"Scott Dorsey" wrote in message
...
That's not really a driver problem so much as an application problem, to
be honest.

Exactly, FAR more applications for Windows.


If you want a really awful example, though, check out the National
Instruments PCI cards. National's Windows drivers pretty much work
and they are well documented and the tech support people know about them.
The Linux drivers... well, they sort of work. But they are so badly coded
that when they don't work they don't actually say that they are not
working.
They'll fail to modload without giving any message, or they'll load but
not
find any hardware without giving any message. They only work with certain
kernel versions, not with any 64-bit kernels or PAE kernels, but the
manuals
don't say anything about that. Nobody in tech support knows a damn thing
about
them, so you can pay by the minute on the tech support line to talk to
someone
who has no idea even what dmesg is let alone what the driver is supposed
to
be reporting.

Now, mind you, this is an NI issue and not a Linux issue, per se.

Nope, it's what I have been saying all along, MANY vendors do not feel there
are enough Linux users to spend money on supporting them with drivers,
software, bug fixes, or tech support. That's the way the world is, you put
you money where it does the most good.



But I do
encounter this a lot with companies who claim to support Linux but don't
really. (Not that a lot of the same companies also fail to support their
Windows stuff as well.)

True, but anyone who argues there is *more* support for Linux is a liar.


Given my choice, I'll run NetBSD. But usually I don't have a choice
because
the application doesn't give me one.

Exactly!

Trevor.