On Sun, 2006-04-16 at 09:23 -0500, Jimmy Montague wrote: > I've been seeing Linux distros on the shelf in computer stores since > 1994, at least. And if, after at 12 or more years in development, Red > Hat Linux still can't detect (not necessarily USE, but detect, at > least) every piece of 2-year-old, off-the-shelf hardware plugged into > a home-user's 2-year-old, generic PC system, then there's something > very seriously wrong at Red Hat. "Every piece" is a bit much of an ask. There's a mass of different things that all work in different, often secret, often stupid ways. If hardware manufacturers got their act together and produced USB modems that were "standard USB modems", printers that were *standard* printers, we'd be in a lot better position - and not just Linux users. Try putting a 5 year old video card into a Windows box when you don't have a driver disc for it, and you're in a for a right battle with many of them. They don't have standard, simple, generic drivers for many of them (unless you like 640 x 480 x 16 colours). Many manufacturers don't post their drivers for downloads. Some never fixed the broken ones they supplied with their hardware in the first place. The same goes for sound cards, network cards, etc. I've had more luck getting old bits of hardware from the scrap heap working with Linux than I have with Windows. What I find difficult is getting new hardware working on Linux. With designed for Windows hardware, they release their hardware with drives for Windows. If anyone else wants to use it, someone else has to figure out how, by guesswork. Who's going to be the army of unpaid volunteers to make all the numerous different bits of hardware work with Linux. No, the fault isn't with Linux, or BSD, or other *ixs. The fault is with an industry that only supports Windows. -- (Currently running FC4, occasionally trying FC5.) Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored. I read messages from the public lists.
