-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday, 2009-12-02 at 21:12 -0600, Rajko M. wrote:
On Wednesday 02 December 2009 19:07:22 Carlos E. R. wrote:
The users of a piece of hardware may have no idea how to fix a driver, they may be just users. People that know how to do that, devs, are probably tech lovers that love current, powerful hardware... so users are left stranded.
The same process works with any software. You can't find XP drivers for hardware that was out with win 98. If you need that hardware you either use win 98, or look for new hardware.
The same is with Linux.
Well... it was written that one of the pro's points of Linux was that it could run on older hardware just fine, where windows couldn't. That is not always true any longer. And yes, this 9 year computer runs about fine, too. Not a proof, really; on some Bugzillas I've been told that my hardware is too old. And, there are a lot of old computers around. At my workplace we use a P-IV machine with a 9 GB HD and just 255 MiB ram... with XP, not my choice. The other machine was a P-III that died this summer (power supply). Many people are stuck with old machines. Some places they recycle old machines to be sent to poorer countries.
Told other way, it is wrong to assume that any user can maintain software by themselves.
Which is what Egbert told us with "oh, well", but the truth is that everybody can learn C to extent that will allow him/her to read the code,
Not true, either. Not everybody is capable of programming in C, even if taught. That they think they can is the root cause of a lot of horrible software around. Me, I learnt C. I earned my potatoes programming once, not so long ago. I programmed in C and other things. And no, I'm not capable of maintaining an existing C Linux project. I know very well the kind of effort it needs...
then ask for help and get that help. With other platforms you are stuck with vendor willingness to provide driver, which for old hardware, unless it is very popular and vendor would make angry a lot of people, means no driver.
The possibility exists, yes. But for practical purposes, plain users are just as stuck as with any other os. It takes longer to be stuck, yes, but stuck we are in the long term. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v2.0.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAksaT0cACgkQtTMYHG2NR9UUbACfYgpjwCicnrcLGk+PjpmTFqH1 1yEAnjx4VIHUb8dctbhVztZMQ0OqTYki =pbNS -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse-factory+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse-factory+help@opensuse.org