RH recommends using Windows?

[Noah Silva [Mailing list]]

On Tue, 4 Nov 2003, Trond Eivind [ISO-8859-1] Glomsrød wrote:

> On Tue, 2003-11-04 at 17:28, Eric Wood wrote:
> > http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39117575,00.htm
> >
> > Man, has RH really lost that much confidence in Fedora?
>
> If you expect consumer hardware to just work (wireless, graphics card,
> fancy gizmos bought at compusa) etc to just work, Matthew is right.

The amusing thing here is that a lot of consumer hardware does just work.
My radeon card just works in 3D mode with Redhat.  TWO wireless cards I
have tried worked fine with redhat, using "redhat-config-network" to set
them up.  My HP and epson printers just work, along with my CD writer, my
sound card, and my SCSI card and scanner.

Things that didn't or were a pain:
a.) Lexmark printer (which officially "supports linux", but only through a
very broken, outdated, buggy driver made for something like redhat 5).
b.) Some noname USB scanner... I have.
c.) My Webcam... there is linux support for it, but it isn't standard in
redhat that it actually works without compiling things.

> Driver availability and installation is one thing which is keeping Linux
> back for those scenarios... and one of the things which is limiting
> driver availability is that making a driver for 2.4, one for 2.6 and
> putting it on a disk doesn't just work. There is a multitude of
> versions, and unless  you put a lot of work into glue (Nvidia) you're in
> for a world of pain if trying to distribute binary drivers  - which,
> whether we like it or not, most hardware manufacturers want to.

Well that is an attitude we have to change for the hardware vendors.  It's
too easy for them to limit choice, and we are about choice.  What about
when intel releases binary ony frivers for their wireless PCMCIA cards and
we want to use them in a mac laptop? etc.

Though this is part of what RHEL is about, it's "safe" to release binary
drivers and software for, because there isn't a new version every month.

I don't think driver support is so much of an issue, as is KNOWING about
the driver support.  If linux supports Chipset a32X, and that is used in
some webcam.. phillips doesn't say "This webcam uses a32x!!", and so you
don't know, until you plug it in and see.  For example, does the apple
iSight work in Linux?  Likely it does, since it probably uses standard
firewire protocols.  But do you want to be the first one to spend the
money and see?  What about a bluetooth keyboard?

I know enough people, I get to plug stuff in and see before I buy it.
Otherwise, you go trudging through disorganized sites on the internet
(with the exception of linuxprinting.org, very nice), so see what is
supported and what isn't.

> The corporate desktop is much easier to reach for, because it is a more
> stable and less diverse target.

 -- noah silva