Luke McKee wrote: > > From what you've written at [1] and [2] below, it doesn't sound > > like you had done any research at all before purchased your > > hardware. > > LMC: True. But sooner or later Linux should stop being a DAYOR (Do at your > own risk) operating system. Many people - especially the newest members of > the list may not have had much choice in choosing what components went > inside their system. It may not be a good experience for a new Linux user to > realize they have to start paying out money to get everything working.
Linux is still not a mainstream operating system. Many companies still make hardware suitable only for Windows. There's no point being in denial about it - you're just making life hard for yourself, and easier for those companies, who see that it doesn't matter that they don't cater for us Linux users because we buy the hardware anyway. > > One has to wonder why you would buy a printer with such a > > recommendation. > > LMC: Yes you were right = Impulse buy, but for $60 bucks could it be > forgiven? Depends on how much you would've had to pay for a printer that was supported by a free linux driver. You'd have to account for the $150 extra that you paid for the commercial Mandrake release. And what if you wanted to use something other than Mandrake? Like Debian, for example? > I don't think Linux will ever have plug and play ready decent drivers in the > kernel for all hardware. I have to patch iptables, SMC (net), ftape-4x, > quicknet, isdn-dov & capi, cups, sane (hp4200) + scarse just to all my > hardware working. There are always going to be extra drivers but as we agree > they should be free if available for Linux. Sounds like you've been doing quite a bit of impulse buying, by the sound of it. If you're happy doing the extra work to get it all going and paying a few extra $$ occasionally, fine. Me? I like the easy life. Matthew -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group - http://slug.org.au/ More Info: http://lists.slug.org.au/listinfo/slug
