[fdo] Linux with Graphics and Sound

[Brenda Ellen Make]

Hello Linus Torvalds, Paul Davis,

The state of most desktop and office applications under Linux seem quite 
healthy. People are working hard making the Linux desktop work. Yet, I 
am very sorry, but I cannot describe the deployment and maintaince of 3D 
graphics and sound API's as well as drivers as anything other than woeful.

My hope is an enviroment where both open-source and commcial audio 
applications, 3D graphic applications and 3D games can all flurish.

The Linux kernal is often updated and patched for security reasons. The 
maintainence demands of reconfiguring, recompiling the kernel for sound, 
and then continually installing kernel modules for video are becoming 
too high for the average user.

/[From a layperson's view, when the introduction of 2.6 broke kernel 
broke NTFS support, Nvidia 3D Gaphics as well the music and sound 
programs supported by Jack. It was a good day for Microsoft.]/

We need both graphics and sound. We need the same kernal to be flexible 
to do more than one thing at a time. If the kernal needs tweaking for 
graphic or sound power users as opposed to smooth web server and 
database response, we need to move those setting to external init file. 
As a Linux desktop user, I need a compromise that will let me do our 
daily computing chores like surfing the web, make a logo in Blender, and 
do some home audio recording.

/Are not computers supposed to be universal and adapable?
//If the Mac OSX kernal can do audio out of the box, well so can Linux, 
is this correct?/

I would like to see a specfication/certification created for the Linux 
desktop distributions where both X11 and OpenGL graphic acceleration, 
and both ALSA and Jack are all standard. Call it /Linux GS/, or anything 
you like. Freedesktop.org is working to get X11, Gnome, and KDE and 
others on the same page, perhaps the can be done for Alsa, Jack and OpenGL.

I believe more can be done distrobution wise. There are only a few GPU 
manufactures remaining, so why couldn't full OpenGL drivers be included 
with distrobutions?

I would like to see one place to put software. Fedora/Redhat and 
Mandrake are working on common RPMs. I hope they suceed.
    [My usr folder is riddled with different directory systems and 
schemes for installing software.]

The aim of my word was provocative, not insulting. Thank you for all you 
have done,
  Brenda Make

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