How about installing new hardware AFTER system installation?

[rpowersau at gmail.com]

On Thu, 24 Feb 2005 05:53:33 -0500, hashimoto
<ulist at gs1.ubuntuforums.org> wrote:
> 
> I was just about to start a new thread to rant/bemoan about the hardware
> change issue so here are my fuzzy thoughts.
> 
> I run into this change problem with my father's PC when he changed the
> display to a LCD. Bad! All he could get was a screen saying "Display
> mode not supported". He called me and said: "This dispaly doesn't work
> in Ubuntu. I guess I got to return it."He was stuck. OK, he is 74 so I
> forgive him even though he has been using computers since 80's when he
> bought his first Apple Mac. But that is the key word: using. He has
> never been interested in tweaking the system. He just needs it to run.
> 
> Now, it wasn't a big issue to me to run dpkg-reconfigure to change the
> sync frequencies and get it up and running. But if a
> not-so-knowledgeable user gets a blank screen after changing the
> display, how does s/he know that the problem lies in the sync
> frequencies?And even if he guesses, then how does s/he know
> dpkg-reconfigure?
> 
> If Ubuntu aims to be a conquer Windows users (as I understood) then
> this kind of things need to be easier. Having to run CLI to make a new
> display show something isn't going to help in conquering the standard
> user base. It's darn too difficult and scary for "them". Some kind of
> auto detection really is needed.

IMHO, the problem isn't ubuntu/linux. The problem is vendor support.
Being an engineer, most people consider me a 'computer geek'. So I
often find myself helping friends and neighbours with their machines,
adding new hardware or software. They tell me it is just too hard for
them. And they've all been windoze machines. My point is, when they
don't have a driver disk supplied by the vendor of the new hardware,
it's as difficult, if not harder to get it to work under windows.
Also, because windoze is so dominant on the desktop, vendors do their
best to have their hardware supported by windoze out of the box.

As linux becomes more popular, IMHO, this should change and
vendors/manufacturers of hardware will start providing installation
disks for linux.

I hope.  ;-)


> 
> I could also say a word or two about the manuals, but maybe this was
> enough already. That said, maybe I need to stop whining, give something
> back to the community and start translating or something.
> 
> And BTW, would Kudzu do the job?
> 
> --
> hashimoto
> 
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> ubuntu-users at lists.ubuntu.com
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> 


-- 
Regards,
Russ