David S. Miller writes:
> It's amusing how so many companies want to have that Linux checkbox,
> and the extremes they'll go to in order to retain binary only drivers
> at the same time.
We ought to admit to not having solved this problem:
1. User has Linux installed today.
2. New hardware is designed, marketed, built, and sold.
3. User buys new hardware and installs it.
4. Hardware is a numb chunk of PC board, chips, and connectors.
With the Windows OS, a user could install binary drivers from
a CD-ROM included with the hardware. Linux does not currently
play well with hardware upgrades, unless you know how to download
and compile a recent kernel.
I can see where we are currently headed. The CD-ROM that comes
with new hardware will have "Red Hat 7.0" drivers. These will
only work with the 2.4.8-ac4 kernel, and only when that kernel
is compiled with the same options used by Red Hat.
Hardware vendors can not expect users to know about compiling.
It would be very dangerous to have hardware vendors supplying
whole kernel upgrades, but what else can they do?
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Sat Apr 15 2000 - 21:00:13 EST