[lug] cheap TV-out video cards

[Daniel Webb]

On Thu, Apr 06, 2006 at 06:06:14PM -0600, Calvin Dodge wrote:

> AFAIK, most TV-out cards require extra kernel modules OR other software to
> actually use that feature (it's alleged to be available natively on some ATI
> cards, but said extra software didn't work on my Radeon 7000).

I'm glad I posted then, I was looking at a Radeon 7000 based card.  I assume
stuff like that doesn't work with Linux until I see a comment somewhere saying
"I have this exact model card and it works with Linux version X".  Some types
of chipsets (IDE for example) always seem to Just Work, maybe because they
have fall-back compatability?  Some types (wireless chipsets for example) you
can't assume it works unless someone tells you so.

Is there a document somewhere that discusses this sort of thing, or is it just
experiential knowledge painfully gained?  It wouldn't be so bad that Linux
didn't support half the hardware out there, if it were easier to know which
half that was.  As it is, I've been using Linux exclusively for 7 years now
and it takes an hour of research sometimes just to figure out if it's even
possible to use a given piece of hardware, then another hour or two to get it
working.  Even though Mac also doesn't work with a lot of hardware, at least
you know what works with a Mac just by looking at the box.

> I think if you Google for" debian kernel modules nvidia tv-out" (leave out
> quote marks, of course) you'll find a page to tell you how to set up an
> Nvidia card in this way on a Debian system (since ATrpms has RPM packages
> for Fedora Core and the like, it was much simpler for me).

All I found was that a lot of people use nvidia with Linux, and found packages
with a binary driver.  I can live without.  That's for the info on the Radeon,
though, you saved me $30.