Right now the situation for developers of minor operating systems seems somewhat bleak. Windows and the Unixes compete in the server world, and Windows and MacOS X compete on the desktop. Linux even gets ported to every embedded device, leaving few niches for the hobbyist or sidelined operating system developer. Some have even gone so far as to say that New Operating Systems Won't Stand a Chance. As anyone who reads OSNews can tell you, however there are a wealth of new systems with new ideas that just aren't taking off. Given all these new ideas some - like capability security from EROS for example - should be good enough to catch on, so why aren't they?
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Member since:2005-09-08
Member since:2005-07-06
Member since:2005-07-06
I agree on this, if an OS-developer could write one driver which fits all soundcards and one driver which fits all network cards, it would certainly be very useful...
Well, that is what Microsoft is trying to do, create a *very* basic sound card based standard in which ALL sound card companies conform to, meaning you can have a simple base driver which supports all sound cards, and if you want special features, you go off and download the special vendor specific driver.
Its a nice idea in theory, but like so many other things, all that has to happen is have just one company to make either a half assed implementation or basically don't implement all the features as they should, then you pretty much end up with the current mess with APCI - a great standard buggered by lazy motherboard manufacturers and operating system vendors not properly supporting the standards.
Member since:impossible. difficult hardware always has different protocols.
Unless there is a "uniform sound card driver protocl" and all the hardware designer conform that, a universal sound card driver will be possible. but that will put too much effort on the hardware design, maybe need some embeeded OS running on soundcard to provide a uniform interface.
so it is not likely to happen.
Member since:
2005-07-06
It sounds like Eli really hit the nail on the head. The worst part about developing a new OS has got to be trying to write device drivers for the millions of devices out there. If there were a unified device driver API like UDI out there, then one of the big hurdles of OS writing would simply go away.
That would be awesome!