• cogman@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    One of the best parts about Linux. So much is open source which means your 20 year old hardware still likely has support.

    • bjorney@lemmy.ca
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      2 years ago

      Unfortunately, the RTL8812AU isn’t 20 year old hardware (then it might get a pass) - it’s current gen stuff

    • 0x4E4F@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      2 years ago

      To be honest, yes. In general, not just tech or Linux related stuff. You look at humanity and what it has come down to, and then you notice these people… and hope fills your heart again.

  • NABDad@lemmy.world
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    2 years ago

    Way back in the olde tymes, I was having trouble with the NIC driver in my Linux install. I posted a question about it on USENET, and got a reply from the guy who wrote the drivers. He asked for some info about the card, then updated the driver to support it.

  • dan@upvote.au
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    2 years ago

    A lot of Linux drivers are like this - just one or two people maintaining them. They usually eventually mainline the driver rather than having a separate Git repo though.

    • 0x4E4F@lemmy.dbzer0.comOP
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      2 years ago

      It’s mind boggling just thinking that things like this depend on the effort of one or two guys… while on the other hand, it’s not so uncommon that a team of engineers and developers fails to deliver a working (mostly) bugfree product.

      I think management is who is responsible for the shitty decisions, as always… and, in general, just holding the team back.

      • dan@upvote.au
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        2 years ago

        The thing with drivers is that the hardware they’re written for doesn’t really change. A particular network card is always going to behave the same way. Once the driver works well, it’s pretty much complete, and the only changes that are needed are bug fixes, updates to handle new firmware, or adjustments if the kernel changes some implementation detail of how drivers are used. There could be months or years between updates to the driver.

        Some manufacturers have great first-party Linux support. Intel is a good example - they contribute a lot of code to the kernel, and their drivers are maintained by employees.