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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.***
I'll remember that when Linux fails to ID my laptop's wifi adapter and the guy in #linuxhelp tells me, "Dude, I dunno...mine works!"
I will bet you just about any amount of money that the standard kernel for Vista doesn't detect that card. Yes, Windows has third-party drivers, but Windows relies on third-party drivers for everything, Linux does not.
Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
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!
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.
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 $-intensive (that, and medical research generally pays whatever bill you present them with).
"Violence is the last refuge of the competent, and, generally, the first refuge of the incompetent" - Thing_1
Any files in /usr/local were provided by you, not Ubuntu. I have apache2 installed here on my Ubuntu box, and my /usr/local/lib directory is empty. Debian policy (which Ubuntu is based on) reserves /usr/local 100% for the local admin, and forbids packages from putting anything in that hierarchy except empty directories. (See section 9.1.2.)
Or to put it another way, no, /usr/local/libz.so.1.2.3.3 is not the "right" one. It's another wrong one that happens to be working for you. For now. The right one is /usr/lib/libz.so.1.2.3.3. Next time you upgrade, that /usr/local version is going to bite you in the ass again.
Ubuntu can do a fine job of updating itself, but it's hardly going to be able to upgrade 3rd-party software you installed manually, now, is it?
(Windows is a different case, of course, since Windows doesn't come with any useful software in the first place.) :)
This may be true, but which OS is handicapped by it?
The only advantage to Linux is the more frequent release schedule which allows it to stay current with drivers.
Every windows release has come with a fairly current and comprehensive driver list. Every device you can buy has a windows driver included with it.
Also of note is the influx of what you might call "Basic functionality" drivers for devices such as scanners and multifunction printers - often full feature drivers are not available for these devices even though they technically work on Linux.
That's a really undersold benefit of Linux-as-we-know-it. Everything is built in, or can be found on the repositories in a way that makes Windows Update look amateurish.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
but I moved to Ubuntu anyway a few years back when M$ 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.
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....
I ahve yet to install a version of windoes that didn't require immediate driver updates.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Keyboard driver problem?
Hmmm... I've been using the b43 driver since Ubuntu 8.04 came out. It works here. Which flavour of kernel are you using? Sometimes alternate flavours bring out bugs in newer device drivers. For the record, i'm using the plain old boring -386 flavour.
I completely agree with the premise of the summary of the article. (No, of course I didn't read the article) A few years ago, i dug out my old Nikon Coolscan II LS-20 slide scanner. The last windows driver for this device was for Windows 95, so I had an old P233MMX machine dedicated to running it. After a year of storage, windows would no longer operate the scanner. It would report some error that didn't really get me anywhere on Google. I uninstalled and reinstalled the driver a few times. On a lark, I installed Debian 3.0 on a second partition on the machine. I figured it might be a bit of work, but Windows 95 was frustrating me. Much to my surprise, when i opened "The GIMP", and selected Acquire, my Nikon scanner was listed -- and it WORKED!
Where windows flounders and linux shines, is with non-current drivers.
I pulled an old voodoo 3 out of an an ancient PC. It was pretty trivial to get debian to recognize it, but after hours of searching, I never found a functional windows XP driver.
I say! Hallo over there.
Could some of you fine upstanding penguins please find it in your pint-size reptilian hearts to migrate over here to Van Daemon's Land this season, and help our poor bewildered little FreeBSD creature rebuild his USB nest?
This is no joke, penguin people. Seriously, I need to keep a Kubuntu machine handy just to read the SD cards from my Canon. That simple task crashes FreeBSD. Regularly, reliably crashes it.
I will probably be hunted down and speared with a tiny fork for this. But I think we need some penguin DNA over here, because no one has been able to properly deal with this for the past six years or more.
There's a recent article at Linux.com about the ancient FreeBSD kernel panic involved in this, that has now even tripped up the PC-BSD project. http://www.linux.com/feature/149224
And now, I must scurry hurry to hide from the fork prongs!
Sincerely - a frightened daemon captive
Every device you can buy has a windows driver included with it.
Wrong. Maybe every consumer-level device you can buy today, but I have a nice shiny network card around that needs tweaking to work in Linux, doesn't work at all in Windows (yes, I tried, for more than a day), and only works flawlessly in FreeBSD and Solaris. Dunno where it came from, probably a server somewhere. And don't even get me started on PPC, SPARC et al, where Windows dearest fails to run at all. Which is kinda unfortunate for my Powerbook, but alas, we do have Linux.
People sometimes forget that, despite their ~95% marketshare, not all devices in the world are Windows-compatible, or were ever meant to be.
No problem is insoluble in all conceivable circumstances.
jav1231:
the guy in #linuxhelp tells me, "Dude, I dunno...mine works!"
... srw:
Hmmm... I've been using the b43 driver since Ubuntu 8.04 came out. It works here.
Put identity in the browser.
Odd. My install of Win 2k3 works in 2D with my old Voodoo 3 PCI.
Only 2D drivers available? Until it can provide 3D out of the box, this will not be the year od the Windows desktop.
SJW n. One who posts facts.