Re: Hardware hassles: Linux vs. Windows
Alvin Oga wrote:
On Wed, 15 Dec 2004, Christian Convey wrote:
Hi guys,
Recently I've spent a lot of time digging through udev / hotplug issues,
getting to know modprobe, modules.conf, alsaconf, XF86Config-4 etc.
This was all to get a digicam and a flashdrive to be useful, or to make
sound/video work.
things do "just plug it in and it works"
[snip]
- the point .. use a good installer and supported hardware and the
problems does NOT exist
c ya
alvin
I used Sarge's new installer, which I think most people reckon to be
pretty good. And yet I've still had these issues.
But the issues I've faced would, I think, mainly be issues that arise
after the OS is installed. So I'm not sure this can be entirely chalked
up to the quality of the distro's installer.
For example: I plug in a USB trackball, and on Windows it just works
(although it might prompt me to supply a driver). When I did this on
linux, I had to tinker with gpm, and I had to modify my XF86Config-4
file as well.
Another example: I plug in a usb flashdrive, and I have to go much with
the udev rules manually to assign it a filename that's based on the
drive's identity or volume info.
I'm not complaining - I get far more than what I paid for with Debian.
I'm mostly just curious about whether the difference in user experiences
is a necessary consequence of Linux's hardware model, or is it due to
some other factor?
Possible factors I can think of include:
- The Bazzare development model leads to people spending energy
developing multiple approaches (i.e., alsa vs. arts, x.org vs. xf86
vs. ...) rathre than putting all our efforts towards polishing one
particular model.
- People don't want to muck with Linux's flexibility. I.e., perhaps
making USB keychains "just work" would require fixating certain
details of device handling. I.e., it would require giving up some
of the flexibility that udev / hotplug currently permit via
user-supplied rules.
--
Christian Convey
Computer Scientist,
Naval Undersea Warfare Center
Newport, RI
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