torkell | (Reply)

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On the flip side, you get manufacturers that go out of their way to write drivers for Linux. And things like the floppy spec were created and set in stone before a certain Bill Gates was thinking of writing an operating system.

Granted, Linux has improved (Knoppix detected the graphics card without any problems and happily started in 1024x768x24@100), but I'd expect stuff like removeable media to work without mystical incantations or goat sacrifices. I've got no idea why some part of Knoppix apparently decided to cache the floppy drive (put in disk #1, clicked on "floppy" icon which brought up KDE's explorer with the contents of the floppy, swapped disk #1 for #2, hit F5, linux didn't even attempt a read and just showed the same directory listing) for both reads *and* writes. Granted, it's a slow media, but it doesn't take much time to, say, check the FAT hasn't changed (or even just the FAT serial number).

But anyway. I can't be bothered to rewrite the fat driver just to copy a few files from a USB disk to a floppy disk (the drivers for a PCI IDE controller, needed for a fresh install of Win2k onto the disk on said controller). I shouldn't have to jump through hoops just to achieve that.