AvanceIT wrote:I think the big problem here is that you are thinking as a Windows user, not a UNIX user ... UNIX is not windows, it operates differently to windows, it was designed that way.
Just because it doesn't work with some USB memory sticks doesn't make it at fault, it has the ability to work correctly with these devices once you, the user, have configured it correctly to do so.
Completely disagree - I'm thinking as an end-user - the USB stick doesn't come with drivers - you plug it in and it works - except on Linux, if you happen to plug in one make, you could lose a lot of data and end up with a stick that won't work in Linux or Windows ever again!
By the way, I'm a Linux user through and through - 8+ Years of linux server admin and constant use, dating back to Slackware 97.
AvanceIT wrote:Video cards are a classic example of this !
Video cards are not "plug and play" to the same extent that Mass Storage devices are
AvanceIT wrote:Based on your comments Linux should work with all hardware without ever having to load any kind of driver or changing any of the default settings, windows most certainly doesn't, so why should Linux ??
No I'm not saying that at all - and with a lot of hardware, you have to take the driver CD and run the software, reboot a few hundred times, and hopefully it'll work, but with USB Mass storage devices, you just plug em in.
AvanceIT wrote:I think you are just going through a learning process, which once you have completed you will see how much more flexible and powerful Linux is because of the way it is put together.
Oh so wrong on so many fronts, sorry, preaching to the choir here, just I don't do the fanboi attitude - 'cos after 8 years, you add a dash of realism and realise that Linux is not perfect and can be improved, hence the OP
AvanceIT wrote:Adding "Features" to make it "More like windows" will do nothing but restrict the flexibility of the most flexible O/S there is around today ... resist thinking like this and try and embrace the way Linux works .... sometimes in life we have to let go of how we've done things in the past and accept new and exciting ways of doing things ...
You have obviously taken the fact that I want to make Linux Mint more compatible with more hardware to mean that I want it to be more like Windows. I don't at all - I just want it to not kill hardware that works flawlessly plug-and-play under Windows.
I'm sorry, but judgement calls have to be made - not my job, but clem's* in this case - if a user comes to linux, plugs in their lovely 8Gb stick with their favorite music, their CV, important stuff they want to see if it's readable under Linux and whilst copying the data to the system, their stick dies, taking their valuable data with it, it's not going to give Linux a good rep. I'd rather see people not have to know that the particular stick manufacturer they have bought from (or worse rebadged by someone else) that they have to go and figure out which scsi device name was used, and then tell linux, "actually, no that stick can't use that many sectors, please use the same value that windows uses", by a command line they don't understand.
*Sorry to embroil you in the discussions clem, but I really think this is a valid fix for a valid problem, it would appear that lots of people (IRC and here) don't, but I feel strongly enough to say that this should be done.