[Tfug] 2 weeks of Hackintosh fun..

[Claude Rubinson]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 09:41:41AM -0800, Bexley Hall wrote:
> I've got an OnAir GT USB DTV tuner.  Is there a Linux driver for
> it?  Does it *really* work?  Will it run on version XXX of the
> kernel?

But now you're changing your argument.  At first it was "Linux lacks
driver support."  But that's not true.  Now it's "Linux lack drivers
for the newest hardware."  Yes.  Because of the nature of Linux
development, that's to be expected.  But, again, what do I care?
Frankly, that's irrelevant to me.  Because I don't trust vendors.
Their interests are not aligned to mine.  I do trust the kernel
developers, however.  When I buy hardware that's supported by the
mainstream kernel, I know that it'll be supported forever.  (The
"mainstream" qualifier is because out-of-kernel drivers are not
necessarily as reliably supported as in-line drivers.)  I certainly
wouldn't have that guarantee if I were running Windows or OSX.

The primary consequence is that I don't buy new because my priority is
stability.  As John point out, it's incredibly frustrating when
vendors change their chipsets behind the scenes.  But, as he also
points out, that's on the vendors' shoulders.  And what happens when
they do that?  I don't buy from them again.  And I tell others not to.
If it's the website that's too blame (in my experience, it's actually
the website that's misled me more often than the actual vendor), I
don't buy from that website again.  And, again, I tell other people
not to buy from them.  Seems fair to me.

Claude