

If Linux was the most used system in the world… - wisesage5001
http://www.beli.ws/blog/?p=202

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gvb
...then there was the incessant demand to download and install drivers.

First, the display would not go above 800x600. Talk about ugly! He called his
friend and his friend said he had to download and install the correct video
driver. After googling and following a lot of bogus links, he finally figured
out who made his video chipset, found the manufacturer's web site and
installed the proper driver. Whew, proper resolution for his LCD screen! Why
wasn't the driver included on the CD? His friend said that XP was originally
released 10 years ago and the hardware didn't exist back then. If he weren't
so cheap and paid the 599 euros for the latest version, Win7, it would have
included the driver. Probably.

Then he plugged in his printer. Nothing. Call the "friend" again. Sigh,
another driver needed. His friend asked about the CD that came with the
printer, said the driver was on it. Oops, didn't need it to make the printer
work with linux, threw it away. More googling, found the driver. What the??!!
Why is a _driver_ a 347 Mbyte download?!!! Oh well, install the driver and the
printer works again. Hmmm, now it is popping up prompts to buy more ink from
the manufacturer. Bloody annoying, that.

...

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gmlk
I rather not have a world where there is one most used implementation?

I think it would be better is the world would get to the point where unix (as
an informal platform) with many implementations became the norm?

Some kind of low-level virtual machine layer could then be used to support
binary-only distribution for commercial software?

