> The odds of having this problem are small. But they are > improved by buying only hardware that is actually well supported by > Linux. How will a newbie know if his hardware is supported? That isn't > so easy either. The real solution to this problem is to encourage > vendors support Linux or at least document their hardware so that > someone else can.
That's the real problem. Linux isn't supported by the China MOBO makers to the degree that MS Windows is. They don't see any point in it. The constant problem I keep running into, is that the hardware keeps getting rushed out the door before it's stable. I bought an expensive Belkin board, which claimed to meet OHCI standards, but it later turned out that the firmware was crappy and this crippled the hardware. I thought buying an expensive board was going to insure quality firmware (and hardware) but it didn't. > Vista also has this problem by the way. Lots of operating systems do. definitely, but at least with Linux you have a way to fix the problem yourself. > Would/should a newbie even be installing his own OS anyway? well, you do, whenever you do a fresh install, windows or linux or whatever, like it or not. (until you buy a pre-installed system, but God help you if you lose the hard drive (with the OS) > A Linux newbie who wants to learn probably should. But your average > neophyte computer user probably shouldn't. Hmmm I beg to differ here. I think people should know what is going on, or least attempt to learn the basics. When I get the "where did my file go?" after someone unzipped on a Mac OS, then they need to know where to look, as the computer isn't going to tell them. I had to answer too many WIndows questions, so I decided to tutor the person a bit until they started catching on what a Von Neumann machine really was. -- [email protected] http://www.kernel-panic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/kplug-newbie
