Linux users are often at the mercy of hardware vendors when it comes to device drivers. The open source community often needs to turn to reverse engineering to churn out drivers from proprietary ones. As long as the majority of hardware is made for Windows and OS X machines, Linux users will need to wait until the community figures out the nuts and the bolts of a piece of hardware before a Linux driver can be written.

Take Nouveau for example. The open source project started in 2006 with the aim of building high quality drivers for Nvidia graphics cards. Although Nvidia provided a Linux driver several years ago, it was a basic driver with no 3D support. The Nouveau project gained momentum and a year later, its driver soon outperformed Nvidia’s in 2D performance.

While some Linux drivers can be as good as proprietary ones from hardware vendors, others only allow basic functionality with sometimes abysmal performance. My interest in Linux was rekindled recently when I installed Ubuntu 9.10 on my three-year-old Macbook. The basic hardware like the keyboard and graphics worked right out of the box after the installation, with the exception of the iSight webcam which only worked after I installed a software that reverse engineered the right driver out of Apple’s proprietary iSight driver.

Driven by commercial interest through a stranglehold over the unique features of its hardware, it is not in Apple’s interest or any hardware vendor to release open source drivers. A recent feature in Linux Magazine on the Nouveau project pointed out that Nvidia “still gains far too much advantage by keeping their driver closed. They get support for brand new models, extra performance, better power management, extra features like VDPAU, and certain technology components can remain a company secret”.

Meanwhile, Linux users have to continue tinkering with their boxes to make things work, but with the support of the community through hundreds of thousands of forums and interest groups on almost every Linux distro, there’s bound to be a workaround out there. But hey, it’s also what makes computing fun isn’t it?

It’s that time of the year again.

I’m talking about when Digital Life rolls out the Dream PC – one of the favourite stories I get to do each year as a techie. This PC is the fastest, meanest and well, “best-est” machine that we put together using the top-end components that every geek would want to own.

Last year, we had an Asus Rampage II Extreme X58-based mobo with an Intel Core i7-965 and Corsair’s Dominator DDR3 memory modules in a monster rig. This year, though the leap has not been as big as from Core 2 to Core i7 or DDR2 to DDR3, we have some awesome graphics power packed in. And we have a biggie in terms of a new case to stuff all those goodies in.

Sweaty crowds, loudspeakers and lelong prices. What else would you expect from the latest quarterly IT bazaar happening at Suntec City from today to Sunday, right?

Crowds at the ongoing PC Show seem thinner than the previous IT Show in March, perhaps due to the fears over the H1N1 swine flu, or maybe the bleak economy is finally getting to some folks. Sony, noticeably, did not turn up with a bang as before – there were no Level 2 booths you’ve come to see at Suntec City.

Still, there are bargains to be had. And here are my own few Goondu recommendations.

1. LG 32-inch HD-ready TV (S$499)
With 37- and 40-inchers going for as low as $899, the smaller screens are obviously free-falling in price. One deal I saw at the LG booth was an HD-ready 32-incher with a built-in terrestial DTV tuner going for a mere S$499.

Just when you thought you have seen the last tacky CPU cooler or graphics card, along comes Asus with a zany range of graphics cards that bear a cooler shaped like… a Formula One car.

Its new Formula series graphics cards, featuring ATI’s HD4890 and HD4770 graphics chips, will come with a cooler that is not just shaped like a Formula One car, but actually claims the benefits of aerodynamics.

This, says the Taiwanese electronics maker, offers 7 per cent better airflow for superior cooling. On the cooler is what it calls a Micro Surface Treatment Technology that is said to improve heat dissipation by up to 14 per cent.

Not just that, the airflow mechanism is claimed to be dust-proof, thus extending the Formula graphic cards’ lifespan by 25 per cent over cards with traditional cooling. And among the other figures trotted out: 33 per cent better heat dissipation and 30 per cent quieter operations.

We leave it to you to tell us if Asus lives up to its claim. The heat pipes at the side do look good at dissipating heat, though we are not sure if there’s a need for aerodynamic qualities… your graphics card isn’t moving any where fast in your PC, is it?

The latest AMD Phenom IIs, while closing the performance gap on Intel’s new dual-core chips, are no benchmark-busting CPUs.

Fortunately, the perennial challenger and alternative CPU maker is doing much better on the graphics front, with its speedy ATI Radeon 4870×2 chips still being king of the hill. And, for once, AMD is not sitting on its pants as the competitor (this time, Nvidia) closes in.

Just a week after Nvidia’s latest GeForce 280 series drivers were released, AMD posted its brand new Catalyst 9.1 drivers. This was out in the United States on Jan 29.

How do they perform? Some hardware sites are reporting that there’re some improvements in the popular Far Cry 2 and Crysis Warhead first-person shooters. Others are a bit disappointed with the lack of even more speed to be squeezed out of the hardware.

Either way, you can download Catalyst 9.1 here and try it out yourself.

Besides the usual TVs and laptops, there are other little bargains to be had at Sitex.

We seem to have forgotten that printers were once the thing to buy at these shows. Visiting the HP booth brought to my attention this nice little gem of a colour laser printer.

The Color LaserJet CP1515n costs a nice S$479 and comes with networking and 96MB of RAM for faster printing. Compared to a slightly cheaper S$379 LaserJet CP1215, this one seems a better deal with all the added features for a SOHO. Oh, and there’s free delivery for these colour lasers (they’re damn heavy, after all).

Yeah, I just blew that massive amount at Sim Lim this past two days. First was an impulse buy – I finally got my ATI HD4870x2, the fastest graphics card on Earth now.

Got myself the MSI version, which comes with an overclocked chip and the Rainbox Six: Vegas game for S$792. Also, with an itchy backside, I picked up a pair of Corsair Dominator RAM modules (DDR2-1066) for  another $120+ at Cybermind.

Good news for those who have been patient and not bought a new ATI 4870 graphics card yet. Asus has come up with a self-designed “Dark Knight (DK)” version of the card, which until recently have mostly been cookie-cutter parts.

The “DK’d” 4870s come with either 512MB RAM or a souped-up 1GB. The most important improvement is an aluminium heatsink/fan, which should better the original ATI part which many users have complained of heat and noise.

Finally, after weeks of waiting for PC buffs, ATI’s 4870×2 graphics cards are starting to appear in Sim Lim Square stores.

Cybermind is selling a 2GB Powercolor version for S$799 – that’s the price of two 4870s ($399 each), which together boast only 1GB of RAM, of course.

The new card is not exactly cheap, but it seems about right now that Nvidia has dropped its prices for its slower GTX280s, the cheapest of which can be had at Sim Lim for S$649 to S$699. Expect more price drops in the coming weeks, as the competition heats up.

If you have been holding out for a new top-end graphics card, here’s a little bit of good news.

Sim Lim Square stores like Cybermind and Bell and online retailers like Potterhouse are (finally) selling some Nvidia GTX 280 cards for S$699 this weekend (down from S$799), reflecting the price drop that gamers in the US have been enjoying for weeks.