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The article is correctThe article is correctPosted Mar 30, 2012 21:58 UTC (Fri) by scientes (guest, #83068)In reply to: The article is correct by Pawlerson Parent article: Free is too expensive (Economist)
> Then I wonder why there were so many problems in Windows after installing some service packs? This article is totally biased.
Yep, this article is 100% bullshit. I've had about 10X the success in getting hardware to work between versions of Linux than I have between XP and Vista, in fact, it was the fact that hardware providers *simply wouldn't provide drivers for Vista*, not out of not being able to recompile the drivers, but out of a want to force people onto new hardware, that pissed me so off that I switched to Linux and havn't turned back since. If you buy a Windows computer, with Windows *preinstalled* and then keep it at that version, you don't go through what is the enormous pain of Windows hardware support (the reseller has already gone through it), so you never realize how much better Linux is in this department.
Moreover, I've had *amazingly satisfying* success with reporting bugs, and having them fixed, especially with Kernel bugs.
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The article is correct Posted Mar 30, 2012 22:49 UTC (Fri) by fre (guest, #83851) [Link] Just an anecdote. Or a Rant.Around last October went shopping for a new laptop. For the budget i had my choices were between two similar ones except for:
a) Intel CPU and Wifi, Nvidia graphics card Option B was 50€ more expensive, but thinking that AMD released specs and Broadcom is funding open drivers i decided to go for this option. As a result, my wifi cant work with the open source drivers and i wasn't able to make the closed ones work with custom compiled kernels. The graphics card somehow works, but with the closed drivers is crashy, with the open ones i can fry eggs in my laptop. Now, i know the fault isn't much on Linux kernel. But whatever, so much for hardware support in linux, 2012 AD.
The article is correct Posted Mar 30, 2012 23:09 UTC (Fri) by tpo (subscriber, #25713) [Link]
I think that's unfortunately not the way to shop Linux computers.
The way to shop Linux computers is to take your latest beta home distro live CD and go for a walk around the computer shops.
Or if you want to internetshop, then the laptop on offer must *explicitly* support Linux (there are many sellers that have Linux compatible machines).
:-/
The missed opportunity Posted Mar 31, 2012 19:36 UTC (Sat) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link] This is where the likes of Canonical have dropped the ball completely. To fix bug #1 or whatever it is called, you have to target the hardware vendors, if necessary becoming one yourself. There are plenty of people selling computers with Free Software operating systems installed, although you have to do some legwork to find them and see what they are actually offering, but these people are not the same people who have the resources to actively fix and improve the software in order to actively support a device. Sure, Canonical certify some devices, but that doesn't guarantee anyone on this planet being able to buy them, especially if Dell is involved. And without people actively promoting, selling and supporting computers with Free Software operating systems, there will always be a certain difficulty in reaching the masses and a disconnect between available hardware and fully supported hardware.
The missed opportunity Posted Mar 31, 2012 20:28 UTC (Sat) by scientes (guest, #83068) [Link]
Linaro does this to some extent with ARM dev boards, but this is partially cause this is basically the only way to get a ARM device working these days, as the ARM tree in the kernel is in such a bad state (improving alot, and the flexibility afforded to ARM licencees make it harder) however the prices are not exceptional
http://www.linaro.org/engineering/getting-started/low-cos...
Also guys like the Marvell SheevaPlug, DreamPlug, etc, where the manufacture actively work with the Linux devs, and they are not the only hardware manufactures. CPU vendors have been contributing to Linux and gcc, etc (AMD even to coreboot) for a long time.
The missed opportunity Posted Apr 1, 2012 17:25 UTC (Sun) by pboddie (subscriber, #50784) [Link]
Yes, but there's a huge difference between organisations maintaining component-specific features in the Linux kernel and offering a complete, fully-supported system.
The article is correct Posted Mar 31, 2012 1:52 UTC (Sat) by charris (subscriber, #13263) [Link]
Ah, so Radeon still runs hot with the open drivers? I went back to NVIDIA for just that reason. The NVIDIA drivers may be closed, but they are better maintained for compatibility than fglrx.
The article is correct Posted Mar 31, 2012 14:58 UTC (Sat) by pataphysician (guest, #73773) [Link]
The Radeon driver in KMS mode has power saving turned off by default if your kernel 2.6.35 or less, it can be turned on if you want, then no more hot laptop. If you have the 3.0 kernel or greater it should be turned on by default in KMS mode.
The article is correct Posted Apr 2, 2012 15:45 UTC (Mon) by jedidiah (guest, #20319) [Link]
Wifi a problem on Linux? Sure. It comes with it's own challenges. That's something that's vastly different as something absurd like printing being broken by an update. They are not the same thing by any stretch of the imagination.
Dial back the hyperbole a little bit. Otherwise people are bound to not take you seriously at all.
The article is correct Posted Mar 31, 2012 7:21 UTC (Sat) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link] Yep, this article is 100% bullshit.There's even evidence the Economist is anti Linux site: http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2010/11/operating_systemsAnother Linux rant in the same spirit, but this time it's even worse. What s funny you can replace Linux with any other OS name and article will remain "valid", because it's nothing more than generalizations and subjective opinions. It reminds me MS FUD. I'm quite angry this appeared at lwn, but on the other side I would have missed a possibility to make some clarifications. ;)
The article is correct Posted Mar 31, 2012 8:03 UTC (Sat) by Cato (subscriber, #7643) [Link]
You must be living in a different reality to me. Even with hardware specifically researched for use with Linux and built myself into a PC, I've had major hardware support issues (random freezes requiring irqpoll after I diagnosed this, WiFi driver causing panic, etc) with Linux, and nothing significant with Windows XP or Windows 7.
Windows is not a pain-free experience either, but installing it isn't that hard even with the odd third party driver. I've even transferred a complete Windows 7 image from one Thinkpad laptop to a much more recent model (admittedly with help from Paragon Backup which refreshes the drivers on the new machine before it boots). I almost always install Windows from scratch, as with Linux.
I agree that getting Vista/7 drivers for older hardware is sometimes impossible, but in practice I haven't found this is a problem.
I have never had much luck with getting reported bugs fixed - I still get bug updates from a few older Ubuntu bugs that never went anywhere. This isn't so different to Windows really.
The article is correct Posted Mar 31, 2012 13:11 UTC (Sat) by Pawlerson (guest, #74136) [Link]
It seems I'm also living in a different reality than you. ;) The only problems I encountered in Linux were related to nVidia blobs that caused X server to crash sometimes. Currently I'm running fglrx and it's even more problematic, but Open Source drivers work very well. However, I also have Windows XP installed and it's more problematic. Sometimes BSoD happens and HP deskjet printer works only with service pack 2. When I have service pack 3 installed I can't even copy drivers from CD to hard drive, because there's an error.
The article is correct Posted Apr 1, 2012 16:46 UTC (Sun) by tuna (guest, #44480) [Link]
There are Linux drivers that do not work and that do not get fixed, see
https://bugzilla.kernel.org/show_bug.cgi?id=30892 and https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=711489
The article is correct Posted Mar 31, 2012 10:18 UTC (Sat) by boog (subscriber, #30882) [Link]
I use Linux exclusively and do so partly because I support the free software ideal. However, I am also responsible for several other people trying to use Linux (family, colleagues). Some but not all of these other users are very technical people in other domains (scientists). My experience is most users, including these technical users, will usually run into a problem that they cannot solve alone. Their only option without quite dedicated support immediately available would be to fall back to what they know: windows or mac.
I think the article is quite typical in this respect: somebody who gave Linux a try and would be happy to use it as a replacement, but encountered too many problems. I wish it weren't so, but just saying that it is biased or that no such problems exist is just denial.
I think the distribution model is different, with both advantages (all software is securely updated, single source) and disadvantages, but we should continue to live with it. In my recent experience, the real problem has been the instability of the desktop apps and environment, with the occasional hardware problem thrown in. Once you've gone to the trouble of installing Linux and changed your habits, most people want to benefit from its legendary stability and get on with their work. However, it just hasn't been possible to continue working, the changes (and bugs) have been too intrusive.
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