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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?"
Are you seriously saying that in this day and age, you are actively and aggressively distributing Windows 98 to the general population and *deliberately* connecting these PC's to the internet?
I know it's important to be constructive on Slashdot so I will endeavour to be so. But I must say. What you are doing is sheer stupidity. Windows 98 is buggy. It's insecure. It's also unsupported. Microsoft don't like it, Microsoft don't patch it. It has known security holes that will never be patched because MS doesn't support the OS anymore.
When you couple this with an internet connection (even dial up), you are actively contributing to the overwhelming crisis of spam, malware, trojan and DDOS attacks. Perhaps you should save a little time and deliver the boxes directly to the virus writers to use as zombies?
Let me save you and the world a tremendous burden. If you have to go cheap, go free, use Linux. Don't make the problems of the world even worse than they are. At least Linux, even on old hardware, would be up to date, secure, and significantly more stable than Win9x.
I am government man, come from the government. The government has sent me. -- G.I.R.
Cool, I'm sure you are perfectly happy with your Windows ME.
FYI, Linux is more of a server OS, not your desktop variety like Windows, and many companies are replacing their high-end Unix boxes with Linux. The fact that folks like the original poster are considering it for client use, and that various governments are switching to Linux as apps such as Open Office etc have is impressive.
You missed a bit:
$0 OS + $6 modem + 200 hours at $40/h trying to figure out why the fuck Linux won't recognise a totally 100% standard modem, or won't use a higher display resolution than 10x10, or whatever other stupid basic thing it won't recognise = $8006.
OK, I'm exaggerating. Let's take a concrete example. New PC (Dell Optiplex GX270). Works perfectly with Windows at full resolution (1280x1024 on a nice shiny LCD monitor). Install Linux (SuSE 9.0 so this isn't exactly ancient software) - only does 640x480. Took me EIGHT HOURS to figure out that Linux needed telling to use more video memory, whereas Windows worked that one out for itself probably in a couple of microseconds.
And that's not an eight hours that can be counted a one-off expense by dividing it by the number of computers sold. This dude is reconditioning old PCs - there is no way he has the luxury of being able to solve the problems on one platform then ship just that platform. That's going to be eight hours PER COMPUTER until Linux gets its fucking act together and "just works" without being told how to work.
Windows is considerably cheaper in this case. The sentiment expressed round here at times that "Linux is free if your time is worth absolutely nothing" is one I'm increasingly agreeing with.