Kinda sorta half agree, half not
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| caitlyn Dec 18, 2009 2:26 PM EDT |
I like Steven's writing and I kinda sorta half agree about Ubuntu breaking things. The thing is, on the four systems where I've tried Karmic (9.10) everything has "just worked". 8.10 had sound issues. 9.04 borked Intel drivers so badly it wasn't usable and could only be made somewhat less painful by the various workarounds. For me 9.10 is the first time Ubuntu has gotten it right, both 32-bit and 64-bit, since Edgy Eft (7.04). Hardy (8.04 LTS) was only good after the first maintenance release. Yes, it's been stable since then. FWIW, my 7 year old Toshiba finally gave up and went off to the great computer place in the sky or whatever comparable mythology applies to old laptops. |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 3:09 PM EDT |
Steven, I want to add my thoughts to your article. 1) The linux development model will break things to suit itself. In the linux world attention is focused on developers and not users. For developers, it's difficult to support multiple versions of a software and so in a dev-centric environment only the latest version of a software is supported. For example, firefox has become a dynamically changing/updating software for the desktop and you would be going against the grain to try installing and keeping a version of firefox released a year ago. Anything that builds on other open-source packages is dependant upon a moving target. Anything, no matter if it is closed source or open, -anything that depends upon the linux kernel to function must continually change with the kernel. It is a problem. Backwards-compatibility is eventually dropped because it's difficult to maintain (open and closed source). It does not matter if the software is a binary blob or open source code. Your hardware may not be supported after 5 years though you enjoy support now. 2) Linux users should stop depending on manufacturers that do not support them. Intel obviously doesn't care about you and like a battered wife who returns to her husband each time, you can only expect more of the same from them. Stop complaining about the people who don't support you and start being independent again and making your own decisions. You may not be able to use compiz, but you'll be free again and isn't that the point of using Linux in the first place? |
| bigg Dec 18, 2009 3:59 PM EDT |
> Intel obviously doesn't care about you I don't know if that is true (have no opinion) but where can you turn otherwise? nVidia isn't particularly helpful in terms of open drivers. And ATI has historically not had a good product for Linux users. > you'll be free again and isn't that the point of using Linux in the first place I'm getting out of the way as the arrows start flying. |
| jhansonxi Dec 18, 2009 4:04 PM EDT |
My Dell Inspiron 11z with the GS45 chipset works well with Ubuntu Lucid Lynx (10.04) alpha 1. |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 5:12 PM EDT |
I don't actually believe Intel doesn't care and I also don't agree that Intel is obliged to open their drivers. The point is Intel will not open it's drivers -the drivers have been closed in the past and they'll continue to be closed in the future. If you need an open driver then start using the VESA general display driver or buy a nvidia card and use the NV driver. Don't buy a machine with embedded ATI devices. EIther use a generic driver or stop complaining or start using another OS. |
| azerthoth Dec 18, 2009 5:32 PM EDT |
wow, you just skipped over a lot of open source drivers ... |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 5:43 PM EDT |
If you have information that's useful to this discussion, share it. I'm not surprised if there are many drivers I'm not familiar with. |
| azerthoth Dec 18, 2009 5:48 PM EDT |
There are open source nvidia and ati drivers that are 3d functional, my comment was more in annoyance to your tone. To paraphrase you closing comment, STFU is never the proper answer. |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 6:04 PM EDT |
azerthoth, You're over-reacting. I'm not telling Steve to STFU. What I'm doing is observing a hypocrisy that exists in the 'linux' world. We proselytize about freedom and how we've liberated ourselves from the constraints of commercialized production, but then we want to use corporate-manufactured graphics drivers and we want those corporations to stop being corporate and start opening their drivers. We can't control corporations and that's why we're using linux in the first place. Isn't it? We have more control over our personal space by choosing to use linux and the downside of that is that we can't expect to have all of the goodies that are sold by the corporate world. What was the reason you started using linux? If you really support OSS then you won't depend on a corporation for your software happiness. From a corporate perspective, Nvidia has been very generous to linux. They've kept up with vanilla kernel releases and maintained current drivers for recent hardware for several years now. Nvidia maintains an irc channel and they pay someone to hang out there and answer questions (not sure if this is true still, but was the case a few years ago). Still, people in the linux community complain and seem to think nvidia is obliged to open their drivers up. Intel story is similar. They are doing the best they can -give them a break. If you need open drivers then start using open drivers. |
| gus3 Dec 18, 2009 6:23 PM EDT |
Quoting:They are doing the best they canIf the Federal Trade Commission is to be believed, Intel's best includes interfering with other chip designers. |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 6:28 PM EDT |
Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 18, 2009 8:12 PM EDT |
One of my prime motivations for running OpenBSD in the recent past has been the project's stance against binary blobs. In base and in packages, it doesn't allow them. While it's true that you can bring closed binaries into your OpenBSD system (and you're more than free to do so) through Ports or other means, the base system will not include a video or network driver that does not have source code available. All that openness didn't prevent OpenBSD 4.5 from running like absolute c@#$ on my Intel-video equipped Toshiba. I blame Xorg. Things seem better in 4.6. And as far as network drivers go in OpenBSD, my experience is that they're as good as they get. The developers do a lot of reverse-engineering to get open drivers for hardware from manufacturers who don't play ball, and when one BSD gets a driver, the others tend to take that code and modify it for their particular project. I'm contemplating an OpenBSD-Linux dual-boot. It still takes quite a bit of work to build up a desktop system in OpenBSD from the default to a fully equipped GNOME or KDE box with all the configuration. And then six months later there's another release, and you've got to start over again. That's why I stick with Linux; upgrades are way less painful (in my experience), even counting all the trouble I've had in Ubuntu 9.10. There just isn't a "distro" mentality in most of the BSD world, even though people have turned FreeBSD into two very "distro-like" products, PC-BSD and DesktopBSD, and the NetBSD people have been talking about a desktop rendition for a few years now. For me, I like to have a distro I can install and have a full desktop environment complete with applications. Enter Ubuntu, Debian, Mandriva, Slackware, etc. If the Slackware developers themselves maintained GNOME, or if Slackbuilds had everything I needed (and it doesn't; I've checked), I'd be using it now. When I pick a distro, I look for a) what I like b) what has the apps I want and c) what my hardware likes, not necessarily in that order. There's a lot to like about Ubuntu, but I don't have any newer hardware. Everything I have is old. My Ubuntu laptop's screen has a huge crack in it. It's unusable. I had planned to pull the screen from my Debian laptop (they're identical 8-year-old Toshibas) and put it in the Ubuntu machine. But now I'm doing a second backup of the Ubuntu /home files, and I'm going to move the whole shebang over to the Debian Lenny laptop. I ran Lenny all last night, and even with the whole drive under encrypted LVM, and half the memory (512 MB instead of 1 GB in the Ubuntu laptop) the GNOME desktop in the Debian laptop was markedly more responsive than GNOME in Ubuntu. Wait till I pump the 1 GB into the Debian system. I'm sure that the number of services running in Ubuntu relative to Debian can be pared down. But I have neither the time for nor the expertise to actually do this. Sure the packages in the stable version of Debian are old. I guess I could roll the dice and move to Squeeze or even run Sidux, which I've quite enjoyed in the past (I'd more likely use the Sidux live CD to test compatibility with near-future Squeeze builds). But it comes down to this: The 2001 Toshiba laptop, with proper xorg.conf, runs perfect video in Debian Lenny. The way drives are addressed by the system won't be changing in six months. I've seen things in Debian Etch be broken and stay broken. I expect the same is true for Lenny (althought I have yet to see much of that). However, stuff that works in a stable Debian system tends to stay working for the life of the release. Maybe I'm setting the bar too low, but after the past few months I need a "stable relationship" with my OS. Lenny will be supported for a long time. I don't think the video will break during the life of this release. The apps may be old but they're good enough. And I need a reliable machine for my work. What I really need is a new (or "newer") laptop. I've been pretty lucky when it comes to acquiring free or very cheap computers. And I'm due for some good luck in that department (or maybe it'll rain money this winter ...). |
| jdixon Dec 18, 2009 8:27 PM EDT |
> If you need an open driver then start using the VESA general display driver or buy a nvidia card and use the NV driver. From my Xorg.0.log file: (II) NV: driver for NVIDIA chipsets: RIVA 128, RIVA TNT, RIVA TNT2, Unknown TNT2, Vanta, RIVA TNT2 Ultra, RIVA TNT2 Model 64,... You were saying? |
| caitlyn Dec 18, 2009 8:35 PM EDT |
@vect: I don't believe that the Linux development model "breaks things to suit itself". Quite he contrary: Linux success in the corporate server room, the market where Linux is strongest, depends heavily on stability and reliability. If you run a distro designed to be on the cutting edge it is only natural that you will run into some breakage. However, the Linux development model has never stopped Red Hat and Novel/SUSE from delivering a reliable product. Heck, even Slackware manages that consistently. Ubuntu LTS isn't bad at all in that area either. Second, my understanding is that Intel video drivers are indeed open. They are included in distributions determined to be fully free by the Free Software Foundation (FSF) and they are as rigid as it gets when determining what is free and open. Funny, Red Hat and its clones (i.e. Centos and Scientific Linux), Ubuntu LTS and SLE manage to use older versions (or at least the older series) of Firefox releases and keep keep them secure. Are the largest corporate distributions going "against the grain"? I see no contradiction in supporting OSS and corporate involvement in Linux. I don't see a conflict there at all. The corporate support in no way closes the software. Oh, and no, I don't use Linux to avoid corporate control. I don't feel that corporations control me to that level in any case. I use Linux because it is more stable, more secure and performs better. For me Linux represents the proverbial better mousetrap, nothing more, nothing less. The is a very vocal minority of Linux users, mainly desktop Linux users, with an ideological bent. Most Linux users, like users of any other OS, just want something that gets the job done. Please don't make assumptions about why people use Linux because, quiet frankly, outside of that vocal minority you are completely wrong. You are also wrong about backwards comparability. Due to the open nature of Linux something will be supported as long as someone is willing to develop the needed drivers. The two Toshibas that died in the last week here were 12 and 7 years old respectively. The 12 year old hardware is still fully supported. Everything worked just fine with a current but lightweight Linux distro. Oh, and companies that don't support Linux don't develop distros. Intel did just that with Moblin and they are still the #1 contributor to the project by far. Sorry, I can't agree with a single thing you've written here. This isn't the first time I've found your views beyond strange and this isn't the first time I've wondered if you write what you do for the purpose of starting arguments. |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 8:36 PM EDT |
Steve, I don't know what your needs are, but I've been using an IBM x32 (under $400 on ebay) for several years now and everything in it has been working GREAT. I've found it to be very snappy and the newest ubuntu boots up so fast you'd think you were waking the machine from sleep mode. The hard drive started to go bad which Ubuntu warned me about and so I had to replace it and re-install ubuntu. Until then the original ubuntu installation was _years_ old and succesfully upgraded itself through each new release without issue. I found that a downside to the older machines is that the IDE drives are starting to go extinct and so future availability and pricing of them may be a deterrent for you. Like you, I would previously rely on hardware that other people gave to me. I would make it work for me. You will be so glad once you've bought a machine with kernel-supported wifi, open driver supported graphics, standardized screen dimensions, etc. that you'll never go back to using other people's orphaned goods again. |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 18, 2009 9:03 PM EDT |
Vect, I agree that IBM Thinkpads, even Lenovo Thinkpads, are among the best laptops not just for FOSS operating systems for for any use. They tend to come with tons of documentation on how to take them apart and put them back together, and many developers on many open-source projects tend to have them. Hence hardware support tends to be great. I was on the lookout for Thinkpads for awhile on eBay, but I could never get a decent price on one. If I run into money, you can bet I'll be looking in the Thinkpad's direction. ... but I'm cheap enough that I'll settle for a Dell. |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 9:18 PM EDT |
Caitlyn, Your last sentance makes me laugh :). I am a very strange person, yest. 'But I am sincere and my posts are not intended to start arguments. One reason I started using linux was because I believed it was a way to avoid DRM and other things that I didn't like and I assumed other people felt the same way, but I see that I was wrong. No big deal, right? Many people in OSS have knee-jerk negative reactions to commercial and corporate activity. Am I the only one who notices this? I agree with your non-negative stance on corporate involvement with linux. In fact, I think people who use linux should be more welcoming of corporate activity. For example, Nvidia deserves respect for it's linux driver support. I don't think it's fair for you to present the corporate server environment as an example of linux stability and reliability. Career kernel developers are paid by corporations. The corporations are interested in server stability. Those corporations are PAYING and they DO HAVE attention focused on them. Non-paying desktop users are not a priority because there is no incentive for that. Development is focused on the server because that's where the funding is. Everything is backwards compatible for _you_. So what. I have a toshiba laptop with an 8-bit mach-5 card in it. The open-source ATI driver used to support that card and now it doesn't. Too bad we all can't be you Caitlyn I think you make incorrect assumptions about me. I like intel. I like corporate involvement. What exactly is 'beyond strange' about me or my post anyway? |
| jdixon Dec 18, 2009 9:21 PM EDT |
> They tend to come with tons of documentation on how to take them apart and put them back together, Dell's pretty good in that regard too. They have their service manuals freely available on their site. For instance, the manuals for my Mini 9 can be found at http://support.dell.com/support/edocs/systems/ins910/en/inde... |
| vect Dec 18, 2009 9:22 PM EDT |
quote>>>Funny, Red Hat and its clones (i.e. Centos and Scientific Linux), Ubuntu LTS and SLE manage to use older versions (or at least the older series) of Firefox releases and keep keep them secure. Are the largest corporate distributions going "against the grain"? yeah they are going against the grain. If they accepted upstream packages as-given things wouldn't be stable and so decent distros have an infrastructure for managing and maintaining releases they deem 'stable' and making them static. That's one of the reasons why people like these distros. |
| montezuma Dec 18, 2009 11:38 PM EDT |
Steven, Yes the other good feature of thinkpads is their amazing durability. I bought a T60 2-3 years ago and my daughter and wife have absolutely hammered it. Still in amazing shape with no problems with the keyboard whatsoever. It is really big too which helps a lot. |
| Steven_Rosenber Dec 19, 2009 1:31 AM EDT |
I just figured out that a sub-$5 USB module can bring sound back to my formerly silenced laptop. Long live the cheap! |
| dinotrac Dec 20, 2009 8:06 AM EDT |
vect - Looks like I need to start writing my own OS: Quoting: If you really support OSS then you won't depend on a corporation for your software happiness. Linux and much of FOSS is deeply dependent on corporations for various aspects of their goodness. Even Microsoft has contributed code to the Linux kernel. If I must go corporation-free, I'm in deep dog piles. |
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