5 ms·

I use linux as well, but wifi drivers are always an issue, as well as sound. Sure, things are much better, but I think most criticisms of linux not being "out

I use linux as well, but wifi drivers are always an issue, as well as sound. Sure, things are much better, but I think most criticisms of linux not being "out of the box" ready are valid.

harry8 10y ago
Not as a comparison to apple. You want osx you buy the hardware they specify. Buy a laptop known to work out of the box with linux and it works out of the box with linux. Try it on any random laptop, ymmv. Not many of them work as badly as non-apple blessed machines with osx. It's pretty rare I can't get something useful out of any old laptop with a linux install. Is hackintosh still even a thing?
- seanp2k2 10y ago
  Hackintosh is still very much a thing. I had a great 10.5 desktop with Kalyway years ago. I recently tried to get Yosemite or something working with a Core-i5 Sandy Bridge PC and it did not go well due to graphics drivers.
- NegativeLatency 10y ago
  I have a hackintosh as my main computer. It works ok. Graphics drivers are sometimes a pain/ buggy. iMessages doesn't work unless you want to do a lot of work. However it is faster/more expandable than most macs available today.
voidlogic 10y ago
>but wifi drivers are always an issue This is not true if you have Intel wifi hardware, which is a lot (a majority?) of laptops.
- herbst 10y ago
  Its not true these days anyway as you can just use the windows drivers if everything else fails. Which works perfectly except the initial 10 minute setup.
  - pantalaimon 10y ago
    > Its not true these days anyway as you can just use the windows drivers if everything else fails. Is ndiswrapper still being developed? It only supports Windows XP drivers and crashed the kernel when I tried to get my TL-WN8200ND (RTL8192CU) working with it on 64 bit Ubuntu 16.04
    - herbst 10y ago
      I am pretty sure i got a win7 driver working without any further issues. I could be wrong tho
etimberg 10y ago
Just set up linux on a machine recently with an Intel network chipset. Mint had no driver that supported it so I ended up having to build from source. I can't imagine trying to understand that process if one is not a developer
- stormbrew 10y ago
  This is... very strange. What Intel chipset was it that didn't have a driver built into the kernel? That's usually your safest bet.
  - etimberg 10y ago
    I think the issue was that I was installing from a Mint 17 bootable USB but I needed the driver to be able to upgrade to 18. The ethernet controller is an Intel I219-LM (rev 31). The driver source that worked was https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/15817/Intel-Network-Adapter-Driver-for-PCI-E-Gigabit-Network-Connections-under-Linux- https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/15817/Intel-Networ... What I had hoped would happen during install was that the kernel would fall back to some simple driver, kinda like the simple VGA drivers, and then find the correct driver and install that.
    - stormbrew 10y ago
      Sadly there's no basic compatibility layer for NICs, except in so far as many small manufacturers emulate some specific well known NIC. Intel doesn't really do that, though. But they do tend to update the drivers in linux pretty quickly themselves, which is what makes them attractive for linux use.
- herbst 10y ago
  FYI mint sucks with these things. Badly. Their driver support seems more random than anything. That said i am pretty sure i remember some kind of bloat kernel in their repos which ships with all the relevant stuff.
  - 10y ago
OJFord 10y ago
> wifi drivers are always an issue I keep hearing this, but I've never had an issue (Arch, Macbook Air 2013). On the contrary, I have endless problems in macOS with WiFi where some networks won't work if I don't specify a DNS (I use Google's, but I assume that doesn't make a difference) - and others won't work if I do! (Meanwhile, other devices are fine doing the opposite.)
- khedoros1 10y ago
  The only wifi device I've had trouble with in recent memory is an Edimax EW-7811Un USB dongle. It "works", but the best transfer rates I've ever gotten out of it were in the hundreds of kilobytes/s, paired with up to 5 minutes of uninterrupted connectivity. There are problem devices out there, but more and more they're the exception, rather than the rule.
- danieldk 10y ago
  I have a TP-Link Archer USB 802.11ac Wifi USB stick. It definitely does not work out of the box. You have to get and compile some driver from GitHub using dkms. After some stable Ubuntu updates Wifi just stopped working. Never had a problem with macOS Wifi since 10.5.x.
  - hedora 10y ago
    You need to check the chipset before you buy. Intel and Atheros have a good reputation for Linux support. Broadcom does not. I heard broadcom is leaving the wifi market soon. If so, this should get better in short order.
    - danieldk 10y ago
      The thesis was that Wifi is simply not a problem anymore on Linux, which is false. Wifi is not a problem if you pick the right chipset. However, this has always been true. I was using Wifi without a problem more than a decade ago, when Intersil Prism (Orinico) was very well supported on Linux and BSD. But it's currently not the case that you can take an arbitrary Windows or Apple machine, install Linux and have a working Wifi. It's very much hit and miss.
aidenn0 10y ago
I've literally never had a sound card that didn't work on Linux since alsa stabilized in the 2.4 days. WiFi drivers are much less likely to work out-of-the-box; usually you need a firmware file which may require futzing with the windows driver installation package.

I use linux as well, but wifi drivers are always an issue, as well as sound. Sure, things are much better, but I think most criticisms of linux not being "out of the box" ready are valid.

harry8 10y ago

Not as a comparison to apple. You want osx you buy the hardware they specify. Buy a laptop known to work out of the box with linux and it works out of the box with linux. Try it on any random laptop, ymmv. Not many of them work as badly as non-apple blessed machines with osx. It's pretty rare I can't get something useful out of any old laptop with a linux install. Is hackintosh still even a thing?

seanp2k2 10y ago
Hackintosh is still very much a thing. I had a great 10.5 desktop with Kalyway years ago. I recently tried to get Yosemite or something working with a Core-i5 Sandy Bridge PC and it did not go well due to graphics drivers.
NegativeLatency 10y ago
I have a hackintosh as my main computer. It works ok. Graphics drivers are sometimes a pain/ buggy. iMessages doesn't work unless you want to do a lot of work. However it is faster/more expandable than most macs available today.

voidlogic 10y ago

>but wifi drivers are always an issue This is not true if you have Intel wifi hardware, which is a lot (a majority?) of laptops.

herbst 10y ago
Its not true these days anyway as you can just use the windows drivers if everything else fails. Which works perfectly except the initial 10 minute setup.
- pantalaimon 10y ago
  > Its not true these days anyway as you can just use the windows drivers if everything else fails. Is ndiswrapper still being developed? It only supports Windows XP drivers and crashed the kernel when I tried to get my TL-WN8200ND (RTL8192CU) working with it on 64 bit Ubuntu 16.04
  - herbst 10y ago
    I am pretty sure i got a win7 driver working without any further issues. I could be wrong tho

etimberg 10y ago

Just set up linux on a machine recently with an Intel network chipset. Mint had no driver that supported it so I ended up having to build from source. I can't imagine trying to understand that process if one is not a developer

stormbrew 10y ago
This is... very strange. What Intel chipset was it that didn't have a driver built into the kernel? That's usually your safest bet.
- etimberg 10y ago
  I think the issue was that I was installing from a Mint 17 bootable USB but I needed the driver to be able to upgrade to 18. The ethernet controller is an Intel I219-LM (rev 31). The driver source that worked was https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/15817/Intel-Network-Adapter-Driver-for-PCI-E-Gigabit-Network-Connections-under-Linux- https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/15817/Intel-Networ... What I had hoped would happen during install was that the kernel would fall back to some simple driver, kinda like the simple VGA drivers, and then find the correct driver and install that.
  - stormbrew 10y ago
    Sadly there's no basic compatibility layer for NICs, except in so far as many small manufacturers emulate some specific well known NIC. Intel doesn't really do that, though. But they do tend to update the drivers in linux pretty quickly themselves, which is what makes them attractive for linux use.
herbst 10y ago
FYI mint sucks with these things. Badly. Their driver support seems more random than anything. That said i am pretty sure i remember some kind of bloat kernel in their repos which ships with all the relevant stuff.
- 10y ago

OJFord 10y ago

> wifi drivers are always an issue I keep hearing this, but I've never had an issue (Arch, Macbook Air 2013). On the contrary, I have endless problems in macOS with WiFi where some networks won't work if I don't specify a DNS (I use Google's, but I assume that doesn't make a difference) - and others won't work if I do! (Meanwhile, other devices are fine doing the opposite.)

khedoros1 10y ago
The only wifi device I've had trouble with in recent memory is an Edimax EW-7811Un USB dongle. It "works", but the best transfer rates I've ever gotten out of it were in the hundreds of kilobytes/s, paired with up to 5 minutes of uninterrupted connectivity. There are problem devices out there, but more and more they're the exception, rather than the rule.
danieldk 10y ago
I have a TP-Link Archer USB 802.11ac Wifi USB stick. It definitely does not work out of the box. You have to get and compile some driver from GitHub using dkms. After some stable Ubuntu updates Wifi just stopped working. Never had a problem with macOS Wifi since 10.5.x.
- hedora 10y ago
  You need to check the chipset before you buy. Intel and Atheros have a good reputation for Linux support. Broadcom does not. I heard broadcom is leaving the wifi market soon. If so, this should get better in short order.
  - danieldk 10y ago
    The thesis was that Wifi is simply not a problem anymore on Linux, which is false. Wifi is not a problem if you pick the right chipset. However, this has always been true. I was using Wifi without a problem more than a decade ago, when Intersil Prism (Orinico) was very well supported on Linux and BSD. But it's currently not the case that you can take an arbitrary Windows or Apple machine, install Linux and have a working Wifi. It's very much hit and miss.

aidenn0 10y ago

I've literally never had a sound card that didn't work on Linux since alsa stabilized in the 2.4 days. WiFi drivers are much less likely to work out-of-the-box; usually you need a firmware file which may require futzing with the windows driver installation package.