J.Venning said:
Hi,
I've just spent the last two days playing around with Linux x64.
Installing it on my harddisk was a problem, since various error
dialogues kept creeping up which I had to ignore, and when I finally
managed to install it,
my scanner won't work, and my keyboard and mouse couldn't be
programmed,
Will the scanner work on XP-64? Will your keyboard and mouse be
programmable on XP-64? If the manufacturers prefer selling new,
XP-64-compliant hardware instead of creating new drivers for existing
hardware, then you'd never have a chance to get them running on XP-64.
But there are chances, that they can get working on Linux. But
unfortunately there is lot of hardware "built for Windows only". Then
you have nearly no chance at all.
Please check
www.sane-project.org in order to see, if your scanner is
supported.
I would like to know from you folks who are using either one, whether
you managed to download updates to all the hardware you bought before
using the 64-bit operating system.
Well, not all hardware is supported. There are lots of add-on-cards or
external peripherals, that will only be supported by Windows: the
manufacturers just refuse to support other OS.
Experienced users check linux-compatibility before they buy their
hardware. Also experienced users will be able to compile the device
drivers, if source code is available. That's about Linux.
I for my self know, that most of my hardware would be supported by
Linux, but I'm actually not experienced enough to get them working.
Only an old Elsa ISDN USB device wouldn't work at all. On my new system
I haven't yet installed Linux due to a lack of time.
But if I switched to XP-64, I would have to replace much more hardware:
at least scanner, TV-device, DVB-T-device, the already mentioned
ISDN-device and possibly my soundcard. These components are partly old,
partly from manufacturers, who prefer selling new stuff instead of
supporting old ones (Artec), or from manufacturers who don't exist any
more. And also I'd have to buy some software upgrades.
So I would have to spend about 250EUR in addition to the licence fees
for XP-64 only to have slight, hardly measurable, performance increases
in particular applications. That's not worth the money, and even not
worth the bandwith needed to download XP-64 eval.
Greets,
Michael