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Hardware Manufacturers that Actively Support Linux?

Posted by Cliff on from the doing-more-than-paying-lip-service dept.

wirefarm asks: "I know there is are lot of well-supported pieces of hardware for Linux, but I was wondering, which vendors really go out of their way for the community? While tracking down drivers for a wireless PCMCIA card today, I found that the vendor boasted of having Linux support, but it was seemed that they were actually touting drivers that were community-developed, rather than written with any help of the company. So my question is this: Which companies really stand out when it comes to providing specs and developing drivers?"

3 of 596 comments (clear)

  1. none of them by xcable_hhh · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    I have been using linux for about 3 or 4 years now. I have not come accross any "main stream" vender that activactly (pay coders to write drivers) for linux. The reason is that they like be f**** over by bill , and they don't care. There is no reason why Nvidia, ATI, Creative, Intel, AMD, RealTEK, Netgear, VIA, or all the others should not write drivers for linux, hell they give away the windoze dirvers anyway.

    These companies need to grow some balls!!!

    my 2 cents
    heath

  2. Re:nvidia, but... by Ogerman · · Score: 2, Flamebait

    Frankly, I couldn't care less if nvidia's drivers are open sourced. After spending months trying to play Quake II on a Voodoo5 5500, I bought a GeForceII MX 400. I was playing within 5 minutes of installing the card.

    If you're a gamer junkie, then fine. For those of us whose computers are more than just toys, NVidia's unstable closed drivers are not even a consideration. And maybe you'll reconsider as well someday when X crashes while running a GL accelerated app. Closed source drivers are 100% illogical and unacceptable under any circumstance. That's all there is to it.

  3. Re:nvidia, but... by DennisZeMenace · · Score: 1, Flamebait


    > And maybe you'll reconsider as well someday when X crashes while running a GL accelerated app. Closed source drivers are 100% illogical and unacceptable under any circumstance. That's all there is to it.
    Maybe this is because the Linux kernel device driver framework is so poorly done and un-standardized than you NEED the driver source code to do anything. That certainly is not nVidia's fault or problem...

    DZM