Isolationism

A recent blog entry by Mark Shuttleworth (owner of Canonical, creators of Ubuntu Linux) describes a gripe about audience response to his presentations about Linux: “pervasive support.” I think Mark and I agree that this level of product support is required, but our opinions perhaps differ a bit on perceived vs. actual levels of “support” in/for Linux, or even the multiple meanings of the word.

He first points out that commercial distribution vendors are willing to offer end-user support for their products—for a fee of course. He however neglects to point out there are multiple levels of end-user support, including the “non-critical” variety that is acceptable—even preferable, in some cases—to home users and DIY types (who prefer to learn to fish rather than be handed one when they get hungry)—as well as those working on a budget who don’t have the extra cash to shell out for support (or the operating system itself).

Free Linux distributions (like Slackware, Gentoo, and his own product, Ubuntu) are generally better at this second kind of end-user support than the corporate distributions because there is no telephone number to call when you’re having problems with Slackware or Gentoo; all of their users are in the same boat and are more likely to share with one another, in my experience. However, ultimately Mark is right: there are a number of vendors to choose from, and plenty of free help available too. I think it’s safe to agree that Linux gets a passing grade on this one.

Another type of support is for hardware devices. Mark suggests that many products out there may work on Linux but shops “don’t have a big [Linux] sticker on the front door next to the Windows logo and the Apple logo.” Well, it doesn’t just have to be on the store; most vendors just don’t deal with Linux, and if you buy pre-built hardware from the big guys you’re still stuffing Microsoft’s pockets for a copy of Windows you aren’t going to use if you intend to format the hard drive and install Linux.

The only pre-built system I’ve bought is a laptop, the rest I assemble from components. So, how about a sticker on the box, Mark?

Bear with me while I relate three hardware-buying experiences:

My first story is about music playing peripherals. A year or so ago, I decided I wanted a media player in the bedroom so I could listen to music at night without having to burn mix CDs every couple weeks. I was nearly set on buying one vendor’s product; I pored over the package willing for it to need nothing more than a network share on the media server to work—Then I saw it stated, quite clearly, that it required a Windows-based computer as the streaming server which would require some proprietary software to be installed to work. I eventually bought a Squeezebox 3 instead, which turned out not only to be a superior and more suitable product, but supports pretty much every OS—and clearly says so right on the box and all over their website.

My second story is about printers. I had the good fortune of buying myself a Samsung laser printer—there was a Linux logo right on the box, and the setup was trivially easy as the printer is supported directly by CUPS. My father wasn’t so lucky; I switched his heavily infected Windows 98 PC to Linux which has since run smoothly—but I painstakingly discovered his Canon printer (a gift received shortly before the switch) wasn’t supported by any free software at all, let alone the manufacturer. I ended up having to buy a third party software product to finally let him use his printer again, and only barely at that—the scanner, card reader and fax interfaces don’t (and probably never will) work.

The last story is about network cards. I was ready to spend $85 each on some 3com gigabit Ethernet cards for no other reason than because I knew Linux had kernel support for their chipset. My favourite store informed me they didn’t have any left in stock, but had another cheaper off-brand card. “Yes, that’s nice,” I replied, “but I need them to work in Linux”. Thankfully, a salesperson in this small local shop overheard me and observed that the card was based on the Realtek chipset which has kernel support, then looked it up to confirm and offered to refund the purchase if they didn’t work for me. The cards indeed work fine despite any mention of *nix being conspicuously absent from the packaging. That business has since closed its doors, meaning one less store in my area that gives a damn about helping Linux users out (you can be certain the big box stores that drove them out of business don’t).

The harsh reality is that the majority of manufacturers still don’t care about Linux or its users; After all, there’s no certification program to put a pretty logo on the box, so if some other benevolent soul hasn’t already added kernel support for your hardware, chances are you’re up the creek. Even if the vendor provides their own drivers you’re still not in the clear: Anyone who uses Linux on the desktop is quite assuredly aware of the hair-pulling frustration of trying to get complete and solid support from ATI/nVidia video cards’ closed-source drivers.

Hardware on Linux has made progress and continues to do so, but this is still mostly by the blood, sweat and tears of its users; those few vendors like AMCC 3ware and Matrox who supply the OSS community with open-source kernel drivers should be thanked with our purchase of their hardware to support their efforts. The rest need to get their act together, and unfortunately the only place we can influence the vendors is by hitting them where it hurts most: in their bankroll.

The last level of support I feel is worth mentioning (which I have touched briefly on already) is third-party software (the stuff you run the OS to run). In this case, Linux gets a failing grade, mostly because of the vendors’ unwillingness to build their software for what they perceive to be an unpopular/niche market of users. Yes, I am well aware that there are open-source equivalents to commercial products, and some of them are highly successful to the point of beating out their commercial equivalents at their own game (Firefox is an example most of us can relate to), but this is a rare occurrence (e.g. suggesting the GIMP as a replacement for Photoshop with a straight face). I have even had personal experience with one vendor responding to a plea to port their software with desparaging comments such as, “We’d sooner port to Mac as nobody is using Linux,” and “Linux users expect things for free.”

There are still a few small success stories, though—one of which is one of my all-time favourite pieces of software produced by a small software shop in the UK; they are building, with the help of the community, a free, open source version of their product designed to run under Linux and soon another port targeting OSX. I am very happy to say that Xara’s complete reversal from their earlier position (above) returned them to my good graces and then some. Maybe other vendors would consider a similar course of action if their customers started complaining loudly enough.

Mark is right to criticise people’s complaints about Linux’s support, but I think more work is needed before he can boast that it’s chiefly a problem of outdated perception. The sad news is, even if I could convince him that this is the case, Ubuntu is on “our” side in making Linux more usable to the masses (and we are grateful); it’s the hardware and (third-party) software vendors that need to get in on the act before Linux is ready to take on the 800lb. gorilla in Redmond.