ibig sabihin, linux users all over the world helps one another to develop linux,
softwares and drivers??? =) hindi na yung mga manufacturers ang kadalasang source ng
drivers??? meron ng mga taong gumagawa na lang ng drivers para sa iba't ibang devices
for linux???? COOL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>Unfortunately, the reality is never that neat. Hardware drivers are
>still needed in Linux of course, but the model for the distribution and
>dissemination of driver software is totally different from the way it
>works in Windows. In Windows, most non-standard hardware has a driver
>which is provided by the manufacturer in the form of driver disks, and
>it is the manufacturer that has responsibility for ensuring that their
>software works with Windows. However, what generally happens in the
>Linux world is that the Linux community winds up developing and
>maintaining most if not all of the drivers, because 99% of hardware
>manufacturers can't be bothered, are totally unaware that Linux exists
>(yes, there still ARE companies of this kind!), or the GPL licensing
>conditions for Linux totally violate their company's policy. If we're
>lucky, the manufacturer is friendly enough to provide technical
>specifications that allow the Linux kernel people to write a driver.
>If we're not so lucky, the company plays hardball and refuses to give
>the specs without an NDA, which means a driver can't be developed
>for Linux because the GPL expressly forbids NDA's. The only way a
>driver can be developed in that case is to reverse engineer an existing
>driver for some other OS, and that will only be done if the device is
>important enough for people to care. This, sadly, is the case for
>most of the inexpensive internal software modems you can buy; drivers
>don't exist because nobody can be bothered to reverse engineer the
>existing drivers (which are complicated pieces of software).
>
>The same principle is generally true for the video drivers used by
>XFree86, printer drivers used by GhostScript, and scanner drivers used
>by SANE, among other things. The community develops and has
>responsibility for maintenance of the driver software, because most
>manufacturers don't really care about what they perceive to be a niche
>OS like Linux.
>
>As for external modems, like I said, they are the exception more than
>the rule. External modems are built around an ubiquitous standard
>that's been around for more than 30 years, RS-232. Note that you won't
>need any third-party drivers to use external modems under Windows
>either. You really can plug in external modems into a box and get
>them working more quickly than any other device. The generic serial
>driver, which is usually installed by default anyhow, will be enough.
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