On Wed, 2 Sep 2020 at 12:41, Tim via users <users@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Wed, 2020-09-02 at 09:16 -0300, George N. White III wrote:
> In this forum and others, a lot of time and effort goes to dealing
> with hardware support. When you buy a macOS or Windows system, you
> don't expect problems getting the hardware to work.
I do... I expect problems with Windows systems, because that's what
I'd always experienced.
Most of my Windows experience has been with enterprise level
gear from big-name vendors (Compac, Dell, HP, IBM, Lenovo)
either provided by IT or obtained through a standing-offer
arrangement.
Windows has had plenty of problems, but very few have been due
to unsupported hardware. Installing linux on the same systems when
new often encountered hardware that didn't have linux drivers, but
most of the missing drivers appeared within a year or two.
Macs are designed as a whole. PCs are not. You've a plethora of
manufacturers all doing their own thing, your PC is a construct of
parts that were never designed together. It's no surprise that some of
them aren't compatible. And with peripheral manufacturers releasing
things that aren't complete, because they want to sell it quickly, then
shortly abandoning the product, never fixing the bugs, because they
want to sell the next thing.
Google has done interesting things to streamline the process of
building and testing drivers.
I've had far more luck with Linux. Because if *someone* can find out
how to drive the hardware, and can find out how to deal with bugs, they
*will*, *and* they release the software.
Linux has been very useful with gear that is considered too old for
the current version of Windows. Government and University labs
often have piles of these unloved and unwanted machines that make
very useful linux workstations.
Going back to the original poster's comments; it always struck me as
odd how Apache is "httpd" on Fedora, not "apache." It struck me as the
height of conceit that Apache thinks they are *the* one and only HTTP
daemon.
One of the problems with open source is that you have to work with decisions
made by the authors of software you use. Debian has put a lot of effort into
policies that smooth out some of the rough edges in upstream packages.
I assume RHEL has similar policies, but Fedora isn't as tightly controlled.
Underlying this discussion is the idea that improving Fedora will lead to
wider adoption in schools and universities that will ultimately benefit Red Hat
(e.g., IBM). Meanwhile, How Google took over the classroom with chromebooks
in 2017. One side effect of this is that users no longer assume that MS Office
is essential for doing real work on PC's. By 2019 there were many articles telling
users how to run linux apps on higher end chromebooks, and
Chrome OS Systems Supporting Linux says "Unless otherwise specified, all
devices launched in 2019 will support Linux (Beta)." Note that Google says
Wayland is the preferred graphics system.
Outside large enterprises, ChromeOS is hurting Windows adoption by younger
users, and providing a gateway to Linux as a way to run specialized apps not
available as native ChromOS apps.
--
George N. White III
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