[PLUG] Dell Inspiron 1420N...

[John Jason Jordan]

On Fri, 10 Aug 2007 20:43:51 -0700
"Kenneth B. Hill" <ken at scottshill.com> dijo:

> > At OSCON I attended a session given by a Dell representative
> > specifically discussing the new Dell + Ubuntu offerings. The important
> > fact he told us was that Michael Dell (after looking at the 147,000
> > pro-Linux responses he got from IdeaStorm) gave his employees 45 days
> > to deliver at least one notebook and one desktop with Linux. They just
> > didn't have time to get more than the 1420 with 32-bit Ubuntu  
> > ready. He
> > assured us that 64-bit Linux and more models will be forthcoming. He
> > also said that part of the problem is that they want the Linux
> > computers to be completely open source, including drivers. That means
> > that they may need to modify components in other models, or write the
> > drivers themselves. Nevertheless, I got the definite impression that
> > additional announcements could come at any time.

> I think Dell is experiencing what we all already experienced...; that  
> is that Linux is a cusotm OS tool and that there are too many distros  
> out there that make it an offering that is "consistent" across the  
> consumer market place.

I have certainly read - right here on this list even - how a particular
piece of hardware worked fine with one distro, but not another. I am
not referring to 64-bit v. 32-bit, because that is a somewhat different
kettle of fish. I mean something like, e.g., a wireless device working
fine with Fedora but not with Ubuntu. Or vice-versa. 

I don't get this. I can understand philosophical issues with closed
source drivers, but if there is an open source Linux driver for the
device, why is it not available on all distros? I guess I don't
understand how device drivers work.