Linux Blog writes "Long time Linux kernel hacker and the current Linux kernel maintainer for the USB, driver core, Greg Kroah-Hartman recently interviewed by Oreilly about his claim that the Linux kernel now supports more devices than any other operating system ever has. From the article:
I think it's all of those. The ease of writing drivers; Linux drivers are at normally one-third smaller than Windows drivers or other operating system drivers. We have all the examples there, so it's trivial to write a new one if you have new hardware, usually because you can copy the code and go. We maintain them for forever, so the old ones don't disappear and we run on every single processor out there. I mean Linux is 80% of the world's top 500 super computers right now and we're also the number one embedded operating system today. We've got both sides of the market because it's--yeah it's pretty amazing. I don't know why, but we're doing something right."
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True, more devices are a good thing, but sometimes the free software community has to choose one device over another. Compare Linux to the union of Windows XP and Windows Vista in the category of devices designed for home and home office PCs that are still sold new in stores, and it doesn't look so hot. Or have manufacturers of PC peripherals taken more initiative in sharing specs with developers of Linux drivers and POSIX-userland drivers?
It's not really a Linux problem though. It's all about consumers allowing manufacturers to screw them and just assuming that is the way things are. I have a lovely scanner that is better than anything you can buy in the same price range today (today it'd probably cost $2000 instead of $200) that only works with Windows 95 because after that drivers were never released and the old drivers would no longer work. It doesn't work under Linux but it also doesn't work under Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, or 2003
Devices for home PCs sold new in stores? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's not really a Linux problem though. It's all about consumers allowing manufacturers to screw them and just assuming that is the way things are. I have a lovely scanner that is better than anything you can buy in the same price range today (today it'd probably cost $2000 instead of $200) that only works with Windows 95 because after that drivers were never released and the old drivers would no longer work. It doesn't work under Linux but it also doesn't work under Windows 98, ME, 2000, XP, Vista, or 2003
But... (Score:2)
Yes, but does it run on Lin-... oh. Wait, yeah. Carry on...