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About LinkBacksWhat's that Jo? - hiding behind a shield created with linux distro'sOriginally Posted by directhex
What's that Jo? - hiding behind a shield created with linux distro's
the latest experience was with bluetooth.What's that Jo? - hiding behind a shield created with linux distro's
now, the way bluetooth works, every device implements a number of "profiles" -if two devices share a profile, they can communicate using it (for example, HCRP is the profile for printers; HID is the profile for mice & keyboards)
windows, as of XPSP2, offers a bluetooth stack, which integrates well & works nicely. however, it only supports a bare minimum of profiles - and critically for me, not HSP (headset) or A2DP (stereo headset).
instead, this requires you to use a third-party bluetooth stack, rather than the Microsoft one. fortunately, all bluetooth devices share the same driver (a bit like USB2 just using a common 'EHCI' driver, or external hard disks, or whatever).
however, just because it's *technically* possible, doesn't mean you're *permitted*. the only drivers with a license to work with my MSI dongle are an old version of some 32-bit WIDCOMM drivers, with majorly buggy headset support. removing the bugs requires me to buy a new dongle (with a newer license), or buy a different bluetooth stack (such as BlueSoleil). for windows x64, well you're buggered - the only ones who appear to be licensing bluetooth support are Logitech, if you buy one of their fat-arsed bluetooth combos.
there are license crackers, sure, but why should I resort to piracy to use my computer?
in the end, i gave up - returned the headset (it hurt my ear) and bought a cheapy crappy microphone-port-based headset.
windows 1, users 0
same for me as well - lost the damn packaging so had to grovel to MSI for a code to get it working again, used it once and then never plugged it back in again.
A bit more like - crappy drivers 1, users 0. My USB problem is exactly that - some idiot who couldn't correctly allocated his driver in the USB stack means plugging in a usb key post-boot brings a BSOD. Now if only i can get nVidia to fix their drivers for vista so i can use PolyLine() again i can stop using xp
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
crappy drivers are part of the Windows experience thoughA bit more like - crappy drivers 1, users 0. My USB problem is exactly that - some idiot who couldn't correctly allocated his driver in the USB stack means plugging in a usb key post-boot brings a BSOD. Now if only i can get nVidia to fix their drivers for vista so i can use PolyLine() again i can stop using xp
as much as TheAnimus drones on about how a hardware abstraction library cures cancer (by allowing for binary driver chunks), sticking all the drivers in with the kernel means that bugs can be fixed, properly and correctly - without any reliance on tiny taiwanese companies with a single 16-year-old high on smack as their driver dev team
I lookforward to TiGdows
If he writes an OS.....que up. It'll be rock solid, bomb proof and he'll test it on me, so it'll be knobby-user proof too
I'd say its part of every OS, one of my favourate OS's was RISC OS (which had no processes security, no pre-emptive multithreading no virtual memory...) but it ran very fast, and was surprisingly stable (till 4). Problem was no drivers.
Now you can't honestly say that linux has better driver support for bluetooth? Or any unix distro for that matter, quite simply because it lacks a hall, and a DDK thats quite so well supported.
Now the licensing the bluetooth stack issue, a good question to ask would be why this wasn't a problem with USB?
A good awnser might be to look at the companies who drempt it up:
Sony, IBM, Intel, Toshiba and Nokia. Funny thing is, the only machine i own which bluetooth runs smooothly on, is my toshiba tablet.
Granted device drivers aren't perfect, and theres a good agument for making them run in RING 2, but still windows is better than the other options.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
..but leaves you wide open to drivers killing the kernel - so no, I can't agree at all. In fact, i'm very glad vista has drivers (almost in entirety) in user mode, where the damage they do is much reduced. Not having to reboot or recompile a kernel for a minor driver revision is kinda nice too! XP's only real stability flaw is drivers so it's very good to see MS taking note for a change and implementing things better in their new OS. Obviously we've different views - but i've got a lot of time for MS' new OS; even in beta form there's a lot in there that's just so much better..
http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=148820
Last edited by dangel; 08-06-2006 at 01:24 PM.
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
if updated drivers are made available outside the kernel tree, then they can be installed without rebooting. for example, with the nvidia driver
1) stop using the driver (i.e. quit your xserver)
2) unload the currently loaded module (i.e. modprobe -r nvidia)
3) compile a new kernel driver (e.g. 'm-a a-i nvidia' on debian, or just use the nvidia installer)
4) load the new module
5) start using the driver again
...but it's still kernel mode in effect so rather a moot point in response to my post.
Crosshair VIII Hero (WIFI), 3900x, 32GB DDR4, Many SSDs, EVGA FTW3 3090, Ethoo 719
Depends how you define re-booting, which level of bootstrapping is the problem. New Graphics drivers on linux intrinsicly means reloading (bootstrapping?) X again, and as such, everything that was using X.
Vista's patching system is more exciting imo.
Also how exactly does forcing everything to be in the kernel make it more stable? At least under windows you can run in certain debug modes that allow whole modules to fail and fall over (great when your writing them) without BSOD'ing.... you can't do that under linux!
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
but needing to reboot for driver changes is flat-out false.
at any rate, whilst vista undoubtedly has some nice tech (albeit less nice tech than originally planned), i have absolutely no doubt that it will continue to fling faeces at me, as all previous versions have done, as soon as i try to step outside the carefully prepared and carefully licensed boundaries that microsoft's teams think i might want to stay within
you don't need to reboot for a lot of driver changes hex.
Graphics one, which is in USE for the sytem the WHOLE TIME you have to reboot for.
Now what happens if say on linux you wanted to update the console mode driver? You *MIGHT* have to reboot.
Linux has some pro's (mainly how you can strip it down, and fit it on a low end uC, or just debunk it) but drivers really aren't one of them.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
Vista looks good.. but it looks like they've copied a lot from OSX Tiger (the side panel with customisable miniapps - dashboard basically) and there was an article somewhere about how many versions that they're releasing, something about having to buy the very best version just to get some simple features. On the flipside, it does look a lot nicer than XP and has some pretty cool additions.
However, i hope they continue to develop IE7, because i think it's appalling at the moment - not only does it not run some of the websites that run fine on IE6 on my pc, it started producing weird popup windows which my AV suite didn't block - very unusual.
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