[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Kamikaze
My problem is that you don't actually have a solution for this problem you're complaining about. You don't have the "so what?" part of your argument. What am I supposed to do about this?

How often do people post on HLP about problems they're having with something or another when they have the solution?

Anyway, I was sort of probing to see if there was some main distro I had missed hearing about, but I guess not. I was also wondering how many other non-Linux people agreed with my assesment. Apparently, nearly everyone.

[Grey Wolf]

I'm not a Linux user, though I have dabbled in it. I was quite impressed by what I saw, and feel there is no problem with the massive set of distros. Just go to the Wikipedia or something and read up on them before you think of installing them. My only problem is I should checked my hardware better before installing it, as my sound card was unsupported, even though they apparently fixed it now. I probably won't install it again for a while though, as I just got my partitions set up properly again.

[vyper]

I hate to be a *nix basher, I really do, but as far as I'm concerned Linux should stay a geek os. Why? Because it's bad enough trying to compile Flash/Director projectors for Windows & Mac (which in Director's case involves forking out another $1000), but to start making them compatible and auto-runnable with Linux distros would be chaos. Clients don't want to hear: "We have to cut back on content to make the disc compatible with 3^n platforms". They want to hear: "We can give you the same content on both PC and Mac, on the one disc, and everyone can use it."

My nightmare scenario? Home shoppers running Red Hat on their desktop. Women trying to view a client's dress catalogue CD on a *nix box and having nothing happen.

The only reason we're so advanced in terms of home computing today is thanks to the standardisation that has pervaded both the PC and Mac world. The minute that ends, the e-marketing bubble is going to shrink unimaginably fast.

Linux for servers :
Linux for software developers:
Linux for home users? : **** right off.

[castor]

Originally posted by Descenterace
Thing is, Debian isn't particularly happy with Via Velocity onboard LAN adapters. Nor is the 2.4.x kernel, which is what the network installer uses.

2.4 is the default, but 2.6 is included (type 'linux26' to the installer prompt) .

[Descenterace]

Yup, tried that. The driver provided for 2.6.x segfaults when loaded.

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Sandwich
I was also wondering how many other non-Linux people agreed with my assesment. Apparently, nearly everyone.

[color=66ff00]That's a bit of a moot point. Non-Linux users that agree with you are either unable or unwilling to put the work in to learn how to use a distro.

I could wax-lyrical about how Citroens are crap but it wouldn't be a well founded argument as I only know the most peripheral details about them and I'd be going on what I heard from other possibly un-informed people.
[/color]

[Sandwich]

Originally posted by Maeglamor

[color=66ff00]That's a bit of a moot point. Non-Linux users that agree with you are either unable or unwilling to put the work in to learn how to use a distro.[/color]

...Which is once again precisely my point. Understand, I'm not Linux-bashing. I'd be using Linux - probably multiple distros simultaneously, knowing me - if I had the time to learn. I just don't. Anyway, my only point is that for Linux to ever have a chance to achieve mainstream acceptance, similarly to what Firefox has accomplished, it will need to be concentrated and focused around one (or a select few) distros, with plain differences, clear-cut lines, like this: "ABCLinux is for running servers and other mission-critical processes, XYZnix (Lindows, even) is for people making the switch from Windows who just want to have a different OS, without having to relearn everything. And finally, Quinux is for corporate deployment, blending reasonable ease-of-use with remote management features."

[Flipside]

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with taking the plunge into Linux were it not for some compatiblity concerns with things like Lightwave etc, as well as, though I may be out of date here, everytime I read a document on how to setup or configure Linux every single word turns into 'Banana' after about 15 mins.

[Sandwich]

[Flipside]

Trans :

The last time I saw a Linux setup document, it was almost pure, techno-babble, and after reading too much techno-babble, I just want to hit the screen at the pretentiousness of the writer

[mikhael]

Um, Sandwich, there is no such thing as a "main Linux distribution". You're suffering from a misunderstanding fostered by the media you referenced. Its really not helped by the number of people (myself included) that further the same misunderstanding on a daily basis.

Linux is not an OS. Its a kernel. Period. Its not even the core of a fully fledged OS, the way BSD 'sys' is. Its the the thing that sits at the absolute center of the OS and is completely useless by itself.

You want a Linux based distribution, run by some ruling body, be it a corporation, or whatever. Great. There's companies out there for people like you. Go buy SuSE, RedHat or Mandriva. They come with user support and a manual and tech support forums and the whole nine yards. If that's still too many choices, flip a two coins (since you need two coins to make three choices).

It just seems to me that your problem here is that you're misled by the media and not willing to get educated. Your complaint is flawed. OSes are like cars: there's lots of them out there and they all do basically the same thing in generally the same way. You can pick one and learn its idiosyncrasies (my Thunderbird is very different to my Nissa SEV6 and they're both different from my Scorpio and XR4Ti). Its just not valid to complain that there's not one body out there declaring the 24 valve, 6 cylinder, all wheel drive, all wheel steering, independent suspension, four door, manual shift vehicle to be THE ONE TRUE CAR.

[BlackDove]

Originally posted by Flipside
Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with taking the plunge into Linux were it not for some compatiblity concerns with things like Lightwave etc, as well as, though I may be out of date here, everytime I read a document on how to setup or configure Linux every single word turns into 'Banana' after about 15 mins.

Originally posted by mikhael
there's not one body out there declaring the 24 valve, 6 cylinder, all wheel drive, all wheel steering, independent suspension, four door, manual shift vehicle to be THE ONE TRUE CAR.

There is, it's called Windows, and it's rusting, so we need another car that's exactly the same, only rust free.

[mikhael]

Now, now. Don't turn this into a MS-bashing thing.

[Grey Wolf]

Funnily enough, Vista isn't coming off as quite as retarded with the revelations being put out at PDC. Many of the things are still stupid, but out of the 7, at least 2 or 3 should be competent (Pro, Enterprise, and possibly Home Premium).

[Kamikaze]

Originally posted by Sandwich


How often do people post on HLP about problems they're having with something or another when they have the solution?

You said "you 'Check out this distro!' peeps are just reinforcing my point", but what else can we tell you? That's the only help that Linux users can give, because there's no "one" distro and never will be. That's what I meant.

Anyway, my only point is that for Linux to ever have a chance to achieve mainstream acceptance, similarly to what Firefox has accomplished

You're comparing two very different things here. Nobody bothers forking Firefox because a browser only does one specific thing and Firefox does it reasonably well. The protocol it uses is well-documented and standardized. That's a totally different situation from a distro.

If I had the time to learn.

Installations for distros like Mandriva, Fedora, and SuSE are all point and click. There's nothing much to learn there. Using a desktop like Gnome is simple. Any of those come with package management programs to automagically install software. Gnome (and/or the distro) comes with optional system administration tools, so you can manage everything through dialogs and menus.

Or do you mean you don't have the time to learn which distro to use? Maybe you should try out a livecd version of distros? Mandriva has a livecd version of their distro as does SuSE. A livecd lets you evaluate the distro with very little time or effort.

Originally posted by Flipside

Personally, I wouldn't have a problem with taking the plunge into Linux were it not for some compatiblity concerns with things like Lightwave etc,

Softimage XSI and Maya are available for Linux. I don't know if those'd do you any good, but I thought I'd mention it.

[Grey Wolf]

Ubuntu does as well. In retrospect, I should have tried that first.

[IceFire]

I'm plotting to give SuSe a shot.  I'm waiting to see what happens with Version 10.0. From what I understand, it should be even better for people than before.

[Fury]

Originally posted by Kamikaze
Any of those come with package management programs to automagically install software. Gnome (and/or the distro) comes with optional system administration tools, so you can manage everything through dialogs and menus.

Easy to use any of those package management softwares. However, things get usually very difficult when you would need to install something that is not in the distro's package repositories. In Windows, all software installations are handled by graphical installer these days, mostly all you need to do is to click next few times and then finish. But with linux you're lucky if software developers have even pre-compiled binaries available for your distro.

[Kamikaze]

I never have a problem finding packages. I use Debian which allows the user to specify what repositories to install programs from in a source list. So I often add a third party repository if I really need some software and don't want to compile it. This box currently has experimental audio software (for APE support and such) from an unofficial repository. It'e easy to find such repositories on, say, http://www.apt-get.org

Many applications supply debs or rpms too, which can be installed "point and click". Just open your file manager, double click and type in your password. I don't think that's very hard.

[WMCoolmon]

I just installed Windows 2000/Kubuntu today.

Windows:
Idiotic thing wouldn't recgonzie the rest of the partitions, and forced me to install it on the first primary one. (I have a primary, then a bunch of logical). Fortunately, this made sense given my setup.

Once I got past the hassle caused by Microsoft half-assing the section of the installer that handles adding drivers for things like my SATA drive, and the above error, install went pretty smoothly.

To be fair, though, I should mention that I was only able to get to this point because I slipstreamed service pack 4 onto a Windows 2000 install CD. Without it, the installer screen for custom driver disks crashes no matter what. Way to go, Microsoft.

Kubuntu64 Linux:
Install seemed to go fine. Then I discovered that the system would only half-install. After running fsck, and wrecking the partition to the point that it was no longer bootable, I decided to try a new filesystem and reinstall. But GRUB didn't support that one, so I tried JFS. That seemed to work, but then I started getting the same error as before.

So I played on a hunch and quit out of the virtually-useless aptitutde. It has a nice little user-friendly error that tells you exactly what happened in easily understandable terms, and then apparently expects you to know and install each one of the packages individually yourself.

I then removed my CD from the apt sources list, removed the corrupt .deb file in the apt cache, and forced it to download the package in question from the server. After that everything worked well; my soundcard even works out of the box, once I'd unmuted it. The GUI mixer is actually useful, too.

Kaffeine still crashes, and I have yet to get DVD players working.

READ THIS PART - RARE COMPLIMENT FOR LINUX
Once I'd gotten the core system working, all I had to do to get Firefox and Thunderbird working was right-click them in 'kynaptic' and then click 'install'. Then commit the changes.

But because I'd used my old home partition as well, both programs were setup exactly as I'd had them before - no hassle, no fuss, no need to export anything from some registry.