Moving To Linux

norburym writes "This is an interesting format for a techie book geared at non-techies: instead of providing a detailed installation and configuration instruction set for a particular full Linux distribution, Marcel Gagne has included a Knoppix CD with his book, Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye! The author's intention is clearly to give the reader a no-risk introduction to Linux. As such, this book is not intended for power users or professionals; there are other books more suited for this market. At the same time, this book is not really for the Dummies style audience, either. It's for the Windows user who is looking to migrate to the Linux platform and find solutions to his or her day to day computing needs." Read on for the rest of norburym's review.
Since the book comes with Knoppix and the author's purpose is to introduce the Linux desktop immediately, the first few chapters of this book only briefly describe what Linux versions are available, how to get a copy and how to install your chosen distro. Gagne gives some example installation choices with Mandrake, Redhat and SuSE. The next two chapters deal with using and customizing the author's desktop environment of choice (KDE) and exploring with Konquerer.

Chapter 7 provides a "release-agnostic" approach to package installation with examples and screen shots from Kpackage, RPM installs via shell and building from source. Most readers will become quite familiar with Chapter 8: Working with Devices, despite the author's exclamation that "Device support under Linux is excellent. No, really." Printing looms large in this chapter and there's some good advice to be had here for the newbie. The next several chapters tackle getting connected to the Internet, email and using Konquerer and Mozilla. In short, mainstream user necessities. Mandrake, RedHat, SuSE, and Ximian are all represented in the chapter on system updates along with a pitch to get involved in the Linux community (this is a good thing).

The make-or-break chapters for those readers requiring office productivity solutions come near the half point of the book. Gagne gives an overview of OpenOffice.org's suite of MS Office counterparts. These are really meant as introductory lessons on migrating from the more familiar, more ubiquitous MS suite of applications and not intended as an in-depth look at OpenOffice.org. Here is where the user will judge whether Linux is a viable alternative to Windows. Productivity is essential. Can you create a document that can be shared in a Windows dominant world? Can you do it without struggling to learn new rules and exceptions to the rules? Gagne makes a strong pitch for ease of use in the Linux world.

The final chapters on multimedia and games round out the topics that every semi-literate computer user has on their "must know how to" list. Under multimedia, KsCD, XMMS and Noatun are covered, including visualization plugins and skins. K3b, Grip and MPlayer are also described. Favorite Linux games are represented: KSirtet, KAsteroids, Frozen-Bubble, KBattleship, KPatience, KPoker ... well, you get the idea!

Care has been taken in laying out the book; from the beautiful typography, the boxed asides with Quick Tips, Shell Outs and Notes to the Resources list at the end of each chapter. The book is easy to read and the author has a crisp conversational style of writing devoid of distracting anecdotes or sophomoric humor (chapter subheadings aside!). Gagne succeeds in providing a guidebook to Linux that should enable the average Windows users to make a smooth transition to a Linux distro of their choice. At the very least, Gagne gives the nervous Windows-to-Linux wannabe an excellent bootable Knoppix CD to test drive while following along in the book. I wouldn't hesitate to recommend this book to someone who is looking to give Linux a spin but is afraid to commit their working PC to Linux entirely. This book and the accompanying CD will ease the way toward independence from Windows.

You can purchase Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye! from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

Comments

For Those That Don't Know

[OctaneZ]

Marcel Gagne writes an amusing and informative monthly Column for Linux Journal called Cooking with Linux.

Re:For Those That Don't Know

[ghostlibrary]

... and if he uses the same idiotic writing gimmick of pretentious wine tasting mixed with bad french food metaphors for his book, that he overuses in his column, well, I'll just go insane right now.

Re:For Those That Don't Know

[thephotoman]

It might be better if he talked less about wine, and more about WINE.

Re:For Those That Don't Know

[gnugnugnu]

agreed there is nothing amusing about his writing style, a whole book written like that would be unbearable

Re:For Those That Don't Know

[miketo]

Oh, thank god. I thought I was the only one who found that "French chef" schtick utterly obnoxious! It may be funny in a Muppet, but it's moronic in a columnist.

Re:For Those That Don't Know

[malarkey]

The "French chef" schtick is not funny because it's in a Muppet. As a matter of fact, you must be thinking of the Swedish chef.

It's funny because it's Swedish, bork bork.

See?

Re:For Those That Don't Know

[jhpatton]

1...2...3....GO!

Re:For Those That Don't Know

[Red Alastor]

I've read the book and no, I didn't found any cooking reference.

One reference to wine (not the software), once in the book. That's all.

Huh

[thephotoman]

I do kind of like these books that help ordinary people go to Linux. I know one of them even worked for me, and I'm to the point that I'm ready to ditch Windows on my desktop and go with just Linux. Furthermore, the LiveCD distro included is a good idea, just in case the person doesn't like what they see.

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Good by BSOD, Hello segfault!

Re:Huh

[Anonymous Coward]

Poking around in core files is much like poking around in the burnt entrails of a sacrifice to the elder gods. Much can be divined. Plus, the lay people will look at you with awe.

Re:Huh

[maja33]

Same here. I (as linux user with some experience) had great help from "Linux for Non-Geeks: clear-eyed answers for pratical consumers" by Rodwriter (isbn: 0-9726867-0-3). Great book for newbies, shipped with Knoppix and had lots of chapters on word-processing.
The perfect help for a secretary to switch to linux.

Re:Huh

[fluffybacon]

I do kind of like these books that help ordinary people go to Linux.

I think you lost all claims to being an odinary person the first time you posted on slashdot.

Re:Huh

[fitten]

The problem is that Linux changes so fast that by the time any book is in print, it is outdated. Some stuff in it might be still good, but some things will no doubt be wrong (which will/can cause frustration if the person downloads the lastest version of the distro, which he/she will need to do to get the best support and bug fixes).

Re:Huh

[Merdalors]

Hear! Hear! I've just started using Linspire, and I've lost count of the "Error encountered. Report to (someone or other...). At least Windows has the decency of displaying a stack address.

BTW when's the last time you had to consult a friendly user support group in order to use IE?

Re:Huh

[adrizk]

Ok, a pro XP comment in a Linux related discussion is more likely to get modded as a troll, but the parent post raises an interesting point.

Windows has become (a lot) more stable over the last few years, with 2k and XP, to the point that a lot of users won't understand what a 'Blue Screen of Death' refers to. Couldn't the author of this book have chosen a different subtitle for his book? In the minds of a lot of end users - at whom, ostensibly, this book is aimed - the reliability ship has already sailed - Windows is more than adequate for their needs.

Not that I would bet any money on Windows vs. Linux in reliability, but I use XP in my job (software development) and haven't had any problems with it either.

Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

a desktop OS should be easy enough to use that the idea of buying a book on how to run it would be redundant. One can dream.

Re:Irony

[fantastic max]

Yet there are plenty of books out there that teaches one how to use MacOS and Windows. So by that logic, all desktop OSes are difficult to use. And these days, any time someone writes a book about how to use these, they instantly call it "Hacking Windows/OSX".

Re:Irony

[thephotoman]

Well, nothing is foolproof. Especially when you're changing mindsets entirely. Linux commands aren't the same as DOS prompt commands, and installing tarballs can be a bit confusing if you have no knowledge of the system, somebody's got to explain it to you. Not everybody has an expert in the neighborhood to talk to. If Linux was more common, these books wouldn't be as necessary.

Re:Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

i also have a dream, that one day, i will no longer need to wipe my ass. hopefully, that one day will come.

/sarcasm.

there's nothing ironic about your statement. linux can be pretty difficult to use, and this guy is trying to show people with a cd that it's not so bad. no need to bash him over this. i mean, he's doing more to help make things easier than you seem to be. but i guess nobody wants to tell the armchair quarterback that dreaming won't get him anywhere.

Re:Irony

[nz_mincemeat]

That is one very true ideal!

However I think the bare minimum needed for anybody contemplating a change of OS would be a functional-equivalent list of applications for both platforms, listed by file type.

Re:Irony

[Short Circuit]

It's been said before, but the only intuitive interface is the nipple.

Re:Irony

[Cromac]

Yet there are plenty of books out there that teaches one how to use MacOS and Windows. So by that logic, all desktop OSes are difficult to use.

They are all difficult to use. Have you ever participated in any usability studies with people who have no computer experience? There is nothing intuititive about using a computer. There are things that seem intutitive after years of using a computer, but to someone with no background they're all overly difficult to use.

Re:Irony

[johnny_sas]

True, but if something has too much 'ease of use' then it's usually not powerful enough.

There's a balance that must to struck between the two, and Linux if finally getting there (Knoppix is a good example I think), where the average Windows "don't bother with IRQs and DLLs"-type users can actually start using Linux without a really steep learning curve, or too much trouble installing it.

Re:Irony

[AmaDaden]

I totally agree. I feel that is the ONLY thing holding Linux back from kicking windows out of most PCs just like Firefox kicked off IE. (I know firefox is still not on most PCs but it is DEFFENTLY on it's way to being there.) I SO desperately wish that someone would just make a Linux distro that was as easy as windows when it comes to just jumping in to it. I love to be able to do what ever I want to Linux but you CAN NOT just jump in to it. I know some of you will say 'but I just installed it on my [insert relative here] and they can use it just fine', but are they installing things? Using more then just a web browser? Gaming at all? It's getting better all the time but it's still not able to be just given to someone with no intro.

Re:Irony

[severoon]

Well, but I don't think it's useful to dismiss these kinds of comments about Linux not being easy to use. It's true.

Here's an example...when you have to install an app from a tarball. What's a tarball? It's an aggregated set of files in a tar, for tape archive. No one uses tapes anymore. No one that has this bit of knowledge will necessarily understand the two phase process of aggregating files and then zipping them. No one really deals with zips anymore in the Windows world...now they have installation executables.

Linux has that too, and that's fine. But can you completely run a Linux system and flex it in all different ways without being a C programmer, or dealing with tarballs, or any of the other myriad arcane activities that Linux home admins eventually find themselves doing?

I dunno. Maybe. I haven't installed a Linux system for about 3 years, so maybe they've made great strides in this regard. But if they have, I'd have to point out that no one's really waging a campaign to make sure I know about it.

I'll include my standard caveat with this post. I like Linux, I like what it stands for and what it represents. I like the functionality, the apps, the free software...I like it all. Theoretically, I like it all. In the real world, though, I find myself running Windows. I keep meaning to run Linux up, and someday I will once more. But every time I run into a major problem, I revert back to Windows for a while until I get the time to forge back into Linux. Could I solve these problems and stay true to the Linux ideal? Sure...but I have a life outside of hacking my box.

Re:Irony

[Otter]

Yet there are plenty of books out there that teaches one how to use MacOS and Windows.

Actually, if you go by "the fewer books, the easier the OS" logic, I'd say MacOS is the hands-down winner. With a larger desktop share than Linux, there are far more Linux books that Mac books in any general or technical bookstore that I've ever seen. Back in the days of Classic MacOS, you'd be hard pressed to find even a single Mac book in a lot of stores.

Re:Irony

[AKAImBatman]

And it's been said before (including by your article) that nipples are not intuitive. You have to teach babies how to use it. Thank God they're fast learners. I don't think I could withstood someone freaking out about the kid not eating. ;-)

Re:Irony

[Anonymous Coward]

There is nothing intuititive about using a computer.

There is nothing intuititive about using a sewing machine either. A human being can deduce how to use a baseball bat or a crutch, but any complex machinery requires some instruction.

Re:Irony

[Lxy]

According to Novell, there was a recent test of non computer users and various UIs (Windoze, Linux, MacOS, I think a couple others). What they learned was A) non users found the Linux UI to be the easiest to use but B) ALL UIs really, REALLY suck.

Re:Irony

[ciderbob]

I concur, at least windows has the courtesy of providing a blue screen to tell you its crashed.

Re:Irony

[pherthyl]

So computers are not simple or intuitive to use. Big deal, nothing is.

Have you ever participated in any usability studies with people who have no <insert machine here> experience?

Cars, bikes, multimeters, guns, vcrs, spinning machines, etc etc. Any reasonably complex tool is not intuitive! And none of these tools are nearly as complex as a computer!
I don't know what all the whining is about. You want to use a computer, you need to learn how to use it first!

Breaking news! People new to a computer have trouble moving the mouse. Don't expect to create a complex, but intuitive user interface. The best you can do is discoverable.

Re:Irony

[SoSueMe]

Think about what you first used Windows (or DOS, if you're old enough).
What did you know then. How long did it take you to learn everything you know about Windows?

Why should you think that you should be able navigate around Linux with less exposure? Is it that because you know Microsoft's version of "computing", you know computers?

I know only a little about linux because I'm still learning. If I look at how long I've been in the MS environment and what I know now, I've got a few years until I am fully proficient with Linux.
I am willing to give myself, and Linux, the latitude of tha learning curve.

Re:Irony

[Lodragandraoidh]

Here is my wife's list of files that she regularly uses on her machine: .doc .xls .pdf (read only) .html .org (organizer file for a proprietary todo/addressbook/calendar app)
email (not particularly a file type)

She doesn't use an MP3 player, she doesn't read or generate presentations, and then only reason she was using IE was to support the brain dead activeX controls some of my daughter's favorite websites use.

So, I got her Open Office, FireFox, Thunderbird, kept Acrobat Reader and her proprietary organizer application.

She is starting to get the hang of Open Office...bought the Open Office for Dummies book herself.

I could easily move her over to Linux now (and that is the eventual plan) with little if any impact on what she does.

This is probably the profile of most niave users of Windows. So, weening them off of the Microsoft Windows is probably a no-brainer.

One of the things that I think I take for granted is the ease of moving back and forth between OSs. I know both paradigms, and so can be productive in either OS - although I prefer Linux. My wife did not know both - and I tried feeding it to her cold turkey - first loading Linux on her old machine...but that approach didn't take. She fought it tooth and nail because she was not used to the idea of a flexible interface - she only knew one way of doing things - the M$ way.

Insight gained; when I bought her new computer, I was not about to shell out for MS Office professional - so I showed her the additional costs associated with the software she wanted, then showed her the free alternatives - and she bit. I showed her some basic things (yes it can read all your old files; yes you can create new files and save them in the old format...etc) then let her use it with the option of loading the proprietary stuff if she really couldn't make do. She has not mentioned wanting to go back - however, she did mention to me one day that she didn't know, intuitively, how to do some arcane function under Open Office that she knew how to do under MS Office. I nochelantley(sic) said, "why don't you do what you did to learn MS Office - buy a book", which is exactly what she did.

This is the key point: to break them of their dependency you must do it slowly in stages. Once they see how similar the tools are, then they can be made to understand a different desktop manager - perhaps through booting Knoppix from CD or setting up a 'dual boot' system...then slowly convince them to make the final leap into Linux for good. Once that is done, and everyone is on the same sheet of music, then your job becomes much easier as a system admin (by default I manage every machine in my house - even when pointing out their own culpability in creating the problem in the first place falls on deaf ears.

Re:Irony

[SoSueMe]

I just gave my dog a linux machine. He lifted his leg at it the same as he did with XP.

Of course his idea of an "intuitive" interface is a bit more simple than mine.
His goes like this: "If you can't eat it or screw it, piss on it."

Re:Irony

[el-spectre]

yeeeeeeeeesssss, and most of said Linux books are about tweaking/optimizing/customizing your box, something that Mac pretty much discourages.

Re:Irony

[mailtomomo]

I hope the computer wasn't powered ...

Re:Irony

[MP3Chuck]

There is nothing intuititive about $task. There are things that seem intutitive after years of $task, but to someone with no background in $task they're all overly difficult to [do].

Re:Irony

[biendamon]

I think you have some very good points, but I think you're discounting the improvements that have already been made.

Most distros have a package management system for adding/removing application easily, without the user having to know more than the root password (to gain the rights necessary to install the package). Users are free to stray into tarballs if they desire, and go through the whole ./configure && make && make install process, but they're not forced to.

Especially with user-oriented distributions like Knoppix, a user can go without seeing a tarball (or even a command line) for most of their computing experience. Need to install an application? Just click on the rpm/deb/whatever, type in your password, and voila!

There's certainly room for improvement, of course. I'd love to see a GUI that can take most tarballs and figure out what dependencies they'll need filled before they're be installed, install those dependencies in an easy, transparent manner, and compile/install the selected application. Gosh, it would be great if it could do that really quickly, too.

Care to write it?

Re:Irony

[Otter]

You mean those books with names like "Ultimate Extreme Power Linux Unleashed!"? As far as I can tell, they mostly teach you about using cd and mv and launching an MP3 player, none of which Apple discourages.

Re:Irony

[kaleco]

What an interesting gauge you propose. I better Migrate my family computers over to http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/plan9dist/ ASAP, since it's clearly more intuitive than GNU/Linux, OS X or WinXP!

Re:Irony

[el-spectre]

No. See, "most" indicates that I was talking about the majority, which are programming / security / networking oriented. Take a gander at the O'Reilly website and you'll see what I mean.

Re:Irony

[Brandybuck]

So computers are not simple or intuitive to use. Big deal, nothing is.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of tech reporters not only believe that it's possible, but that it actually exists in whatever OS they're a shill for. To them, Linux/BSD/Unix will NEVER be ready for the desktop, because they're measuring it against an impossible yardstick.

Re:Irony

[killjoe]

So let me get this straight. You havent installed linux in three years and yet you feel that you are qualified to post an opinion on the state of linux today.

Re:Irony

[RidiculousPie]

There's certainly room for improvement, of course. I'd love to see a GUI that can take most tarballs and figure out what dependencies they'll need filled before they're be installed, install those dependencies in an easy, transparent manner, and compile/install the selected application. Gosh, it would be great if it could do that really quickly, too.

You have seen the future, and the future is called gentoo. Seriously though, portage is excellent for installing packages from source, and is easy to use for a linux beginner.

Re:Irony

[Simon Woodman]

There is a very interesging article about teaching complete newbies a command line interface before a GUI. They found that people understand more in less time. A couple of reasons for this is that they aren't required to multi-task (only one thing happens at once) and it is easier to explain what is happening using simpler analagies.

Once the users undertand the basics of what they are doing it is a lot easier to move to a GUI which is more cluttered with multiple ways of achieving the same goal.

Re:Irony

[severoon]

I haven't installed it in three years, dum-dum. I run it every day. I'm a software engineer by trade and I do most of my development in *nix-based platforms.

At home I have four boxes, 3 of which are Linux. I only have time to keep one up to date, though--the Windows box. Less doc to read, less discussion boards to visit, less to mess with all around. I don't particularly like it, but I can't afford the time to become an expert in adminning my own box, and I can't afford to hire someone else to do it like I have at work.

They still run...I just run into roadblocks and then they sit until I have time to figure it out. Sometimes that roadblock is something I really need to get done, so I move over to Windows. I'm not a casual Linux user, and I'm in software full time by trade. I could figure it out--I could figure anything computer-related out--given the time. I've been working with Linux on and off for about 6 years now, I think I've given it enough of a go.

Now that you realize you've put your foot in it, have a look at my journal entry on the problems people have with Linux, and then maybe you'll be qualified to comment on my thoughts.

I was waiting for at least one /. loudmouth to come along and start shooting it off. Not one to disappoint, I see. I hate it when people are so committed to some lofty ideal that they get blinded to every statement that conflicts with that ideal. It's not good for you, and it's not good for Linux, so knock it off.

Re:Irony

[severoon]

You misunderstand me, I think. I too am willing to give Linux the latitude for the learning curve...it's just that I can't afford to. It's too high, and I don't have the time.

If you scroll down and see my response to loudmouth, you'll see I'm a developer and I work in Linux all the time. I just don't have time to admin the darn thing. I truly hope the new distros take care of all these problems and are truly easy to use and configure...I won't know for a bit until I get time to replace the old installations I have running right now. And I've learned not to make time for these projects if it interferes with my life too much...I've been burned too many times before.

Re:Irony

[killjoe]

If you can't keep your linux updated then you better stop using it. Clearly you are not capable of running linux. People like you become hazards to the internet when your outdated boxes get owned and start spewing spam, worms and what have you.

Sounds like you are a perfect candidate for a Mac though so I'd suggest that for you.

As for me linux works. I am able to keep it updated without any problems. I am able to do my work with.

I am not the only one either. There are millions of people all over the world who are capable of keeping their linux boxes up to date. You are not one of them. No shame in that. Keep using windows or better yet switch to a mac. I also have a mac laptop that I enjoy quite a bit.

Re:Irony

[Eternauta3k]

People new to a computer have trouble moving the mouse

Right you are. I was teaching the house maid how to check her e-mail (with *sigh* IE...) and she found it really hard to move the mouse precisely and to click without moving the mouse.
I guess a trackball would help

Re:Irony

[severoon]

It's as if you were sent from above to prove my point.

For anyone reading this thread, read the above post carefully. The sentiment expressed above is the most corrosive thing to Linux that could possibly be said, and I hear it enough that it ought to be worrisome to anyone that wants Linux to succeed.

This is the attitude holding Linux and all open source back: We don't need users. It's their job to adapt to the software, it's not the software's job to adapt to them. This is one of the unique advantages that business enjoys over open source...in business, you're free to think the same way right up until the profit motive has your boss telling you to adapt the software or get fired. Unfortunately, without that profit motive, there's no limiting factor on this damn-the-customer attitude.

How many people use Linux on the home desktop, percentage-wise? Apparently enough for you, killjoe...everyone else, in your words, "isn't capable of running Linux." Too bad 98% of the home market isn't capable and you don't feel making it accessible to them is important. If your approach wins, Microsoft will always dominate the home desktop.

People like you, killjoe, don't understand that if you like Linux now, with the support that it currently enjoys, you'll love it if it gets a significant chunk of the home market. The advantages of Linux and its business model will go on steroids if only the OS could build critical mass. You're too focused on the good aspects that Linux currently possesses, to the extent you've lost sight of what it could be.

Re:Irony

[killjoe]

Personally I don't care more people use linux. I especially don't want idiots running linux and not updating it for three years and pewing spam and worms all over the internet.

You are not only incompetent but also irresponsible. Pleas shut of your three year old un-updated linux machines right away.

If linux is going to break into the home market it won't do it by appealing to home users. No home user I know actually likes windows. If ease of use was really that important then Apple would have a monopoly right now. You know why they don't? Because nobody gives a shit about how easy a computer is to use.

What you fail to realize is that things like ease of use, ease of updating are completely irrelevant in home adoption. What drives home adoption is corporate adoption. People want to same computer at home that they use at work so that they can take their work home.

Windows won because it became a corporate standard. Linux will win for the same reason. Dumbasses like you will learn linux at work and then buy a PC with it pre-installed for home use.

Hardware Issues

[jacksonai]

One of the main issues with Linux Live CD's is the fact that it is rare for a live cd to properly initialize ALL the hardware on the computer. (i.e. sound card and wireless 802.11) Until something happens to allow universal driver support, live cd's will leave a bad taste in people's mouths who use obscure / cheap hardware (most windows users)

Re:Hardware Issues

[Vancorps]

Might add the fact that kernel 2.6 is incompatible with a lot of older hardware. My servers are still running 2.4 because my raid controller can't initialize with it. Works great for newer equipment but its a safe bet that if anyone were ready to switch they would be running older hardware. This used to be a strength of the linux platform. Not sure when, how, or why it changed.

Re:Hardware Issues

[SkiddyRowe]

Used Knoppix lately?
Found all my hardware quite easily...

Re:Hardware Issues

[CarrionBird]

They really should have a section up front that tells people, "Ok, heres what hardware is supported out of the box. Everything else is likely to be a headache".

Don't lead people on to think that they can just throw any old hardware at it and expect it to work.

MS and Apple have deals where HW makers get to put the logos on thier products if they can show compatibilty. It would be nice if some distro companies would step up and do something similar.

(even better if they tested for general Linux compatibilty, not just thier distrubiton)

Re:Hardware Issues

[Chanc_Gorkon]

Yes and no. I have had these work flawlessly and I have had them even fail to load the Kernel correctly. It's a great idea. It should be (don't have the book) stated in the book taht not everything may work. How is a lvie CD supposed to config your 802.11b card for you? It CAN'T know your WEP or shared WPA key. Best it can do is load the driver with no config. That's it. I think the next edition of this book should also throw in a memory key and you can use that for storing settings on. On first boot, if the /etc or /home is not on the USB Drive, it can create it. It would take some doing, but it should theoretically work. This would show a new person how Linux works and they can work with Linux. After they exhaust the space on the key, they can then decide if they'd liek to install to their hard disk. Heck they could even have the install program migrate the key's data to the hard disk after first mounting it so they can copy data somewhere (external Hard disc...cd's....).

Re:Hardware Issues

[SkiddyRowe]

That's whats so great about Live CDs, you can test out multiple kernels on the hardware. See what works, see what doesn't and weigh the pros and cons of said kernels.

Speed of the 2.6, but no Guba-flaba-ding Target digital camera?

Or 2.4, stable yet has support for said camera?

Re:Hardware Issues

[coolsva]

Another thing to be considered is that these live CDs are basically tuned for one specific purpose, live booting. Try installing one of these distros (if you can) and we encounter slow bootup (because of hardware detection each time) and conflicts if any of the modules are compiled in the kernel and autoconfig messes up the things.

When we have a live cd that can install 'smartly' and continously optimize its configuration (pretty much like windoze) is when joe average be happy and content.

Re:Hardware Issues

[Hatta]

Knoppix is fantastic. I've never had it fail to detect a supported device. As a matter of fact, when I was struggling with a pcmcia 802.11 card on my regular debian install, knoppix configured it just fine. (they really should say in the kernel help for ISA: "this is required for 16 bit pcmcia cards")

Re:Hardware Issues

[cavemanf16]

I finally booted up Knoppix on my main workstation last night in fact. Booted up slowly, but once up it worked like a charm. I didn't really care if the sound card, networking, or other subsystems didn't work perfectly though. Besides, this will be a great demo disk in the future for my wife, other family members, etc. to see just how capable Linux *CAN* be if setup correctly.

Re:Hardware Issues

[AmaDaden]

diddo. Unlike my last Fedora install. Does anybody know why it seems to work perfect all the time and other distros don't? Or am I wrong and it gets messed up on other peoples PCs?

Re:Hardware Issues

[Homology]

One of the main issues with Linux Live CD's is the fact that it is rare for a live cd to properly initialize ALL the hardware on the computer.

Not very likely this is going to happen anytime soon. When some new hardware is inserted, there will be some probing by the kernel. And if the hardware is not recognized, you can see output like :

(manufacturer 0x0, product 0x0) vendor "3Com",
unknown product 0x6000 (class network subclass miscellaneous, rev 0x15)
at cardbus1 dev 0 function 0 not configured

In this case the vendor was known, but the product unkown. It happens to be a OfficeConnect 11Mpbs Wireless LAN 3CRSHPW796 using the ADMtek ADM8211 chipset. But unless the hardware detector is _told_ that is this, in fact, an ADM8211 chipset based wireless card, it can't use the correct driver. So we patch the kernel, and get

atw0 at cardbus1 dev 0 function 0: 3Com 3CRSHPW796 802.11b, revision 1.5
: 3Com 3CRSHPW796 802.11b: irq 10
atw0: RFMD RF, RFMD BBP 802.11 address 00:0d:54:f8:47:97

Much better :-)

Re:Hardware Issues

[magefile]

Because of the number of folks using Linux, most hardware companies won't bother. Linux distros already do this - Mandrake has the best compatibility database I've seen so far. And if $Your_Fav_Distro doesn't have a database, google for "$hardware $your_favorite_distro". Just think of it as looking for another review.

Re:Hardware Issues

[ahfoo]

I use Knoppix on about six machines in various configurations ranging from CD, standard and Mosix terminals, images running off the hard drive, the entire image in RAM as well as variously configured hard drive installs and I love it.
However after having done some hard drive installs. I've backed off from pusing it on Windows users as ardantly as I used to because there are still a lot of loose ends when it comes to hard drive installations and once a windows user tries it on their own machine I find they almost inevitably want to go with a hard drive install which can get a little tricky. It's developing quickly, especially in recent months and with the 2.6 kernel I've seen it burn optical far faster than Nero on Windows, but I still think it's a bit premature compared to what it will soon be. I guess that will always be the case and there's certainly nothing wrong with giving away copies here and now, but it definitely should be presented as a work in progress and that is especially true for people doing hard drive installations.

Re:Hardware Issues

[Homology]

Might add the fact that kernel 2.6 is incompatible with a lot of older hardware.

Not on OpenBSD, that is for sure. And the same is most likely for the other *BSD. New code will not be introduced if it will break existing installations, and if it breaks, they fix it. As an example, when OpenBSD made changes on i386 so that you could boot with kernel above 8GB on the harddisk, alot of testing and effort went into _making sure_ that nothing breaks. This included testing on ancient 386/486 machines.

Perhaps try a more stable OS?

Re:Hardware Issues

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I have a tendency to use relatively obscure hardware (though not cheap, quite the opposite) and yet Knoppix worked fine for me. I was playing MP3s in less than five minutes. Granted, the sound chip is the ESS / Creative type.

Re:Hardware Issues

[maidhc]

It is rare for any Linux distro to properly initialise all hardware. I recently have had the plesure of attempting to install SUSE 9.1 Pro on my Dell 8250. I faced the following complications:

a) Had difficulty reading the CD on my Philps DVD+RW without loading ide-scsi drivers (a command which later had to be removed so I could access the drive once I had installed.

b) Manually install drivers for my Radeon 9700 Pro

c) Dell use a bastardised Creative SB Live! Card with a chipset unsupported by ALSA.

d) Winmodem (Drivers for RH 8/9 available, no Kernel 2.6 support)

e) Must convince my Pen drives/Nomad Mp3 player/Digital Camera to work.

All these things *just work* in XP, and very few people have the time, interest or ability to harass their hardware into working. I recognise that much of these problems lie at the feet of hardware manufacturers who do not wish to release drivers, but its not fair to blame windows users for their choice in Hardware.

Interestingly enough everything used to work perfect on my old Dell P2 233.

No I dont need zealots to tell me how bad Dell computers are, I recognise they have their faults, but very often its impossible here (in Ireland) to build a computer anywhere near the price of a Dell.

Re:Hardware Issues

[Anonymous Coward]

I might say that Knoppix is an exception!

I have a strange mismash of 7 systems at my house; everything from a Pentium-233 to 2.4 GHz P4 with everything from VIA built-in sound to a SoundBlaster Live! Network cards include no-name 8139, SMC, SMC wireless 2602 and VIA built-in 10/100. Graphics range from ATI Rage to ATI 9800 to nVidia (3 flavors) to savage S3 built-in to MB.

Without exception, Knoppix came up perfectly with enough hardware support on each to work first time. I've also tried it with similar success on 3 systems at work (all Dells but multiple flavors) There's a damned good chance it will work on your hardware!

Re:Hardware Issues

[XO]

Probably likely that no one still using that hardware is involved with development.

My hardware is "older", being a 600MHz P3, that doesn't even have an AGP slot.. and every thing is supported straight up.. I've been running the bleeding edge kernel since 2.5.53, and have had zero hardware problems. I also have kernel 2.6.something on my 400MHz webserver, and on my 133MHz email server. No new hardware in any of that, either. All old stuff.

Re:Hardware Issues

[XO]

In the kernel help for PCMCIA, it says that ISA is required to operate 16-bit PCMCIA cards, I think.

What 802.11 cards are 16-bit? All the ones I've found are 32 bit..

Re:Hardware Issues

[Vancorps]

I had mentioned my problems were with servers, more specificially the megaraid driver. It just plain doesn't work. It won't load with 2.6 at all. Might be a querk but it is a Dell PowerEdge 2300 so I'm pretty sure it is a problem that effects a lot of people trying to upgrade their older equipment.

Quite obviously there are always exceptions to the rule, if I screwed around with my kernel compile options I could probably make the driver functional but it does require a lot of work considering it was something that was automatic with kernel 2.4.

I'd say about half the older machines I come across will not work with 2.6, That is a significant number considering I'm involved in a site with 600 computers, 100 of them linux and the number growing. It is the linux platform though, there is always a way to get it working if you are willing to put the time in. I however, am not just yet.

Re:Hardware Issues

[Vancorps]

FreeBSD is the same way, my BSD boxes generally don't ever have upgrade issues.

Might be something the linux community could copy, but I doubt it. Its too segmented to be able to organize efforts. It is a tradeoff though since new features take a lot longer to be introduced into BSDs

Re:Hardware Issues

[Hatta]

Yep, that was it.

Re:Hardware Issues

[Suppafly]

knoppix uses a custom hardware detection program that other distros don't use afaik.

Re:Hardware Issues

[cavemanf16]

Thanks for the insights about Knoppix and HDD installs. After seeing how "clean" it looked coming straight off of the CD I thought it might be useful enough in it's current form for my Windows-using wife to actually use in her upcoming opening of her own business. However, based on your mileage with it, if she does decide to switch over to Linux as her workstation, then I'll make sure to go with a more mainstream Linux distro like Mandrake, Red Hat, or SUSE. (I've never been that impressed with Debian, Gentoo, or Slackware's general arcane-ness for the newbie Linux user, and I don't have a problem with companies making profits)

Re:Hardware Issues

[ahfoo]

Well let me give you a little more detail.
The current release, well since the last time I checked, was 3.4. The hard drive installation script on 3.4 really has improved since 3.2 and this is the kind of thing I refer to when I say that Knoppix is changing so fast that anything you say this week could easily be wrong next week, but there are now three different installation possibilities. One is a hybrid of Knoppix and Debian that is very very similar to what is on the CD, the other is something almost identical to what is on the CD and the third is a more Debian-like installation.
The hybrid install works great and I use it as a daily desktop on a frequently used machine. But for whatever reason, I've had problems making it work with an ext3 as opposed to a reiserfs filesystem. This isn't a problem as long as you know about it in advance, but it give the impression that it doesn't work if you stick to the defaults.
The only slightly tricky part is that since the script defaults to ext3, you need to save it, edit the ext3 line to reiserfs and then re-load it, but the script has interactive dialogues for all of this so it is certainly within the grasp of the average user as long as they have the confidence that it will work.
So, for fail-proof results on a precious Windows machine filled with personal files and photos and what not that you'll never be able to replace if they're lost all you need is a network connection to a machine with enough storage capacity to back up the existing drive. Luckily, the LiveCD has all you need, just boot up the Knoppix CD, setup your netcard and image the existing disk over the network for safety's sake (very simple instructions at knoppix.net in the docs section under "disk imaging" if you need them) and then use QTParted (also on the Knoppix disk) to resize the Windows partition and add a reiserfs partition and a swap partition. The hard drive install script handles the boot configuration and partition as well as the bootloader so you don't need to add one manually. This is pretty slick because now when you boot you can choose to boot up your Windows partition, Linux with a 2.4 kernel or Linux with a 2.6 kernel.
It's quite simple really and it is a very fast install.
Among the things that are not ready for prime time once you do get the install finished is the terminal server which is a bit of a bummer because it is a nice feature if you have many PCs. Just like the hard drive install, this is a script in progress and a version of the script for hard drive installed systems hasn't been completed quite yet and may be superseded by other even better ideas before they are complete.
So the reason I went on and on here about these details is to show you what I'm specifically referring to when I say it has faults. If what you want is a rather nimble distro with a stable set of browsers, e-mail, office apps, the Gimp, Scribus and even Blender as well as an environment where you can build source packages and work fast and all this good stuff then its a hot package. I recommend it all the way and it will even handle the bootloader to give her dual booting automatically so she can keep her Windows partition and probably even run some her Windows apps through Wine. That's a pretty sweet situation.
One more caveat though is that personally I've had problems with QTParted and that is a small fly in the ointment if you want the fully GUI install experience. For whatever reason the CLI Parted program didn't seem to work on the Knoppix CD. So, in that case I used Damn Small Linux which does have the CLI version. It has no GUI, but it walks you through the process fairly nicely.
So, in the situation you're describing, it's probably a good way to go. If you're trying to take advantage of some of the more interesting Mosix facilities, then it's still not quite what it could be. But for an excape from an otherwise dreary Windows existence, hell yeah.
And of course you can do the "poor-man's" install too. That works fine, i

Re:Hardware Issues

[XO]

hmm. can i find these at some local retailer, like compusa or something? i'd seriously love one that is Linux compatible and is 16-bit, cuz my old laptop won't take the 32-bit ones...

Windows user who is looking to migrate to Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you suggesting Linux users are migratory?

/ Don't get me started on the flight speed of African swallows.

Re:Windows user who is looking to migrate to Linux

[thephotoman]

You can get me started on the airspeed velocity of unladen European swallows, though. It's 11 m/s or about 24 miles per hour. Now, you know...just in case you ever have to cross the Bridge of Death.

Confusing title...

[avalys]

The easily-missed colon in the title, combined with the fact that there have been a lot of stories about companies migrating to Linux lately, made me read the title as:

Linux Moving to Linux

That definitely elicited a double-take.

Re:Confusing title...

[Zordak]

I know what you mean. I've frequently heard that Linus uses FreeBSD for developing and hosting the kernel, and I thouhgt, "why would he downgrade to Linux?"

Re:Confusing title...

[caluml]

Yeah - I know what you mean. Sort of like: Kernel.org ditches 5 years Microsoft IIS platform in favour of Linux/Apache.

Microsoft's not better

[RWerp]

Compare it with the number of 'Windows XP for dummies' copies sold.

Will this get my karma raised?

Re:Microsoft's not better

[RWerp]

Will this get my karma raised?

(Score:5, Insightful)

Wow... works like a charm...

Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[Anonymous Coward]

Could have been a 1 page book.

Get off pre Windows 2000.
Update drivers.

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[hal2814]

"Update drivers."

That's the only time I ever did see a blue screen when I had a 2000 box. I went to post-98 but then went back because I just got tired of patching things on my home machine. I do plenty of that at work. I keep thinking I might go back to 2000 now that automatic update has been out for a while, but my wife insists I keep 98 on "her" machine. For what she does on it, we don't see blue screens too often (twice last year and once so far this year).

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[Ghostgate]

If explorer is crashing on you all the time, then there is some other problem lurking, because Win 2000 (and XP, and 2003) are remarkably stable in most cases. Much more so than Win 9x. I've been running 2000 on one of my computers for about 3 years now, and only twice in all of that time have I encountered blue screens. Once was when I had some bad memory. The other time was with a game - it was happening repeatedly. But eventually a patch was released for the game and that stopped. As for explorer, I don't ever remember it crashing in all these years of using it, seriously. On Win 98 though, it happened a lot. In fact in Win 9x, just something like deleting large numbers of files at once would cause explorer to lock up. Also, Win 9x got "bogged down" much more easily when you left the computer running for long periods of time, because of poor memory management. 2000/XP really are a big step up from the junk of Win 9x.

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[Agret]

Yep, I'm running Windows Server 2003 Enterprise edition and whenever I right click explorer crashes. This was caused by a bad shell extension but it didnt tell me this so I created a new user profile and all was good. Now it just crashes when it feels like it, like when i'm in the middle of moving one folder to another.

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[nwbvt]

I agree. We need to find some other aspect of Windows to bitch about (and believe me, there are plenty) since the blue screen of death is sort of a dead issue nowadays.

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[barkingcorndog]

Um, I'm sorry, but until I got XP a couple of weeks ago, I was still getting the BSOD on win2k once in a while. Some of the folks in my office still do.

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[TheNetAvenger]

That's the only time I ever did see a blue screen when I had a 2000 box. I went to post-98 but then went back because I just got tired of patching things on my home machine. I do plenty of that at work. I keep thinking I might go back to 2000 now that automatic update has been out for a while, but my wife insists I keep 98 on "her" machine. For what she does on it, we don't see blue screens too often (twice last year and once so far this year).

Not that Win2k isn't a solid OS, but compared to XP, there is QUITE a difference.

Don't think Win2000, think XP. Not only can you do easy upgrades from 98 and 2K systems, but it also has better reliability in the way it handles DLLs and calls within the system.

Like most modern OSes, XP only crashes when Hardware dies, and it has better 'stable' driver support than any OS in history. Not only will 99% of all your hardware work with XP, so with 99.9% of all your old software.

People need to think pask Win2k and WAY past Win98. There is such a difference in architecture between 98 and XP, it is like comparing Linux and DOS.

BTW WinXP will also run faster than Win2k, even on lowerend systems. There are many more optimizations in XP that Win2k didn't get.

Additionally Service Pack 2 for Windows XP will introduce a whole new set of system optimizations becuase of the OS being recompiled in the new MS Compilers, more managed code for stability and many, many performance enhancements.

And yes SP2 is a large download, but unlike Apple's mini updates, it is free, even 3 years after XP was released.

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[Gary Destruction]

The BSOD occurs in an NT or NT-based environment if one or more of the following is true: -Faulty driver -Faulty hardware -Incorrect configuration -Virus or other malware Complications of the above that may cause a BSOD include: -Damaged or corrupt registry -File system corruption -OS boot failure

Re:Kiss the BSoD goodbye?

[Cabeiroi]

Indeed. Moving from "fatal exception" to "kernel panic."

windows isn't easy, per se...

[Anonymous Coward]

i disagree. for the non-experts, windows is "easy" to use because it's pre-installed. however, after some months/years of use, things inevitably get messed up under windows. (though spyware/virus aren't exactly windows fault.) then it's also "easy" to just buy another computer, also loaded with windows. so i am not sure if the easiness can be attributed to the OS itself or the fact no one ever bothers with changing what's sold. there are plenty of books on how to keep windows "fresh, clean and fast."

this sounds like a wonderful book for someone wanting to make good use of older hardware.

Re:Off-topic but...

[pandrijeczko]

...how is it that a software title that is guaranteed to sell by the millions, meaning that the cost of manufacturing each copy is very low, meaning that shops will buy hundreds of copies in at a discounted rate, is still given a standard price of $54.99 in the US/£34.99 in the UK unless there is some heavy price fixing going on...

Stores are ripping us all of over this... don't pirate it but don't buy it either unless you can find a lower price that reflects the likely sales of it.

Perhaps John Carmack would like to comment on that...

Live CDs don't always make good impressions.

[Picass0]

As great as Knoppix is, I stuck it on my wife's machine when she was having some hardware problems (as a stop gap until I could do a rebuild). All she could do was bitch about how slow everything loaded from CD, such as Open Office. Combine this with the change in gui and CD distros are not always the best way to intro new users.

Re:Live CDs don't always make good impressions.

[ambrosine10]

Time to get a divorce? ;)

Re:Live CDs don't always make good impressions.

[pete-classic]

You (sort of) stole my reply.

If you try to help your wife, and all she does is bitch, it is time to consider divorce.

-Peter

Re:Live CDs don't always make good impressions.

[Zaiff Urgulbunger]

If I'm not mistaken "(as a stop gap until I could do a rebuild)" was a metaphor for getting a new wife. Or did I misunderstand?! ;)

Interesting

[The Bungi]

Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

Way to go, this is a fantastic argument to use to get people to switch. When was the last time I saw one of those... hmmm. Let's see. Since 1998 when I switched to NT4 and later through W2K, XP and 2003 (yes, as a desktop) on literally dozens of machines, I've seen four blue screens, and they were all on the same W2K box (the one I use for gaming and crap). Two were caused by stupid Creative drivers, and I forget what caused the other two.

Yeah, four blue screens in (I guess) hundreds of thousands of hours of operation on multiple machines is a definite reason to switch to Linux. I'm sold.

Re:Interesting

[pandrijeczko]

Since 1998 when I switched to NT4 and later through W2K, XP and 2003 (yes, as a desktop) on literally dozens of machines, I've seen four blue screens

Since 1995 I've used Linux and I've never seen one blue screen. Not so much "kissing it goodbye", more like "blue screen of what?"

Re:Interesting

[The Bungi]

I hear ya. Maybe the version of ncurses you were running couldn't render blue.

Re:Interesting

[bladesjester]

I don't know. I've seen several blue screens on 2k (and a couple on xp if I remember correctly). Granted, I was dealing with about 150 computers, but I can say that while they are not as common as they were with 9x they do still happen.

Re:Interesting

[Roadkills-R-Us]

First off, you'd be amazed how many people are still using W95, W98 and NT4.

Second, while I have seen only a handfull of BSODs in the last few years, I have seen more than 4, across a variety of systems (maybe 50 systems total). I think I've only seen one on XP, but then I'm not around many XP machines. So 1 on XP, half a dozen on W2K, and a ton on NT4, W98 and W95. I'm not counting those caused by failing hardware.

OTOH, during the same time period, I've been around hundreds of Linux systems running (in general) much, much harder than those Windows systems, and the very few panics I've seen were hardware failure related. Every last one.

Re:Interesting

[pandrijeczko]

Maybe the version of ncurses you were running couldn't render blue.

Ncurses???

None of that new-fangled "modern stuff" for me matey!!!

Green alphanumeric characters on a black screen with the occasional full stop, pipe or backtick and I'm happy...

Re:Interesting

[the_mad_poster]

Hmm. I've seen maybe two or three on my game box since I installed XP Home on it last November. To be fair, that's about the same number of kernel panics I saw in the same timeframe back on the first release of Linux kernel 2.2. I've never had a BSD crash, but I haven't used it as heavily (yet) either.

Microsoft will always be dogged by the fact that Win95, 98, and ME were all tepid pieces of dog crap when it came to stability. XP and 2003 will always suffer from the thousands of curses that the last generation of PC users slung at their boxes when all their work flashed into the blue and white puddle of puke that meant windows totally fucked something up.

Fair? Probably not. But, that's just the way it goes.

As far as Linux, I'd fear switching from the BSOD to the nightmare that is the X system and tepid pieces of dog shit that are KDE and Gnome. If Linux wants to play the part of the friendly desktop distro that can compete with a Windows Home system, it needs a good window management system. KDE and Gnome are definitley NOT up to filling those shoes. When they are, I'll reccommend Linux over Windows to the "normal" people. Until then, I'll continue recommending CLI and lite window managed BSD boxes for the server, and Windows for the desktop (or, OSX if you've got the cash).

Re:Interesting

[bannerman]

You obviously don't use an eMachine.

Re:Interesting

[nagora]

My experience of XP is that BSOD is very rare. Unfortunately, this is because XP just locks up and has to be forcibly rebooted at regular intervals. Not a great improvement but, technically, you're right: no BSOD.

TWW

Re:Interesting

[geomon]

...non issue since Win 2000 and later Win XP

False.

I have put Win2K and XP on dozens of machines and had BSODs on a few. They occur in the initialization phase before the OS installs.

Re:Interesting

[JohnGalt00]

Ok, I'll bite...

I see the new XP equivalent to the BSoD, the without-warning-hard-reboot, about once a week. I get it at work on a Dell built P4 3.0 Ghz, and on a home built AMD 2100+. Both are spyware and virus free. Microsoft can tell me all they want that the problem is "with a device driver", but I've updated all the usual suspects (video, sound, network).

An OS is not supposed to immediately reboot for no reason from under you. As far as I'm concerned, instant reboot == BSoD.

Now certainly the presence of BSoD's alone is not a reason to switch, but because the AMD machine running Gentoo is more stable and easier to maintain, I'm much happier running Linux.

Re:Interesting

[The Bungi]

A couple of months ago I had a machine start act weirdly. When you logged in and walked away, it would lock up solid after a few minutes. No video signal, nothing. Not a BSOD, just mojo lock-up. When doing certain things it would also lock up, but not always. For about a week or so I thought it was a problem with DirectX or something like that.

Then I noticed that when it didn't lock and I managed to shut it down normally I'd get the "It's now safe to turn off your computer" thing. This is an Abit mobo with an ATX power supply running Windows XP, so that sort of tipped me off that there was probably a problem with the power supply.

I opened it up and wiggled the ATX connector a bit, then tested the box. No lock ups, nothing. One week went by and no problems.

It turns out the ATX connector was probably jostled when I put in a DVD/RW and one of the leads got detached. As far as I could tell, when the box reached a certain temperature, it would disconnect and the whole thing would go down.

I just resoldered the one lead, and that was that.

My point is that if you have decently mainstream hardware with good drivers, patch Windows regularly and you're careful not to crap up the registry by installing shit you don't need, Windows will run absolutely fine. My last machine at work typically went 60-70 days without a reboot; it was restarted only to apply patches or whatever. For three years, this W2K machine was abused 10-12 hours a day and never once did it lock up, die, bluescreen or otherwise fail in any way shape or form.

My current workstation is server 2003 standard and it's been performing the same way until now. My primary home box simply is not turned off, ever, except to patch.

You can fuck up any OS just as readily as you can Windows any day if you try hard enough. Or you can be careful and have zero problems other than the occasional mobo connector going stupid.

Re:Interesting

[sexylicious]

When I first started using Win2kPro, I was running an Athlon Tbird at 1.4GHz on an ASUS A7M266 MB, with 512 MB PC2100 ram from crucial. And I saw a BSOD almost daily.

Some things I realized:
My hardware was not uncommon.
The temps in the case were 55 C as measured by the little PC monitor thingy in ASUS' MB products (forgot the name)
I ended up getting frustrated with the system and getting a Koolance case since I figured things were too hot.
Most of the BSODs were solved with the water cooling. Temps were at most 33 C.
I still got a few and realized that the temp of the CPU was 33 C, while the temps of the memory and chipset on the MB were still up in the 50's.
I got a new MB, CPU, and new RAM, and sold the old stuff on ebay.
No more BSODs until I accidentally dropped my case on my parent's hardwood floors after moving back in after I finished my masters. The two harddisks both died a drowning death. I got a free replacement of the broken koolance stuff, and a replacement of my hardisks. I dropped one of the harddisks as I left the store and decided to just go with one.

Since I cooled things properly and replaced the harddrive, and rebuilt the system, Win2kPro has [i]NEVER[/i] died on me since. Not once. And I moved to the high desert in Southern California where it is currently 35 C outside.

I would guess that most of the problems people experience are from not keeping their hardware cool, having poor power supplies, or misconfigurations (say OC'ing to a freq that's not as stable as it seems). In fact, everyone that I know of that has had BSODs on Win2k and XP have all had zero BSODs since they started making sure their systems were cool.

BTW, that system that I had so many problems with ended up going to a friend. He implemented water cooling and put some new RAM in. He has had zero problems as well.

Re:Interesting

[The Bungi]

Either look at the dump created by the kernel or disable the automatic reboot so you can actually see the blue screen, and you'll find out what's causing it. Then maybe you'll be able to fix it.

Windows doesn't just reboot because it has nothing better to do, and XP is simply rock solid if you know what you're doing. So was W2K and so is 2003. Heck, the Longhorn betas are even stable as hell.

People who tend to evangelize Linux are also normally full of the most astounding horror stories about Windows, yet they've simply never had anything bad happen to their Linux boxen. It's uncanny.

Re:Interesting

[hysterik]

Agreed.

However, perhaps the author is pandering to the people still using Windows 95 and 98? I think there are quite a few still, and BSOD is very much entrenched in those operating systems.

Re:Interesting

[NineNine]

Actually, my business' main file/print/mp3 server and back office machine (I'm using it now) is an "emachine". It's been running Windows 2000 Pro for 2+ years, with reboots only for occasional power outages. It's actually covered in dust, and doesn't have a cover. Nonetheless, we haven't had a single problem with it.

Re:Interesting

[thinkninja]

I had to clean up a friends Toshiba laptop a few months ago and experienced 6 BSOD's in 3-4 hours.

Isn't anecdotal evidence swell?

Re:Interesting

[killjoe]

Yes sure XP so rock solid it never crashes. Windows is good now. honest. It really is. I would not say so unless it was otherwise. Take my word for it. Just ignore your own experience and listen to me. I am not an MS shill. Honest I am not. I am defending a corporation becuase they are poor and defenseless against the horde of slashdotters. Please don't pick on MS. it's just not fair.

Re:Interesting

[jawtheshark]

True, I have not seen a bluescreen on my own machines. They all run Win2000. No lockups, no reboots (which are hidden BSODS as many people said here)

However, I bought a small USB compact flash reader (zMate on the site). Nothing fancy. On my home machine (2x Athlon MP 2400+ with a Tyan motherboard and 1G of registred RAM running Win2000) it is detected immediately and works just fine. It also works on my parents computer (an old Fujitsu-Siemens P-III runninhg Win2000) and it it works on my good old iBook.

Then one day, I wanted to copy some data from one machine to another at work. They have brand-new Dell and HP/Compaq machines. Those run XP (probably not fully patched, shielded network). I insterted the compactflash reader: instant reboot. After disabling the reboot feature, I got the expected bluescreen. I have no clue why these machines refuse my compact flash reader.
Strangely enough, an older Dell (P-III class with 256Meg RAM) that we use as a standalone test machine for modem connections works flawlessly with the compactflash reader. This one is patched with the XP SP2 Beta.

So, while the bluescreens have become a thing of the past most of the time, trivial things like using a compact flash reader can still bring them back.

Re:Interesting

[bannerman]

You're either rediculously lucky, or you're full of crap. I think you're full of crap.

Re:Interesting

[geomon]

Yeah, that happens if you're using some of the oddball chipsets...

That ISN'T the point the previous post made. They said, categorically, that

"...[BSOD is a] non issue since Win 2000 and later Win XP"

I called bullshit. You supplied the proof.

The posters point would have been true if they had said

"...[BSOD has been largely a] non issue since Win 2000 and later Win XP. There are still some oddball chipsets with broken support... blah, blah, blah"

Re:Interesting

[JohnGalt00]

People who tend to evangelize Linux are also normally full of the most astounding horror stories about Windows, yet they've simply never had anything bad happen to their Linux boxen. It's uncanny.

Maybe there's a reason for that?

Re:Interesting

[The Bungi]

It must be infuriating to know that your FUD about Windows being unusable because it has to be rebooted every 2 hours (and other selected myths) can be easily disproven.

It's called reality, and sometimes it hurts. Tough.

Re:Interesting

[The Bungi]

Oh, I'm not saying that no one will ever see one, ever. They still happen. Crappy drivers, bad hardware, borked hardware, etc.

The problem I have is that people think that Windows somehow fails this way four times a day, that it's impossible to prevent them and that they exist because Microsoft can't write good code to save their lives.

It's just one of those FUD memes that the zealots love to repeat over and over again.

BTW, on that machine where you get the blue screen, do other USB devices work correctly? Maybe it's the chipset. Not all Dells use the same one.

Re:Interesting

[jawtheshark]

I am the last one that will scream that Windows BSoDs every day (but I won't deny that it happens a bit too much, and I think WinXP is a major pain in the ass, inrelated to BSoDs), because it hasn't been true for me since I started using NT4 back in, uhm, a very long time ago.

Anyways: the machines (there are four, all at work) where it bluescreens are two Dell Optiflex GX260 and two HP/Compaq d530SFF. All bluescreen when I connect the device.
The XP machine where it works is a Dell Optiplex GX1.
The problem is: I can't compare with other machines because the above stated models are all over the place, but corporate standard is NT4, which does not support USB. When I stick the reader in my workstation (a GX260 running NT4), it doesn't do anything, which is exactly what I would expect. We only have 4 XP machines for a special project requiring special software that refuses to run on NT4, and fifth is the stated modem test box.
I do not own any other USB devices that I could easily take to work to test whether they work or not.

Checked the patch status of those BSoD-ing machines: WinXP SP1, with about 5 patches. Seems to be OEM install. The BSoD I get is "PAGE_FAULT_IN_NON_PAGED_AREA" in usbhub.sys.

Re:Interesting

[Bert64]

XP also comes configured by default to automatically reboot instead of displaying the bluescreen, this doesnt make it any more stable, it just gives the illusion of stability because people associate bluescreens = crashes

Re:Interesting

[killjoe]

Honest I am not a shill. I just this corporation more then life. I have pledged allegience to this corporation over all other corporations. I love them more then GM, Proctor and Gamble, Disney, and even Nike. MS is the best corporation in the world and it's my privledge to defend MS against FUD from those dirty hippy commie slashdotters.

Re:Interesting

[andr0meda]

I'm using XP and I've both a cheap-ass USB2 card reader for CF as well, and it runs just fine. It must be the OEM or the drivers..

Re:Interesting

[jawtheshark]

As mentioned, it works on one XP machine (I could try it out on my girlfriends machine if I think of it). The drivers seem to be the standard ones that come with Windows.
As for the "OEM must be bad" (whatever you mean with that), well, while I'm no friend of Compaq/Dell/HP that sell these boxes, but aren't they supposed to do quality assurance? After all they try to sell "computers that work out of the box". Obviously they don't hold their claims. For me it's either Windows XP at fault or the drivers. The OEMs usually don't do driver tweaks these days anymore.
It could also be hardware: perhaps the USB ports on those machines are bad. Who knows...

Re:Interesting

[The Bungi]

Oh look, another "free-as-in-whatever" fanatic that hates Microsoft, corporations, copyright, patents and CEOs and is actually a closet Mac user.

I'm shocked - shocked I say. I've never seen your ilk around here.

Re:Interesting

[killjoe]

Why yes I do own a mac. I also run a freebsd and linux box. Unlike most windows users I actually have some brains.

I am also not a shill for any corporation. Have seen me shill for Apple? Defend Apple from slashdotters? Of course not. What's even more remarkable is that I don't defend other corporations like maytag or GE.

You on the other hand are a shill for MS. A shill for a corporation that does not give a flying fuck about you. A lowly sycophant who thinks that associating himself with a large corporation somehow makes him bigger then he is. People like you are pathetic tools.

Not so...

[hypermike]

One of the main issues with Linux Live CD's is the fact that it is rare for a live cd to properly initialize ALL the hardware on the computer. (i.e. sound card and wireless 802.11) Until something happens to allow universal driver support, live cd's will leave a bad taste in people's mouths who use obscure / cheap hardware (most windows users)

I ran Knoppix 3.3 and the newest 3.4 on Dells cheapest laptop. Inspiron 1100, Everything detected perfectly and runs great. Even the Netgear wireless NIC. Knoppix is good at even the cheapest hardware. As long as its common, thats what they shoot for. Ease of use.

Heres a good site for Linux on the Inspiron 1100.

http://www.geocities.com/randomnumbergenerator2001 /

Re:Not so...

[PalmerEldritch42]

Yeah. I've put Knoppix on 4 computers and each one has fully identified and setup all hardware. One was a POS laptop (300Mhz, 64 MB RAM). It ran slowly until I installed it to the hd, but it all worked. Others are a Micron POS desktop (600 Mhz, 128 MB Ram), Dell desktop (2.6 Mhz, 512 MB RAM), and a home made behemoth (Dual 600 Mhz Xeons, 1 GB RAM) using some funked up hardware- video and audio. External CD/DVD burners, a digital camera, 2 different printers and a scanner.

I'm not saying that it will work on every piece of equipment out there, but it has worked admirably on all of mine. On the laptop, I did need to use the atapicd startup switch, but on all the others, it worked using all defaults.

All in all, I'd say that it is a great way to start someone off with Linux

Incorrect price on BN

[GillBates0]

Paperback, August 2003
List Price: $34.99
Our Price: $27.99 (Save 20%)
Barnes & Noble Member Price: $26.59

It should be $733.99 (Save -95.23%).

Re:Switch to OS X

[pandrijeczko]

Unfortunately, I find working at a computer on my coffee table (the usual location of a MAC, I understand) very strenuous on the spine...

Look, I don't use MACs but I respect that people like them. So can't all us smelly Linux geeks have a big group hug with all the MAC people in their Nautica gear, united in the knowledge that neither of our groups finance the great demon in Redmond.

Please Help

[Anonymous Coward]

I've installed Linux but I can't find solitaire. Does this mean I have to reinstall Windows?

Re:Please Help

[pandrijeczko]

I've installed Linux but I can't find solitaire. Does this mean I have to reinstall Windows?

No, you can bloody well play xbill like the rest of us have to...

Re:Please Help

[sloanster]

I've installed Linux but I can't find solitaire. Does this mean I have to reinstall Windows?

um, no... go to the kde menu, then select:

games->card games->

and then choose the type of solitaire you want.

(shrug) doesn't seem all that hard to me...

Re:Please Help

[PeterPumpkin]

If your particular distribution doesn't include solitaire to your liking, load up a XUL-capable browser (aka Mozilla, Firefox, etc.), and go to games.mozdev.org, scroll down to "Cards", and click play online. It will come up defaulting to "simple solitaire", which looks and plays very much like its Windows counterpart. I am addicted to Xulmine, myself.

Re:Please Help

[PeterPumpkin]

oops, it defaults to "klondike solitaire", actually.

Re:Please Help

[mikael]

I had that problem upgrading from Red Hat Linux 9 to Fedora Core 2 - No KSokoban!!! Eventually I did manage to get the game installed again; after making multiple downloads and running rpm on various packages for several hours.

Kiss the BSOD?

[callipygian-showsyst]

Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

And replace it with a Kernel Panic!

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[callipygian-showsyst]

ha! I've been running Un*x since before you were born!

What a strange and counterproductive statement to make to someone. Do you really feel "superior" because you run a toy Unix-like operating system (i.e., Linux)? Maybe if you listened to other people you would learn something.

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[GMFTatsujin]

I have to admit, the blinky keyboard lights are only slightly more cryptic than the incomprehensible jibberish of a BSOD.

And at least they BLINK. A BSOD just sits there.

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[Kristoffer Lunden]

It *is* kinda sad and stupid to see such a title on a book today, where BSODs are virtually non-existant other than when having hardware failures. Which, I might add, no OS I've tried know how to report in a comprehensive manner. ;-)

BSODs was then, and it is gone now. Linux advocates needs something else to quip about, if nothing else because todays Windows users does not recognize it, does not know what you are talking about and will therefore ignore all the rest of your points as sorted under "wrong" if you try it as an argument. It's not as if there isn't plenty of other, real and good arguments to use instead.

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[grumbel]

Actually, its not so much the kernel panic that replaces the BSOD on Linux, but the XFree86-freeze, which happens quite often when it comes to anything that is either fullscreen, OpenGL or does grab the mouse (the old 4.7 Netscape did that quite often and got stuck then). Sometimes you can kill the app from remote and get your X11 back, but far to often its a "bye,bye" and requires a X restart or reboot. Linux itself pretty much still runs without problem, but that doesn't help you much if your whole graphical interface doesn't move any more. And about switching to console, that is either not reachable (cause XFree eating the key presses) or unusable due to messed up graphic memory/mode.

From a users point of view I would say that Linux together with XFree86 is quite a bit worse than a WindowsXP when it comes to rendering the computer unuseable. Sure the kernel is still running, but what is that worth, if all my X11 applications have to be restarted? I just hope that sooner or later X11 proxies or a way for X11 clients to reconnect to the server become common so that one can restart XFree86 without losing all the running applications. That still wouldn't solve all problems with XFree86, but at least quite a lot.

Some graphical version of the good old magic sysreq might also be nice, ie. one that could restart XFree86, switch the graphic mode back to something sane and stuff like that, instead of just sync and reboot.

PS: Yeah, I know AllowDeactiveGrabs and AllowClosedownGrabs, but they don't help all that often, beside that hardly any user will know about them.

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[Minna Kirai]

That still wouldn't solve all problems with XFree86, but at least quite a lot.

In addition from allowing better recovery from XFree86 instability, it would also let Linux/X11 leapfrog back in front of MSWindows in terms of total GUI features. Right now WinXP Pro (not Home) users can easily remotely-connect to their desktops and interact with already-running programs. X11 only allows remote logins to give you a new blank desktop, not the previously active one.

While neither behavior is completely preferrable to the other, it'd be nice for X11 to give you the choice (without needing to run VNC or something ontop of it)

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[callipygian-showsyst]

Actually, a BSOD is functionally, technically, equivalent to a Kernel Panic. Usually there's some device driver that stomped on memory or called the Win32 equivalent of Panic().

The XFree86 Freeze is like explorer hanging--where you can sometimes bring up task manager, kill it, and try again.

I run FreeBSD, Linux, OS-X and Windows XP here and (I'm sorry to say), Linux is more likely to crash than the other three! (My G5 will "blue screen" about once a week when I'm ejecting a DVD from the drive!)

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[callipygian-showsyst]

Exactly! It's like the Apple ads where the Windows PC "ruined Xmas". It just doesn't happen. You can plug ANY digital camera made in the last 3 years into ANY Windows machine that sold in the last 3 years and it will work (same as Apple does.)

In fact, I run OS-X and XP here, and my Nikon D-70 ONLY works in Windows without a special driver. I had to go to Nikon.com and download software to get it to work on my Mac!

Re:Kiss the BSOD?

[Brandybuck]

Not all of them. There's a few that still require drivers. Ditto for mp3 players and thumbdrives. Yes, even thumbdrives. You would think all of these devices would use standard industry-wide interfaces, but there are still PHB's in strategic positions who still think proprietary == market advantage.

Re:Must know?

[pgrst]

Yes, games and multimedia are just so important to me when I begin learning a new OS! Not to mention specific examples of Linux games that I have never heard of and certainly wouldn't play. This right here ends the "importance" of this book for me and should also end it for everyone else.

1) You are not the intended audience of this book.

2) You are right, multimedia is of no interest whatsoever to the average user. I mean, who ever heard of playing music on their computer? Next you'll be trying to convince me that there is a compressed audio standard that is listened to by millions of users everyday...... For the average user, multimedia is one of the most important issues.

Linux

[the_Bionic_lemming]

Lately I've been thinking about moving to linux to check it out - Gaming is still important to me , but I'm sorta interested to see how linux has evolved in the past 5 years since I last tried linux - and burned up a monitor since I didn't know what I was doing.

With that said - the big thing that puts me off from trying Linux (apart from switiching gears) is this "BSOD" reference from folks that are trying to tell me that their software is better.

Before you mod this "flamebait" just listen for a moment. I've been working as a programmer, and have used win 2k pro extensively over the past five years on at least 7 different machines. The only time I got a BSOD was on a Western Digital Hard Drive failure.

When I see someone tell me that their software will free me from the "BSOD" - I can't help thinking that they haven't seen or used win2k - or haven't configured their installations properly - and they are trying to tell me "Linux is Better" based off of 95/98/ME or poor computing practices.

And while that certainly is most likely the case that Linux is Better- I'd like an honest comparison on how it fares against 2kpro? Honestly - if you want to convert folks over to Linux - Do it positively - Tell me what's good about Linux - Don't tell me what's bad with windows - I know what's bad with windows and a Linux guy telling me what's bad with windows will get an eyeroll from me, and will outright be dismissed from conversation if they mistate or are erroneous on the latest platform.

Campaigns based on Negativity are self defeating. They won't sway the extremes, but they will force the fence sitters away from moving to the negative side. I want to know what I will gain. I want to know why it's right for me. Tell me the good parts and how and why they are so good.

But above all, Please - Drop the "BSOD" it left with Windows ME.

by the way - Microsoft does drop the ball - Windows CE

Win CE

WinCE - lol

Re:Linux

[Neil Blender]

Tell me what's good about Linux

No widespread worms/viruses/trojans/spyware for one.

Re:Linux

[pandrijeczko]

The only time I got a BSOD was on a Western Digital Hard Drive failure.

Even as a Linux user, I'll accept that Windows 2000 improves on NT4's BSODs to a very great degree.

However, the hard disk issues with Windows 2000 really pisses me off...

Why is it that I can make a Ghost backup of a Windows 9x system, migrate it to other PCs with some hardware differences, I can invariably boot it up and just load the drivers I need.

Yet with Windows 2000, I follow the proceedures of using sysprep first before Ghosting yet every time I migrate the image to a PC with a different hard disk partition size or manufacturer, it fatally blue screens.

Re:Linux

[prostoalex]

A good test I usually suggest is to run your current OS, and install an OS you want to switch to in a virtual machine environment (VPC or VMware on Windows). If you do not find yourself repeatedly switching to that new OS to complete the tasks, then why bother?

Re:Linux

[hawkeyeMI]

That's funny I used to work in a Uni computer lab (business school -- ugh) and we ran 2kPro and then XPPro, and we had bluescreens somewhat frequently. More frequently the computers would just stop working due to overloading of spyware or whatever, take forever to do simple things as windows ground to a halt or the like. When I got to work, I used my PowerBook or dropped in a Knoppix CD, depending on whether I felt like lugging in the laptop. And I laughed silently every time a windows machine crashed. I laughed out loud when MSBlast hit and all the computers started shutting down, people yelling about "what the heck" and losing data because they didn't save frequently enough. Yes I'm evil, but I used to be helpful. It was the MBAs that turned me. Now I'm a seething mass of hatred when it comes to B-School students. That's why I quit despite being the favorite of the boss (I actually could help with stuff because I knew what I was doing). $6 an hour isn't enough compensation to deal with business students.

Re:Linux

[Neil Blender]

No widespread worms/viruses/trojans/spyware yet.

True, I even thought about qualifying me post exactly as you did. However, I have used windows only for gaming at home and limited testing at work for more than 4 years. I have used linux as my primary operating system at both work and home since 2000 and since then I have not had to deal with, from my point of view, a nightmare.

Re:Linux

[jimicus]

I'm probably not the best person to tell you, since the thing which caused me to drop Windows was a job in which I administered 120 9x machines. But, here goes...

Speaking as a techie, the thing which is good about Linux is that if something goes wrong (and it will - those who tell you it won't are either lying or inexperienced) the error messages tend to be more useful, as do the error logs.

You can usually communicate directly with someone fairly closely involved in developing whatever software/driver is broken. You're not stuck with Microsoft's "support", and I find that the signal/noise ratio in mailing lists tends to be significantly higher. Basically, you don't generally have a bunch of MCSE monkeys telling you what the problem is and getting it spectacularly (and obviously) wrong.

Programs tend to be relatively small and self-contained - an obscure bug with a particular package in userland won't usually affect much else in the system (unlike Internet Explorer).

The developers are generally far more open & honest about bugs. You're more likely to hear "Oh, that's new. Looks like a bug..." from an open source developer than from a Microsoftie.

I can sleep at night knowing that not a single byte of software on my computer is pirated.

It may be that none of these are convincing reasons to switch. Fine, then don't. The best operating system is the one that does what you want it to. (Hear that sound? That's my karma evaporating)

It may be that you find these things sufficiently interesting to take another look. Great. If there's a Linux user group in your area, get to know them. They will be able to help if (when) you encounter trouble, and you can return the favour by helping the next new person to send an email saying "Hi..."

Re:Linux

[no-arg constructor]

I think this is the main problem with "linux marketing". They haven't told average users in their terms what "net gain" they will experience from switching, and doing the required work in order to switch (checking hardware requirements, researching which distribution to pick, etc). Most users believe the virus scanner that came with their computer is enough and don't care. Perhaps we should be emphasizing less spyware, free upgrades (portage, yast, apt-get, etc), no viruses, less strict hardware requirements, etc, so that more users don't feel they have to be system administrators to run linux.

Re:Linux

[Kristoffer Lunden]

Hum. I can't see myself switching to another, virtual OS to complete a task, unless it is something I can't do in the other one.

A better test is really to install a dualboot, and in the beginning, make sure you boot somewhat fairly into both sides. After a while, you'll notice yourself booting more into one of them anyways, and/or needing to boot over for some tasks. That should tell you what you are better off with. The whole point is that you will have to give both a somewhat fair and serious chance.

This test made me stick completely with Linux, I bet others will forever stay with Windows - no matter, as long as you find the one that is best for you.

Re:Linux

[cyclocommuter]

I agree with your comments. I myself use XP at work and for playing games at home and the only time I see the Blue Screen is when I have some device driver problem... very seldom in other words.

However, I use Linux/OSS for most everthing else at home and one of the reason is because I absolutely abhor Product Activation (on XP, as well as on increasing numbers of Windows software and utilities). Avoiding Product Activation hassles using Windows XP/Windows Software should be put higher on the list than avoiding BSOD when it comes to convincing folks to try Linux.

Re:Linux

[archen]

No offence, but if you lose interest in Linux because someone says it will "Free you from the BSOD" then you probably shouldn't use it anyway. If you don't want to use it out of spite because some annoying geek told you to, then that's okay by me. But you should really only be using Linux if you are interested in it. If you don't want something new, and are happy with what you have, then stick to windows - to use Linux you are probably going to need a little stronger resolve then just being swayed by what other people say. I have had frequent BSOD issues with Win2k machines, but that's not why I switched. I switched because I like to tinker and I want a computer to do things MY way.

If you don't like negative comments comming from Linux zealots, then it's best to ignore them. Believe me there are more than enough of them, and they aren't going to go away.

Re:Linux

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

>Tell me the good parts and how and why they are so good.

Configuration files you can read, edit, study the comments inside, and even put under revision control (I've been known to check /etc into CVS, even though it's bad to run CVS as root).

Re:Linux

[Brandybuck]

I have never once experienced a BSOD on my system. Granted I don't use Windows much. But I see it often at work, even on Win2K machines. I think I know what the difference is.

People who get BSODs are those that install every random piece of crap that strikes their fancy, and have never uninstalled anything. They never empty their trash until they run out of harddrive space. They never defrag even when runnning FAT32 on a 40G partition. And they run about twenty zillion processes at the same time.

saw it

[KB1GHC]

I went to barnes and noble to look at some books about linux, I always have problems with installing programs and stuff, and i read quite a few "newbie" books about linux, but i keep running in to problems

it seems like a good book, but for a non-geek, try linux for non-geeks

Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

[AgntOrnge]

And say hello to segmentation faults and core dumps! woohoo!!

Re:Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

[sqlrob]

Neither do GPF/IPF the equivalent of segfaults and core dumps.

Now, can you kernel panic without rebooting?

Re:Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

[AgntOrnge]

Easy there tiger! No point to miss, it's called a joke.

Re:Switch to OS X

[hcuar]

Look, I don't use MACs but I respect that people like them. So can't all us smelly Linux geeks have a big group hug with all the MAC people in their Nautica gear , united in the knowledge that neither of our groups finance the great demon in Redmond.

I don't wear Nautica you insensitive clod... I prefer Ralph Lauren! Jeesh.

Not Debian

[leandrod]

Funny about how the guy speaks only about RPM-based distros, and then his demo is based on Debian!

Captive NTFS and Wireless

[the_riaa]

Until they start packing better NTFS support (Captive NTFS is a pain in the ass, and still doesn't work for me most of the time) along with 802.11b/g/a card support in Knoppix, it's hard for a lot of current Windows users [XP users, mainly] to switch over. I'd love to try out more in Knoppix as I love that you can pop in a live CD, learn some Linux, and if needed, reboot and go back to Windows - and when I sufficiently knew enough about what I was doing in Linux, only then would I make the permanent switch.

One thing about all these articles is that they expect users to quit Windows cold-turkey and immediately jump head first into Linux. But from what I've seen personally, that's not necessarily the best approach. Those that I've seen try making the hard switch install their distribution of choice, then after a few hours of trying to regain the functionality of their last OS [figuring out what does what, where it is, etc] they get frustrated with Linux and wonder what made them give up their previous OS when it worked "just fine". I like the gradual approach that Knoppix and other live CD-based distros can afford. You can pop it in, screw with it for a while, learn some, then pop it out and go back to your old OS if you get frustrated or tired. I commend Gagne for using Knoppix as the teaching tool of his book.

Re:Captive NTFS and Wireless

[kaleco]

Wireless bridges do ease the pain for linux 802.11b/g networking. I consider internet access to be essential for all my computer use, so I replaced my Alcatel Speedtouch USB modem with an ADSL router. This allowed me to bypass the Speedtouch driver assault course.

Re:Captive NTFS and Wireless

[Neurotoxic666]

"they expect users to quit Windows cold-turkey and immediately jump head first into Linux"

Actualy, I think they're targetting users who grew tired of spyware/bugs/viruses associated with Windows, people who'd do the jump if only they knew there was an alternative.

I, for exemple, am such a person. I design websites for a living, and I'm looking for sort of a "turn-key" solution to switch to Linux. I need an article that is actualy convincing enough to switch right-fucking-now.

"Maybe, perhaps sometime you may wish to try a bootable CD that'll show you, if it works, how Linux can be relatively OK after all". That won't make anyone swith to Linux, will it? I want to KNOW that Linux IS better, that it WILL work if I do THIS and THAT.

So, they're not expecting people to do anything -- people expect a sure solution. People just need to KNOW that, yes, you can "quit Windows cold-turkey".

In my case, I want to make sure that Corel Draw Suite 12 will be available and working just like I expect it to, that Macromedia Flash/Dreamweaver will stay the same, and that any other app I regularly use and rely on will be available or that, at the very least, something of equal quality is downloadable somewhere. I don't want someone telling me that maybe I could switch to Linux -- I know that already! I want someone to tell me "do THIS and THAT and quit Windows cold-turkey, dammit! ;)

Re:Captive NTFS and Wireless

[killjoe]

" Until they start packing better NTFS support"

Mmm. I have an idea. Why don't the people who wrote NTFS help the knoppix team out and get better support. That way the knoppix team won't have to waste hundreds of hours trying make things work.

Re:Captive NTFS and Wireless

[Boiner]

Until they start packing better NTFS support (Captive NTFS is a pain in the ass, .... it's hard for a lot of current Windows users [XP users, mainly] to switch over.

Hang on there - the *they* you should be bitchin' about isn't anybody on a free software team. NTFS is undocumented and has changed a few times. It's a software engineering marvel we can even read the stuff in the first place. You might want to send your comments to the NTFS authors instead.

Re:Captive NTFS and Wireless

[LittleLebowskiUrbanA]

Yeah, I'll bet Microsoft will ger right on that :)

Re:Captive NTFS and Wireless

[killjoe]

It will happen the day after they get a conscience.

Re:My wife runs Win2K at work and sees several/day

[typhoonius]

Just start trying to actually use the more esoteric features of your apps...

BSODs in WinNT only occur when the kernel cannot recover from an error. Userland apps can't crash the kernel, "esoteric features" notwithstanding. If you're regularly getting stop errors in Win2k, it's more likely that you have a hardware problem and not that you're just especially l33t. More info here.

Kiss the blue screen goodbye?

[Judg3]

What is this blue screen you speak of? I vaguely remember it from my Win 9x and NT 4 days, but alas I have yet to see one in a long time. In fact the last blue screen I had was in 2001, the heat sink fell off of my CPU and Windows bluescreened at me..

Oh wait, I remember a second one - last year, when the hard drive died, I got the page fault blue screen.

Other then that, I haven't seen one in a looong time - and I use Windows a lot at home and work at a company with almost 1000 Windows servers. But hey, stereotypes are hard to lose I suppose.

Re:Kiss the blue screen goodbye?

[pandrijeczko]

But hey, stereotypes are hard to lose I suppose.

I don't suppose you'd prefer "F*ck that annoying animated paperclip" then, would you?

How come Clippy, the one thing you want to crash, never does...

Re:Kiss the blue screen goodbye?

[Stevyn]

Good point. I only got one blue screen from windows xp after 2 years of use. It was when I connected my cell phone to my computer and tried to do something. I am going to assume it was entirely the poor driver's fault. Now that I'm running linux, I see the artsd segfault all the time.

Linux zealots continually babble about bsod and clippy and I can see how the "community" gets a bad wrap. I guess if the only forum you read about linux is slashdot then you're getting a one-sided view. The gentoo forums are a lot better.

All this windows bashing reminds me of a John Kerry speech.

Re:Kiss the blue screen goodbye?

[glitch23]

One time, at band camp......

AT LAST - A NON-UBERGEEK approach!

[Anonymous Coward]

I read his book. I am a newbie (sorry: 'noobie' is it?). I like his approach. He is about the only Linux user who doesn't scoff at new users. What irritates me in the Linux "community" is that each time a new user asks a question, it is clearly lablelled ad a *stupid* question. He, we're not all uber-geeks. I just want the thing to work.

I also think that the haughty attitude portrayed by some Linux users actually puts people off - and gives them reason to stick with Microsoft.

Re:AT LAST - A NON-UBERGEEK approach!

[TheoMurpse]

man i don't know who YOU've been talking to, but i have NEVER encountered that attitude, and i -literally- mean i've -never- encountered that attitude...never ever ever, and i am a linux noob as well...

do you IRC? that is where i get the best help...i've even asked questions like "how do i get to a console on Debian" and things equally simple (the answer is like ctrl+alt+f1-6 or something like that ^_^;;;)

Re:AT LAST - A NON-UBERGEEK approach!

[NewStarRising]

I have come across this attitude MANY times, in IRC, forums, and 3D-Life. Questions such as "How do I put my Home directory on a seperate drive?", "Why don;t my ATI Drivers work?" (after spending 3hours RTFMing, googling etc) have been met with derision, insults and after one clumsy mistake (copying a bad XF86config over a good one, without backups!), warned of being banned from receiving help due to making a mistake! I know that not all Linux Geeks are like this. and have come across some who are more than happy to spend more time than I deserve sorting out my troubles (THANKS JEEPSTER!). People are the same the world over, and each grouping, be it Blacks, Jews, Linux-Geeks, Jocks, Truckers or Accountants has its share of asshats. Some more than their share 8o)

Re:Switch to OS X

[TrancePhreak]

Looks like Steve is still busy at work.

Where to buy it?

[FlutterVertigo(gmail]

Why does everyone insist upon Amazon and B&N? (see suggestive sell above: You can buy...")
They aren't the only stores in town and they aren't the least-expensive stores in town, either
Pay attention to where they rank with the suggestions below:
When one is tempted to buy from Amazon or B&N first, try going here: Moving to Linux via AddAll
or,
plug the ISBN into Froogle.Google. On top of that, look in the right margin of the Froogle search - it suggests "Buy 0321159985 for less" at a site named "www.chambal.com".

Whenever I see a suggestive "buy this book here" link next to a review or announcement and it's B&N or Amazon, it reminds me of those who have 'fessed up and admitted they get a kickback if purchases are made via that link. So either people are ignorant and settle for Amazon and B&N (only) or they are looking to steer some of your ca$h you could be using for Doom 3 into their pocket. (if this is the case, why don't they volunteer this up front?)

Re:Where to buy it?

[VP]

Why does everyone insist upon Amazon and B&N? (see suggestive sell above: You can buy...")

The "You can buy" link is the "official" Slashdot link. It is always to B&N for two reasons: Slashdot gets a percentage for the referral, and Amazon is punished for the one-click patent. This has never been a secret...

Re:Where to buy it?

[Sanga]

I think /. has a policy to post just BN or Amazon links (they have a tie up). So even if the author put in some other link, the /. editors change it to a BN/Amazon link.

Re:Where to buy it?

[morgajel]

well, slasdot gets a lot of complaints about ...well, slashdotting peoples sites. why bother going through the hassle of having a bad link on your page and getting death threats from various admins for nuking their sites when they can just go with a tried and true method of a known stable site to link to?

sure, BN doesn't need any extra cash, but can addall withstand a slashdotting?

I think the /. editors are within their right to make sure the content is reliable- how often do they get bitched at for having crap?

Re:Where to buy it?

[ErikZ]

I buy from Amazon because they're cheap enough, have my information, and provide links to cheaper, independant sellers.

I don't care if the writer of the column gets a kickback.

The wave of the (Linux) future...

[biendamon]

These book/CD combos are a godsend to those of us trying to convince friends and family to switch (so we no longer have to clean viruses, trojans, and spyware from their computers every few weeks).

I'm easing my family into it right now. The trick is to start by introducing the easiest open-source applications that are available on both platforms. Pull the old "Here, I'll 'upgrade' your browser for you, and you won't get pop-ups anymore" trick and get them used to Firefox. Follow it up with Thunderbird and OpenOffice, and they'll gradually start wondering why they put up with all the problems they used to have in the first place.

That's when you whip out the book and the Knoppix CD, and introduce them to the same applications they're used to on a different operating system. Get them curious, get them interested, and then they'll start doing the work for you.

Re:The wave of the (Linux) future...

[slimy_dude]

Well stated. I've always thought that the Open Source movement had a lot to learn from drug dealers about how to get people hooked on their products.

Lotus Notes client for Linux?

[obdulio]

The only reason I have to use Windows at work is that all our mail/contacts/schedule is in Lotus Notes and I could not find a client for Linux (weird if you think on IBM's commitment to Linux).

Using wine is so painfully slow that is not a solution.

Re:Lotus Notes client for Linux?

[Blakey Rat]

Are you kidding? Every time we get a minor version revision for Notes we get about 30 CDs for different client versions. There's Windows, there's MacOS, there's Solaris, there's BSD, there's about 5 different Linuxes. If you can't find a Linux version of Lotus Notes, you're not trying.

In fact, the reason it's so goddamned slow and crappy is that the whole program basically runs within a virtual machine so IBM can port it to God-knows-what more easily.

Can't find a Linux version of Notes, sheesh. I got a 5.0, 5.0.4, 6.0, 6.0.1, 6.0.3, 6.5, 6.5.1 version for Linux and probably more that aren't in my stack right here.

Re:Lotus Notes client for Linux?

[CoolHnd30]

Those versions are for the Server. There are no native Lotus notes clients for Linux. Lotus Notes does however, run fairly stably under Wine. I've been running it under Wine for the last year and a half. Also, If the server is running the newest version of Domino, iNotes is supposed to be compatible with Mozilla now, I believe (if all you need is messaging/calendaring).

Hardware Investments

[nurb432]

Keep in mind a lot of windows users have invested a bit of cash in their machine, and asking them to just toss it out the window and buy a Mac isn't going to win many friends..

At least suggesting ( or assisting ) they migrate to Linux or a BSD variant will let them keep most, if not all, of their invested hardware...

Also, to be a bit more accurate, it would be communistic style, not socialistic.. ( at least by traditional definitions, not the convenient, but incorrect, ones that were dreamed up in the 50's to support the 'red scare' )

you want a comparison?

[way2trivial]

Windows XP for dummies Amazon.com Sales Rank: 1,022

Linux for dummies, 5th edition Amazon.com Sales Rank: 751

Hmmm.. what does that say to you?

Re:you want a comparison?

[Nasarius]

That they're both pretty popular?

Re:you want a comparison?

[nelsonal]

Linux users are either smart enough to get online when things go wrong, or they order in advance of the install, while windows users hose their computer and have to buy one in a bricks and mortar store.

Re:you want a comparison?

[aardvarkjoe]

Sex for dummies Amazon.com Sales Rank: 7,453

As for what that means, I don't know that I want to know.

Re:you want a comparison?

[beakburke]

More people are experts at sex than windows or linux??

Re:you want a comparison?

[lachlan76]

Perhaps that Linux users make an effort to leaarn themselves, and Windows users just ask the kid next door?

Re:you want a comparison?

[Eternauta3k]

Now, compare the list of users who bought Sex for Dummies with the one of those who bought Linux for Dummies Mmmmhh.... suspicious

Re:too little too late

[thephotoman]

What? # rpm -i is too hard for them? I mean, yeah, sometimes, tarballs can be rather tricky, especially when hey don't stick to the normal ./configure, make, make install routine, but what's so hard about an RPM?

Re:Switch to OS X

[pandrijeczko]

Big hug...

Is good. But....

[smchris]

Just put a senior citizen who only wanted web and email on linux. Tried a Knoppix hard drive install to experiment, but:

1. Modem driver didn't claim to work with Debian, and, although the install script was "Debian-aware", it didn't.
2. How do I get _user_ level icons for mounting and unmounting removable media that a computer newbie can understand? Seemed like "auto" was broken after a hard drive install?

Fedora Core. Simple process. She's happy.

My conclusion was that Knoppix isn't quite there for the clueless home user's desktop.

But Knoppix is a clever insert for a beginner's book and, looking through a book store thinking about what my new user might understand, I can see that such a book is very needed.

Re:Off-topic but...

[pandrijeczko]

because people are gonna pay that much for it.

Please don't pigeon-hole.

Because "people minus one" (at least) are gonna pay that much for it - the day I pay $7 for a beer (= £4 here in the UK) is the day beer gets served by the gallon.

SuSE's live disc

[castrox]

SuSE's live disc, since you mention it, apparently didn't support my Geforce 2 very well, it sent out an out of sync videosignal to my Samsung 19" monitor.

Trying to boot in "safe mode" didn't help either. Yes, indeed, a non-working live-CD isn't really what drives people to install the distro, or Linux consequently.

Book-Disk Combos

[JoeCommodore]

I agree, the book-disk combos can be really good, shop around though if you are beyond novice stage some of the books only cover the basics like selecting printers or simple applications.

Being more of a long toothed techie, I went for the thick "Red Hat Linux 8 Bible" last year. It's nice to have a book that describes something that you also have immediate access to (the linucx and all apps are included in envelopes on the inside covers), and which wonderfully goes into sufficient detail on many of the underlying/administrative features of Linux to get you a leg up to get in groove enough to avoid serious flame responses whan asking questions on the various Linux newsgroups.

In leiu of a Windows or MacOS level of ease of install & configuration features these books help fill in those gaps nicely.

Re:Moving to Linux??

[pandrijeczko]

Who makes that operating system then?

Re:too little too late

[endlessoul]

Well, seeing as how I'm an avid Slashdot reader, use WinXP Pro in my everyday work and personal life, AND have 3 Linux versions sitting in my room somewhere and still don't use them, I can see the grandparents point.

I even have Lindows.

Bottom line, (this has been said more than once before) Windows doesn't neccesarily need command lines for everyday use. Personally, as a former user of WinME, I'm more familiar with the BSOD than any human should endure. I still use Windows.

Although people in my daily work life see me as a "hacker" but compared to people on Slashdot I'm still much of a n00b, it's only because I know enough of my way around Windows to fix all of the problems that pop up.

You think I want to re-learn all the "tricks" of another OS? Unless it's semi-intuitive, no. As much as I'd love to run Linux, I'm simply used to Windows.

Re:too little too late

[marsu_k]

That said, most computer users would prefer having a "blue screen of death" once in a while to having to deal with command line installs from rpm's...

What, like "urpmi $APPNAME"? Call me perverted, but I do prefer that to BSODs.

Re:Irony - but it can be done

[Anonymous Coward]

Amazingly, That's exactly what I do for a living. I write aviation safety management software.
What that means in real life, is my company produce systems that people who have absolutely no previous experience with computers can pick up one of our embedded mobile devices and start reporting incidents/ jotting notes/ assigning tasks to other members of their team etc.

I stress it again, these people have NO previous experience with computers.
How do we do it? Simple, we strip all complications from the user, the back end handles them. The front end has a question and a back/next button. Answer the question from a list and press next. (its a lot more involved than that, but you get the idea). basically, the user can't break it because they don't get the opportunity to.

What this does mean is there is no room for "powerusers" people have to run at the speed of the Lowest Common Denominator.

I don't get why OS'es don't have different levels of visibility for user level.

i.e. Advanced user gets everything and probably a different run level that a desktop starts up in

Starter User starts into a stripped down desktop, with buttons for everything they might need. Even like the TiVo OS where you get page after page from a simple 4 arrow remote.

anything in the middle. I would expand but as I'm posting as Anonymous Coward this probably won't be read so I can't be bothered to continue.

Re:too little too late

[BarryNorton]

'rpm -i' followed by library conflicts, followed by manual rebuilding, followed by hacking in unintelligible configuration files, followed by kernel recompilation, followed by pulling out your hair and realising you spend all your time on unproductive rubbish on the Linux box and all your useful (and pleasurable) time on the Windows box... or is it just me?

BSOD's?

[Man in Spandex]

Marcel Gagne has included a Knoppix CD with his book, Moving to Linux: Kiss the Blue Screen of Death Goodbye!

Marcel Gagne has fun bashing the past of Microsoft. Now I'm not saying Windows is stable but 2K/XP rarely gives anything remotely close to a BSOD and knowing how many are using XP over 9X, can't see how that statement is relevant.

I think this is the cruxt of the matter...

[cr0sh]

I am going to assume it was entirely the poor driver's fault. Now that I'm running linux, I see the artsd segfault all the time.

While no piece of large scale software (especially an operating system) will ever be free from bugs, Linux gives you the advantage most of the time over Windows precisely because you can see the bugs happen. Log files, proc, etc - all give you an "inside" look at what your OS is doing - or not doing - and maybe that information might be enough to fix it, or at least find a fix for it (if it is a common bug). Rather than "assuming" what the problem might be, you can know - even if that knowledge is "no fix for you kernel/distro - you need to upgrade to ???". From there you can make a decision on what to do, rather than just "wonder what caused that".

Also, while it isn't impossible (I have seen it happen, almost every Linux using geek has), generally the kernel won't die when an application dies. Mozilla falls over, everything else continues to work. Does it take X with it? Virtual console (or telnet/ssh) in to the box, and kill the task. There is always a way back in without a complete reboot (though sometimes, a complete reboot may be called for). Linux (as a whole) doesn't just "bluescreen" leaving you only the reset button to get back to where you were. Generally, there are several other avenues to try before resorting to the "final solution".

That isn't to say Windows hasn't gotten better - I think XP is pretty stable (most of the time), but at times I get annoyed when something happens to it, and I don't have the tools and logs (like I have under Linux) to check out the basics to see what really went wrong - it feels like a guessing game toy at that point. Even so, it is a damn sight better than the Windows 9x days...

Re:I think this is the cruxt of the matter...

[NineNine]

Actually, in W2K/XP, you have the core dumps in case of a major crash, and event logs most of the rest of the time. But, writing to the event log is usually an application level procedure, so if an app crashes on you for no reason, and there's nothing in the event log, blame the app, not the OS.

Re:I think this is the cruxt of the matter...

[cr0sh]

AC, I never said it never crashes, nor was I drinking when I made that post. I have seen Linux crash hard a couple of times - where I couldn't even telnet in (even though I knew I had telnetd running). But most of the time when it "crashes", it is just an application or something crashing - and it doesn't bring the entire system down. I can just go in, kill the process, restart it, and continue on. If X dies, it dies - it doesn't take the entire machine with it (most of the time, anyhow). Windows, on the other hand - if the GUI falls over, how do you get back in to restart it (well, you can't, because if the GUI dies, it takes the kernel with it *every time*, because the GUI is part of the kernel)?

Kiss the BSOD goodbye...

[drinkypoo]

And shake hands with your new friend, kernel panic.

Who is panic, and what is he doing in my computer?

User friendliness?

[evslin]

Is Linux really there yet in terms of accessibility? Last thing I used was Redhat 9, but that was a few months ago so .. I guess what I'm really interested to see is what kind of hell a Linux tech support call from a 70 year old woman who just wants to e-mail her kids would be like - especially if it's going to involve going to the command line. And before anyone replies and says that tech support calls for a Linux system wouldn't be all that common because the system itself is so stable and secure ... trust me, if anyone's going to find a way to break a computer, it's going to be the people who could care less about the OS as long as their e-mail is working. But you all already know that. ;) I'm not saying Windows is necessarily better than Linux, I think both have their strengths and I'm perfectly comfortable working in either environment. But from what I've seen so far I don't know if even a Linux For Dummies-style book is going to help get around the fact that the operating system itself still has awhile to go before it attains the user-friendliness of Windows.

Re:User friendliness?

[sloanster]

I'm really interested to see is what kind of hell a Linux tech support call from a 70 year old woman who just wants to e-mail her kids would be like - especially if it's going to involve going to the command line.

Why involve the command line here? It's basically:

"Double click the email icon on the panel at the bottom of your screen".

Re:User friendliness?

[^_^x]

The way I see it, it's about using the right tool for the job. Linux isn't the amazing do-all (though it's pretty damn flexible!)

I don't use Linux on my desktop because, well, I have to USE it. I'm not familiar with the setup, the paradigms are completely foreign and counterintuitive, and I still find the software availability lacking. ...on the other hand, if I were making an old PC router, hard drive array box, car MP3 player etc, I'd go for Linux right away, since once I got over the pain of setting it up, I'd expect it to work like new for the rest of its life (assuming I didn't play around with it and add/change things...)

I guess Windows could be expected to do the same for such simple tasks, but not within the license aggreement. ;)

Re:User friendliness?

[evslin]

What if she can't get online to check her email because her modem drivers got nixed? Last time I loaded modem drivers that was done by command line.

Re:User friendliness?

[sloanster]

What if she can't get online to check her email because her modem drivers got nixed? Last time I loaded modem drivers that was done by command line.

I'm not sure how her modem drivers could are supposed to "get nixed", unless grandma is logging in as root, compiling and installing kernels - but she's not going to do that, is she?

We could play this game all day, as there are plenty of scenarios we could come up with to make life miserable for grandma, on any platform - but the fact is, once linux is set up, grandma really doesn't need to ever think about it. In fact, her nephew jason, who set up her linux system, can log in remotely and check up on things if she has any questions...

how tired is the blue screen of death??

[bitserf]

um, yeah, so i've had windows XP crash exactly 0 times in 3 years. the blue screen of death is so yesterday!

Re:how tired is the blue screen of death??

[anaplasmosis]

Lucky you. My brand new HP Windows XP box crashed about 200 times the first week. Even after reinstalling everything, it still crashes about once a week. In other words, about 100 times as often as my Solaris machines.

Fedora? Simple?? Help me, then

[renehollan]

I looked into migrating to FC2 from a heavily patched RH 7.2 system... yeah, that old.

Both RH 7.2 and FC2 try to tweak device ownership on console login/logout, but ocassionally screw up (either that or using ctrl-alt-backspace to logout is not recommended -- I've been doing that since forever) device ownership -- they get "stuck" to some old console user -- perhaps because some process is still "logged in" to a console. With RH 7.2, this means that things like sound "stop working" for the new user (as the user does not have the necessary permissions to access the /dev/dsp and related devices). With FC2, you get hung at the desktop setup (at least running Gnone) after login.

I haven't been able to find any mention of this behaviour anywhere, or a recommended workaround.

It's the impression...

[gillbates]

It doesn't matter how long it's been since you've seen a blue screen... because blue screens are a trademark of the Microsoft experience, much like viruses. Everyone knows what a blue screen means, and Microsoft will never shake their reputation as being a shoddy OS vendor.

Besides, it doesn't help our IT department mandated daily rebooting for every Win2k desktop in the department. It seems that a reboot-a-day keeps the help desk away... We used to have numerous "strange" and intermittent problems until this policy was implemented. I've seen my WinNT/2k desktop crashed twice.

Re:It's the impression...

[The Bungi]

It doesn't matter how long it's been since you've seen a blue screen... because blue screens are a trademark of the Microsoft experience, much like viruses. Everyone knows what a blue screen means, and Microsoft will never shake their reputation as being a shoddy OS vendor.

Thanks for sharing. Shoddy? Wow. Let me ask you something though - are you generalizing your opinion of the "Microsoft experience" to me as well? Or who is this "everyone" you talk about?

Last time I checked Linux was "difficult to use". Everyone knows Linux is "difficult to use", after all. Do you think we should also generalize that and call it "the Linux experience"?

Re:It's the impression...

[gillbates]

Last time I checked Linux was "difficult to use". Everyone knows Linux is "difficult to use

I'd agree, with the following corrections:

• Linux is difficult to install and configure. Using it is easy.
• Everyone doesn't know that Linux is difficult to use (or install, whatever...) because everyone hasn't tried installing it. OTOH, just about everyone has used Windows.

Yes, I know Linux can be a pain. I recompiled my kernel last night... and the kernel was too big. I doubt a Windows user would recompile a kernel to get sound to work; even if they did, they wouldn't know what to do with "Error 2: Kernel too big..." And yet, this is actually an improvement - it used to be that if a kernel was too big, you would find out when you tried to reboot and failed!

But thankfully, most people think Linux is a penguin, if they've heard of it at all. They have no experience with kernel panics, recompiling kernels, writing init scripts, etc... From their viewpoint, anything (GUI) which stays running for years on end and doesn't get viruses has got to be better than Windows...

Linux doesn't have to overcome a bad first impression, that's all. It wasn't thrust upon the masses before it was truly ready, and the FOSS process keeps software failures from becoming marketing successes. Now Microsoft can't shake their image of being unreliable because, "first impressions are lasting impressions..."

Re:It's the impression...

[The Bungi]

I completely agree that Windows was thrust on the masses as a toy OS that was barely useable (yet still superior to what was available at the time...), but that does not mean that it hasn't matured and gotten a hell of a lot better. It took Microsoft almost ten years, but they did it with Windows 2000. Honestly, this whole "BSOD" thing is just plain stupid unless you're talking about the 9x series.

It has taken Linux about that much time to go from a solid server OS to a half-usable desktop one.

Not useful

[NineNine]

"Ok, heres what hardware is supported out of the box. Everything else is likely to be a headache".

And for most people, this already is a turn off. Most people don't know, and don't care (rightly so) what kind of video chip they have, sound card, etc. This is pretty much useless information. What Linux needs to do is to support generic, industry standards. It needs to support Soundblaster compatible cards. Generic video cards, network cards, etc. I mean, can you imagine buying something as simple (to you) as a car seat cover, and it coming with a list of spark plug manufacturers that it works with? Most people have no idea where the spark plug (or video chip information) is, never mind what they have.

Re:Not useful

[The Vulture]

I think that Linux could support "industry standards" if there were actually any. Granted, there are a few like VESA and AC '97, but even Creative makes cards that are incompatible with "Soundblaster compatible" cards (EMU10K1 (Live/Audigy 1), EMU10K2 (Audigy 2) and others like some newer Audigy cards are not compatible with the original SB16, for instance).

Blame the hardware manufacturers for not coming up with suitable standards, then when they do have standards, making half-assed buggy hardware that doesn't conform to the standard. Or, blame them for keeping the specs to themselves, and at the same time not making Linux drivers.

I really like Linux/FreeBSD, and I'm considering trying out FreeBSD 5.3 when it comes out, but while Windows has it's faults, at least there's drivers for lots of the hardware. Mind you, the only piece of hardware I have that isn't supported by Linux/FreeBSD is the Rage Theater 200 chip on my ATI All-In-Wonder 9700 Pro, because I tend to do my research.

-- Joe

Re:Not useful

[Brandybuck]

What Linux needs to do is to support generic, industry standards.

It does. So do all of the BSDs. That's not the problem. The problem is that the hardware manufacturers don't like generic industry standards. My coworker spent most of last week doing the Fry's runs trying to find a wifi card that worked with Linux. A network card should be standard enough that a generic driver should work for ALL OF THEM, but that is not the case.

Re:Not useful

[CarrionBird]

Linux already supports most "generic" hardware. But most systems nowadays are expected to do things that you can't do on a generic video card. A lot of things now don't have a generic equivalent.

Linux moving to Linux?!?!

[revery]

They might as well, every body else is....

Who reads anything?

[Trailwalker]

There are a great many non-readers who have gone from TV to PC. When they screw up their windows install, I just give them a Knoppix disk and tell them to click yes to everything. The only hard part is explaining how to change the boot sequence to boot from their CD player first.

"What's a bios, is it dangerous?"

I do not mean illiterates, but people whose lives were formed around staring at a tube. To these people, a PC is just another tube with more variety.

Re:Who reads anything?

[kaleco]

You had to tell them to click yes to everything? I thought they were Windows users =D

Re:Why switching to Linux is not so easy...

[emurphy42]

1. GNU is not geared towards the desktop. 2. The filesystem layout is not geared towards the desktop.

I don't see any support for these statements in the rest of your article. If there is some, then please point it out.

3. X11/KDE/GNOME are poor and slow systems compared to everything else. (QNX Neutrino Micro GUI, SkyOS, OS X, Windows, BeOS, you name it)

"Poor and slow" is relative to the type of box. You've got two obvious red flags here, I dunno which is the bulk of your problem:

1. Old graphics card, buggy driver. If the manufacturer keeps the specs closed, then Linux engineers are stuck with reverse-engineering, and shouldn't be blamed all that much for problems. (If the manufacturer has opened the specs, and Linux engineers have failed to use them properly, then they should be blamed.)
2. KDE/Gnome are heavyweights. Try something lighter, e.g. Fluxbox, IceWM, WindowMaker, XFCE.

KVM swithc better than dual boot

[curri]

I tend to recommend to people who want to get into Linux to buy a KVM switch (about $40 for 2 machines, including all cables), and a cheap computer (~$250, or you can use an old one).

This way the switch is instantaneous, rather than waiting 5 minutes for you to log out/restart/boot ...

Re:BSODs on modern Windows

[Duhavid]

Isnt the robust management of the devices and particulars of the hardware the OS's responsibility?

Sounds like he found something that should be handled better and wasnt.

No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[TheNetAvenger]

Someone should put out a book on moving Linux users from the mindeset that Win98 and WinME and DOS are NOT Win2k, or WinXP...

BSOD, you are kidding right? If you see one of these with WinXP or Win2K you have serious hardware issues, PERIOD.

How about a book that get Linux users to open their eyes to the NT model and WinXp and get away from the world of hacker quality drivers and frequent Kernel Panic bringing the Linux system to halt.

Title should be:
"Kernel Panic No More - Move to WindowsXP!"

I truly don't even dislike Linux, I just wanted to throw a concept across the fence that people here seem to forget about.

Also, there are many people that use WindowsXP and 200x servers in production environments with consistent stability.

Windows may have had the BSOD back in the DOS days, or a infrequent one with the NT core when having a hardware or driver issue, but 99% of the users don't see WindowsXP as instable EVER.

If you keep harping on Windows as being instable you are never going to get anyone's attention. Mainstream users on XP just don't have the BSOD or other problems that you like to portray them as having.

So now lets talk about Kernel problems with Linux and the Kernel Panic of Death. (KPOD)

Which I have seen more often than the BSOD on Windows and we run 90% Windows/ 10% *nix systems. Ironic or just silly?

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[Brandybuck]

If you see one of these with WinXP or Win2K you have serious hardware issues, PERIOD.

This is about the dozenth reply like this that I've seen so far scrolling down this story. Are you all paid shills of Microsoft or something?

While a BSOD is less common on 2K/XP, it still occurs. My work is 2K/XP, and every morning at least one system out of several hundred is sitting there with a BSOD waiting for someone to dutifully reboot.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[beakburke]

You do know the the default behavior in 2k and XP is to auto-reboot instead of bluescreen (if it can), right? My experience is totally the opposite. While 2k and XP are markedly better than any of the old 9x stuff, I wouldn't say they are better than linux, though they are approaching it now in terms of stability. I used win2k for a number of years and still do use it for some business machines. My laptop is a Powerbook and my home tower is a slackware server, so I pretty much see it all.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[^_^x]

I was going to make a post just like this...

Like you, I have nothing against Linux. I tried several popular distros several years ago, and again this spring, and will probably play with it again in a couple years to see how it's progressed, but when I compare it to Win2003 I've yet to find a version that meets my needs for driver support, speed, stability (yes, stability,) and software availability.

Stories like this one used to get on my nerves because of the pointless elitism, but nowadays they're just laughable due to the ignorance of the arguments. "Haw haw haw! Windoze 3.11 sux! Get Linux, you no crash nemore!" These people haven't even looked at Windows in half a decade or more, but they continue to play up bugs that were long since fixed; probably because if we compared current OS versions Linux wouldn't shine so brightly. ...just my $0.02

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[anaplasmosis]

I'm afraid I can only assume that you're lying or mad. My Windows XP box crashes about 100 times more often than my Solaris machine. I've never seen a Linux kernal panic. Ever. And as for Windows Mobile, I have to reboot that piece of shit 2 or 3 times a day.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[TheNetAvenger]

This is about the dozenth reply like this that I've seen so far scrolling down this story. Are you all paid shills of Microsoft or something?


You are proving my point for me. 99.9% of people on XP don't have the instability the slashdot world assumes. This is why you are getting so many posts saying, what in the heck are they talkig about, our XP systems run without BSODs or crashes.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[TheNetAvenger]

You do know the the default behavior in 2k and XP is to auto-reboot instead of bluescreen (if it can), right?

Yep, but even with the auto reboot, a brief BSOD appears before the system restarts.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[Brandybuck]

But there is still a significant amount of BSOD's on 2K/XP systems. To pretend that those experiencing them are merely hallucinating, as most of those other posts are doing, is disingenuous. It doesn't fix their problem by telling them it doesn't exist.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[beakburke]

Sometimes yes and no, in my experience, especially with faster computers you frequently don't notice. It tires to do the windows equivalent of a core dump before the restart IIRC, which is why you may see the BSOD on some for longer than you do on others.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[TheNetAvenger]

But there is still a significant amount of BSOD's on 2K/XP systems.

That is your belief; however it is not fact.

We have literally thousands of systems running Win2k and XP that have never had a full system crash (BSOD).

The onese that did, had RAM or Hard Drives fail, which NO OS could of continued functioning.

The only exception to this is the other .01% of the systems that have had full BSOD crashes was due to beta drivers.

Get over it, if you are having systems with ANY BSOD and running WindowsXP or Windows 2003 server, then you have hardware problems that you need to find someone that knows what they are doing to fix them for you.

Just because you say a belief or a lie often, does not make it eventually become truth.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[Brandybuck]

Just because you say a belief or a lie often, does not make it eventually become truth.

Just because you say 2K/XP kernel crashes (aka BSOD) do not occur, does not make them vanish in a puff of metaphysical smoke. They are certainly a magnitude less common than under 9x/ME, but they still occur.

As I mentioned elsewhere, the cause of this is probably attributed to the habits of the average user, who is installing shit willy nilly. As for myself I have never experienced it on my own system, even with the notorious WinME (really), but that's because I rarely install stuff, and immediately uninstall it when I'm finished with it. But I have seen BSOD's happen to other people. To say that all crashes are the fault of the user, is obnoxiously rude.

Of course, I am not a certified Microsoft shill, so what the fuck do I know? I apologize for challenging your world view.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[TheNetAvenger]

Yeah , perhaps you should use a distro that compiles its drivers into modules rather then directly into the kernel. The result? Driver crashes but leaves the rest of the kernel standing.It's in the manual mate. I certainly have never ever ever had a Kernel panic in SUSe Linux since I started using it 3 yrs ago.

The debate over kernel panic does not solely lie in whether drivers are modules or compiled into the kernel. Most distributions do not compile a majority of the drivers, other than standard configuration drivers into the kernel.

I have read the manual, I'm not a *nix or Linux Newbie here.

BTW Do you realize that the concept of abstracting all the drivers from the kernel in the *nix Linux model is impossible? Contrast this with the NT model under XP/Win2k. For example, if you compiled a Linux kernel with the file system driver in a module, it won't even be able to boot.

There is vast difference in the underlying architecture of NT and the *nix world, and many reasons why Microsoft and Cutler abandoned plans to use a *nix model, having even owned rights to a strong Unix variant at the time.

NT and its HAL are a far more advanced concept of OS kernels than any *nix model currently offers, and it is sad that most people don't actually pay attention to this. I wish more people in the Open Source world would stop bashing NT all the time and learn from what Microsoft DID do right with the conceptual architecture of the OS.

It would be great to see an Open Source OS have the advanced abilities that NT inherently has offered since 1992.

For everyone that this does inspire a bit of curiosity, please read the architecture of NT and try to contrast the differences of what Microsoft has done right and how it could be used in the Open Source world. From the unique kernel model, often referred to as Client/Server kernel to the layers that the OS uses to create environments on the NT layer, to the ability to have a multi-subsystem OS intercommunicating and even managed hardware sharing.

Linux is a great OS, but technically it doesn't have the model that NT does, or the extensibility.

I wish you well, and I don't take offense your 'RTfM' response, slashdot has slowly become a home for the fan boy and girl posts rather than the intellectual meeting place to discuss open source and technologies it once was. I just don't happen to be one of the average fan boy/girls of any OS or Platform.

Re:No more Kernel Panic and Linux Thinking

[TheNetAvenger]

Of course, I am not a certified Microsoft shill, so what the fuck do I know? I apologize for challenging your world view.

No apology needed, not even satirically. If we don't debate, discuss, and even disagree about the issues here, then there would be no need for SlashDot.

As for me being a Microsoft shill, you have no idea how far off base you are... It is actually quite amusing...

Take care, and thanks for the post, even if we don't fully agree.

Re:BSODs on modern Windows

[freeweed]

Re-read the post. On a box that's been hibernated at least once, the hibernation file and swap files are ALREADY ALLOCATED. The "free" space could technically be 1MB and the machine will hibernate and boot just fine. Windows won't LET you hibernate unless it has enough disk space.

Re-read a little further, and you'll note it was mentioned that this occured on different boxes, and with different ram.

Regardless, Windows is touted as "it just works". Here's a case where it doesn't. All someone did is add ram to a laptop, and BSOD.

Lucky you

[AvantLegion]

My girlfriend's brand new laptop (well, when it was brand new a year ago) came with WinXP Pro and blue-screen'd regularly. But Linux doesn't.

Moving to Linux is good for geeks and non-geeks

[DenialS]

I've been using Linux as my primary desktop at home since 1998, but I picked up the book primarily for my wife (who made the leap to Linux somewhere around 2001 due to a magical combination of getting tired of having to constantly reboot and the availability of StarOffice). My hope was that she would find Marcel's style approachable enough to dig into the things she was interested in on her own. That didn't pan out, though; she's happier just asking me a quick question when she runs into a dead end.

However, I found myself learning a few things about KDE from the book that I wasn't aware of due to my WindowMaker / Gnome past:

• Kooka is a good front end for scanning, a little nicer than xsane
• K3B is a kick-butt CD burner, miles ahead of xcdroast: look ma, I can burn DVDs! (This is the one part of the book my wife refers to occasionally)
• KDE's printing configuration console is well thought out and works well

So I went from being a primarily command-line oriented guy to trusting a little more in the nice GUI apps that KDE supplies... and it has been good. I'm happy that I picked up Marcel's book.

By the way, he didn't write this book using the French chef schtick that he uses for his Linux Journal "Cooking with Linux" columns, for which I'm quite thankful. I enjoy the columns, but a full book of that would be too much. Instead, he adopts a personal tone that is straightforward and pleasant to read.

Re:Interesting - Your Opinion.. Just Like Mine

[the_mad_poster]

I hate to tell you chief, but Powertoys for XP gives you virtual desktops. And they're just as good as or better than Gnome's. And KDE's. Simple, fast, effective. Free.

Second Coming

[nurb432]

So Jobs is Jesus.. and i assume Bill is damian..

Well it sonuds good anyway :)

Learn Linux through P2P

[Simonetta]

A great application of P2P would be learning Linux. Say you get stuck on something that is very easy on Windows but absurdly difficult on Linux; something like changing the video resolution from 640x460 to 1024 or vice versa. If you know how to do it, it's easy. If you don't then it's a fucking nightmare. Everything in Linux is like this, or used to be.

So you go onto the FuckThisStupidShit(tm) P2P site by pressing any of the keys on the keypad (by pounding your fist on the keypad repeatedly while chanting the name of the P2P site. I do this every day! Just ask my co-workers!).

The P2P front-end programs asks you what you want to do and you type a little message. Then the program includes the relevant configuration parameters of your machine and your text into a P2P packet and sends it off. Someone in P2P land sees it and answers your question. Your life is better. You are becoming a Linux expert. You feel better. Birds are singing. You co-workers are smiling at you again and some of the exciting ones are discretely unbuttoning their blouses.

Re:Learn Linux through P2P

[Simonetta]

Thank you for the tip. I spent hours on this the first time that I installed Linux.

However, a truly advanced operating system would have all the other OS combinations for this and other common activities.

No one should have to learn a new combination of keys to do an activity like video resolution. Once you learned it, your operating system should have an adaptable user interface that remembers the way that you learned how to do something.

For example in Linux, if you do a right click on the desktop, the system should put up a window asking if you want to: change the video resolution (because this is what Windows does, which is used by 90% of the world's computer users) or something else. It should then remember your response in a configuration file.
No one should have to remember how do anything on a PC that has almost a gigabyte of memory and a terabyte of storage (next year). The computer should remember for you.

Re:Off-topic but...

[rueger]

...how is it that a software title that is guaranteed to sell by the millions, meaning that the cost of manufacturing each copy is very low, meaning that shops will buy hundreds of copies in at a discounted rate, is still given a standard price of $54.99 ?

Gee maybe they're affilated with textbook companies, who somehow can't sell millions of first year text books for less than $75!

Surely no-one on the planet is screwed more than university students at book buying time!

Yes, you must be right

[wirefarm]

That whole "Windows is Crashy" thing must be a myth. Regular users must not really be getting them at all.
That whole meme must be a conspiracy by the powerful Linux cabal.
Thanks for settling that.

Utterly crippled by bad advice

[Baloo Ursidae]

It's nice that it comes with Knoppix, but I seriously question introducing new users to RPM distros. Knoppix is dpkg-based, which means you can readily migrate it to Debian without much hassle. Given that Debian just works and RPM distros send you through dependency hell on a badly fragmented format, it seems like the intuitive choice would have been to show new users how to get started with Knoppix immediately and migrate that over to Debian.

Blue screen in windows

[chrisranjana.com]

I guess the blue screen has been kissed goodbye in windows 2000 for good.

Re:the flight speed of African swallows

[Fuzzy Bo]

The answer, of coursee, is at http://www.style.org/unladenswallow/

Re:Bad IT!

[hawkeyeMI]

Yeah the people working there ( I was not an administrator, just a student worker ) were not always so clueful. The ones that were had no authority or influence, because as usual the PHBs ruled the department...