What a flame war.

Hi yas
A flame war is where someone posts a "personal opinion" or an outright statement and others (rightly or wrongly) post antagonistic or inflamatory statements after it. Many times the attacks are of a personal nature, it usually gets off topic (but not always) but mostly just interupts intelligent, coherent exchanges by those that wish to calmly discuss the matters at hand.
Many times I have come to the conclusion that we must all sometimes (mostly?) agree to disagree. But I digress...

Security issue.

I can only speak from personal experience, of the 3 operating systems I've used recently, and I must stress here that I am a relative newbie on all, but have had more exposure to Win(x) platform.

Linux Fedora Core 2 with Firestarter (ipTables GUI frontend)
Win2kServer with ZoneAlarm
WinXP pro SP1 with ZoneAlarm

Only the Linux install has never been breached.
Others have been compromised to varing states of inconvenience. Resolution has been to save data to Linux machine and reninstall. It is generally easier to reinstall a windows OS (lol, it needs to be) than a Linux install. /start flame now. But fixing a problem is (IMHO) easier on Linux.
Leads me to a saying that may be used in the circumstance.

LINUX:- Configuration, not Re-installation.


Regards

Allan

You're the first chap I've encountered who's ever said that.
Personally, It took 3 hours to install/reinstall windoze (It didn't have drivers for my scsi card & I didn't have a floppy drive, so I had to attach a floppy with the drivers from the windoze driver CD). Mandrake installed in 20 mins.

Hey hari_seldon99

Maybe I should have added that when I install windows I have no odd real new or real old harware. Only do minimal install ie only what I explicitly need in terms of services no telnet, ftp, server stuff etc. and only a few applications

1. EverQuest game (DirectX only, damn Verant/Sony/SOE!!) this is really the only reason I have for owning a WinBox at all :+)
2. Mozilla, but looking at Firefox now.
3. Need for speed III. Brum brum
4. Office 2000 but just Word and Excel
5. Visual Basic 6 only because I cant get #^%$ Kylix to work on Linux, and I love to tinker with a programming language. Not clever enough to get my head around C++, Java, and really do not need the power either.

No scanners, printers, cameras. Maybe this will make a difference, im not sure.

Regards

Allan

My whole point is that linux supports a lot more hardware (that don't have proprietary chipsets) than windoze. My Linux installation is pretty complete. SSH, proftpd, webmin, OOffice, Firefox, NVU, gcc, Wireless applis, Full KDE/GNOME, CUBE & SMAC for games, and the whole thing takes abt 30-45 mins + 20 mins for network update.

Basic windoze with no drivers for my TV card or any extra peripherals on a 4 Ghz 512 Meg RAM takes 3 hours minimum.

Really! Find me drivers (okay, filters in Linux nomanclature) for a Canon i860 or i9100. Running BJC 4300 with modified settings is not an acceptable answer here since it will not work perfectly, and a nontechnical user doesn't have a prayer of getting it to print acceptably well, let alone print accurately.

Where are the drivers for my Agfa scanner?

My Wacom tablet? Wacom's own drivers stink, and Linux's own native drivers are woefully lacking.

Gimp requires a lot of tweaking to get the tablet working just tolerably well, whereas on Windows it Just Works™.

Now, what about getting my ATI All in Wonder 8500DV and Radeon 7500 PCI to work - and I mean fully-functional, with 3D acceleration and TV tuner functionality - AND Xinerama. On Windows it Just works™ -- I have an extended desktop, 3D acceleration, Firewire, and TV tuner (and video I/O) support. but on Linux, right now, it's an impossibility.

Now,now. Let's not start another off-topic flame war. I'll eat you alive and ask for seconds if you do .

Most of the hardware you list above use proprietary technology (especially the 3-D hardware accelerated cards like NVidia & Ati- Radeon). I do not believe that the Canon digikams are PTP or mass storage compatible. Those are open source protocols (the former developed by Kodak). It's not easy for Linux developers to reverse-engineer proprietary chipsets, that's not their fault, it's the fault of companies that have been bullied by microsoft's lawyers and their propaganda.

This is why I always research my hardware properly for Linux compatibility before buying it. That is why I have no 3-D hardware accn. I may not get to play Halo, but I can run my numerical simulations at 3X the speed they would if they were windoze binaries, AND I don't have to pay $200 for C devel platform for windoze, or risk the pirated stuff.

And my Kodak digikam works fine in Linux. It supports PTP, and worked off of the box.

Don't know nothin' 'bout tablets. Don't like yuppie machines. If you wanna be a yuppie, go live in California and don't use Linux. Stick to windoze. More meat for virus and trojan writers.

Correction to above post. Canon i860 PHOTOPRINTER, not canon A80 digikam. Sorry..

Anyways, that's just another yuppie machine.

There are a few companies with proprietary hardware that do provide excellent linux support - nvidia being a prime example. My nvidia 3d card works beautifully under linux, and I've heard nothing but good things from others with nvidia cards. ATI, on the other hand, is notorious for having bad linux drivers, and they don't seem to be in much of a hurry to change that reputation.

Can't speak to TV out or Xinerama, but I also have an ATI Radeon 7500 PCI running under Suse v9.1, and (somewhat to my amazement) it's possible to get 3D acceleration working via SaX2. I'd be happy to post my XF86Config if anyone's interested.

I'll second hari_seldon99's comment regarding drivers, namely that
Exactly - well put. Companies who choose to ignore the Linux market are making a poor strategic decision IMO. Along these lines, although I've used ATI in the past, my next video card will be nVidia no doubt. -- J.W.

Hi Hari:

Do you have a Canon printer connected to your Linux Box?
I am trying to figure out how to hook up mine.

I have CUPS already installed, on my Gentoo autoinstall.
But I can't seem to figure out how to get either of my printers going.
The other one is a Brother 1230 laser printer. (llel port)
They say the drivers for a 1250 will work with it, but I don't
have a clue about the install process.
It would be great to get the i450 going, with GIMP.
I have been to both manufacturer sites but Linux support was skimpy
to understate the matter.

3D acceleration would work with a single 7500 PCI card via SaX2, after editing a few config files, but that is only because it would be sharing a single framebuffer. If you use two radeon cards, say an 8500 AGP and a 7500PCI (my current configuration) it is impossible. Now, since ATI dropped support for the 7500 in Catalyst, it's impossible for me to take advantage of their "Big Desktop" alternative to Xinerama.

No 3D hardware acceleration? Gee, you can get that WITHOUT checking the compatibility lists. I'll bet you benefited greatly there. Excuse me if I am underwhelmed.

penguinlnx - Please do not hijack threads. Asking about how to connect a printer here is both out of place and inappropriate. Please post your hardware question in either an existing thread on the same topic, or if none exist, create a new thread in the Hardware forum with the specifics of your particular setup. Thanks -- J.W.

Nah, but I did set up Debian on a departmental machine that used a Canon printer to print stuff. But I didn't have to do anything since the firmware of the printer ran a print server of it's own and I just hooked it up over ethernet. Too lazy to config cups.

I checked lists to try to get 3-D hardware accn to work. My intel card supports some rudimentary hardware accn, but it doesn't work with xorg right now (Though it did with XFree86, but I can't roll back without having to screw up all my deps or recompile my KDE, & I'm too lazy to do all that). Later versions of xorg might work, so I'm waiting for the rpms to come out.