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According to Phoronix, getting support from motherboard manufacturers can be downright hostile for linux users. Some go as far as requiring Microsoft Windows to be installed before getting to speaking terms. With TYAN as about the only motherboard maker (that I am aware of) to fully support linux, my question is: "Do any of you use a TYAN motherboard in a typical desktop use case? If so, what were your experiences, pro and con?
Followup question is: Have any motherboard manufactures changed their tune recently regarding support for linux users?
With the recent end-of-life of free Windows/XP support, Valve's work on its Steam OS, and Android's large market share, how close are we to the point where a user can just install linux (or a BSD variant) and it just works? What hardware (old and new) has been especially problematic for you? What has been your greatest challenge and/or frustration?
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Monday April 28 2014, @03:39PM
If they can get an extra 3% market share and a pile of goodwill with very little cost or effort and little or no competition, it gives them a head start if/when Linux takes off. There's already a pretty significant Linux server market so it shouldn't be that big a deal. Overall, I've had no trouble with anything in Linux for most hardware except graphics cards for gaming.
(Score: 2) by marcello_dl on Monday April 28 2014, @05:57PM
Actually, unless some linux variants start to play the windows game (incompatibilities introduced intentionally, bloat, oh wait a minute...), hardware manufacturers should see linux as a threat, because once the hardware is supported, only a physical fault can make it obsolete.
They can't do much against linux in the server market, it sneaked in at the expense of unix, and no sane clients are going to start forking money and give control to microsoft when they can own the infrastructure, and there you can play on power consumption to get people to upgrade, at least for the moment.
So maybe you will see linux becoming strong on the desktop, but you will always have to fight tooth and nail to have a free desktop system.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday April 28 2014, @07:39PM
MIPS/Watt is always a big concern on servers, so I can't see hardware makers ever seeing Linux as anything but an ally in that market, unless they stop making progress on improving hardware at some point, which seems rather unlikely. Things aren't improving quite as fast now as they were 10-15 years ago, but they are improving with more power-efficient designs, and graphene promises to make a big impact as well.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday April 28 2014, @07:57PM
Going back many years, [archive.org] there has been The Pre-Installed Linux Vendor Database. [lxer.com]
There's no reason anyone who wants Linux can't get an out-of-the-box experience at least equal to pre-installed EULAware; just tell the vendor your needs.
-- gewg_
(Score: 2) by Open4D on Tuesday April 29 2014, @07:47AM
Thank you for the Pre-Installed Linux Vendor link. I've bookmarked it. (And I've also just come across the Ubuntu certification program [ubuntu.com].)
But they're just for whole PC systems. Is there anything that deals properly with individual hardware components, peripherals, etc.?
I don't just mean a list of individual users reporting various degrees of success with their own particular usage scenarios, like this HCL [linuxquestions.org]. What I want is confidence, before I buy hardware, that I am supporting the manufacturer that supports my choice of OS - both as a matter of principle, and in the hope that this makes it likely that the thing will just work.
Ideally this list would be provided by the people who write and manage drivers in Linux - maybe even officially published by the Linux Foundation. But in the absence of that, I'll take whatever I can get.
Top of the list should be manufacturers that contribute GPL drivers to the Linux Kernel themselves, I presume. Next, those that provide proper specifications so that Linux contributors can confidently write their own drivers. Beneath that, maybe there can be further distinctions, like manufacturers that unofficially help the driver writers? And those that aren't actively obstructive?
Given my attitude (and the fact that I'm not poor), choosing hardware should be quick and easy, but I have never found the kind of guidance that I've described above, so instead it's always taken me a lot of time and been somewhat unsatisfactory. Can anyone help?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday April 29 2014, @08:55PM
I don't just mean a list of individual users reporting various degrees of success with their own particular usage scenarios
You must have been one of those guys who put great credence in those peripherals that said on the side of the package "Supports Windoze" (without any version mentioned). 8-)
Just as a Lose95 device driver won't work with Lose2000, a Linux device driver that works with your current install will not necessarily work with the next Linux kernel that is developed.
It's the reason that binary blobs have been mentioned repeatedly in this thread; some damned lazy manufacturer puts out a closed-source Linux device driver at some point in time and thinks he's done for eternity.
To be future-proof, the source code for the driver absolutely must be available.
In addition, each distro developer will compile in a different subset of the available drivers based on perceived userbase or on limitations of e.g. a CD's capacity or on some other whim.
Puppy has a spin called Wary, as an example, that has some truly ancient stuff included e.g. dial-up modems that you are unlikely to see included in a modern distro release.
Mint's boot-to-a-desktop-from-removable-media thing hasn't even included basic support for dial-up for many, many releases. (It's there, but it's an install-afterwards thing.)
like this HCL [linuxquestions.org]
If you'll look closely at that, you will notice that they provide a place to specify the user's kernel and distro and version.
(WineHQ is similar in its presentation.)
Those are not there simply for your amusement; they are all important data points for you to gauge its utility in your case.
If you find a brand/model listed, and that is a FOSS driver, there is an excellent chance that that device is supported in the current kernel; gregkh and The Linux Driver Project guys do excellent work keeping things perking--on those drivers that are open.
On this very topic, [google.com] Ken Starks recently wrote an article. [fossforce.com]
The way to find out if YOUR distro is supported out of the box is to take your distro with you (on removable media) to the brick and mortar store (heh, remember those?) where you will purchase your hardware and boot to that on a box containing the peripheral that interests you.
This, of course, assumes that the peripheral is talking to a MoBo with proper Linux support.
In summary, you really are at the mercy of the manufacturers--who have traditionally seen themselves as M$'s "partners".
...but, again, once a device is supported with open code, it tends to remain supported, so if it is not included by default, it is likely available somewhere.
As you noted, give your money to the ones who do provide proper support.
Again, whether you get support out of the box from the builder of your distro is a matter of his whim.
As you noted, a proper distro will have a database of user reviews of gear, though that is of limited utility on bleeding-edge stuff.
Some distros will include non-libre stuff, some offer it from a separate repo, and some just completely refuse to acknowledge its existence.
Linux Mint has recently included a Driver Manager for the closed-source junk, so there's that.
Oh, and there's no nice way to say it: GPU manufacturers just suck.
-- gewg_