Re: On Linux-friendly manufacturers
On Sun, 2005-01-16 at 01:47 -0200, Rogério Brito wrote:
<snip>
> I tried to see the page you indicated, but it was not found on the site.
> The correct page now is <http://www.winischhofer.at/linuxsisvga.shtml>.
Err.. sorry.. my bookmark was out of date I guess.
> Anyway, it's good to know that to be even more cautious when purchasing
> hardware with Linux in mind.
>
> The situation right now is not that good and I see that many large
> corporations (like IBM, Intel etc) have divisions that seem to support
> Linux and divisions that seem to not support Open Source Operating
> Systems, unfortunately.
Unfortunately, most companies pay lip service to "we support Linux". In
that vein, how's Linux support on Dell computers now ? :) see what I
mean...
> BTW, I had the impression that SiS was a Linux-friendly corporation due to
> the fact that they have some developers participating on the linux-kernel
> mailing list.
Oh ? I wasn't aware of that. I know that some guys work at big companies
(Cox / RH, formerly 3Com, some at HP, etc), but concerning SiS, I didn't
know. Good for them, I won't "spit" on these guys, they must be mad to
see the way their company acts.
> And, IIRC, I remember that Alan Cox said that VIA provided documentation to
> their hardware for developers (it may be that it was under a NDA, I don't
> remember).
Damned NDAs :) I get mad when I think about the situation in graphics
cards (AFAIK no NDAs are involved, the modules are plain closed-source
binaries) : on most systems the graphics driver is already the most
unstable piece of software on the system. Now to think that a
driver/module is developed by some writer that isn't not that familiar
with at which milestone the kernel developers have gotten, etc ... That
sickens me.
<snip>
> Heh. :-) In the same way that not all Computer Scientists are useful. :-)
> If you are quite deep into the Theoretical stuff, you may not even know how
> to use a computer, besides using Emacs and LaTeX for typing papers. :-)
Heh :) I have my Bachelor's Degree in Comp. Science. I actually thought
of going for the Masters, I was accepted; a friend of mine was
completing his Masters, and after a few lengthy discussions with him, I
figured that theoritical <sp ?> mattered less to me than actual software
writing :)
> But speaking seriously now, I think that it would be nice to have hardware
> review sites that focused on Linux *with* Open Source drivers. Well, not
> exactly Linux, but Open Source Operating Systems in general, since we may
> want to go back and forth between them.
I'd go one step further: a magazine than is *not* distribution-oriented.
I'm getting sick and tired of hearing only of RedHat and SuSE. I'm not
saying that Debian is perfect (...there would not be any need for a
mailing list here if it were :) ), but please, give me a break with
those so-called major distros. Not that I dislike them. The computer I
use to write this post runs Fedora Core 3, actually.
Regards,
Jeff
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