Re: [linrad] svgalib problems (fwd)

[edson@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 5 Jan 2003, Peter Bligh wrote:

> As I think Leif commented recently,  svgalib is getting a bit old.  That
> means that the chipsets listed as supported are mostly obsolete.  One
> option, of course, would be to hunt for a used video card that is known to
> work. Linrad does not demand much performance from the video card, so
> there's no point in spending a lot on it.
> 

To get svgalib to work on new hardware is indeed becoming a problem. I had 
to install an old video card to be able to use linrad recently. Even with 
an older card, to get things working reminded me of the old days when I 
had to configure X by brute force trial and error. Svgalib may become an 
obstacle for new users with new hardware.

I'm not sure what would be involved, but it may be wise to prepare a
migration path to some newer graphics API. Alternatives are X, SDL, Mesa,
etc. X has its own overhead, but new API wrappers like Qt and GTK make
things much, much easier. SDL and Mesa seems to be gaining popularity,
specially among gamers and video players where frame rate performance is
important. If the performance demands aren't that high, Qt or GTK may be
a good compromise.

I have mentioned this before, but in order to simplify things in the long
term, may be Linrad could become a headless application. The user
interface would be an independent application communicating via some IPC.
This would, probably, be a major software development project, but I
believe Linrad deserves it. Another positive side effect is that Lief
could focus on the Linrad DSP code get help from other programmers on user
interface issues.

73,

-- Edson, pu1jte, n1vtn, 7n4ncl





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