In general, a good article! I would like to share my thoughts on this as an ordinary linux user. Please don't start any flame war on this, as I am not trying to make any allegations on Linux - it might just be that I am an incompetent user!
Linux is VERT robust and very cleverly designed OS - no doubt about it. Also, there is no doubt linux supports more devices than any other OS, but as a user, I don't agree with this. The list of devices supported on linux is BIG, but that includes old and new devices. That way the number of devices supported will be huge, but how many _latest_ devices are supported on linux "out of box"? I am not kernel/OS internals/device drivers geek, but just an ordinary linux user. Just to give an example, I installed a sound card in my PC which has Win2000 and slackware linux 9.1/10.1 on it. When I installed the card and restarted my machine, windows detected the card and could take full advantage of it. On the other hand, when I booted my machine in linux, I found that there is a very limited support on linux for this card. Moreover, xine and audacity stopped playing/recording sound since they couldn't find the audio device. So this means that I have to re-configure lot of files and enable/disable daemons (esd etc). Considering I am a _very ordinary_ user, I will not be able to fix this problem myself. So I have to search internet resources, ask LUGs and do some research on my part - this definitely is frustrating. So, instead of claiming that linux supports widest range of hardware, what it should try to do is how to simplify the installation/detection/functioning with the latest hardware. If this is achieved I am sure linux will be one of the most popular OS with largest user base. Thanks, Atul. -- ______________________________________________________________________ Pune GNU/Linux Users Group Mailing List: ([email protected]) List Information: http://plug.org.in/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/plug-mail Send 'help' to [EMAIL PROTECTED] for mailing instructions.
