broadcast.oreilly.com — O'Reilly Media recently interviewed Greg about his claim that the Linux kernel now supports more devices than any other operating system ever has, as well as why binary-only drivers are illegal, and how the kernel development process works.
Oct 31, 2008 View in Crawl 4
Closed AccountNov 1, 2008
Gotcha. It's hard to tell the difference anymore.
lingnoiNov 1, 2008
Intrepid Ibex is a release candidate, the final version has not been released yet. It's you're own fault for using a beta OS.
guerrilleroNov 1, 2008
I am elitist for wanting to install proper, supported GPU drivers to utilize/enable all features of my video card? I honestly laughed at that one for a good minute. Here, let me put this in a different way (perhaps you will actually understand what I am writing this time?):I paid $150 for a Radeon 3850. Radeon 3850 has VC-1 and H264 GPU offload capability. fglrx and vlc have rudimentary offloading capabilities, offered by choosing xv as your preferred render. VESA does not. Obviously by using VESA, I'm not making good use of my purchase now, am I? Admittedly most users do not have a 3850, but more than 10% of linux users (and the 'common user') surely have an ATi or nVidia card capable of similar features, and do care about using features that they have rightfully paid for (by means of installing proper drivers).Also, a similar argument has already been applied to multi-monitor setups--most users don't want them, so why bother supporting it? This attitude is why driver support on Linux will continue to be terrible for the foreseeable future.(Yes, I did not address the concern here of 'support' and 'compatability'. However, this is not 1998 - a GPU for instance that is classified as 'compatible' on the basis that it can successfully run under an emulation of sorts provided by vesa is a rather useless certification. As stated before, even rendering a small flash applet (youtube) or an appreciable quality movie starts to tax the system - a needless waste of resources. It is easy to retort any sort of argument you have here, simply by saying '90% of people do not have systems with a fast enough processor to make this sort of emulation justifiable, simply by not having proper drivers or support').And honestly, I could not care less if you are stuck in the 90's, playing 2D games and scoffing at '3D openGL s**t'. It actually kind of invalidates your entire argument, but whatever.
tnoyNov 1, 2008
I use Windows and Linux.I use Windows where Linux falls apart and doesn't off the software and hardware support that I need, and Linux when Windows does the same.The stronger Linux (or OS X) gets the more Microsoft will have to work. If Windows starts to become far more efficient than it currently is, then the Linux community will have to start focusing on other things than just being technically superior.I'll digg stories about Linux, Windows, and OS X because I use all three, and I benefit from all three.
Closed AccountNov 1, 2008
no, that's *BSD
runningflame570Nov 2, 2008
@wycheck89yoI haven't used Fedora, but I have tried OpenSuse and between YaST and Synaptic I greatly prefer Synaptic. It's not really a shortcoming of RPMs or YaST (although YaST's update UI could use improvement) it's that it seems more focused for the task at hand.Also I believe Ubuntu presently has the largest software repos, so I would suggest either it, Linux Mint, or PCLinuxOS.
kaiunoNov 4, 2008
Bla bla bla. And without MS having forced us a standard, the industry would still be a silly mish mash of systems and would have no standards to speak of. For once try and see what Microsoft has done for the PC as a platform before acting like an insolent child trying to rebel against its parents.So it forces you to have one operating system. It doesn't force you to use their software, does it? I have a plethora of choices when it comes to office applications. A plethora of choices when it comes to games. A plethora of choices when it comes to utilities and tools. Sure, microsoft has added some (what I would call essential) apps into the operating system. Oh shock! Oh horror! This day and age you can just as easily remove them, but my aunt Margaret is pretty dang happy being able to just click on her blue E to get on the web. Sure, somewhere along the way some smart Alec nephew will come around and swap it out for FireFox, but before that happens she can f**king USE her computer straight from the bat. Is that REALLY so bad? Give it a rest already.
balaknairNov 5, 2008
Actually I've found it to be the other way round, with Linux drivers available for pretty much any piece of hardware I've come across(and it gets better with each release) or at least workarounds(though these are not suitable for average users). Stuff which barely works in windows(hacks and tweaks needed to get some drivers working with some apps) works out of the box with Linux, though I have to admit this would depend on your distro. One reason for this is that Open Source Linux drivers are coded to conform to standards, while most proprietary drivers aren't. And as long as vendors like Broadcom, Creative and Logitech keep their specs secret, it becomes harder for Open Source developers to write good drivers(or fix bugs in the closed source drivers). The only solution I can think of to this to stop buying hardware that doesn't support Linux(and that list is shrinking everyday).