ken keanon wrote:
Yep, but ya gotta remember that Microsoft does not make these devices work in Windows; the manufacturers of the devices make them work, by writing the drivers. If these manufacturers wrote the drivers for Linux (or at the minimum, provided the specs so that Linux developers could write the drivers), the problem would largely go away.Starting with the maxim "To beat MS you have to be as good as, if not better than, MS", I am constantlycomparing the Linux I had installed with WinXP.With Konqueror, the Window Management, File Management, Web Browsing is on par with WinXP. What I find wanting in Linux is Device Management. With plug-in, adding new devices to WinXP is a breeze but not in Linux.
If you want the ease of plug-and-play you've come to expect in Windows, all you have to do is make sure you get devices that are 100%-supported in Linux. It's the same situation you'd find on Macintosh. You can't expect a "win-printer" to work on Mac, or on Linux.
I largely blame the device manufacturers, not the OS. (Or I blame Microsoft, for using illegal and unethical means to gain their monopoly, making it the OS for which the manufacturers aim ;-) .) I understand that Linux still needs some work to make it easier for manufacturers to support their devices in Linux, but the bottom line is that the manufacturers simply don't support their hardware on Linux, making it more difficult to use those devices in Linux.
-- Kent West westk@acu.edu