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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.
My Swedish vibrator still doesn't have Linux drivers
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).
There are a lot of "other" OS's out there. BSD (and all its derivatives) NIX (and its flavors as well) MAC Windows ...and a ton more that are either obscure or I simply have never heard of them. IMO Linux has come a LONG way in its driver support. Pretty impressive given the pedigrees of the established OSs listed above, props to the Kernel team and GNU/FSF project.
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.
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.
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 $-intensive (that, and medical research generally pays whatever bill you present them with).
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
I've seen CE in robotics and lab equipment (oscilloscopes, vector analysers, EMC measurement, ...). I've yet to encounter Linux in this world.
It has always amazed me how much test equipment manufactures have embraced windows. Even HP(Agilent) switched their logic analyzers from HP/UX to windows some time ago.
SONET testers are about the only exceptions that I am aware of.
but I moved to Ubuntu anyway a few years back when M$ 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/
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....
"the MinTV Digital Tuner Card I bought yesterday which the salesman *assured* me ran Linux, but actually didn't."
First mistake, trusting a salesman!
I always buy online after searching for information and reviews. I don't trust salesman to know shit or tell the truth.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
Just because no (active) kernel developer has the hardware does not mean there are no users with that hardware. I've seen drivers removed from the kernel for lack of a maintainer while they were still fully functional -- "ugly code" doesn't matter if it works and people depend on it. Every time a driver is removed, there are end users who complain about it.
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 ]
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.