SeanHodges
October 3rd, 2006, 09:25 PM
Hello everyone,
Until today, I was a Kubuntu user who did nothing whatsoever to help the poor support by hardware manufacturers for Linux...
Some of you are probably aware of the open letter by Jonathan Gray regarding the lack of sufficient support from Intel for many of their products (such as a number of their wireless NIC's: http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ for one) His letter, with a brief summary by Jeremy Andrews, can be found at: http://kerneltrap.org/node/7184
It got me thinking that I myself have been guilty on many occasions of coming across hardware that is poorly supported by the manufacturer, and instead of acting on it I simply grumble a bit and move to another product.
I've started to mend my ways... I have sent an email to Intel regarding the lack of hardware documentation for their Intel PRO/Wireless cards... I dont own one, but its a 1 minute of my time given to a cause that I encounter frequently myself. Sooner or later, I may find myself with an Intel wireless NIC at hand, and I hope on that day I will be able to just plug it in and connect it up...
I pledge from now on to identify all of the software that I find is not supported in Linux, and make sure that I email a complaint to the company, requesting that either fully compliant open-source drivers are provided, or that further information and support is given to the brave individuals who have to reverse engineer the hardware in order to give us support for the products that we bought.
This, of course, is not going to make any difference on it's own... So I'm asking if everyone here could consider doing the same, remember a 1 minute email from you will add to a 1 minute email from everyone else, eventually flooding the manufacturers with enough of a reason to be serious about Linux support.
Please also instruct any other users, with or without hardware issues, to do the same... Simply link to this thread if you do not wish to explain things repeatedly...
This has probably all been said before, but it's worth repeating over and over so that people like myself start to realise that they need to help to make things better!
Until today, I was a Kubuntu user who did nothing whatsoever to help the poor support by hardware manufacturers for Linux...
Some of you are probably aware of the open letter by Jonathan Gray regarding the lack of sufficient support from Intel for many of their products (such as a number of their wireless NIC's: http://ipw2100.sourceforge.net/ for one) His letter, with a brief summary by Jeremy Andrews, can be found at: http://kerneltrap.org/node/7184
It got me thinking that I myself have been guilty on many occasions of coming across hardware that is poorly supported by the manufacturer, and instead of acting on it I simply grumble a bit and move to another product.
I've started to mend my ways... I have sent an email to Intel regarding the lack of hardware documentation for their Intel PRO/Wireless cards... I dont own one, but its a 1 minute of my time given to a cause that I encounter frequently myself. Sooner or later, I may find myself with an Intel wireless NIC at hand, and I hope on that day I will be able to just plug it in and connect it up...
I pledge from now on to identify all of the software that I find is not supported in Linux, and make sure that I email a complaint to the company, requesting that either fully compliant open-source drivers are provided, or that further information and support is given to the brave individuals who have to reverse engineer the hardware in order to give us support for the products that we bought.
This, of course, is not going to make any difference on it's own... So I'm asking if everyone here could consider doing the same, remember a 1 minute email from you will add to a 1 minute email from everyone else, eventually flooding the manufacturers with enough of a reason to be serious about Linux support.
Please also instruct any other users, with or without hardware issues, to do the same... Simply link to this thread if you do not wish to explain things repeatedly...
This has probably all been said before, but it's worth repeating over and over so that people like myself start to realise that they need to help to make things better!