[lug] Huh, that was easy.

[Michael J. Hammel]

On Wed, 2008-07-30 at 00:13 -0600, Nate Duehr wrote:
> Every Mac in this  
> house since OS9 days has done power management with aplomb... push a  
> button, it goes to sleep, close the lid it goes to sleep and if the  
> battery gets too low, it suspends to disk.  

The software was specifically designed for the that piece of hardware.
Linux is a general purpose software solution.  As a desktop user with
few other needs, you're happier with one company to complain to if
things go bad.  As a developer who knows why things work, I'm happier
with a general purpose solution with an extensible design.

> The Windows XP desktop machines have  
> never had any trouble with this either, and the major brand name  
> laptops have always seemed to work too.

Because the hardware vendors spend big bucks and lots of manhours on
people to fit the OS to the specific machines.  I know this for a fact.
I worked for Dell and RLXTechnologies (now part of HP) and both had
teams of people devoted to verifying the OS worked perfectly (so to
speak) on specific hardware.

Some hardware vendors now do this for Linux.  IBM, of course.  Dell
doesn't (despite what you hear to the contrary).  I think Centaur
Technologies has some in support of their Via chipsets.  AMD and Intel
do (this I base from the number of calls I get trying to get me to go
work for them).  But I don't know of a lot of systems makers (desktops,
laptops, etc.) that do.  It's mostly the chip vendors at the moment, at
least as far I know.  Corbet probably has a better insight into this
area than I.
-- 
Michael J. Hammel                                    Principal Software Engineer
mjhammel at graphics-muse.org                           http://graphics-muse.org
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  The time it will take before the breadth of human knowledge is available on
   the Internet is precisely inverse to the amount of time it took to remove
               it from cable television.  --  Michael J. Hammel