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Dvorak on How Microsoft Can Kill Linux
gewg_ writes "John C. Dvorak thinks he knows the way Redmond can kill Linux. Basing his premise on the relative dearth of device drivers available for Linux (compared to what is available for Windows), he sees an opportunity for the Borg to embrace and extinguish." From the article: "The immediate usefulness of Linux running under Windows is obvious. You can use all the Windows drivers for all the peripherals that don't run under Linux. Drivers have always been an issue with Linux as PC users have gotten spoiled with Windows driver support. Today's user wants to grab just about anything and not worry about installing it and making it work."
Sounds like vmware to me....nope did not kill linux and likely never will...
Got Code?
If only this one had been a dupe too, this would have been REALLY funny :-)
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
B
Does anybody still take a word that says seriously anymore? All he ever does is troll for ad hits by saying something which will piss off one fringe group of computer geeks or another.
Honestly. Why ever link to that joker?
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
Cygwin or MS Services for Unix?
Plus, there are quite a few hardware devices that work in Linux and not all versions of Windows, for instance my Kensington SVGA webcam, fine in Linux, not available in Win2k.
Please don't click the link.
John Dvorak knows the state of Linux drivers versus Windows (or Mac) perfectly well. This is an excellent example of writing something obviously incorrect so you get a huge amount of hits and links from people that (rightly) disagree.
Exactly like the Science Citation Index, actually, but speeded up about 20 times.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
And here I thought users wanted an operating system that was fast and didn't crash... Doesn't using linux under windows defeat the security and stability of linux?
John Dvorak has been in the computer industry about as long as Univac, but I really disagree with him on his points in TFA.
The first thing I disagree with is his assertion of how useful Linux would be when running under Windows. Is anyone crying for this?
His second assertion that Microsoft could create a flavor of Linux with their driver-base that people would adopt is just as loony. Beyond its quality nature, isn't one of the reasons people switch to Linux to get rid of Microsoft and their business practices and high prices?
I'm a big tall mofo.
I'll readily admit as soon as the next person that Linux doesn't support all of the latest & greatest hardware. That doesn't mean that it doesn't support last-generation hardware though - as long as you do research and buy the right sort of hardware, you can usually build a system where almost every piece is well-supported by any given Linux distro.
Companies like Intel and ATi are examples of how the hardware manufacturers are realizing that Linux users want to use their hardware too.
SCREW THE ADS! http://adblock.mozdev.org/ Proud user of teh Fox of Fire - Registered Linux User #289618
When windows crashed would it save the data that was being used under linux to a tmp file, like linux does, would would a screen with bill gates dancing in a ton of cash and laughing pop up?
This guy needs to get out there, and play with linux a bit more, instead of just reading all the M$ fud
"Today's user wants to grab just about anything and not worry about installing it and making it work."
If they want to just install a device and go, then why are they bothering with Windows? Isn't that what Apple OS X is for?
"Klaatu, verada, necktie!" -Ash
If that were true, why hasn't Windows gone away?
Dvorak thinks that open-source developers will stop working on their stuff if they perceive it as benefitting Microsoft. I say this is obviously not true; there are many, many projects now that run on Windows (like Firefox, just to pick one major example), and their developers don't seem the least bit deterred by running on Windows.
Have you read my blog lately?
"John A. Qwerty thinks he knows the way Linux can kill Redmond. Basing his premise on the relative dearth of device drivers available..."
But still since cygwin is feature complete . . Nuf said.
This analysis is relatively shortsighted considering that there are many many factors beyond device drivers influencing people to use Linux. I would say that freedom from proprietary protocols and file formats is a major factor, and that's something Redmond will never have.
A musician without the RIAA, is like a fish without a bicycle.
M.
It's an interesting article--but I doubt just drivers would satisfy most people. There's applications they'll want to work, too. (That said, I'd personally be delighted if all my hardware would work under Linux; then I'd never need Windows. But I could just as easily have gotten Linux-friendly hardware ... and if you want Linux-ish distro that "just works" ... there's OS X. :)
R.Mo
Its called Cooperative Linux, and has been around for quite some time.
www.colinux.org
Yet, suspiciously, the Linux kernel running on my laptop hasn't spontaneously died. Hmm. This Dvorak chap is quite the retard.
The moving cursor writes, and having written, blinks on.
Dvorak seems to have these amazing insights from time to time, but I can't seem to remember one that really came to fruition. In the aritcle, he makes all these assumptions about technology but he doesn't know what he's talking about. Then he uses his unfounded assumptions to conclude that all MS needs to do is embrace and extend Linux. For a more thorough discussion on this very article, see this discussion on Groklaw. Search for the second "Dvorak". --dv
Insert witty saying or aphorism here.
"Today's user wants to grab just about anything and not worry about installing it and making it work"
I mean, all i hear, over and over, is how linux is BETTER than windows.
This last week i've been trying, over and over, to get ANY linux distro to boot upto a graphical user interface, so that my brother can use it without the worry of using the command line (which i think he could also use if he really tried). I've had no end of problems, first there was the problem of commands which stupid names, and commands which appeared the same.( xf86config is NOT xf86cfg )
I tried many distros, livecds and netinstalls, all of which failed in a different (And sometimes amusing ) ways. However, this just goes to show that linux is FAR from what is needed for the adverge JOE user to switch.
Plus its huge lack of support for games (i know its gathering but for joe, he just wants it to work) and such ideas as just plugging in some hardware and having it work.
Im not a windows lover, i hate m$ as much as the next guy, but unless someone can provide something which at least has a gui (yeh cmd line might be great but its not what i want) which works OUT OF THE BOX (or at least with very little configuring) then m$ are going to continue to win.
Oh, and i also use firefox.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
John Dvorak didn't invent Ethernet - Bob Metcalfe did
1) Linux device drivers are a big problem
and
2) Putting Windows PnP in Linux would be an easy task
I have a problem with #1 because, well, I haven't had a problem with device drivers for years. The first thing I do with a new computer (and I've gone through 5, from Dell and HP, in the last few years) is reformat, install Windows, and then install Linux. Guess which one is easier to install? Guess which one requires special driver disks and arcane "press-F8-at-the-right-time-during-the-install" crazieness to get things working? That's right: windows. With Linux, stick the CD in, click a few buttons, and done.
The problem with #2 should be obvious to everyone: one of the main tasks of an OS is to manage devices. Look at the code in the kernel that does this. Sure, there's other important stuff (vfs, memory management, process management, etc), but if you count the lines, the heaviest piece of the OS is device driver management. Ripping this out and sticking in Redmonds garbage would be disastrous.
Now, user-mode linux is a different beast. Even virtualizing the hardware could get things to work correctly under Dvorak's scheme without so much effort. But what he suggests is not only ludicrous, its outright silly, and really illustrates how out of touch he is with how technology works.
Okay, BFOTO (blinding flash of the obvious): ./. I got suckered... Ad revenue whore, anyone...
If MS developed an "MS Linux" as described, it would be one of many distributions. Even if it became "the dominant" one (the only good use for which would be to use the Windows drivers for devices Linux lacks driver support for), then stops supporting drivers for their own flavor of Linux... ummm... hmmm... what would happen? Oh -
Dvorak suggests that this somehow magically kills *all* of the different flavors of Linux. (Not *nix, he mentions only Linux).
He also alludes to some heretofore unknown, undiscovered-but-for-M$-lawyers hole in the GPL that would somehow allow M$ to pry Linux from the hands of the community into its control.
I RTFA'd twice, but John, you lost me on this. I can only guess you were looking for more hits to your column website from
One of microsofts biggest assets is that fact that people are familiar with their UI and reluctant to change.
If a user run MS-Linux and liked it, then they could make sure their next system had hardware that could run gpl-linux.
And I really doubt microsoft would move down a pathway of familiarizing people with linux.
Why not run windows under linux (ala VMware)
When it crashes hard, kill it's pid and move on.
I hardly think it work well the other way around (as per FTA)
Now as for drivers.
I like ndiswrapper. Wish there were more like it. generic wrappers for windows drivers.
then the manufacturers that are pressed for cash can still "support" linux and the larger manus can develop native drivers (or release specs).
I know some will cry that given the choice, no one would bother with the native ones. Make the wrappers work well and it won't matter.
The truth about Led Zep should never be told on
I had a new hard disk a while back and I installed XP and Suse 9.2 on it.
Windows XP took around 15 mins to install, with a couple of reboots. I then installed my nvidia drivers. Rebooted. I then installed my firewall. Rebooted. I then installed the drivers for the cisco aironet card. Rebooted. I then installed the drivers for my Delta-Audio 1010LT soundcard. Rebooted. I spent over an hour installing all the drivers I needed to make my system *functional*.
Suse took ~20-25 mins to install with all the software I wanted. When I logged in, everything just worked...
People say they use windows because it just works. Bull. It's just that people have been conditioned to accept that installing drivers is not part of the installation process.
There may be more drivers available for windows, but I'll stick with the linux way of doing things and buy cautiously.
the article said:
"Well, except for the fact that Microsoft would be unable to produce such a product without allowing the other vendors access to the driver code as part of the open-source Linux license arrangement (GPL)."
If the device drivers are not derived from any GPL code (and as they is currently proprietary, presumably they are not GPL derived), then Microsoft can make a version of Linux which uses the drivers. The modified linux is based on GPL code (i.e. the base linux kernal) and the modified linux is based on propietary code (device drivers).
GPL does not require that copyright holder of the original software to agree to anything (in respect of the original software). Only the author of the derived software (in respect of the derived work) agrees to license the software under the GPL.
This artical is simply FUD.
Proprietary device drivers which work under linux today.
Moreover: The majority of device drivers in MS Windows are not even owned by microsoft at all, but belong to the companies which manufacture the respective devices, and licensed to Microsoft.
No one has a right to their *own* opinion. They have a right to the TRUTH.
I was getting my shots for international travel at a county health clinic yesterday. Every terminal in this clinic (as probably every other one in the state) were running flat screen Windows systems that had one application: some sort of terminal server that logged into the mainframe where every financial, medical, and information app was running in text-only mode. The likely reason for this purchase was that some company offered sexy-cool flat screen machines with a promise that they'd work to make the mainframe app work 100% in the same manner.
My favorite two bookshops have web based terminals that allow a user to search for a book and not bug the employees. One is unable to get out of these screens and into Windows, but one can tell by the sound, cursors, and occasional reboots that they are really win machines running underneath.
All of this reminds me of those days in the 1980's when everyone was putting Apple ][ based end user terminals in their shops, but the app or utility that was being served was pretty trivial. When the Apple clones came out (like Franklin and their ilk) the expensive Apple hardware started going away. (You could tell on those machines because there were ways to crash the system or "break" into basic and see whose hardware it was.
My guess is that ultimately on web based terminals and other mainframe terminal services, that there's a huge market of machines that are being sold on price alone. As long as there are "some" varieties of cheap hardware that run with Linux, I can't see this ever becoming a lock-in... price is just too important for some people. To those markets, it's the lucrative OS that will fall out of fashion in favor of the cheap and functional alternative.
Is if Microsoft released their source code. Companies and people who use linux use it for more than cost, but customization. We use a highly customized linux where I work, we have a kernel development team that modifies and tweaks our distro
to our specific needs. We can run Linux on a 500 mhz pentium with 512mb of ram, junk video card and an 18gig disk with no problems. No need for a video management solution to manage all 400 of our servers, no need for mice. Just SSH.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
Im a mac fan too, but if the device isnt blessed by Apple, it may not work well, or at all.
If it is blessed, then it works like magic..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This week-old story from OSNews is pointless. Microsoft would never do that, because it would acknowledge that an opponent was on the level of Windows.
Look how Microsoft very rarely mentions Linux, and barely mentions OS X at all (if ever). Microsoft's voice is heard by so many pointy-haired bosses that to talk about someone or release a product based around them is to give free advertising. Granted, they make an Office for Mac, but you'd never know it if you weren't a Mac user.
No, Jon Katz was sinserely wrong. He watched Buffy reruns and thought he understood modern teens, read Kevin Mitnick interviews in 2600 and thought he understood hacker culture, read Slashdot comments and thought they were a representative sample of American geeks. I think he was genuinely surprised at how detested some of his rambling became around here.
Dvorak, on the other hand, knows better. He knows that if he calls the iBook 300 "girly" or says that Linux-on-Windows will put Red Hat, Debian, and Gentoo out of business, people will rush to the web site to read his rubbish, and then comment on it it forums, link to it on blogs and slash sites, and go to great lengths to alert the world about how wrong he is... all of which gets his site hits, and makes his publisher very happy with him. He's laughing all the way to the bank, because his goal is not to be seen as insightful, but simply to be seen.
Information wants to be anthropomorphized.
"Today's user wants to grab just about anything and not worry about installing it and making it work."
Funny how it only really works that way on Linux and OSX, in my experience. Dvorak's facts clash with reality, as usual...
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Get a number of large Fortune 500 companies to commit to switching to Linux. Then hardware and software developers will say, "Hmmm... If I want to sell into these companies, I have to support Linux."
Windows has always had the advantage of having more drivers than Linux.
So I ask, why not create code that would allow you to use Windows drivers on Linux?
While I agree that Dvorak is a blowhard, he does have a point about Linux hardware support. I recently compared a dozen different install-from-CD distros, and only one supported my ASUS motherboard's on-board sound and video correctly. None had support for my Canon scanner, which I realize is Canon's fault. But don't tell me I need to buy a new scanner to be able to migrate to Linux. Your average Joe just wants to plug-n-play, and to me that's one of the two real advantages Windows has over Linux.
The other? Software. There are still some tremendous voids in the software area. There is no equivalent to Visio (yes, I've tried Dia and it's cute, but it's not Visio), and the Gimp isn't Photoshop or even Paint Shop Pro. Linux needs more apps like Firefox, Thunderbird, and OpenOffice that can really bridge the gap, and can offer clear advantages over Windows applications.
Serving your airship needs since 1995.
Of course, this is the guy who has pronounced Apple as dead more than once. What value is the opinion of a pin-headed pundit? Wow. I was like, a poet there.
Anyway, MS-Linux? W(hy)TF would I use that? The reason people use Linux is usually to get away from Windows and it's diseases. Why would I run Linux as a subjugated app under an inferior kernel design on a server? To enhance security? Ha!
Dvorak says "MS Linux would quickly become the dominant linux distribution." He pulled that right out of his arse. Does he think that many people would actually buy Linux from Microsoft when it's available for FREE elsewhere?
John C. Dvorak--I think you over estimate MS's position to dominate a market that's based on not being Microsoft.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
So what Redmond has to do is invest billions of stockholder dollars to develop a product they know they will kill once it kills everyone else and most of their own customer base is stranded in a no man's land of neither Windows mor Linux.
I haven't heard logic like that since Metallica sued their own fans.
MS is a closed company making closed products. The only way they can 'kill' Linux is to:
1) Be safer, faster more stable
2) Cheaper
3) Easier to manage
They already lost on 1 & 2 but they are winning on 3.
To be fair though there are whole categories of drivers that Linux does not do a great job with. Like Wacom tablets. The official Linux driver is source code you get from sourceforge and build it yourself. Lots of sound cards don't work, etc..
Actually, it sounds more like cygwin. Run your linux apps on Windows. That didn't kill Linux either.
Wer mit Ungeheuern kämpft, mag zusehn, dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. --Nietzsche
There is. Its called ndiswrapper. From what I understand, it will 'translate' the MS API into Linux, allowing you to use MS drivers in Linux.
I don't know all the details, but I know that it worked for me in getting a Netgear 802.11g card to work under Mandrake. I ended up finding a native Linux driver a week later, but in the meantime the card worked, and wasn't very difficult to get running.
It seems to me that if you take Dvorak's comments to their logical conclusion that:
* MS can kill Linux because Linux doesn't have full driver support;
* Therefore, Linux can kill MS by implementing driver support.
Somehow, I believe that it is far more likely that the community, and the hardware vendors, will make Linux drivers available long before Redmond can figure out how to release Linux without a GPL.
So here's my 3 day old OSN comment:
:D
Dvorak is right about as often as it rains lava in New York.
Somebody who's been predicting the death of the Macintosh since TCP/IP stacks were still third-party user-installed add-ons thinks he knows where computing is going? The only thing separating him from a blathering retard in a homeless shelter is that whoever's paying him is even less cluefull than he is.
Linux supports new hardware like wireless routers, lots of multimedia devices, etc, and he thinks MS making a Linux distro with a proprietary driver layer for a bit better compatibility will "kill Linux"? He can't have understood much of why so many people use Linux and not Windows. Why they even struggle to get stuff that don't work as easily on Linux, but still don't say "bah" and switch to Windows.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
The first step in Dvorak's strategy is for Microsoft to build a separate 'commercial driver-layer' for Linux. His prediction: if Microsoft builds this 'essential' layer, a large portion of Linux revenues will go towards Microsoft and developers will therefore lose interest.
Let's put aside for a moment the fact that a major focus on Linux development would be disastrous for Microsoft (It would essentially encourage a mass migration from Windows servers), Dvorak makes some ridiculous blind leaps in assuming that an MS driver layer would [a] Become dominant (based upon what? Microsoft's proven ability to write superior code?) and [b] even if MS succeeded, that their success would cause the entire Linux world to pack up and go elsewhere.
Is Dvorak's supposition that all Linux development is driven merely by the desire to "not" give Microsoft any more cash? Funny, I thought it was to build a stable, faster, and open-sourced OS.
Developing yet another commercial add-on, hardly negates Linux's core mission and value. It would however negate the mission and core value of Windows Servers.
I say go for it Microsoft. Let's see who wins.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
Agreed. People need to stop promoting this douche bag.
He intentionally writes dumb columns in order to (negatively) attract readers.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
What Dvorak describes is too much work. Microsoft doesn't need to kill Linux to maintain dominance at all. In short all they really have to do is create their own Linux distribution, just like anyone else can, and then port Office to it. All of this can be done without violating the GPL or open sourcing Office. Office is the real source of MS power after all, people need Windows to run Office.
Even if the MS Linux distribution were no better than any other, people would still buy it and/or support contracts preferentially over any other. Most people always play it safe. MS could still support Windows if they wanted to, or they could gradually phase it out. If they play nice, they could cut their development costs by leveraging the vast open source development community. So far, IBM has been able to embrace Linux and open source without killing their business, I think Microsoft can do the same. Developers didn't abandon Linux when IBM and Novell joined the party and I doubt they will if Microsoft joined in too. Indeed, a lot of Windows developers would be pulled along too. The question is whether Microsoft is brave enough to let go of the Windows security blanket.
To the making of books there is no end, so let's get started
What about requiring everyone who installs linux to call in and answer a bunch of stupid questions before they can use it?
air and light and time and space
He doesn't know the first thing about what he's saying!
Linux as a task under Windows exists!
Linux as a task under Linux exists.
In either instance, the "guest" OS doesn't get a "magic ride" on the hosts's drivers.
He takes an out-of-context comment, and combines it with half-knowlege of the subject and a dollop of wishful thinking.
Whoops! I think I just defined "Visionary"!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Dvorak's prophetic genius is awesome. Microsoft is working on Linux under Windows and it will run on the Intel-powered Mac that he predicted with 100% certainty a couple of years ago. No doubt the power source will be derived from the manure dropped by flying pigs.
--- Yx3 = Delilah ---
MS Call Center(MSCC): Good Morning, how may I help you,
User: I am installing MS-linux but getting a message after reboot- Kernel Panic: VFS: Unable to find filesystem at 3:09. Booting stops, what do I do?
MSCC: Press Crtl+Alt+Delete and reboot
User: Duh, nothing is happening
MSCC: Oh... that's leeenux, ok press the reboot button on ur PC
User: Same error msg
MSCC: Reboot in safe mode
User: Same error msg
MSCC: Reboot and load last known good profile
User: hey, this is a fresh installation
MSCC: Format and reinstall
User: Same error msg
MSCC: &)%(&^%&#*)@!*!!!!
User: I will sue MS !!!!!!
Very unlikely scenario. MS would rather work thru third parties like SCO to push down linux
Microsoft effectively killed Windows NT 4.0 by withholding USB support. Anyone shopping for a digital camera, webcam, printer, PDA synching solution, flash storage device, mp3 player, skype headset, etc. would find their choices severely limited to nil if they wanted to continue running their perfectly good installation of NT 4.0.
Of course the difference with Linux is it should be easier to integrate new drivers, once they are, um, written.
I think the main issue with what he's suggesting is that if the emulation/virtualization layer you are running Linux under doesn't have access to the device, it doesn't matter much that Windows does. Unless he's talking about a true API that would be the complete reverse of Wine (run Linux/*nix apps under Windows with complete access to all supported hardware), I don't see how this could work. Using Cygwin, I still have found limitations. You can't compile one of the Wireless (802.11a/b/g) applications for *nix under Cygwin and actually use it with a Windows driver supported wireless NIC. Or... you can't use an application that can communicate with SCSI under Linux in Cygwin. Or... you can't compile and run a 3D accelerated Linux app (game, etc...) under Cygwin and expect it to use the ATI or NVidia drivers you have installed in Windows. So MS would have to expend a great deal of resources to absorb *nix functionality into their OS that takes advantage fo their drivers. The flipside to all of this is that I think Windows has been getting more "Unixy" over time, but they just approach it from a different perspective (kind of a backwards one at times and visionary at others).
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
If you say "J*n K*tz" three times in front of a mirror, he will appear. And then, he'll try to understand your feelings and explain them to the uncaring wide world.
Trust me, you'd rather have the guy with the hook rip out your intestines. It would be comparitively merciful.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
Point 1: If Microsoft were to get into the business of writing drivers for Linux, how would that differ (aside from licensing) from purchasing commercial drivers or downloading free drivers? More importantly, how would this kill Linux? As he pointed out, commercial software already runs under Linux without any GPL implications. The community buys this software when it must, but usually develops around it.
Point 2: I have had fewer driver problems with Linux than Windows. Windows actually seems to sometimes generate driver problems, by seeking out a very specific driver where a generic one will do fine. A good example would be the USB port on my EPIA MII-12000 motherboard. It's USB 2.0. Linux sees that it is USB 2.0, and runs it as such. 'nuf sed. Windows, on the other hand, requires that I use the driver that came with the mobo (which is not inherently a problem) and no other. Not that this is a problem, but why?
www.wavefront-av.com
Have this man ever voluteered for anything is his whole small life? Does he knows the pleasure of doing something that can make our world a better place?
Volunteering as a free software developer is a pleasure, so developers WILL NEVER stop working on Linux. And suppose that they will, it's a very good chance for the popularity of Hurd (still incipient), and others free software OSes.
As told before: FUD. But I'll add one more commentary. This man has shown, again, that he can't see beyond his own nose, he's simply unable to understand the point of view of others and think about how they would act, how they feel about things that they praise so much.
He simply didn't have the effort to look for solutions similar to the "secret-projet-that-will-kill-linux" that actually runs on windows and is free. It's a mistery how this man can be a columnist so respected.
Of course there are many good things to be said about this man. But I'll let it to other opportunity.
-=-=-=-=
I know life isn't fair, but why can't it ever be un-fair in MY favor!?
It's an old one, but...
Microsoft Tech Support vs. Psychic Friends Network: Which Provides Better Support for Microsoft Products?
Don't take a knife to a gunfight, or even a knife to a knife fight. Take a gun to a knife fight.
So users can have the wide range of Linux applications while enjoying the rock-solid stability of Windows?
(Why is the Slashdot subject line limited to so few characters?)
Xenu loves you!
The article did not state that the drivers are free. The point of the article is to show how the plug and play portion of Windows, the driver layer, can be seperated and attached to a linux build, supplying the linux package with a part that is sorely missing right now. It's the layer that attaches drivers to the OS, not the drivers themselves.
I fail to see what makes him think improved driver support will change people's reasons for running it.
... and the minority can either whine & be ignored, or give up and join the rest on the dark side.
Wow, you're really missing the point.
Microsoft's winning tactic is "embrace and extend": grudgingly accept the winning standard, get LOTS of people to use the MS version, then slowly deviate from that standard. They win by default via customer loyalty; when a large majority of users choose the MS solution, the "standard" becomes whatever MS says it is
In this case, the idea is to play off Linux's biggest weakness: lack of drivers. MS drivers may suck, but at least they exist! (Personally, it was incredibly frustrating to run Knoppix on a once-popular reasonably-capable Gateway laptop and not even have sound because the drivers wouldn't support even the most common sound card - but freakin' Win95 that was on it runs sound fine! ARGH!) By "embracing" Linux via a method heavily dependent on drivers, there would be a boom in Linux - to be specific, MS-Linux. Then, once hooked like crack addicts, upgrades gradually fork away from "real" Linux and toward Windows - exactly what Microsoft did to IBM regarding OS/2. The few hardcore Linux users left are left swinging in the breeze.
Can we get a "-1 Wrong" moderation option?
Should Device Drivers be the responsibility of the hardware manufacturer or the OS company?
On the one hand, you have the market force that would make HW manufacturers want to provide quality drivers to the three OSes. On the other, you have the OS companies that want to support many drivers.
I only came here to do two things; kick some ass, and drink some beer...looks like we're almost out of beer.
I don't have a lot of time, so I'll try to make it succinct.
1) Windows Drivers Suck. They are often buggy, and bring the system down. I don't want my Linux system dependant on buggy Windows drivers. I'm happy with my linux system as is (yes, you have to do some research to make sure what you buy is compatible. That's life--- Be an educated consumer).
2) Inane amount of difficult involved. The Windows driver model is VERY different from the Linux driver model. I'm not a sure a 'hybrid' is possible without a great deal of work/new code. Do you really want a Linux where MS wrote 1/3 of the Kernel?
Especially if that portion is closed source? Who knows what bugs/exploits will lurk there. No Thanks!
3) The Linux driver model is superior. I can take my harddisk out of my desktop (with ACPI on), and drop it into a desktop with a different processor, different network cards, different motherboard chipset (with ACPI off), different graphics card, and it'll boot. On SuSE, SaX2 will run automagically, press enter a couple times, and *Poof* you're up and running.
Try this on Windows. Blue Screen, almost certainly.
Does the Windows Driver Model permit dynamically loaded drivers? I think not.
Does the Windows Driver Model require a reboot on each driver installation/upgrade? Depends on the device, but usually.
Does the Windows Driver Model support having thousands of drivers installed simultaneously, and dynamically loading the necessary ones on demand?
I think not.
No thank you. MS-Linux will only draw people from Windows, not Linux.
Once you go to the pain of making sure ALL your hardware is Linux compatible (i.e. working drivers are out there), the Linux driver model is preferable to the clunky windows driver model.
Yes, I know there are reasons the Windows driver model is the way it is. Mainly backwards compatability. But rational != excuse.
Linux is better, and I like it that way.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
Look,
;). This as far back as 1998. You see where Apple is today.
This is the SAME GUY who went through tirade after temper-tantrum-touting-tirade about how he was eviling being targeted as an Apple hater meanwhile spewing out vitriolic fodder on how Apple will die (all within the confines of an OBJECTIVE viewpoint, of course
Dvorak's not a credible source. Case closed.
-- (Score:i , Imaginary)
Dvorak's writings are either brilliant or idiotic. When he's brilliant, he's interesting. When he's idiotic, he's hilarious.
I personally think he's idiotic merely to get people talking about his column. E.g., "Did you hear what Dvorak said about Linux and Windows' drivers?! He's a fucking moron!"
That way he gets people linking to his column, checking out his column, etc, which makes his readership look larger than it really is.
I seriously doubt if Dvorak really believes shit like this.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Dvorak's claim that users are spoiled by Windows' driver support level has a problem: sometimes Windows driver support is lousy.
:)]
There is a lot of hardware that doesn't yet work with Linux (which I wish did); for many people, this is a real downside to Linux as an OS choice right now for two closely linked reasons: 1) it means their existing hardware might not work with Linux, which might mean spending money to replace them if Linux is for other reasons especially attractive 2) When a new device comes out, especially a specialized one they might need in a field like medical imagery, it's likely to come with Windows drivers (if it's designed to interface with an PC, rather than self-contained) but may never work, or may only work with reduced functionality, with Linux.
However, there's another side to the driver problem. Adversity breeds strength; those devices which do work with my installation of Mepis Linux (and which have worked with various other distributions) generally don't need separate driver downloads to make work; my printer, for instance (Lexmark 210e) works under KDE after a 2-minute exercise with an actually decent "wizard" type application. (I loathe those "Wizards" in general, but this one works nicely, isn't condescending, and results in a working printer.)
For reasons unimportant here, I recently had to use a machine running Windows 2000; to make it work with the same printer, I had to find the driver for the printer and install it. (Which, surprising to me, did not require a re-boot. Thanks, that was less unpleasant than I expected.) Likewise, and more annoying, the same was true of an ethernet card I hooked to the same laptop. It came with a driver on floppy; none of my machines have a floppy drive. Luckily, I had a USB thumb drive handy, could download the driver from a different machine, transfer via the thumb drive. The same card is auto-recognized under Linux and Just Works. Perhaps it's also easy traveling with WIndows XP, but I don't have that to compare.
My dad has a color laser printer (Minolta/QMS) which for about half a year would cause his Windows-running computer to get even crummier whenever it was used; Minolta tech support blamed a memory leak in the driver or the spooler software. I think a new driver has solved the problem, but in the free operating system world. the problem *might* have been solved a lot faster; in the time between discovering the gooey performance under Windows and an improved driver, that model of printer actually gained support under CUPS.
I also have some older hardware for which drivers exist for Windows 98 -maybe also 2000-, but not for XP; that means that for many users it would be effectively useless. (Or do those drivers also work in some sort of compatibility mode for XP? Haven't tried, don't know.) Most of it works fine under Linux.
So while it's nice for the buyers of new Windows-centric peripherals that they can install software to make the peripherals work, it's also nice not to be dependent on separate driver software. (Which, Yes, is needed to make some things work under Linux, too -- there's an overlap, clearly.) And for ethernet cards, it's plain annoying.
So while using Linux as my every-day desktop (as I have for the last 6 years) limits my hardware choices, it also means that my printer, scanner, modem, etc. really *are* plug-and-play -- or at least closer than I've ever seen to that ideal under Windows. [Note, YMMV; I find Windows annoying enough that I don't ever deal with it at much of a stretch. The laptop in question will soon be upgraded to a nice Linux install
timothy
jrnl: http://tinyurl.com/c2l8yr / foes: http://tinyurl.com/ckjno5
I've always said Windows and Linux "need each other". I don't see what he's saying as happening though. His claim that MS makes a "lopped-off head" version of Linux would kill the development cycle is bogus. Think of the hardcore, community-based, non-commercial purists... the Debian, Slackware, Kernel people. Probably 90% of the Linux-people. They would never just "give up".
He claims developers would stop developing because MS would benefit from open source projects. Umm, if I developed a killer app, and I didn't want it to run on MS-Linux, I'd stick a compile-time flag in there. Set the flag for "MS-Linux" support. How many MS-Linux users (people who want many things to work out of the box and probably want to separate themselves from the running parts) would take the time to set the flag? Bingo. Linux-Killer Killer.
FLR
GPL would be quite a problem for MS here. Binary driivers are OK IFF they use nothing but a subset of the functions exported to modules. Other useful functions are exported only to modules that declare themselves to be GPL. No promises are made that any particular function will or will not remain available to non-GPL drivers.
The more interesting Windows drivers would be the third party ones for brand new hardware. MS doesn't own those, so if they want them to work in Linux, they'll have to come up with a full translation layer under the GPL. Native GPL drivers (by avoiding extra layers of bogosity and being open for improvement) will always be superior under Linux. For that matter, they tend to be superior to the Windows driver under Windows.
As for availability, I find that a recent Linux kernel is MORE likely than Windows to come with the needed driver. This is especially important for network drivers where you can't just go download it if you need it. The last example I saw was for the BCM5701 network controller. That is a fairly common builtin Gig ethernet chip (especially for AMD chipsets) that Linux has supported out of the box for quite a while.
The biggest problem with this whole idea is Micrcosoft's broken development strategy. It is a culture thing, and will see its way into any Linux hardware abstraction layer they try to develop. What I'm talking about is best explained with the video driver saga on NT.
Windows NT, by most accounts, was a solid OS design, partitioning and securing different parts of the system from on another. But it was fast enough to beat the competition on every benchmark, so Microsoft made the fatal decision to move the video driver into the protected kernel space. Thereby, damaging the OS stability.
They would expect to do the same to Linux. Play games and take shortcuts with the system stability, so that a fault in one system would bring the whole computer down. If they ever did try such a monstrosity, I think most user would totally reject such flotsam.
Aah, change is good. -- Rafiki
Yeah, but it ain't easy. -- Simba
I'm not trolling here. It's a serious question. The guy is the quintessential know-nothing tech writer who seems to have figured out how to thrive by writing utter hogwash.
Seriously. Name one thing in the last five years he's actually gotten right.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
Haha, it might be that "open source law" whatever is it is untested. But copyright law is old and stable. MS will never touch Linux, their programmers wouldn't even comprehend the code.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Seriously, this is the same guy that insisted Apple was going to switch to Intel processors.
The Macintosh uses an experimental pointing device called a "mouse". There is no evidence that people want to use these things.
- John C. Dvorak, SF Examiner, Feb. 1984.
The Independent: Reverend Spooner Arrested in Friar Tuck Incident - ISIHAC, Historical Headlines
I heard about a secret project. It concerned the development of a version of Linux that runs smoothly as a task under Windows.
colinux.org
That said, there is no way Linux under Windows would be practical with all the overhead involved.
It's very practical, actually.
If Microsoft actually produced an MS-Linux that was the standard Linux attached to the driver layer of Windows, giving users full Plug and Play (PnP) support of all their peripherals, nobody would buy any other Linux on the market
From first hand experience, I can tell you that this is not a really pleasant solution because it doesn't fix the things that are so wrong with Windows: lack of security, poor package and installer management, lousy system management interfaces, and a bad UI.
The long-term implications of such a scenario, I believe, would be essentially to kill Linux. Microsoft's MS-Linux would quickly become the dominant Linux and the company would begin to profit from all the open-source development work that would go into Linux.
First of all, Dvorak's premise is wrong: Linux has enormous numbers of drivers. Hardware "just works" under Linux when it requires cumbersome and flaky driver installations under Windows.
But let's assume the premise were right. So, people have pure Linux PCs and MS-Linux PCs. Well, that means more commercial Linux usage and the ability of software vendors to standardize on the Linux APIs. The consequence? Cutting the cost of shipping Windows out of a PC becomes a more and more attractive proposition and hardware vendors would ship more and more Linux-only PCs.
Microsoft only needs that one driver element to be proprietary for the plan to succeed.
The flaw in that argument is that it is not Microsoft that is creating the drivers, it is the hardware vendors. Anything Microsoft does to make Linux more popular or credible will mean more Linux drivers from hardware vendors.
Has Dvorak heard of coLinux (Cooperative Linux)? It runs as a Windows service and tries to offer the user the best of both worlds: http://www.colinux.org/ It looks very promising.