To say that H/W support sucks in linux is an old line that is overused. Sure, craptastic H/W vendors arn't supported, but that is few and far between, like Broadcom, TI. Lets talk TRUE breadth of H/W support, and architectures. When was the last windows build for Alpha, or Sparc, or PowerPC?
Sure Linux supports more cpu/system architectures than Windows, but folks are talking about mainstream PC hardware here (anandtech.com). How many people run Sparc or PowerPC at home? (I happen to have both, but no Alpha.)
Linux has made a lot progress on supporting mainstream PC hardware, no question about it. Kudos to those driver developers! Howver, Windows is still better in general as far as I can see: easier to config, all features are enabled, etc.
We can blame the vendors: closed source, incompetent Linux driver programmer, blah, blah, on the other hand, I suspect it's also true that Windows provides more stable, rigid, easy to use device driver APIs, and there's more incentive to develope drivers for Windows because of the much larger market share.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
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In most cases it's irrelevant. Most hardware produced by Sun, HP and Apple has PCI slots just like everything else so normal 'PC hardware' works in them just fine as long as you have a driver.
Windows is only better because the burden is placed on the hardware manufacturer. A lot of manufacturers work on Linux drivers too, but after the initial inclusion in the kernel anyone who has the hardware can submit fixes. And usually if hardware isn't supported by Linux it's not worth supporting anyway. The Broadcom wifi card don't even have a hardware MAC, the people reverse engineering the things had to write a softmac module. They're the new WinModem.
There's nothing to suspect, Linux kernel developers have always said that the kernel API is in a constant state of flux and the only way to have an easily maintainable driver is to GPL it and get it in the kernel so that the kernel devs can take care of fixing it when they change something.
Place the burden on hardware vendor and have better drivers, sounds good to me.
Firstly, device vendors are the ones who can make the best driver, especially complicated and newly developed devices, because they have all the specs and know inside-out about their device,
they also have the incentive to make better drivers, otherwise their device won't sell.
Secondly, vendors for business reasons don't not want to open the specs. Like it or not, that's the business model many vendors are using today.
Do many Windows users complain about Nvidia/ATI not opening their spec and there's no opensource implementation of those drivers on Windows? (some do, most don't)
Or do Nvidia/ATI complain about Windows placing the "burden" on them?
I use "suspect" because I don't know if the sentiment is changing or not. I certainly heard Linux is under pressure from biggest business supporters to change that attitude a little bit (at least make some core interfaces stable).
Anyway, that's the choice kernel developers made, and they live with the consequence, either good ones or bad ones.
What's clear is many vendors don't like that policy and won't GPL the driver, they may loose the Linux market as a result, it's their business decision.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
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This doesn't hold water, I've seen some majorly crappy Windows drivers in my day.
And like it or not those vendors won't be able to support Linux eventually if that holds true. Releasing binary-only drivers like nVidia and ATI do now is already a legally grey area and while Linus himself isn't too overzealous about it there are kernel developers like gregkh and Arjan van de Ven. Infact the latter started a thread on lkml a week ago called "Linux in a binary world... a doomsday scenario", give it a read.
Linux doesn't respond to pressure from businesses, if anything it makes the developers less receptive to them. For an example find any of the threads involving Luben Tuikov from Adaptec.
Linux started out with 0 commercial support and I'd say it's done pretty well so far. And many vendors have no problem releasing GPL'd drivers. If you look through the code you'll see many contributions from companies like Intel, CoRAID, Veritas, Qualcomm, IBM, Cirrus Logic, SGI, Cyclades, Digi International, EMC, Emulex, HP, Oracle, Adaptec, Novell, etc. And that was just a quick perusal of half of the MAINTAINERS file, I'm sure there are more contributions that aren't mentioned in there.
I've seen lots of Windows users complain about creative drivers crashing their computer.. Never been a problem for me.
I've seen plenty of Windows defenders blame crappy drivers on instabilities. In Linux the only drivers that cause cronic instabilities for me have been closed source or were beta.
Think about it.. your buying a device who manufacturers refuse to tell you how to operate it. That you should just shut up and take what they give you because most other people don't care.
I think that it's not manufacturers hiding 'IP'. I think it's manufacturers hiding 'problems'.
I think it's ATI and Nvidia having themselves so wrapped up in cross-licensing and patent scemes that they couldn't even release drivers as open source _even_if_they_wanted_to. Their 'IP' doesn't exist. I also think that it's ATI and Nvidia hiding the fact that a hell of a lot more things go on in the drivers, and less goes on in the hardware then they'd like people to know.
I also think that manufacturers don't like to have people know that the intentionally ship broken hardware and compinsate for it heavily in the drivers with work arounds. I don't think that they want you to know that their 'RAID' cards on the motherboards are actually completely software based either.
I don't think that broadcom wants you to know that they've virtually eliminated all the hardware out of their wifi cards and has replaced the proccessor by software emulation.
You know why I know that the IP argument is mostly crap?
Because for every single peice of hardware.. from Wireless devices, to sound cards, to motherboard controllers.. There are plenty of hardware manufacturers that do support Linux and do release documentation on their items. And yet they are still completely competative.
The only exception is higher end video cards. And this is only because there are only 2 companies and they both suck.
Intel, on the other hand, who makes the most common video cards in existance, released full documentation on their chipsets.
Seriously. Linux support is a indicator of higher quality hardware.. this isn't because they have more 'IP' then anything else.. it's mostly because they have less to hide.
Hmm, I have an open mind and I merely point out the issues ( the cons, if you would) I see around Linux's development model.
Those "issues" in some cases become 'advantages", but I see them more as issues in this context of bringing the best mainstream PC hardware support to the OS.
As I said, both kernel developers and HW vendors live with the consequence of their choice.
Your opinions are different from mine, fine. I am not talking down anything. But I don't like "this is crap and that sucks" conversation, and I don't like the same old "Creative drivers crashing their computer" stories.
One more note on the vendors, the long business contributors you listed, they support Linux and provide their drivers because
1) They see Linux as a business opportunity, and a platform to sell their HW/SW/Service.
2) The spec or drivers they open are either not their core business, or it's a commodity business, in other words, there's more business incentive to open than hide.
I agree that many vendors hide dirty details by not opening drivers, and there're competent vendors who love to show the world their superior design,
but let's not deny there're ligitmate reasons for some vendors not want to open their stuff.
All I am saying is, it will help Linux if it embraces both closed and open drivers, and if it does better at creating and maintaining a set of stable, rigid, easy to use APIs for driver devleopers.
Those "issues" in some cases become 'advantages", but I see them more as issues in this context of bringing the best mainstream PC hardware support to the OS.
As I said, both kernel developers and HW vendors live with the consequence of their choice.
Your opinions are different from mine, fine. I am not talking down anything. But I don't like "this is crap and that sucks" conversation, and I don't like the same old "Creative drivers crashing their computer" stories.
One more note on the vendors, the long business contributors you listed, they support Linux and provide their drivers because
1) They see Linux as a business opportunity, and a platform to sell their HW/SW/Service.
2) The spec or drivers they open are either not their core business, or it's a commodity business, in other words, there's more business incentive to open than hide.
I agree that many vendors hide dirty details by not opening drivers, and there're competent vendors who love to show the world their superior design,
but let's not deny there're ligitmate reasons for some vendors not want to open their stuff.
All I am saying is, it will help Linux if it embraces both closed and open drivers, and if it does better at creating and maintaining a set of stable, rigid, easy to use APIs for driver devleopers.
I haven't read any of the other posts, but i'll tell you why I can't stick with it:
After a fresh installation, I can't just simply choose display properties and enable multi-monitor support.
Driver support for my ATI card. What a pain to install...or install anything for that matter.
I don't want to use the command line. Period.
After a fresh installation, I can't just simply choose display properties and enable multi-monitor support.
Driver support for my ATI card. What a pain to install...or install anything for that matter.
I don't want to use the command line. Period.
Nothinman
Elite Member
- Sep 14, 2001
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The only 'mainstream' hardware that's not supported well right now is Broadcom wifi and that's being worked on. There's some other products like HP All-In-WinPrinters, probably some video capture cards and other crap I can't think of, but most of them aren't worth buying anyway. Those WinPrinters are the worst things HP sells no matter what OS you run and I don't even know anyone who makes video capture cards besides ATI and Hauppauge but I know a lot of the Hauppauge stuff is supported and I think some of the AIW models are, so as long as you do a little research before buying it you'll be fine.
Is it the best situation to be in? No, but it's better than the alternatives.
Whether you like it or not it's true, Creative's drivers have sucked from day 1. It took a long time to rewrite the emu10k1 driver to make it work well when they GPL'd it however many years ago. And you can't deny that there is a lot of cheap-o crap hardware out there.
Yes and the other vendors can sod off for all that most of the Linux kernel developers care. Either you care enough to release a GPL'd driver (or specs) or you don't. nVidia and ATI are the best examples of "OMG you can't see our IP!!!", but do you think it would kill them to release specs on how to drive the 2D portion of the card? Most people would be happy with good X performance Xv support for video, but they won't even do that and the OSS 'nv' Xorg driver can't do Xv if you're running X in a high resolution for some unknown reason.
And what's wrong with putting it down a level in firmware? The wifi manufacturers seem to be content with that. It lets you hide all of the nasty radio controls in a binary blob and still release a GPL'd driver. Not everyone in the world is happy with that either, but for right now it seems they're the minority.
So far it hasn't helped any of the BSDs. They're license has no restrictions so writing closed source drivers isn't an issue and yet they don't have anywhere near the commercial backing as Linux. Now that OpenSolaris has been released under the CDDL we'll find out for sure how bad it matters since it already has name recognition. I don't know all of the terms of the CDDL, but AIUI the CDDL does allow for binary modules and so far the developers haven't been shown as overzealous license freaks like some of the GPL people.
The main problem is that so far it seems like the CDDL is incompatible with the GPL and the wording of the GPL says you can't even link with more restrictive projects. Since Sun's libc is under the CDDL it would be illegal to distribute OpenSolaris with GPL'd anything. I think you can work around it by providing the GPL'd apps on a seperate CD or something, but that's not very convenient for the enduser.
Interesting you bring up the GPL/CDDL/BSD issue. I always try to avoid it on a public forum
I did a google search on this topic ( I read lots of stuff but never bookmarked. ) and here're some relevant posts:
From Erase Benson, apprently one of the leaders in GNU/Solaris project (Nexenta OS):
http://lwn.net/Articles/159253/
He tried to defend this project when it received lots of criticism and even legal threat.
To be honest I am very impressed with their work but also feel they're kinda "close" for an opensource project, there seems to be a hidden agenda ( call this a FUD if you like
).LWN.net 's comment on this issue:
http://lwn.net/Articles/159248/
From Ian Murdock, one of the Debian founders, commenting on building GPL software on top of other non-GPL OSS (not the other way around):
http://ianmurdock.com/?p=278
The most important quote:
(this is in the discussion followed the blog).
These're off topic for this thread. We can discuss in a separate thread if you would.
Let's hear more folks tell "Why don't YOU use *nix, or why have you switched back?".
kernel doesn't have a stable 'ABI' for kernel drivers because having support closed drivers is entirely counter productive to having a stable and flexible OS.
As long as the drivers are open source it's a non-issue.
A example of having a stable ABI for a unix system is Solaris.. and it's not helping them out much at this time. They had a free Unix with stable ABI. You can take a driver from Solaris 2.5 and have it work on Solaris 10 if you feel like it.
And guess what? All the drivers that worked for Linux 2.0 work for 2.6 (95% of the time). This is because they are open source and not only they work, but they have all the improvements in performance and design that has happenned since then. This is why Linux supports more hardware then any other operating system out there.
But you end up with issues like Window's USB system. You have 3 different types of USB drivers, you have 3 different USB subsystems. This is because Microsoft released one version of USB support, and it sucked.. they released a new version of USB support for a new OS, and it ended up sucking also. Then they finally got one that so far works out well so far. So with Windows XP you not only have 1 set of USB drivers that works well, you have to support 2 seperate generations of USB device drivers that are proven to be bad.
That's a huge effort of code, money, and development man hours. This is something that Microsoft can afford.. This is something that nobody else can do.
Solaris for x86 simply has crap support for hardware, despite it's rock solid "stable" driver ABI. OS X is only designed to work on a tiny amount of hardware that is designed and sold by the same people that programmed it and some small amount of stuff besides that (they still don't support older hardware very well sometimes).
And then you have Linux that supports more hardware then anything else, on more platforms then anything else, and at less developement cost then anything else. This is because it's open source. And the USB device drivers are generally faster in Linux then in Windows because like Windows, Linux has had 3 major revisions of it's USB system.. but unlike Windows all the drivers support the latest and greatest version.
It's all about trade offs.
As long as the drivers are open source it's a non-issue.
A example of having a stable ABI for a unix system is Solaris.. and it's not helping them out much at this time. They had a free Unix with stable ABI. You can take a driver from Solaris 2.5 and have it work on Solaris 10 if you feel like it.
And guess what? All the drivers that worked for Linux 2.0 work for 2.6 (95% of the time). This is because they are open source and not only they work, but they have all the improvements in performance and design that has happenned since then. This is why Linux supports more hardware then any other operating system out there.
But you end up with issues like Window's USB system. You have 3 different types of USB drivers, you have 3 different USB subsystems. This is because Microsoft released one version of USB support, and it sucked.. they released a new version of USB support for a new OS, and it ended up sucking also. Then they finally got one that so far works out well so far. So with Windows XP you not only have 1 set of USB drivers that works well, you have to support 2 seperate generations of USB device drivers that are proven to be bad.
That's a huge effort of code, money, and development man hours. This is something that Microsoft can afford.. This is something that nobody else can do.
Solaris for x86 simply has crap support for hardware, despite it's rock solid "stable" driver ABI. OS X is only designed to work on a tiny amount of hardware that is designed and sold by the same people that programmed it and some small amount of stuff besides that (they still don't support older hardware very well sometimes).
And then you have Linux that supports more hardware then anything else, on more platforms then anything else, and at less developement cost then anything else. This is because it's open source. And the USB device drivers are generally faster in Linux then in Windows because like Windows, Linux has had 3 major revisions of it's USB system.. but unlike Windows all the drivers support the latest and greatest version.
It's all about trade offs.
Solaris for x86 has "crap" (did I tell you I don't like the word?) support for hardware because until recently, nobody takes it seriously as an x86 OS,
and the market for Solaris "desktop" is extremely small. While Linux basically started from PC/desktop, and have been developed primarily on that platform.
You would be surprised how well it supports x86 platform _today_, and how many desktop/laptop oriented projects are making progress on OpenSolaris.
As far as I can tell, Sun/Solaris developers still hold the "stable" driver ABI as a core value and "constrains".
There was a heated debate on this issue at the early days of the project, it was ugly.
Go here, and for your taste, search for the word "Rubbish".
Yes, I can see both sides, there's advantage and disadvantage. So we finally agree: It's all about trade offs.
and the market for Solaris "desktop" is extremely small. While Linux basically started from PC/desktop, and have been developed primarily on that platform.
You would be surprised how well it supports x86 platform _today_, and how many desktop/laptop oriented projects are making progress on OpenSolaris.
As far as I can tell, Sun/Solaris developers still hold the "stable" driver ABI as a core value and "constrains".
There was a heated debate on this issue at the early days of the project, it was ugly.
Go here, and for your taste, search for the word "Rubbish".
Yes, I can see both sides, there's advantage and disadvantage. So we finally agree: It's all about trade offs.
Replace 'crap' with 'extemely limited to the point were it's almost worthless' (yes, it's a exageration) if you'd like. All I want to do is get the point across.
Linux may have started out on a PC platform, but it also supports most of Sun's hardware also... As well as Apple's hardware (m68k, as well as G3, G4, G5 computers), and IBM's (from embedded PC stuff to S/390's), and HP's (from the superdome on down), and etc etc.
OpenSolaris's greatest acheivement will probably be that it ends up supporting all the OSS software originally built on Linux. Then it will actually be a viable OS for most people.
Which would be nice. I don't like having Linux being the only game in town. FreeBSD and OpenBSD are also pretty nice too.
Plus with OpenSolaris having the stable ABI and all that that will give a place for all the 'must have stable ABI' to go to and have fun with. After all people like 4Front (the opensound system people) need to have a customer base to sell drivers to. (I'll probably end up using it when I get around to it.. right now there is absolutely no hope that Solaris will ever support my computer hardware as it is)
edit:
btw for anybody else.. this is just for internal ABI for Linux. With external ABI Linux is very stable. Software compiled on the Linux kernel from years and years ago will still run on Linux as long as the rest of the (non-linux-kernel) dependancies are in order.
Do you like the picture menu at McDonalds too?
Using the CLI to get stuff done is good, why? Because it's faster, easier, more consistent, not gimped by what the gui developer thought you might need, etc.
how do you look up your IP in windows? How do you release and renew it? All in gui, well thats fine, linux isn't for you then. Hell, there are only 2 reasons I run X. One is for web (firefox) and the other is for multiple terminals
sourceninja
Diamond Member
- Mar 8, 2005
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Dont get into windows server administration. Sometimes you even have to write batch scripts!
But seriously, you could use gedit to edit most of your config files, and even use a run dialog box to run command line commands. Then you would never need the comand line.
Its a simple fact that most people love the command line after getting used to it. This is why no one has really taken the time to work on gui replacements for linux command line utils. Plus a lot of the utils would be more complicated in a gui enviroment or would be unable to provide the same level of detailed feedback without being a gui window that just prints out the command line.
I use the command line every day, at work on windows and at home on linux. I have written tons of scripts to make my life more livable. If you dont like the command line, I suggest you never try to do any serious work with your computer. Windows, Mac or linux.
Those of you saying that only junk hardware isn't supported are missing the point - with Windows, I can go to Best Buy and buy any device in the store, knowing it'll work. I don't have to worry about questions like "does this Intel wireless card have a Broadcom chipset?" When Winmodemesque cards are cheaper, what do you think people are going to be more likely to buy anyway?
nVidia has opened enough for us to have open source/free drivers for basic functionality. In fact, they wrote the open source/free driver. That's fine with me. If I want more than the basics I don't mind using their binary drivers.
But it makes no sense for other parts of the system. There are plenty of wireless cards that _are_ open. There are even more ethernet cards. And plenty of SCSI, RAID, SATA, IDE, etc. parts are open enough for drivers to be written. Why are some companies hiding programming interfaces (which give nothing away as far as secret technologies)?
Support Taiwan.
I donno. I expect that people would do the same thing they do for their Macs and go "Does this thing work in Ubuntu?" to the store salesman.
Once the average store salesman is able to answer that in a constructive manner then Linux would be ready for the desktop.
As it is now the simple fact that in order to use Linux you have to format away Windows and burn or order install cdroms going to be a bigger barrier then anything else.
So if your capable of actually installing your own OS, or are building a computer then your going to have to practice some discernment on what hardware you buy.
After all we all know that even if your building a computer for Windows going out and buying the cheapest peice of crap hardware you can find is a recipy for disaster.
And when you try to switch to 64bit Windows those drivers on the CD are worthless and you have to pray that the manufacturer decides to grant you new ones. I've thrown out cards because the maker lost interest or went out of business.
As Drag was saying, a binary API is a hack around not having access to the operating system's source code. It seems normal because that's what a closed MS Windows system has always forced on us. The way Linux does drivers is inconvenient for hardware makers who don't want to share code, but it's fantastic for users. You want 64bit drivers, just a recompiled and *poof* you got 'em. Want 128 bit? Done. Want then for another processor family? Done.
I've replaced motherboards on Linux boxes with completely different video, audio, and network chipsets and had them boot ready to go.
so much for not becoming a linux vs windows thread.
we here at anand must be geeks, over half use linux
we here at anand must be geeks, over half use linux
no shockwave support without a seperate program. at least, thats what stopped me 2 years ago. may be different now for all i know.
children have to have their cartoonnetwork and neopets.
children have to have their cartoonnetwork and neopets.
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