Re: [SLUG] Interesting view (Printer Compatibility)
On Fri, Mar 24, 2006 at 09:49:19AM +1100, Benno wrote: > > But still at the end of the day your general consumer (i.e: target of > the desktop), doesn't know, or want to know, and often will just take > whatever the sales droid at the local Hardly Normal tells them, which is > most likely going to be whatever product has the biggest margin > (or has an associated salesperson competition), which makes our job > as advocates of desktop Linux harder. This is true. Consider that if making a "Linux desktop" means being able to turn the marketing blather of the local "Hardly Normal sales droid" into working reality for a brain dead consumer, then we won't be able to do it. It just is not possible. Microsoft won't do it, they have no more ability to achieve this impossible goal than we do, they just crank out more misinformation until people believe what they are told. My daughter bought a web-cam recently with her birthday money. Of course, she insists on running a MS-Windows system (just to piss me off), of course she just plugs the thing in and cranks the installer and (big surprise to her, not a surprise to me) the thing doesn't work. It produces a few pictures but is not compatible with other applications that she wants to use. Of course she wants me to fix it for her, and I tell her, "too bad, you have been ripped off". I've seen Sony shrug and ignore the fact that the video drivers on some of their laptops (in particular, the Vaio PCG-K74 with ATI Radeon) are incompatible with many popular games (I'm talking about MS-Windows games running on the factory installed Windows-XP system). They can't even be bothered issuing driver upgrades on their website. True, this is one of their budget models but that's no excuse for treating your customers like dirt. The fact is that things in the Microsoft world do NOT JUST WORK, they have problems all over the place and require extensive support effort to get a system that consistently does its job. I believe that the Linux community will be far better off in the long term if they take the trouble to clearly and explicitly write off compatibility with all the junk devices and explain in big letters, "NO these devices are not supported, don't buy them, don't use them". Trying to halfway support devices that randomly fail and then pretend that you have achieved compatibility is the worst of all worlds. - Tel -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Interesting view (Printer Compatibility)
On Thu Mar 23, 2006 at 21:25:43 +, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: >On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 08:36:59AM +1100, Benno wrote: > >> We have a chicken-egg problem here of the desktop community not being >> big enough that every printer is tested and provides drivers for >> Linux, but it is exactly reasons like that that hinder the growth of >> the community. >> >> Maybe it means desktop Linux companies need to knock on more doors >> to try and get more printers being sold with a "Works with Linux" >> sticker or something. > >There already is... >...look for the printers with "Postscript" written on them. Of course the problem here is that there aren't that many printers with "Postscript" written on them. And most of them are considerably more expensive than those without postscript written on them. (And of course printers we just a handy example, since it was recently discussed on list, but the same can apply to any other peripheral as well.) >This problem has been solved for many years. The difficulty that we are >experiencing is a reflection of the inability of Australian consumers >to demand high quality products when they go shopping. Giving them a >wider range of printer drivers will NOT fix this fundamental problem. Strange, I was discussing this with colleagues over lunch a couple of days a ago. One of our theories was that device manufacturers don't want to release drivers because it would show up the hardware for the shit that it is. But still at the end of the day your general consumer (i.e: target of the desktop), doesn't know, or want to know, and often will just take whatever the sales droid at the local Hardly Normal tells them, which is most likely going to be whatever product has the biggest margin (or has an associated salesperson competition), which makes our job as advocates of desktop Linux harder. Cheers, Benno -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] Interesting view (Printer Compatibility)
-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE- Hash: SHA1 On Thu, Mar 16, 2006 at 08:36:59AM +1100, Benno wrote: > We have a chicken-egg problem here of the desktop community not being > big enough that every printer is tested and provides drivers for > Linux, but it is exactly reasons like that that hinder the growth of > the community. > > Maybe it means desktop Linux companies need to knock on more doors > to try and get more printers being sold with a "Works with Linux" > sticker or something. There already is... ...look for the printers with "Postscript" written on them. This problem has been solved for many years. The difficulty that we are experiencing is a reflection of the inability of Australian consumers to demand high quality products when they go shopping. Giving them a wider range of printer drivers will NOT fix this fundamental problem. - Tel -BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE- Version: GnuPG v1.4.1 (GNU/Linux) iQIVAwUBRCMSVsfOVl0KFTApAQL7Rg//TQZTo0I+NBa9DgOKM5s4EhZ/pUbTMFZm M2ivd9N2O2judpP4wzp3/HqCHOG8/GqQv9ROixGmMrKWfOwl6nt2oNHAFFzWruhU QWXBJDU3V7vzpd7ejEScSbRzjzyN8Yyi1NGnlIKsZ1FvXE/PQmu37ispDHydauHZ /G/WYRo44GucXyD+UYczpvuPq27L6Sq9urlZmD8gOex3ESE6p4kW+5JB7QN7F/g2 riSSkGKLBQUIi9ovyeRs7B1Qce9x7uuvd1GxMEt7dRS0/Xob1wXRsjYYnIg9qmAA LTmR9pmiTaGoLqzKtjsxa8gv8Gc3Msez3jN9qMbwT0qBxDePdkeFmQBY6+BgjpDs zyH5/Lbt03+g5+duEuKEju/c9jATlxFTJnKFL0d0ZtJdNps2ZlVvHLykNjeaOP/J cfA749xq3YIQp7X5FTwmQSKIxuaEQmmq8ciFxxUhmLPGi8i1EdnDanpB5XvGN5qo 4yzlKWYmcNHM0AUPzp+T9D+wvzCKhb8wM9fRz+iglJ8oE8pT5vIut+/j8NDQuvOg HslXmHCgmnEBX986eOlixl0N1VpwJ0t2q2lgDeuxsEKdyLUJzH4CTk7u84w4F5UT 95aB5jQn8RwtN0NCJMLPV+erW4LHfY3anhm6WNcdDELlarz8Ycyg6tp0je7Cl4Yw YtAANefURsg= =Q9VE -END PGP SIGNATURE- -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
