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VIA EPIA EX15000G Mainboard anyone tried?
tzinternet:
This might be the wrong place to post this so please forgive me as it is my first post. I am looking at getting the above board and wanted to see if anyone has tried it with linuxmce? I want to make sure that it works before I purchase. I have some sneaky suspection it might be what is in the FIIRE system. I am trying to build a good system for around $500 bucks or less. I already have some Hard Drives.
For motherboard specs see:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/motherboards.jsp?motherboard_id=450
or system
http://e-itx.com/via-epia-ex-2677.html
totallymaxed:
--- Quote from: tzinternet on August 28, 2007, 05:09:06 am ---This might be the wrong place to post this so please forgive me as it is my first post. I am looking at getting the above board and wanted to see if anyone has tried it with linuxmce? I want to make sure that it works before I purchase. I have some sneaky suspection it might be what is in the FIIRE system. I am trying to build a good system for around $500 bucks or less. I already have some Hard Drives.
For motherboard specs see:
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/mainboards/motherboards.jsp?motherboard_id=450
or system
http://e-itx.com/via-epia-ex-2677.html
--- End quote ---
We have not tested that exact board but have tested many similar boards. But I cant see any reason why it would not be suitable if you use the Unichrome drivers from Via. But remember that Fiire have licensed the Unichrome Pro II drivers from Via and it is these drivers that enable there Via MD's to run UI2 in all its glory ;-). With the 'free' Unichrome drivers you will not currently be able to run UI2... but UI1 runs fine... and importantly the video playback performance will be excellent :-)
tzinternet:
FIIRE and the Unichrome II drivers...The problem I have with that is that once a company starts creating specific custom things that only belong to them they start becoming more like a Micro$oft and I start looking for something different. I think we need to look at why the LinuxMCE product was created in the first place and really try at keeping as much stuff as public as possible while still keeping EVERYONE's budget insync. This way the product progresses quite fast and everyone wants to use it because it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
totallymaxed:
--- Quote from: tzinternet on August 28, 2007, 04:08:21 pm ---FIIRE and the Unichrome II drivers...The problem I have with that is that once a company starts creating specific custom things that only belong to them they start becoming more like a Micro$oft and I start looking for something different. I think we need to look at why the LinuxMCE product was created in the first place and really try at keeping as much stuff as public as possible while still keeping EVERYONE's budget insync. This way the product progresses quite fast and everyone wants to use it because it doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
--- End quote ---
Well... as I said you can run Via hardware with the standard 'open' Unichrome (or totally open Openchrome) drivers and you get top notch Video performance using these drivers. We have the exact same Via hardware as the Fiire station but we use open Via drivers and I can honestly say that the video playback performance blows nVidia right out of the water... its just that some X features that UI2 needs like compositing etc are not supported with these drivers and therefore UI2 is not possible.
If you don't like Fiire's approach then don't use their products... its easy really ;-)
dopey:
Using proprietary drivers in Linux is nothing new... The Nvidia and ATI drivers are also proprietary, but everyone (almost everyone) still uses those to get 3D acceleration and compositing. VIA is no different from the rest of the Video card industry.
Personally, I prefer open source drivers, but if a closed source solution works better that's what I'm going to use. I believe that closing the source of hardware drivers is ridicules as it isn't stopping piracy (you have to purchase the hardware) and it makes it more difficult to support that hardware on newer platforms (my Adaptec SATA controller is a good example of this). Even so, I use the old saying "the best code wins" and I even apply that to closed source solutions.
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