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View Full Version : Linux struggles with hardware compatibility? Yeah, right...



jamyskis
January 25th, 2007, 10:56 PM
Has anyone here had experience with hardware that runs flawlessly on Linux, but causes Windows to stutter and crash (more than usual) at the first mention of it.

My case in hand is the Terratec Aureon 7.1 PCI sound card. If you've heard of it, you'll probably know that the Windows drivers are an unmitigated mess and cause most DirectSound applications to stutter at best, bluescreen or crash at worst (and most of the time it is a worst-case scenario). I've been on the phone to Terratec and they've ensured me that they are working on negotiations with their chipset manufacturer to get a new set of drivers sorted, and in the meantime I've been feeding them a comprehensive list of the games which refuse to work with the card (about 40% of my rather large collection).

Here's the cracker - this very same card works absolutely flawlessly with Ubuntu. Not only that - but I get full surround sound with it, no modifying config files or anything. Yet the guy at Terratec said to me that they cannot comment on Linux compatibility as they don't support it.

It beggars belief that third-party programmers reverse engineering the card can write better drivers than the company itself... :confused:

Tomosaur
January 25th, 2007, 11:20 PM
My Asus wireless dongle has worked flawlessly without any extra setup required in Ubuntu, but in Windows it disconnects, tries to load it's own wireless connection manager, disables the WZN service, and has once locked up my machine (well, the software did, not the actual dongle). I'm sure I could sort it all out, but I rarely use Windows.

PatrickMay16
January 25th, 2007, 11:34 PM
All the computers in the house that aren't mine run windows 2000. The computers I own (my laptop, desktop, and piece of junk made of spare parts) run ubuntu.

My dad bought a USB MIDI keyboard recently. It causes all the windows 2000 machines to crash, but works fine with linux. We have one laptop with windows XP, and I tested it, and it works OK with windows XP.

mykalreborn
January 26th, 2007, 12:05 AM
my sound card has out-of-the box support in ubuntu whereas in windows i have to install a driver. well, after the instalation of the driver everything works fine :D

Insomniac20k
January 26th, 2007, 08:24 AM
I have this integrated ethernet card in my desktop (It's a broadcom in a Dell) and I cannot get it to work with Win2000 or XP, even with the drivers from Dell. I ended up having to install another one.

However, it works fine with Ubuntu and Fedora.

The sound in my laptop only works with linux. It's never worked right with Windows (actually this issue is what brought me to linux.)

The only issue I've ever had was getting my wireless card to work with FC6. Also, hibernate hasn't worked right in any distro since FC4.

macogw
January 26th, 2007, 09:10 AM
I have a webcam that I was given by my uncle who thought it was broken. I plugged it in on my mom's Ubuntu computer and it worked fine (except for a red-tinted picture...I think someone colored on the lens with a marker)