On 7/30/2010 9:14 AM, Patrick O'Callaghan wrote: > On Fri, 2010-07-30 at 06:28 -0400, David wrote: >> Again - Windows "Driver hell"? I don't know of any. Examples please. > > I don't know if this counts as "driver hell", but it was certainly > "hell" when it happened. A year or two back I purchased an HP Photosmart > all-in-one scanner/printer. It has its own Ethernet connection and I > plugged it into my router. > > My wife's iMac saw it and it worked immediately. Time invested: close to > zero. > > On my Fedora system I installed hplip and it saw the printer and scanner > and both worked. Time invested: maybe 10 minutes. > > On my daughter's laptop (Windows Vista) it took multiple installations > of the CD software (which turned out not to be compatible with Vista), > followed by repeated email interactions with HP Support, plus > downloading various updated packages which didn't work, then downloading > other versions which finally worked but only after burning to a physical > CD before installation (good thing the laptop has an optical drive), > before finally getting the printer to work most of the time. I also had > to mess with Vista's "user-friendly" control panel to get the wireless > connection to work reliably. I never did get the scanner to work as it > was easier to scan on Fedora and copy the results. Time invested: over a > week. > > Maybe this is all easier under Windows 7, and maybe HP has updated their > software to make it less of a pain, but that wasn't the case when I was > doing it. Even though it was clearly HP's fault, it gives the lie to the > idea that installing hardware under Windows is always seamless, even > when it's officially supported (Windows is the only "supported" system > according to the box the printer came in). I would think that qualifies as a driver problem. :-) But not a Windows driver problem. Why not? It is a HP problem. Their hardware and their driver(s). Windows had nothing to do with any of this. Microsoft gave plenty of time for hardware makers to produce new drivers for Vista. The hardware makers did not do it for older hardware. Why? Because they wanted you to buy new hardware. Microsoft, Vista, took the heat for them not providing the drivers. Which is the whole point here. Fedora and Nvidia for example. The Nvidia driver(s) is/are supplied by Nvidia. Fedora does not, nor can they, provide these. Fedora provides a FOSS driver for this purpose. This 'Nvidia thing' is not Fedora's problem. Nor is it RPMfusion's problem. RPMfusion very nicely provides a module. But they don't have to do that. Every time this thread resurfaces, it just takes a kernel update, it goes on and on. The same posters say the same things again and nothing is resolved. Why? Because Fedora can't fix it. And the sense of entitlement (the you *owe* me this) from some is thick enough to cut with a knife. I ignore it for a time. Then I adjust my kill filters. But it gets very, very tiring. -- David
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