[S-99]

For me the worst thing to have ever dawned on linux is that evil little package called network-manager. It was made by redhat, and it's overall idea is good. It gives you the same kind of network functionality that is present in windows xp. It gives you a little icon next to your clock in the system tray, you can click it and connect to wired and wireless networks. The only problem with it is that it works like crap.

The kde front end for network manager is horrible, mess around with it too much and you'll pretty much break it so it won't automatically detect your wired net connection or detect wireless connections. The gnome front end for network-manager is a lot better, but still suffers from the same crapiness that network-manager provides overall.

Network-manager sucks, it absolutely hates my orinoco wireless card which is renowned for it's linux compatibility, and working with a wired connection in network-manager can be a slow downhill experience as well.

Much better alternatives to network-manager is WICD and Drakconf with net_applet in mandriva and pclinuxos. They solve the scourge of a problem which is popularity with network-manager (many distributions use network-manager religiously). My only solution is to replace network-manager with wicd, or use net_applet with a distribution that uses drakconf. The two alternatives are so much better.

Network-manager sucks.

[Nuke]

i have to agree. its too easy to break the thing with the gui. i have a bunch of ralink based wifi cards, which also have good linux support. the network manager is incapable of staying connected for very long. i frequently have to dis/re-connect each time the network stopped working (which happens ), sometimes even requiring a reboot. i also had to use wpa supplicant which was equally bad. it was so bad that ive stopped using linux all together, which sucks because i really liked gcc.

[S-99]

Oh man, yeah that's what i'm talking about there with network-manager. The only real way to fix it is to **** around with wicd, or if you don't feel like ****ing with anything and just want your net interfaces to just work, then download pclinuxos or mandriva as they don't use network-manager at all, they use their own connection programs which are completely awesome.

Now for people who wouldn't want to switch distro's for drakconf and it's net_applet...i'm curious if drakconf would work on other distro's because the rpms are up for download, and you can use alien to turn them into deb's and stuff. Though that's a lot of work, somebody should attempt it some time.

[Ghostavo]

I actually like it, but I mostly use gnome and xfce instead of kde.

[S-99]

Network-managers front ends for kde and gnome sucks as well as network-manager in general. You may actually like it, which suggests it actually likes your computer

Something tells me you have one wired ethernet adapter and nothing else. That's about the only configuration that network-manager can handle, because it's horrible at connecting to, and rarely staying connected with wireless devices to wireless connections.

It doesn't matter what DE you got, network-manager is the same on all distros that got it, just that it's got a qt front end for kde, and the same gtk front end that will be in use for gnome and xfce. The only thing that was nice about the gnome front end was that it wasn't so easy to break as the kde variant. Network-manager on any DE remains just as dysfunctional, what makes it worse is that the kde front end gives even more dysfunctionality. Usually those who use kde and the few people that network-manager does work properly for, would do themselves a huge service and replace the network-manager-kde package with the network-manager-gnome package and use that in kde instead. I have no idea if that would let kde users resist network-manager front end breakage.

The other reason why network-manager can suck is yet again for those who use kde. Kde 3.5.x has a very bad network interface manager (i'm talking about the one that's inside kcontrol that controls your network interfaces). That's why those who use kde would do themselves a service and get rid of the network interface control module inside kcontrol and the whole distro by removing it's package, and replace it with something more like wicd (that's why wicd rocks, you can actually use it to completely replace whatever network interface control system you had before, or you can use it conjunction with whatever network interface control system (idk why people would do that, if they need two, it means the other one doesn't work as good or as expected and should be gotten rid of for the better one) you currently have). Another reason why i like gnome network interface controls as long as they have nothing to do with network-manager, and why i also eagerly await the stable release of kde 4 because i hope it's default network interface control thingie will be a lot better than kde 3.5.x's, if not, i'll just get rid of the package with something better.

[Ghostavo]

I rarely (if ever) used wired connections. Hell, I use wireless networks on a daily routine and I rarely disconnect.

[S-99]

Good, it works for you.

[Ghostavo]

Which linux distribution do you use by the way?

[S-99]

I was getting tired of debian lately, with everything being debian the only thing that worked good from debian was debian stable and not much else and whatever random concoction ubuntu makes that is stable most of the time and sometimes not.

Tried opensuse, it blew, tried doing fedora...once again plagued with the network-manager problem there as well as ubuntu did to me. Totally uninterested in having to replace any kind of network interface module with a better one at that time. Then i checked out mandriva, mandriva runs pretty dang slow, so i moved onto pclinuxos which is astounding, it blows ubuntu out of the water!

Anyway, like mandriva, pclinuxos features the drakconf control panel which also has a very great working network interface control module, and utilizes net_applet. Pclinuxos seeming like a bastard child a while ago is really nice and is an rpm distribution done right (it uses apt for package managing, so it's really no different than using debian except everything's rpm which has also not given me a problem with this distro at all).

[WMCoolmon]

This thread really speaks to me.

Tonight, I decided to try and get my main Linux install working. I was successful; but let me tell the tale.

The problem started out very simple; ages ago, I had upgraded Kubuntu (yes, I tried to use the proper installer and it crashed). I could run my X server using vesa, but not using the nvidia drivers; so no hardware acceleration, and only one screened worked, and only at stretched 1024x768.

I found some very simple instructions to install the nvidia driver. With some trepidation, I followed the instructions.

Tried another five times, using various ways and a deprecated helper program, and much xorg.conf editing.

Finally, I tried the "new" driver a second time. I uninstalled everything having to do with the linux drivers, then installed nvidia-glx-new and nvidia-new-kernel-source. But for some retarded reason, only the source was located in the apt repository and that didn't work with apt-build. So I logged onto the ubuntu apt web site using another computer, found the list of files for the installed source package, found where the .tar.gz was residing. Then I extracted it and stumbled around until I found the right directory to start building from, after being decoyed by a directory called "debian" with an empty readme.

The configuration utilities were essentially crap and bloated my xorg.conf file, so I had already written one with a decent configuration by this point. And after I had compiled and installed the new kernel sources, it was done. How easy! Just like the instructions said it would be.

Pengu save the other users of the oh-so-rare 7600GT, lest they run afoul of Kubuntu's "easy-to-use" driver upgrade process.

[WMCoolmon]

Hmm...KDE4 is sparkly, but the changes most instantly apparent are the obfuscation of the start menu, and that I can't move the system bar to the right screen. It also seems somewhat slower and less responsive than either KDE3 or Windows 2000. This must be the Linux community's response to Windows Vista.

EDIT: And this, not any other reason, is why Linux continues to have extremely poor widespread use. You cannot expect that your users have a degree in computer science or similar knowledge in order to be able to upgrade their system and have it work. So long as compile-from-source crap and debugging for 2-3 hours is the norm, "free" software is just too damn costly for anybody to use.

Right now I have a system that, with another few hours of work and probably a lot more power-user-style tweaking will have 3/4 the capabilities of my Windows system. The only benefit is idealistic and a hobbyistic sense of satisfaction. Linux work ethic just can't be "RTFM", it has to be a flat-out better alternative to Windows (Pick one: Faster, more reliable, more compatible, easier to use. Now the rest have to be near the same level as Windows, you can't just skimp on all the rest because you've got one down).

I've never had Windows 2000 go bottoms-up because of Windows update or new video card drivers. That's an eight-year-old OS right there, and it still kicks Linux's butt given an equivalent amount of man-hours.

[S-99]

Linux really is a good operating system. But really only recommended for power users. After that your troubles with linux could be alleviated by choosing the perfect right distro for you. Basically if you know how to build a computer and tweak any version of windows out the ass (aside from vista), then you are ready for the technical difficulties of linux. It's just that you may have gotten too used to the technical difficulties of windows so you may prefer those over the uncharted lands of linux difficulties which in retrospect are very similar to windows. I'd say keep treading along with linux and mess around with it on a different computer, separate partition, livecd, or the least preferable virtual pc. Experience increases through use and exposure in this case which will also result in more powerful abilities. And i really also don't know how power users can even really be power users if they only know how to use windows. After all, those who only use one kind of software will only know how to use that one kind of software (sadly enough it's true).

First thing for linux is don't use ubuntu. I have a 7600gt as well, i've had no problem getting it to work in gutsy, but once it works in gutsy with 3d hardware acceleration, it makes my nic for no apparent reason just not work. Ubuntu is sometimes good, never really still.

I'm pretty good at using linux, there's no problem i can't get over in it, but i'm a solidified distro hopper. I like messing around with the really cool distros all the time. The only good ones in my opinion is linux mint (unfortunately based on gutsy gibbon so you'll have the same problems with it as you had with straight up ubuntu...it's just that linux mint is ubuntu done properly in my opinion), mepis (great way to get a fast install of debian stable onto your system...if not that, it's an awesome livecd), and pclinuxos is the highest on my list.

Reasons why you should try pclinuxos?
Check out drakconf and how it makes configuring your system really easy and makes it work...it's also very user friendly.
It's fast, and i've found it to be pretty stable.
It's got good repositories.
It also is a livecd so you can try before you install.

Win2k is not a bad os at all. That's a piece of software microsoft made too good, and xp in general is a very good os, aside from product activation. Vista blows ass.
I would say a couple of reasons why kde4 was running slow for you is that it's not officially ready to be used at all yet aside from testing, and also other distributions are faster than others, the slowest i've seen was the latest version of mandriva.

[castor]

I've found a linux box to be very simple to set up once you have tinkered a good collection of the basic configuration files to use. I have all my precious rc files stored on a USB stick.
After the base install and drivers are done, it only takes minutes to get the desktop to behave exactly like I want it (something I was never able to do with windows).
Admittedly, I don't use KDE or anything that gets easily broken.

[S-99]

Gnome's cool sometimes, but really the only distribution that did gnome justice was linux mint. I'm a kde guy, but as soon as i use linux mint i love gnome. Of course my problem with linux mint is the ubuntu base. After that gnome isn't technical enough for me (it holds my hand too much), gtk is great though, xfce is nice when you need it. Vectorlinux and zenwalk do xfce justice, xubuntu does not, xubuntu is really worthless.

The one thing i found in the linux community is the equinox desktop environment. It looks really cool, i want to use it, it's still being developed, and only a couple of distributions have it in there repositories

It's way leaner than xfce is, faster than xfce, and runs faster on older hardware compared to xfce. Equinox desktop is in a whole different world when compared to xfce. But, i mainly want to use it because it looks really cool and would be awesome to have as a default desktop environment on normal hardware for everyday system use (this lesser known DE, but is very cool).

The benefits of equinox desktop, very damn fast, about 7 or 8mb in size to download, even better for users who are transitioning from windows to linux (it looks like xp in classic mode). It also looks like something that'd be fun to mess around with and tweak. I'm going to see if i can make it run on my machine, and if possible make some rpm's if other people want it.

[Nuke]

i might try that pclinuxos, sounds good. only problem is i dont like linux on my main pc. i had a problem where linux and vista decided not to like each other. essentially every time i booted one, the other one wouldnt boot on the next restart. id have to dig out their respective cds and to a fix from the installer. so i removed linux, and my vista partition has the words delete me written all over it.

my mom uses my second best compute. my other 3 cops are either slow (800mhz slow!) or suffer from failing hardware (my college computer which has been abused, ). linux doesnt perform well (or at all) on those. other than wifi issues and incompatibilities with some of my sim hardware(windows only gadgets that have no linux drivers), i dont have any problems with linux.

one os im really looking forward to is reactos. which is an open source windows clone of sorts.

[S-99]

Reactos will be cool when it comes out. It's going to essentially be winxp compatibility with linux compatibility in the same bag. When it comes out i just may want to use it too. Another project in the meantime that i found that also works pretty dang good is E/os. It's a multiplatform emulator, and i's very tiny also. I tested out the windows executable for it in class, and it was nice. It also uses the equinox desktop which also accounts for it's small size. After starting it up i was able to run winprograms inside of it, then again my test was with E/os running the windows variant of opera. That was all i had time for in class.