Comment by legulere | Hacker News Reader

Comment by legulere | Hacker News Reader

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I can, but I don't think it's worth my time, you will just counter those and pass the blame further. The first machine he had problems with was a 2009 mac mini. The second machine was actually given to him by red hat, which is the biggest linux company. But all this driver stuff and everything breaking all the time is hardly a distribution issue, it's shared throughout all distributions.

Why should OEMs work on supporting Linux when they sell their machines with other operating systems? That's just passing the blame.

The problem is that Linux is touted all the time as an alternative that is supposed to be even better, when the reality is that lots of things are broken and don't work out of the box. Not even on the most sold laptop models, which are macbooks.

> Rational actors will react to this by reasonably picking hardware that is known to be well supported. Irrational actors will continue to complain on the Internet.

People that want to actually get work done and do not want to or can not fiddle around will not use Linux.

I didn't say oems were obliged to support linux they could be a little more open so that it would be easier for open source software developers though. Regarding the blame you seem so eager to assign correctly.

- The oem is not obligated to support linux they aren't to blame

- The open source developers aren't obligated to provide free labor to make your hardware work they aren't to blame

- The user isn't obligated to use linux in the first place but absent a support contract or a promise from oem that the machine runs linux they aren't owed anything either.

Its like the open source software developers collectively held out to the community at large here take for free all this awesome software we have invested man decades in. It works on many but not all machines out there and a legion of users is waiting to help you for free make it work with your particular configuration and hardware and somehow a bunch of entitled individuals heard something on the order of

Here's all this awesome software we wrote for you for free it will replace all this software you are currently pay for on your existing hardware no matter what hardware you have and unicorns will fart rainbows in time with your keystrokes.

Then reacting to this promise that nobody made they get mad and make a linux sucks post on their blog.

That this rant comes from a red hat employee is quite frankly embarrassing.

> when the reality is that lots of things are broken and don't work out of the box.

And finding a fix can be elusive, when often times the answer is "your distro sucks, use $OTHER_DISTRO" or "use Google."

> Rational actors will react to this by reasonably picking hardware that is known to be well supported.

But what about when you pick hardware that is supposedly well supported and you still have problems? Run into that more times than I care to remember.

Then your complaint is much more legitimate but instead of making a linux sucks post report the relevant problem to people who might be able to fix it, consider funding development to improve the relevant software, or roll up your sleeves and lend a hand.

Nobody said linux or open source software was perfect.

> but instead of making a linux sucks post report the relevant problem to people who might be able to fix it.

Yes, do not inform potential users that they might be taken for a ride, don't mention that 7-years old hardware is not supported, or that Gnome3 doesn't even know how to switch back to the default display. I mean, we wouldn't want to have informed users am I right?

You are pretty much making legulere's point: hush hush no criticism in public, and even if it is valid please report it quietly.

So I assume you would agree if Apple or Microsoft had a similar attitude? (And no need to mention "yeah but with MS/Apple you paid, therefore...", paying entitles you to tech support, and we're only talking about informing users here.)

You ought to feel like you can speak freely and critique if applicable but beware lest you also be judged and found wanting.

There are three known potentially problematic areas and they are well documented. apple stuff, wifi cards, laptops and their custom sleep code.

aside from apple stuff (who have made it quite clear they believe their users want a totally walled garden and are not interested in compatabilty with the rest of the world), the other two are now rare afaik.

so if it happens to you regularily, then yeah, very likely it is nothing more than your distro sucks.

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