On Sun, May 28, 2000 at 05:14:39PM -0400, Bart Szyszka wrote: > > Well, like I said the vast majority of Win9X only hardware works very poorly > > even in Win9x > Not from my experiences. Printers generally work well.
Win-printers normally share the following problems in Windows: 1. Completely worthless without the manufacurer supplied driver. 2. Printer must be turned on before the computer boots and must not be turned off unless you want to re-boot. 3. Can only handle one ink cartridge at a time so you have to constantly swap cartriges. 4. Difficult to trouble shoot because you never really know if the problem is with the printer hardware or the driver. 5. Break with even minor Windows upgrades. 6. Lock you in to a particular version of Windows since there is no guarentee that the manufacturor will make drivers for the next version of Windows and won't work without the driver. Printers that work with other OSs (even NT) rarely have the above problems and of course don't limit your choice of OS. > Monitors generally work well. I've never seen a Win9x only monitor so I'm not sure what you are comparing. > Mice/keyboards generally work well. I've never seen a windows only keyboard or mouse but the special drivers that come with those "Internet Keyboards" sometimes cause trouble as do some mouse drivers/utilities (especially when used together). > Now I need to know how they > work on the Linux end. I love trackballs and Logitech's Trackman Marble FX > is just perfect for me, but unfortunately there isn't much support for it on > Linux > besides left/right click and using one of the two extra buttons as a "third" > button. > It wouldn't make sense for me to buy that trackball specifically for a Linux > desktop when I can't even have the benefits of its four buttons. That's why > it'd > be nice to see a site with a general overview of this type of stuff so I know > what > my options are in terms of multi-button trackballs with configurable extra > buttons > along with the same type of thing for printers, scanners, etc. I'm sure that situation will improve with the increased popularity of Linux but in the mean time deja and google can provide the same info. > > > latest Abit motherboard (for example) than any reviewer Cnet has to offer. > I'm sure someone reviewing Linux hardware would be much less superficial > than people like CNet's reviewers who do Windows hardware. I hope you're right. -- Ray
