The IT world is faced with 3/4 main desktop operating systems, each with its own quirks and therefore each has hardware which will or wont work on it. I would specifically like to find out, as a non user of two of the OS's, if any of the OS's can be likened to another in terms of functionaility ie how they address and work with hardware. The main operating systems(OS's) I talk about are Windows, Linux, Apple oe Macintosh and of course UNIX. Linux, Mac OSX, and Unix are all very closely related in that they are all unix-like operating systems. Windows is all alone in an inferior world by itself, as an operating system. But your question relates to hardware and

We are all painfully aware that the Windows software does much of the hardware management, whilst Linux, relies more on the hardware to perform, mostly independantly from the OS and I would assume that UNIX is similar. I cannot comment on Mac as I have never owned/used one. Your understanding is not quite correct... let me explain. All operating systems manage hardware resources and unix-like OSs are certainly no exception. What Windows does is to use software to emulate actual hardware functions so that proprietary *windows only* hardware can be built that will only run on windows. This is an evil monopolistic practice put in place by greedy M$ to force the use of their OS. This is the primary reason I will never use M$ products again. ever. (Win modems, and Win printers are exasperating examples). I purchase platform independent hardware, and I

Hardware, specifically printers, include a list of operating systems which the product is known to work. For example purposes: Windows and Mac OS X are supported and no mention is made of Linux or UNIX. This is also an evil M$ monopolistic technique (some call it FUD, fear uncertainty, and doubt) to make the public suspect that ONLY the listed OSs will work with the hardware... when in fact the hardware is completely

I would like to purchase the product and see that it is not supported in the OS I prefer to run ie Linux. All you need to do is to look through the list of supported drivers for the

On Saturday 27 January 2007 06:33, Hylton Conacher(ZR1HPC) wrote: that is another story. Linux runs on *many* different hardware platforms. Until recently Mac OSX only ran on a PowerPC platform... now it also runs on Intel based hardware. The cool thing about unix-like systems is that the user doesn't need to be concerned necessarily about the platform... for instance printing... Common Unix Printer Services handles the job... and CUPS is CUPS is CUPS. ---a little more further down. purchase hardware supported specifically by unix-like systems... HP is an excellent vendor of Linux and Mac friendly hardware. platform independent or has drivers available for it that support every platform. Again for Linux printers HP is the vendor of choice bar none... IMHO. printer you are interested in. You will not be disappointed in the HP line of laser printers... I have three different HP laser printers and two different HP color jet printers and they all work great with Linux... which is all I use by the way. I have never had a problem with an HP printer.

Can I assume that a product that works on Mac OS X will also work, perhaps with limited functionaility, on Linux, eventhough it was not stated on the box? Again... that depends on whether a driver for that printer is available. To my knowledge only windoze was ever brazen enough to coerce vendors into manufacturing a printer that would only print on a windoze machine... with closed (proprietary) drivers. Many printers these days are going usb and work well on any machine that supports usb. I can print from my Mac OSX box to any of my HP printers on the network... works great.

I print using three different techniques... I'll tell you about all three. 1) Network Printer. The HP Laserjet4 is plugged directly into the switch (RJ45 connector) and my linux boxes print to it via cups as a network attached printer. (my favorite) 2) Network Printer attached through a linux cups host. The HP Laserjet 4L is parallel attached to one of my headless Suse servers running cups. All other linux boxes print to that printer as a hosted cups printer. The down side here (if at all) is that the host machine has to be up and running to use the printer. 3) Network Printer attached via miniature print server. The HP Deskjet 870cxi is parallel attached via a printer server (a small box about the size of a VHS tape) in my case the HP JETDIRECT EX Plus. This little box allows you to convert any standard parallel printer into a network printer. And HP's print server supports several protocols... I use tcp/ip. Honestly, the best way to print these days is directly to a network printer attached through a hub or preferably through a switch. Many machines these days do not even have parallel printer ports installed. None of my production workstations have an attached printer. All printing is network printing. But that's my shop. -- Kind regards, M Harris <>< -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org

Hylton Conacher(ZR1HPC) wrote:

The IT world is faced with 3/4 main desktop operating systems, each with its own quirks and therefore each has hardware which will or wont work on it. I would specifically like to find out, as a non user of two of the OS's, if any of the OS's can be likened to another in terms of functionaility ie how they address and work with hardware. The main operating systems(OS's) I talk about are Windows, Linux, Apple oe Macintosh and of course UNIX.

We are all painfully aware that the Windows software does much of the hardware management, whilst Linux, relies more on the hardware to perform, mostly independantly from the OS and I would assume that UNIX is similar. I cannot comment on Mac as I have never owned/used one.

Hardware, specifically printers, include a list of operating systems which the product is known to work. For example purposes: Windows and Mac OS X are supported and no mention is made of Linux or UNIX.

I would like to purchase the product and see that it is not supported in the OS I prefer to run ie Linux.

Can I assume that a product that works on Mac OS X will also work, perhaps with limited functionaility, on Linux, eventhough it was not stated on the box?

Curious George :)

Tnx Thanks all. Whilst there was a single ranty about HP printers not working, further investigation on linux printing showed that it only worked mostly and not perfectly.

I have learned much and whilst HP is my choice of laser printer, I will perservere with the epson deskjet here, for a while or while the hair lasts :) You wouldn't perhaps know of anyone flogging re-conditioned ones in our area Andre ie a 5/6L or even 4L? -- ======================================================================== Using SuSE 9.2 Professional with KDE and Mozilla Mail 1.7.13 Linux user # 229959 at http://counter.li.org ======================================================================== -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: opensuse+unsubscribe@opensuse.org For additional commands, e-mail: opensuse+help@opensuse.org