Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Update On Free Linux Driver Development

Posted by kdawson on from the i'll-have-one-with-sprinkles dept.

Remember the offer Greg Kroah-Hartman made earlier this year, to get Linux drivers written for free for any company that wanted them? Now an anonymous reader points us to an article up on linuxworld with an update to this program. Greg K-H, who leads the development of several kernel subsystems including USB and PCI, admits that the January offer was a bit of "marketing hype" — but says it has brought companies and developers together anyway. Twelve companies have said "yes please," one driver is already in the kernel, and five more are in the pipeline.

6 of 272 comments (clear)

  1. List? by Constantine+XVI · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A list of the twelve companies, please?

    --
    "I think an etch-a-sketch with an ethernet port would beat IE7 in web standards compliance."
    1. Re:List? by ajs318 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      ..... a problem which only arises because the existing law which already obliges manufacturers to disclose details to hardware owners is not being enforced. Write to your MP and ask for a new law, obliging hardware manufacturers to release, generally and gratis (or at any rate, for no more than the cost of copying and delivery) sufficient documentation so that independent programmers can write drivers for their hardware as a precondition before it is allowed onto the market. Independent expert review of the documentation would be a requirement alongside electrical safety / EMC certification.

      --
      Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
  2. Re:Why... by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    1. They're loadable modules.
    2. You should maybe leave the kernel development to the kernel developers.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  3. Re:patents, usability by arodland · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Maybe I'm a bit simple but I don't see where CUPS even has "usability" to complain about. You install it (if, oddly, it isn't already), you tell it what and where your printer are (preferably using the KDE print config thing because it's amazingly simple, but the CUPS web jigger isn't bad either), and then from then on you print, and you forget that CUPS exists. Where's the hangup?

  4. Re:patents, usability by QuantumG · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I wasn't able to get a printer working under Windows XP 64 bit Edition for about 9 months. Only last week did I figure out how to force windows not to try to use the drivers from the print server (which is 32 bit XP) and to stop it from overwriting the 64 bit drivers with the 32 bit ones. I guarentee it is because the date-time stamps on the drivers were out of wack.. in 3 weeks time they'll probably magically stop working again.

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  5. Re:patents, usability by the_womble · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You could say the same for Windows:

    Windows is fine in an office environment, with IT there to fix things.

    However:

    1) Making Windows secure requires work and knowledge
    2) When things go wrong they can be hard to fix, and even when fixed they have a tendency to mysteriously go wrong again.
    3) Software is hard to find, install and update. There are no repositories of software that is safe (not malware), will install with a click, and will all be auto updated.

    In short: there is no OS that is really suitable for the home, and there are at least some ways in which Linux is better than the competition.