Why not use company drivers?

[Benzaa]

Hi,

Today, while I was installing xubuntu, I was wondering the reasons for not using drivers that are provided by the company.

For example, in my computer, xubuntu does not recognize the microphone. I have tried everything that I could find on google and none of those things have worked.

I understand that linux was built around the idea of being able to see what is under the hood, but, lets being honest, how many of you have been playing with the sound drivers (or any other driver) to make something work??

What is the reason for not going to the packard bell website (in my case), get the windows sound driver, and use it in xubuntu?

That could simplify a lot the development of it, couldnt it?


Well, just something that I wanted to ask to the community.

[suitedaces]

I think it's because the driver is built for windows, and will not work in linux.

[Chemical Imbalance]

Windows drivers aren't made with linux in mind--they are made for the Windows kernel. Some drivers do work with a wrapper, but they were not intended for linux.

The fault is the hardware manafacturers for not opening up their specs. If they opensourced their drivers, then they could be ported to various operating systems.

The linux community oftentimes has to reverse engineer the drivers just to be able to use them.

[s.fox]

I had a go using windows drivers using ndiswrapper. Not something I would want to do again. In the end I gave up and used a linux driver instead.

[SunnyRabbiera]

Linux can only do so much without these companies supporting it.
Like said above the drivers are mainly written for windows, in order to make them work the developers create workarounds until they figure out how to reverse engineer.
I blame these companies too, linux is the most versatile OS out there yet completely ignored because of greed and ignorance.

[joshdudeha]

Linux can only do so much without these companies supporting it.
Like said above the drivers are mainly written for windows, in order to make them work the developers create workarounds until they figure out how to reverse engineer.
I blame these companies too, linux is the most versatile OS out there yet completely ignored because of greed and ignorance.

Wow. Imagine how more amazing Linux would be with the companies supporting it.
It really would be incredible I think.

But back to the question, that's a bit like asking for a windows program to work in Linux, it just wasn't built for the system.
Some day, it'll have just as good support, even though it has come EXTREMELY far today.

[Benzaa]

What about Dell?

They are selling computers with Ubuntu installed, right?

Are they developing their own drivers or just using the linux drivers?

[forrestcupp]

What about Dell?

They are selling computers with Ubuntu installed, right?

Are they developing their own drivers or just using the linux drivers?

They're using drivers already made for Linux, and their Ubuntu pre-installed computers only use hardware that works well with Linux.

But we do use company developed drivers when they're available. A lot of people use nvidia's and ati's drivers rather than the open source ones. It's just that there are a lot of hardware makers that don't support Linux. Lexmark is horrible.

The main idea is that if you're setting up a system for Linux, check into what hardware works with Linux before you buy. Then you'll have a painless experience. The reason MacOS works so well is because it only runs on the hardware that is made for it. If you tried installing unsupported hardware in a Mac, you'd have just as much trouble or more than doing it in Linux.

[mips]

What about Dell?

They are selling computers with Ubuntu installed, right?

Are they developing their own drivers or just using the linux drivers?

Linux drivers.

[SunnyRabbiera]

What about Dell?

They are selling computers with Ubuntu installed, right?

Are they developing their own drivers or just using the linux drivers?

Dell contributes drivers