Comment 1345 for bug 1

Revision history for this message
Faldegast (faldegast) wrote : RE: [Bug 1] Re: Microsoft has a majority market share

> On 08/26/2010 11:46 AM, Faldegast wrote:
>
> > Yes. We should strive to have as much hardware as possible. But still
> > without valuable time and money to support vendors that ignore us.
> > Linux/Android phones with official Linux drivers and documentation
> > should be supported, and so should Linux routers. However in cases where
> > there is a lack of supported hardware I think we should work on it
> > within the community. Router corporation does not support Linux? Then we
> > should build our own routers with components that is certified for
> > Linux. There are quite many of us that want such a thing so we should be
> > able to finance it. For example i stumbled across the Armadeus embedded
> > Linux board a while ago.
>
> This has been tried. When Routerboard started, it was very open... It
> did not take the world by storm. Now it is Mikrotic, fee based, semi
> closed, and not a shining example of FOSS.
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Routerboard If you want to sell hardware,
> go ahead. It is a tough, and expensive business with razor thin
> margins. The only reason Apple has big margins is they have a lock on
> the hardware. The only way Linux could do the same is to break support
> for Dell, and the like. Not what I want.
Its not a shining example of FOSS but its still Linux and far more FOSS then others. By the way thank you for the link, i have been locking for something like this. By the number of products they seam to have I would guess that the project have been a success.

> That all said, I will not buy anything for my company without good Linux
> drivers. We have more Windows desktops than anything, so why do I do
> this? Because I don't know if that desktop will ALWAYS run WinXP. I
> still have an old Visioneer Paperport scanner that has never been used.
> No drivers for the system. Just old Win95 drivers unless you want to
> BUY the new ones. Permanent hardware blacklist.
Yeah. As long as there are Linux drivers you can always run Windows in KVM or VirtualBox, utilizing the Linux drivers. Also Hardware that support Linux is usually of better quality that Hardware that dont. So there are many reasons to stick to Linux hardware when you can. It would even be possible to port a Linux driver using the Windows DDK, but if it comes to that its probably more painless to just replace the hardware...