[PLUG] Is Linux only for nerds?

Michael C. Robinson plug_1 at robinson-west.com
Fri Feb 11 02:44:07 UTC 2011


This shows how popular Linux has become that this is even a concern now.

I wonder if not having enough information is plaguing kernel developers
still and if this is by and large why you have to be a "geek" to get
Linux to work with computer X containing hardware device Y?

Microsoft is so big and provides the OS for such a large percentage of
the computers on the planet, at least the personal ones, that it isn't
hard to imagine Microsoft having an edge when it comes to knowing the
hardware's design.  In fact, secret agreements between Microsoft and
hardware vendors has long been a problem.

If the design of the hardware is well understood by kernel developers
and enough talent is attracted to the challenge of supporting it,
drivers should be better and being a geek should be less necessary.

I find that there are some annoying aspects of trying to use the latest
computer for a Linux desktop.  For example, anyone have difficulty
streaming video on 64 bit Linux?  Apparently, there isn't a stable flash
implementation yet.  There is work on a free implementation, but I don't
know that the lightspark project has enough talent signing on.  

On my AMD multi core systems, Dirk Dashing which was designed for a 32
bit computer has some major problems.  I've tried to let the writer
know, but he hasn't solved them.  Unfortunately, Dirk Dashing is closed
source and probably always will be.  The outfit that writes a Linux game
should be sensible about supporting it over the long term.  If Dirk
Dashing 1 doesn't work well on my fancy quad core computer, why should I
buy Dirk Dashing 2?  Microsoft has done a lot of work to make sure that
old software, at least popular old software, still works.  This lead
undoubtedly to bastardizing Windows, but it kept Microsoft popular.

I hope that compatibility issues as Linux is getting somewhat obese
and having to adapt to radically different computer architectures
don't kill Linux's popularity in the long run.  In mygamecompany's
defense, Dirk Dashing runs beautifully on a Pentium 4.

There is some work to make Linux as capable of running Windows software
as Windows is, but I hope that that doesn't end up only making Linux
more vulnerable to malware.

There is some commercial software these days for Linux, but I don't see
that that software is ultimately on par with or even directly competing
with offerings for Xbox, PS3, a Windows PC, a Mac, etcetera.

Building Linux From Scratch for an old computer, I have a system that is
much tighter than what you typically see.  Thing is, I've never been
able to build X from scratch and even so, the system won't remain tiny
if I do so.  Building from scratch by the way, painful.  You find out
just how many dependencies there are and how complex Linux has become.




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