Since you followed up to my post, Bill, I will clarify that I was only speaking from the developer's perspective on "simple" for compiling on the common 64 bit AMD/Intel platform and i386 (i486, i586, i686) platform. That said, the two pieces of software I develop do not rely on the differences between the 32 and 64 bit architectures and therefore are an "easy" recompile. Unless someone wishes to step up as a beta tester for either project, I do not expect people to be compiling their packages even though I put a lot of work into cleaning up Hamlib's build system a couple of years ago and it about as easy as it could get. For that the distributions provide their own package managers that will install precompiled software and take care to assure that all dependencies are correctly installed and managed. There is very little "DLL hell" on a supported Linux distribution as shared library dependencies are carefully managed, at least on Debian and its derivatives (Ubuntu, Mepis, Siduction, etc.).
Things like USB-serial devices are a pain as they are not consistently named across system restarts and some under-the-hood work is necessary to overcome that and a persistent port name can be presented to user software on Linux systems. I've had Windows do the same thing by naming an adapter COM5 one time and COM8 the next and something else some other time so that complaint is a wash. OTOH, the Linux kernel includes drivers for both Prolific and FTDI devices which are very stable for each chipset, so it's a matter of plugging the USB-serial adapter in, figuring out the port name, and away you go. No searching for drivers of questionable quality in the dark corners of the Web for some knock-off adapter. Recall also that while most will agree the K3 is a high performance radio, there are enough complaints about the UI that some that would be interested stay away and buy competing products. Some hold their nose and put up with the K3's UI because of the performance, and still others have no issue with the UI and simply use it as they've learned (I fall in the last camp). In many respects Linux UIs share the same response. Modern systems are complex and perceived user simplicity is a result of someone else dealing with the complexity beforehand and elsewhere. 73, Nate N0NB -- "The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all possible worlds. The pessimist fears this is true." Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us ______________________________________________________________ Elecraft mailing list Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/elecraft Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm Post: mailto:[email protected] This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html Message delivered to [email protected]
