I could say the same thing about Democrats... Although I seem to vote Republican the majority of thee time, I do no label myself as belonging to one party or the other.
I'm a conservative and lately neither Republicans nor Democrats have been doing "The Right Thing" TM.
Though in South Carolina I am very glad we have Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. Jim DeMint. These two individuals stand up for their conservative principles.
Most of the Republicans have abandoned their conservative roots and the Democrats have been taken over by extreme left-wing loonies.
Here is the problem I see with drivers in a Linuxer user vs Windows user scenario:
Windows user: Buys a new hardware item at their local store, goes home and installs said hardware.
One of two things will happen:
1. Windows already has drivers for the hardware and the new hardware is up and running.
2. Windows has no drivers for the new hardware and brings up it's add new hardware wizard. The user pops in the CD that came with the hardware and the wizard begins installing the driver. After the driver is installed, a reboot may be required, then the hardware is ready to be used.
Linux User: Buys same hardware from same local store, goes home and installs the hardware:
One of four things will happen:
1. His linux distro already has drivers for it and a hotplug routine auto-loads it, just like option 1 for the windows user, the hardware is ready to use.
2. The kernel currently installed does not have drivers for it and he has to install a new kernel to support the hardware. Depending the distro, this can be as easy as having the package manager install it or as complicated (for some) as compiling a new kernel manually.
3. The kernel currently installed does not have drivers for it, but there is a module available through his distro, but requires a newer kernel, and we're back at installing or re-compiling the kernel.
4. There are no drivers for the hardware and the user is left with either trying something like NDISWrapper or taking it back and try to find a similar product that is supported.
Being the user of a source-based distribution I have no problem re-compiling the kernel, but the average person won't touch the kernel with a 10-foot pole.
What would it take so that your everyday user could go buy a product, stick in the vendor-supplied CD, have it install a driver that would either work immediately or after a reboot.
I know that part of the answer is the speed at which the linux kernel is being developed. However I think what's holding back the every day user from using Linux, and vendors from providing linux drivers on cd is that there currently isn't a unified way for the user to pop in the vendor's CD and have the new hardware working in 5-10 minutes without having to do anything else.
I don't think there's a way to do it, again since the kernel development is moving so fast and not everyone is going to have the same 2.6.x kernel, some still use 2.4.x for that matter.
The only way I could see this work is if it were possible to have drivers work throughout the lifecycle of a major kernel version.
For example: Instead of having to compile new drivers for every 2.6.x release, drivers originally compiled on a 2.6.10 kernel would still work on a 2.6.17 kernel and you wouldn't have to re-compile drivers again until 2.7/2.8 came out.
I don't like Ubuntu either, I tried to use it, I really have. I even tried kubuntu since I've been using KDE more lately. I just don't like the way it's setup and I don't like what they did with root.
Give me Gentoo any day or Fedora for a faster setup.
I try both Gnome and KDE whenever a new version comes out. I think Gnome has a much cleaner look, but the spatial thing sucks rotten eggs.
With KDE on the other hand, the interface seems klunky at times, however things like KIOSlaves just rocks!
Sometimes I wish we could combine them into either a GDE or a Knome...
Seriously, for me I like Gnome's interface (with spatial turned off) better than KDE's, but I like what KDE has under the hood better than Gnome.
Move over to the dark side? Microsoft, and it's apprentice SCO dwell there, and you would be well advised to stay away from them!
Open Source, Free Software , these are the ways of the light side of the force!
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I could say the same thing about Democrats... Although I seem to vote Republican the majority of thee time, I do no label myself as belonging to one party or the other. I'm a conservative and lately neither Republicans nor Democrats have been doing "The Right Thing" TM. Though in South Carolina I am very glad we have Gov. Mark Sanford and Sen. Jim DeMint. These two individuals stand up for their conservative principles. Most of the Republicans have abandoned their conservative roots and the Democrats have been taken over by extreme left-wing loonies.
The PS3 has an option to allow/disallow Blu-Ray discs to connect to the Internet. It might be for just this sort of thing?
When I popped the Iron Man disc in my PS3, I was given a choice whether to download the BD-Live content or not...
Here is the problem I see with drivers in a Linuxer user vs Windows user scenario:
Windows user: Buys a new hardware item at their local store, goes home and installs said hardware.
One of two things will happen:
1. Windows already has drivers for the hardware and the new hardware is up and running.
2. Windows has no drivers for the new hardware and brings up it's add new hardware wizard. The user pops in the CD that came with the hardware and the wizard begins installing the driver. After the driver is installed, a reboot may be required, then the hardware is ready to be used.
Linux User: Buys same hardware from same local store, goes home and installs the hardware:
One of four things will happen:
1. His linux distro already has drivers for it and a hotplug routine auto-loads it, just like option 1 for the windows user, the hardware is ready to use.
2. The kernel currently installed does not have drivers for it and he has to install a new kernel to support the hardware. Depending the distro, this can be as easy as having the package manager install it or as complicated (for some) as compiling a new kernel manually.
3. The kernel currently installed does not have drivers for it, but there is a module available through his distro, but requires a newer kernel, and we're back at installing or re-compiling the kernel.
4. There are no drivers for the hardware and the user is left with either trying something like NDISWrapper or taking it back and try to find a similar product that is supported.
Being the user of a source-based distribution I have no problem re-compiling the kernel, but the average person won't touch the kernel with a 10-foot pole.
What would it take so that your everyday user could go buy a product, stick in the vendor-supplied CD, have it install a driver that would either work immediately or after a reboot.
I know that part of the answer is the speed at which the linux kernel is being developed. However I think what's holding back the every day user from using Linux, and vendors from providing linux drivers on cd is that there currently isn't a unified way for the user to pop in the vendor's CD and have the new hardware working in 5-10 minutes without having to do anything else.
I don't think there's a way to do it, again since the kernel development is moving so fast and not everyone is going to have the same 2.6.x kernel, some still use 2.4.x for that matter.
The only way I could see this work is if it were possible to have drivers work throughout the lifecycle of a major kernel version.
For example: Instead of having to compile new drivers for every 2.6.x release, drivers originally compiled on a 2.6.10 kernel would still work on a 2.6.17 kernel and you wouldn't have to re-compile drivers again until 2.7/2.8 came out.
I don't like Ubuntu either, I tried to use it, I really have. I even tried kubuntu since I've been using KDE more lately. I just don't like the way it's setup and I don't like what they did with root.
Give me Gentoo any day or Fedora for a faster setup.
I try both Gnome and KDE whenever a new version comes out. I think Gnome has a much cleaner look, but the spatial thing sucks rotten eggs. With KDE on the other hand, the interface seems klunky at times, however things like KIOSlaves just rocks! Sometimes I wish we could combine them into either a GDE or a Knome... Seriously, for me I like Gnome's interface (with spatial turned off) better than KDE's, but I like what KDE has under the hood better than Gnome.
Luke!!! It's a Trap!!!
Won't blackdown java (http://www.blackdown.org) work with it on linux?