Linked by Thom Holwerda on Fri 16th Dec 2005 22:28 UTC
"Linux works. This is a very matter-of-fact statement, but it is one many people (myself included) make every day when they boot up their computers. It is not a perfect product, it would not be sensible to expect something as complex as an operating system to be flawless, but fact remains that Linux does work. On the software side of things the open source community has done a very good job of making this clear, but the other half of computing, hardware, this movement has not been as successful. Every day Linux users encounter driver and compatibility issues which Windows users have not had to deal with for years."
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RE: Windows driver problems
by Simba on Sat 17th Dec 2005 21:05
in reply to "Windows driver problems"
Member since:2005-10-08
Again, typically, the problems show up more on laptops than on desktops. People don't change the hardware on their desktops very often. So in Linux, once the desktop hardware is working, it generally continues to work fine.
This is not the case with laptops, where I might swap USB devices 3 or 4 times in single meeting. And there is where Linux really leaves a lot to be desired. It's ability to automatically detect a hotswapped USB device and identify it correctly, and "do the right thing" with it, really needs a lot of work.
Member since:
Sorry but I have to strongly disagree with the author of that article. When we were still using Windows we had driver problems all the time. Since we are using Linux we haven't had a single problem with drivers on any of the desktops which vary across all conceivable combinations of hardware. Linux offers excellent driver support, even for rather exotic or outdated hardware.