Mike & Tracy Holt wrote:I was pretty annoyed myself when I built this fancy new computer at home and found that my RedHat version 6 that had been working just fine before, now won't support my sound card (SB live) and my video card will work, with lots of patches and headaches!> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Trevor Farrell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: "Linux Mandrake Expert list" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Sent: Friday, March 31, 2000 2:22 AM
> Subject: [expert] Mdk 7 - time to take out the trash? (long)
>
Yes, Michael, I was (and still am) annoyed by things that should work
automatically, but don't. If M$ and Be can do it, I'm sure
Linux/Mandrake/whoever can also. I suppose I just got tired of the "standard
responses" that appear so often on this list - either "read the docs" or
"sorry, your hardware doesn't work with Linux". OK, I know that the docs are a
great place to look, but sometimes, finding which doc can take so long, then
reading it and trying to understand it, and translating it to your hardware
(which is always just that little bit different...) anyway - you know what I
mean, and as for hardware - we all know about winmodems, and every day they
sell thousands more! At least Win-printers (GDI) seem to have died a deserved
death (pity I have one!) But what about the stuff that should work, but
doesn't! My CMI8330 sound card for example? Everyone says try sndconfig -
sorry, it never handled the CMI8330, it identifies it but can't install it. You
can't even select the right settings if you know them because it doesn't offer
them! The kernel source documentation (yes - I "read the docs" ) worked for
previous versions, but doesn't for ver 7. But M$ and Be both installed it
without a question being asked. So why can't Linux?
I tried SuSE because I thought it might have some better support, but
it also had a whole list of admin tools that I had never used and didn't
make any sense to me.
I don't think you've raved too much, in fact you raise some pretty good points. When I wrote to Be asking where I could find drivers for my video card (ATI rage fury 32MB), they said 'we're a team of 30 engineers who can't possibly spend time making sure every piece of hard ware is supported; we suggest you talk to ATI.' When I wrote ATI, the answer was much less polite - 'talk to Be.'And anyone who has been on this list for a while will have read about my CDrw -
the one the authors of cdrecord say has a firmware bug, and the manufacturors
say "must be a Linux issue". It works under Windows and BeOS. I have yet to
install the latest version of cdrecord, which I'm told might fix it, so perhaps
it will soon work under Linux - I'll let you know...However, all the above whinges aside, I do love Linux - lets face it, sound and
cd-burning are nice luxuries, but hardly essential for what I use Linux for. I
could fill a number of long posts with what I like about Linux, and I will
repeat again that Ver 7 is the best so far for supporting my video (SiS6326),
so overall, Mandrake got a lot right.Unfortunately, I have other demands on my time, and therefore am getting a bit
short with the bits that I see should work without me spending hours on them,
sorry to all if I have ranted & raved too much.
I live just a few miles from Redmond (M$ country) and drive in their traffic all the time! They have hundreds, if not thousands of people, everyday, making sure that if a hardware company doesn't support their own hardware, they won't be in business anymore! Think about it, M$ doesn't write most of their own drivers, they just have the marketing power to make sure that others will.
That is VERY frustrating to people like me who would like to use his hp cd/rw 8110 under linux, but just doesn't understand those docs that you point out, are so hard to find. It's much easier to use the adaptec easy cd creator under Win98 where it's just basically point 'n' click. You forget though, M$ didn't write that software - it came from adaptec! Have you asked adaptec why they haven't written a fancy GUI for use on a linux box? The answer would be 'talk to Mandrake.'
I'm studying to be a system administrator, here at home I use two computers - both loaded with Win98, LM 7, BeOS 4.5. I use Windows less and less everyday, but I still have it loaded. Linux is a pretty young system, and I think it will always have some problems just because people will be trying to compete with M$ for example. No, your latest shizbang 6500 probably won't be supported for quite some time, because the makers of shizbang products feel that there isn't enough money in supporting a free operating system. You'll have to wait until a group of people in their off-time see a need to finally start supporting it and create a web site 'shizbang.org'. I'm no programmer, but I do know that even mice will malfunction without the correct drivers, and they're just a ball and a couple of buttons!
I think that it's important to realize the short comings of linux as well as the things that soar, then when we talk the boss into trying out something new, we can say well in advance 'we better use windows for the shizbang products, linux would be better to handle our firewall and we can use the iMacs for the graphics department.' When more things become available to Linux users (which will happen!) you can incorporate them.
-- Michael Holt [EMAIL PROTECTED]
