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Hardware Manufacturers that Actively Support Linux?
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?"
Canon don't yet, I was very annoued with my facncy new cheap 650 USB scanner!
They are still "thinking about it" and won't give out any specs in the meantime.
blog.sam.liddicott.com
My Compaq Evo n600c laptop had an eepro100 that wasn't supported by the kernel until 2.4.18.
Intel had a src download driver that compiled and worked flawlessly.
-... ---
they are not Open Source. I guess this is the obvious one to many... mode me down if you wish.
I know what the Internet is, what the hell is this Interweb business?!
ATI gets a lot of bad press for their drivers, but they do release the specifications for their hardware to multiple open source development groups. What you end up with is Free, open drivers that are as good as the groups that make them. This as opposed to NVidia, a company that although support Linux through binary drivers, does not release the source code or specifications.
That just because they were community developed, doesn't mean the company didn't give out specs and info to facilatate the community's work.
3com cards seem to work on everything
Recent Intel network gear
Recent Nvidia
3dfx used to
IBM (even before the Linux money, their laptops worked well)
Matrox has the new drivers out for Xfree86 which work well, and a hell of a lot better then AcceleratedX. Nvidia also has drivers for Xfree86, and just kicks butt. I have been happy with both, They are relatively easy to install and configure.
I believe Creative has a dedicated site for the continued development of their sound card drivers. They even have a CVS up as well.
http://opensource.creative.com/
Cheers!
Eddy.WriteLinux.Com
Bad as it may sound, since they don't provide the source to their drivers, they seem to work seriously in improving them. I've been using them since my old TNT2 card, and the big problems present at the beginning have faded away to give place to a full featured, fast and reliable thing. I've also had answers to my mails reporting problems, which is always nice.
Speed is now at the same level of Windows, features seem to be there as well (I don't remember if everything works at every resolution yet or no), and over time they have become stable enough to be used as primary XFree drivers (in the beginning I used them only when I needed openGL support).
Given their work on the driver, I'm willing to live with their closed-sourceness. It's when it doesn't work and I cannot look in it to fix that I become less tolerant....
3ware actively supports Linux as there a linux drivers on the CD you get with their RAID-Cards. Works fine, at least with SuSE 7.2+
Matrox is actively supporting its line of dual-head cards under Linux and various flavors of Windows. There may also be *bsd support as well, but not being a bsd user, I didn't pay attention. I'm running a Matrox G450 under Red Hat 7.2 (upgraded from 7.1) with two ViewSonic E771 17" by .26 monitors in merged display mode and it is phenomenal. I had to use their tech support list to get it working, but it only took a few days...mostly because I'd ask the question from work, try the solution at home, and then follow up at work. See the screen shot (2560x1024 .jpg image, 10485992 bytes).
What is your Slash Rating?
I am in the process of bringing our brand new network on-line (8 new DL-360s) and Compaq has been extreamly helpful. All of the servers are running RH 7.2 (they were delivered with 7.1 installed) and we have run into several issues reguarding RAID, the LightsOut boards, etc. Compaq support for their hardware and software has been excellent. Not to mention several cool software things that came with the servers.
According to the sane USB page they release even preliminary specs on demand: http://www.buzzard.org.uk/jonathan/scanners-usb.ht ml.
:) (which I shall not name here)
Mandrake linux detected my 640U flawlessly, and it works great. And on top of that, it scans better and faster than my old scanner, which I killed while trying to get it working under linux
the pun is mightier than the sword
- Well..
- Matrox
- nvidia
- intel
- ibar (a.k.a ibm
;)
- HP (deskjet printers)
- OKI (4w driver was sponsored by them)
- AMD
- ATI (sortof. at least their linux drivers sucks as much as windows one..)
- ... pretty much more.
Jeesus christ this lameness filter gets my ass. no wonder there's THGSB week going on. This is SO lame.fucktard is a tenderhearted description
I have several 3ware raid cards that have worked great. Not only that, but I've had to call several times for support, and every time, I either talked to someone who helped me right off the bat, or was contacted by someone who knew what they were talking about within the day. Twice, they even made driver fixes on the fly and sent me the updated code the next day. DEFINITELY the best company-based Linux support I have seen...
Linux support is kind of hit and miss right now with larger companies. For instance, HP is adding more linux support than ever to their printers, even the office jets, but if you go buy a scanner, they don't support it. Obviously, the community supports a lot of HP scanners, but not the company.
HP is also supporting RedHat on it's new Itanium servers, and also supports RedHat with its mid-range storage arrays. They seem to be testing the waters, and I think they are doing all right for such a large and slow moving company.
Samsung is also supporting their printers, by offering Linux drivers and Linux phone support (minimal, but it is there). This is a good thing.
Qlogic and Emulex both support linux with some of their fibre channel HBA's.
So as you can see, you kind of have to pick and choose who you get our stuff from. The corporations are still in the "test the waters" phase for the most part, before they dive in to linux head first. They don't want to get burned by wasting money doing all the work if it will not pay off. In another 3 years, I think Linux support will be fairly mainstream as far as business server and workstation equipment go, but it may still be hit and miss in the consumer market (i.e. webcams, cheap USB scanners, cheapo printers, etc.)
Moon Macrosystems. Sun's biggest competitor.
DLink has pretty good support, especially for Linux. My dad's noname laptop came with a CD that provided Linux drivers, and they actively support them via the phone support.
--sig fault--
Matrox seems to be good too, as I've never had trouble getting their video boards to work right out of the box with X (as I understand it the Matrox folks are more helpful than most to the X developers).
That said, Promise is clearly bad for refusing to release their drivers in source form (I guess they think their software RAID technology is so advanced it would give their competitors a great benefit--or maybe they are embarassed to let us see it). Logitech have never been friendly to the OSS world about their QuickCam cameras. I think a lot of printer manufacturers have been a nuisance in this regard (I gave up on trying to figure it all out and bought a Postscript-capable network printer). I'd be curious about good and well supported inkjet printers, though...
Oh, yeah, our Microtek X6EL scanner works great with Linux and SANE. I don't know if the manufacturer is to be credited partially or if the driver author was just heroic in his efforts, but it works exceedingly well.
RedHat Hardware Channelse . tml ..)
http://www.redhat.com/marketplace/channel_hardwar
(among others, there are Dell, Egenera
Linux Hardware
http://www.linuxhardware.org/
Linux at IBM
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/
Linux at Compaq
http://www.compaq.com/products/software/linux/
It is a safe assumption that hardware from the 2 above manufacturer will be well supported, since they are supporting Linux heavilly.
Last but not least, make sure to read the Howto:
Linux Hardware compatibility HOWTO http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Hardware-HOWTO/
Do they still exist?
Anyway, I remember they wrote all their own linux drivers for their scsi cards...
With the advent of hotplug, and firmware uploading, there are going to be lots of firms offering support for linux, but it won't be included with the kernel.
I work for a company that will be releasing firmware for our devices, and a script that makes it work with hotplug. We can GPL.
I worry that drivers like these won't get the attention that ones in the kernel do because they aren't included.
I hope that there will be some common method of installing firmwares or a commmon repository of firmwares in the future.
Linux users seem to depend on drivers being included with the kernel, having nothing else to get.
I dont mind spending a few dollars more to support a company/product that supports my choice to use linux. It was well worth the extra $ to plug it in, run the install, and connect to the network at my college in under 5 minutes.
Have you read the Moderator Guidelines yet?
I'm surprised no one has mentioned it but Adaptec has done a very fine job supporting linux. I am not sure how many if any of the drivers they actually wrote but they have a really well designed web site to help linux and *BSD users setup and use a lot of their equipment. They also provide utility software for their hardware. For example I am running Adaptec Storage Manager right now on a linux system with an Adaptec 2400a raid card.
Belkin also does many of the same things. I know that belkin has a rather wide variety of hardware they sell, however with their UPS's I know for sure that linux is very well supported. Their upsd and ups monitor are closed source but they work very well. They are also rather well documented.
There is one company that really bugs me though and that is creative. They have opensource.creative.com. They've made many announcments and claim bragging rights for supporting the linux community. The truth is however every driver for a creative device out there has been written by the community with barely any input from creative. On the emu10k1-audigy driver mailing list there's a guy.. I forget his name.. who works for creative that does get info from time to time for the development team, but it always seems like he has to beg or plea for the info he wants to get. Usuaully it seems as if he just asks someone who is coding the windows driver or helped design the hardware without getting approval first from management. I'm not implying anything here other than creative is not actively supporting crap.
I just bought a cheap, er, inexpensive Lexmark laser printer. It touted Linux support and even had a Penguin on the box and linux drivers on the installation CD. Unfortunately it still took a bit of fiddling to get the printer to work but work it does. Can't say to what extent they actively contributed versus used other peoples work however.
The problem with UMAX CSCI scanners is the crapware semi-SCSI interface card they provide with them. Replace the card with an Adaptec, or some other supported REAL SCSI host adapter and you will find that the UMAX scanners are very nicely supported by SANE.
utter rubbish
I think there are a lot of companies that would like to do better, but can't due to non-disclosure agreements of one kind or another. Video card vendors like Matrox and ATI can't give out all of the information on their cards due to Macrovision support on TV-output ports.
I have a laptop with an Intel chipset that has an integrated winmodem that I can't use. Intel is usually very very good about releasing specs (definitely something I'd say they're better at than AMD and Via), but due to proprietary technology, no specs are available, and I can't get the damn thing to work.
I always get confused when this happens. I always thought that the proprietary-ness of an object was contained within that object. Why companies are so scared to release info on how to get something to work is beyond me. I guess there are some decent reasons for the Macrovision problem (I hate the reasons (it's illegal in the US to not have Macrovision protection, AFAIK), but they are valid nonetheless).
I hope that Linux will pull some of these companies away from that line of thinking..
Anyway, I don't know if it's still true, but Epson used to release quite a bit of info about their printing languages. I think HP did as well, at least until they got into their winprinter phase. They seem to be loosening up.
Hmm.. I think that some of the best companies in this regard have low profiles. All of the big names I can think of have made some pretty poor choices, IMHO.. A lot of companies seem to want to release just enough information to keep Linux users happy.
I think it's best when companies release this information, though. When the specs are opened up, it means that the product can have a much longer life cycle. As long as there's someone who is interested in keeping a driver working, it'll work. I bet there's a bunch of stuff that's supported in Linux that doesn't work in Windows anymore..
Logitech has provided little support for Linux and is especially bad for their lack of cooperation with webcam drivers. It's strange that a hardware company should keep its product interface specs so secret. After all, if a company wants to sell more hardware, isn't it in their best interest to publish those specs?
Syskonnect - Makes some of the best network cards, and developes very, very stable drivers for linux. Best of Breed.
ICP-Vortex - Makes some of the best RAID cards available. Develops their own drivers. Best of Breed again.
Cyclades - makes some nice stuff, supports linux well.
Adaptec may have gotten better, but they didnt used to release the source for their RAID cards, and only realeased binary drivers for certain kernels, and didnt update them often.
Mylex used to advertize heavy about working with linux, but relied upon community drivers, even linking to the community page. Why woudlnt they bring this person on-board to fully support linux?
Makes no sence to me. Why buy Mylex when i can have a much better card in ICP-Vortex anyway?
Kodak is one of the real losers when it comes to releasing specs. Scratch them from the list, and add them to your blacklist.
Beside releasing specs, the other thing that the hardware companies can do is support standards and engineer their products so that there is less variation between product generations.
Rather than invent new protocols, command sequences, and interfaces, they can support a standard interface across their whole product line.
This makes it easier for the open-source developers, but it also makes it easier for the company itself -- hardware designers, in-house developers, and support people. In many cases, an old driver can be used, perhaps slightly updated to manage a few new features. This reduces the amount of redevelopment and therefore reduces the opportunities for bugs to sneak in -- regardless of the platform.
Some good examples come to mind:
- HP scanners. The HP scanner protocol has been pretty much stable for years, and the same command set has been used on the USB scanners as the SCSI scanners. You can take a current SCSI scanner and use it with a driver from 6 years ago. Yes, the protocol is proprietary, but it's well documented and well understood, and it's not changed at whim.
- DPT controllers (old). These used the EATA (extended ATA) interface across the product line. EATA was well-documented, multi-vendor, and stable. It provided basic compatability with ATA (IDE host adapter) specs but could then take off from there. New cards needed tweaking but not wholesale driver rewrites.
- Most SCSI tape drives. These all use the standard SCSI tape command set, even though they have very different capabilities. (Contrast this to OnStream drives, below).
Some bad examples:
- Early OnStream tape drives. Although the newer units understand standard SCSI tape protocols, the early units used an unnecessary proprietary variation. There were reasons for the variation -- but the fact that the newer drives understand the standard command sets indicates that the variation was not necessary.
- Video cards. Why can't successive video cards from the same manufacturer each support a superset of the previous capabilities, so that you could use the previous driver to start, then eventually add the new functionality to the driver to fully support the latest card?
- Many advanced laser printers (this is a cross-manufacturer issue). I have yet to see two different makers that use the same paper-source-select or staple-enable codes. If PCL and PostScript and PJL are all standardized for other functions, why not source-select and finisher options? It wouldn't require an ANSI subcommittee, just one or two face-to-face meetings or a couple of days of faxes and e-mails.
In most cases, these are engineering problems. The first-generation products need to be designed with some foresight -- version numbers, capability registers, extensible command sets, protocols that can be implemented over different interfaces -- so that later product generations can interoperate, even when they support features which we can't even dream about now.
-Chris Tyler
The guys at EDT (www.edt.com) who make all sorts of data acquisition and control cards, support Linux very well. I've used their LVDS cards for a handful of projects, and they are very knowledgeable and helpful with Linux. They have native drivers for the cards, sample code, etc. Highly recommended. I have no connection with them other than being a very satisfied customer.
WWJD -- What Would Jimi Do?
(Smash amp, burn guitar, take home the groupies)
I haven't actually used their IDE-RAID cards, but everyone I've heard from speaks very highly of them.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.