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Linux's Achilles Heel Apparently Revealed
ahab_2001 writes "In Information Week's latest 'Langa Letter', Fred Langa points to something that he calls Linux's 'Achilles' heel': 'New Linux distros still fail a task that Windows 95 -- yes, 95! -- easily handles, namely working with mainstream sound cards.' After lamenting his difficulties in getting a particular sound card to work with nine Linux distros, he concludes that his experience 'empirically shows that, despite its many good points, Linux still has some huge, gaping holes--holes that Windows plugged almost a decade ago.' (Oddball note: Information Week prefaced the e-mail alert pointing to this article by saying 'Occasionally, we have news or analysis of such importance that it warrants a special alert to you.' Hmm...)"
Is this a record moment for MS, when 95 outperforms a Linux boxen? I just heard a few coworkers keel over dead.
I knew I should have kept my copy of Windows 95!
Some sound cards suck and are not supported by Linux...or the original manufactures that went out of business 10 years ago and took the specs with them
What's with all the Troll articles lately?
"Some things have to be believed to be seen." - Ralph Hodgson
The ones that came configured with the sound volume set to 0 by default.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
My watch says it's April 19th, not 1st.
:wq
I've had problems with video card, SCSI cards, RAID cards, Fibre Channel cards, PCI cow milking cards, but never, not once, have I had trouble getting a mainstream sound card to work under Linux.
The perfect sig is a lot like silence, only louder
I did set one up once, but all I got out of that was knowing how some weird dude pronounces 'leenucks', whatever that is.
I've never had problems with my sound cards in recent years. I am not a big audio afficionado - a basic 2.1 speaker setup plugged in to the motherboard's onboard sound chip is all I need, so I don't really know. The extent of my experience is that the intel8x0 ALSA driver seems to work okay. Has anyone had bad experiences with modern cards and ALSA?
I have never had a problem getting sound working in Linux in the 10+ personal (and friends') machines I've installed it on, including an array of laptops and manufactured computers. Linux might have a weakness, but I doubt it is support for sound.
Giving windows credit for working with sound cards gets thing rather backwards don't you think? Considering the MONOPOLY windows has, they don't need to to be compatible and work well with the sound cards. The sound cards need to make sure they work well with windows. Microsoft can do what ever they want and the world must switch it's practices and standards to suit it--which of course is the problem now isn't it.
ALSA supports most mainstream soundcards, and (as I'm sure most of you are aware of) it's integrated into the kernel as of 2.6. Linux's sound support is getting much better than where it used to be (OSS). It would really help if the card manufacturers would help us out though (ie. It would be nice if Creative handed us an opensource EAX). Microsoft has it easy because the manufacturers produce Windows drivers with each sound card.
Life is offtopic.
He didn't reveal what sound card he was actually working with?
Say it isn't so, Linux doesn't support his on board sound chip set. We're fucked now!
On the other hand, one usually looks into these sort of things before one purchases one's hardware.
The difference between Canada and the USA is that in Canada healthcare is a right and gun ownership is a privilege.
That's as maybe, but if you are implying that sound functioning 50% of the time is somehow worse than sound functioning 0% of the time, then I fear I have wandered into either a Monty Python sketch, the Twilight Zone, or Slashdot.
In any case, it can't be good for my sanity.
RomSteady - I came, I saw, I tested. GamerTag: RomSteady / http://www.romsteady.net
Considering that every MS Windows install I've ever done (Win 3.1-Win2k, I haven't installed XP) I've had to use external party drivers - either having to have driver floppy(s)/cd or had to go to the manfacturer's website before I had any sound. Even for Soundblasters and SB clones, PCI or ISA, it was always that way.
The article's tripe.
...Rob
The American Dream isn't an SUV and a house in the suburbs; it's Don't Tread On Me.
...this guy's never had an irq conflict where his sound card wants to use the only irq that his isa nic card requires.
We all remember the Win98 Scanner incident, don't we? That was televised...
Give this guy enough blue screens and he'll be begging for penguin.
FLR
So I gotta agree with this guy, Linux does have its share of problems, but its not because Linux is deficient in anyway, its just that there is a different mentality about Linux than Windows. Lets take his sound card example, the manufacturer of the sound card had two choices, support Linux and spend money on potentially smaller market, or save that money and focus entirely on Windows. The company probably hoped that some Linux driver coder would just whip up a driver and save them the hassle. That's the wrong mentality, and until companies see Linux as a financial win, these sorts of problems will exist.
Sigh, I can relate with this guy, I've tried and tried but my DLINK DWL-520 rev e PCI wireless card still doesn't work under Linux.
Bottom line: For broad hardware support, Windows is still much better than Linux. That's not bias--it's a demonstrable fact.
Even if we assume for the moment that this guy's sound card problems were, in fact Linux's fault and not the fault of the sound card vendor or himself, this is still a completely false statement.
Linux may indeed be behind Windows in supporting some of the latest and greatest hardware, particularly those where the vendor doesn't open the specs or provide linux binary drivers, but Windows only supports one architecture.
That fact alone means Linux supports a much broader hardware base than Windows.
Also, I notice that he doesn't mention what sound card he's using, I have to wonder why.
Fred Langa's main claim to fame was as one of the key personalities in CMP's now-defunct Windows Magazine. Therefore, he's much more familiar with Windows than Linux. Let's face it, he's paid to be a pundit that writes stories that sell magazines.
Although, this doesn't exactly invalidate his point. Microsoft's got a deep driver library database included in Windows XP... containing many cards that there is no known Linux drivers for.
I know that where I work, having a sound card is critical to operation of the company.
I cannot imagine how someone can function without hearing that Ding! each time a new email arrives. I'd be lost, ever wondering, "do I have another Symantec AV warning about an attempted incoming virus message?"
Linux is doomed if it can't even Ding! when email arrives.
.sigs are for post^Hers.
Sound is important on Windows machines because how else are you supposed to know that IIS has gone down or become infected with a virus for the third time this week, than with a lot of "dinging" noises, while you're huddled under your desk?
And that Apple plugged in the 1980's
Oh, wait. On the Mac sound is built in. You don't need a sound card.
Well, geez.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
They damn well are to me. If my sound card doesn't work in Linux, and it works in Windows, me AND my MP3s are staying in Windows.
Luckily, sound cards really aren't that difficult to setup in Linux, though there are some hitches to overcome.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Sound (and USB) support on Linux can be a pain. He doesn't give any specifics as to what sound hardware, kernel versions, etc... so there's no hope in trying to second guess what he did wrong. I'm inclined to guess that after he got ALSA working the first time, after reboot he probably just needed to crank the volume back up, or forgot some insmod lines (both easy to do.)
I've fought the software to get sound working on linux, and got there without too much trouble most of the time.
It goes both ways. I spent a fair amount of time trying to fight Windows ME on a relative's machine to trying to get sound working reliably. I had to give up and take him to XP, where they seem to finally have interrupts sorted out properly.
I also recently discovered that RedHat 9 does not recognize the external 5.25" drive that my C64 so easily manages without a hitch.
Do you think Linux will support my Adam tape drive? I better go check...
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I couldn't get XYZ to work with my sound card
Small FUD-HOWTO:
BTW, I couldn't get "my harddrive" to work with Windows XY.
P.S.: Actually I really had a Western Digital 40GB harddrive that crashed the BIOS in both an Athlon and P2 and therefore wasn's usable in Windows98, since Linux ignores the BIOS the harddrive worked fine (of course booting off it was impossible).
I've heard of not reading the article, but didn't you read the summary? It said clearly 9 distros.
Jack Valenti and Orrin Hatch will be first up against the wall when the revolution comes.
"I agree. Even Windows 2000 and XP fuck up when you try to play sound in different programs."
Speaking as somebody who uses both XP and 2000 daily, no, you are full of shit. How do you think millions of us Windows users listen to MP3s all day?
"Derp de derp."
It's the end of the world as we know it (and I feel fine). This gives all the more reason not to run proprietary hardware. For those who do, however, I suppose there's always hope that someone will be willing to wrap windows drivers to get the job done. As much as I detest the idea, it's really a shame this isn't done more often, as it would go a long way towards silencing loyalist weenies who look for any little defect in Linux so they can write a cheezy little expose and earn their $1.98.
And your sound card that worked fine with Windows 95 may not work at all with Windows XP either. Such are the breaks - if it's not made or supported anymore, that's not Linux's fault. Usually Linux is substantially better about supporting several generations back hardware out of the box than Windows is.
If they didn't want to spend the effort on linux support, there is a third choice: PUBLISH THE INTERFACE SPECIFICATIONS. Its not like the company doesn't develop these pieces of documentation for internal use.
Then the community will write drivers for it and support it.
-molo
Using your sig line to advertise for friends is lame.
He stated which distros he had issues with but not which sound card. "Mainstream Onboard Intel sound system" isn't quite specific enough. Conveniently this doesn't allow anyone to refute his claim. Smells like FUD. The ALSA working once until reboot stinks of the common mute-by-default confusion.
..as it is an achilles heel for desktop linux as competition with windows on the x86. Yes there are a lot of problems getting vendors to add linux support for their hardware. My old Voodoo5 still has problems displaying some alpha-layer transition textures (bullets in halflife are just black squares), mainly because the company went out of business soon after releasing the card. The same is true for many sound cards. I have found that Linux is actually quite excellent at supporting old hardware interfaces. Many old sound, video, webcams, etc. used chipsets which were so similar that a linux user could easily just load the driver module based on the chipset and not the model of the hardware. Windows users tend to have a hell of a time trying to adopt old chipset drivers to match old hardware when a driver isn't available. Granted,that the driver is usually much more available to windows users, but a windows user can be just plain stuck where a linux user could at least have their soundard 'sorta' working.
Now it can't go mainstream because one pundit has trouble with one easily-replaced $10 sound card. Next, they'll say it can't go mainstream because the borders on the "Cancel" buttons are not quite the right shade, or because you can't install MS security patches.
You know hardware would be easier to support if the companies that make the hardware would either supply more information for people to write the device drivers or supply linux drivers for download.
Only so much can be done without the needed info.
(But yes, things like this are quite annoying to Joe Computer User)
-- taking over the world, we are.
I wonder if there is any possiblity that the writer deliberately or accidentally selected distributions that would not work. From the Langa Letter: Linux's Achilles' Heel
Personally, I'm surprised and disapointed re: Suse. However, I'm also a bit surprised that someone who is seriously trying evaluate Linux and get a sound card to work didn't try either Mandrake or Red Hat.
Only Women Bleed (Sex, Sharia remix)
Umm, Pardon me for interjecting here, but in my experience, being able to play sound from more than one program is a function of the sound card's capabilities, (being able to play and mix both sound streams. My sister complained loudly about the fact that she couldn't hear IM sounds while listening to MP3's. Replaced the Sound Blaster PCI128 with a Live 5.1 and all was peachy. there are also cards still more advanced than that and have multiple independent stereo outputs that could blay your MP3's on the front speakers and the IM sounds on the rear.
Is that so? I've never seen that happen. But if you try the same on Linux or *BSD, the last program that tried to access /dev/dsp will hang politely while waiting for the first one to let go of the device[1]. That's why most distros will use esd or artsd, both of which are crap, and will occupy /dev/dsp for apps that aren't aware of the sound server. Yes, Linux does suck a bit when it comes to sound, although its capabilities are quite OK. If only all apps and distros would standardise on JACK, it could become great. In my experience it's quite a bit better than for the author of TFA, though. All sound cards I've tried have worked. Seems like he's just bitter because his particular brand is unsupported, and most of the time that is the vendor's fault.
[1]Unless you have a soundcard with hardware mixing supported by ALSA or OSS.
Linux isn't all that great at sound, though the article is complete FUD. I've never had a problem running a Soundblaster card on a Linux machine. They always autodetect fine. And since Soundblaster is about the most common soundcard on the market...
At any rate, I've hardly ever had a linux machine with a soundcard in it. I hardly ever have the GUI enabled. If I want to play games, I use my windoze box...that's what it's there for, to be a toy.
That's what Windows is for. Not to do anything real, or useful. Can't check your email on it, or browse the internet without worrying that its executing code from every damn website, or that its autorunning attachments. Doesn't come with any useful compilers or development tools. The included webserver sucks. Windows is a toy, and it has always been a toy, and the fact that people are looking at a kick-ass powertool and complaining that it's not a toy is absurd.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
i switched to linux only, just because i got fed up with M$. i still dont have a fully functional sound card. granted, this card (turtle beach santa cruz) has many known problems with linux, and some people have been able to get it to work fully - but i have not talked or read a response from any of them. sure the card has hardware decoding, 4.1, many effects, and good recording, but does any of it work-- sometimes, and never all at once all things that worked without a hitch in M$. i love the santa cruz, not the best for linux, but a solid card, my favorite of its time, still [would] hold up against new cards (so little overhead)
even the cards that do have good alsa support still have problems. say you get a new audigy 2 or some other widespread commercial card, does the surround work in all applications? does the optical in and out work? does it transition well between applications, and can it do multi channel effects from different sources? can it record? are all of the knobs and jacks even usable? i could go on and on.
i will say that they have made many improvements over the years, but how is linux going to become a viable home multimedia platform (which i would say most of the home pcs sold today are used for) with such a slow curve on sound! crap i like fewer viruses and better stability, but i like my music, games, and instruments more. were not talking enterprise here, just my home pc, web, music, games, papers, schedule, ya know? big win still wins in the "ill play nice with your hardware".
mental note: next box, make sure all hardware works 100% in linux
|plastic....or gasoline?|
Ok, so we have one guy who couldn't get one un-named sound card to work under Linux. All we know is it's "An utterly mainstream Intel Motherboard". Uhh, yah, thanks for the details so someone can replicate your findings, Fred.
The fact that there's onboard sound, or a soundcard that isn't supported by Linux just isn't too surprising. Why this gets posted as "news", or as "Linux's achilles heal" is beyond me. Is 'ol Fred going to buy a soundcard for his Mac, and then pronounce that lack of support for every soundcard to be the bain of the Macintosh?
I'm actually surprised sound support for Linux is as good as it is. The sound on my laptop worked out of the box when I installed RH9 on it, a first for me! There's also sound support for my N-Force motherboard. Sound support is actually something that's matured quite a bit in the last few years.
I won't say Linux is perfect. There's plenty of things to complain about as far as Linux desktop usage is concerned. My personal complaint is the fact that copy/paste support is still kind of crappy. I can copy/paste between emacs sessions (as long as they remain open), but I can't copy/paste from emacs to somewhere else. That's just pathetic. Windows has supported universal copy/paste since 3.1
AccountKiller
Ha! Does Linux have a software mixer, you ask. Linux is much better than that! Linux has numerous software mixers! None of them are compatible with each other, much less any player applications, but you bet there are software mixers around! It's all about choice! Of course, they are all userland programs, so they skip now and then, but that's a small price to pay for ensuring that something so trivial does not offend the great Linux kernel by depriving it of some of its low-latency resources. Such resources are critically important towards providing optimal networking, disk I/O, RAID, and other things that are invisible to the user which he or she clearly does not appreciate enough.
I, being an educated and l33t hacker, know that I would much rather get an extra 5kB/sec on my downloads than be able to listen to two streams of audio at once. You already have two ears, isn't that good enough? Software mixer, pshaw.
Random and weird software I've written.
There's some truth to the article. ALSA still requires running a configuration program to get it to work with even major sound cards (and when the autoconfig doesn't work, it still requires tweaking IRQ's, yuck). And when I try to set up my sound card through KDE, KDE still insists on using the 'snd_' prefixes to the ALSA module settings, which ALSA stopped using quite a while back. And there are also lots of apps which use OSS instead of ALSA.
Windows 95 succeeds in other areas where Linux fails, too. One minor one is that Windows 95 boots with a pretty graphic splash screen while Linux spews ugly status messages too quickly to even read; what's the point of that? (There's a bootsplash patch for the Linux kernel, but it hasn't been updated for 2.6.5 yet, and it requires the ability to patch and reconfigure a kernel.)
But I'd say the biggest place where Win95 beats Linux is this: I could run Win95 quite comfortably on a PC with 8MB RAM and it would give me a somewhat friendly UI and a consistent interface across applications, with buttons and menus that would all look and work similarly. On Linux today I have two choices: use a desktop environment like KDE which requires more than 128MB RAM to run comfortably, or else use a bare-bones window manager like fvwm2 or icewm and put up with the fact that every app's buttons and menus are going to look completely different (xterm still has that weird scrollbar that requires a three-button mouse!).
Linux has every other operating system beat in terms of stability and robustness. But even Windows 95 still beats its pants off in terms of friendliness and usability in a desktop environment.
On the forum he even quotes another reader as stating that that reader had the exact same problems. After that statement from Fred it gets a bit fuzzy however: when trying to install Red Hat 7 a year ago the reader ran into problems with the Promise ATA/66 disk controller [Could it be set up as a RAID controller...?]. Only later in the letter is it mentioned that on a certain SuSE install the user had the same problem.
It seems to me that the whole article is a lot of trumpet blowing on a minor detail: unspecified versions didn't work on unspecified hardware. Fred mentions the Windows versions he used, I guess it was too much trouble to find out if he used Slackware 5 or Slackware 10...
There's no place like 127.0.0.1
Actually, I can attest, from personal experience, that Linux has better support for legacy cards. I tried to put one of my old sound cards in my mother-in-law's computer. It was an Ensoniq soundscape from 1995. I managed to find some legacy drivers for it on Creative's website, but it just would not work under Windows 98. This card works flawlessly under Linux.
Where Linux tends to have problems is with the latest bleeding edge cards that require some sort of funky drivers. Legacy cards are rarely a problem for it.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
I know a lot people here on /. plug Linux as the best thing short of the Second Coming...
But... The real issue is that most people don't install their own operating systems. They take what comes on their PC from the factory, and that's it.
That said, the only way in which Linux is going to gain significant ground on the desktop is if:
Linux's big hurdle for the desktop is that for most people, Windows is Good Enough(TM). Any difficulties installing Windows are simply irrelevant because the average user never installs their own OS - when it crashes, they take it back to the store.
For Linux to succeed on the desktop, hardware detection and driver installation is going to have to be completely automatic. A distro which can't autodetect the video card or sound card would do better to inform the user that their hardware is unsupported than ask them to select their hardware from a seemingly endless list of meaningless names.
Linux developers are going to have to stop following Microsoft's lead and start really innovating.
* - yes, I know that many windows apps mangle the system. Let's just ignore this and pretend that they work as advertised for the sake of argument, shall we?
The society for a thought-free internet welcomes you.
He tried it with several distros: Xandros 2.0 Deluxe, two versions of Slackware, two versions of SuSE, Debian, Lindows, Knoppix, Knotix, Morphix, and Gentoo.
"one of the Linux distributions I tried specifically claimed compatibility with the sound system in question"
He didn't like the advice of "get rid of the brand-new, fully functional sound card and install a card from a few years ago, and Linux would work just fine".
The Achilles Heel is "For broad hardware support, Windows is still much better than Linux." It's not "My sucky OEM sound card didn't work."
Yeah, it sucks that he didn't mention the card. It sucks that he didn't try distro X, and that Knoppix couldn't detect it. It sucks that the forums didn't help. It sucks that he didn't try a half-a-dozen things. But, the fact is, a good amount of hardware that works out of the box with Windows won't work with Linux. Every user that trys and gets a bad experience will hold the opinion "Linux Sucks" until they are proved otherwise, years later perhaps.
but at least it was POSSIBLE.
Consider that for a second. In a less open environment you'd be screwed.
Like me with the fucking Monster Sound MX440 which absolutely DOES NOT WORK in Win2k+ on an SMP box (and it crashes lots in UP). Goddamn Diamond had to get bought by Rio and then dropped just as soon as I bought that stupid goddmamn card that only works in 98.
I wrestled with that through many card inserts and removals, wrong-localed Taiwanese OEM driver installs, and a few OS rebuilds. I'd say you had an easier time.
So retarded. But GUEEESSSSS what? Works fine in linux.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
My Sound Blaster Live! worked in Mandrake up until around 2-3 years ago, and hasn't since. I've tried every version of Mandrake for the past 3-4 years, almost all of the Red Hat versions for the same period, and they all fail at installing a Sound Blaster Live (other than Fedora 1.0). I tried "a couple versions of SuSE" too, and I can't name the specific versions, but they failed also.
This was installed in an ASUS Athlon mobo for a few years, and in an Intel P4 mobo lately. Same story with an SBLive at work (Athlon/MSI mobo). Same problem. No crappy hardware, no OEM parts. Always worked in 98, 2K, and XP every time.
Linux usually detects and then ignores it. Or (bonus!) it gives me an irritating high-pitched note at full volume, without anything else working. Sometimes I've been able to figure out the problem, but it's usually so frustrating and with so little utility, I just give up and reboot into XP.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
I have installed many, many windows 95's, 98's, ME's, 2000, & XP's. I have also installed almost as many SuSE Linux distobutions. I can tell you from first hand experience that M$ DOES NOT support sound cards better than SuSE anyway. As soon as the PCI based cards (non-soundblaster compatable) came out, M$'s support went out the windoze! However, Linux (SuSE) worked most of the time. Linux (SuSE) could/would even guess at closesed match and at least TRY something. Seems like the farther along M$ gets, the more the DON'T include drivers for anything unless the company is willing to pay big buck to get Hardware Certification from MS. Linux, on the other hand, seems to be including more and more drivers the more hardware comes out. Very easy to disprove this in the REAL world! B-)
A friend will come and bail you out of jail, a true friend will be sitting next to you saying, "damn that was fun!"
Because ONE "journalist" had trouble getting ONE sound card to work, even though he tried SEVERAL distributions (but not Red Hat or Mandrake, but he included TWO versions of SlackWare).
Linux SUCKS on sound support and that is why Linux has problems?
Now, if the "journalist" ran a real test, say of a DOZEN differnt sound cards, across a DOZEN different distributions, and identified which distributions worked with which sound cards, then I'd believe him.
To me, this reads like someone who found ONE piece of hardware that Linux has problems with, but which works well with Windows, and then tried to find out how MUCH of a problem Linux has with that ONE piece of hardware.
I don't expect anyone to try 9 different distributions to get the sound working. Sound cards are $10. If you want sound, it would be easier to spend th $10 and get one that is well supported rather than waste your time and effort trying to see if that ONE PIECE OF HARDWARE is supported in any other distribution.
Or, you could, gasp!, do some RESEARCH and find out if there is a distribution that supports that ONE piece of hardware.
There will ALWAYS (until Linux hits 51% of the desktops) be hardware that does not play well with Linux. This is not a disaster nor will it prevent anyone from migrating to Linux.
Even if Linux supported 99%+ of the hardware out there, that article would still be as correct as it is now. But it would be worthless, just as it is now.
I've been a Linux user, pretty much continuously, since 1993. I use it constantly, and have become deeply familiar with Gnome/KDE environments since both were < V1.0. (prior to those I was an fvwm guy, although I'll always hold a soft spot for twm).
/., where the ignorant roam free) by the ostritch-like, "there ain't no problem here" posts that seem to have mushroomed as per usual.
As a server OS, Linux is great. But I'm flabbergasted (hey, this is
They are all wrong.
Sound under linux sucks. Big time. It always has.
If it's not drivers, it's sound daemons. Yes, it's possible to get everything working just fine providing you don't want to use more than one. Mandrake linux is the only distro that works sensibly with sound. And believe you me, I've pretty much tried them all.
So it's piss poor. But as linux is primarily a server OS, what more can we realistically expect? Sound is utterly unnecessary in this capacity, for the most part.
The best unix desktop by a country marathon is Mac OS X. By some considerable margin. Anyone denying this simple fact is kidding themselves. Really.
Read my online journal: http://chris.carline.org
A lot of posts seem to say "Well, it's not LINUX's fault that the manufacturers don't have drivers for his sound card (Whichever sound card it is, it's probably an M$ sound card, he used to work for Windows magazine *insert nerdy snort here*).
Well, right there in the article it says it DID work on SOME Linux distros. Why would it work on one and not all? Why isn't there a centralized LINUX device driver database that every distribution uses in it's install? Why should we depend on HW manufacturers to write umpteen odd versions of their drivrs for umpteen odd flavors of Linux? One centralized repository, one way to handle devices and drivers. If someone doesn't want to use this DB, they are welcome to try a DriverDB-less distro.
"Anybody who tells me I can't use a program because it's not open source, go suck on rms. I'm not interested." (LT 2004)
Funny thing the timing of this article. I've been using Linux for quite awhile on my servers and love it. I don't install gui's on them and do everything from the CLI. On my desktop I've been using XP, and as much as I don't want to, I love it as well. I went to the Real World Linux conference in Toronto last week and talked to some of the Xandros guys, and decided I'd dual boot my XP box in the hopes that I could eventually replace XP with a good Linux Desktop.
The install was incredibly easy, and it handled partitioning my HD and installing the MBR with minimal input on my part. That part blew me away, it was easier than installing Windows (any version).
Unfortunately, I had no sound and my printer wouldn't work. I have a Sound Blaster audigy2 card and a Canon I320 printer...both very common and both work flawlessly on XP. After messing around for a couple of hours I got them both to work.
I also use 2 monitors on this box and have a 128M Nvidia GeForce video card. The install handled my video card without any user input and set a decent default screen resolution. Unfortunately again, it would not support the dual monitors. After googling for awhile I discovered Xinerama and reconfigured my XF86Config-4 file to support the dual monitors...which now work as well.
I discussed this with a friend who also wants to see huge adoption of Linux on the desktop. I explained that as much as I was impressed with Xandros it still is IMO not ready for your average computer user. We agreed to disagree on this point, but until you can install a Linux distro without having to drop to the command line to get things working, it's going to be a hard sell to Joe Q Public.
Now I realize that my setup may be a little out of the ordinary compared to regular users and they may not experience any of the problems that I did but the point is this all works out of the box on Windows. I prefer the command line and didn't have that much trouble getting everything working that I wanted too, but you can't expect the average user to put up with it...not when it just works with Windows.
We've still got aways to go but we're definitely getting there.
-Pat
Doesn't Gentoo take something like 36 hours (depending) to install? At any rate, with 5 versions of Windows and 9 versions of Linux, he must have one hell of a fast machine to install all that in just 2 days.
IMO, his time would have been better spent solving the problem on the original install (or first re-install) with a cheap sound card.
His entries in his forums are interesting as well, especially the one about his really wanting to run Linux on his new machine, but can't because he doesn't want to buy a decent sound card -- yet he's willing to spend 2 days of his presumably valuable time chasing a red herring simply because Linux *ought* to be able to support brand new proprietary hardware out of the box. I smell a shill.
No matter how many of my rights are taken away, somehow I still don't feel safe. -Frigid Monkey
There are two things that really bother me that make me believe this person flat out fabricated their testing:
1) The system is a brand new, state of the art, Intel system. Windows 95 wouldn't recognize half of the components on the system. It wouldn't recognize the USB, it wouldn't recognize the chipsets, it wouldn't recognize the video, etc.
To get all of this to work, he would have to download drivers from Intel - assuming they're even available (unlikely). If he did download drivers, then that probably included the sound driver - game over.
2) It is inferred that the sound card is very recent technology. That being the case, Microsoft must have been exceedingly good to create drivers 9 years in advance!
It's also worth recognizing that Intel is notorious for making hardware that is dependent on specific Windows functions. We all owe Intel a big thanks for the wonderful WinModem.
LarryD
Bush makes our troops prey...
Before I get started: I like Linux. I use it everyday. I like it even more because it makes Microsoft look over their shoulder.
That said, sound support in linux sucks....but it's not always "Linux's fault". My 5 year old IBM 600E Thinkpad has an unsupported sound card. I DO NOT have the option of "getting a sound card that doesn't suck" as some have suggested.
I use the laptop with Linux, but every time I realize that my sound card doesn't work it makes me shake my head and think: "Maybe Microsoft will have something to worry about in 5 years....."
While i'm ranting...how about better wireless network card support? I've got a bunch of spiffy new 802.11 A/B/G cards and none of them work in Linux. I have to resort to my 3 year old Cisco 350 series card to connect on my laptop.
Here's a better illustration of the problem:
Go to compUSA and try to find a scanner that DOESN'T work in windows. You probably won't be able to find one.
-ted
As it is written: "There are no good excuses for binary modules. Some of them may be technically legal (by virtue of not being derived works) and allowed, but even when they are legal they are a major pain in the ass, and always horribly buggy."
You know, there's a reason Linux doesn't work well with binary-only drivers. And that's because binary-only drivers are a bad idea for Linux.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
my first tech job (1996) was fixing windows computers with problems, most dealing with the soundcard.
i spent HUNDREDS of hours searching for drivers and changing default settings trying to get soundcards (from turtle beach to via to sound blaster compatible...) working in windows 95. as another poster said, it's not because of windows that these worked (or didn't work) it's because the drivers were well designed (or sucked ass).
it's the manufacturers fault for not providing linux drivers. but we have to remedy the situation by picking up their slack.
that said, i've configured around 8 computers with linux. i never checked the HCL first. and i got the sound to work (even on board sound) to work every time. maybe i'm just lucky but it seems that if you know what you are doing you'll get it to work. i didn't say it's easy.
fear is the mind killer
So, why didn't you read further and find out that an OUT OF THE BOX install of windows 95 could do this without issue?? That's a windows install from almost 10 years ago for god's sake! All versions of windows he tried back to windows 95 worked, without any configuration required.
The problem is that Linux cannot handle this hardware that is obviously able to be handled by windows created well before it was made because it can't handle 'compatible hardware'. This soundcard is obviously made to be compatible with the soundblaster standard, and the old versions of windows just see it as such AND WORK! If Linux is unable to handle that, and can't handle things that aren't EXACTLY what it's expecting, then it's F&*ked before it even gets off the ground because it will always have the problem of being 'a little behind'.
That doesn't cut it.
If linux can't identify a new soundcard as a soundblaster compatible and run with that until optimised drivers are created for it it's screwed.
If linux can't identify a digital camera as a standard 'mass storage device' and run with that until specific drivers are made for it (if they even need to be), then it's screwed.
All I'm seeing here is excuses, and that's why Linux is screwed, because the zealots all say:
"It's not a problem if you know what you're doing"
OR
"It's not a problem at all... why would you want to do that?"
OR, my favourite
"So, write a driver yourself"
This WILL NOT be the year of linux as long as this head up your arse attitude continues.
I know a lot more about linux than my mother and I think I know how and where to look for information. I'd have more difficulty figuring out the compatibility of hardware on linux than I would on windows. When I can't find a compatibility information for windows for some arcane webcam a friend owns, I fault the manufacturer for not supplying adequate information. But I would be able to say from their website that the webcam would work with what the manufacturer supplies with its product, because I've been able to before with many other products. All the relevant information I get is from a single, logical site. The MS site doesn't come into it, because the power of MS has pretty much ensured that manufacturers tell us whether and how they're compatible.
Check it's supported before you buy.
If the webcam was brand new, I would look at the box. If there's an XP logo I know it will work, without a doubt. No testing required. No searching required. Me not being the shopping type, I find the box info on the product page. I expect it there and it is in almost all cases.
Some manufacturers don't support their products well at all, then I'm down to OEM hunting or mailing them a complaint; again no MS involvement. Manufacturer's fault. I wouldn't expect my mother to know what OEM stands for, let alone know how to find it. I steer her away from habitually getting poorly supported products, because she's about 20,000km away from me. She's constantly on the lookout for a techie in her area to help her when she gets something unsupported... (but that's another story).
Lets take a look at a webcam driver for linux. First place I'd look: the manufacturer's site. beforehand I might sift through the CD that it came with in some vague hope. In most cases it will be no more than one drivers if anything. Often there won't be any support or information pages on compatibility (let alone useability). Where to now? I don't instinctively fault the manufacturer for not having it. Why? Because for I'm not really expecting a driver from them. Who's forcing them to? Why would they bother?
I now must go to google and from there to the webcam linux module site(s) and a myriad of messageboards, newsgroups and howto pages. I don't expect an answer from anywhere that doesn't include "you'll need to recompile your kernel" by someone in jest or otherwise or something along the lines of "we haven't been able to test this yet, but it works with XYZ, so it should work with your device".
There's no single way of dealing with peripheral support on linux. There is on windows. MS made sure of that. Who's making sure that people can expect without chance that a driver exists for linux when they get something out of the box?
Wow, one piece of hardware isn't supported.. It's a shame, but shit happens..
It's not simply one piece. You've got blinders on if you don't see the bigger picture. A printer here, a sound card there are just the tip of the iceberg. Take any random less-prevalent USB device. Can you say by only checking the manufacturer's site if it will work on linux?
Yes all hardware supports Windows, but that's hardly an achievement by Windows, it just shows off the power of monopoly.
Power brings with it the ability to have an impact and achieve something. I wish linux had the power to achieve half the of the things MS has in the peripherals market.
click-clack, front and back. I'm not moving this car otherwise.
From Fred Langa's article:
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 isn't some weird, off-brand system using unknown components: It's about as mainstream as it gets.
Wrong. No onboard sound chips are standard, and some are as impossible to work with as "winmodems", possibly for the same reason. Their configuration details are often proprietary secrets, and I expect that at least some of them are doing nasty background stuff with the CPU.
Linux does work with any Sound-Blaster compatible sound card.
How do I know these things?
I volunteer as a Build Instructor at a computer recycler (Free Geek, in Portland, OR). I assist newbies in learning the fine art of skimming the garbage flows for re-useable components, putting those together to make working PCs, and installing a variant of Debian on top of it all. Some of the results go to non-profit organizations but many go to the volunteers as reward for their services. Donate 24 hours to busting up recycled computers into steel, aluminum, and plastic bins and you get to take a Freekbox home (233 MHz, 96 MB ram, 4.5 GB HD, 15" monitor, speakers, CD player: all stuff that isn't going to the dump).
I have sometimes been able to get on board Crystal sound chips to work under Linux, though usually it means fussing with configuration settings. I have never been able to get a Yamaha sound chip to work and I have never heard of anyone who has. When we can't get the onboard sound to work, we disable it in BIOS and drop in a 16 bit sound card. We sell used ones that work just fine from our store for $2.00 for anyone who is doing this at home.
Fred Langa needs to look at appropriate technology resources when he ventures from the world of marketdroids into things Linux.
What he didn't reveal clearly enough is that the damn card does NOT work in Windows 95 or 98 as he claims it does. It only does so through a virtual machine that provides an emulated hardware layer.
His point is thus moot and shown for what it really is: FUD. Big, stinking, FUD of the worst kind.
Couple this with the fact that he does not give out the chipset model of the built-in sound card and I do not believe a word he wrote and neither should you.
Pragmatism as an ideology is not particularly pragmatic in the long term. Keep it in mind when you dismiss Free Software
My last two sound cards were declared "soundblaster compatible" on the package. Guess what, they weren't.
This is marketing bullshit, many soundcard chipsets provide a "soundblaster" or "soundblaster pro" emulation, but first after some special initialization, which you indeed need a native driver for. Those soundcards aren't in "soundblaster compatible" mode right after booting your computer, that's why the Linux soundblaster driver can't access them. Point.
Disclaimer: I use and love Gentoo.
But . . .
Does the author of this article REALLY expect us to believe that he was intelligent, knowledgeable, or persistent enough to bootstrap a source-based OS from a partial image or LiveCD??
Either his Gentoo experience was limited to just using the LiveCD, or he is lying.
Either way, this speaks volumes about how much effort he honestly spent in trying to make things work, as opposed to finding something that he could plausibly claim didn't work.
Also: why, oh why, do people complain when devices aren't supported which no one ever claimed were supported in the first place???
Linux isn't for people like this. It never was and possibly never will be. That doesn't mean there aren't problems, or even that the specific problem he's complaining about isn't a valid one (although he ever so helpfully omitted details that would have helped confirm it or fix it).
But I don't think it's fair to blame Linux for the author's failure to use supported hardware, learn a little about the OS he is being paid to write about, or even demonstrate a plausible degree of intellectual honesty.
Nonaggression works!