Date: Thu, 28 Aug 2014 10:16:39 -0400 From: Paul Kraus <paul@kraus-haus.org> To: "freebsd-questions@freebsd.org" <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: Hardware that Requires software WAS: TL-WN722N support Message-ID: <63EECB4E-2903-4B26-9475-A8E6C6E4B509@kraus-haus.org> In-Reply-To: <20140828053323.2c6661e3.freebsd@edvax.de> References: <C18F5819-A884-4A86-9FBA-FF7CEFF70695@gmail.com> <53FC60AB.1060805@qeng-ho.org> <1EE2934C-DA78-451F-B86A-93A9C55B9C56@gmail.com> <CADGo8CWQ=D32oYAjx_GxWUvmdeR2r8Qmp2wecD=dDaL3r2ERig@mail.gmail.com> <2ACC59D6-251B-4FF7-A275-C81408D6BB48@gmail.com> <1409070456.4218.7.camel@lenzinote.lenzicasa> <5811EA5F-C819-4D1B-8D39-7C47E46FFF05@gmail.com> <20140827112209.89d0bbdb.freebsd@edvax.de> <244A8655-63FB-46E9-85AB-6E8BC4CF8199@gmail.com> <20140827180004.GA4450@slackbox.erewhon.home> <20140828053323.2c6661e3.freebsd@edvax.de>
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On Aug 27, 2014, at 23:33, Polytropon <freebsd@edvax.de> wrote: > Yes, those are terrible and years behind technological evolution. > The same applies to "WinModems", a disease that development has > fortunately dealt with. It is helpful to understand the why of something, and explain such, = rather than just condemn it as bad. The move to host based software for things like printers, modems, = scanners, and other various hardware came about because the performance = of the general purpose computer was increasing at least at Moore=92s Law = rate, if not faster. By moving the processing of the raw data into code = the device (printer, scanner, modem, etc.) could use onto the host OS = you got two big advantages: 1. As the host systems got faster so did your device 2. Your device was likely to remain useful for a longer period There is a third advantage, that the device can be less intelligent and = less powerful, making it cheaper. The typical desktop computer today has = lots and lots of spare CPU cycles (and generally speaking, has for at = least a decade). Why not make good use of those resources. I have three scanners in the house that *all* require very custom = software as the processing of the raw scanned data from the image sensor = is happening on the host system and not on the scanner hardware. I have = seen marked improvements in image quality with each update of the = management software. Even older hardware, hardware that the vendor would = no longer be supporting if it were more complex is still on the = supported list. Does it mean that you cannot use this hardware on OSes for which there = is no software support? Absolutely, but that is the case for = *everything*. If you know you need to (or want to) runs a certain OS, = for whatever reasons, then you buy hardware that is supported by that = OS. I am OS agnostic, there is no one single OS that is perfect for = everything. I look at the job I need to do and then choose the software = (application) to do that task, then I pick the OS that lets me run that = software the best. It is not until this point that I start looking at = hardware. But I am an outlier in that I use in both my personal and = professional life a bunch of different OSes for different purposes. Windows Mac OS X FreeBSD Linux=20 SmartOS Personally, I use FreeBSD on servers and not as a desktop, I think there = are better desktop OSes out there. -- Paul Kraus paul@kraus-haus.org
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