life after Windows....

White Spirit wrote:
Doug Jewell wrote:

And one more thing - while the level of hardware support may be
because external developers haven't targetted linux, that has nothing
to do with the fact that adding drivers to the system is a mess. In
some cases you have to do a complete reinstall to get it to detect
hardware changes.

That's not the case. Some distros, like Ubuntu, might use the very
latest beta or CVS drivers, in which case I could see why you might
think that you need to perform a complete reinstall, but the drivers can
be compiled from source if need be. This is really a problem with
hardware vendors not releasing drivers or APIs for their hardware,
leaving it to open source developers to reverse engineer the drivers.
Even when drivers are available it is never as easy as the
OS popping up a screen saying something along the lines of
"new hardware detected, where are the drivers located" like
windows does. At best you have a GUI to step through - like
the printer installation where you can choose from one of
several preset printers. Tough luck if your printer isn't
there though.
In many cases though you are left to manually edit config
files, and often manually compile drivers.

In some cases you have to recompile the kernel to install some
hardware devices,

No, you just compile a module.
Try telling the average computer user that to get their new
webcam to work they have to compile a module.
Windows: Plug it in, click Next a couple of times, insert
the CD it came with, wait a minute or so, done. It works.
Linux: (and for the sake of the exercise we'll assume the
product has a vendor supplied driver). Plug it in, nothing
happens. Find a README on the disk. Open a command line and
start doing things as per the README. Lets say you have to
compile a module. First you manually create a directory to
put it in, then you untar the source file to that directory.
Run make and hopefully it will compile ok. Don't be
surprised if you have to edit some of the header files to
point to the include directory on your system. Still getting
errors, browse the web and discover that you haven't
installed the kernel sources for your distribution, so off
you go and do that. Ok now the driver will compile. If you
are lucky "make install" will copy it to the correct
directory for kernel headers. If not you have to manually
copy it over. You now have the option of running "modprobe
newdriver" every time you want to use the piece of hardware,
or you can manually edit /etc/modules.conf or /etc/modules
(varies depending on distribution) to get it to load at
boot. Oh and if you ever update your kernel, you have to
rinse and repeat for every module you've done this too. Fun eh?
I can do this, you can do this, but can the average person
who sits in front of a computer do this? not a hope in hell.
Until this gets tidied up, Linux will not be ready for
primetime.

and in many cases you have to manually configure text files or run
commands from the command line to get drivers to install.

What's wrong with that?
What do you mean "what's wrong with that?". Everything is
wrong for that. You shouldn't have to manually tweak text
files just to get a piece of hardware to work. Sure, tweak
all you like to optimise performance, but to get it to work
in the first place should be as close to automatic as
possible. In case you missed the last 15 years of
developments, computers are no longer the sole domain of geeks.
It also gives the user the ability to remove
device drivers that are misbehaving. Try doing that with Win32.
Pretty simple really - Click Start, Control Panel, Device
Manager, Right Click the offender and choose disable.
2 Left Clicks, One Double Left Click and 2 Right Clicks of
the mouse and it's done. Beats the hell out of manually
editing the appropriate file.
With
Apple, the problem is solved by Apple deciding for you some of the
hardware you must use.
And I'm sure if Microsoft had the same luxury with Windows,
it would be a much more reliable OS.

The lack of a simple to use interface for users to install and
configure device drivers is a big limitation to Linux.

That could be taken care of, but no one seems to think that it is enough
of a necessity to do it.
That is because Linux is developed by advanced computer
users, for advanced computer users. That's fine, but don't
pretend that it is suitable for use by the great unwashed.

Many similar issues arise when installing software too.

I can't think of any userspace software that has required this.
Just offhand I can't think of a specific example but I know
I have had to do it. Come to think of it, openoffice is a
pain to install if it doesn't have a .rpm or .deb for your
specific distro.


--
Have you ever noticed that all legal documents need to be
completed in black or blue pen, but we vote in pencil?

Doug Jewell wrote:

Even when drivers are available it is never as easy as the OS popping up
a screen saying something along the lines of "new hardware detected,
where are the drivers located" like windows does. At best you have a GUI
to step through - like the printer installation where you can choose
from one of several preset printers. Tough luck if your printer isn't
there though.

I'd rather have to pick my printer off a list if the system I am using
is more stable and secure.

In many cases though you are left to manually edit config files, and
often manually compile drivers.

Any desktop distro has all printer drivers pre-compiled as modules that
will be loaded as soon as the printer is hotplugged.

In some cases you have to recompile the kernel to install some
hardware devices,

No, you just compile a module.

Try telling the average computer user that to get their new webcam to
work they have to compile a module.

There is nothing stopping vendors from providing a binary with an installer.

It also gives the user the ability to remove device drivers that are
misbehaving. Try doing that with Win32.

Pretty simple really - Click Start, Control Panel, Device Manager, Right
Click the offender and choose disable.
2 Left Clicks, One Double Left Click and 2 Right Clicks of the mouse and
it's done. Beats the hell out of manually editing the appropriate file.

Try doing that with drivers that are making Windows crash on startup.
It can't be done. The whole system is hosed.

White Spirit wrote:
Doug Jewell wrote:

Even when drivers are available it is never as easy as the OS popping
up a screen saying something along the lines of "new hardware
detected, where are the drivers located" like windows does. At best
you have a GUI to step through - like the printer installation where
you can choose from one of several preset printers. Tough luck if your
printer isn't there though.

I'd rather have to pick my printer off a list if the system I am using
is more stable and secure.

In many cases though you are left to manually edit config files, and
often manually compile drivers.

Any desktop distro has all printer drivers pre-compiled as modules that
will be loaded as soon as the printer is hotplugged.

In some cases you have to recompile the kernel to install some
hardware devices,

No, you just compile a module.

Try telling the average computer user that to get their new webcam to
work they have to compile a module.

There is nothing stopping vendors from providing a binary with an
installer.

It also gives the user the ability to remove device drivers that are
misbehaving. Try doing that with Win32.

Pretty simple really - Click Start, Control Panel, Device Manager,
Right Click the offender and choose disable.
2 Left Clicks, One Double Left Click and 2 Right Clicks of the mouse
and it's done. Beats the hell out of manually editing the appropriate
file.

Try doing that with drivers that are making Windows crash on startup. It
can't be done. The whole system is hosed.
Then you boot in safe-mode and do the same thing. If it is a
driver issue that will stop windows loading safemode (eg IDE
drivers) then you run a repair install which keeps all your
config.
On linux there are numerous drivers built into the kernel
which can stop a machine booting too, and to fix that
requires booting off some other medium with a plain vanilla
kernel, recompiling a new kernel, manually installing the
new kernel into the system, and cross your fingers.
Then there are the non-fatal type boot errors - Even
something as simple as a drive that wasn't unmounted prior
to a restart (eg restart from power failure), can cause
linux to refuse to boot beyond a very basic text mode. From
there you have to know the text-mode commands to get the
system back to a normal boot.
I'm not knocking linux, it is a great system. But a windows
replacement for the majority of computer users it is not.





--
Have you ever noticed that all legal documents need to be
completed in black or blue pen, but we vote in pencil?