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I'm not so sure. Windows driver model is vastly different than Linux. Linux drivers have to be compiled for every kernel release. Windows drivers that are more

by Osiris 5y ago

I'm not so sure. Windows driver model is vastly different than Linux. Linux drivers have to be compiled for every kernel release. Windows drivers that are more than a decade old can still be installed and work correctly.

sudosysgen 5y ago
DKMS and driver segmentation enables 10 year old drivers to mostly still work on Linux too.
- gsich 5y ago
  Yes. Sometimes those old drivers can't be compiled with newer headers.
  - sudosysgen 5y ago
    And sometimes old drivers won't work on Windows 10.
marcodiego 5y ago
Linux drivers can work for much longer than a decade once they reach mainline. Out of tree drivers are another story.
- yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
  Right, but Windows drivers are (all?) out of tree and have been for decades; they'll never get every vendor to change that.
  - marcodiego 5y ago
    And this story that windows drivers work forever is a rosy tinted view of the world. Many drivers (my ltc scanner) stopped working working from win9x to xp. I saw an USB projector driver break when a system was updated from win 7 to 8. The same device worked as a fb device out of the box on my rockpi4. And windows drivers are platfrom dependent, the same driver will nit work on 32/64 systems or arm/x86. Linux is entirely another world.
    - VortexDream 5y ago
      I recently installed XP drivers on a Windows 10 system. Worked flawlessly, even though officially this wasn't supported. 9x to XP/Vista is the last breaking change we've seen and that was over 15 years ago. It's quite impressive actually.
      - marcodiego 5y ago
        I've got an Asus CP120 USB mini projector. When you plug it on a windows machine it presents itself as a mass storage device with the windows 7 (or xp, I don't remember) driver on it. Last time I tested, it didn't worked out of the box on a windows 10 machine; it would probably work if drivers were downloaded and installed, but I didn't bother. On my rockpi4, I simply plugged it and instantly I've got a terminal on my wall. It is an ARM machine. That's the HUGE advantage of having a driver in the kernel: it will work on every architecture the code can compile. That was just the same experience with my usb wifi dongle, with my wacom tablet, with an epson multifunctional (I had to apt-get install escpr, but it is a single command), samsung printers... Some of these drivers are in user-space and not in the kernel, but it worked flawlessly in more than a single arch. That is impressive. But I do admit I envy the number of drivers for desktop gadgets that are compatible with windows. Of course, binary drivers are only interesting you use a single arch.
- zaphirplane 5y ago
  Mainline drivers are maintained and updated, I think the statement you are replying to is short hand for “windows binary drivers work for years across kernel versions and minor distribution version”
fomine3 5y ago
Can NDISwrapper approach be applied to other drivers?
R0b0t1 5y ago
The windows driver model is not semantically much different. There is greater cohesion at a higher level, leading to it being easier to create a shim layer for, if anything.
AshamedCaptain 5y ago
any example of a decade old driver that will install? not even the .cat signature algorithm will be the same, and windows enforces signed drivers these days.

by Osiris 5y ago

sudosysgen 5y ago

DKMS and driver segmentation enables 10 year old drivers to mostly still work on Linux too.

gsich 5y ago
Yes. Sometimes those old drivers can't be compiled with newer headers.
- sudosysgen 5y ago
  And sometimes old drivers won't work on Windows 10.

marcodiego 5y ago

Linux drivers can work for much longer than a decade once they reach mainline. Out of tree drivers are another story.

yjftsjthsd-h 5y ago
Right, but Windows drivers are (all?) out of tree and have been for decades; they'll never get every vendor to change that.
- marcodiego 5y ago
  And this story that windows drivers work forever is a rosy tinted view of the world. Many drivers (my ltc scanner) stopped working working from win9x to xp. I saw an USB projector driver break when a system was updated from win 7 to 8. The same device worked as a fb device out of the box on my rockpi4. And windows drivers are platfrom dependent, the same driver will nit work on 32/64 systems or arm/x86. Linux is entirely another world.
  - VortexDream 5y ago
    I recently installed XP drivers on a Windows 10 system. Worked flawlessly, even though officially this wasn't supported. 9x to XP/Vista is the last breaking change we've seen and that was over 15 years ago. It's quite impressive actually.
    - marcodiego 5y ago
      I've got an Asus CP120 USB mini projector. When you plug it on a windows machine it presents itself as a mass storage device with the windows 7 (or xp, I don't remember) driver on it. Last time I tested, it didn't worked out of the box on a windows 10 machine; it would probably work if drivers were downloaded and installed, but I didn't bother. On my rockpi4, I simply plugged it and instantly I've got a terminal on my wall. It is an ARM machine. That's the HUGE advantage of having a driver in the kernel: it will work on every architecture the code can compile. That was just the same experience with my usb wifi dongle, with my wacom tablet, with an epson multifunctional (I had to apt-get install escpr, but it is a single command), samsung printers... Some of these drivers are in user-space and not in the kernel, but it worked flawlessly in more than a single arch. That is impressive. But I do admit I envy the number of drivers for desktop gadgets that are compatible with windows. Of course, binary drivers are only interesting you use a single arch.
zaphirplane 5y ago
Mainline drivers are maintained and updated, I think the statement you are replying to is short hand for “windows binary drivers work for years across kernel versions and minor distribution version”

fomine3 5y ago

Can NDISwrapper approach be applied to other drivers?

R0b0t1 5y ago

The windows driver model is not semantically much different. There is greater cohesion at a higher level, leading to it being easier to create a shim layer for, if anything.

AshamedCaptain 5y ago

any example of a decade old driver that will install? not even the .cat signature algorithm will be the same, and windows enforces signed drivers these days.