Re: I've thought better of Linux

"joesb" <joesb.coe9@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> Ulrich Hobelmann wrote:
> > Greg Menke wrote:
> > > Show me an OS that "just works" and I'll show you the deed to the
> > > Brooklyn Bridge that I have.
> >
> > Preinstalled Win XP just works, except for the usual weird Windows
> > problems that pop up once in a while. Mac OS X on a Mac just
> > works. Most "normal" hardware does, too. Don't expect to run
> > exotic, proprietary stuff with it (or ooold stuff).

I have been running Debian Sarge on my totally generic
machine for the last year. Here's a short list of
complaints off the top of my head.

1. It just doesn't work with my generic (HP) scroll mouse.
I can't figure out why. (Actually, it starts out working,
for a few minutes, then it totally stops working!)

2. Cut and paste do not work in the applications that I use
(eg. paste a URL or text between Emacs and Firefox).

3. Sound doesn't work right.
Audio applications mess up and even crash all over the place.

4. I had to manually add and configure the totally
generic network device driver.

5. I had to manually configure X for the totally generic
video card. And I fucked something up: when Gnome launches,
there's an extra mouse cursor ("X") sitting in the middle
of the screen. It's a turd. I can make it go away
by launching a shell and clicking on its titlebar.
Then I close that shell, because I do everything from Emacs.
(Clicking on the Emacs titlebar doesn't clear the turd.)

5. I tried using KDE, but when I tried to customize the
Start menu, the system got all confused, lost apps, etc.

6. I decided Gnome was the lesser of two evils, and switched.
The start menu subsystem here is even worse, but at least
I'm not tempted to try and reconfigure it (no such feature).

Gnome runs the weather (temp/sky/radar) widget that I like,
which doesn't run under KDE. Other than that, I think I
like KDE better. But KDE has too many other tempting
things to click on, and after a week I decided they have
too many bugs, so I stay away (although I do have KDE
available from the login screen).

I know there are even more desktop/window environments.
Why can't Linux just pick ONE and make that really WORK?
At least as well as Windows?

I suppose I should be thankful that the entire destkop
doesn't crash all the time, like it did a few years ago.

7. The "security update notification" widget doesn't work.
It beeps and complains that security upgrades are ready.
Then it launches Synaptic, which doesn't agree.
I am left wondering what critical security patches I am missing.

By running apt manually, I suspect the problem is
related either to qpopper or wine. I think these problems
first manifested the week that Sarge became Stable.
I suppose I ought to look into them.

8. I spent two hours yesterday trying to install a working imapd.
Tried several different packages. No success so far.

9. Maybe it's an xinetd problem.
Nothing like having to manually configure a seperate inetd.
It's supposed to be a replacement, but it's not actually
integrated into the system! Applications install as inetd,
then I run some perl script over inetd.conf and manually
edit the xinetd. Someday I think some package will need
to configure and start a network service before completing
installation. I just can't wait to watch that nightmare.

10. Tried to get my friend to run Debian, since he wanted
to use Linux for some program development.

But Sarge doesn't work with his generic video card on
the generic $400 AMD64 system he bought the other day
at the computer store. If he wants to run Sarge, he will
have to hire a consultant to manually configure X Windows.
I haven't been able to help him over the phone, because
he understandably lost patience trying to debug this.
I am sure there would have been many more problems,
but not having a display screen was the first show stopper.

RedHat (Fedora) and Knoppix do come up on his machine.
So he's running Knoppix, but with all the problems,
he's abandoned Linux for now, and the machine just
sits there. He uses Windows XP, instead.
He's been a system programmer for 25 years, too,
but he has practically no experience with Unix.
At work (doing real-time embedded systems),
he uses RedHat, which someone else set up and maintains.

Windows 2000 and XP "just works" perfectly out of the box,
in all those respects. If you're not sure: that means you
merely apply AC power to the system, and you're done.

Let us not even speak about trying to do "advanced" things
like set up local network file sharing on Linux.
Yes, of course, I have samba working on my network.
But on Windows, you just do this by clicking on menu items
named "Share" and "Permissions"; nothing else needed.

I'm a system programmer and have administered probably
every kind of Unix-based system over the last 25 years
for both tiny and huge organizations of various kinds.
If my perception is that Linux doesn't work "out of the box",
it's a safe bet that newbies who just want to turn on their
desktop and get to work will be in for a very rough ride.

I wouldn't try to kid them.
You're just going to wind up souring them on Linux.

I had to reinstall my Windows 2000 desktop last week.
That horrible nightmare happens about twice a year.
But it's far less time than I spend trying to make Linux work.

But I also have extensive experience with Windows 2000
in a server environment, and I would NOT recommend that!
Some flavor of Unix is going to be much better.
Lately, I use BSD and Debian for that, and Debian has
been much better in that role than BSD, to my surprise.
I once tried to install Gentoo, and that was a bad joke.
Maybe Gentoo will get better, though.
In the recent past I've had very good luck with Solaris.

For a desktop, I would always recommend Macintosh.
(I wish I was using MacOS X, myself...)
.