On Tuesday 27 July 2010 05:55:29 Derek J. Balling wrote: > On Jul 27, 2010, at 1:39 AM, Chris Knadle wrote: > > I get the "just works" argument. Unfortunately Linux and OS X are not on > > a level playing field in that area because OS X is only meant to run on > > Apple- made hardware, meaning that they know ahead of time what devices > > they have to support in the OS for the computer itself. > > [...] > > Another thing to keep in mind is that when you purchase hardware for a > > Mac you often have to buy the "Mac" version of the device, such as video > > cards or scanners, yet there are no "Linux" versions of the same > > devices. That there is a "Mac" version of these things makes them > > easier to buy and know that they're supported, but again it means that > > Linux and OS X are not on a level playing field there. > > I think, at the end of the day, that this is a smart design decision by > Apple. Instead of allowing themselves to get sucked into the "which cheap > POS asian video card is out today" game, they don't have to worry about > any of that nonsense, and can focus on the parts of the OS that matter > instead of trying to diagnose obscure bugs that only show up on slightly > off-spec video cards, or whatever. > > And by not needing to use buckets of third-party drivers (to bypass that > problem the Microsoft way), they end up with a more stable platform.
On the one hand you can know that the Mac-only version of a device will work, on the other hand it limits your choices to what Apple has deemed will be made available. The point on stability is definitely valid, though. I've had problems with third-party drivers on Linux, too. Around 7 years ago it was common for commercial hardware vendors to release proprietary binary-only drivers for their devices for particular versions of Linux distributions. This was very problematic, because it meant that if you used it you were locked into using a particular kernel for a particular distribution and could not upgrade unless the commercial vendor made another release of their driver for it. I ran into stability problems with such a driver for an IDE controller, which led to random hard lock-ups requiring reboots after unclean shutdown of several mail servers that had the device in them. The commercial vendor of the controller was dismissive at first, and ultimately unable to find the bug in their driver. When an open-source driver was merged into the Linux kernel itself and we switched to it, that's when the problem was fixed. So when you hear the complaint that Linux doesn't have "a stable ABI", be glad that it doesn't. (According to Greg Kroah-Hartman, no kernel on any system does anyway.) -- Chris -- Chris Knadle [email protected] _______________________________________________ Mid-Hudson Valley Linux Users Group http://mhvlug.org http://mhvlug.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/mhvlug Upcoming Meetings (6pm - 8pm) MHVLS Auditorium Aug 4 - Samba Sep 1 - BOINC Oct 6 - Creating Firefox Extensions
