). 

> Before writing such things you should consider that there are may people who have got 
> both these cards on their PC. And people like me have not purchased those cards separatly
> because they are Cheap. They have come along with the PC.

Before making the move of dressing me down in public, I'd suggest that you
*read* what I had written. 

The point is that customers can (and should!) dictate what equipment they
get when they buy a machine. If they know up front that some particular
equipment is likely to cause them grief, then they can tell the vendor not
to supply that, but something that costs the same *but WORKS*.

People spend a lot of money on computers. People also spend a lot of money
buying vegetables. But do they buy veggies eyes shut? Nope - they pick out
the bad stuff and refuse to accept it. So why is it that they buy computer
equipment without checking with anyone about what they are getting?

My suggestion (which continues to stand) is to put up a list of known
troublemaker equipment so that buyers can specifically tell their vendors
that they do *not* want any of that equipment in their new machines.

To prove my point about the SiS6215, I invite you to check around - which
display card has caused the most problems for people installing Linux -
anywhere in India? Ask PCQ, and in a few weeks from now, ask CHIP. Hell -
ask the RedHat/Debian/SuSE/Caldera/etc. people! Also feel free to ask what
sound cards they had the most problems with.

What the heck - ask yourself! Did you manage to install the cards without
assistance easily and quickly? Are you happy with the display/sound you
get? Wouldn't you have been happier had they been autodetected like the
cheap G100/S3/Cirrus cards are? Where you get better resolution, higher
refresh rates and troublefree operation? How about wavetable sound from
your sound card? Did you get X11AMP running first shot without thinking
about it? Did 16-bit sound work for you out of the box? Or did you have to
ask for help?

Come on Rajesh - I read this list as much as you do - we have all seen the
endless queries about non-configurable SiS6215 and Yamaha cards, so why
choose to pick on me when I suggest that we help people avoid that agony?

Atul



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