Microsoft Begs Hardware Makers To Take Support Seriously

Banana ricotta pancakes writes "Microsoft has confirmed that there will be a widespread public beta of Windows 7 in early 2009, while urging device manufacturers to start immediate testing with its pre-beta release to avoid the widespread hardware compatibility problems that contributed so much to the negative perception of Vista. 'There is not another WinHEC planned before Windows 7 is released,' Microsoft has warned them. Better hope that testing goes well."

Comments

Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[NoobixCube]

Now that Microsoft are feeling the pinch of competition, they no longer have hardware manufacturers over a barrel. The hardware manufacturers now have the power to control the public perception of Windows, rather than Windows controlling the perception of hardware.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Anonymous Coward]

you linsux users are really delusional, ain't ya? you get 2% market share and you act like you're motherfuckin pascal.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

I'm not sure that really has much to do with it. This isn't about MS keeping the OEMs from shipping other OSes, something that they are still pretty good at, this is about MS trying to get the device makers to ship drivers that don't suck, something that they've never had all that much luck with, though they seem to be very gradually improving.

MS doesn't have the power to coerce decent drivers out of the manufacturers ("Hmm, I see here that your latest wifi chipset driver has 37 unresolved trouble tickets. If you ever want your silicon to run on Windows again..."); but none of the device manufacturers have anything to gain from manipulating perceptions of windows. If one device vendor makes horrific drivers, consumers will blame windows; but OEMs will just drop that vendor. MS has a bit of power, with their driver certification stuff; but driver quality mostly comes down to the battle between the desire to save money by skimping on engineering and the desire to actually be able to sell products that don't ruin your reputation completely.

If MS were out there, begging vendors to write drivers for Windows, that would be a role reversal.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[eebra82]

Now that Microsoft are feeling the pinch of competition, they no longer have hardware manufacturers over a barrel. The hardware manufacturers now have the power to control the public perception of Windows, rather than Windows controlling the perception of hardware.

How did you come to this conclusion? The number of Windows users is still growing. OS X is taking a small percentage from that share, but their software is still restricted to their own hardware, making it very uninteresting for hardware manufacturers.

It's the fact that Windows is open to any hardware that makes manufacturers prefer this operating system. Also, the two factions live in symbiosis since none would exist without the other. Basically, Microsoft wants their software to work well and the manufacturers surely want their hardware to work well in what is to become the next major operating system that over 90% of the world's population uses.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[CheshireDragon]

You posting as AC proves that you know not what you speak of. May I point you here: http://broadcast.oreilly.com/2008/10/how-linux-supports-more-device.html

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[kbrasee]

Because we all know this is the Year Of The Linux Desktop.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Anonymous Coward]

<quote><p>Like Compaq, Unisys, SCS, Wang, et al, Microsoft is loosing the war and will be gone within the decade. Mark my words.</p></quote>

They'll have to pry my Wang from my cold, dead fingers!

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[binarylarry]

I think the biggest sign of Microsoft's impending fall is the fact that idiot business guys are in charge now.

All the geeks that made Microsoft the behemoth that it is today are gone.

Ballmer and co are all that's left and it has been showing.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[rcw-home]

MS doesn't have the power to coerce decent drivers out of the manufacturers

No, but they do have the power to write drivers themselves (carrot) and they do have the power to maintain a public knowledge base of third-party driver problems (stick).

Microsoft is only in this mess because they've been pawning that responsibility off on OEMs for years.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Well, MS does have one major competitor, which has caused nontrivial trouble lately: its own older OSes. As much as I'd like it to be otherwise, I don't think that MS is under much immediate threat from Linux or OSX. However, watching the rather pitiful attempt to get the Vista launch off the ground suggested quite strongly that MS has a real problem with pushing its "ecosystem partners" to upgrade in sync. The whole Vista Read/Vista Capable thing, where MS basically screwed over buyers and retailers to let Intel unload their old graphics chips, the fact that NVidia couldn't be bothered to have drivers that actually worked for months after launch, having to extend XP availability several times, etc.

MS isn't going anywhere; but they face a real risk of getting bogged down in their own backwards compatibility. With Vista, they ran into the nasty trap of not being able to muster enough customer enthusiasm to drive support from hardware and software vendors, and not having enough support from hardware and software vendors to ensure safe upgrades for their customers. Vicious circle time. They'll pull through; because they have the bulk and the power; but that isn't a pretty dynamic.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[poopdeville]

No one saw the fall of Rome

Are you kidding? Alaric was garrisoned outside Rome for OVER A YEAR before the emperor betrayed him and negotiations for a piece of Switzerland (a la the governorship of Judea) broke down.

On the other hand, declining military drill as Goths and Vandals joined the Roman military was a contributing factor to the decline of the Roman empire.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[EvanED]

No, but they do have the power to write drivers themselves (carrot)...

What? MS would have the same problem as Linux does, just to a lesser degree. HW manufactures would have to provide specs to MS, something they haven't done for Linux. The only saving grace would be that MS would be capable of signing an NDA with them.

Microsoft is only in this mess because they've been pawning that responsibility off on OEMs for years.

"You create a device, you write the driver" seems like a perfectly reasonable policy to me, at least for manufactures that don't open their specs to all.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[FictionPimp]

They could also take the long hard road. Realize this next version of windows will take a hit and force all drivers to be signed to be installed. Do the signing for free, but be very selective on what passes as quality.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[gabebear]

I own two pieces of hardware that are Microsoft branded... and they have had far worse driver support on Windows than any other hardware I own.

• MN-720 802.11G PCCard: No Vista(or even XP SP3) compatiblity... WHY?
• Microsoft Intellimouse optical: The driver in the link doesn't recognize this mouse... What's really funny is MS's Mac Intellimouse driver works perfectly. This is a rather old mouse, it was one of the very first optical mice available($70 back in the day).

I may just have bad luck... but Microsoft's driver compatibility is frighteningly bad.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[FishWithAHammer]

When XP came out, didn't Microsoft end up writing drivers for a boatload of Logitech hardware?

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Tubal-Cain]

2%? Already?
The Year of Linux on the Desktop is at hand!

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[bigstrat2003]

Microsoft Intellimouse optical: The driver in the link doesn't recognize this mouse... What's really funny is MS's Mac Intellimouse driver works perfectly. This is a rather old mouse, it was one of the very first optical mice available($70 back in the day).

Huh? This is my mouse of choice, and I have never had any driver troubles with it under Windows. Windows comes with a driver that Just Works, what more do you want?

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[The Bungi]

Now that Microsoft are feeling the pinch of competition

Too bad a large segment of that competition is made up of their own operating systems.

The only trouble Vista ever had was that XP worked well enough for everybody and didn't offer any incentives to upgrade.

But it's not like Apple is taking over the world any time soon.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[nschubach]

But it's apparently worth your time to post and come back to check for responses.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[lluBdeR]

Bullshit.
When I can throw my Digisuite DTV into a Linux box and have it work I'll believe this, until then "Linux supports more devices (minus one) than any OS ever"

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[rcw-home]

No. I merely think it'd be in their long-term best interest.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Anonymous Coward]

ok a few things , first if it's so easy to code drivers for linux (i don't know) then it would be very cool if a tool existed to compile that driver code, unchanged, as a windows driver. in other words it would take some kind of "glue" layer to separate the driver from the os a bit. if several different translation things like this could be made, then a driver for linux would work on xp, vista, 7 when it comes out, and also mac osx and maybe the open/free/netbsd too. that would save tons of work for driver writers and give companies incentive to make the driver for free os first

second i dont know what the eu will do but do you honestly think obama will push the doj to fuck with microsoft after bill gates supported so much to get obama into the white house? think about it. obama says he is for the little guy but the people who got him elected are billionairs. who do you think paid for all those ads? when these billionairs say they dont mind paying more in taxes i dont believe that bullshit. microsoft for example all their profit goes to a ireland company. all big companies and millionares can do this. it's simple especially for a software company. this is how it works: the rights to all your intellectual property, trademarks, patents, copyrights, belong to an overseas company. your america based company sells products at billions of dollars but has to pay the holding company billions of dollars in royalties and licensing. thus the money is sucked out of the united states and to more tax friendly countries. the profit to the america based company is zero or close to it. so they pay about two dimes in taxes while people who earn a paycheck, half of it is chopped off before you even get it in income tax withholding. think about it. the tax code was written by rich people. they didn't get rich by paying more in taxes. and they're not stupid either. who will be stuck with this high tax bill? you and me. ppl who dont have the resources to take our money off shore. so is obama gonna go after bill gate's or microsoft? no way. he'll go after small businesses but microsoft will sail on through. think about it. think long and hard and you'll see. then go over to www.fairtax.org and see how you and me can fix this situation. get rid of every kind of income tax and replace them with a consumption tax. rich people buy lots of shit so they'll pay a lot. the rest of us will pay less than we currently do but we'll get to take home our entire paycheck. obama might be great looking and popular but his tax policy will not put any more dough in your pocket

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[rwyoder]

MS isn't going anywhere;

That is been becoming more obvious every year. ;-)

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[supernova_hq]

Sure the driver works, I just wish it wouldn't ask me to reboot afterwards...

Note: I'm not even joking here unfortunately

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[ToasterMonkey]

I think that was a polite way of saying a discussion with the type of audience this article will draw is not worth the effort of logging into Slashdot. If I weren't already logged in, I wouldn't either. You know how much of a pain it is to copy the message you just wrote, log in - this confusingly takes you to the main page, find the article again, find the dork you were replying to, paste and finish editing.. bah, for what, +1? A chance to be heard? HAH!

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[igb]

users are demonstrably sticking with XP over switching to non-Microsoft OS'

Apple now have, what, 20% of the laptop market by volume and rather more by dollar revenue? I'd say there's a strong argument that a significant demographic --- young, affluent, university educated, pick any two --- has already left town. I lecture occasionally at a University which is amongst the UK equivalent of the Ivy League, and have a friend who is a full-time lecturer, and both of us (me CS, she English) are under the clear impression that Apple are making massive inroads into the student laptop market. That's the classic opinion-former group, and losing that market is usually regarded as a very bad thing.
ian

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

C'mon, it's an anonymous coward posting about Obama, you weren't seriously expecting something other than a breathless screed about how he is a tax and spend marxist socialist communist jew banker fifth columnist babykiller liberal terrorist, were you?

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[EvanED]

Isn't Microsoft supposed to be the poster child for things like this? "You can't get drivers on Linux because of NDAs, etc." If you _can_ get NDAs and you _are_ filthy rich, and would like to make a superior product, go out and DO IT. Not whine and beg.

MS at least could do it if HW vendors would cooperate, which many would. But at the same time it's not like MS could just dump money into this and have it be sustainable; maintaining drivers for all the HW out there they want to support would be an enormous effort.

Making a wild guess, I wouldn't be surprised if it'd double the cost of Windows. (I seem to remember driver code being at least about half of the size of the Linux kernel, so this guess isn't completely out there.) HW would be cheaper, but basically people who buy little and/or common hardware would be subsidizing the cost of driver development for people who got more exotic hardware. I think it makes far more sense to tie the cost of developing the driver with the HW that it's for.

Also remember the "you create a device, you write the driver, we change the API, we beg you to update all your drivers to the latest beta API, with all nifty DRMs and UACs."

There's a new version of Windows issued what, every 3 years on average? (At least now that 9x and NT have converged.) Let's see, NT 4 was late '96, 2000 was 2000, XP was 2001, Vista was very late 2006 or very early 2007. 4 versions in 10 years, so just over 3 years is about right. (Windows 7 is scheduled for late 2009 or early 2010, which is about another 3 years.) The driver model changes even less frequently. (E.g. my impression is that you can use basically the same code for 2000 and XP.)

Not only that, but the changes for Vista were largely rather for the better, with MS trying to push most drivers out into userspace (where they can't cause bluescreens).

Contrast this situation to Linux, which almost has a stated goal to NOT have a stable driver API. This works fine for them, but if what you want is a stable kernel interface Windows is about as stable as you're going to get.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Paradise Pete]

You know how much of a pain it is to copy the message you just wrote, log in - this confusingly takes you to the main page, find the article again, find the dork you were replying to, paste and finish editing.. bah

Some browsers no support having more than one window open at a time. You might try to get one of those.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[hairyfeet]

Winfuture XP ISO Builder for the win. So simple my nephews could do it. Takes about 20 minutes to integrate service packs(including SP3),hotfixes,drivers,software,integrate XPize(under add hotfixes) setup a full unattended with the user accounts,etc. So much better to just use it for an unattended 2K/2K3/XP that doing the MSFT reinstall dance IMHO.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[gmack]

Or better yet: they could demand all devices conform to a set standard and then produce drivers for standard hardware only.

There is no reason for printers to all have different ways to talk to the OS. Same goes for scanners. This could all be standardized.

I suspect the reason they haven't done this before is that having 1000 devices all needing different drivers is a huge advantage for the incumbent OS. Unfortunately for Microsoft that incumbent OS is XP not Vista so it's all come back to bite them.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Yvanhoe]

The eeePC showed that linux works fine as a preinstalled OS. Its driver structure doesn't change every release in an unpredictable way. That makes it very attractive for computer makers. Microsoft really fears that the eeePC would be the first of a new kind of cheap low specs PCs

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[seanellis]

I think that the lesson here is that hardware support is very variable, on any OS.

I bought a digital TV card for my box at home, running Kubuntu, and it was the simplest installation of anything I have ever done. Pop it in, it just worked. No driver installs, no nothing.

I also bought a cheap webcam. On Linux, plug and go. On Windows, even the supplied disk of drivers failed to install (Error -1: Could not configure driver or some such nonsense), and then the drivers from the website regularly cause BSOD.

On the other hand, the in-built sound system (some Intel chipset) on my home box is complete pain in the ass under Linux. I've never got the mike input to work properly.

It is nice to see that some hardware makers are beginning to actively support Linux, or at least allow Linux developers to actively support their stuff by supplying test units and documentation.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[seanellis]

This approach has worked very well with USB mass storage devices. The same driver talks to my camera, external hard drive, memory stick and Ogg Vorbis player. It doesn't seem to have stifled innovation any.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Laurence0]

If only everybody stuck with that! From what I've heard, iPods are notorious for having a weird connection protocol, and lots of cameras "do things their own way".

It needs more pressure from consumers, I guess... I actually returned a camera last year because it didn't support USB mass storage. But I suspect I'm in a minority...

Next thing to push for is standard connectors. If only every camera/phone/MP3 player/etc was mini (or possibly micro, if they must) USB...

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[theaveng]

Whatever. I'd rather use an OS that is supported by >90% of the people, than some other OS. I've already been down the road of non-standard computers (Commodore 64, Commodore Amiga, Macintosh Quadra) and while I loved all those machines, I did not love seeing my IBM PC friends running programs that I could not run. (The "Mac version coming soon" problem.) I like being able to run virtually any program I feel like running.

>>>...public beta of Windows 7 in early 2009

Good. Maybe I can buy Window NT 7 and skip over Vista (NT6) completely. Vista's a worthless piece of trash. My brother has a computer with roughly the same specs as mine, but his Vista machine runs like it's an old, mindnumbingly slow 200 megahertz computer, compared to the rapid-fire pace of my XP setup.

Of course NT 7 might be trash too... hopefully not. Hopefully Microsoft has learned from its errors.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Hieronymus Howard]

Whilst saying "You create a device, you write the driver" is perfectly reasonable, it's less reasonable to say, "We're releasing yet another version of Windows. We need new drivers for all of your hardware. Go away and write them for us".

This means a lot of extra expenditure for the hardware manufacturers every time that Microsoft release a new version of Windows. Is it surprising that they might be a bit reluctant to comply?

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[TheRaven64]

As the original article points out, it's a pretty meaningless statistic. Hardware support only matters to users when it's hardware they own. Linux supports an obscure SCSI card that only three people own - great if you're one of those three people, irrelevant otherwise. FreeBSD supports all of the hardware (with the possible exception of the modem - I don't have a phoneline, so I've not tried it) in my ThinkPad, so do I care that Linux and Windows support more devices in total? OS X supports everything in my MacBook Pro, so do I care that Windows supports more devices?

I used to have a gaming mouse that was supported by Linux but not Windows (it shipped with drivers for Win98, which didn't work with 2K and the manufacturer never supported 2K). Did it matter to me that Windows supported vastly more hardware than Linux at the time? No, because it didn't support my hardware. Same with my VooDoo 2 - Microsoft changed the driver model with Windows 2000 to prevent 3D-only cards working. I could still play GLQuake under Linux, but not under Windows. Again, the fact that 2K had better support in general meant nothing to me. Only the specific cases of failure mattered (and the fact that Linux didn't support my NIC or modem at the time was equally frustrating).

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Bearhouse]

+11 on the irony meter, dude. Respect.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[mabhatter654]

You realize what they're really asking... they want OEMS to spend $250K+ of their OWN MONEY so that EACH device they've ever sold works nicely with Windows 7 and MICROSOFT looks good.

All the Linux detractors really think about that...

Now think where linux would be if hardware manufacturers spent 1/10 that much contributing drivers to Linux for each device they sold versus the zero they contribute now.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[TheRaven64]

What kind of innovation are you expecting in a mass storage device? You write blocks to them and read blocks back. There are a few things that can be improved - for example allowing the device to re-order requests for more efficient transfers - but not a huge amount.

Now, compare that with graphics cards. We actually have a standard for these, the VESA BIOS Extensions. This defines a way of initialising the framebuffer, setting the resolution, and even some acceleration functions, such as Bit Blt, off-screen sprites, hardware cursors, and even drawing 2D polygons. A modern GPU doesn't bother implementing this, however, since you don't want to use such a primitive interface.

Think about the new features that have been added to GPUs in the last ten years. Hardware tranform, clipping and lighting. Pixel shaders. Vertex shaders. Geometry shaders. Removing the fixed-function pipeline and emulating it with shaders. In the early '90s, a cheap graphics card was just a framebuffer, and an expensive one had commands like 'copy this region of memory to here in the framebuffer', and 'draw a line from here to here' - really expensive ones had enough memory for double-buffering. Now, they are complex stream-vector processors. The VBE acceleration standard defined in 1996 seems hopelessly archaic now. In contrast, USB storage devices in 1996 stored blocks and retrieved blocks. USB storage devices now store blocks, and retrieve blocks.

A standard interface for storage devices is easy. IDE lasted for two decades. A standard interface for video is much harder. Even sound has changed a lot, with the addition of 2, then 4, then 5.1 then 7.1 channels, hardware mixing, spacial positioning, signal processing for effects, resampling, and so on all being added. Sure, you could create a standard like AC97 which just lets you output and record sound, but that limits devices to the lowest common denominator.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[blackjackshellac]

As I recall, Billy Gates was still around when the Vista debacle began. But I take your point. You need a good balance of suits and geeks in any technology company, I've personally witnessed several tech companies brought to their knees because they demoted, fired or released the geeks from upper management roles, and ignored product design, planning and schedules in the name of marketing features.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[maztuhblastah]

The only saving grace would be that MS would be capable of signing an NDA with them.

That kinda implies that the barrier for Linux drivers is the lack of devs willing to sign an NDA. AFAIK, that's not often the case. In fact, from what I remember hearing, there have been quite a few developers willing to sign an NDA in order to get documentation -- but manufacturers just don't want the help of the OSS community. MS has the upper hand because 1) they're a corporation, not a random collection of developers and 2) they have money.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[Chabil Ha']

Maybe I can buy Window NT 7 and skip over Vista (NT6) completely.

You just don't get it, do you? Windows 7 is nothing more than an enhancement to Vista, one with meaningless features. A new taskbar? New UI for Notepad? Less crazy UAC messages? C'mon, where are the real features? What the hell happened to WinFS?

Windows 7 is just Vista in sheeps clothing...

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[theaveng]

You just don't get it, do you?

No I didn't know that. So I have to wait for Windows NT 8 for a working OS? (Same way I skipped-over M.e.)

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[theaveng]

Windows 7 is just Vista in sheeps clothing...

Wait a minute. Microsoft said they were entirely rebuilding Windows 7 from the ground-up, trying to get the kernal to run more-efficiently. That doesn't sound like mere window-dressing (like M.e. was merely Win98.2). That sounds like a complete overhaul.

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[EvanED]

The problem with that statement is that "major release" has basically ceased to have meaning for Linux. 2.6 was first released five years ago, and there's no 2.7 or 2.8 in planning.

(And in case you're wondering, no, the kernel APIs aren't stable from 2.6.x to 2.6.x+1, at least for generic kernel modules. Maybe the subset that most device drivers usually are, but I've written a kernel module that I needed to make fairly substantial changes to when I upgraded a couple point releases.)

Re:Seems to me like a bit of a role reversal

[wastedlife]

Wait a minute. Microsoft said they were entirely rebuilding Windows 7 from the ground-up, trying to get the kernal to run more-efficiently. That doesn't sound like mere window-dressing (like M.e. was merely Win98.2). That sounds like a complete overhaul.

Can't recall anyone saying that other than some bloggers and newssites mistaking MinWin(or was it WinMin?) to be the Windows 7 kernel. I do recall that being said about Longhorn before it was scrapped and then the Vista/2008 kernel became an incremental improvement to the 2003 kernel. Vista's actual kernel number is 6.0. "Windows 7" will have kernel version 6.1. Vista to Windows 7 is being touted as the same level of change as 2000 to XP.

Why bother?

[WK2]

Why would hardware manufacturers bother to write drivers for a Windows Beta release? Especially one that probably won't be released for several years, and the driver requirements and API and such are likely to change several times before then. So many people are happy with XP or Linux, they can wait until the first RC to come out (Microsoft calls it Gold).

Re:Why bother?

[QuantumG]

Maybe Microsoft should do what the Linux community does. Work with manufacturers to get the drivers written and then maintain the drivers for the manufacturers forever.

Ya, that's likely.

BTW - I own two webcams now. Neither work under Windows since I lost the driver disk (and those drivers were useless under XP64/Vista anyway), but they both work just fine under Linux. What's the world coming to?!

Re:Why bother?

[RuBLed]

What's the world coming to?!

The Year of Linux on the Desktop

Re:Why bother?

[Techman83]

Had the same thing with a cheap ass bluetooth dongle someone gave me. Lost the driver disc, so it got shoved in a box of junk. Been a while since I'd checked that box and no longer use windows as my primary desktop. So after doing a clean up one day I figured, well my pc is turned on so no harm in trying it... Plugged it in, the little bluetooth symbol appeared next to the clock and hey presto it worked!! That was compared to the many many hours spent trying to find a working driver for windows!

Re:Why bother?

[rubycodez]

let's just spin that a little, the 21st century will be the century of Linux on the desktop

Re:Why bother?

[QuantumG]

I assume you've filed a bug report or two, right?

People really do want to know about this stuff.

Re:Why bother?

[AdmiralXyz]

let's just spin that a little, the 24th century will be the century of Linux on the desktop

There, fixed that for you.

Re:Why bother?

[vux984]

Maybe Microsoft should do what the Linux community does. Work with manufacturers to get the drivers written and then maintain the drivers for the manufacturers forever.

Maybe the community should just step up and write them? I mean they do it for Linux, why not Microsoft? Plus, for any device supported under Linux, the hardest part of the work is already done... figuring out how to communicate with the device.

And don't whine about driver signing, if a large OSS group came to MS with a large body of updated drivers for x64, they'd take them in a heartbeat, sign them, and even stick them on the next Windows CD if we let them.

BTW - I own two webcams now. Neither work under Windows since I lost the driver disk (and those drivers were useless under XP64/Vista anyway), but they both work just fine under Linux. What's the world coming to?!

The difference is the manufacturer abandoned the hardware a couple years ago for Windows, while they never bothered to support Linux at all in the first place. So the community stepped up for Linux, because that was the only way it was going to happen, while the manufacturers did a passable job long enough for the hardware to be non-mainstream enough that most people really don't care.

Re:Why bother?

[darkvizier]

Yes... and try installing Windows XP on a RAID array without using a driver floppy disk. Even Houdini couldn't pull that one off! Linux on the other hand is a breeze. The array is automatically detected and the appropriate drivers are installed and initialized.

Re:Why bother?

[Narpak]

Well it is pretty obvious that for every new generation of programmers the amount users, contributors and developers of Open Source software expands. Having at least a general familiarity with Open Source and Linux has almost become a industry requirement. Not to mention that analysing Open Source code to learn is simply a good idea. The program is there, the code is there, you can study it and learn. The code for Windows, and other Microsoft products,is not so easily available.

At least this is what I hear when I talk to people working in the Norwegian IT Industry and friends current undergoing later stages of their education. The documentation and level of expertise increases at a far far higher rate than what Microsoft, or most other Closed Source companies, can compete with. Open Source might not be for all products or services, but it does to a greater and greater extend serve the need of the average user. And with the Open Source products for the large part being free it makes it very convenient for a student to use Open Office instead of Microsoft Office. Or for administration and educational institutions to switch to a Linux, or other Open Source, products. Not only have it been estimated that such a switch will save the Norwegian Government millions, it also means that the code for the products they use can be scrutinized to a far higher degree than Microsoft would ever allow.

Re:Why bother?

[mattytee]

Actually, Houdini pulled it off


...the lengths some people will go to for a laugh...

Re:Why bother?

[Tehrasha]

Maybe the community should just step up and write them? I mean they do it for Linux, why not Microsoft?

Yes, why dont they? There are obviously far more Windows users out there to be affected by antiquated hardware.

Re:Why bother?

[ion.simon.c]

Maybe the community should just step up and write them? I mean they do it for Linux, why not Microsoft?

'Cause it's Microsoft. Really, there's no other reason than that. Why should we reward their reprehensible behaviour by adding valuable functionality to their systems?

If they don't have developers, their operating systems are useless. : D

Re:Why bother?

[nabsltd]

What is with all these Slashdot users who "lost the driver disc"?

The first thing I do with any driver disc (or any other software, for that matter) is copy it to my install respository that sits on a RAID array and is backed up regularly. I pretty much never clean that up, so I have drivers for hardware I don't own anymore.

A quick check shows I have Soundblaster drivers from 14 years ago.

Despite being such a pack rat, and literally keeping everything there (like install source for the last 3 versions of MS Office, every game I've ever purchased, etc.), it only takes up 330GB, which is less than $50 worth of disk space.

Re:Why bother?

[mattytee]

This

Enjoy.

Re:Why bother?

[nabsltd]

OK, so you don't install the device at all, in which case drivers don't matter.

Seriously, if I download newer drivers, then the same thing happens to them...they get stashed away. And, when it turns out that version 2.4 of the driver screws up the hardware, I can always revert to version 2.3 (or 2.0, or 1.8, etc.). It doesn't matter to me where the hardware came from...the driver gets saved away.

And, if I bought hardware that didn't work regardles of the driver, it gets returned. So, I wouldn't have had a "rubbish little device" sitting around to work a few years later once Linux got around to supporting it.

Re:Why bother?

[philipgar]

you do realize that much of the "hardware" we have today is little more than application specific instruction processors (ASIPs) and memory on a board (or SoC). For these hardware devices, much of the development work is in the firmware running on the processors. Oh, and much of that code was probably written by the processor vendor, and likely was obtained under a license agreement that doesn't allow you to release it. Now, if the hardware device contains flash or an eeprom, this isn't really an issue, as the code for these processors can be stored on there. However, many store the program data in the driver. This has a couple advantages, it's cheaper to manufacture the device (fewer components), more reliable (fewer components to fail) and if a bug is discovered in the ASIP code, the manufacturer can release new device drivers that automatically update the firmware of the device, without forcing the user to manually update it. Seems like device manufacturers would have to be stupid not to upload binary blobs to their devices. These binary blobs can't be open source for the reasons outlined above, and thus the device driver cannot be added to the linux kernel.

Phil

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

let's just spin that a little, the 24th century will be the century of Linux on the desktop

There, fixed that for you.

So then... Linux = LCARS?

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Maybe the community should just step up and write them? I mean they do it for Linux, why not Microsoft?"

THIS shows the difference between Linux [open-source] developers and Microsoft developers- open-source people do it for fun and the good of the community, Microsoft developers do it for a buck and there won't be many bucks in writing drivers for crappy no-name blue-tooth dongles.

Re:Why bother?

[Q-Hack!]

Mostly we don't because of things like this:

Creative Goes After Driver Modder

Re:Why bother?

[magpie]

And don't whine about driver signing, if a large OSS group came to MS with a large body of updated drivers for x64, they'd take them in a heartbeat, place them under a proprietary license giving the writes no control over or credit for them, sign them, and even stick them on the next Windows CD if we let them.

Fixed if for you

Re:Why bother?

[MrMr]

YAAC complainig that an unspecified piece of hardware doesn't work with an unspecified piece of software?
Of course he has filed a detailed bug report.

Re:Why bother?

[Eskarel]

I've been fairly lucky lately, and it's really only nvidia anymore, and after a number of instances of random interface changes breaking drivers(on the kernel side of things) things have been fairly stable lately.

Linux has no concept of change control for the most part, you have to upgrade everything or nothing, stuff changes whenever it suits the developers to do so. I know I'm not the only person who has noticed this sort of thing. Xorg has changed the way it handles peripherals a half a dozen times in the last few years.

There are certainly benefits to doing this, it means cleaner, faster code, and fewer bugs.

It also means that you can never be absolutely sure that anything open source or otherwise will ever work on any particular version of linux(new open source stuff won't always work with older system libraries, old closed source stuff won't always work with new libraries) and makes getting a vendor to sign off on support for any particular distribution(other than redhat, and we're a novell/suse shop) is more than a little tedious.

Like I said, there are a lot of advantages to it, but I just get a little frustrated when I see people on slashdot constantly bashing Microsoft. They're not really all that evil anymore, even if Steve Balmer does look like some sort of alien. Vista had a lot of problems, most of them weren't Microsoft's fault and most of them were fixed. Vista has some tedious DRM, but it hasn't affected me in any way shape or form in 18 months. Admitedly I don't have a blu-ray drive and I don't watch any DRM'd HD content, but it hasn't stopped me from doing anything I did before DRM.

It's part of my personality to tell it like I see it, and I'm just getting so tired of the general Microsoft and in particular the Vista bashing. Vista really isn't all that bad, it's not particularly exciting, and a few features were implemented incorrectly(UAC for one), but I've most certainly used worse operating systems, and it's not deserving of even half the vitriole that it gets. Microsoft did some moderately dodgy things, twenty years ago. They've released some less than perfect software, and their less than perfect software is still beating Linux on the desktop. It's going to continue beating Linux on the desktop for the forseeable future too. They have a somewhat annoying obsession with crippling their own innovations to try and keep people using Windows, even when there isn't any viable alternative. A lot of this might just be that they don't know how to turn things like silverlight or .NET into cash in any way other than by selling OS licenses, and maybe they need a more creative management team. In the grand scheme of things, they're far from being even the most evil software company in the world, let alone the most evil company in the world.

There are places in this world for open source software, and there are places in this world for closed software. Sometimes we need to reward innovation with money, and sometimes it costs money to get programmers to do the uncool, unsexy, generally unpleasant things that are necessary for business to function. Some companies can find ways to do these things and still release their software open source(mostly companies whose prime market is the enterprise and so can get reliable support money), but some can't. Until and unless the linux community can find a way to work with the companies who can't there is never going to be a year of the linux desktop. There may be a "year of the proprietary internet appliance that happens to be running embedded linux", but there won't be linux on the desktop.

Ideology and the real world don't mix. RMS has had some brilliant ideas, and has likely forseen some problems that we haven't yet dealt with. He's contributed amazingly to the world of computing, but he's a zealot and an extremist. There seems to be no room for pragmatism and compromise in his world. The world of business, the one which pays all our salaries and which pays for all the bits of software which has to be made but is

Should it be Microsoft problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Should Microsoft insure that its software compatible with hardware? After all software is a wrapper that allows a comfortable use of hardware.

Standards

[PhrostyMcByte]

Nearly 2009 and we still can't plug in a printer and have it just work. The idea that any printer - consumer or professional - needs proprietary drivers that might have problems with Windows 7 is really sad. We need more standard HID devices, and better HID support in OSes.

Re:Standards

[Anonymous Coward]

HID is a double edge sword. Take USB Mass Storage as an example, if there wasn't one, we might have file system tailor made for Flash memory now.
But now Mass Storage expose everything in simple linear blocks..., it's just not possible.

Well, I know the price might probably be much higher with much low adoption rate without Mass Storage HID...

Talking about Printer, there are actually PostScript standard which work reasonably well, except that you will lost some bells and whistles like Printer maintenance stuff. Microsoft also wants to push its XPS standard, which might be a good HID support candidates.

Re:Standards

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Unfortunately, we have the curse of penny-pinching to blame for that one. Printers nice enough to have Postscript interpreters have been just working with nothing more than a ppd for longer than I've been alive. More recently, USB has a standardized printer class, and IPP for network printing is not exactly exotic.

I don't know exactly why the printers actually available(particularly the cheap ones) have resisted standardization so sharply; but the state of the market is terrible, as you note, despite their being good ways to do it. It isn't like the bad old days of USB webcams, where everybody rolled their own because no standards existed, people seem to be actively doing the wrong thing with printers.

Re:Standards

[setagllib]

All we need for the flash solution is a revised HID standard that does expose raw blocks. It can still be standard and uniform, just lower level.

Put it like this. If mass storage did not have the HID abstraction and wear levelling circuitry (primitive though it may be), Windows would have absolutely soiled every flash device out there with its uniquely bad IO layer. At least the raw device is slightly protected from Windows by the standard.

Re:Standards

[MrMr]

How about this:
Switching printers when the ludicrously overpriced cartridge is empty would be way too easy if you didn't have to install new drivers and support software?

Re:Standards

[TheRaven64]

Postscript just doesn't make sense. Back when laser printers were really expensive it did - you'd buy one fast CPU in the printer (or print server - I used to have a dual P3 box that was made by Xerox and originally just ran a PostScript interpreter and some drivers for an expensive printer). Now, however, you will have something like a 50MHz MIPS chip in the printer and even a slow handheld will have a 200MHz ARM chip - a desktop or laptop will probably have a 2GHz CPU. When you print a PS file, you have to render each page in to a buffer and then output that to the page. Doing this on a 2GHz CPU on the computer is a lot faster than doing it on the printer. My old laser printer printed significantly faster when I used PCL instead of PS, because PCL is much simpler.

Oh, and you don't need a license from Adobe for using PS. It's an open standard - you can implement it yourself, use GPL'd GhostScript, or buy a license from Alladin if you don't want to use the GPL'd version. Adobe also ship an implementation you can use, and you do need to pay them if you use this.

Why take support seriously?

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft doesn't, why should hardware makers?

Hardware support?

[Tibor the Hun]

Microsoft is concerned about hardware support?
OK, I can guess that they caught a lot of flak for the recent drivers situation with Vista, but shouldn't they be more upfront about software support?

Of all the computer problems, how many of us are impacted by hardware? Yes, the hard drives die, and occasionally something will hiccup, but for every one of those issues, there are 10 "my computer is running slower now than a week ago", or there is a crazy file that I can't delete, or "I'm getting notices to buy a spyware cleaner". For all those issues, who do people call? Not Microsoft... Pfft, they call Dell, HP, or whomever they bought their box from.
So then Dell and HP in turn end up doing Microsoft software support. (Unless they just forward you to Microsoft's call center in India.)

Re:Hardware support?

[Nightspirit]

The biggest problem when Vista was released was shitty Nvidia and Creative drivers. Nvidia drivers were responsible for 50% of vista crashes when it first came out, hence people thought vista was unstable and crap. MS doesn't want a repeat of this for win7.

Re:Hardware support?

[philipgar]

and if OSX or ubuntu had the 90+% market share windows had you'd have the same problem with spyware on them. Much of the spyware is installed by people who don't know what they're doing. This is NOT microsoft's fault. They've actually tried addressing the problem with Window's Defender. As much of the spyware doesn't need root privileges, once it's installed, it's there. If it requires a root kit, than it's the same on most any OS. There will be security holes, and they will need to be patched. This is a fact of life. Plus, there will be users who will enter their root password for an application they've never heard of just because the box pops up. Blaming MS for the spyware problem on windows just doesn't make sense (and for the record, I'm writing this on my Mac laptop, and run many linux machines on my network).

Phil

I can't believe Vista drivers don't work...

[Joce640k]

After all the runaround with drivers for Vista, they completely changed the driver model again?

What kind of idiots are they employing?

Re:I can't believe Vista drivers don't work...

[Loiosh-de-Taltos]

Sometimes you people are monstrously uninformed. I have trouble imagining how you can assume that when the exact opposite was clearly stated, repeatedly, from Microsoft. All of the driver breaking that went on during Vista's development was done to create a framework for future efforts. Examples below:

The audio driver model was changed to create low-latency drivers and offer features like application-specific audio channels. Seven enhances this by offering separate modes (communication and regular). They also offer ducking (temporary volume reduction / playback stop) for communication devices. Ex: You get a skype call, your Windows Media Player lowers the volume during the call.

The video driver model was changed to lower the DirectX overhead and simplify drivers (by removing hardware CAPS). Seven enhances this by offering Direct2d to handle all 2d rendering (with some incredible enhancements including glyphing-support). As always for Microsoft, GDI and GDI+ are still supported along with Direct2D. For 3D there are a few new features:
1. DirectX10 Level9: Direct9 hardware wrapping that will allow DirectX 10 and 10.1 programs to use whatever features are available.
2. DirectX10 WARP: Software (optimized) renderer so that DirectX 10 is supported on systems with no 3d cards.
3. Coming in DirectX11 (which is a superset of DirectX 10.1): Compute Shaders which allows easier access to using GPUs for non-graphics computations.
DirectX11 will be supported in Vista along with Direct2d.

Vista drivers are compatible with Seven, but the newer features (like communication mode) will require updates. The hardware will still work, just not as fast or with as many features as it could.

Microsoft needs to take support seriously.

[zerofoo]

Microsoft needs to be worried about it's own quality control issues first.

Network copies were REALLY broken when Vista was released. Copying files to and from a network was excruciatingly slow - how did that get past Microsoft's QA?

Explorer still occasionally shits the bed for no apparent reason. Why is explorer still the shell of the operating system? Someone should tell Microsoft that Netscape is no longer a threat to them.

There are a ton of BONE-HEADED design decisions in Vista (try selecting a wireless network with less than 5 or 6 clicks).

The ugly truth is that hardware manufacturers are not the cause of Vista's "perception problem". Vista is the cause of Vista's perception problems.

-ted

Re:Microsoft needs to take support seriously.

[GFree678]

There are a ton of BONE-HEADED design decisions in Vista (try selecting a wireless network with less than 5 or 6 clicks).

Indeed, Vista certainly doesn't have the easier way to select a wireless network.

Having said that, Microsoft is (sometimes) capable of learning from their mistakes. Windows 7 has a modern wireless selector now: http://windows7news.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/win7_m3_ms_17.jpg

Re:Microsoft needs to take support seriously.

[nabsltd]

Its an application like any other that can be killed, move, restarted, or even removed.

Except, of course, for the fact that killing the "root" explorer.exe ends up causing you pretty ugly problems.

For example, when you kill off the explorer.exe process controlling your taskbar and system tray, starting Explorer again usually leaves you with a mess, since the running tasks don't go back into the tray. Then, too, everything that was in the various "autorun" places gets run again because Explorer is too dumb to figure out this isn't the first time it is being run.

Basically, because Explorer is the display shell and hooks into so damn much, but it isn't really the root process for your login, the whole setup is so fragile that the only way to make sure everything ends up right is to log out and log back in.

Re:Microsoft needs to take support seriously.

[isBandGeek()]

Copying files to and from a network was excruciatingly slow - how did that get past Microsoft's QA?

What QA?

Re:Microsoft needs to take support seriously.

[bofh29a]

This QA, Q: Can we ship it now? It's still broken A: Hell yeah...we'll fix it in SP1 (throws chair)

Windows Video Capture drivers & a good distro

[mattytee]

Sounds like you have a better solution going, but I still wanted to turn others in your situation who *do* wanna run Windows on to btwincap -- the card is probably using a Brooktree chip.

This driver is usually much better than the included buggy/glitchy ones.

Dynebolic is a kick ass GNU/Linux distro for video capture and editing. It can also cluster just by running the liveCD on multiple systems.

Re:Microsoft Begs Everyone To Take Them Seriously

[FishWithAHammer]

How's Linux's 0.91% market share feeling?

Christ. You make the rest of us who use Linux look bad.

hrrr

[Vexorian]

Dear hardware makers:

We first take the chance to declare you the cultprits of the vista fiasco, bad hardware makers!.

Now please be a good boy and support Vista 7 right away, we know this is a sudden move with so few months left for the beginning of 2009 and you are still trying to support Vista. But now we decided to release another OS, so bitch please support that one already, thanks.

Linux Drivers are more important.

[KozmoKramer]

The manufacturers should spend more time collaborating with the Ubuntu and Mandriva communities. Windows 7 will suck no matter how much effort the manufacturers put into it. Why waste the extra time on a sinking ship?

Serious case of inept management syndrome

[Weaselmancer]

I think the biggest sign of Microsoft's impending fall is the fact that idiot business guys are in charge now.

It's interesting you'd point that out. I was thinking something similar. Mostly in the way the request was worded. I've spent some time around inept managers and you can see a lot of the same in the summary:

"urging device manufacturers to start immediate testing with its pre-beta release" - Translation: Get on the ball and do our work for us.

"to avoid the widespread hardware compatibility problems that contributed so much to the negative perception of Vista" - Translation: Our failures are not our fault. They are your fault. Get on the ball and fix it.

"'There is not another WinHEC planned before Windows 7 is released,' Microsoft has warned them." - Translation: We have you by the balls. Don't make us squeeze. We want you to do things for our benefit, and we're unwilling to wait, or even to ask nicely.

Now, in contrast what they should have done is this.

Windows 7 is being released, and soon. Yeah, we screwed the pooch with Vista. But we'd like to fix things, and we'd like your help. Towards that end we are making a pre-release version of Windows 7 beta available to developers so we can make something that has the promise of Vista, but actually delivers. And we'll be holding several WinHEC sessions, to help you, our valued partners make this next Windows the best product it can be.

Engage us as coder geeks, and we would be far more happy to comply. Speak to us - geek to geek. Let us know why Windows 7 is exciting. And admit your mistakes with Vista, so you have some credibility when you try to engage us.

Of course, inept power happy managers would never say such a thing. And it's the product that suffers. I've seen it before, just never quite on this scale before. Treat your developers like peons and they will abandon you. Programmers tend to be a little rogue in their perceptions. I can see a great many people reading that press release and thinking "well screw that crap".

I certainly would.

Microsoft begs hardware OEMs to write drivers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Intro: "Microsoft has confirmed that there will be a widespread public beta of Windows 7 in early 2009, while urging device manufacturers to start immediate testing with its pre-beta release to avoid the widespread hardware compatibility problems that contributed so much to the negative perception of Vista."

Interesting.

Meanwhile, Linux driver developers are begging to write drivers (at no cost) for hardware OEMs.

http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS6669895837.html

As a hardware OEM, you would have to be thinking that it is going to cost you way, way less to get a working driver for your new product written for Linux.

7 = XP 64?

[NoxNoctis]

Take Windows 7 seriously? You mean, like they took XP 64 seriously? Yup, we'll have this fully supported in no time ;-)

stupid /. spin defeats me

[timmarhy]

that's it i can't take it. every single MS story on here has to have some stupid immature little snipe. why the hell would MS be "begging"???? they are a multi billion dollar company with more industry clout than anyone, and yet just because they attempt to work inside the industry to get better compatability with their OS they are beggers not choosers? if they are beggers what the hell level is linux? the lice on the beggers?

in the last few years /. has steadily slipped into a pathetic site posting the same agenda driven crap, with little to no value

time to find a better news site

Make it measurable

[jesterzog]

I know you're joking, but there will never be a Year of the Linux Desktop until there's a clear definition of what it actually means. If it's not measurable, there's nothing to aim for and it'll forever just be a joke.

Re:Make it measurable

[johndmartiniii]

What do you mean "measurable?" It's just a catchy thing to say, rallying cry, something for a magazine title and so on.

Re:Make it measurable

[Ihmhi]

If it's not measurable, there's nothing to aim for and it'll forever just be a joke.

Crap, he's onto us guys! Everybody grab as many memes as you can carry and hop down to the bomb shelter!

Re:Make it measurable

[mrjackson2000]

The Year of the Linux Desktop is the year that i switch completely to a Linux Desktop.

If I was a hardware person...

[trawg]

...I'd be already over this after just having had to do it all on Vista. Now they're going to have to go through the same thing immediately, which I suspect most of them won't bother doing, thinking "oh, it's years away from release".

I don't know if Vista driver support has improved significantly since its release (surely it has; I'm still happily running XP), but I suspect there's still a lot of consumer demand for certain/older driver fixes for Vista that are still on the TODO list for many hardware developers.

Microsoft is contradicting themselves

[Jugalator]

Just FYI, they very recently claimed this:

Microsoft: Moving to Windows 7 Easy for Device Makers

Re:Microsoft is contradicting themselves

[abigsmurf]

Just because it's easy doesn't mean device manufacturers couldn't come across unforseen issues if they don't test.

Serious measurement means it's arrived

[Mathinker]

Considering that actually measuring the real use of Linux on the desktop would be an expensive proposition requiring real data collection (as opposed to sales figures), I would guess that if someone has the commercial incentive to pay for such data collection, they already believe that the results will be useful to them commercially. In other words, Linux will already have made a serious penetration.

Kind of like relationships, sometimes: you already know it's over before you get the message explicitly...

Re:Anyone that understands the underlying architec

[KGIII]

And ANYONE writing drivers on a professional level with Windows actually HAS the code under their shared licensing program. ANYONE can sign up for it and, probably, get access to the code as needed if they are willing to sign the NDA.