On Friday, October 3, 2003, at 01:29 PM, Andrew Jorgensen wrote:
Grant Robinson wrote:What do you mean by better support? If you mean wider (i.e. the number of devices it supports) then I would say that this is true. Linux does support a lot more hardware than Mac does. If we are talking quality of support (i.e. how well the hardware/drivers work), I would say that your statement is false. While the Mac may not support all the old esoteric hardware, the hardware it does support is supported better than Linux or Windows, hands down. Take my Powerbook. I just got a Firewire enclosure, and 200 GB drive. I plugged it in, Disk Utility came up, I partitioned it, and away I went. In 10 minutes, I had set it up and transferred 30 GB to it. Ok, it's Firewire, you say. Of course the Mac supports it. Ok, lets go with Digital cameras. I've used two different cameras with my laptop, a Fuji FinePix and a Kodak. For both of them, I just plugged them in. The memory card showed up as a drive mounted on my desktop, and iPhoto opened and allowed me to import my photos. Same story with a USB CF/SD card reader. No driver installation, no configuration necessary. I've had the same ease of installation with a USB floppy, USB keyboard, mouse, etc. I haven't had to install a single driver, mess with a config file, or anything. I call that excellent support.
Both of your experiences are not the direct result of good hardware support in Mac, but of Open Standards (hey, we're back to the old topic). Firewire and USB drives use standard interfaces so that software vedors don't have to write different drivers for each kind of device. Your cameras present themselves as USB mass-storage devices.
Yes, they are open standards. But they have to be written to conform with a standard way of communicating (i.e. usb-mass-storage) and that is a sign of good hardware and good hardware support. Good hardware because the hardware manufacturer built the product to conform as a mass-storage-device, and good hardware support because the OS detects it, sets it up, and does everything for you. And, every single one of those devices I just mentioned require special drivers in my versions of Windows (Windows 2000 and Windows 98 2nd Ed and Windows NT) (except the USB keyboard & mouse in Windows 2000) if they work at all.
Linux supports them well too (again because of the standards, not the drivers) the problem on some Linux setups is that your drive doesn't automagically show up on your desktop. There are programs that make this happen, but most don't work so well.
You would have had the same experience (eXPerience? :P) in Windoze.
I have never really used Windows XP and will not use any MS product that uses WPA (Windows Product Activation). So, I can't really compare it with that. But Mac OS X is way ahead of any of the other windows. Even Linux in general is ahead of windows in that respect. Many things work (USB keyboards and mice, mass storage devices, etc), especially if plugged in before you start up (in RedHat, kudzu would always setup X to use my USB wheel mouse) without the need for installing drivers.
So USB keyboard, USB mouse, etc. etc. all work well in Mac and windows because there are helper applications to make it happen and open standards that the devices conform to. Linux will get there very soon. Some distros already work like that. The hardware and drivers are not the issue.
See above. Most of my examples were Firewire and USB, but the same holds true for many other hardware devices that are supported by the Mac. There isn't a lot of fiddling. Plug it in, maybe install a driver, and away you go.
Grant
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