From: Charlie Stross (charlie@antipope.org)
Date: Fri Dec 24 1999 - 03:26:04 MST
On Thu, Dec 23, 1999 at 09:09:55AM -0800, Robert J. Bradbury wrote:
>
> But I cannot see why John Q. Public would really want to purchase and
> install Linux. The system supports many fewer devices that Microsoft.
Can you install Windows on your System/390 mainframe? On your Psion
Series 5? On your iMac? On your SPARCstation?
The perception that Linux supports fewer devices than Microsoft is
mistaken. The _real_ point is that until about six to nine months
ago hardware device drivers for Linux tended to be written by
users rather than by the hardware manufacturers, so that availability
lagged behind new releases -- especially in the consumer market, where
new hardware tends to be released rapidly, APIs are proprietary, and
3D graphics performance tweaks common.
This is now changing; witness, for example, Creative Labs or 3Dfx
releasing Linux drivers for their new hardware, or Intel supporting
the Linux IA64 porting effort. Windows is still the largest market,
but Linux has now snowballed to the point where you have to work hard to
ignore it. As a result, more and more companies are now releasing Linux
drivers. Case in point; only a couple of months ago, the othodoxy was
that Winmodems would *never* be compatible with Linux. Funnily enough,
it's now possible to run Lucent Technology winmodems on Linux -- and
there's at least one box- shifter selling "Linmodems".
> As Eugene points out, it slowly evolves into the mainstream of computing
> but tends to be behind the times because Windows is still the largest
> market and people will write the drivers for new devices for Windows
> before Linux. Can you imagine a non-technical person trying to
> configure an X server for a new video card & monitor? Its a joke.
I take it you haven't installed Corel Linux then.
Go on. Have fun.
(Typical Corel Linux user: "X Windows? What's that? Do you mean
my desktop?" [scratches head] "I dunno, it just worked.")
> I think the only way the public can deal with Linux is to get it
> preconfigured for your hardware which probably means buying it
> from the hardware supplier.
I think the next year will tend to surprise you ...
-- Charlie
(Caveat: I have two jobs. Besides being head Perl mangler at DataCash,
I am Linux columnist for Computer Shopper -- the British magazine of
that name, not the ZD title prevalent in the USA. I tend to have
fairly robust opinions about Linux, as it's been my main operating
system platform since 1995.)
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