As a PC support engineer I spend several hours a week doing home visits when telephone support has simply given up and said call a technician. Even Apple support is pretty poor from most ISP’s and when the actual product is sold by anything other than Apple Stores in house help is less than stellar.

That somebody was me, and the year was 2000.

quote::It appears that there are important enough hardware-related issues, and distros are different enough, that these factors can determine which distros people use and recommend.

This is simply FUD, based as always, on old out of date facts.

quote::*Somebody* here said… “The other thing, I’ve found, is that Ubuntu doesn’t always play nice with the range of hardware that Mandriva does, sometimes it won’t boot, other times it doesn’t seem to detect the Video card properly.

Yet… “… hardware issues are not Distro specific” ???

Yes that somebody was me. Indeed they are not, and I’ve already answered this, read the post you are quoting.

quote::“most hardware vendors are not taking advantage of the Linux software management system”.
“THE” system? The variety among distros in this regard is one reason why vendors are reluctant to support Linux, IMO.

For the hardware manufactureers to make use of the Linux distribution sytem requires no work on their part. The work is done by the Linux distributors themselves. It is the Linux distributors who build the packages, and would be doing so for the hardware manufacturers, all they have to do is make the code available exactly the samas every other software developer who’s software is installed from a Linux package management system.

The Vendors don’t have to support any Linux distribution. They choose to do it the hard way, by trying to support various Linux distributions, for them and their customers.

quote::it looks like Mandriva 2007 does require additional packages and an optional kernel to be certified LSB… you didn’t know that when you blasted me about standard conventions, did you?…

Yes, this is a furfie. every Linux distrubtor is free to do what they like with respect to the Kernel. Second it’s only about what device drivers are added to support LSB, it’s a non issue.

It appears that there are important enough hardware-related issues, and distros are different enough, that these factors can determine which distros people use and recommend.

*Somebody* here said… “The other thing, I’ve found, is that Ubuntu doesn’t always play nice with the range of hardware that Mandriva does, sometimes it won’t boot, other times it doesn’t seem to detect the Video card properly.

Yet… “… hardware issues are not Distro specific” ???

Visits to Linux forums indicate that there are more than enough hardware problems, and not just with Ubuntu. Careful observers see that there are plenty of people reading many of these forums, and not because they make delightful reading material. They are looking for answers. Yet some people are reluctant to post because they find the attitude of some of the “experts” to be demeaning. (Some of these experts just love to press people’s buttons.)

The evidence suggests that there are more than a few serious problems.

Those who would like Linux to become the “status quo” should be glad that somebody other than the LSB folks are working with them. Because when it comes to universal adoption of Linux standards, evidence of success is mixed, at best.

Hmm, speaking of LSB, it looks like Mandriva 2007 does require additional packages and an optional kernel to be certified LSB… you didn’t know that when you blasted me about standard conventions, did you?… or do you just like to press buttons

“most hardware vendors are not taking advantage of the Linux software management system”.
“THE” system? The variety among distros in this regard is one reason why vendors are reluctant to support Linux, IMO.

This exchange has been interesting for me because I often resist conforming to the status quo. If the Linux community wants to become the status quo, I hope that the effort won’t take a big chunk of fun out of the community.

Good Luck.

The hardware support “problem” is actually the easiest of all to solve. In fact most hardware vendors already support Linux. Greg Kroah-Hartman has already proved that. The problem here is that most hardware vendors are not taking advantage of the Linux software management system which makes it easy to install the drivers.

The “problem” is easily solvable, because it isn’t actually a Linux problem, yes it has serious repercussions for Linux users, but it is still not actually a Linux problem, and as such even if the manufacturers refuse to use the optimal solution they are still not developing against anything that is distribution specific, they are developing against the one thing that is a constant in every linux distribution… the Linux Kernel.

All they need to do to make the whole hardware “problem” go away is to give the Linux Device driver developers, a group set up by Greg Kroah-Hartmen, full access to the specifications of the devices, They can even insist that the device driver developer sign an NDA (Greg has been working with the FSF and SFLF to develop a legal framework that protects the Hardware manufacurers “precious” IP. Once this happens the hardware manufacurers will get free (that’s Free as in Free beer) development of their drivers by Linux hackers who can develop against the kernel API without the overhead of having to provide “shims” to it possible for the Binary blob to talk to the Kernel.

All it takes is will on the part of the Hardware manufacturers and the “problem” will go away as if it never was, the latest and greatest divice drivers will then be included natively in the Linux kernel.

You are wrong hardware issues are not Distro specific, they are manufacurer specific. It only appears to be distro specific because of the choices the Distribution developers make to work around the issues caused by the manufacturers not taking advantage of the Linux Development model that is freely available for their use.

On the other hand I have installed Mandriva on a lot of different hardware. I currently have Mandriva running on several Lenovos, an Optima Centoris, an Asus, a Toshiba. I’ve installed it on uncounted numbers of White box hardware, Dells, Compaqs and had very few problems, none of which couldn’t be fairly easily sorted. I’ve had very few problems with peripherals like printers, usually finding a driver that will do the job, on the odd occassion that I couldn’t find the right driver, LinuxPrinting.org almost always has the answers. even the damnable BroadComm wireless isn’t that much of a problem.

I have no reason to take exception to that point. However…

The fact remains that Linux forums are full of people with more serious problems, often problems that hardware vendors will not resolve, often problems that require distro-specific answers. (A person who received instructions on how to use the Mandriva or PCLOS control center to resolve some issue can’t use those instructions verbatim on Fedora.)

Sometimes problems are easy… the sound doesn’t work because the volume needs to be turned on. It appears that these are probably the problems that you deal with. You say that there’s lots of easy problems and I don’t dispute that.

Sometimes problems involve system changes/adjustments. These are the problems that are resolved by people who are familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the distros and the particular administrative tools offered. Here I will rely upon the evidence that I can see in forums, as well as my own experience.

Regardless of how many problems can be resolved with a volume control, the other problems remain.

As aikiwolfie says, problems occur on all operating systems. The issue isn’t that there are more problems with Linux than with some other system. The issue isn’t that there are lots of easy problems. The issue here is that with Linux, problem resolution is often distro-specific, and that makes it less likely that hardware vendors will soon offer the support for Linux that is offered to the current “status quo” computer operating system.

That’s why I am a Linux user, it’s because I can if I want.

I never said that there are no serious difficult problems raised by any operating system. Windows is the one that I find has the most serious problems most often. In support terms that means level 2 or even level 3 support.

What I said was that MOST of the support issues I deal with for any version of Linux, Mac or Windows, are simple, easily sorted with only a minimum knowledge of the Desktop in question. That is they are level 1 support issues. The sort of problem that is solved by a help desk person reading from a script, which is precisely what level 1 support does.

When you get to level 2 support you are dealing with people who CAN be flexible, that is they usually know something about different computer systems and are not reading from a script. For example, when I ring my ISP for network support I always ask for level 2 support, they are the ones who CAN understand that my network problems can’t be solved by reading from a script, anything else I’ve checked and or fixed myself.

The point is that MOST problems for any OS can be solved by level 1 people reading from a script, that’s why the issues you raise are furfies.

I’ve had to tinker with Windows to get things to work as well. Especially when Microsoft releases a new version and breaks compatibility.

having to tinker is a fact of life when working with computers. There isn’t a single OS out there right now that works absolutely 100% perfect with all it’s peripherals.

“Most of the support issues I deal with for any version of Linux, Mac or Windows, are simple, easily sorted with only a minimum knowledge of the Desktop in question.”

Ah, well that explains our different opinions.

If you have dealt with a wide range of hardware, well it’s like we’ve lived in a different world. Guess you’ve had no serious problems with Vista either.

Linux users sometimes find it necessary to tinker with the operating system to coax hardware along… and not just with RAID and NAS and WIFI, but even video and sound. It’s not trivial and it’s not uncommon… and it’s no secret as anyone can see it in support forums.

When you must dive deeper, you will find that administrative tools provided by various distros actually vary quite a bit; some distros brag about their superior tools. The underlying system structure does vary, sometimes substantially – you will never ever confuse Puppy with Ubuntu. Yes, kernels do vary too, and sometimes that’s the difference between something working and not working.

The variety is good; we do like having our choices. But the variety makes it unlikely that Linux enthusiasts will enjoy lots of vendor support in the near future. Without vendor support, it’s unlikely that Ubuntu will threaten the status quo.

There are three major control centres on Linux MLCC, YAST, and the GNOME/Ubuntu setup. Editing scripts is entirely unnecessary at level 1 support, and is never offered (or it’s equivelent) at level 1 for Windows users, so there is no necessity to offer it at level 1 for Linux users. Most problems that hit level 1 support can be fixed from the script that the level 1 help desk person reads and follows, level 1 support does not require that the support person be particularly knowledgeable about any OS.

Most of the support issues I deal with for any version of Linux, Mac or Windows, are simple, easily sorted with only a minimum knowledge of the Desktop in question.