ASUS starts to suck severly

[energyman]

if you buy a raid card, you are pretty much guaranteed that it works in linux.

The link about the realtek chip: read that again, will you?

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/06/...ps-snapdragon/

If you have a soundcard that was not made in the last 2 years, you have a good chance it will not work in Vista. Same for vid cards.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...e-cripple-asus
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...ts-rocky-patch
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...el-foxconn-dea

As always, I do have sources. And unlike you, I don't insult people.

[Adarion]

Steve, do you know the difference between Linux and Windows from the driver side? Apparently not. There is a difference when there is a driver that is written by the HW manufracturer and these guys having full access to 100% of the specs and the hardware-bugs. Then, there are the Kernel driver hackers (or userland if you want to) and these guys often have not all specs, and sometimes no, zero specs at all. And, furthermore they do not yet know the HW bugs. But the Linux people are the ones to find out. And there is quite a number of faulty chips around. And it is not only CPUs that have a good number of smaller or larger bugs.
Really.
The manufracturer's driver, and they always provide drivers for the Windows that is recent on the market (so often no older Windows support), can ship carefully around these bugs, not triggering them.
The free hackers have to find these bugs by themselves. And fix them in their drivers. Do reverse engineering stuff. Testing. All that time consuming and sometimes frustrating stuff.

I hope I could make the problems visible. That is the reason why often a lot of Linux drivers for new HW come late or do not have full access to the HW they are made for. But once there are specs, once the chips is really known, the drivers becomes better and better. And once a firm decides to say: Oh, well, we will only support next gen windows, and not support older Windows anymore (or the other way round) Windows users are the ones who have to live with an old (and maybe also buggy) driver - and yes I have seen a lot of buggy drivers under Windows. The people who have a free driver can have it til eternity or til their piece of HW fails or til they just want to upgrade their HW. And that is the good side.
Remember it was a faulty printer driver that caused rms to start all his work.

On topic with ASUS: I was quite font to read exactly my thoughts in the last issue of a German linux mag, they also took up that topic with ASUS' "it's better with Windows". Apparently ASUS might have used Linux only to pressurize MS to lower the prices. (But then still there are the ridiculus rules about max. storage space, display res. etc. for these Windows on Netbook licenses)

Nice read, that on smiaccurate.com, but that is typical MS behaviour. And that is also the reason why I dislike MS, despite Linus being the pragmatic tech guy and telling us not to hate MS on slashdot. Yes, I read that yesterday.
And if MS provides free code and it is usable code, okay, why not. But still I see them f*ucking their competitors in all evil ways possible. Competitors, free or commecial, business partners (Logitech once nearly went bankrupt due to MS), customers.

[nanonyme]

Imo an interesting thing to ponder about would also be why Asus laptops costed more with Linux on them than with a full Microsoft suite including Windows, Office utilities etc. You can easily calculate a price of several hundred euros for that set of utilities when you go buy it from a shop. Yet the Linux version costed more, not less than the Windows version.
I guess it's possible Microsoft takes a loss on all software sales on OEM or that OEM prices are based on some bizarre predicted overall sales vs cost of each machine manufactured that doesn't get sold for the market segment analysis. (and they are expecting most of the computers actually wouldn't get sold)

[stevea]

if you buy a raid card, you are pretty much guaranteed that it works in linux.

Not quite, but I'll admit RAID is a poor example on my part. A few years ago the support for the less expensive non-enterprise ATA/SATA cards was pretty spotty. I scanned today and perhaps it's 80-90% of cards. Still short of the near 100% rate for Win.

The link about the realtek chip: read that again, will you?

You read it again friend. It says the r8169 Linux under 2.6 driver has major problems. This link ...
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kerne...ea77245eb510b4
might be clearer if you have comprehension difficulties. Between 2.6.10 and the ~6/9/09 patch large packets to the r8169 driver can corrupt the kernel. Crashes are clearly possible and there is a possibility of exploit. This driver handles the RTL8111xx chips which are certainly the most popular GigE interface on production mobos today, and also appears in laptops.

The Linux driver situation is a hodge-podge. Some are stable and great, but often support older hardware. Some work but perform poorly. The current crop of wifi drivers is certainly better than in 2007, but far short of the Win situation. Do you somehow think everyone is happy w/ Linux ATI or even the basket of Nvidea drivers ?

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/06/...ps-snapdragon/

If you have a soundcard that was not made in the last 2 years, you have a good chance it will not work in Vista. Same for vid cards.

http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...e-cripple-asus
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...ts-rocky-patch
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/...el-foxconn-dea

You appear to NOT understand what "rumor", "rumours" and "unconfirmed" mean in these articles. There is no doubt that Intel (and MS too) isn't happy with Asus, but there is NO intimation that Asus "lost it's contract" with Intel.

Intel is, (unconfirmed), outsourcing mobo design & devel to Foxconn. I've worked for semi companies that competed with their customers and it's a bad situation. Intel using Foxconn which only supplies EOMs and therefore isn't a competitor is a smart move. It may tweak Asus, but there is no contract being pulled and zero chance that Intel is walking away from one of it's major customers. News-flash - early access to parts and design info isn't subject to any long-term contract.

========

Steve, do you know the difference between Linux and Windows from the driver side? Apparently not....

I've written many Linux and BSD drivers in my career - so I think I know a little about it. I FULLY AND IN DETAIL understand that it's hard to get chip specs. A lot of chipmakers like Marvell will not distribute specs except under NDA - and they won't talk to a customer who only needs say 10k chips per year. The Vid guys make all the info proprietary. Getting errata sheets is another headache. Your comment isn't telling me anything I don't already know firsthand.

I stated that Linux drivers are often shoddy. You have pinpointed one of several reasons why. This isn't news.

You miss my point entirely. The end-user doesn't care if the driver comes from the M$ or the board mfgr or the kernel.org. They want a driver for every bit of hardware and they want it to work 100%. Windows certainly isn't 100%/100%, but Linux is a lot worse, lacking some drivers and having poor quality drivers in other cases. The end-user wants the "just works" experience and Windows generally comes a lot closer.

Detailing why this is the case amounts to making excuses for Linux. End-users don't care that Linux s/w quality is generally superior or that we have a harder time getting specs and errata. Irrelevant to my point.

=========

On topic with ASUS: I was quite font to read exactly my thoughts in the last issue of a German linux mag, they also took up that topic with ASUS' "it's better with Windows". Apparently ASUS might have used Linux only to pressurize MS to lower the prices. (But then still there are the ridiculus rules about max. storage space, display res. etc. for these Windows on Netbook licenses)

I tend to agree abou t the "pressure MS" point, but it's market pressure. The "rules" also involve Intel, as they want to position their CPU parts in certain ways.

Nice read, that on smiaccurate.com, but that is typical MS behaviour. And that is also the reason why I dislike MS, despite Linus being the pragmatic tech guy and telling us not to hate MS on slashdot. Yes, I read that yesterday.
And if MS provides free code and it is usable code, okay, why not. But still I see them f*ucking their competitors in all evil ways possible. Competitors, free or commecial, business partners (Logitech once nearly went bankrupt due to MS), customers.

Yes I dislike MS biz practices in many ways. SunMS sued MS to prevent them from embrace/extend/exterminate-ing Java. Now SunMS is part of the Novell MS collaborator schema. Also note this subsumes OpenOffice under Novell. When M$ said they wanted to collaborate w/ Novell I didn't understand they meant collaborate in exterminating M$ competition. They exterminated Netscape, tho' they lost the lawsuit. They aren't exactly helping TomTom.

Still there is a huge difference between the idea that MS is a near-monopoly that throws it's weight around - hard - in a mostly legal manner and does not act in it's customer's interests VS energyman spreading unlabelled rumors of grossly illegal actions by MS. The market, which includes Asus caused MS to lower it's price structure for nettop OS'. The statement "Mirosoft pressured Asus" implies restraint of trade. Other comments imply collusion for price-fixing. If you have real evidence - contact the Atty Generals office. If you don't label it "rumor".

[Adarion]

Imo an interesting thing to ponder about would also be why Asus laptops costed more with Linux on them than with a full Microsoft suite including Windows

That was also the case with some DELL machines, it was due to the lots of bundeled advertisement software on the W32 laptops. All these 10 day trial stuff, toolbars, ... and maybe even spyware. That is a possible reason for these price differences.

[Adarion]

I've written many Linux and BSD drivers

Okay. Fine. But then you know the issues.
But please feel free to make a suggestion how to improve the situation then.

On the other hand, well, when a driver is really released as stable I'm ok with most Linux drivers. (yes, some take really long in development but I'll have to bear with that)
And there are many closed drivers which are shoddy as well (when you say that a lot of Linux drivers would be).

The end-user wants the "just works" experience and Windows generally comes a lot closer.

*sigh* Yes. The end user. I know. But end user will also end up having problems with Windows as well. Guess how often I was called to fix this or that and sometimes they also just had problems finding and installing or configuring a (3rd party) driver.
I some cases a Linux with a recent kernel will work completely out of the box without having to install any drivers at all. Sometimes it is better here than Windows.
Okay, yes, when it comes to certain classes of equipment you have a chance that there is no support at all. But you can't really blame Linux/L.developers for that and you know why.
I think we're still dependent on HW manufracturer's mercy with the specs.

On a second thought: I think the out of the box experience for the end user... that often also is a thing of Software. Buying any cheapo software in the general market (shareware games collection or such) and making it run. (Though I've seen a lot of horrible stuff that would really endanger/damage the Windows installation.)
But that is a matter of SW authors to have a Linux/Mac/BSD version.
But then Software is something highly related to a getting used to something over years. You see noobs working quicker with Linux than some users who are long term Windows users switching.

End-users don't care that Linux s/w quality is generally superior or that we have a harder time getting specs and errata.

Well, that's why I don't get tired to tell them the reasons.
But I think that depends on the individual user. I see a lot of people complaining about Windows, may it be a problem with 3rd party software, MSW itself or sometimes just their own lack of knowledge... and some want to switch. And with enough precaution for a migration they are well off (unless they do gaming or something like that)
There are many groups of users and the one that is using a computer like a coffee machine that "just has to work when I press the red button" is only one of them.

And then we have a cuddly penguin to charm the users with.

[energyman]

Not quite, but I'll admit RAID is a poor example on my part. A few years ago the support for the less expensive non-enterprise ATA/SATA cards was pretty spotty. I scanned today and perhaps it's 80-90% of cards. Still short of the near 100% rate for Win.



You read it again friend. It says the r8169 Linux under 2.6 driver has major problems. This link ...
http://git.kernel.org/?p=linux/kerne...ea77245eb510b4
might be clearer if you have comprehension difficulties. Between 2.6.10 and the ~6/9/09 patch large packets to the r8169 driver can corrupt the kernel. Crashes are clearly possible and there is a possibility of exploit. This driver handles the RTL8111xx chips which are certainly the most popular GigE interface on production mobos today, and also appears in laptops.

yes, and when they found out about the bug it was instantly fixed. So what is your problem? Bug found, bug fixed. Unlike windows drivers where you have to live with bugs for a long time.

I have a Terratec TV+. Its windows software was bad and the driver wasn't great either. Every snapshot had to be saved manually, for example. In 99 they stopped supporting Win95 with driver updates. Win95 was the only windows version I had, because I don't pirate software. Or buy computers with OS pre-installed.
Linux software for the card was A LOT better. So where the drivers.

[QUOTE=stevea;83981
The Linux driver situation is a hodge-podge. Some are stable and great, but often support older hardware. Some work but perform poorly. The current crop of wifi drivers is certainly better than in 2007, but far short of the Win situation. Do you somehow think everyone is happy w/ Linux ATI or even the basket of Nvidea drivers ?
[/QUOTE]

no, but the WIFI mess is mostly caused by dickheaded manufacturrers - and distirbutions enabling fucking crap like ndiswrapper. Similar with nvidia or ati drivers. Are the drivers perfect? No. But at least with ATI/AMD the release of documentation will make it easier to create good drivers in the future. And hey, nvidia drivers are responsible for most blue screens of death in windows. So it is not like their windows drivers are perfect either.

[QUOTE=stevea;83981
[QUOTE=stevea;83981
You appear to NOT understand what "rumor", "rumours" and "unconfirmed" mean in these articles. There is no doubt that Intel (and MS too) isn't happy with Asus, but there is NO intimation that Asus "lost it's contract" with Intel.

Intel is, (unconfirmed), outsourcing mobo design & devel to Foxconn. I've worked for semi companies that competed with their customers and it's a bad situation. Intel using Foxconn which only supplies EOMs and therefore isn't a competitor is a smart move. It may tweak Asus, but there is no contract being pulled and zero chance that Intel is walking away from one of it's major customers. News-flash - early access to parts and design info isn't subject to any long-term contract.

========



I've written many Linux and BSD drivers in my career - so I think I know a little about it. I FULLY AND IN DETAIL understand that it's hard to get chip specs. A lot of chipmakers like Marvell will not distribute specs except under NDA - and they won't talk to a customer who only needs say 10k chips per year. The Vid guys make all the info proprietary. Getting errata sheets is another headache. Your comment isn't telling me anything I don't already know firsthand.

I stated that Linux drivers are often shoddy. You have pinpointed one of several reasons why. This isn't news.

You miss my point entirely. The end-user doesn't care if the driver comes from the M$ or the board mfgr or the kernel.org. They want a driver for every bit of hardware and they want it to work 100%. Windows certainly isn't 100%/100%, but Linux is a lot worse, lacking some drivers and having poor quality drivers in other cases. The end-user wants the "just works" experience and Windows generally comes a lot closer.

Detailing why this is the case amounts to making excuses for Linux. End-users don't care that Linux s/w quality is generally superior or that we have a harder time getting specs and errata. Irrelevant to my point.

=========



I tend to agree abou t the "pressure MS" point, but it's market pressure. The "rules" also involve Intel, as they want to position their CPU parts in certain ways.



Yes I dislike MS biz practices in many ways. SunMS sued MS to prevent them from embrace/extend/exterminate-ing Java. Now SunMS is part of the Novell MS collaborator schema. Also note this subsumes OpenOffice under Novell. When M$ said they wanted to collaborate w/ Novell I didn't understand they meant collaborate in exterminating M$ competition. They exterminated Netscape, tho' they lost the lawsuit. They aren't exactly helping TomTom.

Still there is a huge difference between the idea that MS is a near-monopoly that throws it's weight around - hard - in a mostly legal manner and does not act in it's customer's interests VS energyman spreading unlabelled rumors of grossly illegal actions by MS. The market, which includes Asus caused MS to lower it's price structure for nettop OS'. The statement "Mirosoft pressured Asus" implies restraint of trade. Other comments imply collusion for price-fixing. If you have real evidence - contact the Atty Generals office. If you don't label it "rumor".[/QUOTE]

oh - and please have the fun and try to have a SB live working in Windows Vista (or Audigy2). Really. Try it.

for the rest: TL'DR. Sorry, but drowning me in text?

[nanonyme]

That was also the case with some DELL machines, it was due to the lots of bundeled advertisement software on the W32 laptops. All these 10 day trial stuff, toolbars, ... and maybe even spyware. That is a possible reason for these price differences.

That's crap, a few advertisements can't be worth several hundred euros per computer. The 10 day trial stuff usually is stuff like antivirus program anyway, Microsoft's software seems to cost less than air on OEM.

[deanjo]

oh - and please have the fun and try to have a SB live working in Windows Vista (or Audigy2). Really. Try it.

Both work fine, even thought they do not have a complete feature set as they did in XP (due to Vista dropping hardware acceleration) they still have far more functionality in Vista then the linux drivers allow.

[deanjo]

l. I think you have what Linus Torvalds recently referred to, "I may make jokes about Microsoft at times, but at the same time, I think the Microsoft hatred is a disease".

I actually he hit it bang on when he said

There are ‘extremists’ in the free software world, but that’s one major reason why I don’t call what I do ‘free software’ any more. I don’t want to be associated with the people for whom it’s about exclusion and hatred.”