Re: Why does Ubuntu have all the ideas?
On Thu, Aug 24, 2006 at 06:16:49PM +0200, Bastian Venthur wrote:
> > which is definitifly a thing of the Kernel (Linux) which depend
> > on the support of the hardware manufacturer. If you want to
> > get better hardware support, please contact the manufacturer.
>
> Because, hardware support seems to be better in Ubutuntu than in Debian?
> I've not tested it by myself, but I've heard from many people claiming
> that their hardware (especially Laptop hardware) works perfectly out of
> the box with Ubuntu but is a PITA to get working on Debian.
This sort of vague anecdotal "evidence" has been repeated over and over.
It may be true, but as far as I know, nobody has yet to come forth with
reporting specific problems in Debian, only "x worked out of the box in
ubuntu but not in Debian."
Well, that may be, but that's not necessarily a bug in Debian. For
instance, for many years, the Debian installer did not support LVM, even
though the Debian OS did. Is that a bug (in the classic sense) in the
Debian installer? I'd say no, it was just a feature it didn't have.
We ship a lot of modules as source in Debian -- lirc, for instance, but
you can also find source modules for things like nvidia in contrib or
non-free. Building binaries from source modules is trivial but
non-obvious to someone that is not a Linux admin. Perhaps that could be
improved, but it doesn't mean that Debian supports less hardware, only
that its support may appear in a different manner.
(I haven't used Ubuntu, so I don't know if this is the problem or not)
BTW, there is a strong case to be made that Debian supports far more
hardware than Ubuntu simply because ports of Ubuntu are sadly deficient.
That is one reason I have never turned to Ubuntu. I can't run it on my
Alpha, I couldn't have run it on my Zaurus (arm) like I did with Debian,
etc.
Hardware choice is important to me. I don't want my software selection
to lock me into one or two hardware platforms -- I want to be able to
buy an Arm, Sparc, Alpha, PowerPC, or whatever device and put my chosen
software on it if I so desire.
So it all depends on your perspective. If you narrow your perspective
to "ia32 laptop hardware", perhaps Ubuntu supports more. If you expand
it, I would say Debian supports more.
-- John
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