fc5 gloat/windows lament

[Darrin Chandler]

On Sat, Jul 08, 2006 at 09:09:15AM -0700, Josh Coffman wrote:
> Hi,
> 
>   This is purely a vanity post... I have been dual
> booting Fedora Core and Windows on my laptop for the
> last year; after trying several distros before
> choosing FC. 
> 
>   (I just wish I could get FC5 on my desktop without
> killing windows. Yes, I still need windows. Don't ask)

Lots of people have to have Windows for one reason or another. I've been
MS-free at home for a while now, and I'm facing the idea that I'll
*have* to have Windows here just to deal with clients, and to check out
sites in IE, etc.

>   With FC5 and kernel 2.6.17-1.2139_FC5, FC runs this
> HP zv5440 better than windows. Under windows, the
> mousepad scroll doesn't work and OpenGL apps won't run
> even though I have the latest drivers for the Geforce
> 440 Go.
> 
>   In FC5, everything I use works automagically. Even
> the broadcom wireless. I don't use the modem so I
> don't know about that. 

Now that someone has reverse engineered the broadcom chipset, life is
better! If only broadcom would open up their specs the drivers would get
better still.

I remember a decade ago how amazed I was that I could run Linux on a
computer and not have to reboot it every week. I really had no idea
typical PC hardware was so reliable.

Now we have the same situation with drivers. NVidious supplies
binary-only BLOB drivers, which work fine except when they don't. The
list goes on. When the hardware manufacturers open up specs then
developers can get in there and write solid driver code.

It's a wonderful testament to the virtues of open source (and the FC
team) that your computer works better under Linux than Windows. Think
how much better it would run if all the hardware in it had drivers
written from actual specs instead of guesses and observations.

-- 
Darrin Chandler            |  Phoenix BSD Users Group
dwchandler at stilyagin.com   |  http://bsd.phoenix.az.us/
http://www.stilyagin.com/  |