audio problem

[Rich Braun]

I have my own audio challenge.  Having given up trying to get MiniMyth (no ATI
graphics support) or MythBuntu (X crashes all the time using proprietary
driver) on an A780-based AMD motherboard, I turned to openSUSE 11.1.

A lot more works out of the box with openSUSE but one thing that doesn't is
HDMI audio.  In fact I ran into an issue with some apps working and some not
when I grabbed an old-fashioned analog cable to plug into the line-out jack. 
I presume some apps look for the analog, some look for something else.

Basically, modern PCs are now so complex that there are about 3 different ways
to do most everything, and application developers tear their hair out trying
to accommodate the mix.  (And note that this particular PC is about as simple
as a brand-new PC can get:  motherboard plugs into wall, HDMI cable plugs into
TV, keyboard and infrared transceiver plug into USB--done.)

The other symptom I had with this PC is the video, but I figured that one out
on my own:  with the radeonhd X11 driver, you get a good 1920x1080p image, but
it's not fast enough to deliver smooth video.  With the fglrx driver, you get
a nice image--that covers only 80% of the screen.  A lot of googling turned up
the answer to that:  an obscure series of 4 aticonfig commands to set the
screen coordinates and X/Y size.  The last two minor revs of the ATI driver
have a bogus scaling setting that gives you 80% of your TV.

Linux is "almost" ready for the desktop, but figure on several days to several
weeks after setting up a new PC to get things set up the way you want.  Linux
was "almost" ready to run desktop apps sometime around, oh, 1997.  It's more
so now.  ;-)

-rich