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Linux Supports More Devices Than Any Other OS
Linux Blog recommends an interview up on the O'Reilly site with Greg Kroah-Hartman, long-time Linux kernel hacker and the current Linux kernel maintainer for the USB driver core. He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago, which has really caught traction now with more than 300 developers volunteering. The interviewer begins by asking about Kroah-Hartman's claim that the Linux kernel now supports more devices than any other operating system ever has. "[One factor is] the ease of writing drivers; Linux drivers are at normally one-third smaller than Windows drivers or other operating system drivers. We have all the examples there, so it's trivial to write a new one if you have new hardware, usually because you can copy the code and go. We maintain them... forever, so the old ones don't disappear and we run on every single processor out there. I mean Linux is 80% of the world's top 500 super computers right now and we're also the number one embedded operating system today. We've got both sides of the market because it's — yeah it's pretty amazing. I don't know why, but we're doing something right."
Has anyone here tried to get Windows or Mac or anything else running in a custom embedded environment?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
The world of proprietary OS makes a strict division between desktop and embedded. For MS there's the CE packages. There is "embedded hardware" with XP and 98, but they're really miniaturised desktop motherboards.
...). I've yet to encounter Linux in this world. I once asked the person responsible at my previous job about this and the answer was pretty simple: You pay a license, you get a service. With Linux you can't sue anyone if they fuck up. The Foss community sees this as a plus, but for these kind of applications the industry needs a lever in case things go bleep.
I've seen CE in robotics and lab equipment (oscilloscopes, vector analysers, EMC measurement,
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
On the other hand, I work in medical research and you don't see any embedded Windows, or straight-out-of-the-box Linux. The reason? You need someone to take responsibility for the system. MS specifically says that Windows is not appropriate for use in critical systems.
Drivers do get dropped, usually when they're old enough that no kernel developer actually has access to the hardware, and nobody has submitted patches for years.
Drivers can also be added back in if someone feels like cleaning it up and making it work with a new kernel.
There are more drivers because embedded hardware needs drivers to run hardware. You need a driver for your i2c bus. You need a driver to control that LCD panel on your linux-based PDA device. It's like comparing apples with oranges. Windows simply hasn't penetrated into the embedded market like Linux has.
I still don't have Linux support for my creative express card sound device and it is supported on windows.
'Quite some time' is significant. It might work very easily with the latest versions of Linux.
Any files in /usr/local were provided by you, not Ubuntu. I have apache2 installed here on my Ubuntu box, and my /usr/local/lib directory is empty. Debian policy (which Ubuntu is based on) reserves /usr/local 100% for the local admin, and forbids packages from putting anything in that hierarchy except empty directories. (See section 9.1.2.)
Or to put it another way, no, /usr/local/libz.so.1.2.3.3 is not the "right" one. It's another wrong one that happens to be working for you. For now. The right one is /usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3. Next time you upgrade, that /usr/local version is going to bite you in the ass again.
Ubuntu can do a fine job of updating itself, but it's hardly going to be able to upgrade 3rd-party software you installed manually, now, is it?
(Windows is a different case, of course, since Windows doesn't come with any useful software in the first place.) :)
I don't know the details of your case, but in general, it is NOT a distro thing. In the case of wifi, anything using the same kernel newer than 2.6.23 should have similar wifi support except for some like Mint that automate ndiswrapper setup.
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Sure, you can use it for non-critical tasks. Most hospitals use it for viewing radiological images too. The difference is, that GUI had embedded code sitting there making sure nothing stupid happened. Some engineer had to sign off on that code certifying that it was safe, no matter what hijinks the Windows bit got up to.
Like this, for example: http://www.opensource.apple.com/darwinsource/
Every windows release has come with a fairly current and comprehensive driver list. Every device you can buy has a windows driver included with it.
My computer will not run windows. Yes all the hardware has windows drivers, but those drivers span from windows 98 to Vista. Some of them are not available to download at all, the manufacturer having decided I should buy a new device that costs 5 times as much.
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That simple task crashes FreeBSD. Regularly, reliably crashes it.
Have you heard about the FreeBSD USB2 project? They have important a totally new USB stack into the -CURRENT kernel recently. You could try it out.
I hope you reported your USB problem on the stable mailing list or at least on their bug tracker.