These seem to me to be pretty good representations of two positions
which are equally extreme and equally wrong.
First, the idea that one much be able to have an entire extra throwaway
system, and the habit of referring to those who have trouble getting
things working as "ignorant," seem like a really good way to ensure
that the Linux community stays in a little box, that Linux gets to be a
great "server" O/S but not a desktop O/S, and that the current flood of
people porting their cool software to Linux comes to an abrubt halt.
Let's try to, if we must think of it this way, reach out to the morons
who will provide the body count that gets us the applications (games)
we want.
Linux is *not* ready for the masses if it requires a throwaway system.
The masses don't have a whole computer to devote to tinkering. (I
mean, I have five computers on my home network, but "joe average
computer user" I am not.) Linux is *not* ready for the masses if we
all take the attitude of "it's hard, get used to it."
On the other hand, NO o/s always installs ok the first time. I have
had a much greater success rate with Linux than with win98 in terms of
installation. Based on my personal experience, it's Windows that
doesn't seem to be able to support my hardware.
The difference is that it has only one distribution and it has a
hammerlock on a number of applications (games) that we can't live
without, so we just upgrade the hardware when Windows fails. Hell, if
I hadn't done a test install of Linux I would have just said 'bad
hardware' instead of 'incompatible hardware.'
So I think that neither position represented below is correct,
reasonable, or useful.
On Fri, 31 Mar 2000, you wrote:
| Trevor
|
| Its a bit difficult for me to relate to your problems. I have two
| machines, one a dual celeron and the other a laptop, both installed and
| run Mandrake 7.0 (GL edition) without any hassles except for a minor
| problem with the pcmcia modem initialization that has to do with an
| interrupt assignment. If you want to use linux then I recommend that you
| have a disk drive(s) big enough for at least two installs. The reliable
| one that you work with and another where you install and play until that
| becomes the better system and then you switch. My other system
| (/dev/hdb7 on the dual celeron) now runs redhat 6.2 but it started as
| 6.1 and grew thru 6.2beta and now 6.2 with some additional mods. Its not
| a reliable system but it gets better each time I play with it. Playing
| equals learning for me. Mostly what you bitch about is probably
| something that you are ignorant about and that is fixable. Tossing a
| linux cd in the trash is just an act of surrendering to that ignorance.
| Now you can chose to overcome that state of mind or not. The choice is
| yours, in fact its everyone's choice. Best of luck and hope you choose
| the path of learning.
|
| Best regards
|
| Tom Berkley
|
| ______________________________________________________________________
|
| Trevor Farrell wrote:
| >
| > When I first installed it, I really liked Mdk 7.0-2 - real nifty new
| > installer, supermount, XFree3.3.6, the first graphical install to work
| > with my SiS 6326 chip, ... Yes, I thought it was really nice. Then the
| > cracks started to appear - sound card that worked under Ver 6 wouldn't
| > install under 7, Netscape had yucky b&w icons, cd burner not linked
| > properly, and wouldn't burn when it was, wheel mouse that wheeled
| > without help under 6 didn't under 7, partitioning tool buggy, expert
| > install option absolutely unusable - how the hell do you know what is
| > selected and what isn't? - the "magic 50%" install rule - it only fills
| > your partition to 50%, regardless of what you really wanted, ...
| >
| > Now, weeks later, some of the above are fixed and some aren't, but I put
| > it down to my "el cheapo" buying - PCchips motherboard, ide cdrw, etc
| > and lack of knowledge/skill - ie my fault...
| >
| > Today, I feel differently. We have had a Mdk 6 machine at work for
| > some time, and its supervisor today decided to install 7.0-2 . He
| > started by booting from a boot floppy, the install locked when it tried
| > to initialize the CD. So I suggested that he set the BIOS to boot from
| > CD (it was previously set to boot from the floppy, then the ide drive.)
| > and this time the install went nicely, until he hit the expert select
| > packages fiasco - he couldn't make any more sense of it than I could -
| > so he cancelled that and started again, this time being careful not to
| > select expert! It loaded the packages (why is Mandrake so slow doing
| > this, compared to red hat?) and then locked up as it started the X
| > configuration. Rebooted the machine, everything started up well, but no
| > X. At this stage my colleague threw the ver 7 cd in the bin, and will be
| > putting 6 back on the machine next week. (No - he doesn't want to know
| > how to fix it, or what went wrong.)
| >
| > Also today, I installed the BeOS 5 (Personal Edition) operating system
| > that I downloaded last night. It really just unpacked the files. I
| > rebooted the machine, and hey! presto ... BeOS! Funny, video worked,
| > sound worked, Cdrw burnt cd's, ... all with NO installation questions,
| > NO how-to's, No hassles. OK - so there is nothing written for BeOS yet,
| > and I'm not serious about keeping it, just curious, BUT, it proved you
| > can write a hassle free installer THAT WORKS!
| >
| > OK - back to Linux - the current attitude that if something didn't work,
| > it's because you didn't read the instructions or your hardware is faulty
| > IS SIMPLY NOT ACCEPTABLE to me any more - If it doesn't work FIRST TIME
| > it's because its broken, and needs fixing.
| >
| > The first Linux distribution that produces a hassle free installer that
| > works (no if's, but's, or maybe's - I mean works - full stop!)
| > WILL SUCCEED, all the rest will only be installed by enthusiasts (which
| > I still count myself among) and are doomed to their rightful resting
| > place in the garbage bin.
| >
| > Now, it's time for my big decision - Do I, like my colleague, consign
| > the Ver 7 install I have spent so much time on to oblivion, and go back
| > to Ver 6 because it worked, or do I persevere, and try to get 7 up and
| > running properly, or, perhaps, do I try RedHat 6.2, or just wait for a
| > distro with kernel 2.4 & XFree 4? I really don't know, and I really
| > don't expect anyone else to decide for me, I just know that my
| > perceptions of install problems will never be the same again.
--
"Brian, the man from babbleon-on" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brian T. Schellenberger http://www.babbleon.org
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