[wellylug] Hardware opinions

[Bret Comstock Waldow]

On Thu, 2003-08-28 at 00:29, Jeremy Z Butler wrote:

> Through fairly good observation of LUG mailing lists over the months/years, I
> realise there are often issues with device compatibility and general ease of
> installation and setup with Linux. So I thought I'd do a broadsweep to gauge LUG
> opinion and accumulated wisedom. I would be grateful if anybody could give some
> general starting points on what brands/specs to look for and what to avoid. 
> 
> Are all makers similar? (e.g. my Toshiba laptop has been pretty good. Are
> Toshibas generally good or have I had good luck?) 
> 
> Any particular features/specs/manufacturers I should hold at barge pole length.

Watch out when selecting a modem.  Many of them now are "Winmodems"
which means they are the shell of a modem without the brains.  The CPU
plus software provides some of the modem functionality.  Unfortunately,
the software provided usually only runs on Window$...

The Lucent winmodem chipset is well supported generally (www.heby.de),
but I've never gotten fax working with a Lucent winmodem, although it
hasn't been top priority and I haven't given up yet.

Parallel port scanners are problematic.  Some are supported, some are
not (manufacturers won't release specs).  Scanners in general can be an
issue - a project is just catching up now with GNU/Linux drivers for my
Canon LiDE 20 USB scanner.  Prospects look good, though.  My Memorex
M48U USB scanner works well enough (for a cheap scanner).

I've no personal experience but I've read ATI video card support can be
a problem, but nVidia is good.  You might investigate rather than rely
on this hearsay, though.

Digital cameras may be an issue.  My FujiFinepix 1300 is simply a USB
hard drive device (it shows as a SCSI device).  Not all use that
approach, so check first.

Webcams are another spotty field.  My Toshiba Tecra 780 came with a
lovely little camera and a firm refusal to release the specs to allow an
open source driver (?? What? do they think they're going to corner the
driver market?).

My current IBM T21 also has a nice camera.  There's a driver for it, and
I can't get it into the latest kernels.  It has worked before, but never
got the light levels right.  I'm awaiting delivery of a 3Com HomeConnect
(not Lite) webcam which is rumored to be a terrific camera with good
support.

For USB devices in general - check first.  Sometime manufacturers change
chipsets without changing any identifying names/numbers and the driver
required doesn't work anymore.  You need to know the
manufacturer/chipset code to match the driver.

PCMCIA cards have done the same trick, and some aren't supported at all.

The Canon LiDE wasn't supported at all when I got it early this year. 
Now it's almost completely functional, so don't despair if you have any
recent peripherals that aren't ready yet.  It's a matter of picking
something someone else wants too...

HTH,
Bret

-- 
bwaldow at alum dot mit dot edu