in reply to Re^2: OT: Switching Sides
in thread OT: Switching Sides

Unfortunally, yes, not all hardware works well with Linux. It's always good to check out the documentation to see if the hardware is supported before you buy it. Is Linux to blame for this? Nope, the hardware manufacturers supply Microsoft with the specs of their appliances, (if they don't build their own drivers) but don't throw it out to Linux developers (not always true). Most hardware does work though. I have no problems with : and what not more may float in and around my machine.

That said, Linux runs on far more architectures than, say, Microsoft Windows.

What kind of printer and digital cam do you use, that's not supported by Linux?

Added:Yes, this all sounds pretty zealous (sorry), but to summarize it all: Yes, Coruscate, hardware support is not as good as it might be with Microsoft Windows, yet a lot does work or will work in days to come. So the OP would do best to check his hardware first, before installing some Linux flavor

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B10m

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Re^2: OT: Switching Sides
by Coruscate (Sexton) on Nov 30, 2003 at 23:21 UTC

    I decided to try a last ditch effort at searching for info on my printer. Turns out it's possible to get most functionality out of it on linux. It looks like a painstaking journey though. I have an all-in-one copier/scanner/printer made by hewlett packard. I found a linux page indicating what needs to be done to get it to function. It's far too much hassle for me to bother. There's one thing I have to hand to Microsoft: ease of installs. Took me 2 minutes to get the printer to load up. This install on linux would take me literally hours trying to battle through the dependencies that would likely arise. I'm just not willing to spend those hours becoming frustrated over such a thing. That's just me. Let me know when I can just plug the printer in, boot linux and begin printing, no hassle included.

[reply]
      There's one thing I have to hand to Microsoft: ease of installs.

      I certainly would not hand that to Microsoft, the company that expects you to reboot anytime you install a relatively complex application.

      And, if the installs are "easy" the uninstalls are impossible; at least, if you really expect every trace of the software to be gone.

      If you have a problem with some hardware being supported under any platform, bring it to your hardware vendor. Better yet, check before you buy and let the vendors get the point through reduced sales. They'll start publishing their specs and devoting resources to driver development on alternative platforms when they realize they can make money by doing so. The good news is that many vendors have already gotten the point and you should be able to find a compatible alternative for almost any component you need.

      -sauoq
"My two cents aren't worth a dime.";
[reply]
      It's really a cyclical problem - as linux (as a desktop OS) has a very small user base you are unlikely to see the same level of support from hardware vendors as you do for Windows or even MacOS. That's not going to change anytime soon, unfortunately.

      Personally I've been running Solaris and/or linux since the early 90s, and I've never really missed the features that are available under Windows.

      These days I run RH 7.3 and Fedora Core on both my main desktop and my laptop, and I have an old-ish Sparc machine runnning Solaris 7. On the linux systems I have a VmWare virtual machine that I can boot into Windows if I really need to, which I tend to be very rarely to run Sybase's PowerDesigner database design tool.

      Michael

[reply]

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