Microsoft giving drivers for Linuks – who else?

July 24th, 2009

Microsoft’s Movement, which is to make available to drivers in the Linux open source model, you may have an impact on other technology providers.Microsoft_wsparl_system_Linux,6072,800,600,

The limited availability of drivers for Linux makes it quite often, this system has not good reputation in the spheres of non-. This is not a system in any way limited to the business perspective. The process of implementation in the Linux business is carried out at a slightly different basis than for Windows. It requires, in fact verify that the system will work seamlessly with the hardware company.

Greg Kroah-Hartman, long-time Linux developer at Novell, and head of project-related drivers (Linux Driver Project) acknowledges that Linux today has hundreds of thousands of drivers for many devices. “Linux supports more devices from other systems. In the case of many classes of devices, supported by new technologies as the first system in the market” – says Greg Kroah-Hartman. According to him, this is the case may be, inter alia, released last month, information on preparing for the latest Linux support for USB 3.0.  Best San Jose Laptop Repair service.

Unfortunately, this does not apply to all products. Some equipment suppliers – mostly in the area of the workstations, do not give priority to the preparation of drivers for Linux. The reason is mainly its small market share in desktop PCs. For some drivers, the problem is not so much the unavailability of, if not the licensee. Suppliers of issuing drivers for Linux in binary form, they do not want to use a compatible open source licenses. Meanwhile, the driver is released under GPL v2 compatible license or may be attached directly to the kernel. This greatly simplifies the installation of Linux. In addition, open source will enable the analysis and repair errors by external developers. Look at Washington DC Laptop Repair service.

The companies that refrain from the issuance of drivers in the form of open source include: VMware – the largest provider of virtualization systems, Broadcom Corp. – manufacturer of wireless cards and Nvidia concern. The supplier will to remove the modules image problems on their own. Some comment on the distribution of drivers for nVidia cards only as a binary version of a desire to protect their code against competition. By comparison, Intel seems the most important drivers in the form of open source. Two days ago Microsoft has provided about 22 thousand lines of code that will be included in the official release of the Linux kernel.

Last year, more than 200 developers signed a petition Linux Foundation, urging drivers to make the open source model for this system. “Microsoft’s Movement philosophy stresses that all the drivers for Linux should be provided to the community. Today, not all companies agree with this” – notes Greg Kroah-Hartman. So far, neither VMWare nor Broadcom and Nvidia has not responded to this petition. Perhaps the issue of drivers for Linux within the Hyper-V will make VMware decides to similar step.

Microsoft’s drivers that make Linux work efficiently within the Hyper-V, are available today in the form of patches. The best Phoenix Laptop Repair service.