Langa bashing (was Re: Problems getting Linux into homes)

[Sean Estabrooks]

On Sat, 24 Apr 2004 19:00:29 -0400 (EDT)
"William Hooper" <whooperhsd3 at earthlink.net> wrote:


> So if you buy a copy of Windows XP and your modem manufacture doesn't
> provide drivers, that means Windows XP is not for you?  No, it means
> that you need to be careful checking your hardware compatibility.

The amount of supported hardware is likely much greater on Windows XP and
most commodity hardware should work fine.   Which probably is a
demonstrable advantage of that OS over Linux.  Of course, which OS is
appropriate for any given situation is likely to depend on more than one
particular modem being supported.

> As I've mentioned before, Mr. Langa fails on two points:
> 1) He provides no specifics (that I've seen) of what hardware he is
> talking about.

Fails at what?   He was relaying his personal experience not making a bug
report to developers.

> 2) He seems to be hung up on the closed-source support structure.  In
> other words his attempt at a solution is to call the support line, not
> check out what experience others have had with similar hardware, or ask
> for support on a mailing list.

Any conclusions he makes may not be valid but then you're welcome to
challenge them.   Basically all i've heard people object to is his
audacity to relay a personal experience with Linux that was
frustrated by the current level of hardware support.  Haven't heard anyone
disagree with him that Linux supports less hardware and can be more
difficult to configure than some other O/S's.

Cheers,
Sean