On Mon, Sep 27, 2010 at 12:28 PM, Siju George <[email protected]> wrote:
> ##### PART - 1 ############################################################ > > On Sat, Sep 25, 2010 at 6:13 PM, Mahesh Aravind <[email protected]> > wrote: > > > > * Support for 'modern' hardware? > > > > So Mahesh, as promised on friday let us take a journey on this. > > I chose to deal with one topic a day so it won't be too much strain > for me because I am behind schedule in my work place :-( > Also I will try to over simplify in some places. It is not because I > consider you ignorant but because there are other friends new to > BSD\Unix\Linux in this list and they might require it for better > apprehension on the matter > > Now I usually don't get into arguments about "Freedom" because you can > only argue about "Freedom" only if you first come to an agreement as > to what it means. The GPL and BSD guys disagree on the definition > itself. So generally a debate on it is a waste of time. But differrent > facets of freedom comes into play when we discuss hardware support so > we will divert to them for a while and come back to the main theme as > we progress some times. > > Also this is not to persuade you to migrate from Linux to BSD because > for many purposes I my self use Linux and even "OS X" and "MS Windows" > and in some spare time even "Plan9". But I hope this will give you > some realistic views about Linux as well as BSD, GPL as well as BSDL > and help you since you yourself admitted the comment "BSD is Lagging" > was not made from first hand knowledge but from a few blogs and > websites you read about this. > > Well If you did the homework and visited > > http://www.levenez.com/unix/ > > you will know that Unix is not an operating system ( though UNIX is an > AT & T trademark ) rather a family of very many Operating Systems, not > all of them Open Source and Linux is one among them. Generally they > can be broadly categorized to the "BSD Stream" and "System V" stream. > Let us leave it at that for now we will come back to it later God > willing :-) > GNU (Gnu Not Unix ) as its name implies is not Unix .The project just borrowed principles which made Unix what it is . BSD is a direct derivative of Unix. so is AIX ,UX etc. > > Now Let us start discussing "Hardware Support" > > Now in most cases when some body talks about "Support for modern > hardware" he is talking about supporting some thing like new NVIDIA > Video card on his/her new desktop or a new sound card of webcam or > some thing similar. So let us take a look at the Differrent Hardware > available to us in this world today. > > Most People in India know about Intel's and AMD's x86/amd64/x86_64 > architectures/platforms and think that is the whole world of computers > ( If they purchased a Mac few years back they might have got a "Power > PC" machine but these days Macs come on Intel Platform ). Nothing > could be far from truth. > > There are a lot of Differrent Hardware Platforms to start from basics. > An example we all have heard can be what is Anivar is using now. > > > http://mail.ilug-cochin.org/pipermail/mailinglist_ilug-cochin.org/2010-September/005303.html > > Newer hardware platforms are comming out which do things quite > differrently from what Intel's and amd's platforms does and is > preferred by differrent people for differrent purposes. > > Now let us see how many hardware platforms both BSD and Linux Supports. > > This is the list of platforms NetBSD supports > > http://www.netbsd.org/ports/ > > On a broad basis you can say it **supports 57 differrent Hardware > Platforms**. > > Let us make this a two way learning process. > > You tell me with proof How many hardware platforms Linux Support? > > Also please tell me if I missed some thing some where or if I > exagerrated or if I am in error or any other comments you need to make > :-) > > > "I am going in a very slow detailed pace because every one reading > this can understand and so it will not turn out to be ego trips of a > few self proclaimed geeks ;-) If some body is new to these things and > has any doubts please feel free to ask. I would love to explain :-) " > > Now I guess if time permits we will discuss the following tomorrow. > > 1) Hardware specific to Intel/amd platforms > 2) What Hardware support means? > 3) What is a driver? > 4) What is required to write a driver? i.e driver documentation or > data sheet etc. > 5) Who writes the driver? > 6) What is a "closed source hardware" ? > 7) Approaches made by differrent BSD and Linux commuities to support > "closed source hardware" and their impacts of Freedom. > 8) Who writes the driver? > 9) What is an NDA? > 10) Is it right to sign an NDA with a vendor inorder to support their > hardware i one's OS? > 11) The problems caused by signing an NDA and which community? BSD or > LInux does that > 12) RMS and NDA > 13) What is done by BSD and Linux communities and RMS to free documentation > ? > 14) How far each community has contributed towards Freedom? > 15) What can be done and is done by differrent communities when a > hardware vendor does not Open up Hardware Documentation? > > It would be great if you can also read on some of these things so you > don't have to fall into the trap of being indoctrinated by a single > induvidal :-) > > You may start here > > http://www.securityfocus.com/columnists/281 > > > **Now some of you may onder why I started this series mentioning > differrent hardware platforms. > The reason is that some of them are better than others both > "generally" and in "specific" areas." > > The Intel platform we use commonly are some times considered buggy and > is totally discarded for certain uses. > Those of you interested in this can start with these links. You might > even learn how Linux developers work against GPL while sitting under > GPL banner at the same time :-( > > http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070630105416 > http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20070628134608 > http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20061006000709 > http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20060930232710 > http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=20040207090048 > > these resources of information are spread across the net so I chose to > give you links from Undeadly.org where they are to some degree > organized. From the undeadly page you browse the links to the actual > source. > > So I guess i will stop for today :-) > > have a nice journey through truth and reality! > > Cheers > > --Siju > > _______________________________________________ > Indian Libre User Group Cochin Mailing List > http://www.ilug-cochin.org/mailing-list/ > http://mail.ilug-cochin.org/mailman/listinfo/mailinglist_ilug-cochin.org > #[email protected] > I dont know who is telling what here. But from a sysadmins point of view ( we view the system as a whole instead of parts like the Linux kernel , the package management system etc ) GNU is easier to manage as a whole (especially systems like Debian ) .But i do like BSD as too many projects makes too many knowledge streams and makes the whole ecosystem healthy ( a varied form of the bazaar dev model !) . So let people continue to make better both gNU and BSd .in the end its all for us ! , by us! -- Anoop P Alias (PGP Key ID : 0x014F9953) GNU system administrator http://GnuSys.net
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