ubuntu-advertising team mailing list archive

[Tarek Said <tarek.said.info@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi!

The problem is that most hardware "just work" in Windows because
manufacturers write drivers specifically for it. That's not the case for
Ubuntu, where drivers are often written by programmers who are doing this on
their free time, don't get paid and usually have to find everything out by
themselves, on a trial/error basis. It's really hard.

I guess the reason most manufacturers don't give a damn about Ubuntu and
Linux in general is because there's this general idea that it's used by less
than 1%. So they see this as a waste of ressources and time.

Sadly, it's also the reason why people shy away from Ubuntu. The same
reasoning goes for games and game developers.

So what can we do? Support programmers who write open-source drivers. What
could Cannonical do? Make partnerships with manufacturers to improve Ubuntu
support.

Regards,
Tarek.

2010/12/29 Barry Drake <b.drake@xxxxxxxxxxxx>

> Not an especially good day!  I went round to see my friend because he
> wanted to show off his new Laptop.  Very nice Acer on special offer from
> Argos a couple of weeks ago.  I'm impressed (except for Windows 7).  He
> did let me run a live CD (10.04) on it, and it is VERY compatible.
>
> On the downside, I asked if I could plug his Epson Stylus SX218 combined
> printer/scanner into my 10.04 Dell Netbook.  It found the printer,
> installed a driver, and the test simply spewed blank sheets of paper
> out.  Just what he suspected - Ubuntu has problems!
>
> Back home, I looked at the bug page, and this bug is there, but fixed.
> I guess the drivers on 10.04 never got updated - it didn't offer to
> download anything as I hadn't got an internet connection at the time.
>
> Also, I couldn't get the scanner to appear.  I seem to think I had to do
> a similar fix by editing something once before - permissions I think.
> But it would have been nice if the scanner had 'just worked'.  I didn't
> have time to do anything fancy; maybe another time.
>
> Back home, I put 11.04 testing (64 bit) onto a second hard drive on my
> PC.  Awful problems with Unity, which has finally died the death after
> making me boot into recovery mode, and telling me that the various
> components of Unity had shut down.  It left me with the Gnome desktop.
> The problem was still there after doing a full update ....  I can't see
> this as a reported bug, so I guess something just didn't install
> correctly.
>
> However, on the plus side, when I tried my video camcorder, it 'just
> worked' with no tweaks.  I'm pleased about that.  On the downside, now
> 11.04 has moved on to Pitivi, there are no video capture facilities
> available, so I had to get Kino to test it.  Just now, I don't know of
> any other apps that offer video capture from a firewire port.
>
> So, using a video-camcorder is something I can write up.  I'd like to
> know if there's any chance of Kino being brought back first though.  I
> know PiTiVi is a nicer frontend, but without video-capture it is very
> limited.
>
> A further annoyance to me was that the 11.04 installation wrecked my
> existing grub and I had to get into the old OS using the new grub (on
> the second drive), take out the second drive (fortunately SATA) then
> re-install grub.  It then did it again during the updates.  I'd have
> liked it to ask me.  Whom should I moan to?
>
> Regards,                Barry Drake
> --
> What do you see when you use your Computer? Same old thing?
> ...There IS a Better Way!  Ubuntu!
>
>
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