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Know Any Hardware Needing Better Linux Support?
Dev Null writes "The Linux device driver project has hit something of a snag: they have lots of developers, but few devices to work on, so they're looking for input concerning which devices aren't well-supported in Linux. If any of you know of devices that could use better support, you can help out by listing them on the project's wiki."
..of all, why are they excluding printers? The fact that Linux printing is done is userspace is not an excuse. When I want to print or scan on a Linux machine, I don't want to hear that technicality. I just want it to work.
-- Subvert the dominant paradigm. Repeat as desired. http://ownlifeful.com/
How the support for that PS2 "Trance Vibrator"?
How about supporting parallel tape drives? Those were a pain to get working ten years ago. Oh, wait a minute. Newer computers don't have parallel ports, and 40MB tapes don't hold squat. Never mind.
Whatever's in my Abit IP35-pro (P35 chipset based) motherboard with a quad core P4 and an Nvidia 8800GTS card that prevents almost any distribution from installing straight off the CD/DVD would be a good start. I've tried a number of current distributions and they've all hung or crashed in various weird ways.
Not that installing Windows was a picnic either of course, the only way I could coax XP into installing was to manually add RAID drivers to the installation disk since of course I don't have a floppy drive and the evil thing demands one.
Know Any Hardware Needing Better Linux Support?
Pretty much any Windows PC, I'd say.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
No, I mean drivers that support 3d acceleration, and docking and undocking, and xrandr, and xv, and suspend to RAM, and power management, all without crashing. I've been waiting for years.
Hmm, that's a lot. However, how many of them actually will end up doing real work when real work comes? But still, very impressive number.
Maybe that's an X thing rather than a Linux thing but why is it so that in 2007 that feature looks broken? most times any flavor of win9x or NT correctly detects the screen and allows to choose res and refresh according to the monitor limits. I'm part of an association that builds PC from parts donated or lying in the streets, we use more or less crappy CRTs.
Editing the xorg.conf and tell bullshit about frequency ranges to get 1024x768 85Hz gets boring. Also PCs with improperly blanked screens aren't a rare sight. There are many computers labs full of them at the university (X terminals, diskless VIA C3 PC with 17" CRT), wasting a ridiculous amount of energy displaying black rather than being stand by. That should be urgently fixed.
Powermanagement for laptops seems to have consistently been inconsistent. As someone who uses laptops regularlz, having basic functions like hibernation and going into sleep mode causing complete system lockups on a fairly regular basis is a pretty big show-stopper. While I'd love to see the range of supported hardware expanded, I would really love if existing things like ACPI and various suspend technologies worked better and more consistently. It seems every few releases it works for a while then it completely breaks again. I am about to downgrade a laptop from Ubuntu Gutsy back to Feisty for this very reason.
Having the ability to quickly suspend my machine and bring it up again is extremely high on the list of priorities.
Also, there are plenty of cards that work, but still have problems. My Audigy NX operates at the wrong frequency when playing UT2004. Everything sounds higher pitched than it should.
Also, sound cards that support Dolby Digital Live hardware encoding. For that matter, it'd be nice if AC3 encoding worked well with alsa. Pretty gimpy last I tried it.
Recently bought an ASUS C90 (barebones laptop) intending to put linux on it. Tried the latest Ubuntu on it, and while it ran, there was no support for anything else on there; none of the peripherals (card reader, camera, fingerprint reader, HDMI connection etc... ASUS doesn't provide any linux support for it either.
After a week, I gave up and installed XP on it instead.
For example, Presonus Firebox and Firepod. Not just support but proper latency support I guess ( if I can so bold to demand them )
The USB keyboards ( like M-Audio keystations and others ).
It would be really sweet to work on audio in Linux for us CS geeks ( write scripts for audio effects rather than knobs and bars in weird custom interfaces ).
Printers and user space programs are outside the kernel space. They are built differently, tested differently, deployed differently, and part of different projects with different management.
Think of it like volunteer firemen saying we have no fires to put out, but the police complaining that there's too much crime on the street. You wouldn't expect firemen in general to take the duties of police, would you?
Linux is a kernel. Almost every other program running on a Linux-based system, be it GNU/Linux or uClinux, is an application running in user space, a part of memory separate from "kernel space". The drivers for printers are "filters" for an application called CUPS, the drivers for scanners are modules for an application called SANE, and the drivers for video cards are modules for an application called X.Org X11.
The people who made this request for proposals are interested in projects that need specific support from kernel space. The kernel side of scanning and printing is solved through libusb.
Creative as been promising binary with ALSA support for years, so far they have unsupported beta for 64-bit systems (?) that nobody can compile. ALSA project has no driver for these sound cards either.
Having to rely on binary blobs from manufacturers sucks.
If the kernel devs choose just one card range and reverse-engineer the thing already, there'd be a clear signal to buy that card if you want a hassle-free 3D accelerated Linux kernel experience.
Then, assuming a few of the other card manufacturers wanted to not lose the market share, they might well provide the info needed to make things easier.
As it is, lack of decent accelerated 3D in the kernel tree kills the platform for games and will increasingly see Linux GUIs left in the cold by alternatives like Vista (once it's a little more bug-free with SP1?) and Mac OS X which make integral use of acceleration for their window managers and GUI apps.
I know this is ATI's problem but the Radeon 9200 has no support (even with the FGLRX driver). Also, I tried to get my extremely old Microsoft Sidewinder 3d Pro joystick working so I could play my extremely old Descent game for the first time in ten years and it had no support at all. That might be the sound card's fault though.
These wireless cards are integrated in so many laptops, and using ndiswrapper is still pretty crappy.
Really, I have about half a dozen webcams here which I cannot use, alas I only have one of each so it sort of kills any gain for me to send them the webcam so they can develop the driver (Great, another webcam supported but not in my set of cams :( ).
What's dreadfully bad about webcams is that even with the same model number/name you can end up with a completely different bridge or sensor chip inside either due to a revision change or locality, really, it's pot luck at best.
As for wifi cards, it's really more of a situation where a few of the current drivers are incredibly fickle - perhaps it's the nature of the beast? I've got a RT2400 type card which if it doesn't get its setup parameters within ~2 seconds of the module being loaded it utterly refuses to accept anything else until a complete restart. Things like that make me feel like I'm playing in Windows again.
How about webcams? I still can't walk into a consumer electronics store (Best Buy, Circuit City, etc...), pick up a cheap webcam, and expect it to work. And when they post the compatibility status for a camera, they should list it by the name on the box too, not just the name of the chip inside. When I walk into the Wal-Mart electronics department, I don't see a whole lot of Texas Instruments part numbers. I know that there are a lot of different brands of cameras that use the same parts internally, but they could at least list the model that the developer bought himself to write the driver.
As far as I know the Logitec Quickcam Messenger still doesn't work for Linux, and it was a very commonly available camera.
--WH--
It's already been voiced in the thread, and is said very well in this post about the need for complete drivers instead of just drivers that work - but not fully.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Ok, they come out and claim, and i quote "not many drivers that need working on" yet there's fuckload of really obvious stuff like webcams and other consumer gear that needs work, yet when it's brought up they are some how too good to go and do userland code? that's just the elitest kind of bullshit i've come to expect from the linux camp.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
The only other thing I've encountered that I'd like better Linux support for is my webcam-- a Logitech Quickcam STX. It works in Linux, but the drivers it uses are inferior to the ones that I've got on my Windows install-- at least, I believe that would be the fault of the drivers.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
There is a complete lack of PC532 support.
Advice: on VPS providers
Since all the problems listed have been related to userspace... and if the kernel writers don't have enough to work with... can we not encourage some of the kernel writers to move to userspace coding?
I have a card reader on my laptop (Hp Dv2000) and the memory card reader (accommodates SD, XD, and a few others) has never worked at all in Linux. I know laptop hardware is incredibly proprietary, but some basic support at the very least would be nice.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
Wireless.
The current driver space for wireless components in Linux is an odd hodge-podge of ndiswrapper, madwifi (two versions), beta drivers external to the mainline kernel, minimal built-in support and blind luck. Cleaning this up should keep a good number of people very busy.
Why don't they go out to Staples, close their eyes, pick up a box in the wireless networking shelf, with preference to the 802.11n boxes and pick one and start writing. What about USB wifi cards? Those still are pretty well hit and miss. What about Broadcom wifi chips, you know the ones shipped with half of HP systems. Start working on a free driver or firmware or whatever is needed. Then, when all the wifi chips are supported and I don't have to worry about my new laptop not being able to get on the internet because HP locked the mini-pci slot to only one card, then we can take a walk down to the Video Card isle. Until you are done with Wifi, we will hold off on the hard stuff.
:)
Don't get me wrong, This is a great service. Just pick something that doesn't have X, be it firmware, a driver stack, whatever it may be and just start coding. I am serious, pick a random box at some store and start working. Look at the Sunday flyer, what is being put on sale. Find one of those devices and if it does not have linux support, buy it, start working on it.
Why do you need to wait around for manufacturers to give you devices? Find what people can and will be buying and start supporting that first, the stuff that won't come out for a year doesn't matter if I can't go in a buy a 802.11n card now and get it to work. And if it doesn't support WPA2, I don't want to hear it, go back to your desk and do it over. I want to see the work this time. No doing it in your head.
NDIS is not an option, it is not debuggable or portable across architectures. I have a few PPC machines I would like to use a 802.11n USB network card with.
How about any Broadcom wifi card, with firmware so the driver can be stabilized better than their engineers can.
Just because you don't like how hard it will be shouldn't keep you from starting on it.
One Token Ring to Rule them All, One Search Engine to Find Them, One WAN to bring them in, and TCP/IP Bind them...
Great, now I have a list of hardware to avoid buying for my linux box.
Who is this Jimmy character, and why was he cracking corn in the first place?
A very good use of these folks' time would be to reach some milestones on the Linux driver API so that the dang thing will stop changing all the time. A fundamental assumption of Linux is that constantly changing interfaces is no problem because the legions of faceless programmers will gladly rewrite everything each time around. True (but annoying) for generic hardware that everyone cares about, but not at all true for oddball stuff.
... by a tiny group of people ... every few months.
I'm maintaining a driver for a bus adapter interface (for connecting old minicomputer peripherals to PCs) and it's a much bigger time sink than it needs to be. The source code is on my web site, but the users are, well, USERS, so when a new kernel release breaks it they just chuck it back at me to fix. So much for open source taking care of itself by magic. I won't bother submitting this driver to the free driver project because it's kind of useless without the $3000 piece of hardware it works with (and that's not counting the crates full of minicomputer hardware needed for testing). I need mine and I don't picture these folks buying their own no matter how much they care.
Anyway I understand why Linus needs the freedom to get better ideas in the future and doesn't want to be weighed down with tons of backwards-compatibility stuff, but I still think it would make Linux more useful to split the difference and occasionally define an interface (doesn't have to be the default as long as you can ask for it somehow) which is guaranteed to work for some number of years. Then flush it at the end but at least some large amount of rarely-used stuff worked OK in the mean time, w/o having to be rewritten
OK so I'm still stinging from udev. Sure, it's cute. But it required driver hacking (yet again) *and* broke my user-mode application by changing some of the device names. That would be OK back in kernel 0.x days but this is way too late in Linux history to start breaking applications, and after 16-17 years it's really time for the external interface to the kernel to start quieting down too.
As I see it all the kernel drivers for 'standard' devices work sufficiently. The headline is misleading because Linux has driver issues, but they are mostly user space. Only kernel driver I can think of that needs work is Bluetooth (though that might also only be simply a problem of the implementation of the frontend).
They're problem looks like they only want unsupported devices. Linux already supports almoost every device ever. What it doesn't have is GOOD support for alot of them. For instance, NONE of the wireless drivers in Linux would any respectable kernel developer call "stable". The same can be said for graphics drivers, most of which lack good 3D support, do not fully utilize the card, are missing features, interact poorly with suspend, have edge cases where full preemptability causes problems or have some other small bugs. I've also heard reports that the SCSI RAID support is quite poor and handles edge cases badly.
Linux has no lack of drivers, what it lacks are good drivers.
For things that are just unsupported try non-x86 stuff. There are tons of devices that can "run" linux, but where none of their peripherals are supported. See the jornada 720, or the Dell Axim I believe it's called. How about reverse engineering the couple closed source bits of n770/800 (admitadly that's non kernel, but the reversing part actually is kernel work). Linux runs on arm and mips but there are just piles of these machines where the display, the touchscreen, the sleeping interface, or whatever aren't fully supported. How about an old Dec 3000, I believe there's only one video card supported, or an SGI indy or indigo, both of which linux only supports the lowest end graphics card.
For x86 we need better drivers, not more drivers. For other archs we need more drivers, better can come later.
Almost all PIII-era Intel Integrated Graphics chips won't allow Live CD's to start. They just hang when you try to load the kernel.
It would be nice to put all those old boxes to use.
The government can't save you.
The project in question involves companies providing hardware specs (potentially under NDA). I'm sure a bunch of these guys would LOVE to work on an Nvidia driver. Unfortunately, Nvidia refuses (and to be fair, may not be able) to release documentation on their hardware.
Without that documentation, it's pretty hard to write a driver.
All these work fine on Win, but on Linux:
- Dell multimedia keyboard, specifically the volume control knob does not control the volume (other multimedia keys can be assigned to special functions)
- Webcams are usually a problem -- my Sony webcam never worked under Linux
- Infrared remotes (lirc) are also a pain to install and configure
The only thing that keeps me (occasionally) booting into my Windows partition is when I need to locate a CD/DVD using the Disc Stakka. SourceForge has a project in pre-alpha that hasn't been touched since April 2006. This is a great product but for this one limitation.
Mongrel News all the news that fits and froths
SURE I WOULD.
If they're really bored, send them all the way through the police academy.
If you've got time to burn it really doesn't make any sense to do anything else. Retraining to do something other than something that isn't in demand any more (or right now) is rediculously commonplace these days.
Even if you don't take that approach there are little things like "binary compatable drivers" and other little projects that you could keep a bunch of bit bangers busy with. It just takes a little bit of imagination.
Although I don't buy the idea that there isn't enough work in kernel space to keep everyone busy.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
The trance vibrator runs in personal space, not just user space, although I suspect some enterprising hackers have succeeded in jamming that thing clear up to their kernel. The product might warrant consideration, since at the moment insmodding the trance vibrator often necessitates an ER visit.
Line6 computer based devices, especially the GuitarPort. In addition to the drivers, there'll be lot of fun coding a replacement for the GearBox app for the effects :-)
Something needs to change: Define the userspace driver issue where these guys do not program in. People keep on asking for driver support of things "they don't code for." Or for the lack of a nicer way of explaining this, they should get people who know how.
Isn't it that "Demand generates Supply", though they've been amazingly capable of making Supply generate the Demand.
Never try to beat a professional at his own game!
So why can't the kernel be ported to the atmega168?
It's user-space support and integration. While I've got a CS degree and can get things going myself, most people don't and can't. Telling them they need to upgrade some part of the kernel and do a recompile isn't going to do much for people. Much more work needs to be done along Ubuntu's philosophy of "it should just work". If it's easier to get working in windows, people will just use windows. I'm very happy to see that more and more hardware is becoming easier to get going under linux than windows, like my HP 3055 all-in-one unit.
If kernel developers have time they want to commit, but can't find anything to do, my humble suggestion is:
- Pulling in other drivers into the main kernel tree
- Testing, Optimisation & QA
- Consider working on user-land drivers such as USB devices.
As for the overall goal of supporting users, I think cutting down the time between software/driver release and packaging is critical. This is of course a distro issue, and a very good reason as to why too many distributions is a bad idea. Co-operation on common goals and focusing of efforts is one weakness I've found in FOSS, at the same time it's also a strength, but it's something to be mindful of in a less regimented development process.
I still think that the perspective should be just a LITTLE bit more oriented towards the user. The response of "it's not the kernel, it's the userspace, so go whine to someone else" is akin to the "You are in a hot-air balloon, Sir" joke - true but not useful.
I'm a user. I have a printer/GPU/whatever. It doesn't work on my Linux-running machine. I don't know or care whether it's a userspace or kernel issue. Heck, I don't even know the difference between the two. Hell, my only association with the word "kernel" is "the part of the nut that you eat", and all the word "userspace" reminds me of that I really should try and get a bigger cubicle. I just want my friggin' printer to work! And as far as I know, either Linux (and to me Linux refers to the WHOLE GNU/Linux suit) either DOES it or it DOESN'T.
If there are too many kernel programmers for the kernel problems to solve, then maybe more should try to specialize in userspace drivers, or whatever happens to be the problem that currently needs to be solved (and PLEASE don't get started about how "they don't get paid so don't tell them what to do", because all you do is reinforce MS's primary argument to "why Linux isn't as good as Windoze").
I like Linux as much as the next geek, but unlike the Fundamentalist Linuxist (who will undoubtedly mod me down as Troll for my insolent heresy towards the Sanctity of the Linux Kernel) I keep my eyes open about issues from the perspective of those who need those issues fixed, not in the Ivory Tower of Theoretical Separation of Kernel and User Space on which far too many people are sitting).
Yes, I have so desired this for so long. Question is though would this fall into their domain? Alsa is a separate project but I know the alsa code is included in the Kernel... Anybody know for sure if this would be a valid suggestion for the Linux device driver project (and is it patent encumbered)?
Georgia Tech, the leader in Chia(tm) technology.
How about the soundcard on my laptop (Toshiba A200)? I lost count of the number of obscure internet-inspired incantations I tried to get that little POS working before giving up and buying a $30 (yay for damaged packaging) external USB soundcard jobby.
OK, we get it, kernel stuff, userland stuff. Instead of asking the community for random hardware items, how about you guys list the hardware you want to work on, then see if there is any support for that from the users. At this point, I have zero, none, nada, zilch, nyet, non, nein, nej NOTHING, no idea what "hardware" these kernel guys want to work on or are skilled to work on. People here are giving you lists, you keep shooting them down saying userland. So WHAT isn't userland that they will work on? Let's stop this ring around the rosy action. Throw us a bone, make with the clues.
Personally, I have had nothing but grief with the alleged USB support and printing and getting a camera to be able to upload pics and so on, even though this is allegedly already fixed and working. You can't prove it by me, I am three printers into buying one after first "checking on the web" to make sure "it is supported". Three different machines, three printers, only one worked, it physically broke, since then, no printing. My USB is there, the machine reads the controllers out fine, doesn't see anything, all new cables *twice* to eliminate that. Oh, but that doesn't count because it is "userland". So, OK, what is in kernel space I should be concerned with that doesn't work? I get sounds and am staring at a screen, so obviously that works. What else, the ACME kernel ring 0 smellovision module, or what? Give us a list of their specialties instead of forcing everyone to be psychic to answer the question.
The folks maintaining the PCI Express bus should really be updating to support the extensions in PCI-e 2.0, but I'll bet you they've not started yet. The wiki page has no section for bus support and they do say they're not wanting to discuss "better" support, only the lack of something, but damnit, this is an area Linux could overtake commercial OS', as there will be a delay between PCI-e 2.0 specs and chipsets, then from chipsets to actual marketed systems, and then from marketed systems to commercial OS updates. But you can code a generic handler for the extensions just from the specs and worry about vendor-specific variations down the road, when it comes to Open Source.
I'm not sure if the current HyperTransport 3 is fully supported in Linux, but my guess would be that it is not, for the same reason PCI-e 2.0 is not - that kind of hardware just doesn't exist as far as the general user is concerned, and the high-end places that do use such high-end busses are quite capable of writing their own drivers if they need to.
The COMEDI developers have an absurdly large number of CAM drivers out-of-tree. They invariably get out of phase with the mainstream kernel and should be merged in. There are other CAM driver systems out there, but none as comprehensive. However, the Linux developers have plenty of time and brainpower, they should be able to merge all that stuff in and update it as necessary.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
What's it going to take to get people to see that technological ignorance is NOT OKAY? Any technology can cause damage if it's used by people who don't know how it works. I'm not saying people should know how to code, but you don't know the difference between a client and server, stay the fuck off the net until you're read your first "for dummies" book.
Here's how to get rid of botnets: license computer users. If you don't know enough about the technology to keep from harming the rest of society, you don't get to use it. If you can't keep your computer secure, you get to use snailmail, POTS and get your videos at Blockbuster.
Quit making excuses for people who don't want to learn how their computers work. They are the cause of may of the problems that people who want to use appropriately
When I got my first net access in 1988, the ISP owner interviewed me personally to make sure I'd use the resources responsibly. We should go back to that.
Don't make excuses for idiots. If Joe Sixpack doesn't want to learn how his computer works, take away his keyboard.
If you want printer drivers so fucking bad, why don't you write it your fucking self? It's Open Source, DJ.
The seperation between kernelspace and userland is NOT theoretical. This is slashdot and it would be like saying that the people who worked on your cars powertrain should fix the issues with the electrical subsystem. It then offcourse becomes obvious why this is idiotic, people who know engines don't need to know anything about electricity, yes both are "power" but at the same time totally different.
The kernels task is to provide the base system that other software can then use to run on. You really don't want to tie to much stuff into the kernel, and if possible migrate stuff OUT of it and keep only the bare fundementals inside. Why? Windows is an excellent reason why. If the kernel crashes your are fucked, if a userspace program crashes, then you just restart that program while the kernel goes on.
Take printers, the kernel does the USB protocol, but CUPS talks to the printer. The kernel handles the AGP bus, but is X11 that does the video work. Therefore the drivers for your printer and video card need to be part of these later projects. Offcourse it gets confusing with video cards because they ALSO need to be part of the kernel.
Say you call up the electricity company to complain your PC don't work, they are very nice and send an engineer over. He will check the outlet, confirm it supplies the proper current and then leave. Your PC still don't work? Not his problem, not his job and most important, he may very well not even know where to start. Call Dell instead.
Cups is a totally different project with its own team of people and own goals and ambition. To say that a kernel developer should just switch to that project instead is starting to smell a lot like extreme arrogance from your part. Who are you to say what an other person should do?
People often start speaking of elitism, but what do you call it when a person like you expects everyone else to jump at their demands?
The strength of Linux comes from its volunteers, who work hard on the stuff they are passionate about. Sadly there are also weaknesses in this which according to the reactions so far seem to be, don't buy Lexmark. I can live with that, if you can't. Well there is a small company called Microsoft operating out of Redmond. YOu might want to give them a call, I am sure they will JUMP at the change to develop drivers specifically for your hardware needs.
Oh but wait. MS doesn't do that does it. Does MS provide code to run old software that don't wanna run on their latests OS? No. Does it provide drivers for hardware that has problems? No.
Odd, that you are so undemanding of a product you pay for, but think volunteers should be at your beg and call.
Next time something don't work, blame the company you paid for it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It's that kind of response that keeps users away from Linux. But, that's okay, keep whacking off to the next 'kernel' release, asshat...
It got GPLed. I threw ALSA out and have been using OSS commercial for a couple months now...sound has never sounded so good I do have to say, and hardware mixing! That means no more ALSA "one app has sound lol" problems.
Obligatory blog plug: http://www.caseybanner.ca/
i would personally like to see something done about on the fly wan compression. it would be great to get a 30Mbps or more connection out of my 20Mbps line. I've looked everywhere for an open source alternative to this but all i can find are overpriced proprietary boxes like these: http://www.juniper.net/products_and_services/application_acceleration/wan_acceleration/index.html
i think Linux dropped the ball on this one.
I have a laptop with a Radeon IGP 345M chipset, which is supposed to be fglrx compatible... but Ubuntu 5.x, 6.x, and so far 7.x simply do not support this chipset properly. Neither using the gui settings nor editing xorg.conf has ever allowed it to do dual-screens properly. Every attempt to do anything at all dual-screen kills X, until I restore my xorg.conf to the original.
That really bites. Windows has excellent support for this chipset. You would think that between Linux and AMD, they could do better.
In my office, HP servers are Da Rule, and any other HP peripherals get glows of approval. I brought in a (HP) Compaq nc6320, which seems to be The Preferred HP Laptop for Business (tm), and I gotta say, it is nice for business. I especially like how the monitor is NOT wide-screen. The office likes it too.
I just set it up *nice* with Ubuntu Studio, using the 7.10 LVM full-encrypted disk, installed all the goodies like Skype and Picasa. WPA2-PSK AES wifi works. Sweet. (note: add the www.medibuntu.com repos to get codecs, etc.) I clone each workstation's apps using AptonCD btw.
Everything works swell, except the built-in microphone (useful for Skype) and the fingerprint scanner.
There an application called ThinkFinger, that I couldn't get to work at all. There's 'bioapi-1.2' (from bioapi.org) to hack through as well. To be fair, both say very much in-development.
AES2501 is the actual driver, I think. These are my notes anyway. Authentic.com (an OEM) makes the fingerprint scanner hardware in most modern laptops.
AFAIK, I needed to compile this "TFMESS BioAPI for Linux" http://www.upek.com/support/dl_linux_bsp.asp -- who actually programm the driver?
I googled and labored for ages, this is what worked and what doesn't. This finger scanner seems to be used in most other biz laptops as well.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
I tried to add an entry for WLAN-cards based on the RTL-8185 chipset. The driver seems to be blacklisted and using the NDIS-wrapper for these cards appears to be problematic.
However, the preview for the edited Wiki came out as complete carbage.
The 300 of you are all kernel driver devs but most drivers don't belong in the kernel. So 10 of you can hang around and maybe a few years before 2038 the rest of you will be needed ;).
Meanwhile a fair number of us need:
1) RAID monitoring tools (bad to have a RAID system but no way to know if a drive has failed)
2) Temperature/fan/etc sensor monitoring.
3) did I hear one or two mentioning printer drivers?
4) Video drivers.
5) Sound drivers.
6) NIC drivers.
7) Virtualization hardware stuff.
The problem I see is for a fair number of these is you might actually have "drivers" (I use the term loosely) for say RHEL4, but not for RHEL3, Ubuntu or OpenSUSE, or whatever.
The main problem I suppose is hardware companies not wanting to cooperate in ways that the Linux people want.
But with 32 bit Windows, you can typically use the same drivers from Win2K onwards at least until that crap called Vista. Whereas with Linux, there's a fair chance that a kernel update would break something.
Just because there aren't enough new driver requests doesn't mean they don't have shit to do. I have installed Gusty Gibbon on a number of systems and found that what does work, only works in a half decent way.
What they need to do is take these guys, go back about 2 years worth of hardware and update and make the existing hardware better.
Once my Touchpad works without freezing in psmouse.c randomly, and sound, video, and all the other issues are fully resolved and solid, then please don't waste our time making more hardware barely work!
I exchanged my SB Audigy for an M-audio, but that wasn't a driver issue but the fact that the EMU10k1 chipset doesn't do 44.1 kHz. Out of the box, MIDI only worked in 1 direction on the M-Audio, although recompiling the kernel with identical options solved that. I'm a lazy bastard, so I got an EDIROL USB midi interface instead.
I got rid of my ATI in favor of an NVidia.
I no longer need ATI driver support, but there are those who do- but that's an ongoing story. I hear the same is true for certain WiFi hardware.
However, I've got a few webcams laying around, none of which work out of the box, nor using EasySpca. Perhaps start there?
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
LAPTOPS
Things like ACPI, internal modems, infrared ports and card readers should work just like we see in the operating system with the four-colour-flag.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
I don't know what the current state of broadcom built in wireless cards is, but they were the source of endless frustration when trying to install linux on my last (HP) laptop. I had to use NDIS wrapper and it was never much fun.
or else!
Bravo!!! I and my 450 spam emails last time I checked my email agree completly.
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.
as they are looking for companies that will want to join. FTFA: "What we need now is more companies participating in the project,"
The fact still remains that even where it is pointed out that many drivers exist in Userspace and not in the kernel, those are the ones that still bother the Linux user.
So what can these 310 developers do? First if they realy have nothing to do, why are there so many things still open? Next they could see where they could help with Userspace-drivers. Sure they will not be using their complete potential, but it is better then sitting around and doing nothing. Perhaps 310 people is too much.
I can imagine that people want to join that, because they want to work on the Linux kernel, because that is the real linux. Well, if there is not enough work, find a new chalange.
That does not mean I would want Greg (or better the name Novell) out of there to ask companies to join, it means that they perhaps should rethink how many people they actualy need and distribute work among those. There is enough to do besides the kernel.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Support device/motherboard sensors!
And thank you for the nice gesture of asking the community.
Mod points are a dangerous tool. Abuse them wisely.
Uhm, have you checked the kernel in the last 12 months?
A speciality area perhaps, but it would make my PDA (Asus A730W) a lot more useful if I could use the (internal SDIO) wireless card.
I am trolling
for a while I had a macbookpro and the bluetooth worked really well, allowing me to use my mobile phone's headset as a sound device; linux won't do this "out of the box" - but the wiki does mention it. However, my new toshiba tecra m9 needs some special toshiba acpi driver installed (the standard one which came with suse 10.3 doesn't seem to be compatible), so I can't turn on bluetooth at all. the kde bluetooth apps aren't bad, but it'd be great to make things simpler, so that it has an auto-discovery mode and when it finds headsets, gps, cellphone etc starts a configuration wizard to set up connections.
for all the things you *have* to have working to make a computer useable, linux often beats windows in terms of setting up especially in a secure manner, but coping with the massive variety of obscure peripherals windows wins, no doubt due to its monopoly on being the default OS on retail machines.
Even on Windows printing is a disaster. Getting anything more than an A4 printout is an exercise in frustration on virtually every platform I've ever used.
Deleted
Coverage of webcams is patchy at best. I've got a Creative Live Motion, pretty much the cheapest PTZ cam you can get, and there's absolutely no support for it. But then Creative are (in)famous for their poor support on non-Windows systems.
Really, I can't think of anything that the Kernel hasn't handled brilliantly.
All new hardware these days is making use of existing buses and ports that have decent kernel support. The major things that need improvement are:
* ALSA - Particularly SBLive and Emu10k1 cards like the Audigy series..
* CUPS - Lexmark Printers, old Canon printers etc. etc.
* X11 - This is a real stickler.. Alot of the restricted drivers seem to hate power management. If we could get some decent GPLed nvidia or ati (particularly ati) drivers that be a good start.
Unfortunately these 300 developers don't have the expertise to work on userland experience.
The hardware is made available for use by the kernel fine though, so what I suggest those kernel developers do is give the userland developers a shove on.
More realistically, they should work on improving power management. My restricted drivers all hate hibernating.. so maybe the hibernating process could be improved on the kernel end so that the restricted drivers work more seamlessly? I'm running a ton of custom acpi module unloading scripts that work but not cleanly enough....
I really don't know enough about Linux's internals, I just know how to administrate it.
GPS Receivers (USB and/or Bluetooth)
Mod points are a dangerous tool. Abuse them wisely.
I have a Polycom communicator, it is brilliant, but it needs some software echo canceling. Skype does this perfectly and the windows drivers for the Polycom work just fine, but when using it under other VOIP applications on Linux I get feedback. I have been using the rather superb OSLEC echo canceler for Asterisk which runs as a kernel module and gets used by the drivers for the Zircom telephone line card. It would be fantastic to have a more general place to put OSLEC, possibly as a driver for the polycom, or it might sit more generally in the ALSA area. I am thinking that you could feed playback channels into OSLEC and the microphone channel and tell it to subtract echos of the playback from the recording. This would mean that with any sound card, speakers and microphone you could have perfect VOIP with no feedback, or you could record yourself playing an instrument then play it back whilst recording the next instrument and only record the new one, the first recording would effectively not be picked up by the microphone because it would be echo canceled away.
I have never used an iPod under Linux. How is that done, if at all possible, since there is no version of iTunes for it?
Beauty is in the beholder of the eye.
- WiFi still sucks, it is much better than a couple of years ago but it is not good enough.
- UMTS / GSM / GPRS cards and phones, we need a GUI and an encrypted store for the PIN-code
- 3D graphic cards, yes I know that ATI and nVidia are not cooperating
- there are some issues with sound card drivers
- Bluetooth is also a field which could be improved
They are however all listed on their Wiki...I've been saying that for quite some time actually. Although I'm not from having net access in 1988 (FFS, I was 4 years old!) when I first got a computer I started learning why it did what it did to start. I find it amazing that some people consider the PC as another eletronic in the house and should just work with a button (no Mac mentions, please) like their TVs.
It's the same with Linux, I don't suggest to any of my friends to install it yet they all go "Oh look this will be AWESOME!!!11" and start making questions to me I just say "It's the man pages. Take a look at that first." (later that became RTFM) and then they get pissed off and go back for Windows. Well, excuse me if I'm being elitist or whatever, but if you intend to use another system, at least try to learn about it and not go whining because your mplayer does not show those "beautiful" embedded fonts in your anime (yes, mplayer _can_ output those stupid formatted text AND fonts -- it's in the man pages, where else could it be?)
http://stoploudness.org/
Because a friend of mine sells music related computer hardware and last time I was around we tested a bunch of current cards on a current kernel. None of them worked. He said he heard that some of the older cards are supposed to work, but he doesn't sell those anymore.
He wants a working system, so he should go to the people who sell (or give away) working systems. That is, the people who put together distributions like e.g. Red Hat or Debian.
/.. The GCC developers have every right to proudly declare "we finally implemented 'export', our support for C++ is now complete!" even though GIMP still doesn't support CMYK color model.
People who work on one aspect of the system are welcome to proudly declare their part for done. Especially at developer oriented sites like
The confusion probably stem for the kernel having the same name as the system. It would be better if they had different names, like calling the later GNU or something.
ATI GRAPHIC CARDS, FFS. I've been trying 2 years straight to get my ATI Gecube Radeon 9250 to get DRI WORKING. It's been nuts! Next time I'll go nVidia. Bros before hoes.
TABLET PC'S
> And that, in a nutshell, is why Linux will never be mainstream.
Linux will not be mainstream because developers communicate openly (in developer oriented web sites) about the status of their respective sub-projects?
I believe you are underestimating ordinary users, most of them can figure out that when they buy Foobar Linux 3.14 they should ask Foobar Corporation what hardware they support, not rely one what nerd websites claim "Linux" supports.
The name confusion between Linux the kernel and the GNU/Linux family of operating systems is annoying, but not likely to be what kill either.
Seeing about 50 modeded up replies here, all of them are like "yeah, your stuff doesnt work, but thats the _wrong kind_ of driver missing, go away!", or "Kernel drivers vs userspace drivers is like race driving vs surgery, NOTHING AS ALL IN COMMON" (yeah, with the exception that its programming, in the same language, using similar interfaces, for drivers. If you arent that flexible, go ahead and die) is really sad. In fact, it borders on microsoft-like doublespeak. "there are no bugs, its a feature all those drivers are now in userspace and not our concern anymore".
Well, i gues that why everybody seems to like the microkernel concept. In that, they wont have driver problems ever again, by definition...
HI O WISE PRINCE. WHT TOOK U SO DAM LONG?
Gibbon has just been released, give it a while. Inform those who care, the issues you are dealing with work in Feisty because the developers got feedback then made it work. It sucks having things intermittently break between releases, but usually there is a trivial fix for the issue that was merely overlooked on release. If you point it out, many eyes will focus, confront and solve your issue. Such is the power of open source software. Utilise the feedback mechanisms and everyone benefits.
Do you honestly believe that there are 300 people in the project with nothing to do beside waiting for a new device that needs a driver? All of them have a life (of some kind) with other stuff to do, and most of the are likely involved in other development projects. They just feel they have the expertise and surplus to also work on a device driver, should the need arise.
The original message was hardly a complaint, just a way to make hardware manufactures aware of the possibility of having this group write drivers for their devices.
Ok, lets see.. we got here a bunch of the best kernel writers *and* driver writers in the world. They are bored.
Now, one thing they can do is listen to the community whining about some obscure feature or other not working while the basic core works pretty well.
The other thing is to start to Innovate. You know - that thing where you actually add something new instead of doing the previous one better (or just doing it over an over again).
It's not hard - look for something which always eluded you, made you feel unnerved, simply got in your way or does not exist and add it. Most people think that inventing stuff is a big deal, but it is simply answering a need, the difficult thing is usually finding a need which really need answering...
just my
Peace sells, but who's buying?
Until people realise that unlicensed computer operators are a danger to society.. NAIL THEM TO THE WALL!!!!
That has the one thing that has really put me of ever running Linux on a laptop (along with the terrible selection of commercial software) - its great on the server, great on the technical workstation but when it comes to the laptop and general purpose computing, it falls apart.
Not sure whether you are going to consider this a "userspace" issue or not, but my MP3 player hasn't ever worked in linux (Fedora 3, Fedora 5, RHEL 4.4, Ubuntu Feisty).
Of course, it is a Phillips HDDxxxx, so it uses non-standard USB input and non-standard database stuff. It seems to be a problem for many more people than me. I would have bought supported hardware, but this brick is a few years old at this point (bought because Windows Media Player supported it...).
Don't come in hear waving your common sense around here young man! next you'll be saying that 'normal people' interact with other humans - and on occasions, have sex!
I'm involved in IT, and quite frankly, even I don't care about the details which the geeks here masturbate over. I want to load up my computer, surf the next, check my email, jerk off to some porn then go to bed. I don't want to spend hours/days/months/years of my life, dedicated to getting things to work properly.
For the record, I have a MacBook - yes, I know, boo, boo, Steve Jovs is the anti-Christ, DRM is evil and Stallman is the new massiah. For the rest of us, we don't care, we have a life - we'll keep being social, and you keep playing your computer related jihad going without me (and people like me).
Such a thing already exists, it's called The Linux Documentation Project.
I've no idea what it is about the Intel 82557/8/9 series, but once you search you find a driver saga spanning years. Seems each kernel revision tips the balance and a new 'fix' has to be devised. Currently what works is pulling out the e100 and inserting eepro100, which is exactly the opposite of what should work, and oddly enough is an 'original' fix that hasn't worked for a while.
It's just a little too weird. "Something rotten in the state of Denmark", and all that. This one looks like it could use some clean-slate detective work to figure out the elusive detail that's been causing unexpected results for so long. Maybe finding out will be informative about problems beyond these cards.
[Before the usual half-dozen voices chime in - this is not about the corrupt eeprom problem also common to these cards. The driver issue affects uncorrupted cards. (Why so many with corrupt eeprom? Dunno. I've heard it's a result of sudden power-out on Windows machines, but haven't tested that myself.)]
This is ultimate proof that the Linux devs DO NOT LISTEN to those using the OS. If they're looking for something to do, surely the tens of thousands of posts about the grief that is Wifi on Linux should have provided them with a big enough clue for something to do?
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Need I say more?
NOT KDE
NOT Gnome
NOT Ubuntu
NOT RedHat
NOT IBM
NOT Cups
NOT X
What you still don't seem to get is that these are DIFFERENT projects. Do you call Ford when your petrol has water in it? Do you expect the roadservices department to fix your car?
I am a carpenter, I ask you if you want anything fixed, you ask that I fix the faulty washing machine. Do you then rant that I won't fix it? That you don't care about the differences between an electricien and a carpenter?
I am starting to see why Stallman is so pasionate about the GNU/Linux naming.
Now if it had been a person from say RedHat who claimed "oh that is userspace" THEN you would have a point. RedHat supplies a package to the enduser. Linux DOES NOT.
As for pushing all the drives to userspace, well that just makes it clear you know nothing about this matter. SOME drivers can be in the kernel, others do not. Every printer driver in existence as part of the kernel. Ugh. That is so yuck even MS wouldn't do that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Although blaming slashdot editors for doing a poor job is... well been there, done that.
It is sad because it really is the key of the issue, linux, cups, kde etc etc are ALL different projects that some other projects called distros happen to put together.
It would be like expecting someone from Redhat to fix problems with Gentoo. It may be what the enduser wants, but it just doesn't work that way.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
http://hplip.sourceforge.net/
What more could you ask for? I chose Canon for the cheap ink tanks, which are replaced separately from the print head. So should I just accept HP's inflated consumable prices as the cost of using free software?
Ah, playing the populist are you? Trying to say something completely moronic which does however seem to resonate with the non-thinking part of the population. You should try politics here in the Netherlands, it seems that about 25% of the people here fall for this crap.
ThinkFinger does not support Authentec AES2501 hardware. Thinkfinger supports an entirely separate type of fingerprint reader, the UPEK TouchStrip.
The same applies for the UPEK driver and the bioAPI stuff you link to (supports UPEK TS, does not support any authentec devices).
You can find some code online to retrieve images from the AES2501. However, as this is a swipe-type reader, the images are presented as several small chunks with varying amounts of overlap, which must be pieced together by software. I'm not aware of any code that actually performs that piecing together yet.
Assuming that you can piece the chunks together into a single smooth image, you then need code to process the fingerprint image and later on decide whether a new image matches the original or not -- this is required for fingerprint-based login and whatnot. This is not a simple problem to solve, and currently, no open source projects (that work) offer such functionality. At this point, we're way out of scope of writing kernel drivers, as you'd never do such kinds of image processing inside the kernel.
The reason that thinkfinger (an open source project for the UPEK stuff) works is because that hardware does image processing and matching in hardware, meaning that not much driver code is required, and you never get to see an image.
Following up to myself here: maybe the foregoing was confusing, because printing is a bit special because the low-level functions (how long to wait etc.) are presumably standardized (either standard parallel port or send it over ethernet I guess), but here the high-level functions (i.e. how to encode the data to be sent to the printer) is not. And this high-level encoding is done in user-space by a program library called CUPS. And if the printer maker refuses to give the documentation necessary to write a CUPS driver (Adobe .ppd file) for your printer, well then you should just return the printer to them or complain to your country's consumer organization because you're S.O.L.
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
Try using the program xvidtune for finding and setting the right monitor configuration.
Don't say it's already done, you can never document your source code enough if you really want to reach the budding developers of tomorrow the way microsoft is trying to.
Maybe write some unit tests, and gather and read through a few use cases.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Yes, and don't forget that power issues are not for laptops alone anymore. I can see that it's hard to get around all this ACPI stuff and such, but this feature is too important not to get right. I am running a VIA EPIA mainboard, and I can currently not go to hibernation or suspend due to USB driver problems. So there you go: fix USB for VIA CN700 motherboards (it uses a VIA VT8237A South Bridge, also found on some laptops I head, so this fix might be for both laptop as well as "desktop" users).
Fortunately it was designed for an always on system. Currently it is off because of display problems after upgrading from feisty to gutsy.
There's a group in debian doing things, but I'd guess they could use help to get up to 2.6.x and get everything working. If you ran out of things to do there, it might be fun to reverse engineer the Mac toolkit ROM and make use of it or expose it in some kind of API. That should keep anyone busy for a long time.
You should check it out here in the US 98% of the population falls for that crap. Hey, shame about the mushrooms over there.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
My Toaster could do with more linux support...
nVidia nForce3 has a bug setting the agpgart since april, 2006 http://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=6350 . So why not fix this bugs ????
My board just locks up, black screen, under linux. Completely dead. Tried a bunch of kernels & distros. init 5 (GUI) and init 3 (text console). Completely unstable.
Runs like a champ under NetBSD (not flamebait, but an indicator that the board and RAM are fine).
Awesome furniture, accessories and cabinetry in Santa Rosa, CA: http://humanity-home.com/
Lack of driver support for this controller is the reason my laptop is running Windows. *everything* else works under Linux. But no matter what happens or what tricks I try to employ to get the sound working, it fails to load the driver citing lack of codec.
This sound card is often branded as "Intel High Definition Audio", and can be found in laptops from several vendors, including Dell (my laptop is an Inspiron 1520), Lenovo, Acer, and HP.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
Lets see the Linux world sort that can of worms out. (Hint: its completely proprietary..)
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
From what I've read, users of other recent distros have similar problems, and I'd say it's more likely something with the 2.6.22 kernel, rather than something specific to ubuntu. It didn't work for me in gutsy (beta release, but only about a week before final release) and doesn't work in mandriva 2008 either.
creation science book
The wireless card (BCM9431) is not supported directly - even with the latest kernel that claims it has a workable driver of sorts. I still need to resort to ndiswrapper and that makes me sad. SIS m760GX - SIS drivers in general! I cannot get 3d acceleration in linux/unix at all so I can't do many graphical things at once like I can in Windows (if I play a dvd or a movie I can't chat on AIM/Pidgin without a significant delay to typing or a pause in the movie). Basic hardware things like that should be a priority.
If you were offended by anything I said... No, I'm not sorry. Please lighten up.
This story isn't about users at all! RTFA, you're beating down a strawman.
Yes, users shouldn't care what sort of driver is needed or how it is written. Yes, users should just be able to check "is this compatible?" without caring about the implementation.
But there is an implementation, and someone has to deal with that. We call those people "developers" which is entirely what this article is about. Them and the companies who make these products who, surprisingly, also need to know about the inner workings of their product and the system it's going to interact with.
Total flamebait. Mod parent down.
mice. I have 8 buttons and 2 scroll wheels on my logitech mx1000 mouse. I can only use two buttons and one scroll wheel through compatibility mode?
the creative sb audigy2 ZS has no discernible means of configuring it. How about a nice control panel applet for it? don't forget the audigy2 front panel device.
the razor tarantula keyboard has a bunch of extra keys on it. I can't use any of them in Linux. The play button doesn't work at all. nor does the mute or volume controls.
call me when those work out of the box. and I'm using openSuSE 10.3. so they should.
They're using their grammar skills there.
Webcams are quickly becoming a non-issue, just like ATA, SATA, mice, USB controllers, USB mass storage, etc. have in the past. In order for hardware to receive the Windows Vista-compatible logo, it must support the UVC standard, for which a quickly maturing Linux driver exists. Right now, it is more of a matter of applications switching from the deprecated V4L interface to V4L2. Bottom line is, new webcam hardware is supported natively by Linux and should very soon work out of the box with all current video applications.
The irony in all this is, of course, that we have Microsoft to thank for this.
would be nice to have usb drivers for the next gen
... linux will rulez more!
mobile phone / wireless network.
here's what im talking about:
http://www.cmotech.com/english/index.html
what is wiered tho, is that the company makes a ethernet based CDMA
modem (a router) that runs e-linux, but all their usb devices lack linux drivers?! : ((
maybe getting linux to the desktop (90% done?) -AND- getting
linux wireless
A large portion of the poorly supported devices on linux are USB devices.
This is partly due to the fact that a large number of all periphials are USB devices. But is also due to the fact that USB was a bad idea from the start. I think we should avoid USB interfaces as much as possible, and ask manufacturers for other interfaces, and leave USB and it's problems to Windows users and masochists.
A number of points, in no particular order:
-- USB was a product of Intel, this should prejudice you against it by itself. However, it is also known the Intel promoted it because of its shortcomings -- namely that it used up a lot of CPU, thus hopefully pushing people to buy faster CPUs.
-- If you unplug a USB disk and then plug it back into a linux system, it often gets a different device name.
-- Sniffers for USB are expensive, unlike for example snooper for RS-232, which makes it less likely that hobbiests will reverse engineer the "userland" portions of USB drivers (or applications, as I guess they should be called if they are userland ?)
-- I am tired of having to unplug the USB scanner and then plug it back in to get it working, ON LINUX. This is accepted and I guess is acceptable on windows, but I should not have to unplug my scanner between each page I scan on linux, and then run scanimage -L to find the NEW AND DIFFERENT device.
-- USB sucks power over it's connection, and many motherboards become unstable with too many USB devices plugged in, and you have to do a second PCI USB card (always fixes it) or a powered USB hub (sometimes works).
USB chips are cheap to add to a gadget, but RS-232 is even cheaper, and many USB devices don't transmit enough data to make it worthwhile. SCSI PCI cards aren't that expensive any more. It is also becoming more affordable to get an ethernet printer.
When I talk to vendors, I make sure that they know I prefer anything other than USB. If it is higher-end equipment, such as a relay board for our lab that can turn on and off AC current, I often take the tactic of saying to them "if this is JUST a usb product, why isn't it cheaper ? I'd pay this much for a REAL HARDWARE RS-232 interface, but USB . . . "
Older HP LaserJet III and IV printers have parallel ports, and are much more reliable than the newer USB printers (not due to USB, HP just went down the tubes). Buy those printers from local surplus places.
When I order Dell Poweredge servers, I ask for PS/2 keyboard and mouse. None of this all-USB crap they are pushing now.
The only thing I use USB for regularly is external disks for backup. They suck for this but I have not found a good replacement. Firewire is better, but suffers from some of the same problems as USB.
Please don't give USB gadget manufactures your money.
As long as we're on the subject of laptops and linux, it'd also be nice to have good driver support for more wireless chipsets. I had to install a brand-new dell laptop with linux for a faculty member where I work, and I ran into all sorts of problems, but none as blocking as the wireless chipset. It works great in Windows (obviously), but the best I could get in Linux was to use ndiswrapper, and even then, it hard locked the kernel some of the time. There supposedly is a native linux driver for that chipset, but it came with almost no documentation. I mean, Intel, I appreciate the effort, but the README file probably should have more in it than: INSTALLATION. TO DO:Write installation instructions. USAGE: TO DO:Write usage guide.
So, yeah, wireless. GO.
sig?
Lots, probably most, device drivers could be implemented in user space, or kernel space. The biggest question is whether the device can be made transparent where it needs to be (e.g. to have a /dev node). We could move lots of devices into userspace with a general use facility to make /dev nodes from user space drivers. And we could move things from user space to kernel space very easily.
It just makes more sense to have some things in kernel space and some things in user space. The exact boundary is often debated, but Linux has it fairly close to what most people who believe in monolithic kernels believe it should be.
But that should not be a limitation of writing device driver software.
If for a given device, writing it in user space makes more sense, then that's where it should be done. Dividing up projects and groups of people based on how a good implementation should be done is silly. An effort to get more devices supported should have the ability to do both. Splitting things up not only means more confusion for the users, but also more confusion for the businesses we want to try to encourage. It's a division of effort issue here. We should be making the effort to communicate with businesses and convince them to let us develop support for their devices no matter how that support should ultimately be implemented.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
Oops. I was trying to respond to the GP (of my original post). Sorry.
I would like to have more satellite receiver cards supported under Linux.
To repeat another comment (paraphrased):
The project should rename itself to "The Linux (Kernel) Devices Project", because their current name seems to cause massive confusion.
Yes, Linux *is* the kernel. But that's not how many people think of it. So this usage needs to be emphasized to avoid confusion.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
So here is the deal. Most computers come with 1 or maybe two UARTS and some come with no serial interface at all
Consider the serial interface, its a 1 to 1 connection with the a UART, need another interface, you need another UART. You can play interrupt games all day long and make them pretend to be com10 ubtil the cows come home, but you can only connect as many devices as you have UARTS.
The Universal Serial Bus solves this problem, but it does it badly. You can build a good size chain of USB devices together by either having a USB hub built onto the MB or by having a USB hub externally. Now I can plug in my thumb drive, my camera, my mouse, joy stick, printer, scanner etc.
Without USB to do the above I need a game port, several serial ports, a parallel port etc.
Th deal is that people want plug-n-play. They don't want to have to deal with 8 port serial cards and the problems with setting up same ( various pretend interrupts, base ports etc.
So I am asking you what you would propose. What type of hardware device would provide the type of functionality that USB provides without the problems?
The USB interface is a primitive network, it lacks a lot of the facilities of a network connection ( I am comparing it to Ethernet) but it basically does the job, many devices can sit on the same 4 wires and all talk to the computer using the ID byte to allow the software interface to differentiate what device is talking and send the data feed to the program that has claimed that device. Additionally it provides power, perhaps not the best idea but it eliminates a lot of bricks plugged into your outlets and keeps the cost of the peripheral down. Those power systems are not as good as they could be, but hey show me a consumer level device that is not running right up to the edge of the on board PS's limits.
I am all for junking USB but we need something better that provides the same type of utility, so please give the world your ideas, if they work I am sure that they will be given serious consideration.>/p>
Hey KID! Yeah you, get the fuck off my lawn!
on my cheap network card at least, there *was* one, just besides the Windows flag and the Mac, uhhh, thingie. On many other hardware, it'll say on the requirements on the side of the box something such as "Windows NT/2000/XP or Linux", it was certainly the case for my Samsung printer though no cute penguin logo, sadly. And as a last resort, they could always ask the salesman whether it'll work on Linux, usually the answer will be "I don't know", but in my experience a surprising amount of time the answer will be "yeah, I tried it on my Ubuntu machine at home and it works great".
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
Better than suggesting, I'd like to pay a bounty for some drivers I need. Anywhere I can do that?
File this one under: "Perfect Demonstration of Parent's Point"
Comment of the year
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
I have been using Linux on the server for close to a decade now, but only recently did I switch to Linux exclusively on the desktop.
...etc.)
...etc.) despite the risk of breakage?
In October 2006, I bought a new laptop (Toshiba A100-TA6) , resized the partitions, installed Kubuntu Edgy (6.10) and never ever booted Windows XP on it. I had every device on it that I care about working with Linux (sound, mic, wireless, hibernate, ACPI,
My old laptop (Dell Latitude CPxJ) was also installed with the same Kubuntu and passed on to my wife. It had a PCMCIA wireless LAN card in it based on Intersil, and it worked fine.
However, problems started when we upgraded to Kubuntu Feisty (7.04).
First, on the Toshiba, the analog modem (which I anticipated using when traveling abroad) stopped working.I only discovered that it is not working when I was out in a place that has only dialup for a few days. It turned out that ALSA broke the slmodem package for the Intel HDA chipset used on that card.
Second, on the Dell, the wireless card stopped working too (had to use an ethernet cable instead). Again, something that was working did break.
Now I bought another laptop to replace the old Dell (Toshiba A200-10V) and installed it with Gutsy (7.10). Everything seems to work except some quirks in the sound: the built-in mic does not work. Plugging in an external mic does work. The built in speakers work, but plugging in headphones does not work (sound comes up from the built in speakers regardless!) Also, hibernate/suspend causes sound to stop working after resume.
I am not sure where the exact problem lies: Is it kernel developers abandoning the x.y scheme (y=odd unstable, y=even stable) and deciding to continue developing on the 2.6? Or is it Canonical going after the latest and greatest packages (ALSA, drivers,
I am tempted to try Debian for the desktop, but last I checked it, it was not as polished or as easy as Ubuntu.
Thoughts?
2bits.com, Inc: Drupal, WordPress, and LAMP performance tuning.
It is sometimes useful to be able to point to something on a computer screen to a user, and having a secondary mouse that can at least be used for pointing (not necessarily clicking, activating anything, but just be used as a second mouse cursor on the screen) could be useful to me. Hopefully I'll get around to writing support for this myself, but if someone has some spare time to do this, wouldn't it be cool to have Linux be the first OS with a totally new feature - support for multiple simultaneous mouse cursors?
You can't handle the truth.
The Creative Labs' Audigy SE. Has buggy and incomplete support (no mic in, not all channels detected, etc.). It'd be great,
Coming soon. Check my blog in the meanwhile.
You should consider yourself part of the problem, not part of the solution. Try coming up with solutions instead of excuses.
In the words of an old (very successful and now very rich) boss... "Just make it happen."
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
BTW, for those interested in simply avoiding hardware that doesn't work with Linux, this list is fairly active, and includes any and all hardware:
http://www.leenooks.com/
http://www.welton.it/davidw/
"I'm not saying people should know how to code, but you don't know the difference between a client and server, stay the fuck off the net until you're read your first "for dummies" book."
You're an elitist retard.
My Dad just wants to order a CD and it's cheaper on Amazon.co.uk than it is in Tesco - why the fuck should he care about client, server or anything else? All he needs to know is that Internet Explorer allows him to get to a place where he can safely buy a CD for a certain price. All the rest of it is just detail, in the same way that I don't need to understand Tesco's supply chain to be able to effectvely purchase from them. Computers are a commodity household item these days. Stop trying to make yourself feel special by pretending it's important that you know more than other people - it really isn't.
--- Band: Joey Ultra
What's it going to take to get people to see that parental ignorance is NOT OKAY? Any parent can cause damage if they don't know how kids work. I'm not saying people should know how to raise a handicapped kid, but you don't know the difference between breastfeeding and using formula, stop fucking until you've read your first "for dummies" book.
Here's how to get rid of stupid people: license parents. If you don't know enough about the technology to keep your kid from harming the rest of society, you don't get to have one. If you can't keep your kids well behaved, you get to use the pill, condoms, and start babysitting to get practice.
Quit making excuses for people who don't want to learn how kids work. They are the cause of many of the problems that good parents have to deal with.
When I played my first video game in 1992, my parents explained to me the difference between violence in video games and violence in real life. We should go back to that.
Don't make excuses for idiots. If Joe Sixpack doesn't want to learn how his kid works, take away his penis.
There should be licensing for parents. Put birth control of some kind in the water supply and make people pass a test to get the antidote.
Common laptop hardware, especially stuff that comes with centrino, needs a lot more troubleshooting. A lot of stuff gets autoconfigured improperly.
Also, vmware needs better support as a hardware platform. Changes to the kernel now constantly break the vmware guest os tools and require users to modify kernel module source by hand to fix the issues!
Unfortunately the biggest areas of improvement need to happen in xorg, which I guess doesn't have as many excess coders as the kernel team.
yeah.. you can always use Winblows drivers and NDIS wrappers, but that sucks!
These drives may require code changes higher in the linux device stack. they can't be treated as random access memory or as removable storage devices that with the same narrow bandwidth as usb devices.
I wish your kind would just shut up and go away forever. "Linux will never be mainstream," you begin, "Until it magically supports all the hardware -- even when the makers of said hardware keep its operation a secret." Great. That's good news, then you continue, "Oh, and it has to work instantly will all the proprietary codecs, especially the ones that you need licenses to ship." Oh yeah dude, we'll get right on that. Perhaps you think we should just, ignore the law. No problem, we'll just get our massive team of lawyers to change the laws so we can get our way.
And how the hell do you think we are going to manage all this impossible stuff? Do you have any useful input? At all? Or are you just complaining. How anyone modded you insightful, exactly, because honestly, your statement was just empty trash about stuff that EVERYONE knows already. Pay attention: WE CANNOT SHIP CODECS WITH DISTROS WITHOUT PAYING A LICENSE FEE. Microsoft pays these people. The programs for windows that you buy, pay these people -- or they are illegal. Its that simple. Thats why Ubuntu doesn't ship with a bunch of proprietary codecs, because they don't charge anything for the distro, they can't pay the company who owns the codec. Now that I have made this clear, please stop making impossible demands. Just go on and decide all on your own that linux will never be mainstream, its not like you had to pay for it after all, did you.
We are doing the best we can with what we have and if thats just not good enough for you, then you can keep using windows, see if anyone cares.
--SD
"Computers will never truly be free until the last windows user is strangled with the entrails of the last mac user."
Oh joy. The computer, which has grown in complexity (both in hardware designs and in the software they can run) by orders of magnitude, is now in the same class as the toaster, whose evolution has largely stalled over the last 50 years (apart from some clever folks adding LCDs and countdown timers to the really spiffy ones).
:)
My toaster can't take firmware updates or software updates. My toaster can be "hacked," after a fashion, if I am capable of opening it safely, changing the parts (the heating elements, the springs, the timers, etc.) and closing it back up, but it will never do more than toast bread (or set my house on fire).
Meanwhile, my computer has four parts in it that have field-replaceable firmware that control how they behave at the hardware level (motherboard, hard drives, DVD burner). It has more than a dozen internal ports that can be connected to quite literally thousands of different kinds of devices, all built/designed by different manufacturers (the SATA ports talk to storage devices; the PCI/AGP slots talk to networking, storage, communication, and video controllers; the USB ports talk to scanners, printers, cameras, storage devices, network devices, muxers, communication controllers, video cards, capture cards, etc.), and permits all of them to talk to the CPU and/or memory over a shared bus (sometimes with provisions to guarantee some or all of the bus' bandwidth or to guarantee certain minimum timing performance).
All of that hardware somehow cooperates when power is first applied to the system, and manages to load one of many different types of bootloaders, each with different capabilities of finding (and loading/executing) kernels from different filesystems, from different operating systems. These operating systems, in turn, load drivers to make the hardware do more than boot, and permit the users to run quite literally millions of different applications and programs, sometimes simultaneously (and sometimes with multiple users simultaneously). More advanced ones permit all these things while letting remote users do it over whatever network it's connected to.
But you're right -- it's just as "simple" as my fucking toaster. After all, I plug it in and it "just goes," doesn't it?
Be ignorant. Hate the "arrogant" people who make the "magic boxes" work so you can type your letters, spew your vitriol, and play back your porn. Mock the "geeks" that are perfectly willing to write the software themselves to drive the hardware they want to use when the original manufacturer won't (or can't). Support, with open arms and open wallet, the people and companies that seek nothing but profit while manipulating the market to squeeze out competitors who actually publish specs so their gear can be used anywhere.
It's not 1990 anymore, you're right. It's 2007. Stuff *is* supposed to be easier and "just work." And honestly, it *would* be that way if companies didn't selfishly guard their supposed "trade secrets." If things were actually open and cooperative, we wouldn't even be ranting about this stuff.
The trouble with regarding computers as mere "appliances" is that it implies that they're commodities. They're *not*. They *should* be, but they aren't. Yes, they're composed of interchangeable parts and software, but it doesn't all work well together. You can find (or deduce) the schematics of your toaster with a single afternoon's effort. Good luck just "conjuring" accurate information about programming a modern Broadcom wireless chipset in a month, much less a day or a week, unless you work for Broadcom.
99.9% of the human race *does* think like you think. While you're busy banging on the glorified toasters because the magic smoke leaked out, the "arrogant little shits" will still have gear that works because they knew what gear to buy
Read my stuff.
I own a USB wireless network adapter, and purchased it before getting more actively into Linux, mostly Ubuntu. Since I used Ubuntu 5.10 (first Ubuntu version I've tried), I never managed to get my TEW-429UB/A working, nor my DWL-G122 Rev.A. My girlfriend was willing to switch to Ubuntu, but couldn't use it without a wireless adapter that she owned. One day she'll switch: when her wireless adapter will works as well as in Windows.
Or at least for the frikin' laser on it's head?
Just got a new HD & did the netinstall bit (deb 4(?)'etch', 2.6.18 Kernel) on my A20 Thinkpad.
I honestly haven't even dared try the sleep or hibernate buttons yet, as they've _always_ been good for a crash, when they did anything at all. 'Twould be _really_ nice to be able to just shut the lid on the laptop, instead of having to spend 10 minutes shutting it down, another 5 minutes bringing it back up, and losing the three or four dozen browser windows I usually have open...
Then you might go after all those wireless NICs, starting with the ones for sale at Fry's. I have about seven different kinds, from four different mfgr's, both PCI & PCMCIA, and the ONLY one that has a native Linux driver is the relatively high-dollar Cisco card. The off-brand cards and the Netgear cards all require ndiswrapper & Imperial drivers. I consider myself fortunate to be able to run them at all.
Exceeding the recommended torque is not recommended.
This type of call for support requests is to be applauded but hints that the self-organizing OSS world could use some more self-organization. Surely there are ways to start surveying the hardware that people use. A simple script could enumerate the devices on a machine and send it to a global database (something like an expanded http://www.pcidatabase.com./ Not much more is needed than a lspci and lsusb with some way of identifying the machine. The idea would be to find the prevalence of different devices available to Linux users. Then driver development attention could be focused by hard(er) data about what devices are really out there.
Such a hardware submission script could be included in the major Linux distributions and submission of the hardware survey could be voluntary, much in the same way that Mozilla error feedback is done. Even if the installers don't have it how hard would it be to have a site that lets users with non-functioning devices submit an enumeration to help bring attention to it? Problems with device IDs and dirty data in the collection surely can't be so bad that the effort isn't worthwhile.
I'd start this myself but, er, my USB 045e:0041 is acting up. Just let me know when I can yum the device enumeration reporting script and I'll contribute all my crufty ISA data!
I like sound effect with EMU10k1 under Windows, especially reverb. I want to use same things under Linux.
the 12 hours it took me (and i'm not an idiot or a linux noob, despite what the follow up posts may imply) to get ubuntu working happily on my incredibly mainstream and 4 year old system, i'm a bit surprised at this. the number of things which completely failed to work as expected was disappointing, to say the least. I ended up following a lengthy wiki of terminal commands to get the ati driver to work, and i still don't have dual head or any visual enhancements whatsoever.
Presumably a few more nights bashing away will help there, but it's still not approaching the ease I'm used to. I'm not really up for losing that much more time and in a business environment I couldn't afford to, so I wouldn't really consider it a contender for much more effort.. imho the OS shouldn't be what you're spending your time on anyway, it should just be a convenient way to tie together apps. Windows just works, at least for me.. fully patched XP is quick to install and works well, I know this is down to a lot of manufacturers spending time on it but it's something to aspire to.
The problem is 2 laptops have German keyboards and one other one does not. I find the German keyboards superior for almost all keys - placement of comma, apostrophe, quote, pipe sign, left and right angle brackets, etc. - except the forward slash which requires shift+7; however, with tab completion for pathnames usually only the initial slash needs to be typed anyway. I also love the Alt Graph key and think it should be standard as right alt for for US keyboard layouts.
Typing exclusively on one type or the other is fine, I can adapt fairly quickly. But switching between the two kinds on a frequent basis can be a bit unnerving...
vtech 7100usb cordless skype phone etc running on linux would be great
What hardware does lm-sensors not work with? Is there a more recent version, have you checked to see if there's something that does support your hardware or is lm-sensors just a word plucked from google here for a bit of social engineering?
What is it about the stupid practical joke link in the signature - doesn't that get boring after a while or is it a ploy to get people to reply as anonymous cowards to win in some personal troll game I do not know the rules to?
Another device that I've run across and needs driver is fingerprint sensor on Fujitsu Siemens Celsius H240 notebook - does anybody know whether that belongs to kernel or userspace?
My Canon scanner drivers suck big time. Also, I'd like to see better wireless network support.
I'd do it myself but have no spare time for now.
.... OSes require certain supported hardware.
Maybe in your planet they design the hardware first and then they fit the OS, strange way of working but in planet Earth is not how things work (there are engineering reasons for this, but I would not burden an alien with this stuff).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
USB drivers choke on most webcams quickly, (yeah I know I can change usb arch and get it to work, be nice if both flavors didn't lock up). Generic webcam drivers miss the boat on individual camera features. (specifically quickcam pro's). HP multifunction gets sketchy. Better Power management, (suspend, low power)
All bases are covered somewhat, what's needed now is improvement on that existing coverage.
I agree with the Alt Gr comment. I switched to using the Finnish layout for everything but coding, and love the flexibility with typing exotic characters.
Peace sells, but who's buying?
The Blackberry needs at least a driver to tether it in to use as a modem.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
The digitizer and software support in programs. It's the only thing keeping me on Windows on my Thinkpad X60.
-- What you do today will cost you a day of your life.
Linux support for integrated motherboard SATA-RAID has been pathetic. It's still basically impossible for a user who has Windows installed on an integrated motherboard SATA-RAID array to shrink the Windows partition on it, create a new one, and install Linux on it in a dual-boot configuration.
Until that gets fixed, fewer and fewer Windows users are going to be installing Linux as integrated motherboard SATA-RAID continues to permeate the market.
Moderator hint: a comment is neither "Flamebait" nor "Troll" if it is true.
I've been waiting for something like this..
Please provide better support for web cams.. I had the worst luck getting them to work with linux apps (And OS X).. I feel it is mostly the fault of linux app developers but anything you can do on the driver/OS side would be great!
this whole thing seems a bit redundant. most new linux users would agree that linux isn't even ready to be distributed yet. it's just a big mess of broken scripts, "huge", no pun intended kernels that still don't support everything and more config nightmares than a closet full of rubix cubes. like there isn't anything to work on... what a joke.
Windows and Mac OS X have gotten by using precisely this philosophy -- that you shouldn't need to give two shits about the innards of your PC. It should JUST WORK.
Your attitude may work well for a specialized user base (and a very VERY specialized one at that). And that attitude will keep the Linux user base down to the select few nerds that DO want to know about the innards of their OS.
On attracting windows users, Apple's been doing it for years now using a Unix based OS. My mom and cousin use Mac OS X, a full fledged Unix distro, effectively and happily without even knowing what RAM is, or even what a driver is.
Get off your high horse if you even want to entertain the idea that Linux deserves to flourish on the desktop.
Actually, several things work, just need to be cleaned up, and I am not sure if its a driver issue or an OS issue. Wireless cards are a nightmare. USB devices (this may actually be fixed on newer releases, I tend to get a working Linux OS and stick with it for years) need to work better than for me having to do a mnt /dev/usb04 or something. Yes, automount of USB devices. Yeah,I guess that would not be a driver issue.
There needs to be better support for things like onboard network cards. This may be better than last time I did a linux install, but last time i checked, it was kinda hit and miss as to which network cards would be supported out of the box.
This may also be improved by now, but as the last time I ran Linux, while most sound cards worked, I did not seem to have the advanced features such as 3D sound and surround sound.
How is support for BlueTooth and Cellular Modems? I do not use either currently, but know many people who do.
Last time I messed with it, dual screen support was a nightmare. Although, as NVidia and ATI are writing their own Linux drivers, this should probably be more up to them.
> Quit making excuses for people who don't want to learn how their computers work.
You sound like an arrogant prick.
News flash: it's 2007. Most of the developed world is on the internet and owns or has access to a computer. Very, very few of them know "how their computers work", or even want to know that.
I've been in the field since the 70's, and have seen and done more in deeper levels of computer systems than even most "tech" people know exist. I've been on the net longer than you have; probably since before most slashdotters were born. Should I get to keep people off the net because I don't think they know enough? No, because that would make me an elitist ass.
Like it or not, computers are a commodity used by most first world human beings. Your days of being "special" are over. The internet is used by grandmothers born in 1920, rocket scientists, completely nontechnical but very smart doctors, dimwits who can't count to 10 without using their fingers, valley girl 13 year old girls, and archbishops. Very few of them care how any of it works. It's not your special little club any more. Deal with it.
Can the stoned moderator who moderated the parent post "offtopic" please wake up and return to the real world? You don't need to agree with what the post/author says, but is sure is on topic.
Too bad you weren't busier installing laptops in the school of Engineering on April 16th.
I stand corrected. About the mushrooms: depending on the amount of pollution, they grow over there as well, unless you don't have any slightly protected moist spots. So get yourself a book about mushrooms and spend some fun times out in the open.