Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by radioact1ve 5485 days ago
I think we can all agree Linux != Windows, but shit it's 2011. Somethings should just work.
2 comments

Who writes the drivers for this software that 'Just Works'?

Over and over again I see commercial OS vendors implicitly credited for writing drivers that were actually supplied by the hardware manufacturers themselves.

The vast majority of the general population find that their Windows and OS X machines 'Just Work' because they come preconfigured with all of the manufacturer's drivers already installed.

Linux can't 'Just Work' in the Desktop space because:

1. It doesn't have majority market share (like Microsoft), so not all hardware manufacturers will make it a priority for their hardware to have good Linux drivers.

2. It doesn't control the hardware platform (like Apple), so it is likely that a significant proportion of users will have machines that have unsupported / badly supported hardware.

Tough luck. Life isn’t fair.

Linux has to solve this problem, excuses be damned (and it has become quite good at solving this problem – most hardware just works).

That is true but also irrelevant. It places blame and provides an explanation but it doesn't change the result.
Same excuses I've been reading since I first started using Linux around 2001.
What doesn't work for you?
Everything now is working... but it's a pain in the ass to get everything working. I've been using Linux since 2001-2002. I'm scared of updating anything because of what might break. I love Linux ideas and principles but shit man I wish it was easier. Easier != windows/mac