Joshua Marinacci wrote: > I think it's because Mac's aren't an OS. They are a software/hardware > combo, all provided by the same vendor. Thus all of the built in > hardware is guaranteed to work because it's built by the same company. > True, there are peripherals, but it's less critical than it is for > Windows. I believe the main point is that you can tell before the buy if it is going to work. I suspect most Mac users will buy only those products that are labeled to work with MacOS. Hardly anything gets labeled to work with Linux, partly since "Linux" is too vague -- MS and Apple tend to produce a much smaller set of platforms to develop against. > Windows is the gold standard of hardware support because > they have to support *everything*. No, they don't need to and they don't do it. The point is that new products need to support the current versions of Windows. They won't work on old ones and you won't get much support from MS for the new hardware either. > If you want to claim good hardware > support, then that's what you are going after. Comparing Linux to > MacOSX only works if you are comparing a pre-built Linux system (say, > a netbook) to a complete Mac. As more dedicated PC like devices > arrive built on a Linux stack (like ChromeOS, if the rumors are true) > then this will become a more relevant comparison. > There are many dedicated devices running Linux already, they just don't advertise it. Many network devices use Linux, printers do, GPS units and others. Didn't the Kindle run a Linux stack? > Note. I think a lot of the requests for HW support in Linux is > theoretical. In practice people care about printers, scanners, > cameras, and MP3 players. That's 99% of what people want out of their > Linux box, and I get the impression that a modern Linux distro > supports those quite well, or at least as well as Windows. > You miss some important ones: graphic cards, sound cards, networking cards. And the even lower ones (CPUs, bridges, harddisk controllers). The latter are a no-brainer on Linux, but you can still have fun in that first category. It's getting uncommon, but it certainly still exists. > (Printing in *any* OS is still a pain, which is a travesty of the 21st > century) > Hear, hear. Although it got much better for me after I got myself an OfficeJet Pro at home. I learned to avoid consumer printers a long time ago :-) Even if it means to put a massive thing somewhere in the corner -- the price is pretty much a no-brainer (~AUD250) and you get networking as well as duplex on both ends (printing, scanning), but it is an ugly big beast. Much, much more carefree than the consumer stuff, though. And much, much more carefree than the crap HP sells as workgroup laser printers nowadays. I always print on the colour printer at work since every third document I send to the other printer crashes it. You would think they have figured Postscript out by now.
But I'm off-topic, you just struck a chord :-) Peter > - Josh > > On Jul 11, 2009, at 9:13 PM, Weiqi Gao wrote: > > >> [I'm 15 minutes into #266 and I have to pause the podcast and shoot >> this >> email out. (If I don't and wait till the end, I would forget all >> about >> it.)] >> >> Why is it that when it comes to the question of Linux's hardware >> support, people always bring Windows out for comparison? While in >> every >> other occasion, people beat Linux with Mac OS X? >> >> Surely Linux supports more hardwares than Mac OS X, doesn't it? >> >> -- >> Weiqi Gao >> [email protected] >> http://www.weiqigao.com/blog/ >> >> > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "The Java Posse" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/javaposse?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
