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58 Comments
- topcat5, on 06/05/2009, -1/+30Maybe they should tell ATI/AMD this.
- cquilliam, on 06/05/2009, -1/+15Driver availability in Linux is very very good, better than almost all other OS's out there. The biggest problem facing people is the trouble in actually setting up the devices to work with their system. Its only recently that Bluetooth has become tolerable. Wireless has been trouble but has been making strides. Audio, while working, still causes a lot of problems with its many many sound servers and apps. Nobody wants to go to the command line and edit config files, but when there is *so much* hardware out there, its very difficult for developers to predict how you will be using it, so, some 'hacking" may be required. Its unfortunate, but its just the way it is right now.
I think the problem lies with the fact that developers of linux drivers try to get as much working as possible, no matter how complete or not the driver or implementation is. WHat we end up with is a lot of devices that work somewhat, but not exactly the way it should be. On the flipside, you get Windows, which doesn't support as much (especially out of the box), but the ones it do support are generally better implemented.
All my hardware is "supported", but sometimes, some things are a pain in the ass to actually get working. - warp99, on 06/05/2009, -2/+14Who's fault is that? When Windows doesn't support something you don't see everyone grabbing pitchforks heading off to Redmond now do you?
And don't tell me Windows supporting everything because I have shelve full of perfectly working older equipment that have no drivers. Vent your anger in the right direction, blame the manufacturer. - ghostborg, on 06/05/2009, -0/+11Did you try to look for drivers from epson?
http://blog.bluemonki.net/2009/03/28/ubuntu-epson- ...
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=903905 - kojot350, on 06/06/2009, -0/+10It's better to think about what you're buying. Just buy stuff from companies that support Linux, it's that simple. Natural selection...
- drag, on 06/05/2009, -0/+9
Remember folks the distributions your using lag behind kernel and upstream development from six months to a year.
Here is how it goes:
The Linux kernel developers work and add drivers to their source code repositories.
The intial driver writing.. From getting the hardware to producing working code.
The hardware has to be available first, if the manufacturers are working with Linux devs:
1-4 months.
(video drivers are massively more complex, your looking more like 4-8 months for working code)
Reverse engineered drivers.. These take longer and require more work since they are done without assistance of manufacturer:
6-12 months.
Once the driver gets written and is show to work it needs to be validated by the other kernel developers. This can take a while. After the approval process is done then the code is released into Linus's source code tree:
1-4 months.
Once the code is added to the Linux release candidate beta versions those RC releases needed to be tested by the community:
1-3 months
Then the released kernel sits around until distributions pick it up. The last Ubuntu release was 9.04 and the next is going to be 9.10. That is 6 months difference. Depending on when the kernel is released will affect whether or not it gets picked up by distributions:
2-7 months
Then the stability needs to be worked on. No matter how well the driver is designed when it first gets used by normal folks then you will find weaknesses. You can't really fix that so the quicker real world testing happens the better.
2-7 months for final stability.
Obviously very complex things like OpenGL support is going to take much longer then adding a webcam. But your looking from initial creation to your desktop is a round trip of about 7 months to a year. 2 years in extreme cases.
The positive aspect is that driver development is cheap and does not require huge amounts of man hours and testing like with Windows. A Linux driver costs a fraction of the amount to create then a driver for XP or Vista. The other positive aspect is that the driver is created in a way that is much more sustainable. When the kernel gets updated, then so do all the drivers and a lot of work is put into integrating things properly and eliminating as much hardware-unique code as possible.
The downside is that it takes a long time for new drivers and driver fixes to reach end users. Dell, with the help of others, have created projects like DKMS. DKMS makes it easier for people to backport drivers from newer versions of Linux to older versions.
So OEMs can work with Linux devs to get the latest and greatest drivers to end users in the shortest time possible. Then they release drivers to their customers when the customers purchase hardware. However if you purchased hardware without Linux support then your kinda stuck until the distributions pick up the driver support.
Also unlike with Windows it is very very rarely helpful to go and download drivers from Manufacturer's website. The driver developers are the Linux developers for the most part.
This is different compared to Windows were Microsoft does relatively very little driver development and requires OEMS and manufacturers to produce their Windows drivers. This is something that Microsoft can force people to do for them since they own 95%+ of the desktop market, but for Linux they can't do that. - SoCalChris, on 06/05/2009, -2/+11My laptop runs Ubuntu great, with two exceptions (Neither of which can be blamed on Ubuntu, or Linux in general). First, I have a Canon printer that works with nothing but Windows. No Mac, no Linux. It's worthless to me, and will be the last Canon printer that I buy.
The other is that my laptop freezes when booting on battery power, and will only resume booting if you hold down any key. This is due to a poor compiler that MS supplied to compile part of the firmware. Conveniently, Windows runs fine with these errors, other OSes that follow standards do not. It allows sloppy code to compile. Things like functions that don't return a value. Any half decent compiler should catch those. The MS one doesn't. This required decompiling that part of the firmware, and recompiling it with Intel's compiler, which allowed me to fix the errors.
The first one is my fault, for not buying a printer that supported something besides Windows. I won't make that mistake again. The second one is 100% MS & HP's fault. Although I was able to fix it, most users would not be able to, and they shouldn't have to. Shame on HP for writing such crappy firmware, and shame on MS for providing them a tool that allowed them to compile it.
Link to the bug report for the second problem, many HP & Compaq laptops are experiencing it lately.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/linux/+b ...
Here's a thread on how to fix it, for anyone who's experiencing the same problem:
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=1036051 - ethana2, on 06/05/2009, -2/+10Since the X-Fi will be supported by 9.10, I think the MagicJack becomes the single most problematic piece of hardware..
- DigitalPioneer, on 06/05/2009, -0/+8Now that's funny, because MY WUSB54G _does_ have native drivers, and they work quite well. Very interesting... Not sure what drivers it uses, though. I just plugged it in and it worked. :|
- mpn401, on 06/05/2009, -4/+11Start with better wireless support. My v1 Linksys WUSB54G still doesn't have native linux drivers. NDISwrapper is garbage.
- warp99, on 06/05/2009, -0/+6Any the real funny part is that their competitors clean room and reverse engineer their crap as fast as they can make it. Do you honestly believe companies like ATI/AMD and nVidia don't engage in this?
- rnstech, on 06/06/2009, -0/+5Uh, well, not ALL distros (i.e. ArchLinux)...
- arownious, on 06/05/2009, -0/+5Part of the problem is chip designers not allowing proper drivers to be made. They keep their crap secretive and proprietary so no one but them benefits.
- casbar, on 06/05/2009, -1/+6And it will be a major sized rock thrown through Windows.
- oomfoofoo, on 06/05/2009, -5/+10You really can't go a day without using the word "bitch". Shame on you.
- zip000, on 06/05/2009, -0/+5I've got the opposite problem. In linux - ubuntu at least - tv-out works OK, but in Windows - which I only use for games and Netflix - the tv-out is really unpredictable. Sometimes it will work other times it won't.
And weirdest, sometimes it will just come on. It seems to particularly happen when I'm playing a game. All of a sudden, the tv blips and my game is over there. I have to physically unplug the cable if I want to game while my wife is watching tv. - Jucken, on 06/05/2009, -1/+6It has native OpenBSD drivers though.
http://www.openbsd.org/cgi-bin/man.cgi?query=rum - Hermmunster, on 06/06/2009, -1/+5Linux owns nearly 5% of the market as measured by an organization that monitors use of over 150,000 sites and has measured since the early part of the decade.
Apple owns nearly 5% of the market.
None of this holds that there aren't other OSes out there.
The truth be told Microsoft owns about 85% of the world-wide market and that number is consistently dropping. - Hermmunster, on 06/05/2009, -1/+5The vast majority of systems don't have the same problem and thus it isn't appropriate to disrespect it. Your isolated problem, or even those that use the same type of system are still a small piece of the pie. This isn't to say that you aren't entitled to be frustrated. You should be. It should be fixed. What I'm saying is that it is inappropriate behavior to say it is a bad OS because your one chipset, amongst the massive number of others (even amongst intel's) doesn't perform.
When you consider the sheer number of Windows installs that don't work out of the box (or even with what seems to be the correct drivers downloaded) on the high definition audio bus, well that's another matter altogether. It's not as deserving of your disfavor as that one issue on the linux platform that you encountered?
This is not to say linux sound is all peachy. It is not. It is hard to get it to work sometimes. They need to put into it great effort. But they have done wonders over the past 2 years alone. - Hermmunster, on 06/05/2009, -0/+3If a portion of the driver is under NDA then the whole thing is unmaintainable? Can it not be compartmentalized so that those open aspects can be maintained while the closed proprietary with trade secrets can't be?
I'm saying it's not all a loss just because one piece isn't disclose-able. As well, what makes you think they won't maintain it far down the road past the NDA limits or even that the trade secret is no longer one and becomes open? - MWeather, on 06/05/2009, -3/+6Better unmaintainable drivers than nonexistant drivers.
- hazello, on 06/08/2009, -0/+3It's more of the sounds system than the sound drivers - I dread changing anything about the system, because I can never figure out which channel or daemon thing needs to be on to get Skype to work. It's like, once it works - DON'T TOUCH IT.
Plus, in Ubuntu 9.04 my sounds is great in Gnome, and won't work at all past the log in sound in KDE. I'm not new to Linux, either.
The arts/alsa/oss/pulse/jack whatever mess needs to be resolved. PICK ONE DAMN SOUND SUBSYSTEM. - hazello, on 06/08/2009, -0/+3Wireless is the current problem, like sound cards used to be.
NDIS worked fine for me, though, when I've needed it. - beerhound, on 06/05/2009, -0/+3Since you don't plan on buying another Canon, I would like to give a big thumbs up to Brother. I have a 5250DN that works perfectly. I run Ubuntu's add printer dialog and it detects the networked printer and installs the drivers flawlessly. The only configuration step I have to take is to turn on duplexing. I dual boot Vista 64 bit and Ubuntu Jaunty 64 bit and in this case, the Linux printer install and config works smoother than Windows.
- renegadeafk, on 06/05/2009, -0/+3same here with my laptop. Headphones only work with older distros oddly enough.
- beerhound, on 06/05/2009, -4/+7Buried by someone who doesn't find your comment useful
- schnikies79, on 06/05/2009, -2/+4TV (s-video) out with my brother's Dell inspiron 640m. When I owned it I tried running every flavor of driver and X hack I could come up with and never could get it to work. Audio jack sensing never worked either.
With windows, tv-out was as simple as a right-click on the desktop. Intel video. - Azathothh, on 06/08/2009, -0/+2Linux FTW
- ratrip, on 06/08/2009, -0/+2*** Availability of Linux flavored Kool-Aid is also very, very good, apparently. ***
Not as good as the Windows flavored one. Everybody is drinking that... - Frostek, on 06/05/2009, -6/+8Buried by an Ubuntu / OpenSolaris user. Just so you know I'm not a MS shill or something.
- nyxerebos, on 06/05/2009, -1/+3Yeah, wireless drivers are a sore spot for me too /w Debian. NDISwrapper is better than nothing but still not good.
- ratrip, on 06/08/2009, -0/+2*** What about the sheer number of Linux installs that don't work "out of the box"? ***
Show me one general purpose OS that "just works" OOTB. Please, don't point to Mac OS X, because it is easy to support only a handful of known configuration x86 machines, while leaving out the millions of unknown others.
Even Windows, our "glorious" market leader, supports only a handful of devices in basic fashion out of the box. MS has the advantage that third party manufacturers write drivers for Windows. A luxury Linux has in a far lesser extent.
So yes, snd-hda-intel may not work correctly right now, but do you think that nobody is trying to correct that problem? In my experience it is only a matter of time before snd-hda-intel (or any other device, which is now rough around the edges) is something that just works and then nobody ever mentions it again, because it has disappeared unnoticed into the plumbing.
Ah well, Windows can do no fault and every minor glitch in Linux condemns it to the scrapheap. - javaroast, on 06/05/2009, -0/+2I will add a second to the recommendation of the 5250DN. Very easy setup in linux.
- Jucken, on 06/05/2009, -1/+3That's curious, how do you expect the drivers to keep existing if they are unmaintainable?
Furthermore, how do you expect the drivers to exist on more platforms (e.g. Linux on architectures other than x86, or other operating systems like BSD, Solaris, etc.) if they are unmaintainable?
I don't. I expect them to die. - LingNoi, on 06/09/2009, -0/+2Shame for you, my wireless logitech USB headset works great. I guess you're doing it wrong.
- wbkang, on 06/05/2009, -5/+7Buried by a Windows/OpenSolaris user.
- thecheatah, on 06/05/2009, -2/+4aah the pain...
- srg13, on 06/06/2009, -0/+2What kind of graphics chip? Intel chips should support TV out, but it can be hard to configure them. Nvidia chips generally are really easy and reliable thanks to the custom Nvidia setup tool they have...
- MWeather, on 06/05/2009, -2/+3"That's curious, how do you expect the drivers to keep existing if they are unmaintainable?"
They only need to keep existing if the hardware keeps being sold, otherwise temporary support works just fine for the majority of people.
"Furthermore, how do you expect the drivers to exist on more platforms (e.g. Linux on architectures other than x86, or other operating systems like BSD, Solaris, etc.) if they are unmaintainable?"
Who cares? That's less than one percent of the once percent market share Linux has. If we can't expect hardware manufacturers to support a 1% market share, why would we expect kernel driver developers, people with much, much less resources at their disposal, to support a market 1/100th the size out of the goodness of their hearts? - Arghblarg, on 06/05/2009, -2/+2Same here.. Alesis multimix-12 fw, no Linux drivers...
Same beef I have with VirtualBox, VMWare, and all the other windows-in-a-vm solutions; no firewire support. Why does no one care about this? ;-( - krisrm, on 06/05/2009, -3/+3Hey look I got Linux running on my tonsils!
(for those of you who missed it... http://xkcd.com/124/ , bottom left quadrant, vertical text) - oomfoofoo, on 06/06/2009, -2/+1What about the sheer number of Linux installs that don't work "out of the box"? It's not an isolated problem. Take a look in all the forums and bug trackers, there are a lot of people with sound problems who have a snd-hda-intel card, and it's not just "no sound from headphones".
- inactive, on 06/05/2009, -3/+2***** Broadcom and it its crack whore owners.
- pundip, on 06/05/2009, -3/+2wireless? How about getting my sound to work so I can use skype?
- JJTucker, on 06/05/2009, -3/+1This SJVN guy doesn't come across as knowing a hell of a lot about Windows in the first place. Of course, his whole raison d'etre on the Computerworld site is to flog Linux and he simply can't seem to accomplish that by letting Linux stand on its own merits. Every article he writes has to ***** on Windows, a lot of the stuff he writes is just out-and-out false, and he ends up coming across as some sort of sulking crybaby with an inferiority complex rather than a knowledgeable professional with a respectable level of expertise. Seriously, he's like the Linux version of Sean Hannity.
- fiddler616, on 06/05/2009, -9/+6Buried for not containing useful, applicable information.
And is anyone else getting tired of having EVERY SINGLE ARTICLE written by Steven Vauhgn-Nichols for ComputerWorld show up on Digg? - Hermmunster, on 06/06/2009, -4/+1@MWeather:
Linux owns nearly 5% of the world-wide market on the desktop. You need to keep up. Linux and Mac marketshare has been monitored by a long standing organization that has measured marketshare for nearly a decade which shows almost 5% marketshare for Linux. Even Ballmer's own presentations show Linux with more marketshare than Apple. - cdawzrd, on 06/05/2009, -7/+4Too bad my firewire sound card doesn't work, so I can't do any work in Linux.
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