fc5 gloat/windows lament

[jd]

Darrin Chandler wrote:

>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.
>  
>
VMWare makes it easy to run windows inside of linux and Codeweavers 
Crossover Office will let you run IE via wine (and a lot of other things).

>  
>
>>  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.
>
>  
>
I've seen many cases where the open source drivers seemed to work better 
than the windows version.. I could scan much faster with sane for 
example on my old parallel port scanner than the windows software that 
came with it.

It's not ready for my grandmother.. but it's WAY closer than it was 10 
years ago. 

JD