On Thursday 11 November 2004 05:54 pm, Jack wrote: > But unfortunately, I still don't think it's ready for primetime and > here's why: > > 1 - It never did "see" my Canon D760 copier/printer. > Canon issues closed source windows only drivers and doesn't cooperate with Linux driver developers. Why is this Mandrake's fault.
> 2 - Couldn't get my nvidia video capture to work, despite help from > experts like Anne Wilson. > nvidia issues closed source windows only drivers and doesn't cooperate with Linux driver developers. Why is this Mandrake's fault. > 3 - Couldn't upgrade to KDE 3.3, despite having the CD for it and > despite help from experts like Randall. �I spent *weeks* on this. � > Nothing I tried worked, nor did any suggestions work. > This is a big job for a newbie, and there is no question you will have problems unless you know a lot about the underlying OS. This is exactly why Mandrakesoft is so hesitant to update major system components like this. Tell me, since you are comparing to windows, when you try to upgrade the windows GUI is it easier? > 4 - I use voice recognition extensively (Dragon NS and IBM ViaVoice). �I > don't believe this even exists for Linux. > You are right about this one. It is a frustration for me too. I always have to boot into WIndows to do some dictation. > 5 - Most damning of all was my attempted upgrade to 10.1 official. �I > completely wiped my drive to do a clean install, and after everything > was said and done, the official version could not find the internet, nor > my onboard (Asus P4P800) sound card. > 10.0 had no trouble finding these 2, nor did the community version of > 10.1. �Luckily for me, I had imaged the drive beforehand, so I was able > to go back to 10.1 community. Sounds like a configuration problem. BTW, you could have upgraded to official by changing your urpmi sources to 10.1 official location and just use 'urpmi --auto-select' to bring it up. This would have saved all of you configuration settings, and probably would have avoided the problem. > > 6 - I spent the $170 or so bucks to become a silver club member, but not > once have I received an answer from Mandrake when I found myself stuck. MandrakeSoft direct support happens on MandrakeExpert, not MandrakeClub. Club is a user community. > > I was also forced to install Bit Torrent to download the new ISO's after > have waited for over 2 weeks (in vain) after my request for FTP access. � > (I *hate* peer to peer networks and I didn't appreciate being forced to > use one, even though it did turn out to be pretty fast. �I consider peer > to peer a security risk.) > Bittorrent is far from a security risk and is not a commercial app full of adware and crap like the windows networks. Bittorrent is actually quite secure, as you are initiating your download from a trusted source, and it only downloads what you ask it to. If you think this it is because you don't understand the technology. > A mature operating system should not encounter these problems, �I have a > pretty standard Intel 2.6 gz system with 512 mb of ram, and Windows has > never had a problem configuring my setup. > A mature operating system that has support from hardware manufacturers should not have this problem. You have tried to do some things with Linux that are either very advanced or not supported by the people that made the hardware. I think you are generally being unfair. It seems you are complaing that Mandrake is not MS windows, doesn't work like MS windows. Well surprise, it is not. If you want MS windows, use MS windows. If you are willing learn how a different OS operates and deal with some issues that are not supported to get things working you'll have fun with Linux. To say it is not ready for prime-time because it can't do some very specific proprietary things is being hard. I can find a scenario that will cause similar problems for Windows. Is it fair then to say that Windows is not ready for prime-time. I think it would be fairer to say, that Mandrake isn't ready for me (yet), mor better yet, I am not ready for Mandrake. > I see great potential in Linux and I will maintain my dual-boot system, > slowly learning to survive in Linux while waiting (and hoping) for the > operating system to mature to a more usable state... That's what I did for a year and I had a lot of fun learning. I hope you do too. I hope I didn't come across as a flame. I just find the level of expectation that people have to be astounding. Many people expect to be able to pop in the disk and have everything work out of the box without doing any configuration work, anything less than that is failure. Ever try to install Windows from scratch, track down drivers and get them installed without a network connection, then try to configure a wireless conection so that it co-exists nicely with more than one access point, and then try to apply the Windows updates before getting infected? It's not a picnic either. -- /g
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