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62 Comments
- Andytom, on 10/12/2007, -0/+49If this is genuine then this could be a big boost for Linux.
- synapseattack, on 10/12/2007, -0/+20I think they should bring back the "Code for Beer" trade. Those were the good old days -_-
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19Undoubtedly the case with broadcom.
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -3/+22This sounds wonderful, but there's always the skepticism. Some hardware vendor fear Linux for a variety of reasons.
Why Some Vendors Refuse to Open Source Drivers
,----[ Quote ]
| "It's not an issue of revealing cool high end features
| to the competition that is keeping them from releasing the
| high-performance 3D drivers into the kernel. It's that the drivers will
| reveal flaws in the hardware that could be used against them by their
| competitors...
`----
http://www.linuxelectrons.com/News/Linux/20060108163615614 - pxa270, on 10/12/2007, -0/+17This is actually how most of the device drivers have been developed for years. Very few hardware manufacturers actually write Linux drivers themselves. Mostly they have been supported by a disorganized bunch of hackers reverse engineering/begging for/guessing hardware specs so they could finally get their toys to work under Linux.
Even though the development model remains the same, they just turned the story on its head. They're pitching it as "provide us detailed specs and we give you Linux support for free". Clever. - FreyrVanir, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Looks genuine enough for me. Even tho his blog is a little short on personal info which made it look like blog spam, more info about him here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greg_Kroah-Hartman
Here are two books he wrote.
http://safari.oreilly.com/0596005903
http://safari.oreilly.com/0596100795 - phjr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14That's confirmed on KernelTrap: http://kerneltrap.org/node/7636.
- weijie90, on 10/12/2007, -0/+14“And they copied and copied and copied.
But they couldn’t copy my mind.
So I left them sweating and stealing a year and a half behind.”
-Rudyard Kipling - Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12@JonForTheWin: Yes, Linux developers have always been willing to write drivers -- I think Greg's goal here is just to raise awareness of the fact. Kernel developers need hardware specs to write drivers, so he's making a pitch to hardware vendors to try to convince them to release specs.
- subgeniusd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12I can't imagine the task of supplying drivers that cover the exploding device market. These kernel developers are incredible. They deserve our gratitude and I hope they can forgive our bitching when we can't get a video card or game to run right......I've done my share and I apologize.
- JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13Hasn't it always been this way (excluding the NDA part)?
- redhatcat, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9"What's the ***** point of helping some for-profit company cut down their cost?"
The whole community gets functional, stable drivers and the developers get free hardware. - bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I dunno. After a couple drinks, I just sit there in Emacs, staring at the screen blankly; writing drivers has to be very challenging, especially after a few beers.
- Waiting2awake, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9 One of the things I absolutely find amazing is how good Linux truly is. We can all argue the pro's and con's of each OS and are good in their own way. However, linux is the only one that gets such little help from the manufacturers and they are still argueably the best out there. Considering what the dev's have to work with. My FC5 machine has been running like a charm. No need for any external drivers(I can't say the same when it had xp on it).
I always thought it was more of a push from MS that stoped the manufacturers from sharing with linux though. - pauljaroszewski, on 10/12/2007, -2/+9Yay!
- tgone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8This is great news.
I've been using Ubuntu for 8 months and I'm impressed with the current driver support. I've been able to install my printer, digital camera and scanner without any installation discs. I'm not sure that this is possible with Windows...
Go Linux. - kingtubby, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10Hooray!
- nightguilt, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8this is not news. linux developers have been willing -- and in fact desperate -- to write drivers for hardware, without getting paid. it's been true for many years, even if it hasn't been all explicitly spelled out in a post like this.
- Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@abuser:
"If you're so badly lacking Linux-compatible hardware, how did you post those moronic comments - did you use TV sets to browse the Web?"
Are you saying that just because there's plenty of Linux-compatible hardware available, it doesn't matter that there's also lots of hardware that isn't supported?
If a hardware device is available for purchase, we want Linux to have a driver for it. - addicted68098, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6ironically linux drivers work much better then the windows equivalent
- BlackAdderIII, on 10/12/2007, -0/+61. Programmers do some work.
2. Everybody benefits, including the programmers who did the work.
Side effects of this include prestige and popularity for the operating system, the developers and the hardware companies.
This in turn leads to sponsorship and business for OSS developers who are near the product, as doing good work that achieves world-wide recognition nearly always will.
It's hard to imagine, I know, but sometimes, people do things without immediately acquiring money as their only consideration.
Not every software developer in the world is a walking alimentary canal. Yeah I know, shock horror. - tgone, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7yes, but I didn't have to download any drivers on Ubuntu. I just plugged in my devices and they worked.
- Arch4ngel, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Okay. That would be awesome if companies were rushing to get their items supported.
That would be so cool. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I had to download nForce network card drivers win I installed XP. Downloading without a NIC is kind of impossible, well it would have been except I had an Ubuntu install on the same system that worked fine. I don't even want to get started on windows audio. Thats about 90mb of drivers all up (nForce, audio, video). Hopefully Vista would support that hardware out of the box but within a year Windows new hardware is going to have the same problems again, where as Ubuntu will have had 2 new releases, plus you can back port the kernel (assuming its not the network card), you can also download updated isos if i recall correctly.
Ubuntu just needed 1 6mb nNidia driver (for 3d acceleration, 2d worked fine), which is apparently going to be included in the next version. - se2schul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5Great, perhaps ATI will take them up on the offer so that we can actually improve the abysmal ATI linux drivers
- greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4i don't know about that... after a pint or two, i find it pretty easy to code. in fact, the code i write after a beer or two is superior to the code i write in complete sobriety.
- jonrobenator, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5These drivers will have to be GPL'd right?! If so cool...
- bmartin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4NVIDIA is still the chipset/card of choice. I've heard rumors of an open-source implementation of the 3D NVIDIA drivers out around November. That said, I had no problem getting my FX 5700 to run. Even with fglrx, a lot of people have been unsuccessful getting ATI cards to work properly.
Most of the driver development is for newer devices and drivers with disclosed specifications. I had to do a lot of tinkering to get my ITPIO webcam (Chinese) to work, but it works flawlessly now. Likewise, it'll take a lot for WiFi to be universal, considering there are many, many common WiFi devices that simply don't work, even using their Windows drivers with ndiswrapper. In my computer, there's a hardware switch that prevents my Broadcom 4318 chipset from working properly and I just bought a Belkin 7050 USB adapter that doesn't work, even with ndiswrapper (the lights blink, but it won't pick up the signal). I've also tried DriverLoader; it can't detect the device after the drivers are installed. - techvivek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4nightguilt: agreed... but may be the following lines will make a difference
"If your company is worried about NDA issues surrounding your device's specifications, we have arranged a program with OSDL/TLF's Tech Board to provide the legal framework where a company can interact with a member of the kernel community in order to properly assure that all needed NDA requirements are fulfilled" - celeb, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3This is definitely needed. The next thing is free help desk for newbies. *not it :)
- cwt137, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Imaginarr: This post is about drivers in the kernel. Printer drivers are different. If you would like help in getting your printer supported in linux, go to http://www.linuxprinting.org/
- Wyzard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4To be fair: in Windows, printer drivers *are* part of the kernel. :-)
(That is, they run in Ring 0, i.e. kernel-level access to the entire system. That's why a buggy printer driver can crash Windows.) - 1310nm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I fundamentally agree with abuser. People running linux should purchase hardware that has linux drivers developed for it. Not only is it a "wallet vote" for linux-compatible hardware, but also prevents people outside of the vendor's company from having to do the dirty work of developing linux drivers.
Practically, however, it isn't going to happen, and the offer put forth by the blog entry is a GoodThing. - 13thfloor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Canon = no Linux support. I'd just get another printer and give that one to a Windows user. That's what I finally did.
- JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"What's the ***** point of helping some for-profit company cut down their cost?"
So Linux shouldn't be promoted as a cost saving measure for companies? - naz37, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3personally i find a nice joint helps focus the mind.
- JQP123, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3"Seems they like Linux a lot."
That's nice but how is this revelant to driver development? A quick glance at the web site suggests that the Neuros products are mostly stand-alone or interface through a network connection. Maybe I'm wrong (only took a quick glance) but from what I saw, their business doesn't appear to focus on PC add-ons that require installed device drivers. - Earlofnecromium, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Oh yeah...Cannon you better get drivers for the ip1500 up and running. Oh yeah and the logitech webcams! And keep those wine updates coming. I love you Linux Kernel Developers!
- greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2printing is handled entirely by the CUPS service, not the Linux kernel.
http://www.linuxprinting.org/show_printer.cgi?recnum=Lexmark-X75 - vornan19, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3@JQP123
These people may not be a household name but...
http://www.neurosaudio.com/
Seems they like Linux a lot. I bought the first gen Neuros audio BECAUSE of the Linux/ogg support. I upgraded after several years and many drops to the second gen.
No, I don't work for them. I just like my music. - HonoredMule, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Now this is frikkin awesome. In fact, it's the very first time ANYTHING on on digg has ACTUALLY been awesome. With this out, only the largest and most self-important companies will continue to shun open source linux driver support, and they'll take a lot of heat for it until they relent. (Here's looking at you, nVidia.)
- cantormath, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3The word trade-secret will come up often in this mission. The fact of the matter is, hardware companies do not want folks switching to Linux. If someone is running Linux, they are less likely to need new hardware. Vista requires damn near a new computer for many end users, hence hardware folks will definitely be make drivers for Vista.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I had a ip1300 or some such, there are commercial drivers from TurboPrint that work good. Don't like the idea of paying money for drivers though :(
The model I had is now supported though (And the printer it self was crap and broke very quickly, avoid cannon, I recommend Epson). I believe cannon do limited Linux support, maybe its just Japan though, which is where some drivers where available from. - greyfade, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1several logitech webcams have limited support from several drivers: uvc, qce-ga, spcs5xxx, and pwc(x). support is actually there, but it's admittedly somewhat limited. (mostly due to the fact that Logitech seems to be rather hostile to the idea of supporting Linux, and the NDAs necessary to get the specs for the camera driver chips mean no open source support for compression. that's why pwc is mostly dead in the water: http://www.smcc.demon.nl/webcam/
- Imaginarr, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2That sounds like very good news, I hope they can make a driver for a printer like Lexmark x75. There is one but it doesn't work for me. But wow, this guys don't sleep!Keep up the good work!
- cantormath, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think a better impression would have been made if the word hacker was not in the title......but great idea.
- Dmitrik, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@cantormath
I don't agree with this.. mostly because I love new and powerful hardware - and I still use Linux (and sometimes Windows... when I need a program I can't run in Linux). Just that instead of throwing out my old computer, I'd rather use it as a backup or some other purpose.. - javabeta, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1That is a big work
- drag, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you want a printer for Linux buy a HP printer. They support the development of open source drivers for their inkjet and laserjet printers and should be supported out of the box by any recent release from desktop-oriented distributions.
full scanning and printing support. - trilith, on 10/11/2007, -0/+0Beautiful! I've heard about this month ago, but I can't remember where exactly.
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