The Linux Modem Problem?

muonman asks: "There is a business in town which refurbishes old computers and distributes them to kids, roughly at cost. Part of this cost is a $5 license for Windows 98 (they do use OpenOffice, tho). I have outlined to them the benefits of migrating to Linux, but the showstopper is modems, which most of their customers require. They buy in bulk at $4 each, with unpredictable chipsets. I can find reliable(?) drivers for Smartlinks, but cant buy them for less than $6 each, and I hate to recommend the switch in suppliers without more info. I haven't had luck getting license info from linuxant for using Conexants. It seems there has been no activity on the linmodem front for some time. Any wisdom from the Slashdot crowd?"

Comments

relicensing Windows 98

[vinsci]

Part of this cost is a $5 license for Windows 98

In Finland, there's no need to buy a new license. After a court decision a year or two back, it was determined that the license is transferred to the new user, presumably if the seller and buyer so agrees. If you get a donated machine in Finland, make sure to agree that license is transferred as well. Don't bother with the hologram license thingie, it carries no legal strentgh in Finland, as is the case with mouseclick licenses, AFAIK.

5$ for windows -- since when?

[xoboots]

How can a license for Windows 98 be $5?

You can't get it for that price even at ebay. Something is not quite right about this one...

Re:Why Linux is a gimmick, not a solution

[erikharrison]

This is an excellent example of why Linux is not being adopted by the masses.

Linux has the best hardware support for mass market machines of any non windows OS. And frankly, it has better out of the box support than windows.

The problem is not any more solvable than it already is, in other words, it isn't a technical problem. It's an economic one - MS can get away with developing almost no drivers because market pressure ensures that the drivers get written by hardware vendors.

Funny, how silent the Linux kiddies become when substantive discussion is afoot.

Silence is common amongst all fanboys when real problems are cited. But this is a troll. The problem is not substantially solvable.

The real question I have is, what are the advantages, in this case, of moving to Linux. Linux has become as strong as it has by being dedicated to practical solutions, not ideological ones. The best one I can see is that the licences for Windows are signifigantly higher than the $5 they are charging their customers. In that case a slight increase cost of hardware is acceptable.

Lucent modems are reasonably cheap, and the chipset has drivers (shipped with Linspire, back when it was Lindows). Also, Lucent is one of the better performing Winmodems (although my experience here is with the windows driver, so your milage may vary). If slight increases in hardware cost are acceptable, the Lucent driver is stable under Linux, and ships in serveral major distributions.