Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3605 mails)

[Bruce Marshall <bmarsh@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thursday 01 June 2006 02:31, Per Jessen wrote:
> James Knott wrote:
> >> As to whether the GPL vs non-GPL drivers issue will prevent Linux
> >> from becoming mainstream, I'm not so sure.  Very large European
> >> public administrations have already gone Linux - perhaps it's not
> >> mainstream, but very impressive nonetheless.
> >
> > It's a problem if it makes it impossible to use commonly available
> > hardware.
>
> I agree it's a problem, but that's not the same as preventing Linux from
> mainstream - whatever that means.
>

Ok, I used the term 'mainstream'.   Let's replace that usage with the phrase 
'more popular  or more used'.   In otherwords, if hardware isn't supported 
then no one will want to or *can* use the software. 

Now, if the kernel developers come up with a common and well-defined interface 
for proprietary modules and make it well known to the hardware vendors, then 
overall that would be a Good Thang (tm).  I guess that is their plan but it 
seems they jumped the gun a bit and have made the situation worse in the 
short-term.



> >> I beg to differ.  So far we use only SUSE Linux, and we've only hit
> >> one case where 10.1 did not provide the driver - Atheros wifi.   We
> >> got it from madwifi instead.  Our hardware is very varied - IBM
> >> Thinkpads, misc workstations, desktops, Compaq servers.
> >
> > I have an IBM ThinkPad R31, which uses the slamr modem driver.  Will
> > it still work in 10.1?  10.2?
>
> Isn't that what this thread started out discussing - that 10.1 does not
> have the slamr module.

See my post of yesterday for a solution to this problem...  



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