While searching the web, i came across some interesting thing. i hope it would be true also in future.
Interesting read and claim has been independently verified by somebody from Microsoft.
Greg Kroah-Hartman is a longtime developer of the Linux kernel, known for his work maintaining USB drivers as well as for packaging the SUSE kernel at Novell. 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.
And the number of drivers is interesting for me as an end user?
The problem I have is, I cannot simply go to a store, buy some hardware and expect it to work. This hardly ever happens with Windows.
> And the number of drivers is interesting for me as an end user?
> The problem I have is, I cannot simply go to a store, buy some hardware
> and expect it to work. This hardly ever happens with Windows.
>
> Uwe
And just because your hardware works with one release of Linux is no
guarantee that it will with the next version. I’m still using 10.3 on my
laptop due to the wireless chips (choice of two) not working with 11.0.
–
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK. E-mail: newsman not newsboy
On 11/05/2008 Graham P Davis wrote:
> And just because your hardware works with one release of Linux is no
> guarantee that it will with the next version.
Greg acknowledges the problem that not every device yet has a driver but his argument is that the last year has seen a huge improvement in the attitude of hardware manufacturers which is what lies behind his claim and which has fed through into the latest kernel.
He would like to know which manufacturer’s hardware won’t work with Linux as there are 300 volunteer programmers willing to write drivers.
> He would like to know which manufacturer’s hardware won’t work with
> Linux as there are 300 volunteer programmers willing to write drivers.
Take my webcam (UVC driver): It is supposed to work, it worked before, and now it doesn’t. I’m sure it has a “checked” on Greg’s list, but hey, it doesn’t work. It most definitely is a bug (bugzilla.novell.com is full of bugs regarding that problem), yet there is no fix, and given the fact we are on Beta 4, I doubt it will get fixed for 11.1
This is IMO one of the cons of the kernel changing so frequently, compared to Windows/Mac.
>
> buckesfeld;1892202 Wrote:
>> On 11/05/2008 Graham P Davis wrote:
>> > And just because your hardware works with one release of Linux is no
>> > guarantee that it will with the next version.
>>
>> Uh huh. It’s the webcam here
>>
>> Uwe
>
> Greg acknowledges the problem that not every device yet has a driver
> but his argument is that the last year has seen a huge improvement in
> the attitude of hardware manufacturers which is what lies behind his
> claim and which has fed through into the latest kernel.
>
> He would like to know which manufacturer’s hardware won’t work with
> Linux as there are 300 volunteer programmers willing to write drivers.
>
>
My problem is with a Broadcom/Intel USB/wifi chip. The writing of a driver
is in hand so it’s just a matter of patience on my part. I used ndiswrapper
but a change to the kernel (I think) stopped this get-around on 11.0 and
other similarly updated flavours of Linux. My other wifi card is Ralink
which apparently worked with 10.0 but only crawls along with 10.3 and 11.0.
I see work is also under way on a driver for it.
–
Graham P Davis, Bracknell, Berks., UK. E-mail: newsman not newsboy
How plausible is it that, like with Windows, drivers will be easily added to a running system. Click, install and have a nice updated driver… (without lengthy compiling actions needed)
As I’m no developer I’m wondering how much of a challenge this is with the way the Linux kernel works…
That was a good read. That also tells me an easy driver system will not be evident for Linux… at least, not any time soon.
Your driver is either in the kernel tree (open drivers only), or you have a busy job getting keeping a driver running on Linux… Seems like we need some middle ground here!
Somehow it seems like a small wonder that so many drivers made it this far!
By starting this thread was quite useful to all. By sharing every comments.
By going through all the replies, i notice that most of we guys have problem with wireless and web cams. But one thing to notice here is, we are not on M$ windows to install every thing by just one click. Of course we pay for all that drivers and softwares to run on windows. But in case of Linux, its worth a watch to see, that Linux improve a lot in these recent 2 years. We have to accept that around 70% to 80% of things ready and work after installation of any Linux flavor(most cases).
Now 11.1 is on the way to market. and its beta 4 is already released. I read some comments from the main page, where they mention that, web cam support is re-enabled. on wireless drivers like Broadcom, they are still working on it, and hope will be available soon.
“Hot on the heels of openSUSE 11.1 beta 3, the openSUSE project is happy to announce the availability of openSUSE 11.1 beta 4. This release includes a number of important bug fixes since the last beta, as well as a few new bugs that need to get squashed before the final release. Major changes in this release include: inclusion of Nomad, a set of components that provide an unmatchable remote desktop experience to openSUSE; fingerprint reader support; Linux 2.6.27.4 kernel, Mono 2.0.1, GNOME 2.24.1, VirtualBox 2.0.4, Evolution 2.24.1, Banshee 1.3.3; webcam support re-enabled.”
> Your driver is either in the kernel tree (open drivers only), or you
> have a busy job getting keeping a driver running on Linux… Seems like
> we need some middle ground here!
That’d be an ABI, but as you read, OSS people don’t like the idea because it allows closed source drivers. Looks like an ideology issue to me, and so I don’t see that happen.
It is not ideology issue. It might look so but the problem is, if we allow binary-only drivers. We end up situation where the old device drivers can not be ported to newer version of Linux OS, example of 2.0.x series -> 2.6.x series of OS. The company what upkeeps the binary driver, is responsible for doing such thing. And we know that hardware makers are not so willingly wanting to update drivers for devices what manufacture they have stopped few years ago.
On current situation is that new devices are coming and they are incompatible with older versions and you make money with that. If we get devices working on the newer Linux OS than what the driver was made, they end up to situation that they get support calls and other things from older hardware users and they might not even have a change to sell newer version if the older version is enough for users and it’s price is down.
> It is not ideology issue. It might look so but the problem is, if we
> allow binary-only drivers. We end up situation where the old device
> drivers can not be ported to newer version of Linux OS, example of 2.0.x
> series -> 2.6.x series of OS. The company what upkeeps the binary
> driver, is responsible for doing such thing. And we know that hardware
> makers are not so willingly wanting to update drivers for devices what
> manufacture they have stopped few years ago.
I think the only way this will be addressed is through virtualization.
At some point vendors are always going to move on and stop supporting their
older hardware and there is no ‘acceptable’ age of equipment that is going
to make everyone happy.
