[PLUG] This is seriously good

[श्रीधर नारायण दैठणकर]

On Thursday 27 July 2006 15:12, Atul Sowani wrote:
> In general, a good article! I would like to share my thoughts on this
> as an ordinary linux user. Please don't start any flame war on this,
> as I am not trying to make any allegations on Linux - it might just be
> that I am an incompetent user!

Umm.. that is a quantum question. The objective is to get it working. Either 
by educating the user, or by adding the support or by making it easier to 
use.

And flame wars are just heated discussions(Aggressive negotiations in star war 
terms :) ). Unless you have posted here, how would I have known that you have 
problem? Participating in discussion is at heart of open source. So feel 
free..

> Linux is VERT robust and very cleverly designed OS - no doubt about
> it. Also, there is no doubt linux supports more devices than any other
> OS, but as a user, I don't agree with this. The list of devices
> supported on linux is BIG, but that includes old and new devices. That
> way the number of devices supported will be huge, but how many
> _latest_ devices are supported on linux "out of box"? I am not
> kernel/OS internals/device drivers geek, but just an ordinary linux
> user.

If you want linux to work for you, very first thing to do is to shop for 
hardware that linux supports. I know it is hard but that is very first step. 
Getting a PC assembled from a person whose main interest is margins and had 
never heard of linux and then slapping linux on it, is a recipe for failure..

For last 4 years, I don't by anything if linux does not support it. That does 
mean that not having broadband from VSNL because they shipped some cheapo USB 
modem which requires NDIS driver to run. It is hard at times but I stick to 
it as far as possible..

>
> Just to give an example, I installed a sound card in my PC which has
> Win2000 and slackware linux 9.1/10.1 on it. When I installed the card
> and restarted my machine, windows detected the card and could take
> full advantage of it. On the other hand, when I booted my machine in
> linux, I found that there is a very limited support on linux for this
> card. Moreover, xine and audacity stopped playing/recording sound
> since they couldn't find the audio device. So this means that I have
> to re-configure lot of files and enable/disable daemons (esd etc).
> Considering I am a _very ordinary_ user, I will not be able to fix
> this problem myself. So I have to search internet resources, ask LUGs
> and do some research on my part - this definitely is frustrating.

Question: do you have hotplug enabled..

Actually I can bet my lunch that there is no configuration required if your 
sound card is supported. In fact the couple of new machines I had, All I had 
to do with them was to unmute the mixers. Everything including 6 channels 
were supported.

Now before you label this as 'but this works for me' post, let me elaborate 
why it should automatically work for everybody.

- the kernel detects the sound card and loads any necessary modules
- the hotplug script creates any devices needed and the links.
- the GUI daemons esd/artsd talk to the devices such as /dev/dsp etc/
- the application talks to the daemon..

It HAS to work.. out of the box..

Now why it does not work and few common scenarios included
- the card is not supported or worse is being in process of supported
- the card does not support hardware mixing.. so an external mixer daemon is 
required
- application don't know how to talk to sound daemons. Sound daemons and 
application steps on toes of each other..
- people don't know how to choose applications. For good experience, stick to 
one desktop such as KDE or GNOME. I have seen people using GNOME applications 
in KDE, which is guaranteed to mess up things. They just didn't look thr. the 
menus for equivalent applications. If you are using KDE, xmms is not needed..

And with no respect to GNOME users, a DE that does not have it's own browser, 
chat clients and N other applications, forces people to assemble a work 
experience which is a daunting tasks. And GNOME isn't making it easy for 
people from what I read in reviews

Use KDE and wait till glitches are ironed out..

As you have pointed out, you use xine and audacity which are not from same 
desktop. You should consider yourself lucky that they worked together 
earlier..

>
> So, instead of claiming that linux supports widest range of hardware,
> what it should try to do is how to simplify the
> installation/detection/functioning with the latest hardware. If this
> is achieved I am sure linux will be one of the most popular OS with
> largest user base.

Forget others.. if it works for me, I don't care of the rest of the world. One 
user at a time, and the entire world will be educated..

If you still have problems, post. Let's figure this out. If it works for me, 
could work for you too..

Also, Slack 9 is slightly older but 10.1 is good enough. I have current 
updated right now and 10.2 disks, 

Regards,
 Shridhar