W95 can still outdo some Linux, says commentator

After a respected columnist criticised modern Linux distributions for not handling what Windows 95 could do nine years ago, a Linux provider moves to put things into perspective.

The task that a group of 11 new Linux distributions fail, according to Fred Langa, columnist with InformationWeek, is to provide support for mainstream soundcards - something that a copy of Windows 95 performs happily. "That sends the cost of paid versions of Linux dramatically higher," comments Langa. "This shows how far Linux has come - and how far it has to go".

Using Xandros 2.0 Deluxe, "a polished commercial Linux that seeks to go toe to toe with Windows", costs roughly as much as an XP upgrade according to Langa, and "full commercial price means full commercial expectations". But he says: "I couldn`t get [it] to work with my sound card at all, even though I was testing it on a brand new PC from a major vendor ... based on an utterly mainstream Intel motherboard with an on-board Intel sound system".

Langa says he then tried ALSA, the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, which provides "more or less standardised sound support for Linux, ... to get around the need for many different drivers. It worked, but "only until I rebooted. Then the sound went away again, and nothing I could do (including reinstalling ALSA) would get it to work".

No amount of OS reinstallation or searching on FAQ lists or Usenet helped, he adds, so he contacted tech support. Their advice, he says, made things worse. "I could log in only in text mode; otherwise, the system was unusable."

Given his wide testing platform, Langa avers this is a general Linux failure. Not one version could get the sound working for more than brief periods."

Nols de Wet, marketing director of Obsidian Systems, points out that neither Red Hat nor Mandrake was tested. Instead, Langa had tried Xandros 2.0 Deluxe, two versions of Slackware, two versions of SuSE, Debian, Lindows, Knoppix, Knotix, Morphix and Gentoo.

Furthermore, he adds: "a single unspecified sound card is nothing. The sample size is too small. I`ve never had a problem getting Linux to work with any sound card I`ve had, and I didn`t pick them for Linux compatibility." He says because the card is unspecified, the author also gives no means of allowing confirmation of his testing. If it is specific to one model of hardware, there is no way to fix the problem in a broader sense.

"The fact that a sound card works under Windows has nothing to do with Windows," he says. "And the fact that it doesn`t work under a Linux distribution has nothing to do with Linux. The relevant software is the driver, which under Windows is supplied by the hardware manufacturer."

He adds that most major sound card vendors do not release Linux drivers. "How can the Linux community be responsible for writing drivers when the sound card companies won`t even provide specifications?

"My advice would be, if you are planning to run Linux on a desktop and you are buying new hardware, make sure you get a Linux compatible hardware and software combination. There are many manufacturers that happily support Linux without any pain or needing installation configuration whatsoever."

Langa says if one checks discussion boards for many of the distributions of Linux, "you`ll see that sound support is an extremely common problem, even when the sound system is listed as supported hardware".

De Wet counters by saying Linux is progressing in many directions, as the installed base gets bigger more companies will look at it, audio card makers included.