We Have Met the Enemy, and He is Us

[zero0w]

Well, for what it's worth, Nero cost $39.99 or something.

 

When I come to Linux in late June 2002, K3b was not there, and I used GCombust to perform burning task, there are a few settings to tangle with but it wasn't too difficult after all to get it working (besides, always perform a Dummy burning if you are in doubt about setting).

 

In January 2003 there was an article at Open for Business talking MandrakeSoft filing for Chapter 11 style bankruptcy protection which raise the controversy that Linux On Desktop is dead - even Red Hat had suggested earlier it has no interest in competing against Microsoft on desktop. Now every conversation changes, and people are talking about the "hidden cost" of Linux On Desktop or when it's ready (Gartner said it will be about in 2005).

 

Just to reiterate the point, while many complaints about usability are valid, Linux On Desktop has been struggling just to survive for the past few years. Now we are seeing these complaints to improve it, not just to make it stay afloat. This is a significant change, and we see it is a sign of uptake.

 

The rpm dependency hell was not an easily solvable one, some package delivery project was in progress to deal with this issue, one example is autopackage. Of course cybrjackle is right that urpmi, apt-get or emerge managed to ease the process a lot already, albeit distro centric.

 

Still I think the cost to learn a few things will be outweighed by the benefit in the long run. As far as I can see, the only way to avoid dependency at all is to repackage like the commercial software in a single bundle. But the open source development model makes it unlikely to work. Maybe when GNOME 3.0 or KDE 4 comes out and people are settling down with enough features that we can freeze certain API and system calls so that the dependency does not require/depend on newer libraries. Until then, I don't see it will go away just yet, and the only way to manage it is to use urpmi/apt/emerge style program at this moment. Personally, I know where to look for mdk rpms in a number of rpm outlets so I can get by.

[jlc]

This is how I normally burn an ISO in LInux, actually I just burned a NetBSD for a Sun Box. :wink:

 

This tells me were the stupid burner is.

 

# cdrecord -scanbus

 

This burns the stupid Netbsd 64 bit version ISO.

 

#cdrecord -v -eject speed=24 dev=0,0,0 sparc64cd.iso

 

Yes, it's from the command line and yes it's faster than Nero, K3b or any other method of burning a iso image. Yes, burning audio tracks will be harder. :wink:

 

Would I expect a new user to know how or want to do it this way, NO.

 

Did I post this for no apparent reason, MAYBE :mystilol:

[Gowator]

/rant

I guess this is what I was trying to say about the UPGRADE thing.... on other threads.

 

Its absolutely crucial ...

 

That is can be a challenge setting up linux is one thing...

K3B being just an example... BUT

What really ticks me off is not being able to upgrade without doing it all again!!!

 

Really,

It starts out kinda fun and challenging but soon wears thin...

Using Mandrake and Mandrake alone is a serious challenge .... when people have spent ages getting it just the way they want it and then need to reinstall to upgrade that just knocks it on the head (for me).

 

Maybe its just that now I'm older, f/t job, family, blah blah, - like I want to come home after a long day of work and screw around for 6 hours trying to just install a stupid program under linux. 

This sums it up....

If linux is your life, thats one thing but Windows makes it possible to have a life and a PC. Linux all to easily leeches your time....

I don't mind doing it once but ....

Like my Philips Webcam...

Ahhh. Once again download and recompile the libraries....

 

If only I had been able to upgrade and keep them ...

 

anyone that doesn't like fiddling around with computers is likely to find linux more frustrating than windows at this point

really thats just it.... I don't mind fiddling around the first time, or even going back and doing it better.... frustration sets in though when you have to keep going back and redoing it.

[tyme]

the whole upgrade thing is why i changed to a different type of distro (in my case arch-but gentoo, sourcemage, debian and others are the same) where you just get the new packages from the server. you only have to reconfigure things every now and again when there's a major change in the upgrade. i plan to put mandrake on my server, only because it won't need to be up-to-date (except security stuff) and won't have as many programs.

 

Gowator: even with the upgrade you'd probably have to recompile those drivers. new kernel and all.

[Gowator]

Yeah your right tyme but

It could check for incompatible linked libraries during UPGRADE...

Actually 1001 things...

You could have a compile tool that tracked what you'd had to compile and then notified you...

etc etc.

 

My main prob (like you by the sound) is I don't wanna outgrow Mandrake... oh, I guess its like a parent waving their kids off to Uni or something...

 

I used to recompile all the time and do lots of stuff, I used to be married?? but after a while you just want it to work...Yeah 9.1 looked cool but Ive only just got it the way I want it. In fact still only a few things to do??

 

Its amazing, I did a nice desktop for a friend who I converted, the one I posted and then gave the machine away!! Then anna asked how to do it so I did it all again ... It only took 30 mins or so but its 30 mins of stuff I had to redo again ... that I just hadn't got round to.

 

I like playing around but I'd like my efforts to last a bit longer.

 

Im seriously thinking about going Deb...

[aRTee]

My 2 rappen (swiss cents):

 

linux on the desktop is great,

linux and open source is great,

but it is not for everybody.

And may never be.

If so: Big Deal.

 

For those wanting to escape from MS, and not having the time or desire to learn linux (bsd etc): try Mac. I know / feel / think that Apple would love to be MS and pull the same stuff, but at this moment, they are not MS and don't pull the same stunts. With Safari, they are a good influence at this moment.

Remember, plenty of webdesigners may use a mac, and on which browser will they test?? Right.

As far as I know, there is also OpenOffice.org for Mac.

 

As for Linux, the enemy is not us, the enemy are those who can contribute (in whatever way) but don't. Financially, by aiding others, by sending in bugreports (even though sometimes they don't get read/corrected), etcetc.

Those who are 'wasting' the resources by occupying bandwidth (be it from the download mirror or talking crap on newsgroups etc) without bringing anything positive into the picture.

 

On a side note, yes sometimes linux is hard, takes quite a lot to get things straight, but if you know what you are doing, and granted, you have quite a bit of luck maybe, it isn't all that hard.

 

Configuring k3b is a good example. It took chrisz a lot, same for a colleague of mine, for me it went bad once and cost me an extra 15 minutes.

Try installing Nero after having installed directCD from adaptec, stuff like that can mean a reinstall. Same for certain Norton stuff, recently someone asked me for help since they didn't know how to (re)install windows, but that was was they really had to do, according to all that knew about this problem.

 

Linux does take some effort, but I can still remember all the time I spent to figure out how to keep windows going, regclean and all that. Loads of small things, but they all added up. In linux, once your machine is set, it's ok. Basically I installed my girlfriends machine (fiancee, the big day is Saturday...;)) in April with mdk9.1, barely touched it since. And still running fine. Same for my server, which I installed mdk8.2 on, cost me some time to figure out how to do things, and which way best to set up, but it's been running great since.

 

So I'm perfectly happy with my decision, I think I need less time to keep things going and have more time to help out here, work on my site etcetc.

Instead of spending time on how to get MS stuff working, and giving MS more momentum that way (however little), I spend my time on Linux and try to give that more momentum.

 

All in all, Linux is good enough for those who don't mind to get their hands dirty, for all others there should be preinstalled preconfigured machines at the shop. Just as there are windows machines. I don't believe windows is that much easier either.

[Guest Takmadeus]

Well.... it is time for me to give my opinion.....

 

if I talk about my linux experience.... well, it comes from 1998, when I started with Mandrake 7.0, which a teacher at university burned for my brother.... now, I was really excited about installing it then a friend (complete noob) told me that it was used from command line (meaning no X) so I decided to not to install it.... 3 months later my windblows 98 went boom, and I decided to install linux, noticing it did not support my sound card nor my modem, which are the things I mainly use..... so i could not connect to get info; when I was at university, I searched for solutions, and then the magic words that I would not ever forget: Kernel compile..... so I decided to give it a shot, but it did not work (weren't the right instructions) then I reinstalled indblows until I got corel linux (the easiest linux to understand and use IMHO) and tried to do the kernel recompile and still no luck..... anyway.... the same story repeated with mandrake 8.1 CD1 (got it from a magazine) and it was really frustating, but this time it could recognize my sound card , but not my modem..... then waited and a) upgraded them and B) got mandrake 9.0 (which was the one I am using right now..... then got some friends on the internet which taught me many of those linux secrets (I often ask them questions, but I am not so noob right now)and after all this years of fighting against my machine, I can give some conclusions, which are

 

before Y2K linux wasn't either for desktop nor servers, as it was damn hard to install and configure, examples are mandrake 7.0 and corel... which looked great, had tons of tools, but was unusable.

 

nowadays, linux is very mature and can easily surpass windblows both at servering and desktop, but ONLY at office so if you got a son or a little brother then don't use it as 3Ding is very bad in linux

 

linux is the choice if internet is your stuff, as it is (at least for me) ther fastest OS at navigating the web

 

now, if you wanna get a fully working linux box, then you mustbe prepared to upgrade some hardware (linux is allergic to generic hardware and generic modems are lethal for it) besides, you must take in account that it won't be install and use, but you'll have to tell it what your pc is like and what you want it to be (a.k.a. configuring) for our relief, nowadays x based configuring is getting old thanks to distros like mandrake which include nifty graphical install and control centers

 

linux is perfect for people who want to know more about PC related stuff or want to get closer to what they bought (named PC :P) since you'll have to learn new concepts and things that'll make you love your pc.

 

one bad thing about linux is that each hardware upgrade or installment can be a pain since that'll mean some extra time spent (as almost no hardware has drivers for linux in the install cd or even have them) fortunately everyday more and more providerrs are changing to linux.

 

there are other things, but I am tired of typing..... just one thing, is an effort to support that hardware tat is not supported, I am working on a distro that'll have support for hardware that has caused too much pain for pc users (like HSP56 micromodems and others)