4 ms·

Yeah, because on Linux the community has to support the hardware because the manufacturer doesn't even bother. Sounds way better...

hkt 8y ago
I would like to inform you that it does in fact work really rather well. I write this on a laptop running Debian Linux which I use for work. It's great. I also use a machine running Debian Linux for my personal computing needs, but prefer to separate those concerns a bit. I can confirm the community's support is excellent though.
- snaky 8y ago
  Actually the support from community is often much better than from the vendor. Especially for the older hardware, which works perfectly fine, but just have no drivers for modern Windows. The main problem with hardware support in Linux is there is no up-to-date source of information about what works and what doesn't (and everything in between). You can usually find info about particular piece of hardware, but it lacks the main purpose of such a database - to make more people to buy more open hardware.
- diminoten 8y ago
  It doesn't work at all, for the thousands of pieces of hardware that simply don't work on Linux, or work poorly. Further, it doesn't work at all from an economics standpoint. There is zero incentive driving the community to support every iteration of every type of hardware other than personal need, and if you're suggesting that anyone who needs something has to go out and build a driver themselves, please let me know who your dealer is because I want to be as high as you. As for, "the community is better than the manufacturer" try having an outage over the holidays, and see how your community reacts to, "help me or my business fails".
  - Daishiman 8y ago
    I see your _thousands_ of pieces of hardware that don't work and raise you all the hardware written for old versions of Windows whose drivers no longer work on new versions yet still work _perfectly_ on Linux. See: professional audio and video gear, perfectly good network cards.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      You need to match my bet in order to raise it, and you didn't even come remotely close.
  - petepete 8y ago
    Also, note in my post I referred specifically to 'accompanying software'. Drivers that work with the OS in question are to be expected in the commercial software world. So many hardware companies fell into the trap of making steaming piles like ATI's CCC[0], Creative's SoundBlaster Control Panel[1], ASUS's Control erm.. thing[2]. And it's not just gaming peripherals, buy a computer from HP and see how many HP-specific utilities clog up the system tray. Same goes for most of the other big players. I just want the OS and the drivers thanks. [0] https://www.screenshots-archive.com/ati-catalyst-control-center-digital-panel https://www.screenshots-archive.com/ati-catalyst-control-cen... [1] https://i.imgur.com/POZVXQj.jpg https://i.imgur.com/POZVXQj.jpg [2] https://img.purch.com/o/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGFwdG9wbWFnLmNvbS9pbWFnZXMvdXBsb2Fkcy9wcHJlc3MvNDUyMTQvc2NyZWVuc2hvdCAoMikucG5n https://img.purch.com/o/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGFwdG9wbWFnLmNvbS9p...
  - hkt 8y ago
    > As for, "the community is better than the manufacturer" try having an outage over the holidays, and see how your community reacts to, "help me or my business fails". And for those people there are companies like Canonical, who derive their product from Debian. There is also Redhat, SUSE, etc. Lots of commercial options grow up around these vibrant communities to fill the gaps that they sometimes leave. This is an unmitigatedly good thing.
yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
OpenBSD's official FAQ has this to say about Flash: Adobe's Flash plugin is distributed in binary form only, and they do not provide a native OpenBSD version. Considering their security record, we thank them for this neglect. The situation is equivalent here; given the kind of software that hardware manufacturers tend to write, I'm quite happy to take volunteer efforts over what they produce.
- DaiPlusPlus 8y ago
  Every BSD system I’ve used never had X installed, let alone a web-browser - but now I’m curious what a text-mode Flash player would be like.
  - NullPrefix 8y ago
    You don't need X to browse web. There's Lynx. There's also AAlib, which could help with rendering in text mode.
  - yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
    Maybe your use case didn't involve X, but BSDs do make a decent (graphical) desktop.
SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago
I'm actually struggling to find any kind of comprehensive list, but I'll point out that I've used Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA first-party drivers in Linux over the years. I'm sure there are countless others.
squarefoot 8y ago
"Sounds way better..." Because it is. Name one, just one, hardware manufacturer you can reach by email to report a bug and expect both your mail to be replied and the bug to be fixed. And without being charged a dime in the process (well deserved yet voluntary donations aside). No thanks, I'll stay with the Linux community any day.
- diminoten 8y ago
  It's not, not even remotely. You clearly haven't actually lived day-to-day with Linux or you'd know how buggy and unreliable the random drivers for less-than-popular hardware actually is. Further, you've clearly never had a critical outage happen during off hours. Try running to the community when your job is on the line at 3AM Christmas Day, let me know how responsive they are to you then. You get the quality you pay for, and while the open source community is wonderful and amazing, it's done by people working for free, and subject to the whims of those people, which makes it A) unreliable B) inconsistent, and C) lower quality, on average.
  - squarefoot 8y ago
    "Try running to the community when your job is on the line at 3AM Christmas Day" That's a bit extreme. Of course throwing a shitload of money at support contracts will give you helpdesks answering during holidays and drones flocking into the data center, but that applies only to a very small subset of hw/sw products where any outage can be fatal. The consumer market is just a bit different though.
    - diminoten 8y ago
      It's the opposite of extreme, it's reality for every company out there, and it's not a "very small subset" it's the majority of money. Besides, if your shit can't work when it counts, what good is it?

hkt 8y ago

I would like to inform you that it does in fact work really rather well. I write this on a laptop running Debian Linux which I use for work. It's great. I also use a machine running Debian Linux for my personal computing needs, but prefer to separate those concerns a bit. I can confirm the community's support is excellent though.

snaky 8y ago
Actually the support from community is often much better than from the vendor. Especially for the older hardware, which works perfectly fine, but just have no drivers for modern Windows. The main problem with hardware support in Linux is there is no up-to-date source of information about what works and what doesn't (and everything in between). You can usually find info about particular piece of hardware, but it lacks the main purpose of such a database - to make more people to buy more open hardware.
diminoten 8y ago
It doesn't work at all, for the thousands of pieces of hardware that simply don't work on Linux, or work poorly. Further, it doesn't work at all from an economics standpoint. There is zero incentive driving the community to support every iteration of every type of hardware other than personal need, and if you're suggesting that anyone who needs something has to go out and build a driver themselves, please let me know who your dealer is because I want to be as high as you. As for, "the community is better than the manufacturer" try having an outage over the holidays, and see how your community reacts to, "help me or my business fails".
- Daishiman 8y ago
  I see your _thousands_ of pieces of hardware that don't work and raise you all the hardware written for old versions of Windows whose drivers no longer work on new versions yet still work _perfectly_ on Linux. See: professional audio and video gear, perfectly good network cards.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    You need to match my bet in order to raise it, and you didn't even come remotely close.
- petepete 8y ago
  Also, note in my post I referred specifically to 'accompanying software'. Drivers that work with the OS in question are to be expected in the commercial software world. So many hardware companies fell into the trap of making steaming piles like ATI's CCC[0], Creative's SoundBlaster Control Panel[1], ASUS's Control erm.. thing[2]. And it's not just gaming peripherals, buy a computer from HP and see how many HP-specific utilities clog up the system tray. Same goes for most of the other big players. I just want the OS and the drivers thanks. [0] https://www.screenshots-archive.com/ati-catalyst-control-center-digital-panel https://www.screenshots-archive.com/ati-catalyst-control-cen... [1] https://i.imgur.com/POZVXQj.jpg https://i.imgur.com/POZVXQj.jpg [2] https://img.purch.com/o/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGFwdG9wbWFnLmNvbS9pbWFnZXMvdXBsb2Fkcy9wcHJlc3MvNDUyMTQvc2NyZWVuc2hvdCAoMikucG5n https://img.purch.com/o/aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cubGFwdG9wbWFnLmNvbS9p...
- hkt 8y ago
  > As for, "the community is better than the manufacturer" try having an outage over the holidays, and see how your community reacts to, "help me or my business fails". And for those people there are companies like Canonical, who derive their product from Debian. There is also Redhat, SUSE, etc. Lots of commercial options grow up around these vibrant communities to fill the gaps that they sometimes leave. This is an unmitigatedly good thing.

yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago

OpenBSD's official FAQ has this to say about Flash: Adobe's Flash plugin is distributed in binary form only, and they do not provide a native OpenBSD version. Considering their security record, we thank them for this neglect. The situation is equivalent here; given the kind of software that hardware manufacturers tend to write, I'm quite happy to take volunteer efforts over what they produce.

DaiPlusPlus 8y ago
Every BSD system I’ve used never had X installed, let alone a web-browser - but now I’m curious what a text-mode Flash player would be like.
- NullPrefix 8y ago
  You don't need X to browse web. There's Lynx. There's also AAlib, which could help with rendering in text mode.
- yjftsjthsd-h 8y ago
  Maybe your use case didn't involve X, but BSDs do make a decent (graphical) desktop.

SmellyGeekBoy 8y ago

I'm actually struggling to find any kind of comprehensive list, but I'll point out that I've used Intel, AMD, and NVIDIA first-party drivers in Linux over the years. I'm sure there are countless others.

squarefoot 8y ago

"Sounds way better..." Because it is. Name one, just one, hardware manufacturer you can reach by email to report a bug and expect both your mail to be replied and the bug to be fixed. And without being charged a dime in the process (well deserved yet voluntary donations aside). No thanks, I'll stay with the Linux community any day.

diminoten 8y ago
It's not, not even remotely. You clearly haven't actually lived day-to-day with Linux or you'd know how buggy and unreliable the random drivers for less-than-popular hardware actually is. Further, you've clearly never had a critical outage happen during off hours. Try running to the community when your job is on the line at 3AM Christmas Day, let me know how responsive they are to you then. You get the quality you pay for, and while the open source community is wonderful and amazing, it's done by people working for free, and subject to the whims of those people, which makes it A) unreliable B) inconsistent, and C) lower quality, on average.
- squarefoot 8y ago
  "Try running to the community when your job is on the line at 3AM Christmas Day" That's a bit extreme. Of course throwing a shitload of money at support contracts will give you helpdesks answering during holidays and drones flocking into the data center, but that applies only to a very small subset of hw/sw products where any outage can be fatal. The consumer market is just a bit different though.
  - diminoten 8y ago
    It's the opposite of extreme, it's reality for every company out there, and it's not a "very small subset" it's the majority of money. Besides, if your shit can't work when it counts, what good is it?