On Linux Hardware Compatibility
Dear World,
Sometimes, you just have the hardware of the darned, and getting Linux to cooperate on it just isn’t worth the time.
This is usually not the case.
Please try the Live CD of a distro beforer you install it onto your hard drive–just to make sure everything works as it should.
Please don’t let one bad experience make you trot around the Internet telling people that nothing ever works with Linux.
If you must trot around the Internet, please don’t whine.
Adopting a pessimistic attitude of, “Linux didn’t work on this one computer–it won’t work on any” is spreading fear, uncertainty and doubt around. Nobody needs this–not Linux fans, not Windows fans, not Mac fans, not the greater computer-loving world.
Thank you,
Timmy Macdonald
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Another thing to keep in mind is that there are a number of different Distros out there. Just because one doesn’t work, doesn’t mean that others wont.
When I first started using Linux 3 years ago I had hardware that wouldn’t work in Ubuntu, or wasn’t easy to get configured in Ubuntu but it worked fine in Suse.
Modems are also a big headache. I just built a machine with puppy Linux on it because of their modem support. (they still use dialup) and Ubuntu flavors weren’t seeing their modem.
[...] I said a few days ago, people have a tendency to complain when Linux doesn’t like their hardware. The converse of that, of course, is that people [...]
[...] Support and Variety. As I pointed out a few weeks ago, sometimes hardware just doesn’t work. This problem is also present in Windows: OEMs have no reason to be polite and leave vintage [...]
Check out the Ubuntu hardware compatibility list at http://www.ubuntuhcl.org/ for compatibility reviews for hardware running under Ubuntu and other Linux distributions.
Its fine and well saying that but when every time you use your computer there’s yet another program that’s only available for windows and don’t run on wine, (and doesn’t have compatible alternatives) yet another flash video that don’t run properly because graphics card drivers are not fully supported, and yet another random error occurs it gets a bit much! There’s a reason why so many businesses use windows and I know its market forces that have caused this situation but lets face it most of the time on a well maintained windows pc software works, games work, drivers support hardware.
I love the idea of linux but they need to make it work more of the time and for more people we don’t have time to search around the internet to find lines of code to get wifi working or to fix yet another problem that’s causing us a headache that wouldn’t have occurred on a windows pc because the market has put lots of money and time into developing things that work on a windows pc.