On Tue, Apr 20, 2004 at 10:22:28PM +1000, Shaun Oliver wrote:
> just thought I'd forward this on.
>
> ----- Forwarded message from "Paul J. Traynor" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> -----
>
> Despite my very positive first impressions, I couldn't get XYZ to work
> with my sound card at all, even though I was testing XYZ on a brand new
> PC from a major vendor. The system was based on an utterly mainstream
> Intel motherboard with an on-board Intel sound system. This is not some
> weird, off-brand system using unknown components: It's about as
> mainstream as it gets.
Just in case anyone reading this actually buys into Paul's comments, it's not Linux's
fault, it's the hardware manufacturer's for not providing support. There's
three ways to get support for your hardware into any operating system -
write it yourself (or contract someone to write it for you), provide the
specs and hope someone comes up with the goods out of the goodness of their
heart, or have someone reverse-engineer the hardware, write a driver, and
release it (possibly in the face of legal threats) to the world.
Most linux drivers come from the third option. And yet Linux manages to
have really quality drivers. Imagine what we could get if manufacturers
supported driver development in the community...
Basically, there's no shortage of hardware that works with Linux. If you
buy truck tyres, do you complain because they don't fit on your Datsun? No.
So why do people insist on complaining because they picked hardware that
doesn't have Linux support?
Of course, all the regulars know this stuff backwards, but I have this
desire to never let FUD go undefudded...
- Matt
--
[Perl] combines all the worst aspects of C and Lisp: a billion different
sublanguages in one monolithic executable. It combines the power of C with
the readability of PostScript.
-- Jamie Zawinski
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