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annotate DOCS/users_against_developers.html @ 7365:822923446b66
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| author | diego |
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| date | Tue, 10 Sep 2002 21:56:05 +0000 |
| parents | 0b70f3dc34eb |
| children | 988498df1996 |
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1 <!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> |
| 2867 | 2 <HTML> |
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3 |
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4 <HEAD> |
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5 <TITLE>Developer Cries - MPlayer - The Movie Player for Linux</TITLE> |
| 6391 | 6 <LINK REL="stylesheet" TYPE="text/css" HREF="default.css"> |
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7 <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> |
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8 </HEAD> |
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10 <BODY> |
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13 <H1>Appendix E - Developer Cries</H1> |
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15 <P>There are two major topics which always cause huge dispute and flame on the |
| 6974 | 16 <A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A> |
| 17 mailing list. Number one is the topic of the</P> | |
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18 |
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20 <H2><A NAME="gcc">GCC 2.96</A></H2> |
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22 <P><B>The background:</B> The GCC <B>2.95</B> series is an official GNU release |
| 6974 | 23 and version 2.95.3 of GCC is the most bug-free in that series. |
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24 We have never noticed compilation problems that we could trace to GCC 2.95.3. |
| 6974 | 25 Starting with Red Hat Linux 7.0, <B>Red Hat</B> included a heavily |
| 26 patched CVS version of GCC in their distribution and named it <B>2.96</B>. Red | |
| 27 Hat included this version in the distribution because GCC 3.0 was not finished | |
| 28 at the time, and they needed a compiler that worked well on all of their | |
| 29 supported platforms, including IA64 and s390. The Linux distributor | |
| 30 <B>Mandrake</B> also followed Red Hat's example and started shipping GCC 2.96 | |
| 31 with their Linux-Mandrake 8.0 series.</P> | |
| 3053 | 32 |
| 6974 | 33 <P><B>The statements:</B> The GCC team disclaimed any link with GCC 2.96 and |
| 34 issued an <A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/gcc-2.96.html">official response</A> to | |
| 35 GCC 2.96. Many developers around the world began having problems with GCC 2.96, | |
| 36 and started recommending other compilers. Examples are | |
| 37 <A HREF="http://www.apachelabs.org/apr-mbox/200106.mbox/%3c20010623194228.C25512@ebuilt.com%3e">Apache</A>, | |
| 38 <A HREF="http://www.mysql.com/downloads/mysql-3.23.html">MySQL</A>, | |
| 39 <A HREF="http://avifile.sourceforge.net/news-old1.htm">avifile</A> and | |
| 6981 | 40 <A HREF="http://www.winehq.com/news/?view=92#RH%207.1%20gcc%20fixes%20compiler%20bug">Wine</A>. |
| 6974 | 41 Other interesting links are |
| 42 <A HREF="http://www.realtimelinux.org/archives/rtai/20017/0144.html">Real time Linux</A>, | |
| 43 <A HREF="http://www.atnf.csiro.au/people/rgooch/linux/docs/kernel-newsflash.html"> | |
| 44 Linux kernel news flash about kernel 2.4.17</A> and | |
| 45 <A HREF="http://www.voy.com/3516/572.html">Voy Forum</A>. | |
| 46 <B>MPlayer</B> also suffered from intermittent problems that were all solved by | |
| 47 switching to a different version of GCC. Several projects started implementing | |
| 48 workarounds for some of the 2.96 issues, but we refused to fix other people's | |
| 49 bugs, especially since some workarounds may imply a performance penalty.</P> | |
| 2867 | 50 |
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51 <P>You can read about the other side of the story |
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52 <A HREF="http://www.bero.org/gcc296.html">at this site</A>. |
| 6974 | 53 GCC 2.96 does not allow | (pipe) characters in assembler comments |
| 54 because it supports Intel as well as AT&T Syntax and the | character is a | |
| 55 symbol in the Intel variant. The problem is that it <B>silently</B> ignores the | |
| 56 whole assembler block. This is supposedly fixed now, GCC prints a warning instead | |
| 57 of skipping the block.</P> | |
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58 |
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59 <P><B>The present:</B> Red Hat says that GCC 2.96-85 and above is fixed. The |
| 6974 | 60 situation has indeed improved, yet we still see problem reports on our |
| 61 mailing lists that disappear with a different compiler. In any case it does not | |
| 62 matter any longer. Hopefully a maturing GCC 3.x will solve the issue for good. | |
| 63 If you want to compile with 2.96 give the <CODE>--disable-gcc-checking</CODE> | |
| 64 flag to configure. Remember that you are on your own and <B>do not report any | |
| 65 bugs</B>. If you do, you will only get banned from our mailing list because | |
| 66 we have had more than enough flame wars over GCC 2.96. Please let the matter rest.</P> | |
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67 |
| 6055 | 68 <P>If you have problems with GCC 2.96, you can get 2.96-85 packages from the |
| 6974 | 69 Red Hat <A HREF="ftp://updates.redhat.com">ftp server</A>, or just go for the |
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70 3.0.4 packages offered for version 7.2 and later. You can also get |
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71 <A HREF="ftp://people.redhat.com/jakub/gcc3/3.1-1/">gcc-3.1 packages</A> |
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72 (unofficial, but working fine) and you can |
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73 install them along the GCC 2.96 you already have. MPlayer will detect it and |
| 6974 | 74 use 3.1 instead of 2.96. If you do not want to or cannot use the binary |
| 75 packages, here is how you can compile GCC 3.1 from source:</P> | |
| 2919 | 76 |
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77 <OL> |
| 6055 | 78 <LI>Go to the <A HREF="http://gcc.gnu.org/mirrors.html">GCC mirrors page</A> |
| 6574 | 79 page and download <CODE>gcc-core-3.1.tar.gz</CODE>. This includes the |
| 6055 | 80 complete C compiler and is sufficient for <B>MPlayer</B>. If you also want |
| 81 C++, Java or some of the other advanced GCC features | |
| 6574 | 82 <CODE>gcc-3.1.tar.gz</CODE> may better suit your needs.</LI> |
| 6055 | 83 <LI>Extract the archive with<BR> |
| 6574 | 84 <CODE>tar -xvzf gcc-core-3.1.tar.gz</CODE></LI> |
| 6055 | 85 <LI>GCC is not built inside the source directory itself like most programs, |
| 86 but needs a build directory outside the source directory. Thus you need to | |
| 87 create this directory via<BR> | |
| 88 <CODE>mkdir gcc-build</CODE></LI> | |
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89 <LI>Then you can proceed to configure GCC in the build directory, but you need |
| 6055 | 90 the configure from the source directory:<BR> |
| 91 <CODE>cd gcc-build<BR> | |
| 6574 | 92 ../gcc-3.1/configure</CODE></LI> |
| 6055 | 93 <LI>Compile GCC by issuing this command in the build directory:<BR> |
| 94 <CODE>make bootstrap</CODE></LI> | |
| 95 <LI>Now you can install GCC (as root) by typing<BR> | |
| 96 <CODE>make install</CODE></LI> | |
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97 </OL> |
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98 |
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100 <H2><A NAME="binary">Binary distribution</A></H2> |
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101 |
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102 <P>This was the second big problem but has been solved as of version |
| 6974 | 103 0.90-pre1. <B>MPlayer</B> previously contained source from the OpenDivX project, |
| 104 which disallows binary redistribution. This code has been removed and you are now | |
| 105 welcome to create binary packages as you see fit.</P> | |
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106 |
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107 <P>Another impediment to binary redistribution was compiletime optimizations |
| 6974 | 108 for CPU architecture. <B>MPlayer</B> now supports runtime CPU detection |
| 109 (specify the <CODE>--enable-runtime-cpudetection</CODE> option when | |
| 110 compiling). It is disabled by default because it implies a small speed | |
| 111 sacrifice, it is now possible to create binaries that run on different | |
| 112 members of the Intel CPU family.</P> | |
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113 |
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| 7047 | 115 <H2><A NAME="nvidia">nVidia</A></H2> |
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117 <P>We dislike the fact that <A HREF="http://www.nvidia.com">nVidia</A> |
| 6974 | 118 only provides binary drivers (for use with XFree86), which are often buggy. |
| 119 We have had many reports on | |
| 120 <A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A> | |
| 121 about problems related to these closed-source drivers | |
| 122 and their poor quality, instability and poor user and expert support. | |
| 123 Here is an example from the | |
| 124 <A HREF="http://www.nvnews.net/forum/showthread.php?s=fda5725bc2151e29453b2da3bd5d2930&threadid=14306"> | |
| 125 nVidia Linux Forum</A>. | |
| 126 Many of these problems/issues keep appearing repeatedly. | |
| 127 We have been contacted by nVidia lately, and they said these bugs | |
| 128 do not exist, instability is caused by bad AGP chips, and they received | |
| 129 no reports of driver bugs (like the purple line). So if you have a | |
| 130 problem with your nVidia card, you are advised to update the nVidia driver | |
| 131 and/or buy a new motherboard or ask nVidia to supply open-source drivers. | |
| 132 In any case, if you are using the nVidia binary drivers and facing driver related problems, | |
| 133 please be aware that you will receive very little help from our side because we have | |
| 134 little power to help in this matter.</P> | |
| 135 | |
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136 |
| 7047 | 137 <H2><A NAME="barr">Joe Barr</A></H2> |
| 2867 | 138 |
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139 <P>Joe Barr became infamous by writing a less than favorable |
| 6974 | 140 <A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1214.mplayer.html"> |
| 141 <B>MPlayer</B> review</A>. He found <B>MPlayer</B> hard to install, but then | |
| 142 again he is not very fond of | |
| 143 <A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/linuxworld/lw-2000-06/lw-06-exam.html">reading documentation</A>. | |
| 144 He also concluded that the developers were unfriendly and the documentation | |
| 145 incomplete and insulting. You be the judge. | |
| 146 He went on to mention <B>MPlayer</B> negatively in his | |
| 147 <A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2001/1227.predictions.html">10 Linux predictions for 2002</A> | |
| 148 In a followup | |
| 149 <A HREF="http://www.linuxworld.com/site-stories/2002/0125.xine.html">review of xine</A> | |
| 150 he continued stirring up controversy. Ironically at the end of that article he | |
| 151 quotes his exchange with Günter Bartsch, the original author of xine, that | |
| 152 perfectly summarizes the whole situation:</P> | |
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153 |
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154 <BLOCKQUOTE> |
| 6974 | 155 However, he also went on to say that he was "surprised" by my column about |
| 156 Mplayer and thought it was unfair, reminding me that it is a free software | |
| 157 project. "If you don't like it," Bartsch said, "you're free not to use it." | |
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158 </BLOCKQUOTE> |
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160 <P>He does not reply to our mails. His editor does not reply to our mails. |
| 6974 | 161 Here are some quotes from different people about Joe Barr, so you can form your |
| 162 own opinion:</P> | |
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164 <P>Marc Rassbach has <A HREF="http://daily.daemonnews.org/view_story.php3?story_id=2102">something to say</A> |
| 6974 | 165 about the man.</P> |
| 2867 | 166 |
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167 <BLOCKQUOTE> |
| 6974 | 168 You may all remember the LinuxWorld 2000, when he claimed that Linus T said |
| 169 that 'FreeBSD is just a handful of programmers'. Linus said NOTHING of the | |
| 170 sort. When Joe was called on this, his reaction was to call BSD supporters | |
| 171 assholes and jerks. | |
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172 </BLOCKQUOTE> |
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174 <P>A <A HREF="http://www.mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/2001-December/009118.html">quote</A> |
| 6974 | 175 from Robert Munro on the |
| 176 <A HREF="http://mplayerhq.hu/pipermail/mplayer-users/">mplayer-users</A> | |
| 177 mailing list:</P> | |
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178 |
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179 <BLOCKQUOTE> |
| 6974 | 180 <P>He's interesting, but not good at avoiding, um... controversy. Joe Barr |
| 181 used to be one of the regulars on Will Zachmann's Canopus forum on Compuserve, | |
| 6981 | 182 years ago. He was an OS/2 advocate then (I was an OS/2 fan too).</P> |
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183 |
| 6974 | 184 <P>He used to go over-the-top, flaming people, and I suspect he had some hard |
| 185 times, then. He's mellowed some, judging by his columns recently. Moderately | |
| 186 subtle humor was not his mode in those earlier days, not at all.</P> | |
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187 </BLOCKQUOTE> |
| 3936 | 188 |
| 7047 | 189 </BODY> |
| 2867 | 190 </HTML> |