From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: David Lawyer Subject: Re: PnP Rage. Date: Sun, 23 Feb 2003 20:24:21 -0800 Sender: linux-serial-owner@vger.kernel.org Message-ID: <20030224042421.GB417@lafn.org> References: <20030223104525.A206@lnx2.w8mch.ampr.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Return-path: Received: from localhost (mail@host-66-81-21-85.rev.o1.com [66.81.21.85]) by zoon.lafn.org (8.12.3/8.11.3) with ESMTP id h1O6W79D059368 for ; Sun, 23 Feb 2003 22:32:07 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from dave@lafn.org) Received: from dave by localhost with local (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 18nAA9-00007P-00 for ; Sun, 23 Feb 2003 20:24:21 -0800 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <20030223104525.A206@lnx2.w8mch.ampr.org> List-Id: linux-serial@vger.kernel.org To: linux-serial@vger.kernel.org On Sun, Feb 23, 2003 at 10:45:25AM -0500, Hal MacArgle wrote: > Greetings: Does anyone care that I LONG for the good old days of > hardware with jumpers and silk screened instructions? > > The "someone" who came up with PnP, eliminating ALL the problems we > had with port addresses and IRQ's has done a number on us judging > from the bazillion messages asking for help.. It seems to me the help > messages before paled to what we have now, not to mention all the > tools designed to help with the help.. Ugh. PnP enables the user not to worry about setting jumpers, etc. provided of course that the various drivers are able to recognize the myriad of PnP devices and PnP configure them. For MS Windows the device manufacturer provide such a driver. But they usually don't provide such drivers for Linux. So what is a boon to MS Windows becomes a bane for Linux. For devices used primarily on servers such as several digital modems on a card, Linux drivers will likely be provided since Linux has about 25% of the server market. But for devices primarily used on desktops, the manufacturer is unlikely to support Linux and then someone else needs to hopefully write the driver. This is a major problem for Linux. David Lawyer