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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."
Could you guys write a driver for my limo?
*** Don't be dull.***
...and it can't even work properly on X86. OObOOOOnTOO!
Its no surprise that Linux supports more devices. Just look at various hardware devices that require third-party drivers and sometimes even third-party software to function on Windows.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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.
How do you get a tag misspelled on a /. story??
There is no -1 Disagree mod. Slashdot.org/faq defines mod options. USE IT.
My Swedish vibrator still doesn't have Linux drivers
I wonder what the suggested number of used OSs is when comparing the 2..
And NetBSD ?
Like on an ARM processor? No one here, but Microsoft and Apple have done it many times over.
No, why would anyone do something stupid like that?
Can we get proper links in the summaries. I expected the link in "He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago" (which I've bolded because underlining is filtered out) to point to the program's website rather than back to Slashdot.
If you want to link to Slashdot, then do it this way: "He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago"
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
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
Upgraded my Ubuntu server from Feisty (7.04) to Hardy (8.04). The path to Hardy includes Gutsy (7.10). The series of apt-get dist-upgrades went well...then I tried to run apache2. Error:
symbol lookup error: /usr/lib/libxml2.so.2: undefined symbol: gzopen64
I googled...turns out it doesn't remove an old libz file...certain things still refer to it. /usr/local/libz.so.1.2.3.3 is the right one, while the links in /usr/local/lib/ point to /usr/local/lib/libz.so.1.2.3 which is the wrong one. Copy the former into the latter, redo the links, everything's hunky dory.
I think the difference here between Windows and Linux is that I wouldn't have upgraded Windows...I would have reinstalled (going from 2000 to 2003, for example).
Drivers do not get maintained for ever. I've been around long enough to see several drivers unmaintained and eventually dropped. And saying there's a new driver that supports the newer X and is supposed to be backwards compat with the older X, is all too often not entirely true -- sure, there's the qla driver from Qlogic, and it's supposed to support 2100's, but every 2100 I've ever tried (and that's dozens) has locked up using qla2100 while the old -- dropped several years ago -- qlogicfc driver works perfectly. (and based on conversations with qlogic engineers looking into the issue... they haven't had any 2100's for years.)
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.
Yes, I imagine you would have to have some source code to attempt such a feat for your own custom embedded system though right?
Prediction: The real iPhone killer is going to be sex robots from Japan. Think about it.
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.
I know the data can be very misleading. The average Windows Machine has about 87 devices on it, the majority of which are supported by class drivers (hard drives, chipsets, processors, etc).
In the Windows world, almost all display devices are covered by VGA.sys - so the device has a driver, but is the user experience good?
Also, what is considered a unique device? Most hard drives have a unique identification string, but they are all supported by a null driver. By just supporting a generic hard drive, you have covered close to 40% of the unique devices on the market. If you bias this towards market presence, this gets even more ambiguous. An extremely high percentage of the popular devices on the market are chipset devices - boring things that you just expect to work.
The information about device support metrics only becomes interesting when it applies to less popular devices. Peripherals like printers, scanners, networking, display devices running on full functionality are really the only thing worth measuring - and this is very difficult to do.
>With Linux you can't sue anyone if they fuck up.
If that opinion is from your attorney, with the implication that Microsoft doesn't guarantee themselves total indemnity in their license to you, I strongly urge you to get another opinion, unless the false sense of security is what you're after.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
You look lost - don't be afraid to ask for directions. I think the patent story is two blocks that way...
The equipment you're working with probably comes from companies like Barco, Agfa, Siemens, ... am I right ? The ones I saw in that field all ran proprietary software directly on the hardware or on a very thin proprietary OS. Which is why this equipment is so $-intensive (that, and medical research generally pays whatever bill you present them with).
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
I'm sorry I've looked two blocks that way and all I found was saracasm.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Its called buying support from the numerous companies that sell support
I've seen CE in robotics and lab equipment (oscilloscopes, vector analysers, EMC measurement, ...). I've yet to encounter Linux in this world.
It has always amazed me how much test equipment manufactures have embraced windows. Even HP(Agilent) switched their logic analyzers from HP/UX to windows some time ago.
SONET testers are about the only exceptions that I am aware of.
"I mean Linux is 80% of the world's top 500 super computers right now and we're also the number one embedded operating system today. We've got both sides of the market because it's -- yeah it's pretty amazing. I don't know why, but we're doing something right."
Sure they've got a huge percentage of the smallest markets out there. For all that they are missing 99% of the desktop market primarily because noone has matured the desktop Linux OS to anywhere near the point where Windows is, let alone MacOS. Windows has matured to the point it is largely because of the architecture of being the base for further development and applications. Linux has tried to be the one stop shop by including everything you need. I don't think it will succeed on the desktop until they stop trying to make everything part of the OS. Mac only succeeds with this business model because of good marketing and a limited hardware selection to write for and support.
Now try to put that wireless in monitor mode or host mode on a Windows box to make a wireless access point, layer 2 radio to copper bridge or wireless sniffer.
but I moved to Ubuntu anyway a few years back when M$ started turning off purchased, but unregistered, copies of Office. So I had my share of issues back in the day.
A while ago I was helping somebody get some software running and printing under Windows, and . . . gawd! . . . they had to install a driver. It's been a couple of years since I had to do anything so primitive. Everything just works.
That's when it finally dawned on me that the times they are a'changin.
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/
Among others.
One of the reasons it's so expensive is that some engineer has to sign to certify that it's safe. He's not going to do that unless it's tested. Well. For the lowest levels that can mean code that's proven correct. That takes a huge amount of time.
But when something goes wrong with those systems it often means a bit more than your usual Windows blue screen. Like that gamma knife that cooked a patient.
all this back patting linux people give themselfs blinds them to the obvious failings it has. Does anyone really believe linux has better device support than windows? linux failed on 2 of my laptops and i know plenty of people who have given up on wifi. cry all you want about "bad" hardware and vendors who don't release specs, it doesn't make linux anymore attractive.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
Well, if you have complaints about ATI support than you get to
lay that at the feet of the hardware vendor since they are
responsible for the rather dismal drivers in Linux.
It's not like ATI's name hasn't bene MUD in the Linux community
since pretty much the dawn of time...
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Sorry, this is 13A, Abuse. You want Spelling Corrections down the hall to the right.
Stupid git.
Wait, are you talking about MSDN?
how to invest, a novice's guide
Yes, but a lot of mainstream hardware still doesn't have drivers. IE, the MinTV Digital Tuner Card I bought yesterday which the salesman *assured* me ran Linux, but actually didn't.
Returning that today, and yes they will know why...
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
Reading the article, I find a lot of enthusiasm from Greg Kroah-Hartman about how well the program has worked, saying that most hardware manufacturers come to his project to make sure that their hardware works with Linux: "Everything is supported by Linux. If you have a device that isn't supported by Linux that's being shipped today, let me know."
I'd like the touchscreen device (Touchsmart PC by HP) to be supported by Linux. That would be cool. The idea of Compiz Fusion on a touchscreen makes me drool.
Are you reading this, Greg? And if not, how do we get in touch with you, anyway? I can't find an email address in my (admittedly cursory) search of your web pages.
404555974007725459910684486621289147856453481154 in hex is "You sank my Battleship?"
[GPG key in journal]
... or a beam of photons that overdosed a region of tissue.
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
there are more embedded systems then PCs.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The full Windows kernel runs on ARM ? That's news to me. If you're thinking WinCE, it's a totally different OS.
Hmm riiiight.
Maybe it would actually be easier if it had a proper stable DDI... At least it's certainly not the thing they are "doing right".
This is all good and great but what is the ratio fornew devices ?
I am impressed that there is a driver for that 300 baud modem that connects through the floppy port,
but what about a driver for the latest all in one bluetooth printer ?
G
lol... mod it funny you trolls!
(i'm on ubuntu right now)
I suspect (correct me if I'm assuming too much) the real reason for the original "Off topic" mod was that you posted this comment to a story about Linux hardware support rather than the story about IBMs patent.
If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.
I suspect (correct me if I'm assuming too much) the real reason for the original "Off topic" mod was that you posted this comment to a story about Linux hardware support rather than the story about IBMs patent.
My mistake indeed!
If you want me to go on arguing, you'll have to pay for another five minutes.
At your going rate of $0, it's a deal!!!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I've been working with Agilent's replacement for the old HP8902 Measuring Receiver for the last year or so. Can't swear that it's running linux, however, it definitely doesn't look like Windows, and I do see some clues that lead me to believe it is linux. During the initial text mode portion of the bootup process, I can see *nix style path references, for one thing. That could mean a BSD or proprietary unix, but there is also a GPL notice along the way as well. And, when the graphics do start up, the first screen reminds me an old X Windows start up (X cursor, b/w patterned background).
Too bad I'm stuck developing Windows based software to utilize it....
It can't be. Reading Slashdot means you can read.
I hate printers.
For critical things like cpus, chipsets, SCSI/SATA hosts, network cards, etc. pretty much every one of them supports linux out of the box (and some before they're released).
For 3D accelleration on video cards, there's almost always support but sometimes it's a binary blob.
For consumer gadgets it may or may not work...many of them only have vendor drivers for windows, but have drivers available for linux that were written by enthusiasts. (And sometimes the Linux drivers are better...the linux drivers for Lego Mindstorms could download programs 4x as fast as the Windows drivers.)
One of the biggest remaining problems is with suspend/resume on laptops, and this is primarily because the linux developers can't get the documentation and the vendors hack things up to make it work on Windows and don't bother testing anywhere else.
An important component of driver support is the quality of said drivers. You can technically "support" a large majority of devices by using generic drivers that support an old emulation mode that nearly all the devices support (like VGA). However that really isn't useful. You aren't actually supporting the device to any real extent. For me, driver support means drivers that enable all the device's nifty features. A graphics driver that just does VESA 2D modes isn't support. Nor is one that does 3D, but only a fraction of what my card can do. "Support" is when all the features on my graphics card are available for use.
I have certainly encountered that problem, and not just on Linux. Where something is claimed to be "supported" but really that means "works in a rudimentary capacity". No, that's not ok. I don't buy nifty hardware to have it work in only a basic capacity.
You write:
"DLL Hell" - Linux-style. It's never been as bad for me with RH or SuSE as it ever was for Windows, but my paranoia showed through, and I eventually made my switch to Gentoo. Funny thing is, I get mismatched libraries far more often, but I also upgrade software far more often.
There's a reason for that, but you already wrote it down.
You also wrote:
Granted, it's a *hard* problem that isn't easily solvable in a binary distribution.
True it's a hard problem, except that it _is_ solved in a binary distro. That's what you're paying for.
Binary distros do not distribute out-of-date packages. If the one you are using is, then you are using the wrong distro.
Once you start using a package manager, ./configure; make; su root -c "make install" becomes most hazardous unless you know what you're doing (and easier if you just let the package manager work out the dependencies and install software that way).
oh. could you provide some references to lawsuits against microsoft - and successful ones at that ?
i haven't heard of such a thing happening so far.
Rich
Or a resonance cascade that creates inter-dimensional portals which sprout a species of horrible insectoid overlords.
Graphics drivers exist in the X server tree, not the kernel. With the exception of AGP and framebuffer console support of course, the first of which is very very generic and the second is only used by console types.
Linksys USB network adapters support the USB Communication Device Class (cdc), and are thus supported out of the box provided that the distribution in question has enabled the driver.
Quit your whining and look this shit up. It's not hard.
3DFX Zone host a couple of interesting drivers.
Including SFFFT's drivers.
These work with Windows XP and XP64 and provide support for Glide (3dfx did release the source for the Linux version) OpenGL (thanks to Mesa3D) and DirectX 9 (at least for the function that the hardware can provide).
But then again, back to the main argument, it's an entirely community effort based on opensource code and such. Stock Windows does not support it, and it's not trivial to find decent drivers for it. Whereas "tdfx" is just a standard module. Although support might get dropped at some time in the future for lack of maintainers (some distro don't ship Glide anymore and thus don't support Voodoo in 3D as Mesa needs it).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I am sure that we will get plenty of "defensive" posts from Windows users.
So let's just nip before it buds. Firstly, driver support in Linux is supported by the systems that are supported by the OS. For Linux, the number of systems is somewhere over 80.
Of course, the argument will then be "But the only useful system to me is x86, perhaps x86_64". How many drivers are included? For Linux 2.4, Redhat supplied over 700 drivers (not counting filesystems, and kernel modules as drivers). By Fedora 8, over 1100 drivers are supplied in a default configuration. Note that these are x86 platform only.
There are parts of the driver matrix which are just not sensible. An example would be Apple ADB on Intel. The 700/1100 counts above do NOT include those "silly" possibilities -- these are physically shipped drivers (cd /lib/modules/kernel*/drivers; file . -name "*.ko" | wc).
I am interested -- how many drivers are supplied with Vista?
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
but the linux driver won't compile against modern kernels.
The original driver doesn't compile.
But, there's a lot of effort from more recent package from other project like Max Haard's GSPCA, which has moved beyond its initial support for SPCA50# only sensors, and started incorporating support for other modern JPEG-based sensors like Zoran, OV5##, etc.
You might want to give it a try.
- gspca is also provided in the standard kernel package on openSUSE
- and I think I remember having spotted a package in synaptic for Ubuntu.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
What about NetBSD? As far as I know this used to be its strongest feature.
That could mean a BSD or proprietary unix, but there is also a GPL notice along the way as well. And, when the graphics do start up, the first screen reminds me an old X Windows start up (X cursor, b/w patterned background).
Cool, it's good to hear that they still make some equipment with a *nix core. Maybe Agilent doesn't advertise that fact because they are afraid of scaring off the HW engineers who think windows is the only way to go.
And yet sometimes it is a distro thing. gNewSense doesn't ship any binary-only firmware to be uploaded to devices (think Ubuntu restricted drivers).
--BK
You've hit the point where I'm not sure Greg Kroah-Hartman is in touch with reality. Now I very much value his efforts and this doesn't change that, but if you RTFA (I know, I know) he says that every type of device is supported and there are only two classes of devices that are problems. He mentions webcams and wireless. He says webcam suport has recently been greatly improved and about wireless: About a year ago wireless wasn't doing so well. We got a bunch of people working on that now and everything is supported now. The one hold-out is Broadcom but even they have Linux drivers, they're just closed source.
That would be major news to me. Where are these Broadcom drivers? And of course that doesn't fit with the "everything works now" that he is saying. Specifically the BCM4328 isn't usable without ndiswrapper.
So back to the main point, he misses the major class of devices that aren't well supported on Linux: printers. I just spent a lot of time researching and finally settled on an HP Officejet J4580 that I could go buy at any of the major stores and it is perfectly supported in the just released Linux distributions such as Ubuntu Intrepid. And that's all the functions as it is a multifunction. But you certainly cannot just buy any printer out there and have it be supported. I did hours of research to find the ones that are and that met my needs and are available in stores.
So again I greatly appreciate the work he and other driver developers do, but it does no one any good and probably damages Linux to act as if it is something it's not. It's better to be realistic and work from there.
I'm a TuringTest, you insensitive clod!
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
no matter what hijinks the Windows bit got up to.
Hey, give us fair warning. You can't just rename the Evil Bit without telling us!
I have built countless windows machines and I have yet to find one where the drivers for every one of the components are already installed. Why is Microsoft making the drivers anyway? They don't make the hardware.
Ohh, no. Not again. :(
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Matrox RT.X100 video capture card.
I have a digital media client who would switch to Linux in a heartbeat because he knows Windows is unreliable IF:
1) Adobe Premiere Pro video editing software was available for Linux (and, no, NONE of the available OSS video editing software comes close to Premiere Pro, so don't even mention it.)
2) The video capture cards available were supported in Linux. I think one or two might be, but most aren't.
Sure, this is a niche market. But it demonstrates the problems a small business can have when their mission critical stuff isn't supported by Linux.
I do want to test possibly running Adobe Premiere Pro in a Windows VM over Linux on a really fast quad-core system just to see what the performance hit actually is and whether performance compares to running native on a Pentium D or Pentium 4 which is what the client is running on now. But there still probably will be no way to access the video capture card drivers from the VM in such a setup. And I expect the performance hit to be so bad as to be unusable.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
which printers arn't supported? (lexmark dont count as they barely have windows drivers)
IranAir Flight 655 never forget!
Even if Lexmarks suck they are ubiquitous and you may say they barely have win drivers but the fact is they do work while I had to go out and by a new printer to use with Linux. I justified it by getting more out of the deal and the other printer was wearing out anyway. Basically all printers in the cheap category are a problem except a few HP printers. And guess what lots of people want to buy and what they have lots of at the local stores. I realize a laser printer with PS built in is a better printer in some ways, but in many cases I don't see the higher quality so why should I spend so many times more. And the fact is the inkjet is better for color images. Even HP printers aren't all fully supported and HP contributed a great printer driver and continues to update it for many new models. As far as multifunctions went there were only a few that were fully supported out of the many on the shelves. I don't think any of the lower end Brother printers are supported. In other words not many are on the lower end.
My Packard Bell FastMedia remote hasn't worked with windows since Windows 2000 came out, but I still use it to this day with LIRC on my Fedora box.