Re: Hardware hassles: Linux vs. Windows
Christian Convey wrote:
I don't think I agree. I'm talking about cases where a good driver
exists in both Windows and Linux. My question is: given an existing
good driver, why is there more manual work to get a device like a
trackball useable under Linux rather than Windows?
Where I'm going is this: Issues like what hotplug and udev do when
they see a new device get plugged in, are issues at the OS level
rather than at the driver level. It seems to me that even if a vendor
supplied a great, open source driver for the trackball, that alone
wouldn't prevent me from needing to tinker with gpm and xf86 stuff in
order to use that trackball. That's why I see this as more of a
kernel/distro issue than a low-level driver issue. Does that make sense?
There is a lot of push to do provide exactly this sort of interface, and
I think if you play with a more controlled, less flexible (also more
cutting edge) distribution like Fedora you will find that (1) things
just work without as much user input and (2) if any user input is
required, it's done over a graphical interface. This is largely due to
software like hal, udev, dbus, and kudzu, which are all geared towards
following the Windows driver model (I insert a new device, UI questions
me about that device, etc.) where things happen automatically or with
friendly UI.
Jeremy
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