I've used Linux for around 8.5 years now, and I've never once had to compile a sound card driver to get my sound working. On the half dozen or so laptops I've installed it on since then, every one of them just had sound working without needing to compile anything.
>Every time Linux on the desktop is discussed, the reaction of the Linux desktop community is predictable: defending Linux and its problems, and downplaying the difficulty that many users have. A ton of people say "it works for me on my hardware" or "I didn't need to compile any drivers" or "the games that I want to play work fine". In fact, this comment thread has good examples of this type of reaction. So what? Until it works for everyone it's just not good enough.
I'm a bit confused; have you actually had this experience when you had to compile your sound card driver in the past ten years? It would be totally reasonable for you to be unhappy if you had, but given how much you're criticizing, I have to assume that if you had this experience you would have mentioned it. Given that, it sounds like the only criticism is that someone could theoretically happen to need to do this, but that's not really any different from any other operating system; the difference is that if your sound card doesn't work on Windows, you don't have the option to compile it at all. I'm not sure how often people have driver issues on Windows these days, having not used it much since before I swapped to Linux, but I'm not going to prematurely get angry about the idea that people _could_ be having driver issues but not have the option to compile their own if I don't actually hear about anyone having these issues.
>Every time Linux on the desktop is discussed, the reaction of the Linux desktop community is predictable: defending Linux and its problems, and downplaying the difficulty that many users have. A ton of people say "it works for me on my hardware" or "I didn't need to compile any drivers" or "the games that I want to play work fine". In fact, this comment thread has good examples of this type of reaction. So what? Until it works for everyone it's just not good enough.
I'm a bit confused; have you actually had this experience when you had to compile your sound card driver in the past ten years? It would be totally reasonable for you to be unhappy if you had, but given how much you're criticizing, I have to assume that if you had this experience you would have mentioned it. Given that, it sounds like the only criticism is that someone could theoretically happen to need to do this, but that's not really any different from any other operating system; the difference is that if your sound card doesn't work on Windows, you don't have the option to compile it at all. I'm not sure how often people have driver issues on Windows these days, having not used it much since before I swapped to Linux, but I'm not going to prematurely get angry about the idea that people _could_ be having driver issues but not have the option to compile their own if I don't actually hear about anyone having these issues.