Slashdot Mirror
The Linux Incompatibility List
Jonathan Lassoff writes "The Linux Incompatibility list is a wiki project that attempts to document hardware that is incompatible with Linux rather than list what is compatible. In the wiki, it is possible to add alternitives so as to push hardware manufacturers to make good binary drivers, publish specifications, or even better, publish open drivers."
0 comments and it's already /.'d into the ground.
This is going to be difficult to maintain. The numbers of unsupported hardware are huge. I just tried to add my digital camera (Kodak DX4530) but kept receiving an error that someone else was making a change at the same time.
As new devices are usually intended for a Windows audience I really doubt that this will do anything but tell people something they already know...
Make life easy - somebody just please copy the entire list of video cards from Epinions or Cnet.
What's your damage, Heather?
It's not slashdotted, the link is just wrong.
clicky
Their hardware and Frontpage Slashdot article. Looks like it's time for some new stuff!
Error: Sig not found.
Device: *
:p
Vendor: *
That was easy...
If bad puns were like deli meat, this would be the wurst
so as to push hardware manufacturers to make good binary drivers
Question? When did Linux start allowing binary drivers that were not kernel specific? Last time I checked, Linus has jury-rigged the kernel to only allow drivers compiled against a specific version of the kernel. This was in order to force hardware manufacturers to release the source code.
Personally, I think Linux should allow binary drivers. Most hardware is useless in a few years anyway, so what good is having the source? Compare that to the OS, where it can live on for decades.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
i guess they need hardware compatible with /.ers
wow, a linux comminuty is incompatible with the servers hardware neat
Their servers dont look like there /. Compatible. I wonder if thats in their database?
It is slashdotted, even if the link is wrong..
http://www.haxwell.org
If my hardware is not in the list, does not assure to me that that is compatible
I had this idea the other day and I'm going to rehash it on this thread. Maybe it's redundant or overreaching, but I'll try and relate it in words anyway.
A set of standards called "Desktop Linux". From a PHB and marketing viewpoint, it makes sense. Nothing to do with servers or embeded systems or that old 486 dhcp server sitting in someone's basement. It's just a concept that represents the computer that sits in people's homes and cubical.
So the idea I'm kicking around is a set of standards. As far as the end user is concerned, the heart of this is a GUI interface similar to what distros include in their base install. The Mandrake control center comes to mind, but I hear YaST and Yum (I may be wrong on that one) are similar to this. I'm proposing a common "control center" where all the hardware that the user is concerned with such as scanners, cameras, mice, printers, graphics card, monitor, USB drives, Firewire drives, etc can be controlled and configured from. Hardware other than that like IDE controllers, USB controllers, internal hard drives, and other devices people generally don't have to worry about that are either hidden or not existent in this at all. This control center is independent of window mangers so gnome, kde, and icewm for example would not have to worry about it directly, just interfacing with it.
The goal is to be able to walk into a store like best buy, see a little sticker on the box of a printer that says "Desktop Linux Compliant" and to purchase it knowing it's promised to work with their computer. So they take it home, out of the box, plug it in and something in the background like hotplug detects it first. It passes that information along to the control center. The control center informs the user of it's detection and either downloads the driver or asks for the CD the manufacture included.
I know that sounds too good to be true, but let's pretend it's still possible.
The manufacturer doesn't have to worry about supporting all linux distros and platforms, just the "Desktop Linux" standard. Their drivers are just modules in this control center. Printer modules can then connect up to something like cups to do the rest of the work.
What makes this special is that as long as distros and manufacturers are compliant with these standards, everything should work properly. Drivers can be compiled for i386 or some other low common denominator or just delivered as source for simplicity.
Same idea for a usb flash drive. It's inserted and the control center mounts it and opens up a konqueror window and displays it's contents. It's up to KDE to provide that part. The control center just gets the information from hotplug, mounts it, and tells the window manager to open a window.
This whole concept is where open source should try to be. Central and enforced standards. The control center is probably just a bunch of interfaces for the distro, hardware maker, kernel, and window manager. But the goal is to bring them all together in one central location that's easy to use.
I'm not suggesting to rewrite hotplug, cups, samba, or sane, but just to agree on a simple yet powerful interface for the user to trust. Hardware makers could develop modules for the control center that would be standard across all platforms and window managers.
This still preserves one of the initial goals of linux to be customizable and compact. If someone doesn't want "Desktop Linux" then they don't have to install it. But distros would like this idea so they don't have to repeat the work SuSE and Mandrake did to get a scanner working. It also allows people to use lighter window managers because the hardware controlling ability in KDE is a reason I use it.
So that's the idea I'm kicking around. Comment as you wish. I'll admit I don't know the technical difficulties this might entail, but distributing it across hardware, distros, and window managers could make it feasible.
I like the idea. I've just spent the last week trying to get a wireless PCMCIA card working, finally assembling enough documentation to understand exactly what chipset it has, what source is available, what packaging is not available (a non-developer's laptop), and the likelyhood of the distribution ever supporting it. (Binary wrapping, etc.)
I often use Red Hat's compatibility list to find stuff that is known to work, but it would also be useful to have a list of stuff I'm wasting my time over.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
.
.
. oh. sorry.
What happens if vendors just write some bloated rubbish driver just so they dont have to be on the list? Then we have badly supported hardware aswell?
I predict that it will come back in about 20 minutes. (cue twilight zone music)
Actually later distros have mproved my situation, but I seem to pick the turkeys right off the bat.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Ok. This incompatability list is gonna be useless...why?
Hmm...I wonder if my DWL650+ is incompatable. Well...I don't see it in the list.
I wonder if it's because it's compatable, or no one has assessed it yet!
Jee...I guess I'll STILL need to search a million websites, etc. etc.
-- A cat is no trade for integrity!
I never got over the frustration with the Wireless compatability list. See, the list is well done, and has lots of cards, and people seem to be working hard on it. The problem is, you cannot use the list as a resource to help you purchase a card! Many of the cards listed as compatable are either discontinued, have been changed to incompatable chipsets without changing the product model info, or else were only ever available in some regions.
What I always wanted, instead of a long list of cards that are not available, was a short list of cards that will definitely work, together with addresses of vendors who will sell such a card with a written assurance that the product I receive will indeed work under linux.
I was very upset when I bought a Broadcom device, thinking I was buying a Prism2 device. Even when you think you know what you're doing, you can get burned.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
Another project on the same website was to find the best(!) linux distrubution in a wiki - you can see the result here. Do I have to mention that the best distribution was not found?
When you put on a wiki, you need clear questions and rules, you need moderators, who pick the useful infomation out of the chaos and set an reasonable structure for wiki readers and contributors.
It seems like a good sign that people want to keep a list of incompatible devices rather than compatible ones. Is hardware support becoming as complete as this site's beginning seems to indicate?
Maybe, but maybe we're just getting more foolish webmasters.
Even with the newest kernels and drivers, running an opengl program on this will crash X within minutes, requiring a reboot. It leaks shared video memory until it can no longer allocate anything, then X crashes, and fails on each attempt to restart it. Long term problem, seemingly affecting everyone using it on Linux. My new cheap no-OS Dell shipped with one.
I'm probably going to end up with a troll mod but...
I think the first thing should be ACPI. ACPI support plain sucks under linux. I would pay the same amount for a linux distro as I do for MS XP pro ($200+/-) if that distro supported ACPI just as well as the MS operating systems.
What could possibly go wrong?
Thank you for clearing that up. My experience with fedora is very limited, but I thought I'd mention it anyway just in case I was right. Bad move on my part I suppose.
That way, you can be assured that, if it's listed, it works.
With an incompatibility list, you don't know whether some obscure hardware actually works, or whether nobody's bothered testing it yet. Even if they have tested it, hundreds more will have to test it again because, again, it still won't be on the list, so they don't know whether it's been tested or just forgotten.
Connection to database failed Server process fork() failed: Cannot allocate memory Really, you guys are evil. leave the poor server alone!
Oh hell!! I wonder if in far far galaxy away someone managed to make this dam winmodem of mine work in linux... I Think Ill be giving my contribution as well. Sucks..
I feel it's on topic because some hardware is not compatible with linux because the manufacturers don't want to deal with the complicated process of getting their drivers to work with linux. Anyone who's ever configured an NVIDIA graphics card knows what I'm talking about.
Oh, the "Linux IA32" page in nVidia's download area where you download a distribution-agnostic .run script must be mislabeled then.
Care to explain how your "solution" will solve that problem? Companies will still need to distribute drivers in order for it to be included into your even more bloated vision of xconfig.
What we need to do is lure companies to supporting Linux with non-binary distributions of their drivers.
it's called microsoft windows
That touches on a problem that is probably going to make this project a lame duck. There are far more people out there who will give up or accept a compromise after repeated failures than there are those who keep going until they get things working. I suspect a large number of "x doesn't work" entries are more likely to represent "I couldn't get x to work". Clearly the latter doesn't necessarily mean that the device is incompatible with Linux, although it certainly implies there is room for improvement.
No harm in trying though. ;)
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
well, bearly might mean pretty well.
ROARRR
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Uh yeah video cards do work on the same plug and play concept. It's called VESA. And it sucks.
You can setup X to work with VESA just fine. Oh wait, you don't know how to do that? I wouldn't call it 'not' compatible just because you don't know how to configure X.
NVidia has some great binary drivers you can use with X. Download them from NVidia.com; an installer is included.
There you are, staring at me again.
Depending on how they define this, it may not be of much use to many non-1337 Linux users. Detectability is what would be a lot more useful. My first experiences trying to install Linux (about last year, so not too long ago) were that my sound card and (S3) video card were not found on install from any distro. From searching the web, I found several places where people would say they had gotten those devices to work, but it involved running some script they wrote, compiling and loading modules, or compiling a custom kernel. I wouldn't really consider that as being very "compatible".
We may experience some slight turbulence and then...explode. -Capt. Mal Reynolds
I have that very special GeForce 5200 and it rocks with Slackware-Linux. The NVidia Binary Drivers work just fine. If you can't get them to work maybe Linux isn't for you. The installer is really easy compared to other Linux hardware.
The card is not the best one out there but given the real cheap price it is a good value for the money. If you are like me and like to play Neverwinternights or any other 3D game (except maybe for Doom3) that is available for Linux you will have a lot of fun with this card. Most of these, rather old, games are fully supported at very high resolutions with this 50$ card.
I'd recommend it anytime, especially because it's passive (i.e. silent) and can be easily overclocked with nvclock.
Am I the only person in the world who's had almost zero issues with linux and hardware? With the exception two wireless cards that had proprietary chipsets, I have had zero issues with linux and hardware. I've used Slackware 10, mandrake 9.2 and 10.0, Suse 9.1 pro, College Linux, RedHat 7.3, Slax, Knoppix, morphix, -lost count of the rest of them- on computers ranging from PII AOpen computers to my AMD64 desktop to my Dell Inspiron laptop.
Actually, I'll amend that, I haven't gotten any of the modems to work (never tried, not counting dial-up access among my needs).
When I did run into my first issue, with supporting a wireless card running a TI proprietary chipset(meant to double 802.11b to 22mbps ONLY with SMC hardware), I went online and purchased a cheap Netgear card that has proceeded to work on every single distro I've tried without even having to configure it, it just worked.
People complain about linux hardware support, but I do a heck of a lot less work after installing linux than I do installing Windows drivers after a reformat.
Maybe I'm lucky **shrugs**
I didn't find anyone else that mentioned that card. I thought that was very informative myself - more evidence that the list of supported hardware isn't perfect and that we all should investigate more before buying hardware - i.e. searching for posts like yours so we don't spend money on a card that doesn't work. Thank you, I found your post helpful.
Sorry that you bought a card that doesn't work. :(
What if your device is claimed to be compatable out of the box by several distros but when you try it takes 4 solid days of trying 4 different drivers and every combination of config you can think of and suggestions from 20 different forums/lists/newsgroups before the light even comes on and even then its touch and go? no but seriously saying x device is compatable and x device actually being compatable are two separate things.
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
It seems that when a driver is finally made then that hardware will have to be removed from the list which will make a huge hassle. I think compatibilty makes more sense here.
Most digital cameras these days support both of these protocols;
The Kodak is probably one of them. If it is using another mode, or if one of them does not work well enough (typically PTP), switching to the other mode will fix the problem. This is a camera setting, not an OS setting.
This means; no special software for each specific camera. All PTP camera-aware tools work the same. All mass storage cameras work just like flash storage drives.
In addition, most distributions support linking known USB cameras to the /camera or /mnt/camera mount point automatically; plug it in and a camera shows up.
A firewall can not protect you from yourself. Turn off what you do not need. Do not use the firewall to do your work.
Just last week :)
I've been wanting to run Debian on my Vaio r505 with slimdock (getting debian installed using the firewire slimdock is a feet in it's self)
However out of frustration I tried the lattest Mandrake commmunity and Fedora 2 releases with no success under fedora and only partial with mandrake (I was able to get battery monitoring to work).
I'm not sure what the exact kernel versions were in those distros howver I know they were 2.6.2 or newer.
BTW, No I do not use linux in a desktop envrionment because honestly, desktop software under windows is better than linux. However I love linux like it was my own child when I run it for backend things.
What could possibly go wrong?
...of hardware that has released open source drivers several years ago and *still* doesn't work reliably in Linux. Take the Soundblaster, for example - a very common item, that still doesn't work a lot of the time, across multiple (all major ones, certainly) distributions. I duplicated this time and time again with my Soundblaster Live! card. IIRC, Fedora Core 2 and Mandrake 10 Official finally started working again, but I gave up on them after the myriad of other problems I had (none of which were driver-related). See the Linux's Achilles Heel article and the follow up.
+5:offtopic,but anti-American
What's more interesting than a "Linux" incompatibility is a Free Software incompatibility list. When users trade their freedom for convenience in using the non-free NVIDIA drivers, they fall into the same trap as a Windows user: they're trading their ability to share and comment on others' work. In the case of NVIDIA, we've seen the problems the lack of freedom have caused - there are technical users who would be happy to fix bugs or add features, but they are simply not allowed to.
;-)
What matters is a list of hardware compatible with the freedom so fundamental to the development of Linux and other Free Software packages. Hardware developers should take note and distribute specifications to encourage free software drivers - and it's great for the bottom line because it all happens at no cost to them.
(I would have checked what the site had to say about these issues if only their database server was working. I do plan to contact them as well, because I recognize that a comment on Slashdot is not enough to change the world.
|/usr/games/fortune
There are a lot of devices which aren't supported but don't need specific support. For example, most digital cameras aren't supported, but they act as USB storage devices, so you don't need anything special for them. I'm happily using an nVidia card at home with free drivers, and it works fine for 2D stuff, which is all I've tried doing. Devices often have extra features which aren't supported under Linux but which aren't necessarily good ideas anyway.
www.compaq.com
Last week I had to return 3 webcams from 2 manufacturers. No support for linux at all; or even worse, a flat out refusal to release any form of specifics. I think it's outrageous.
We need this list. Maybe not for the most common hardware, but there is a lot of stuff out there that has no driver support for Linux (and other opensource OSes) at all. I rather know in advance there is no way of getting it to work, or when there is only an incomplete 'experimental driver' made from sniffing usb devices.
And then we could also reward companies that do make opensource-friendly products and drivers by buying their products, which hopefully has an impact on the other, windows-oriented companies.
Vendor: *
That was easy. For instance I just bought a gizmo that lets me share a monitor, mouse and keyboard. It is a solid state thing that operates via USB. The XP Pro HID drivers and EnergyStar drivers are so screwed up half the time the USB keyboard and mouse don't work. Or I might get random switches. On my Mac, it works perfectly.
I have said this many times. The Linux drivers seem to be superior to those avaiable for windows at an equal level of maturity. This was when we had to hack at the command line to get a mass storage device to work through the serial port. Or reboot to change a minor configuration.
Now some might argue that with advancement in technolgy Linux should be better. But remember that device manufacturer design to Windows, and incoporate hacks to compensate for Windows problems. Many of these might interfere with use in standards driven OS.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
I submit my #9 Imagine128 graphics card, which I never did get to work under RH9, despite it being in the list of supported cards. Oh well.
Those should be supported. I am using an old Revolution 3D in one of my computers, which uses the same driver, and it works fine. I don't know how they cope with autoconfiguration, but using simple text-mode tools to generate an XF86Config/xorg.conf file worked fine for me.
Here is the documentation for the i128 driver in X11R6.7.
"(Man) tries to live his own life as if he were telling a story. But you have to choose: live or tell." --Sartre
Publishing specifications is far more useful than publishing drivers. Unless, of course, you don't care to see any improvement in open-source technology.
It is up to the hardware vendors to make sure their drivers are compatible with the linux kernel. If the vendors don't see a market need for Linux drivers, they wont spend the time & money to create them. Without drivers, the market stays small.
The easiest way for vendors to get and maintain Linux drivers is to release the specs or source code to the kernel developers and let them maintain it! But vendors are nervous about competitors learning secrets from the driver code about the internals of the hardware, so often they dont.
The rest of the problem is handled by Project Utopia
Now if someone would mirror the incompatability list and the compatability list in a side by side manner on one site with a search feature that would access both sites simultaneously, then one would only have to check half a zillion sites before buying some hardware.
...
It's pretty easy to get it working.
What distro, I'll walk you through it.
WhiteWolf
e-mail me at
moornblade2gmail>google>com
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
So much for all those postgres zealots screaming about how it handles load sooooo well..
..."
Connection to database failed
could not connect to server: Connection refused
Is the server running on host localhost and accepting
TCP/IP connections on port 5432?
while executing
"pg_connect -conninfo $conninfo"
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"DBOpen"
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"DBRawQuery $query"
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"DBQuery "SELECT id FROM yakuwiki_page WHERE id='%s'" $id"
(procedure "checkPageId" line 2)
invoked from within
"checkPageId $id"
(procedure "show" line 4)
invoked from within
"show $page"
("show" arm line 1)
invoked from within
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show {show $page}
edit {edit $page}
update {update $page}
history {history $page}
diff {pagediff $page $rev}
upload {wikiupload
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I've given up on desktop linux for now. Mac has hardware that works, and is a good compromise. If it says on the box it'll work, it works.
Linux is great on servers and embedded - a lifesaver in many cases. As soon as you need to do custom hardware integration, it's not worth the headaches. I'm in the process of a very ambitious project that requries high resolution digital imaging - linux isn't an option, there are no drivers period for any of the cameras. Hello, windows. Windows even works pretty good, focused on a single task.
For linux to get this, the best hope is devices that adhere to some sort of standard for interoperability with host PCs. I remember buying hardware and getting schematics, once upon a time, but I think those days are over.
Another possibility is the legislate any consumer device sold on the market must publish it's communication API. This seems unworkable, but it's how cars work now - and there are lots of people who would like to change this. (OBD) It's kind of funny; when framed in terms of cars, most politicians can understand the problem - they wouldn't want to be 0wn3d by GM after shelling out big money. Why should expensive computer hardware be any different?
..don't panic
I've not had luck with onboard network cards on ASUS motherboards, though the onboard sound cards seem to work everytime.
The reason why DRI drivers work so well is because ATI didn't write them. But as you should know DRI only supports older cards such as your 9200. If you own a card that is only a little newer, then you are forced to use ATI's proprietry drivers. These, as everyone seems to know except yourself, suck ass. My 9600Pro gets a least 30% less fps in games than in Windows, not to mention the numerous glitches I encounter.
If you run Linux, you run Nvidia, it's as simple as that.
For all intensive porpoises your a bunch of rediculous loosers
I have a suggestion, if you're going to encourage people to make binary-only drivers, make a list of GOOD ones too.
Some of those binary-only drivers attempt to lock you onto specific kernel versions, otherwise refuse to work in normal usability conditions or cause otherwise troublesome behaviour. I also know at least once "hardware compatiblity list" where hardware is listed as compatible, even if it doesn't perform the function you bought the hardware in the first place, provided it doesn't crash the system. Now normally this wouldn't be a problem, but the storage controller in question performs as an ide controller "without its special storage magic". People see the device name on the compatibility and expect the magic and expect it to work with the full magic, yet it's not "compatible".
If we are going to pressure people into making things, let's make sure they make "good" things.
While I recognize the problem you speak of, I disagree with your example. The drivers from nVidia require a little bit of work to install, but have been working at least for me on about any linux distro that I tried (as well as on FreeBSD, even on the at that moment explicitly non supported development version)
An issue with Linux may be your kernel configuration tho.
The way nVidia solves this is about the only way to get binary drivers that do work more or less independent of what release of the OS you use.
You do have to get the drivers with the module sources tho, getting a pre-packaged binary for your distibution did not ever get me usefull results.
There was an old site once, "The Linux Hardware Database" I believe (before they were bought by ZDnet and killed), that listed hardware that people had that worked with Linux.
I think the MOST USEFUL database would combine the "compatible" databases with the "incompatible" databases AND incorporate your point about "I couldn't get x to work".
ONE site that listed the hardware and what steps people had to go through to get it to work on what platforms. Such as:
"works automatically on stock install of SuSE 9.0"
or
"must download and compile beta driver for Fedora from www.xxx.yyy"
or
"slip-streamed chipset changes - none of the existing drivers work"
and so forth.
I was submitting info the the Linux Hardware Database and making sure that I gave enough information for someone to identify which specific version of the NIC they had. That was one of the cases where the make/model of the NIC didn't change, but the entire chipset did so it needed entirely different drivers.
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://lhd.zdnet.com
Suh-weet!
Neither of my cameras has the slightest pretensions of Linux compatability, both work!
There might be a possible difficulty if you use the manufacturer's "raw" file format, but that will need a file conversion utility, not a driver, maybe a new Gimp plug-in. But as most people use jpegs most of the time, and some cameras will use tiff if needed, it does not seem to be a major problem. But some people will know otherwise, if so, write it up and publish. That is what this new site is for, after all.
Scanners sadly are another ball game altogether, despite conceptually resembling cameras..... The scanner equivalent of the Winmodem or GDI printer is the most hopeless of course, and like the modem and printer is best avoided even for Windoze users, as the tiny cost saving is far outweighed by the performance penalty.
Imagine the Jesuit geeks mounting canon... /mnt/canon
and realizing they've got a blessed machine...
it's been "canon"ized.
DOH!
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
This will only work until the anti-competive from redmond put the word out to all stores and device manufacturers to NOT let us test the hardware...
Ah, I can see anti-competitive suits being filed...
David Syes
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
Many hardware manufacturers will simply not provide open source drivers for their products, mainly for marketing reasons. Imagine you're a video card manufacturer. You realise people are overclocking your previous line of cards instead of buying the new faster range of cards. So you try to disable overclocking in the driver (presumably by making the driver reclock the card to the correct frequencies, thus undoing the work of any overclocking software). If you release open source drivers, it'd be pretty easy for hacked drivers to be released that allow people to overclock, even though you dont want them to.
I think the precise reason that OEMs are releasing closed source drivers for Linux is so that they can get in before someone tries to reverse engineer their hardware and pass off some shoddy drivers that cast their hardware or their development team in a bad light. They want to be sure that people use the original drivers for Linux that they support, not some crazy third party ones. They certainly do not want support requests about drivers that they didn't even develop. Releasing open source drivers creates a lot of questions. How do you distribute the drivers? If someone out there fixes bugs in your driver, what's the procedure for implementing these fixes into the main distribution? What legal rights does anyone who adds fixes to the driver have if their fixes are implemented into the main distribution? Do you pay them or do you just thank them? Will you lay off your own developers once you notice that the community is developing the drivers and not you? Will you become lethargic in your testing of new drivers when you realise that you can release shoddy open source code quickly, and the community will fix it for you?
From an OEM's perspective, open sourcing drivers is a pain in the ass. It sounds like it'd make the development team feel less secure in their jobs (if there's a bunch of people out there that will do their job for free, why are they still employed?) and less determined to write good code when they can pass the buck to an external community.
You hit a serious problem when you're a professional company earning money from selling hardware, and then outsource one sector of your company to the community. People like Intel have done this, but have dissociated the Intel brand from the open source project as much as possible and turned it into a kind of "novelty" project like "this is what our guys work on when they go home in the evening!". I think that to a lot of companies, open source is merely a device used to improve the company image, to make them seem more forward thinking and relaxed, and get them some damn good press and the lifelong devotion of a great deal of short-sighted nerds ("These guys make things open source, so I'll buy their products because I support open source, even though they're moneygrabbing assholes in everything else that they do").
The only drivers regular profit-making companies can support are closed source drivers developed in-house. As soon as you implement the code of other people or allow some random guy you don't know access to your CVS to do a few check-ins, you cannot claim to offer any support for the product whatsoever, because people who have worked on it are not your employees and you are not responsible for anything they do, and are consequently no longer responsible for work done on your own driver, which you would like to be able to legally own, support, endorse and distribute with your product as your own (unless you claim responsibility for all work done on the driver by third parties, which would be incredibly foolish). There are also various laws concerning how companies can may make use of contributions from third parties, and what rights anyone who contributes to a company has. Laws concerning competition may also apply here - once the community develops your driver and effectively does work for free that you'd normally pay people to do, isn't that a seriously unfair advantage? Can you give an example of any company that ha
Because I just created the site a few days ago. It should not be on slashdot.
I hope it will work, because people will add their hardware there, and it will show up with google. I also plan to add things myself as I see them.
If you want a more informative article than slashdot, look at kerneltrap, where I made the mistake of linking to the thing in a comment:-/
http://kerneltrap.org/node/view/3695
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
It's probably the neatest thing Dell's done for the linux community, and yet very few people know about it.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
1) A set of API calls to do discrete things with hardware (list buses, get interrupt information, perform DMA, twiddle registers mapped to memory, talk to a sysfs interface for providing control data to userspace)
This API should be fixed, with a few extension points which would leave the original API as-is.
2) A small virtual machine (ala OpenFirmware and Forth/F-Code) that can manipulate this API and do simple kernel memory management tasks, math, etc. and implement control structures. This "module" would load, and then you could send bytecode drivers to a device that would start a virtual machine implementing the logic in the bytecode.
Driver writers could target the bytecode (maybe using a gcc-backend?). It would be architecture independant.
NVidia would write drivers conforming to part 1. Scanner, modem, printer manufacturers (less performance critical) could aim for part 2.
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Works great for me too. I use Gentoo with the latest NVIDIA binary driver and a 2.6 kernel. RTCW runs beautifully at 1280x1024.
LOAD "SIG",8,1
I've been complaining to Linksys and now Cisco, over their routers. Wired, befsr41, vpn 2 client, vpn multi, and other versions. According to them, you need windows to upgrade their firmware.
So when a vulnerability comes out (there are vulnerabilities for the model above, and other versions), I, and other users with Linux only or mixed Linux/Mac have to shut down a computer temporarily, install an old version of Windows (98), patch the router, then overwrite the install with Linux again so I can herd the computer back into the flock, and back into production.
If Cisco/Linksys can put in permanent, non-removable back doors into their routers for the spooks, then they can at least give a little more than a rat's ass of help to their customers. Their consideration for their customers (or lack thereof) shows in the sudden dropoff of firmware fixes/revisions after Cisco bought out Linksys. They went from monthly more frequent fixes and releases, to many months/close to a year between.
Won't matter much for me, since I currently have some test boxes where I'm giving myself a severe lesson in iptables, combined with sarge getting attention from the security team now, and sarge about to enter stable so I can auto update nightly, so I won't need the Linksys boxes for anymore. Iptables will take care of the firewalling, and up-to-date packages and minimal services (and some other "hardening") will take care of the other end.
So I won't need your routers anymore, Linksys/Cisco, solely because of your lack of respect for your non-windows on every lan clients. Had you enabled Linux users to patch the routers, and made the info known on your web site where it is easy to see, I would have stuck with your routers, rather than use Linux for filtering and nat. I'd prefer to use the 8w-14w (iirc) routers you sell, rather than the 90w+ of the upcoming AMD processors at idle (don't even mention Intel which is close to double at any point). In the long term, the nat appliances come out ahead in electrical consumption costs, but those stats are pissed on by the fact that one has to keep a windows computer running or on hand, just to patch a Linksys/Cisco router.
Linux is arguably #2 in server revenue now, with a 50%+ growth rate (not counting free downloads). So if not this year, then next year. And in lans, there are a high percentage of Linux desktops that it is inexcusable for Linksys/Cisco to fail to provide a solution to non-windows users for patching your routers.
All the executable appears to be/do is to upload the firmware, telnet style, to the router, similar to telnetting into a zyxel router (much higher quality btw) and get/putting the firmware. Except it is shrouded and covered as an executable that only runs on windows according to your website.
Stop the bullshit Cisco/Linksys. Support the clients that purchase your products. All of them. Post the info, issue a patch if necessary to enable Linux firmware upgrades, do whatever has to be done, and get it over with.
If HP can get their multi-function printers to support Linux, then you can get your firmware updates to work with more than just windows.
Yeah, except Canon doesn't support USB mass storage, so they will never get it mounted.
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia not a Hardware guide. Expect it to end up on Votes for deletion soon.
And another thing, Slashdotters are abusing Wikipedia as a tool in nerd erotica in general, just look around. There is going to be some REAL cracking down soon.
That's easy! Tell me how the hell you got NWN to work on Linux. I still haven't figured that shit out.
Yes it's been said before, but it apparently needs to be said over and over and over until it's understood! D'OH!!!
The manufacturers of USB keychain devices seem to understand this, why is it so many other manufacturers of USB devices don't? Don't they understand why USB keychains have become so hugely popular?
Fucking STANDARDS, people! Follow them and you're guaranteed a long lifetime for your product, don't follow them and you are guaranteed that as soon as something better or another OS version comes out you're spending more money making your proprietary device work with it rather than just changing the hardware and staying with the software specs you already built it to!
I just don't get it. Why spend all the $ deving and re-devving a proprietary interface when you can use existing specs and have your product to market faster, cheaper, and with a longer lifetime? Good Bog, the old management techniques from the High Priest age of computers just won't die off, will they? Auuuuuggghh
SB
It's old. The more humans I meet, the more I like my cats. At least they are honest.
I'm sure Solaris has one. Well, heck, I hear the TLI/STREAMs interface is vile, but it was one of the two standard driver models that was easy to write. However, it had very poor performance.
Ah. STREAMS. Yes.
I recall a case from some 8 years ago on UNIX System V Release 4, which is a direct parent of Solaris. This problem is not really solely STREAMS, but when its limitations is combined with poor programming, that is the result.
A transaction processing application was written in a way that is less than optimal. Every user had one process allocated to them handling the traffic from the terminal (via front end processors multiplexing connections from X.25 to TCP/IP), and then the transaction was placed on a queue. The response was taken by the terminal process from a queue, and sent to the user.
The goal was to support 1200 simultaneous logged in active users.
Everytime we loaded the system with 800 users, we could not exceed that, and the system ran out of a certain resource (memory? Don't remember.)
Part of the code was in C, and the programmer who wrote it decided to get each character from the front end processor using getchar(), and send it using putchar().
After a few agonizing nights, and calls to support, we found out that each character was sent internally in a STREAMS header that was 512 bytes long. So, with 800 simulater users firing transactions consisting of a few hundred characters each, you can see that there were lots of 512 byte messages going on in the kernel.
The solution was simple: do the data receive/send in chunks. Problem solved. A story from the trenches, because it hit a nerve.
Very similar to running out of GDI on Win9X.
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
Such a list will reward those who have written in specific drivers for the Distros and make the people looking for stuff to run with Linux happier (as well as help quell they naysayers who always gripe that they cant find some notebook or something that's Linux compatible.
"Enjoy what you're doing! If it becomes drudgery, you're doing it wrong!" - Jim Butterfield
Just because *you* have never seen a BSOD in Win2k/XP doesn't mean it doesn't happen. I admin about the same number of 2k/XP machines (no two are exactly the same hardware, every PC a little/lot different), and I've had a few that weren't hardware related. Filesystem corruption being one of the most frequent culprits. And this is on UPS-ed machines.
sigaar
Although I do agree that this particular notebook has issues. It mostly complains about one of the ATi dlls. I have updated the drivers every time a new one comes out and it has not made much of a difference. HP however sent it back saying it's fine.
sigaar
Ha - seems the site is incompatible with itself since right now it's reporting some kind of SQL error :)
I'm sure Dave Barry would agree that "The Electric Jihad" would be an excellent name for a rock band.
Fortunately, I didn't waste any money on the Imagine128; the same card today chugs along quite well in a machine running Windows 2000.
Quality, performance, value; you get only two, and you don't always get to pick.
I have an Asus P4S533, and I have no problems with my onboard netword card. It's a SIS900 on my board.
Also try checking the downloads for the motherboard at http://www.asus.com/
RegardselFarto
A very good point. As far as I am concerned an item of hardware "failed" if I plug it in, run some installer application and i am unable to sucessfully use it.
I, personally, am not prepared to spend the next 30 minutes fiddling around with settings, config files and other things just to get the thing actually working. If the configuration script/installer can't do that for me, then it is not suitable for a desktop.
But that is because I consider an operating system merely to be a tool to get other things done. However other people may be more willing to hack a it until it does - but frankly, I don't have the patience.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
in addition to creating an entry to the mentioned wiki page, ATI and OEM-ATI owners might sign the following petition directed to ATI Technologies:
:-)
ATI Petition for Adequate Drivers in Linux
http://www.petitiononline.com/atipet/
And yes, signatures are being added to this petition list in a very fast pace
Best regards,
Walter.
>>>>>>>
Compared to Linux? Hardly anything.
Hey...my life, and work, is not centered on being a computer geek: I need something that works and is compatible. Linux just doesn't cut it on the compatibility side.
See...with Linux on the Desktop, it always something, isn't it? I mean, something that prevents you from hooking up that Digital Camera, enjoying that Sound Card or getting the Video Card to work at it's spec'd resolutions.
And...worst yet, the dearth of decent Linux applications is areal "Pain in the Arse". Sure...there's lot's of free Apps out there for Linux - they just also happen to be buggy, clunky and have poor user interfaces.
Like I said: Desktop Linux is free if your time is worthless.
>>>>
Tell you what, when you Desktop Linux guys get your sound cards, printers, digital cams, and video cards working with Linux as easy as you can with Windows, then I'll listen. Of course, seeing that Linux is fragmented into about 5000 different versions, I won't be holding my breath waiting for this to happen.
Until then, I'll use my Windows-based PC as a tool while you sit farting around all day trying to make Linux actually work.
BTW, I picked up my Windows 2000 install for $7 dollars in the Phillipines and got MS Office thrown in for Free. Who says Windows is expensive? I mean, that's a lot cheaper than you can get a distro on CD from Redhat!
Try getting a SUN PCI 10/100 ethernet card or quad ethernet card working with windows.. It wont, it works perfectly with linux tho and freebsd definately supports the chipset on sparc so it *should* work on other architectures too.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
There's a Google add on the page that lists incompatible WiFi devices and it is advertising one of the items on the list.
Sites like this which only list what doesnt work, and other such sites that only list what does work, all suffer from the same problem: you cant distinguish unknown from does/doesnt work.
The printer people (linuxprinting.org) have the right idea, the site lists every printer thats known, and wether it does, or doesnt work, how well, and why.
This way you can more easily tell the difference between 'my device is too new, nobodies tried yet' and 'the manufacturers a pest, itll never work' and the more common 'theres half a driver that mostly works, give it a go or wait a bit'
If the same philosophy was applied to all devices it would be a really useful resource
But you can't mount it, see? Mount? /mnt/canon?
kids these days, never reading the parent post...
Schrodinger's cat is either dead or really pissed off...
$7 + $2000 for trip to Phillipines is a pretty bloody expensive operating system
Not Free SF Reader
...and here i've been calling mine /mnt/camera all this time and missing out on the humour. :(
I strongly suspect that my motherboard doesn't work under a 2.6 kernel. Anything with 2.4 works fine, try a 2.6 version and it all goes to heck... won't boot up at all after selecting any 2.6 option in a LILO menu.
So I decide to be a good citizen and report this (to Mandrake originally - although there is surely a better, more general place to raise this issue) but after opening the box I can't find a make or model anywhere on the motherboard. Normally I'd expect to see it printed somewhere but I guess this cheap temporary box is even cheaper than I'd thought.
Is there a way to get a motherboard id if it's not printed on it? I'd suspect a utility to do this already exists if it's at all possible but damned if my searching can find it.
Anyone else see a 'break' at the 2.4/2.6 boundary?
Kevin
When I had to upgrade a Linksys router, I ended up doing it through IE rather than their supplied Windows applet. There was a prompt for a filename (apparently you can still HTTP POST entire files) and after submitting a binary image, the router happily updated its own firmware.
I don't remember if it needed javascript or not, but I remember having to add the router's private IP to Trusted Sites to make some of its functionality work (mostly because Scripting was disabled in the Internet zone, but hey.) If all it needs is javascript to do a firmware update via a browser, surely it would work with Opera or Mozilla on Linux.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
"ACPI is an open standard, but unfortunately, vendors' closed source BIOS implementations for the last few years are written against the Microsoft ACPI parser, bugs and all."
Actually, I've had to work with some cheap machines whose ACPI BIOSes caused too many error records to appear on XP SP1's Event Log. Things like: "This register is not responding correctly," etc, and then XP disables that particular functionality (ie: a "suspend" button). And no firmware updates were available or they failed just as badly.
At least XP manages to deal with it. By comparison, Win2K bluescreens on the same machine if I try to use an ACPI HAL - I have to force-select a Standard PC HAL on installation to use the thing. Win98 works, but only because of the reasons you described.
Use Evolution instead of Outlook? Bewa
So tell me, how do you get a piece of hardware to work on Windows when it doesn't plug and play? It would be neat to get Windows to recognise my PS/2 mouse, since it currently can't.
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!