Posted by: Administrator
on April 03, 2007 07:44 PM
That's because Windows is only released very periodically - every few to every several years.
Furthermore, they rely on other companies to make the drivers and there are companies like HP that produce half gig printer drivers. Including ALL the drivers with Windows would take plenty of disks and would be out of date fast.
Linux vendors often put out a new one every year or two.
Let's also remember that Windows is usually intened to be deployed by OEMs, while Linux is usually deployed with the intention of a user installing it!
Notice how many Linux distribution reviews (rather pointlessly) still go over the installation. Even though it's all the same now, everyone is so used to it and it's such an issue that the bulk of Linux distribution reviews put in a large (sometimes a 1/3!) chunk of it into the install process!
Add to that, installing drivers in Linux can be a bitch and hardware vendor supplied drivers often involve getting the compiler toolchain and kernel source and building them.
So while with Windows this is a process of putting in the disk and running the installer - a process that is ~usually~ done by the OEM - with Linux it is imperitive that everything work out of the box and all the drivers be included and it be easy to install.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...There's nothing special about Linux here, it's just that due to circumstances, the Linux vendors and Microsoft don't take the same approach.
You could argue that because of Microsoft's approach, it's usually (though not always) a snap for non-technical users to install 3rd party drivers.
While everyone has their horror stories, I have seen plenty of completely nontechnical users install hardware and associated drivers trouble free in Windows.
I've been using Linux and Unix (Slack,Redhat,Ubuntu,BSD,SGI IRIX, etc.) for 8 years and in the (rare!) cases where I have to install a 3rd party driver, it is usually not trivial at all and when there's an issue it usually takes some technical understand of how the system actually works. The CLI ends up being used nearly every time and the basics of compiling does come up.
That's trivial to us but even some really "newbie" Linux users don't appreciate how much more they know than the typical person!
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Re:Now let's hope they stop shipping a half gig
Posted by: Administrator on April 03, 2007 07:44 PMFurthermore, they rely on other companies to make the drivers and there are companies like HP that produce half gig printer drivers. Including ALL the drivers with Windows would take plenty of disks and would be out of date fast.
Linux vendors often put out a new one every year or two.
Let's also remember that Windows is usually intened to be deployed by OEMs, while Linux is usually deployed with the intention of a user installing it!
Notice how many Linux distribution reviews (rather pointlessly) still go over the installation. Even though it's all the same now, everyone is so used to it and it's such an issue that the bulk of Linux distribution reviews put in a large (sometimes a 1/3!) chunk of it into the install process!
Add to that, installing drivers in Linux can be a bitch and hardware vendor supplied drivers often involve getting the compiler toolchain and kernel source and building them.
So while with Windows this is a process of putting in the disk and running the installer - a process that is ~usually~ done by the OEM - with Linux it is imperitive that everything work out of the box and all the drivers be included and it be easy to install.<nobr> <wbr></nobr>...There's nothing special about Linux here, it's just that due to circumstances, the Linux vendors and Microsoft don't take the same approach.
You could argue that because of Microsoft's approach, it's usually (though not always) a snap for non-technical users to install 3rd party drivers.
While everyone has their horror stories, I have seen plenty of completely nontechnical users install hardware and associated drivers trouble free in Windows.
I've been using Linux and Unix (Slack,Redhat,Ubuntu,BSD,SGI IRIX, etc.) for 8 years and in the (rare!) cases where I have to install a 3rd party driver, it is usually not trivial at all and when there's an issue it usually takes some technical understand of how the system actually works. The CLI ends up being used nearly every time and the basics of compiling does come up.
That's trivial to us but even some really "newbie" Linux users don't appreciate how much more they know than the typical person!
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