Ubuntu Linux And Gadget Support
You may have seen this article on NewForge about Ubuntu Linux and gadgets, comparing support for gadgets betwwen Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux.
Linux having comparable support for hardware to Windows? You probably wouldn't think so. However, the article asks the question anyway, looking at:
- 2 digital cameras;
- A HP all-in-one printer/scanner/copier.
The result was this: on Windows XP, you had to wait until the drivers were installed. For one camera, the drivers appear to have been available for a local install. For the second, an installation driver was required. However, Ubuntu recognised both cameras straight away and already had the drivers installed. The only required action was to turn the cameras on. When I got my new digital camera, I also found that Ubuntu needed not bother to install anything - it just worked, whereas Windows XP needed to install drivers - for a camera that only needed a mass storage driver, not a set of specialised drivers for the camera.
The printer was a slightly different story. Windows XP installed via a 'large application package' - but installed without any real hitches. For Ubuntu, a package called HPLIP was installed, and seemed to work well for printing and copying, but not so good for scanning.
The rest of the article talks about using software related to this hardware, but I shall ignore it as it seems unnecessarily biased against Windows XP. Windows has enough shortfalls, there's really no need to skew an article to reflect Windows badly...
Apart from gaming, USB hardware support in Linux was about the only issue I had with Linux. However, I have been rather impressed by how much support there is for it. If only I wasn't so attached to my gaming, I could perform a little experiment on my second hard drive to see if it really can survive 50G's of force like it says on the label. I dare say it can't - well, no, it just plain _can't_ - but I'd have good fun watching it smash into a billion pieces under the impact :)
Interesting post path, don't you think? Hardware support in an OS - - > smashing a hard disk to pieces.
Noelinho - the missing link between unrelated thoughts :)
There is currently 1 comment on this article.
miss tressheyas all. my 40 gig drive is going to good use now. I have installed UBUNTU and have ordered KUBUNTU. I dont know how to install the driver for my ati radeon 9600xt. Actually i dont know if i am meant to be downloading and installing XFREE86 or the XORG version of the driver. I am downloading them both but i dont know how to do anything in Linux really. I dont know where I am meant to set up my modem or set up a net account. (no INETWIZ.EXE) So yeah, can someone help me out with getting my ATI driver installed? and does anyone know of a good long PDF file i can read and wrap my brain around. I'm still a Windows user, but I want to use Linux as much as possible. Thanks. :)
2006-10-23 12:51:19