Slashdot Mirror
30 Days With Ubuntu Linux
jkwdoc writes "Vexed by Vista's hardware requirements and product activation issues, many have claimed on various boards that they plan to 'switch to Linux.' [H] Consumer spent 30 days using nothing but Ubuntu Linux to find out if this is truly a viable alternative for the consumer. Linux has indeed become much more than the 'Programmer's OS.'"
I think we've already established several times on here that you went into that message board with an obnoxious, give-me-the world attitude and were quite rude to everyone involved. So learn some manors and get over it. The errors never should have happened, but the continued negative experience you had was largely your own doing. "Hey, when I treat people like crap, they're not very helpful!"
That depends upon what the problem is finally determined to be.
I was referring to problems in asking questions to a forum. When I specifically say "I tried re-installing, several times", and the first response is "Oh, just re-install", who exactly is not doing his part?
Since there is no way anyone else can diagnose your problem,
Oh, no, I already diagnosed my problem:
I have software design standards Ubuntu didn't meet. I wouldn't have HIGHLY RECOMMENDED a product capable of locking you out of your box unless it had gone through rigorous testing.
As for the specific problem with the install, that was diagnosed too: the bootloader screwed up. Once that was clear, I *still* got people who claimed they ABSOLUTELY COULD NOT HELP unless I told them which version of on operating system (that was never accessed) I was using.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
So, to clarify, you consider "not reading to the end of a short post" not to contradict your claim that the forum members were patient? And ditto for the other two examples?
I'm just trying to understand what you mean by patient. I mean, "patience" should cover "reading to the end of a short post", right? It should extend to "not throwing up your arms and just telling someone to go with the proprietary solution on an OS that touts its Free-as-in-speech-ness", right? It should extend to listening to an explanation why "having burned a CD before on a now-disabled computer" does not imply that I am able to burn one now, right?
I'm just trying to find this "patience" you alluded to. Please help me out here.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
> For one, getting X to work at a good resolution was hard (I've a widescreen notebook).
> In fact, until a recent upgrade, I could only get it to work at a much lower resolution.
Please, go and bitch at the manufacturers. They are the only ones with the specs. Without the specs, all the driver developer can do is guess.
Umm, the manufacturers (Intel) have drivers - the install still expects customization from the user end (and I am not talking point-and-click customization, either).
> Secondly, getting the WiFi to work wasn't a cakewalk, either.
Details? Driver problems, installation problems, configuration problems, connectivity problems?
http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=25683 - there, knock yourself out.
> And during the whole messing around with install process, I had to restart the system at least a few times.
Let's be clear on a couple of things - upgrading a kernel will require a reboot. Upgrading X will require a restart of X. What can be avoided under Linux is the situation where you upgrade one driver, reboot, upgrade another driver, reboot, ad infinitum.
Really? I'd never have guessed. Psst - I've given talks on writing Linux device drivers, I'm not totally ignorant of what is needed. Obviously I was talking about the need to unnecessarily restart X or reboot the box. For instance, there was a clash between xorg and libgl libraries which took me forever to figure out, and had the system go totally unresponsive (could not even go to the CUIs - frozen stiff). A hard reboot was the solution, which happened enough times to annoy me.
> And oh, I've had hell trying to get files on a USB thumb drive --
> for whatever reason, the files are simply not accessible from a Windows box.
That's the fault of Linux? Did you format the drive correctly? Try mounting it on a different Windows box?
Obviously, it is something that works well on Windows. All I wanted to do was transfer two files on the USB drive for a friend - and after struggling for about fifteen minutes, I gave up. And oh, treating someone complaining about the problems like an idiot is a great way to get things done.
> And I still can't get my printer and scanner to play nicely with Linux.
Again, please bitch to the manufacturers.
Oh, sure. Nice answer.
> Half the time, the box ends going bonkers.
Details?
Where do you want me to begin? The fact that Firefox magically stopped going to https websites after I upgraded? Or the fact that Gnome would refuse to restart every once in a while, and I'd have to manually do a killall of the gnome-panel process? No, you'll end up coming with an excuse for every point rather than admitting that the system is unstable.
> Its support for other things (e.g. Indic language support, accessibility etc.) is also nowhere near Windows.
Really? The why do I still have to buy two separate versions of Windows if I want both English and Japanese versions? Why do some apps on Windows insist that they cannot be installed on anything except {English|Japanese} Windows? You can switch Ubuntu between dozens of languages in minutes.
So what? I'll pay for Ubuntu if I get the level of Indic support that Windows gives. And FYI - Indic language support is free in Windows (http://www.bhashaindia.com/).
> And the reason it is hell to install is because you have to go hunting for drivers, appropriate fixes etc.
And you don't have to do the same thing with Windows? Then why do I have to go trawling through half a dozen websites looking for the right drivers for my chipset/network card/sound card? All those come with the default distribution in Linux.
When did you last use Windows?
The last time I went hunting for something in Windows was i
Are you recommending that ubuntu should not use a bootloader? How in the world is it supposted to boot? I know you can make an active partition and boot that way, but grub seems many times better too me.
I'm recommending that at a minimum it explain that the smallest of errors with the bootloader will lock you out of all operating systems until you can solve the problem working only through the install CD. That DEFINITELY would have influenced my decision.
Even if you only have one HD, you can still have Linux only load when booting off of a CD drive, and then whenever you want Linux to boot, hit F-whatever at startup and tell it to boot that way. A little more cumbersome, but definitely less risky than editing the MBR. Of course I was stupid enough to hedge my bets by putting Linux on a separate HD, so I could have reduced the risk by having Linux only load when that HD was being booted from. (Though as I found out when posting to that forum, apparently you're supposed to test-install every distro on a COMPLETELY DIFFERENT, disposable box.) And so on.
3) File that must be fixed can't be accessed from the install CD.
What kind of file can't be accessed from the install CD? AFAIK, anything on your machine should be accessible and editable from the install CD -- provided you give it the correct commands.
4) Commands to diagnose the problem won't run.
I don't know what you used so I can't help here.
Check the ubuntuforum thread. Easy to find -- five people have linked it by now. They told me where to go and what command to run. I did that and reported the results. See for yourself.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.
So which hard drive was it? Did you even bother checking?
Right over your head...
The same HD that Windows was originally installed on, and yes.
And if you're so clear on every possible cause of the problem, why were you unable to fix it yourself?
Because I didn't know how edit the bootloader. That's exactly the question I was trying to ask once I figured out what the problem was, and the question all the people there went miles out of their way to avoid answering. Go fig.
Apology to Ubuntu forum.