MESSAGE
| DATE | 2001-11-04 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [hangout] Hardware Support for Linux/Why Not XP
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http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/11/02/2341226&mode=thread
By Adam Cutchin - Hardware vendors really don't care much about Linux. It's
nothing personal. If Satan himself handed Michael Dell a copy of Windows 666,
Mr. Dell would no doubt install it happily if he felt it would move machines out
the door. His responsibilities are to his stockholders, period. People asking
for Linux desktop computers are a statistical anomaly, and that in itself could
easily be enough to justify their disinterest. But I think there are other
contributing factors.
The PC industry is having some of its worst times in over a decade, and for good
reason. CPUs are gaining performance faster than software can be written to
exploit their power. Hard drives and memory are cheap enough that a $200 upgrade
will give you more of both than just about any user can realistically use. Gnome
is pretty resource-hungry, yet my 2.5-year-old computer serves me well while
running a Gnome desktop. Who truly needs a new computer to run their existing
software these days?
So what would make life easier on the hardware vendors? One gets the impression
Microsoft asked the same question, and as an answer offered Windows XP.
XP is much less likely to work with existing hardware than any recent Microsoft
OS. It complains loudly about drivers not "signed" by Microsoft. Microsoft
discourages its installation on machines more that a year and a half old. Linux
bends over backwards to work on any system and support the most obscure of
hardware, even if that meant running with no graphical environment (I've never
seen it come to that -- X has great hardware support), whereas Microsoft places
much higher demands on your hardware being up to date. Why shouldn't the
hardware industry support an effort resulting in more upgraded hardware?
XP actively discourages users from upgrading their own hardware after the fact.
If XP determines that your system has changed significantly, it will require you
to reactivate it. For users without an Internet connection, this activation
process is astoundingly inconvenient. XP makes a 50-digit hash code representing
your current system state. You have to call Microsoft, read them the entire
50-digit number, and then have to enter a 42-digit number for XP to become
active. You have to exchange 92(!) digits via telephone with another human being
to use your $200 (to be fair, the home version upgrade of XP is $99) operating
system.
Users with Internet connectivity will find the process a bit easier, but then
again users with Internet connectivity will have XP try to sign them up with
Passport five times before it finally stops asking. Hardware vendors can get
around that by having XP key itself off of the BIOS serial number, ensuring you
will never upgrade your motherboard. (Or if you do, it will cost you the price
of a new OS on top of the hardware cost.)
Mandrake, Red Hat, or whomever, can offer a great OS for a great price, but they
can't offer the same sort of reciprocity the Evil Empire is offering. The
American consumer base has become so complacent that we tolerate being insulted
by Microsoft for performing simple tasks like upgrading hardware, for not
getting a Passport account or for playing MP3s (to name just a few tasks). As
long as we demonstrate a willingness to buy into the monopoly, it's just not in
the vendors' best interests to offer a non-Microsoft OS on a desktop computer.
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--
Brooklyn Linux Solutions
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
http://www.brooklynonline.com
http://www.nylxs.com
http://www.nyfairuse.org
1-718-382-5752
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/mp3/brooklyn_national_antheum.mp3 For Jim ---
____________________________
New Yorker Linux Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
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