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It's funny how a primary criticism of consumer linux is "you'll have trouble running it on any laptop you pick at random." Isn't this an unfair criticism? If yo
by chatmasta 9y ago
It's funny how a primary criticism of consumer linux is "you'll have trouble running it on any laptop you pick at random." Isn't this an unfair criticism? If you apply the same logic to MacOS (only works on one laptop!) or Windows (only works on laptops specifically designed for it), Linux begins to look extremely compatible in comparison.
Linux has demonstrated itself to be compatible with nearly any hardware combination imaginable, to various degrees of usability. It runs on everything from tiny embedded microcontrollers to supercomputers. MacOS and Windows cannot say the same.
It is perfectly valid to criticize the frequency of driver incompatibility. However, this criticism should not be leveled at Linux. It should be directed at the hardware manufacturers who do not release Linux drivers for their products, or the software vendors like Microsoft and Apple, who forego open standards in favor of proprietary protocols.
The fact that hardware vendors can successfully produce and market a "Linux first" laptop shows that those vendors are responsible for any incompatibility in their other products. They've proved they can make compatible hardware, so why don't they do it by default?
- LeifCarrotson 9y ago> or Windows (only works on laptops specifically designed for it) Windows also works well on laptops specifically designed for MacOS. It helps that all the commodity parts that Apple uses were designed for other Windows laptops. Plus, Apple has put some effort into Boot Camp to ensure that Windows can be loaded, and Microsoft has probably spent some effort making sure that Windows runs well on Apple hardware, but that's one example of a machine not designed for Windows which still runs it. Unfortunately, that's basically the only example of a laptop which is not designed for Windows that I can think of. Perhaps the Novena laptop [1] is an example of a laptop not designed for Windows? Are there others? [1]: https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable-devices/novena-a-laptop-with-no-secrets https://spectrum.ieee.org/consumer-electronics/portable-devi...
- chatmasta 9y agoChromeBook would be a good example.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoThat it would, thanks for pointing it out!
- thomastjeffery 9y agoApart from their absolute garbage EFI (not UEFI) implementation, there are no problems with running Linux on anything that runs OS X. As far as EFI goes, Apple does not allow you to boot USB. Apple allows you to boot the OS X installer via firewire, but nothing else. This means your only option to install Linux, Windows, *BSD, etc. is from a CD/DVD or from a new partition on the hdd/ssd. Thankfully, you can shrink the root partition in OS X while running OS X, so there is a way to install Linux without optical media, but it is complicated.