When you, Joe or Mary user, buy a computer at Best Buy or Computer Village or order a computer from Dell or Gateway, you get a computer with a system already installed. Do you think they had any trouble installing that system on that computer? Do you think that if Dell sells Mary a computer with Windows installed and they sell Joe a computer with Linux installed, that Dell had a differentially hard time installing one of those systems compared to the other?
Think about it.
~ Repost from one year ago this month ~
Linux and Windows each have huge capacities in the area of hardware control. People will fight to the end of time about this, but the truth is that both systems have the capacity to run on and use almost all hardware. Windows does not run on Power PC’s and Linux does, and certain novel hardware (like label printers or all in one’s) might have a Windows driver before getting a Linux driver. Also, Linux will actually run on a wider range of hardware than, say, XP or, especially, Vista.
Most hardware manufacturers design drivers for Windows, and only a few design drivers for Linux. But the Linux drivers get designed anyway, tyically just a few months later.
So, given this, one might assume that the engineers at Dell or Gateway or Computertown can throw a Windows system or a Linux system, with impunity, on any old pile of hardware they happen to put together. Right?
Wrong.
Installing a system that will work reliably on a configuration of hardware that you’ve thrown together may be problematic, regardless of if you are using Windows or Linux.
In both cases, there is a pretty complicated relationship between hardware and software. Recently it was discovered that some new Seagate hard drives would not work with Linux because of a strange interaction between the system and the hardware. This got fixed, but it is an example of unexpected results when any redesign (in hardware or software) occurs. I have not installed a windows system in a long time, but in the past I have installed many, and there have been times when I’ve had to swap out hardware to get Windows to install or to work properly. It is quite possible to end up with a system that works, but it turns out that the second parallel port is not really there, or the graphics card is switched to a low power mode, or some other thing is not quite working. And the recurring proverbial unexplainable blue screen of death that happens once a week or two may happen because of something odd going on in the interaction between hardware and software.
A computer is engineered. The hardware is engineered, the software is engineered, and in between the combination of the two is also engineered.
What this means is the following: Almost every desktop computer out there in use by the average person right now that is not a Mac is either running Windows where the engineering was done by Dell or Gateway or somebody … not the end user, or it is a system running Linux where the end user her/his self has had to do the engineering.
Keep that in mind next time you are installing or upgrading a Linux system and you run into some trouble.
Currently, the French distro Mandriva is working with Precedent Technologies to put together a low cost Linux desktop that they will call TechSurfer.
TechSurfer is a web-centric computing platform that is designed for customers who mostly surf the web; download music; and utilize VOIP services, such as Skype. The TechSurfer platform is also suitable for very light desktop productivity applications. TechSurfer is powered by the Intel Atom processor. The Atom Processor was designed especially for web-centric computers. TechSurfer starts at $399.99 with the Mandriva linux OS. Customers can add an additional $100 for Windows XP or Vista.
Dell offers full blown computers with Linux installed, presumably, with the engineering I’m talking about done. And over time we can expect to see a full range of different levels of offerings in between. I think when out of the box Linux computers start to become the default Linux for the average end user, and the engineering issues become backgrounded for Linux like they are now for Windows, that we may start to see more momentum in the direction of Linux to the exclusion of Windows. And, for a special breed of user, we’ll see Linux being chosen over Mac.
More about that later.
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That “fully engineered together” advantage is available only at initial purchase. When you upgrade to the next version of the OS, the problem is again all yours.
@Russell. This is true in theory. However, in practice:
0) A lot of the config files etc will be unchanged between distro versions. So running Ubuntu’s upgrade tool is (comparatively) unlikely to brick your machine.
1) The hardware manufacturer may have passed some of their fixes upstream. For example I think Canonical works quite well with Dell.
2) If someone is selling OEM systems with a particular Linux distro, that OS is more likely to receive testing on that platform. So any bugs are more likely to be fixed before you upgrade.
I’m writing this post on a Dell Inspiron 6400 that came pre-installed with Ubuntu Feisty Fawn. It’s now on Intrepid Ibex, so has survived 3 version changes.
There were a few problems with graphics drivers at one point, and I think some day I’ll need to do a clean install just to make sure I haven’t missed out on any useful packages. But in general it’s worked like a charm.
Mmmmm…Gingerbread computers!!! Just don’t let becca see that…
I think it’s got to be rather hard for any computer manufacturer to justify designing hardware that is made primarily for linux – especially when all you linuxpsychos can turn around and make almost any hardware functional for linux. But as more and more people are turning away from proprietary OS’s, I think more and more hardware will end up being designed with linux in mind from the get go. It’s one thing to assume that the person who won’t be using Windows, will have the know how to make it all work out anyways. But there is an evergrowing crowd who not only don’t want to deal with these complications, but really don’t know how to deal with it. And when manufacturers notice that we just say fuck-it, I’m buying shit that’s already linux friendly, they’re going to decide that it’s probably a good idea to be one of the manufacturers of linux friendly equipment.
Lifewish: I assume Russell was talking about Windows. It is deeply strange that in Linux, an upgrade to the system leads to increased rather than decreased functionality because over time Linux covers more and more hardware, but in Windows the reverse can happen.
In the case of Windows, the issue is the upgrade process and the software. A new Windows install should work with more, not less, hardware and that is probably always true. But if you try to upgrade in such a way that requires any of the older install disks (i.e., you are not going for a totally new install) then some of the old drivers may cause the upgrade process to fail. I often speak of the “new” computer my daughter got because reinstalling and upgrading Windows became impossible without purchase the 200 new copy of the system.
Also, if during installation at the factory strange thing happened to make the hardware work with that OEM system, well, throw your computer out and buy a new one if you want to keep using Windows. For whatever demented reason you’d want to do that.
I do so wish people would stop throwing out perfectly good, functional hardware just because the OS got crufted up and broken.
I want that gingerbread computer now too, by the way. :p
One of my most frustrating client assignments involved putting Small Business Server 2003 on a Dell r905 server.
See, the thing was the CD that came with the server for software install didn’t have options for SBS Server 2003. Got somewhere with formatting a USB thumb drive to act as a floppy drive but as soon as it dropped to the windows portion of the setup, it puked because it couldn’t find the RAID (PERC-6) driver I’d dumped onto the thumb drive.
The solution, Small Business Server 2008. Installed flawlessly. Of course the client was attempting to do this on the cheap, with full acquiescence of Dell btw, who told him SBS 2003 would work on the server.
There is something helpful about a system that configures everything in simple text files, and even treats devices as files. Even a kludges Linux system is more reliable than a factory-installed Windows system.
…then… it is quite possible that Microsoft, in working with engineer, can manipulate the market to increase the number of Linux- (or other sytem-) “unfriendly” devices out there on the post-Windows flotsom. If they wanted to.
Jason: Yeah, I prefer to leave it lying around until I get drunk enough to try installing FreeBSD on it.
That actually happened once. Thank god for recovery disks.
Mmm… gingerbread. nom nom nom.
Given the value of the software (to get done what you need done) and the cheapness of the hardware, there is a good argument for discarding the whole whole thing (but the data) and starting fresh every year or so, with a factory installed system. Just keep your data on an external drive and backed up.
Lifewish: ah, but you didn’t end up out in the ocean surrounded by sharks, so you’re ahead of the game. http://xkcd.com/349/
(This comic was up at work for a while until an edict came down from on high that XKCD was unacceptable due to several of the comics including swear words. No joke.)
lifewish gives new meaning to the word “hangover”
This comic was up at work for a while until an edict came down from on high that XKCD was unacceptable due to several of the comics including swear words. No joke.
I assume you work in a kindergarten, right?
Actually, XKCD got informally banned from one place I worked. In our case, though, it was less because of the swearies and more because we spent unconscionable amounts of time trying to calculate the answer to a certain problem.
(I still haven’t figured it out…)
You are all missing the point. If the computer was made out of cookie, recycling and re installation would be mooted.
Memory refresh of the Seagate drive problem:
“Dell offers full blown computers with Linux installed, presumably, with the engineering I’m talking about done.”
Not at all. I bought a pre-built Dell about a year ago, and the engineering you speak of revolved around removing standard options. When I had windows selected, taking out the card reader wasn’t an option. When I switched to ubuntu, putting it back in was impossible. Then there was the upgrade to 8.10- I couldn’t do ANYTHING in 3D for months, even after I wiped it all and did a clean install- even the live CD didn’t work properly! Nothing but 8.04 or windows would function until fairly recently. And this week, I’m dealing with choosing between blue screens every fifteen minutes on 7 or complete unbootability because xinerama deleted xserver or something.
Both are engineered to work almost everywhere, but it seems neither system is ever engineered particularly well.
“Dell offers full blown computers with Linux installed, presumably, with the engineering I’m talking about done.”
Not at all. I bought a pre-built Dell about a year ago, and the engineering you speak of revolved around removing standard options. When I had windows selected, taking out the card reader wasn’t an option. When I switched to ubuntu, putting it back in was impossible. Then there was the upgrade to 8.10- I couldn’t do ANYTHING in 3D for months, even after I wiped it all and did a clean install- even the live CD didn’t work properly! Nothing but 8.04 or windows would function until fairly recently. And this week, I’m dealing with choosing between blue screens every fifteen minutes on 7 or complete unbootability because xinerama deleted xserver or something.
Both are engineered to work almost everywhere, but it seems neither system is generally engineered particularly well.
I solve my linux compatibility problems by only installing it on old-ass mainstream hardware. Of course, I’m not running a server or anything, just ns2, which I can wait for. I can do everything else in Windows.
@ Jim (no. 13): It’s not a good night unless you need to reformat your boot partition in the morning.
Supergrub is your friend. Or unplugging every other disk while installing Windows.
As to Linux and hardware, I just think it’s come a long way from writing my own ppp scripts in RedHat 5 to flawlessly installing Intrepid Ibex on the newest Dell notebook,including wireless and bluetooth.Havent had a hardware problem for about a year or so now.
And Windows 7 is going the same way,with many drivers preloaded into the OS,works very well so far.
I’m just amused by the wildly differing expectations. I am reminded of Martin Owens’s blog post Ignition Advertising in Ubuntu where he points out that people like to use things that are popular. If we don’t say that “like nobody uses it” they’ll be more likely to try it. In computers, this makes total sense. If you need help with a little question, do you call the help desk, or do you ask the person at the next desk over “hey, how do I add a printer?” Likely the latter. Historically, Linux has kind of lost on this front. It’s why we have LUGs and LoCo Teams. I think that as we get more users, the momentum to gain more users will grow because being kind of popular makes it easier to become more popular
I put together a brand new computer last week, and going by Greg’s suggesting to me about a year ago, installed Linux Mint so that I could also watch DVDs on it (without needing to mess with special configuration), but this time went with the 64-bit version. Unfortunately there was still problems with setting up the WLAN driver so that it would work after every reboot. Who knows, maybe it will miraculously be OK today, now that I posted this comment.
In the meantime I also had installed SUSE 11.0. This I think require minor adjustments, but in it the WLAN works just fine.
On a side note, I also installed XP 64-bit as a dual-boot (legit copy from school) and did of course have to do driver installations on it as well, ‘last’ one completed just last night. And of course it can’t play DVDs right now either.
I’ll give a little more time before getting too frustrated. But I would like to see more shift in Linux world to 64-bit, since 4GB memory configurations are so common now on newly installed desktops.
The memory limit is a hardware one, not a software one. Some software solutions exist. There is a “huge memory” option in Linux that can take advantage of more memory on some hardware.
I’m not sure how this works exactly in the current kernel.
When I said that “fully engineered together” advantage is only at initial purchase, I meant any system provided by a company that puts some effort into making sure hardware and software work together. In this context, that’s mostly Windows systems, but also applies to Linux systems sold retail.
While it is true that “over time Linux covers more and more hardware,” that doesn’t mean there aren’t any regressions. Interpid had a regression that broke the Poulsbo video driver, causing a lot of hair pulling for people using Ubuntu on the Dell Mini 12. Likewise, Jaunty had a regression regarding ATI video (Fglrx).
Yes, I realize both regressions were examples of hardware vendors not keeping their drivers up with kernel changes. That doesn’t much matter to the end user, who simply sees things work worse after a version upgrade.
Windows would never work worse after a version upgrade, tehrefore if Linux is ever rumored to have done so even if fixed then Linux sucks in comparison to Windows.
What the hell…? “Ink Cartridges” comment is copy pasta of a chunk of one of my blog posts: http://ubuntulinuxtipstricks.blogspot.com/2009/07/bold-prediction-bug-1-will-be-closed-in.html
The spammers are getting far too clever for any of our good — using comments that correspond with comments from other, similar threads via probably automated google searches. They started out by using copy-pasta from the same thread, but filters started blocking that too.
I agree that the spammers are getting far too clever for any of our good — using comments that correspond with comments from other, similar threads via probably automated google searches. They started out by using copy-pasta from the same thread, but filters started blocking that too.
*facepalm*
I have enjoyed the facepalm you have written here in this informative blog.
As to Linux and hardware, I just think it’s come a long way from writing my own ppp scripts in RedHat 5 to flawlessly installing Intrepid Ibex on the newest Dell notebook,including wireless and bluetooth.Havent had a hardware problem for about a year or so now.
I realize both regressions were examples of hardware vendors not keeping their drivers up with kernel changes. That doesn’t much matter to the end user, who simply sees things work worse after a version upgrade.