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Fedora, SuSE And Mandrake Compared
gmuslera writes "This weekend 2 comparisions were made between latest Fedora, SuSE and Mandrake Linux distributions. The first one was done by FlexBeta and in general goes deep, done by people that seem to know Linux, and good around its 9 pages. The later one was done by The Washington Post (yahoo news link) and shows another view of those 3 distributions, from someone that seems to dislike Linux and don't know enough about it. In what of those extremes are the average new user experience with those distributions?" Update: 07/06 01:01 GMT by T : Note that long-time Washington Post tech writer Rob Pegaroro doesn't seem to dislike Linux -- far from it; he's just writing what he sees as truth.
I've been using Linux (almost exclusively) for probably 8 or 9 years now. I set out to install Mandrake 10 on my new network last week (old thinkpad laptop and new shuttle MB). It took me several days and lots of "ifup" hacking to get my Netgear WG511 wireles card finally working. (It still causes a 60s pause during bootup, but I'm happy that it works)
I still can't get xdmcp to work right. What the hell are all those MIT_MAGIC_COOKIE-1 errors that I'm getting from my Xserver?!?
Linux is great and all, but it requires more persistance than most people have. I think that Washington Post fellow struck the correct tone. Linux still isn't for everyone. Maybe when more hardware vendors get on board and release open drivers....
From the Post:
Unfortunately, to install any of these versions without wiping out most Windows installations, you'll need to buy a third-party program to partition your hard drive.
Which is, of course, wrong. Using parted and a graphical frontend like QTparted, you can easily resize partitions. The last SUSE install I helped out with had a partition resizer during the install. Did they take this feature out?
Let me begin this with the disclaimer that I am fairly new to Linux. I can do all of the basic stuff fairly well, but when it comes to having to hack out wierd stuff that doesn't work right off the bat, I'm...well, deficient.
/dev/sda1 to /mnt/jump and I'm all set. But for some reason Mandrake doesn't set up an sda1 and I'm too newbed to know how to fix that myself.
Anyway, my first choice for Linux is definitely Mandrake. The interface is beautiful, fast and easy and it runs stable (I've had some stability problems with Fedora) all of the time. So why don't I used it? Well, first of all, Mandrake HATES my trackball mice. I have two of them, one from Logitech and one from some other company I can't remember. Anyway, both the mandrake install and mandrake itself refuse to recognize these mice. That wasn't too too bad, I can handle using the regular kind of mouse. But then came the USB problem. No distribution of Mandrake that I have tried up to and including 10.0 liked my USB flash drive. On Fedora I just mount
The final thing I have against Mandrake is its configuration tools. Fedora comes with a nice set of tools to configure all of the stuff I want to use / customize and it always works. Mandrake's on the other hand, have a bad habit of reverting to the settings it liked without even trying my new ones.
I'm running Fedora 2 right now and it works fairly well and does all of the stuff I need it too (it's much better than Fedora 1 for reliability IMHO), but as soon as Mandrake gets to liking my trackballs and jumpdrives I will have no hesitation in switching over.
If you can't say something nice, make sure you have something heavy to throw.
Oh God NO!!!! Anything but the command line. I need pretty pictures and maybe a dancing paper clip thingy. It's too much to remember a few commands.
It's not so much a need as a preference. Can new users *really* be bothered to learn how to use the command line? No. Should all users have to drop to command line? I don't buy it. Does lack of command-line use make an Operating System inferior?
No, look at how Apple do it. Most 'new users' WANT their bright shiny GUI interface and won't want to dig under the hood to get things working. I'd say the need to drop to command line a lot is the main reason a lot of people don't switch to Linux (probably second after it's inability to run games without the likes of Wine or WineX). The command line looks daunting to new users. Big shiny buttons that tell you exactly what they do look easy. First appearances count for a lot, as does ease of use. command-line does not look easy-to-use. Be it an installer, a program or the whole OS, if it looks easy to use, if it is easy to use, a lot of people will use it. A lot of people dont care about the technical details and 'getting to know their computer', they just want a quick and easy way to get everything done so they can do their work (or play). Just ask the guys at Apple.
Oh, and leave Clippy alone, Clippy is your fr... OK, I concede that one, Clippy is a bastard.
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
You don't even have to look as far back as the C64. Just think of Windows 3.1. This was merely a graphical shell on top of DOS. Remember the days of tweaking autoexec.bat and config.sys files so you could squeeze out that extra of lower memory so Windows would run? Remember editing PIF files? Or heaven forbid having to actually type "windows" to get Windows started?
Yet is was during this era when Windows was unsuitable for the home desktop that Microsoft aquired its monopoly on the home desktop. But command line Unix with a KDE or GNOME shell is too difficult for the newbie. Somehow we have to eliminate the command line completely before ZDNet editors will be able to use it...
Don't blame me, I didn't vote for either of them!
Let me just agree with the parent. I am a many year windows user, and have taken courses in college in server linux setup, mail, ftp, etc... but this was in RedHat 7.0. I never really was a Linux guru, and hadn't used it for 2 years so I am rusty at best. I just picked up SUSE 9.1 Pro for $90 this past friday, and have run into this sort of attitude trying to get help from the supposed linux community (as I don't believe SUSE tech support was open late at night or would cover getting nVidia 3d working (BTW - what legalities in distroing it...??? I paid SUSE, can't they license it from nVidia or something?)).
.4 I think(Worms clone found in happypenguin site I think). Any pointers, or step by step for SuSe 9.1 Pro of course appreciated.
Let me just say that they were less than helpful. Forum posts were unanswered, even today (Ok, it's free - but most people don't wait 4+ days for help). Chat rooms were downright rude!
Now, I guess I approached the chat rooms wrong, but I really doubt many people go into a chat room and ask for help until they have exhausted their knowledge of other information sources. I at least try the vendor's site. There I got redirected to a SUSE howto so I didn't try google, I tried to follow those instructions.
Not helped by dial-up, the US servers are atrocious, and the german ones fail at least 30% of the time where I am. This right away leads me to wonder wth? So I keep messing around, and figure out it's just network issues. So I finally get YaST to download "information" about updates - this takes a good hour. What the heck info is THIS??? When it finishes, it says "no updates available"
Now, I know this is wrong, or the HowTO is wrong, cause the HowTo says to select "install nVidia drivers" from a list that I think is supposed to appear here. But - there is no list.
Now, nowhere in the HowTo does it say what to do if there isn't a list or option in YaST. So I join an IRC chatroom #Linux in freenode. I'm ignored completely for about 30 min, I take the hint and try elsewhere.
I try Yahoo linux, solaris, bsd room. Here I impart the above information, am promptly told RTFM, and that I am stupid, and iggyed for being a moron.
Well thank you very much, I think I'll go back to WinXP now where I can at least manage to install nVidia drivers gasp without a manual ! So I give up for a while and do some useful stuff in windows (which works).
Then I decide I am taking the easy way out. Rinse and repeat above.
Ok - third try is the charm, some nice person listens to my problem in yahoo, and tells me that I have to "reload all patches" from the server, and this is not enabled in YaST by default for some reason... and if I don't check this, YaST wasts a long time downloading something, but doesn't actually do anything. Well, I should have guessed! I normally wouldn't reload something unless I had already had some values previously loaded.
I do this, and presto it works! YAY!
Most people I think would have concluded that SuSe is broken, Linux's vaunted community is populated by assholes, and go back to windows not to look back for another 2 years (if ever) and used maybe even ended up with Longhorn.
Ok, this is something that will have to change. Even the yahoo windows rooms aren't this dismissive - far from it in my experiance. There people don't auto ignore you for asking (of all things) "Can I ask a question?" or "How do I download something?". At least these people get some help - they have to act far dumber than I was to get put down and Iggyied.
Maybe MS free supporters expect a much lower IQ, IDK, but they certainly make those looking for help feel more welcome. Linux will never get on the average users machines if they are insulted trying to get the basics to work.
Now, I'm on a quest to try and install something not listed in YaST. Similar results. FYI its Worx
Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3