[99946] in RedHat Linux List
RE: "Winmodems" (Support in Linux)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Bruce Richardson)
Tue Nov 17 16:59:53 1998
From: Bruce Richardson <brichardson@lineone.net>
To: "'Ken Witherow'" <phantoml@frontiernet.net>,
"'redhat-list@redhat.com'" <redhat-list@redhat.com>
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1998 21:23:42 -0000
Resent-From: redhat-list@redhat.com
Reply-To: redhat-list@redhat.com
Ken Witherow wrote:
<< The more hardware Linux supports, the broader the base of people we can
bring to it. >>
Damn right!
<<I would have to say I'd recommend support for winmodems. Sure most of
them won't have a clue as to what a kernel module is or how to program one,
but a broader base means more development for that base. >>
Some people _do_ use computers for things other than programming: there's
over 160 people in the organisation I work for (an overseas development
charity), all with a PC on their desk, but only 4 of us are IT staff.
<<(Games DO make the computer world go 'round)>>
Be fair! You had my sympathy up to there! Not all non-programmers are
games-playing, power-user geeks (in fact, don't a lot of IT-nerds fall more
into that category?)
Ken's right. It's no good getting sniffy about hardware that wasn't
designed for Linux: _no_ hardware was designed for Linux, but Linux makes
better use of PC hardware than anything else going. To quote the Halloween
document, "Any idiot could write a device driver for Linux in two days".
What's the good of having an OS that is so superior that even Microsoft
admit it, if we only allow a select band to make full use of it. If that
kind of attitude prevails it'll only be a few years before Linux is
appearing in "What ever happened to..." articles in the IT press.
Also, that kind of attitude can be blind. As Ramon Gandia pointed out in
his message on this subject (Mon 16 Nov), the more powerful 'Winmodems'
aren't crippled at all, they've just done away with the superfluous UART.
--
PLEASE read the Red Hat FAQ, Tips, Errata and the MAILING LIST ARCHIVES!
http://www.redhat.com http://archive.redhat.com
To unsubscribe: mail redhat-list-request@redhat.com with
"unsubscribe" as the Subject.
