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by 63stack 259 days ago
Bullshit. If you try to troubleshoot your windows problems by looking for answers on the internet, you get "certified microsoft experts" giving you tips like "update your antivirus, flip the power cable, and defragment your hard drive" to fix your driver issues.

Searching for problems about linux is going to yield much higher quality results.
1 comments
nebula8804 258 days ago
The point is that you buy a computer from the store, install userland apps and it most likely won't have those problems I mentioned out of the box. Thats good enough for the billions that continue to use Windows, Linux can't even do that.
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fao_ 258 days ago
Of course it's difficult for Linux to support devices when a) the OEMs have contracts with Microsoft, b) the OEMs are writing drivers for windows, and c) Linux developers have to reverse-engineer said drivers to provide a modicum of support, with all of the legal and technical challenges thereof.

I don't think it's fair to blame Linux for "bad device support" when really it's entirely on the OEM and how shitty they are to non-Microsoft developers, and that varies a lot between manufacturer. A Lenovo Thinkpad, for example, is almost guaranteed to have a decent-to-good level of support because of how they, as a company, act and implement their systems. Other manufacturers like Asus, the relationship is more adversarial.

Linux support of mainline devices is in many ways expecting to catch up to a freight train with a little handcar. The fact that Linux supports so many devices and that I've been able to use it satisfactorily for every day work and life on Thinkpads, HP Pavilions, and other random devices, is itself a miracle. The fact that you can install it on a laptop and expect it to mostly work with only maybe sound card issues or lid detection issues, is itself a testament to the skill and effort invested in it. And then when there are problems, it's easy to dril down to the root of things. Versus my dad's USB and wifi card randomly disabling itself within Windows and there being no support for this and no way to figure out what's wrong.

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