The Free World: The Linux Blame Game
I think it’s pretty widely known that getting some hardware to work with Linux can be kind of a hit and miss proposition. Some wifi cards work and some don’t. You might have to jump throught a lot of hoops to get your video or sound working and power issues are also common.
End users are very likely to blame “Linux” and move on to another OS. More experienced users are more likely to be aware that the problem isn’t with “Linux” per se, but rather with the hardware manufacturers who have decided not to release the inner workings of their hardware. If the Linux community doesn’t know how something works, it’s pretty hard for it to react and create workable drivers for those pieces of hardware.
However, I don’t think it’s right to blame either “Linux” or the hardware manfucaturers. In fact, I think the userbase is to blame.
Manufacturers are businesses. They’re not in the game to be good souls, they’re here to make money and that’s why they primarily target the top two use OSes Mac and Windows. Many hardware manufacturers cannot be bothered to make a Linux version of their software or drivers for the handful of people who need it. It’s a simple matter of math - if there’s no business for it, manufacturers aren’t going to produce it.
So what’s the situation?
- Many users can’t get Linux working because there is no driver support for one of their pieces of hardware
- User stops using Linux
- Linux adoption remains unattractive to the hardware manufacturers
So if we’re in the business of casting blame, who should really wear it?
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