Date: Sun, 7 Nov 2004 08:47:18 +0000
From: barnacle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: Re: [LIB] echo indigo

On Saturday 06 November 2004 09:07, you wrote:
> Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 01:07:05 -0800 (PST)
> From: Matt Hanson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Subject: Re: [LIB] echo indigo
>
> --- Stefan Katletz <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > my 50ct is mostly running linux (debian sarge,
> > though there is still a
> > win98se installation lying around). I don't use X
> > for mp3 playing, just
> > text console and mp3blaster. But that takes most of
> > the resources, doing
> > anything else creates clicks/white noise (even
> > though I overclocked it
> > to 100MHz).
>
> That was my experience with Linux... tho' Neil did get
> Mandrake set up on my 50 so that I could play MP3s in
> the iceman X shell relatively well.  iceman probably
> drew as few resources as I'd guess an X shell can
> manage.  But the Windows virtual memory managment in
> Win98 on the 50 did a better job.  Still it was only
> incrementally better.  I could really only multitask
> with simple programs like Notepad and Wordpad without
> the MP3 playback dropping out.

Yup, if you try something that needs a lot of processor time then something 
else is going to suffer. Windows *is not* a real-time operating system (nor 
linux) and without that guaranteed processing timeslice (and response time) 
it's always going to be non-stochastic. This 600MHz Portege doesn't even show 
the processor time on its display for an ogg playback, but every once in a 
while I'll start too many applications and it will run out of memory and have 
to do a swap to disk - pause - continue.
>
> > >digital music does not sound that good no matter
> > >how you play it back.
> >
> > I can't complain about the quality, if you don't use
> > the internal  speaker :-).
>
> I think John is referring to the old school audiophile
> beef with digital\CD\semiconductor audio playback vs.
> analog\vinyl\tube based audio.  Right John, or not?

That would be the old linear conversion/uncompressed storage/linear amplifier 
vs. no conversion/frequency compressed/second harmonic distortion beef, no?
<grin> must not go there...

On the lib's built in sound cards, I find that the DAC/output amps are not 
brilliant and in particular can't easily cope with large swings rail to rail; 
they can't manage the slew rate. Keep the volume down, and preferably don't 
get onto bit 15, and the noise floor is still around -60dB if you amplify 
externally.

> I'd be really interested in hearing whether or not
> Linux on any of the Libs could power both WINE and
> Foobar2000.

Don't go there... you're running an emulation on top of an operating system 
already established as slower in some respects...

Neil



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