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.'"

Comments

Misguided or simply lazy

[suso]

From the article: But what about power users, such as the typical audience of HardOCP - those who know how to build their own computers, but not compile their own programs?

IMHO, anyone who wants all the control of building your own computer, reads a website which has overclocking in the name and thinks Linux/FreeBSD/Open Source is either misguided about the benifits of Linux or is just lazy. Putting your own computer together these days with all the options, choices to make, etc. is getting harder than it was 10 years ago. Meanwhile, Linux has been getting easier. So I don't see where the challenge is for these people.

It is nice to see that non-Linux people are continuing to give Linux a try. Most things in the world only get one chance and then its over.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[PrescriptionWarning]

Believe it or not, its still cheaper to build a higher end PC yourself than to go with Dell and the like. Sure if you just want a cheap machine just for everyday stuff, they'll be just fine for you... but its when you want a decent gaming and media rig that the big boys just can't offer the same for less. In this case the only reason to end up with a Dell is for it to come with Windows and a 2 year service plan which you will very likely need due to cheap parts.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MontyApollo]

It seems to me that often people who build their own computers and worry about overclocking are doing so to get the most bang for their buck for gaming purposes. This would not be necessarily be a target audience for Linux.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

Building a computer today is easier than 10 years ago? O RLY?

Maybe you don't recall IRQ conflicts or undocumented jumpers. Perhaps you don't recall 'Plug and Pray'. To say nothing of cases wherein their manufacturers believed human hands were made of some steely, unbreakable substance and by no means needed protection from sharp metal.

I can slap a computer today very nearly by accident in comparison to the annoying foibles of yester-year-- saying it has become more difficult simply smacks of an unwillingness to become familiar with new technologies. That doesn't really play well in this community, sir.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[faloi]

So I don't see where the challenge is for these people.

The challenge is in the purpose. AFAIK, people don't just got into the guts of their system to crank everything up for the joy of theoretical numbers to throw around. Generally, they're after the biggest, baddest box for a reason. A big reason for a lot of people is gaming, after all...it's what consumes the most horsepower. And gaming is currently where Linux falls short. I think if more games (that people want to play) were available with native Linux support, more people would be willing to switch.

Distro's like Ubuntu are great for non-technical users to have a solution to hop on the Internet, check email, do word processing, that sort of thing. In short, all the stuff that a non-technical user is likely to do with a computer anyway.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

More difficult? I disagree. I've met lots of people who brag about having assembled their own machines. What is there to brag about? There are no IRQs to set by pin or other resource conflicts to manage. You just have to put the piece into the place that seems most obvious and it will work.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Compholio]

And gaming is currently where Linux falls short. I think if more games (that people want to play) were available with native Linux support, more people would be willing to switch.

In my experience, people don't care if it's native support or not - if people can run their games under Wine then they're just as happy. Wine effectively runs a lot of games these days (like World of Warcraft and Command and Conquer: Generals) and isn't far from supporting the latest and greatest (for example, the Command and Conquer 3 demo is completely playable but crashes after several minutes).

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MBGMorden]

Even if you just want a dirt cheap PC you can still usually build one for cheaper than what Dell does. The main thing you get with Dell is: support, and a single stop for your warranty. Most people who read Slashdot are without need of the very basic support Dell can offer (good for the clueless, but overall their support guys know less than most technophiles). The warranty is nice, but even building your own you usually have a warranty on all the components, you just have to do more work (contacting individual manufacturers) in order to use the warranty if needed.

Personally though, while the upfront cost is nice, I found it beneficial a LONG time ago to stick with homebuilt PC's, simply because they all use fairly standard equipment. My first x86-based computer was a Packard Bell 486, and it pained me as that thing got old that there was very, very little I could do with it to keep it updated (everything was proprietary). So my next PC was one of those "screw driver" shop ones from a local store where they built them with everything off the shelf. That was circa 1996 or so. Since then, I've never actually bought an entirely new PC. Don't get me wrong, my current computer is absolutely zero components in common with that system (and I've been through countless iterations of unique configurations), but all of that has been done through an upgrade here, an upgrade there, etc. With almost any major manufacturer's systems, you eventually just have to dump it and start again.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[__aaclcg7560]

It's more harder to put a CPU fan on top of the CPU with all the extra clips, screws and whatever else. Back in the Pentium days, switching a CPU was no problem and I did that frequently. These days I switch out the CPU once in a blue moon since removing and putting the fan back on can be a bitch.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[cide1]

IRQ conflicts were 15 years ago. 10 years ago was about the easiest it has ever been. Buy an ATX power supply and case, any of the hundreds of Intel BX boards, whatever the fastest Slot 1 you could afford was, a hard drive, a cd drive, (it was all the same bus then) and if you really had mad cash maybe a Geforce 1 or Voodoo3. All cards were PCI w. AGP video. Everything was PC100 memory, and it was pretty cheap for the time.

Now, you have 5 differant processor sockets, 8 differant chipsets, 3 differant memories all in multiple speeds, differant power supply sockets, PCIx, PCI, and AGP, etc... Plus, it is harder to tell which parts are the fastest or best value now that everyone says their chip all their chips are equivallent to 4 GHz. The chance of being able to upgrade to current equipment is much less than it used to be. Replacing a processor now almost always means memory, power supply, motherboard, and heat sink.

All of this is hard enough building a windows machine, but now couple on getting Linux compatibility, and I say no thanks. I have built dozens of machines for family and friends, but I no longer do. I tell them to go to Dell, buy the cheapest thing, upgrade the memory. I don't have support or warranty issues. Im not returning parts that are wrong, etc...

My best solution to this problem was that when my super tricked out brand new system got stolen, I bought a mac, and it was one of my best computing moves. I paid a rediculous amount, but 3 years later, I haven't felt the need to upgrade it once.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Dog-Cow]

"(for example, the Command and Conquer 3 demo is completely playable but crashes after several minutes)."

I think it's this definition of "completely playable" that keeps people away from Linux.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[BJH]

Putting your own computer together these days with all the options, choices to make, etc. is getting harder than it was 10 years ago.

I call bullshit on that one (and yes, I was putting together my own PCs ten years ago).

Then: A dozen different video card manufacturers, twice that many chipsets, equal variety of drivers.
Now: Two major manufacturers, two unified drivers.

Then: IDE=slow. Master? Slave? Cable? WTF is this?
Now: SATA - plug and go.

Then: Set up your modem to connect to your ISP and hope you don't get any incoming calls. Firewall? What's that?
Now: ADSL. Wireless routers. Built-in firewalls.

Then: Scanner? SCSI (and don't forget your terminators). Printer? Parallel. Video in? Forget it.
Now: USB and Firewire.

Then: Steel case weighing 20kg, built out of razor blades.
Now: Complete kit with rounded internal edges, fans in the box, you name it.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[CPNABEND]

I have been building my own rigs for more than ten years, and I have KUBUNTU up on one of the boxes on my LAN. I have a stumbling block trying to understand the LINUX file system. It's like I download something like Firefox - and can't find where it went. I have been searching for a book that could walk me through everything, sort of like a translation of M$-speak to LINUX-speak. Then, I would be more than happy to kiss Windoze g'Bye.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[gaijin99]

That's it in a nutshell. I use my linux box for everyday stuff, but if I want to game I need to reboot to Windows. Since this semester I'm not doing much gaming, I haven't been booted into Windows for around a month or so, last semester I had an easier classload and I booted to Windows almost every day.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jcgf]

Even if you just want a dirt cheap PC you can still usually build one for cheaper than what Dell does.

I'd like to see that.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Billly Gates]

IRQ conflicts are still there. Especially for Nvidia 6600 GT and some ATI cards.

Worse, back in the old days you could change the IRQs with jumpers. Today most crappy boards *cough* dell *cough* try to put everything on one irq with apic irq routing. Yes it works most of the time fine but when it doesn't it usually means its time to go into the bios. Worse WindowsXP will bluescreen if you put IRQ sharing off and change plug and play OS to non plug and play os unless you reinstall. Sometimes it will boot fine changing these.

Sometimes when technology comes into play to solve a problem and it can create more difficult headaches unless its done right

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[TheQuantumShift]

"I can slap a computer today very nearly by accident"

I tend to do it on purpose and then tell people it fell down the stairs...

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Sobrique]

I'd agree. I have Windows on my PC at home, because my favourite game of the day is pretty much certain to be 'fully compatible' with Windows.

Whilst a _few_ make it onto Linux, it's a minority, and generally it's a lot flakier.

Which is kind of a chicken and egg scenario - No game developer in their right mind does 'Linux Only', and only a few do 'Linux as well', simply because of relative market sizes.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[JakeX]

But then you are saying that PC's are only good for running statistical / design / math / unix / hard to run stuff. Many people have goals that involve an application / media that will only run on windows (currently). That is the primary problem IMHO. Theres no need to say go play on a console, as it has no bearing on the topic.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[vtcodger]

***Maybe you don't recall IRQ conflicts or undocumented jumpers.***

Was there some other kind of jumper?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[ShieldW0lf]

I did that last night and drove the thing halfway through my hand.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[OrangeTide]

There has also been standardization on the motherboard layout. I can remember so many times back in the old days I'd get a system and the CPU fan would be in the way of some bracket, or the power connector couldn't reach to the motherboard. What was even tougher was before ATX back when we used AT. The only standard connector on the mobo was a big keyboard connector, everything else had to be brought out with headers and screwed to the case or take up an ISA slot.

The only new concerns these days that has made things more difficult is that power supplies come in a wide range of outputs and you have to make sure you get one big enough for your new system. But there are no easy hints on how big of one you need. Luckily buying a big mean 600W supply is not terribly expensive, even though it is overkill for most people.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[CastrTroy]

My games are fast enough. What I really want is fast video processing. Ever try converting from DVD to XVID? It takes forever. Even some of the filters in GIMP take forever to run. For most stuff current PCs have been fast enough for a while, but there's still some things that are really slow. Games are made to work on current hardware, and hence, are never that slow.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[rrhal]

You don't remember tring to get ultra DMA to work. Or super 7 motherboards - all of which were but that wasn't quite 10 years ago. 10 years ago we were anticipating this new thing called AGP (ATX cases were still very new). Over clocking was running your pentium at 66 MHz FSB instead of 60.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

hen: Steel case weighing 20kg, built out of razor blades.

As one with shredded knuckles, I always wondered if PC case manufacturers were wholly owned subsidiaries of tetanus pharmaceutical companies.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[HAKdragon]

Generally, they're after the biggest, baddest box for a reason.

Oh! Oh! I know! It's for the chicks, right?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[nostrad]

I find your comment a bit funny. Recently I put together my neighbours computer and removed the fan by accident(!). It was a Core 2 Duo boxed with a fan. Putting the fan in place couldn't be simpler.

I didn't have to make sure it was aligned correctly, there was no socket parts that would raise the copper and disable it from cooling the CPU. There wasn't any huge force involved fastening the CPU, just align it with the 4 holes on the motherboard and push the locks until they clicked.

Removing it is even simpler, grab a screwdriver and rotate the locks 90 degrees (follow the arrows) and they pop right up.
I would say computers recently got a lot easier to put together.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[slashbob22]

Wanted:
Old PCs or parts to make a "dirt cheap" PC.

Send to: 123 Fake St.
(sender must pay shipping)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[nofx911]

Below is a PC for $332 - including Microsoft Vista. The price would probably be around $280 if I used multiple companies for the component parts. All of this is, is from NewEgg.

  Qty. Product Description Unit Price Savings Total Price
1 Rosewill R103A Black SGCC Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 350W Power Supply - Retail
Model #: R103A
Item #: N82E16811147010

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
        $30.99 -$5.00 Instant $25.99
1 Foxconn K8S755A-6ELRS Socket 754 SiS 755 ATX AMD Motherboard - Retail
Model #: K8S755A-6ELRS
Item #: N82E16813186068

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
        $36.99 $36.99
1 MSI MX4000-T64 DDR AGP 2X/4X Low Profile Video Card - Retail
Model #: MX4000-T64
Item #: N82E16814127128

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
        $23.99 $23.99
1 AMD Sempron 64 2800+ Palermo 1.6GHz Socket 754 Processor Model SDA2800AIO3BX - OEM
Model #: SDA2800AIO3BX
Item #: N82E16819104244

Return Policy: Processors (CPUs) Return Policy

In Stock
        $27.00 $27.00
1 WINTEC AMPO 512MB 184-Pin DDR SDRAM DDR 400 (PC 3200) Desktop Memory Model 35145588-P - Retail
Model #: 35145588-P
Item #: N82E16820161615

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
        $33.99 $33.99
1 Western Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM
Model #: WD800BB
Item #: N82E16822144102

Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy

In Stock
        $40.99 $40.99
1 LITE-ON Combo Black IDE Model LH-52C1P-187 - Retail
Model #: LH-52C1P-187
Item #: N82E16827106058

Return Policy: Standard Return Policy

In Stock
        $23.99 $23.99
1 Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Premium for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM
Model #: 66I-00715
Item #: N82E16832116202

Return Policy: Software Return Policy

In Stock
        $119.99 $119.99
Subtotal: $332.93

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jalefkowit]

OK, I'll try.

You know how Windows has "My Documents", right? And that's the default place for downloaded files to go?

The analogous concept in Linux is the "home directory". It's called that because each user account on the system has one, and that user has complete power to do whatever they want there, unlike most of the system which requires admin privileges to make changes.

The home directories, logically enough, are all stored in the /home branch of the filesystem. So if your user account name was "cpnabend", your home directory is probably /home/cpnabend

The home directory is where the system is going to store lots of stuff -- configuration files for applications, downloaded files, you can even install applications in there (if you're the only user who needs them). In this way the "home directory" concept is more expansive than the "My Documents" concept, which is only for document files (your configs are in the Registry, your apps are in Program Files). It's also why the home directory is more useful than My Documents -- if you regularly backup your home directory, you will have nearly everything you need to bring your Linux box back from the dead in case of emergency.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[CmdrGravy]

I get that with Firefox too, I think you can install a download plugin for it which lets you specify exactly where files should go and I think it can put them in different locations dependent on the file type.

Personally I use Konqueror to download stuff because it lets you choose where to put it or you could you use KGet in conjunction with Konqueror which also lets you choose the destination based on the filetype.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[timonvo]

That config is seriously outdated.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MBGMorden]

I'll bite. Below is the cheapest system I can find on Dell's site, with all options at their lowest levels:
AMD Sempron(TM) 3400+
Genuine Windows Vista(TM) Home Basic
512MB Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz - 1DIMM
80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache(TM)
16X DVD-ROM Drive
No Monitor
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Cost: $389 ($359 plus $30 shipping)

Below is a quicker perusal of Newegg. Note that I could slightly downgrade some of these specs (such as going with a Sempron 3000 instead of 3400 to save money, an option which isn't available from Dell), and I could also shop around and likely come out cheaper than Newegg, but it's a good place to through lots of stuff together:

AMD Sempron 64 3400+ Manila 1.8GHz Socket AM2 Processor Model SDA3400CNBOX - Retail $69.99
Microsoft Windows Vista 32-Bit Home Basic for System Builders Single Pack DVD - OEM $94.99
Patriot 512MB 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 533 (PC2 4200) Desktop Memory Model PSD251253381H $33.99
Western Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM $40.99
LG Beige E-IDE/ATAPI DVD-ROM Drive Model 8164BI - Retail $17.99
PC CHIPS A33G V1.0 Socket AM2 SiS 761 GX Micro ATX AMD Motherboard (w/ integrated video/network/sound) - Retail $46.99
POWMAX CP808PL-1 Beige Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case 450W Power Supply - Retail $20.99
DCT Factory KBJ-006UB Black USB Standard Keyboard - Retail $3.99
Rosewill RM800P Black 3 Buttons 1 x Wheel PS/2 Wired Optical Mouse - OEM $3.49

Total: $362 ($334 plus $32 shipping)

Savings over $27 on building yourself. Not huge, but it is a savings, and at these costs that's darned close to 10%.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[DeadChobi]

Overclocking was taping the second pin on your Slot 1 Celeron to disable the clock multiplier lock and then ramping it from 333 to 450 mHz. I remember when AGP and ATX came out and we had to upgrade our boxes to get decent video cards.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[trianglman]

http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx /dimen_n?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd compared to build it yourself using pricegrabber:

• processor - $53
• RAM - $38.99
• Hard Drive - $55
• DVD-ROM - $24.99 (new)
• Chasis (with power supply) - $42.80
• Motherboard - $124 (new)
• USB mouse and keyboard - about $25

Total - $363.78 (including shipping on parts) Dell system - $375 (not including shipping, which usually runs about $100). Savings - about $125. This is using all new parts, no OEM. savings would be a lot more depending on how new you want the parts to be.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[nostriluu]

You shouldn't be installing things like Firefox manually. Any decent distribution (Ubuntu/Debian, Fedora, etc) have much better application management than Windows (or the Mac). They handle finding, installing, and updating mainstream apps for you.

If you really want to know where an application is, and are using the shell (command line), use the "which" command.

$ which firefox /usr/bin/firefox

If you want the basics, as another poster said, everything that is yours is in your home directory, which means when switching computers you just copy that directory and you're done. Otherwise, you might want to scan a document on Linux file system layout standards, but for typical desktop uses you probably don't need to.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[rhyder128k]

I've still got a little white scar on my wrist from super cheap AT case. I was reaching inside (with the machine on - like you do) when I touched the CPU fan and instinctively drew my hand back.

Homer voice - "Ooww! My wrist is hurting."

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[elgatozorbas]

Maybe you don't recall IRQ conflicts

Wasn't this conflict solved when Sddm was kicked out?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[eln]

Meanwhile, Dell has a system that uses a SATA drive rather than your outdated IDE drive, a faster processor, a DVD-ROM (which you did not include), faster memory, and a 1 year warranty for only 20 dollars more.

http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx /dimen_essential?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs

I build my own systems for the same reasons noted above: for high end stuff, I can build a nicer box for less money than Dell can. Plus, the cases you buy off the shelf tend to be easier to work with than Dell's, which seem designed specifically to discourage tinkering. For the low end, though, might as well just stick with Dell.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[phoenixwade]

Why yes, the "undocumented if-you-look-at-it-hard-warranty-void" jumper....

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[avalys]

That's wonderful. Now consider the cost of your time in building the computer, installing Windows, downloading and installing all the drivers from the various manufacturers, and all that.

Never mind the fact that some of the components you ordered are OEM, meaning they have no warranty - and that even for the components that have a warranty, you will likely have to deal with dueling technical support departments. Random crashes while playing games? Video card manufacturer says its your motherboard, motherboard manufacturer says its your video card. Have fun with that.

The rest of us will pay the extra $27, spend ten minutes unpacked our fully-assembled, fully-warranted (from a single source) computers, and get on with our lives.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MBGMorden]

The advantages you mention were covered in my original post. I specifically said that you get the better warranty and support when buying from Dell, but that you could get off cheaper if all you wanted was a cheap computer. You challenge that statement, and when proved wrong, you try to retort with points that I originally made.

My original point still remains exactly the same despite your completely irrelevant comments: building your own system *can* be done cheaper than Dell (even on the low end - the price savings increases as you approach the high end), but if you want the extra warranty or support, you can buy from them.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

>>That config is seriously outdated.

Who gives a fuck, it's new and it's cheap. Cheaper with XP or Linux instead of Vista, which I spent a good 3 hours setting up for someone yesterday (on a Dell) and was underimpressed. It sounds cliche, but there really are a lot of people who just want to use their computer to check email, surf the Internet and watch youtube videos. Call his suggested configuration outdated if you will, but it is adequate for a large group of users. I would also suggest that this configuration may actually boot up faster and run just as quickly as the average Dell because it won't come preinstalled without the megabytes of crap software that Dell likes to include with thier OEM and run at boot time. Ironically enough, looking through the invoice, they listed and charged $.01 per peice of crap software preinstalled. I can only guess it's for accounting/inventory purposes that they would do such a thing. I would hope that if they are going to charge for crap software that I don't want, even if it is a penny, I should have the opportunity to opt out when ordering.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[HUADPE]

And yet it is highly similar to a $400 Dell. Same processor (AMD Sempron) same HD space. No, it's not a great computer. It's a cheap computer.

http://configure.dell.com/dellstore/config.aspx?c= ca&CS=CADHS1&l=en&oc=C521SB_R_E

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[neersign]

Over on Overclockers Forums we have a pretty good comunity of overclockers that use Linux/Unix/BSD/Alternative OS's, especially because we have a Folding@Home team (Team 32) that likes to run Ubuntu 64bit in a VM in Windows to use the SMP client to increase their PPD.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Ashbory]

Yes, the incorrectly documented jumper.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

The stock fan is not a problem. See how easy it is with a Zalman or Arctic cooler.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[d3ac0n]

That config is seriously outdated.

Um...

That's the POINT of a "Dirt Cheap" PC setup. You want dirt cheap, you get second, third, or 4th generation old parts. Frankly I don't think there is anything wrong with using older generation parts, provided you don't expect them to perform like cutting edge stuff. Honestly, any machine with at least a 1Ghz Processor, 1 GIG RAM, and a 2 generation old video card should be able to run XP or Ubuntu with no trouble at all. Vista, No.

But then isn't that the POINT of this article anyway? To get off the expensive upgrade treadmill by moving to an OS that doesn't waste your CPU and RAM by being full of bloatware and unnecessary services and processes? (I won't even go into the benefits from a computing experience free of virus and spyware worries.)

Methinks that you missed the spirit of the OP's post.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

I put a 486DX/66 chip in the ZIF socket in the wrong position. The little triangle thing in the corner wasn't matched up. I powered the PC on and it melted the chip and motherboard. That sucked, considering I was 14 at the time and had no way to buy a new mobo/cpu. There's soo many place guards in todays systems that it's almost impossible to screw it up.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[teh_chrizzle]

5 differant processor sockets, 8 differant chipsets, 3 differant memories...

FIVE GOLD RINGS!

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[avalys]

Sorry, no one has better application management than the Mac. Every application is a single file, that you can drag anywhere on your system, and double-click to run. To delete it, you drag it to the trash.

How can you get any better than that?

Some badly-written applications require installers, but they are few and far between.

The Linux package management systems are merely tolerable, especially if you have any problems.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[__aaclcg7560]

My experience been with the AMD Athlon CPUs where a screwdriver and significant amount of force is needed to put the clip where it belongs. It's no fun when the screwdriver slips and you think you just wiped out the motherboard.

I had a roommate who assembled his own P4 computer. It didn't work so he took it apart to take it back to the store. He asked me if the CPU was supposed to be sticking to the heatsink. That was a weird sight. Turned out he never locked the CPU into the socket. The computer worked after he fixed that. I think he would've been better off with a Dell.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[ubuwalker31]

http://www.tomshardware.com/2007/02/19/the-300-pc/

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Fordiman]

"Putting your own computer together these days with all the options, choices to make, etc. is getting harder than it was 10 years ago."

Hm. Methinks you have 'good old days' syndrome going on. I do seem to remember accidentally purchasing a processor that would not work with the motherboard I had purchased in 1997. The ISA/PCI thing had people confused while the changeover was going on, too.

Putting your own computer together requires a measure of patience, a measure of cash, a measure of research, and the ability to play the 'square peg/round hole' game on a more complex scale.

"Meanwhile, Linux has been getting easier."

Now first off, I'm a linux user, specifically xUbuntu. Ubuntu's mostly great, but it still suffers from the first-install problem; X just isn't always autoconfigged correctly on the first boot. Once you get past that, though, everything's peachy-keen.

Well, until you want to install something that's outside the Ubuntu package repository. Beryl's a good example of this. Sure, it's only like five lines of console, but I can't count how many people seem to have a problem with googling for 'beryl ubuntu install'.

Admittedly, that's a tweaker's problem. Still, the first (pervasively perfect X configuration) problem stands. Get it right, damnit!

Here's hoping Feisty does better.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Vexorian]

In fact, I built a comp last december and compared to what I had to do in 2003 it got much easier, I think the real deal is that SATA replaced IDE (Thank god) and you don't even need a floppy drive anymore. USB then is just a plug and go and every thing is eventually becoming USB based....

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jcgf]

It's still only cheaper if you value your time at $0.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[ChrisA90278]

I agree, being good with a screwdriver does not mean you know anything about computers. An certainly does not mean you know anything about software. Also if the site is about "over clocking" it will attract a set of users who don't need or want Linux. Only gamers care about over clocking and most Linux users reliability matters more than anything else. If you are into games stick with Windows XP.

The right way to choose an operating system is to use the one that runs the applications you need to run. If those are all games then XP is it. It the applications are for digital content creation (making videos, music or photos) then you might want Apple's Mac OS X. If they are the Apache web server and a C+ compiler then Linux is pretty good. If you are web surfing and reading email, it does not matter they all work.

As for ease of use. The fair test is to give a Linux system to some one who has never seen Linux and a Windows system to some some who has never seen Windows. So go out to the South American Rain Forest and find and Indian who's never used a computer. Give him a bare mother board and boxed hard drive some RAM sticks and a retail copy of Vista. Tell him "make it work". Give is brother a the same kit of parts except use a boxed retail copy of Linux. My bet is that the Linux system will go together quicker.

Not a fair tst if you give Windows to a long-time windows user and Linux to someone new to Linux.

Oh Yes, have you seen what happens if you post a request for help in a Windows forum."

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[nostriluu]

Mac doesn't manage dependencies at all. So everything is a monolithic glob, or you have to manually install some other required piece of software.

Mac doesn't manage system wide updates at all. For every app, you have to hope it has a "check for update" option, somewhere. With Linux package managers, it's across the system, for all applications. Mac will never do this, because Apple vs Mac developers is a dysfunctional relationship, Apple wants to make it awkward so they can unfairly compete when they feel like it.

Finally, Mac apps and updates are often lazy, and request the system is restarted. Linux packages rarely do this.

I don't know what your Linux package management experiences are, but I've rarely had any issues installing, updating and removing apps, although granted on systems like Debian they are not the most up to date, which rarely matters over the advantages of everything being managed.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[teh_chrizzle]

AFAIK, people don't just got into the guts of their system to crank everything up for the joy of theoretical numbers to throw around.

talk to a hardcore seti addict sometime. they will drop $1500 on a new liquid cooled rig to push them up to the next user class. the guys in the top 20 are even worse. i had a friend who once misappropriated a whole software test lab over a 4 day weekend to see a boost in seti rank.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[creepynut]

And you think you're going to get free shipping by ordering all those parts separately?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[spxero]

As another poster mentioned, /home/[user] is basically the same as C:\My Documents.
The file system is (in a very simplified way) like a Windows file system without drive letters. Everything is basically in a folder. If you can move around in folders in Windows (i.e. going from C:\Program Files to C:\Documents and Settings\[user]), you can move around in Linux. But instead of the 'C' drive being the top level, '/' is the top level. So going from /etc/ to /home/[user] just means going up one level to /, then going down one level to /home, and then /home/[user].

If you are familiar with network shares in Windows (shares, not mapped drives), and can move around to folders and files in that, it's a similar concept.

As a side note, I found transitioning from Windows to Ubuntu easier than going to Kubuntu. For me GNOME seemed a little more intuitive to the way Windows handles things. But as always, ymmv.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[cyclop]

But if you value positive money the time you spend learning by doing, you actually are rewarded by building a PC. It all depends on how you value things.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[delire]

Try:

man hier

A good overview of the Linux filesystem for the layman.

AFAIK FF on Ubuntu will automatically download all files to the 'Desktop', which can be reached at any time by clicking the Desktop icon at the bottom left-most corner of your screen or found in the file-browser, Nautilus.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[adachan]

Since when do OEM products have no warranty? Check the item descriptions.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[The Crooked Elf]

He included the shipping cost in the individual parts (and states this explicitly), although he also overestimated Dell's shipping by around a factor of three. Really, as previously stated here, you'll save about $30USD in terms of equipment building the system yourself. I agree that you can buy your own computer parts for cheaper, but when we're talking about such low-end systems the difference is marginal. This seems a pointless argument. Build your own computer if that's what suits you, or if you have custom needs the manufacturers don't take into account.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[crabpeople]

"Never mind the fact that some of the components you ordered are OEM, meaning they have no warranty"

You are either incredibly ignorant or willfully spreading disinformation. OEM does not mean "no warranty".

I will agree, I would much perfer the dell (assuming the shipping wasnt obscene). But such an underpowered computer would be like an office machine, or email/web machine for the home. It is hardly what I would consider anywhere near a decent machine. Decent machines can pretty much only be built piecemeal. The best solution here is to support your local economy and buy from a small privately owned computer shop. Sure you might pay a little more, but it beats sending your computer half way around the world (or country) when you have issues.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[lattyware]

Note: PCI-Express isn't the same as PCIx. Either you missed PCI-E out or got it wrong.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Zantetsuken]

umm... firefox lets you specify where downloads go too...

Windows is under "Tools>Options" and *nix is under "Edit>Preferences" from there its under the main tab, in the "Downloads" section, and "Save files to"

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jZnat]

I don't know about you, but I can build and install a computer in much less time than the time it takes to uninstall all the crapware on Dell machines and get everything working reasonably well. If you say I should just flatten and reinstall, then you're still wasting the same amount of time as you would with the installation minus maybe a half hour of putting it together.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[obarthelemy]

I beg to differ.

The way Dell PCs are delivered full of crapware, you pretty much HAVE to reinstall Windows from scratch. And don't forget to order the OS CDs to be able to do that. And yes, those cost extra.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[nofx911]

As I said in the original post - all of this was a quick search. The drive listed above is CDR / DVD Rom. Its specs are:
LITE-ON Black 16X DVD-ROM 52X CD-R 32X CD-RW 52X CD-ROM 2MB Cache IDE Combo

Secondly, if you wanted a Serial ATA drive you could have one:
Maxtor DiamondMax 20 STM380211AS 80GB 7200 RPM SATA 3.0Gb/s Hard Drive - OEM
            Cache: 2MB
            Features: Robust design for system reliability Great value RoHS compliant
            Form Factor: 3.5"
            Labor: 3 years limited
            Parts: 3 years limited
        * Model #: STM380211AS
        * Item #: N82E16822144095
        * Return Policy: Limited 30-Day Return Policy
        * In Stock
        * 3 Business Day Shipping $5.94
        * Move item to Wish ListMove To Wish List
        * $42.99

Its just $2 more expensive (And, yes, the above listed motherboard has 4 serial ATA slots).

As I stated this was just a quick search. If I were actually trying I could build a much, much, cheaper box.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

You've never tried to get warranty service from Dell, it seems. The one time I did was also the one time I got into dueling tech support (with Microsoft!). It wasn't even a personal purchase: it was at work! I recommended against Dell at the time, but Policy overrode me.

Also, every OEM product I've bought has come with a warranty.

I hate to throw accusations around lightly, but you sound almost like a Dell FUD lackey.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[zizzo]

I'd rather spend a few hours installing windows than spend weeks uninstalling the Dell shovelware. I'd be pretty surprised if you bought a Dell and jumped for joy at the "fun" extras.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[crabpeople]

"It's no fun when the screwdriver slips and you think you just wiped out the motherboard."

Perhaps you should hire a professional if you cannot accomplish simple tasks.

 

"I think he would've been better off with a Dell."

Oh I see you have realized this point as well.

Computers have never been easier to put together.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[delire]

I work often on OS X and find the lack of a package management system a gaping hole in my experience of the platform.

I find having to go to websites to find and download software frustrating and tedius. Fink and Darwin Ports work on and off, but they have less than a third of what Ubuntu or Debian offer and are plagued by dependency problems.

While a little sluggish, OS X systems are great when they're brand new. However, when they start to grow stale - and you have to fork out just to upgrade the OS and upgrade software on the machine piece by piece - you start to hanker for the sanity and freedom that is apt-get.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[__aaclcg7560]

Perhaps you should hire a professional if you cannot accomplish simple tasks.

I'm A+, Network+ and MCP (Windows 2000) certified. How much professional to do I need to be? :P

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[RESPAWN]

LOL. I have an old 4.3 GB Fujitsu hard drive sitting at home that is kind of misdocumented. They were nice enough to put the sticker on the top of the hard drive, just above the jumpers, to indicate which jumpers to select for master, slave, CSL. Unfortunately, they neglected to tell you that the jumper diagram indicated what it should look like if you held the drive upsidedown. And there's no chance that the sticker was accidentally put on upside down as the writing on the sticker is the correct way up. I thought I'd bought a broken drive when I first discovered this little issue.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Grimbleton]

Oh man... My Zalman 9500 literally tried killing me while I was installing it. I hope to hell that nothing goes wrong with my mobo/cpu in the near future just because of it.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[cuby]

Never mind the fact that some of the components you ordered are OEM, meaning they have no warranty I don't know in the US, but in Europe every piece of equipment sold to the public must have, at least, 2 years of warranty.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MBGMorden]

A lot of people have far more extra time than they care to admit. It doesn't magically materialize into extra cash. You have to either a) commit large sums of your extra time into an extra occupation, or b) work out some sort of consulting arrangement where you can earn extra income. Both of these involve more time than the hour or two it takes to get a system up and running. That time also affords you a rare chance: to convert that extra time, in very small proportions (that most people would usually squander) into extra cash by means of saving.

That also completely ignores the fact that many people enjoy tinkering with a computer. Hell some people tinker/rebuild/reinstall on their computer more than they actually do any "real work". To them they'd probably pay a little extra for the system to come as a box of parts :).

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[u38cg]

Correct. This post is brought to you with an Athlon XP 1800 and 256MB of RAM, and it gets faster every time I upgrade.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[mnmn]

I must mention these days computers are a little less predictable.

Blocked airflow, low power powersupply etc. might not always work.

I had a memory stick which would work in the socket closest to the CPU and not in the next one. Another memstick worked in both. High frequency issues?

At least during the 386 days computers would either work or not work for a very good and visible reason. High frequency and power, low cost devices are just finicky. They may not always work and you may never know why. Back then debugging IRQ problems was simple enough and could be fixed. Nowadays IRQ is handled by PCI, BIOS and the northbridge but when it's out-of-whack, time to buy a new computer.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[koh]

Everything that came before is primitive. Everything that came after is lame. Nicely fits in a sig for a different kind of forum. Too bad you posted anonymously, I like to include author names...

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[DataSpring]

However, there are some of us out there that, even though we are buying a dirt-cheap computer, will wipe out the partitions on the hard drive (yes, even the dreaded Dell recovery partition), reinstall Windows, and set things up the way we would if we had purchased the hardware piece-meal and assembled it ourselves. I, personally, would prefer to get the separate hardware and build it myself. But even if I bought a Dell, I'd repartition and "start from scratch."

This applies in a business I used to work for - they wanted the absolute cheapest computer they could get...preassembled...and they wanted it to say "Dell" on the front...heh. Then, a few months (or less) from the original purchase, the boss would come to me and ask if I could install XYZ package on that computer, then want to know why it was running so slow, or why that machine was running out of hard drive space, etc....and it was always b/c it was a rock-bottom machine. If I had built it myself with the same budget, I would have cut corners in one place, and added in others (larger, faster hard drive, more memory, cheaper case, good power supply (and that doesn't mean 1000 Watts; it just means high quality, low noise, lasts for years,) etc...)

Or that El-Cheapo machine would suddenly be turned into a server for some new service we were building....and the network card or video card wouldn't work in FreeBSD, Linux, or Novell Netware 4.x series (whichever was necessary for the task at hand.)

So, go ahead and criticize the people trying to post proof that a system can be built for the same price, or cheaper, than a Dell (or other common name brand with big discounts at their stores, whether online resellers, or local electronics shops), but this thread is relevant and helpful to some out there who might just need a little bit of motivation to build it themselves, or a little bit of motivation to put together the business argument to take to their boss, showing why the cheapest Dell computer is a bad option compared to what could be built in-house....

Fortunately, I no longer work for those cheapo's....I work for other, equally thoughtless cheapo's....but I have more of a say in what we buy here. :-)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Nimey]

Ugh, stay well away from any PC Chips product. They are cheap shite.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[cloudmaster]

Except that the video card, sound card, and motherboard are all the same piece from the same manufacturer, so there's no "battling vendors" (which, in 12 years of professional IT work, I've *never* seen in the PC realm).

None of that needs downloaded drivers, either - Windows XP supports it all out of the box. While you're battling with Dell to support your problem ("we only support a stock configuration - you'll have to reinstall from the rescue disk" and "sorry, we don't provide support for your game"), though, the rest of us have an RMA number from the equipment manufacturer and are getting on with our lives - enjoying the $27 we saved in the process. Have fun with that.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[shaitand]

The value of time is relative. A given increment of your time is only worth what you would otherwise be using it for. I would normally take spending a couple hours building a computer over wasting time watching sports. Others might be willing to spend $27 to watch sports. Even if you claim to value your time at $10,000/hour, a football game isn't going to put a dime in your pocket.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jZnat]

You still have to manually manage applications. Most applications (if not all) that come with OS X can be updated with the software updater, but all your 3rd party applications either need to implement their own updater (e.g. Firefox) or just tell you to check for updates yourself and re-copy them to wherever you installed it.

Of course, there is fink for OS X, but that is basically APT with OS X binaries instead of ELF ones.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

OEM hard drives come with 3 to 5 year warranties - retail drives come with only 1. I would never buy retail.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[crabpeople]

updatedb - to update the locate database with locations

locate X - to locate files named X

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[bazorg]

That goes both ways. DIY PCs don't come with circusware that takes hours to remove to get a sane Windows installation. And if you want Linux instead of Windows you'll need some time to install from CD/DVD anyway.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MeNeXT]

Send the specs. I'll do it.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[SevenHands]

For me, installing a Sonic Tower and Zalman GPU cooler drew blood.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[trianglman]

The over estimation is only due to time since I last ordered from Dell. Last summer, the minimum shipping cost per their website was $100, this was when I was purchasing a laptop from them. If they have lowered the cost since then, thats good.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[uimedic]

First, if your building your own computer, chances are good you're not running to tech support every time something goes wrong. So the tech support issue is a red-herring for the home-built crowd.

Second, it's not like you just turn on the Dell and run. Dells come pre-loaded with a bunch of crap that consumes too many of the limited resources available to a low-end PC from the first boot. To remedy this takes a lot of time. I daresay as much time as it takes to throw together the parts for a basic PC.

Third, you are seriously misinformed about the OEM = no warranty issue. Your assertion is just not true. I've personally received excellent warranty support on several OEM components purchased through Newegg. I've heard that that Windows is unsupported by Microsoft when purchased with an OEM license, but I don't know the facts on that and I've never personally called MS technical support.

Finally, notice that $95 of this $362 machine from Newegg is a license for an OEM (unsupported) version of MS Windows Vista HOME BASIC?! With Dell, that cost is bundled in automatically. You can't remove it a la carte. You can only get it refunded by prostrating yourself in public while chanting "please, please, please." Building your own, you just don't buy windows and you save 26% on the purchase price (making it a full $122 less than the Dell).

If Ubuntu is a strong competitor to Windows (and I've found it that), there is substantial savings to be had for those interested in building their own computer to run linux vs. buying from Dell or any other mainstream manufacturer to run linux. Which is how this whole discussion got started anyway.

Respectfully,

uimedic

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[rainman_bc]

I didn't have to make sure it was aligned correctly, there was no socket parts that would raise the copper and disable it from cooling the CPU. There wasn't any huge force involved fastening the CPU, just align it with the 4 holes on the motherboard and push the locks until they clicked.

No thermal grease? When did we stop having to do that???

Plus, from what I've understood Dell and other OEM manufacturers make sure there's a really nice fit with the heat sink - I'm not 100% if they lap them or not, but from what I've noticed they seem to just cool better...

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[VGPowerlord]

Windows has home directories. In fact, My Documents is a subdirectory of it.

X:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents is the real location of My Documents (replace X: with the system drive and username with the user's login name).

The thing is, most people don't know about it because new users on Windows 2000/XP on non-Windows/Netware domain systems have administrative privileges by default.

Fun fact: User home directories (AKA User profiles) can be stored on a central server in a Windows domain. Only the Local Settings part of the user information is not stored in a roaming profiles system.

If you're a limited user on Windows, you have permission to write to your home directory, the All Users\My Documents directory, and the HKEY_CURRENT_USER part of the registry by default. That's it.

Application developers should code around this, but they haven't been. They are just finding out now how to write apps that respect Windows' security model due to Vista's annoying UAC dialogs, despite the same security model being around since Windows NT 3.1 came out over a decade ago.

In case you're wondering, Windows makes these paths available to programs through environment variables. To be exact, they have USERPROFILE, APPDATA (to store program settings, usually %USERPROFILE%\Application Data ), and ALLUSERSPROFILE (to read common settings, although most of this area is only writable by administrators).

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[peter_gzowski]

That may be the cheapest you could find at that moment, and at that level, but Dell has discounts all the time on various models. Perhaps I don't want a Sempron, maybe I want the Athlon X2. Go here:

http://www.dell.com/content/products/features.aspx /dimen_e521?c=us&cs=04&l=en&s=bsd

The far right model is typically around $419 w/ free shipping. I doubt that you can build it for cheaper than that (adding the X2 instead of the Sempron, a 160GB HD instead of 80GB, and an extra 512MB DIMM is more than $57).

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Sporkinum]

"It sounds cliche, but there really are a lot of people who just want to use their computer to check email, surf the Internet and watch youtube videos."

Which is what my wife does with her machine. It started life as my 600mhz Compaq slot A Athlon. While I used it, it got a 850mhz processor, and a radeon 8500 added. After I built my "new" machine (XP1700, and now currently XP2400 homebrew), I put Mandrake linux on it. She is currently running Mandrake 10.1 and has no problem watching videos or doing any of the mundane internet related tasks. It even has enough horsepower to watch DIVXes and decode DVDs. It also never crashes.. great for me!

I guess what I am saying, is that it doesn't take a whole lot of computer to handle most people's needs.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Douglas Goodall]

When I started reading ths thread, I expected to see a glowing report. I hadn't occured to me the systems software would be judged on the basis of how well it played games. When I think about a computer, I think about the normal web, email... and then ssh to shell into my server, or python and c++ for software development. When I want to play a game, I fire up my PS3. There is a very good chance that many business desktops can run Linux suitably with email, web, open office... and the users can go home to play games. Games are a really sad justification for the existence of Microsoft. IMHO.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MeNeXT]

Yikes man. Somebody forgot to tell me to get out of this business.

Dell is not the cheapest. Most parts come with at least one year warranty and I normally pick up disks form old system and have them replaced for FREE by the manufacturer.

If you are having problems putting a Windows system together then you have a serious problem. Either the system is too old or the supplier has poor support. The trick with Windows is think of it as beta until SP1. Vista is beta. forget what Microsoft says. You will have problems with hardware and software until SP1. Don't believe me? Try to find NEW hardware which has no XP support. 2000 is getting harder, 95/98 is hard and 3.1 is impossible

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anubis350]

To be honest the first thing I do on *any* prebuilt machine (and my friends often ask me to do it on theirs) is re-install the OS. I even do it on Apples, but on Dells it's almost imperative, so I can get rid of all the crap they ship it with. With Dell, I usually grab the vanilla drivers from their site, instead of the all-in-one driver pack with dells update utilities and such. So, the time factor there certainly doesnt effect me, or, I suspect, most /.ers. And as I said, I do it on my friend's/family's/g/f's family's machines too more often than not.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Champ]

Read and internalize the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard.

It's a pretty easy read, and you'll understand where everything goes on a Linux system and why.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Asic Eng]

I had a few problems with Dell. (Admittedly I can't judge whether these are common). First issue was low-quality parts. I had to have them replace the CD writer several times - yes it was under warranty, but in the end I gave up and installed better equipment. Second was upgrading - the case was an absolute nightmare, no two parts were installed in the same way (one drive in a drive cage which needed to be disassembled to get to the drive, another standing on it's head, held by screw which was under the front cover). The BIOS was weird, the RAM used was an unusual configuration etc.

I think I may have been unlucky with that machine, and probably Dell usually delivers better stuff. However there is a general problem there: when I buy the machine ready-made I don't control the parts. Some parts may be good quality, some will probably be crap.

When I build a machine myself I have control over the parts I pick and I have documentation on everything. The initial costs are probably roughly the same and I have to put in a bit of work, too. However once it gets to upgrading things become a lot easier - I have picked a case which gives me easy access to the components, I have space to put in additional cards, the hard drives are easy to replace etc. I think this is the point at which you can save money, too - you can just replace a few things to keep the machine up-to-date vs buying a new one.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MBGMorden]

I can find no mention of Free Shipping on the system you quote. When I go through to order, it specifically lists shipping as $109. That would bring the cost of that system to $528. Adding the same upgrades to my quoted system increased the price by $72, bringing the total cost of the home built system to $434. That's now a $94 savings if you went that route.

Now you may *occasionally* find it with free shipping, but then you're likely to then not get their current "instant $150 rebate) discount that they are listing with the system, essentially nullifying the free shipping. Also note that even if you got that discount AND the free shipping, we're still only $15 away from matching the price with a 30 minute look at a single vendor: Newegg. If I really wanted to hit Pricewatch and pinch my pennies, I could shave $15 of the cost of the system and get it back under that.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[rizzo320]

If you by AMD or Intel retail processors that come with the CPU fan, it comes with correct amount of thermal compound on the heat sink. Only when you manually scrape that goo off, or, you are using OEM cpu/heat sink combinations do you need thermal grease.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[VanessaE]

My experience was exactly the opposite - replaced the stock heat-sink+fan on my AMD 64x2 3800+ not that long ago with a Spire "DiamondCool II"...Wasn't difficult at all, but I did have to yank the mainboard out to replace that little 2"x4" mounting plate behind the CPU. Otherwise, a little grease, two screws, and a fan plug and I was all set (and about 27 degrees centigrade cooler, to boot)

Note to self: Get a case that gives me access to the heat-sink mounting plate through the mainboard backplane next time.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Qamelian]

"Never mind the fact that some of the components you ordered are OEM, meaning they have no warranty" Well, this is just not true. I only build from OEM parts and have for more than 10 years. They have always included a warranty from the manufacturer.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Anonymous Coward]

FIVE GOLD RINGS!

Four pounds of backbacon
Three french toasts
Two turtlenecks
And a BEER - in a tree!

Boy, that was a beauty.
Now take off, all you hosers.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Ant P.]

That's wonderful, however my £1200 prebuilt P4 Windows XP PC came without the OS preinstalled and no drivers for the modem, sound card or video card. Random crashes while playing games? You bet. The motherboard went bad almost exactly two weeks after the warranty expired.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[chaoticgeek]

Plus the fact that you get a copy of windows so you can reinstall and you don't have to worry about crapware messing up your system. So down the line you can reinstall from that and load your drivers again w/ out having to uninstall crapware again or have it mess up your computer to force you to do it all over again.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jalefkowit]

Windows has home directories. In fact, My Documents is a subdirectory of it.

I know that, but I was trying to keep it simple. Windows users don't use the "home directory" terminology, and most of them have no idea about the Documents and Settings folder. My Documents they know because it has a big icon on the desktop, but very few know where that folder actually lives in the filesystem. (And why should they, if they never use it?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[RESPAWN]

You can most certainly build a computer cheaper than what you can purchase from Dell... most of the time. If you are willing to check out their refurbished gear, then you can usually purchase cheaper than you can build. Especially when factoring in the OEM parts purchased from Newegg which have no warranty. (Not that I've ever had an OEM purchase from Newegg fail on me, but I loathe the day that I do because I know I won't have any recourse to have that part replaced.) That also doesn't include the cost of your time. Is it really worth two to three hours out of your day to save, in this case, $27?

The last time I purchased a new computer I was able to purchase a refurbished Dell (plus extra RAM and the video card I wanted from Newegg) for less than it would have cost me to build it on my own, including hunting for the best deals on parts from several different vendors. It was worth it for me to both save money and time by just ordering the refurb PC from Dell and the $400 video card and RAM from Newegg. But, to each their own, I guess.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Civil_Disobedient]

This old computer fogey completely agrees.

Then: A dozen different video card manufacturers, twice that many chipsets, equal variety of drivers.

Also: The only drivers you got were the ones that came packaged with the card. Oh sure, you could download them if you had a modem, and it was set up properly, and wasn't the card that you needed the drivers for, and the manufacturer had a BBS, and the line wasn't busy...

Then: IDE=slow. Master? Slave? Cable? WTF is this?

Also: 5 MEGAbyte hard drives, FULL HEIGHT. Cable-connection order matters. And remember the joys of TERMINATING RESISTORS? Kids these days have it so damned easy.

Then: Set up your modem to connect to your ISP and hope you don't get any incoming calls. Firewall? What's that?

Also: Modem init strings. ATH0M0S11=50ETC,ETC. Modem connect strings. Busy signals... ALWAYS busy signals. X-Modem, Y-Modem, Z-Modem (now with recovery!). DIP switches, conflicting IRQs... tons of fun.

Then: Scanner? SCSI (and don't forget your terminators). Printer? Parallel. Video in? Forget it. ...NULL modem cables, Joystick ("game") cards, the only quality video-out card was the Targa 3000 and it cost an arm and a leg, a 300 KB file took hours to download...

Then: Steel case weighing 20kg, built out of razor blades.

Nothing more to add here. They really sucked that much.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[DaveWick79]

3-5 day shipping on that system is listed at $29. You'd be doing well to get all the parts shipped from newegg for $30. And if you went pricewatch happy, you'd probably spend even more to get parts shipped in from multiple vendors. Granted, I wouldn't buy the Dell anyways, even if it was cheaper, but you've still got to compare apples to apples (maybe that isn't such a great analogy haha) here.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jonadab]

> > ***Maybe you don't recall IRQ conflicts or undocumented jumpers.***
> Was there some other kind of jumper?

Yeah, there were drive jumpers, which were documented on stickers affixed to the hard drives in such a position that in order to read them, you had to take the drive totally out of the drive bay.

Oh, wait, we still have that, at least for IDE drives.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Emetophobe]

>I paid a rediculous amount, but 3 years later, I haven't felt the need to upgrade it once.

Perhaps that is because there is little to no bleeding edge software that is pushing the limits of mac hardware. Honestly, if you aren't a (hardcore) PC gamer, you have no reason to upgrade your computer every 2-3 years.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[TheQuantumShift]

"Steel case weighing 20kg, built out of razor blades."

That would explain why every time I open up my 10yr old cas-edge I hear the Star Trek battle theme...

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[sootman]

It goes both ways.

Then: chip-of-the-year: Socket 7, Slot 1, etc.
Now: many, many more.

Then: RAM-of-the-year: 30 pin SIMMs, 72 pin SIMMs, PC-66 DIMMs, PC-100, PC-133
Now: many, many more.

Then: Speeds in MHz, and a couple extra features: L2 cache, MMX, 3DNow, SSE, etc.
Now: All these 'comparable' numbers, or numbers that have no immediately discernible significance.

I quit building machines when the price advantage wasn't there any more. I remember building computers with carefully selected components for less than $700 (partially by omitting things I didn't need, like a sound card) compared to OEM computers which were $1,200 and up. Then for a few years it was more or less a wash, but you took comfort in the fact that you picked quality components, had a balanced system, and could easily upgrade. But once Dell started selling PCs for less than $500, I could barely even buy parts for that much, to say nothing of assembly time. (Especially when you factor in a legit Windows license.) And building for someone else? Who needs that headache! Tell them to buy an OEM and call the manufacturer if something goes wrong. Too often I built systems and was forever on the hook to fix them, even if the problem had nothing to do with the hardware I chose.

If you're a gamer, or want a tip-top system, or have other special needs or wants, by all means, build it yourself. I'm NOT saying no one should build their own system--I built plenty, and I'm glad I did. I'm just pointing out why I *don't* build my own anymore.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Emetophobe]

You made some very good points.

Then: Set up your modem to connect to your ISP and hope you don't get any incoming calls. Firewall? What's that?
Now: ADSL. Wireless routers. Built-in firewalls.

One thing I'd like to add:

Then: ethernet cards sold seperately
Now: Built-in gigabit ethernet in pretty much every motherboard

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Braino420]

You shouldn't really need to know where the actual binary is; it should just show up in your menu under 'internet' once installed (you did install firefox with Adept, right?). If you want a quick overview of the Linux filesystem type 'man hier' in a terminal.

Most programs you install will go in /usr/bin/

I've always found ubuntuguide to be immensely helpful.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[CoolMoDee]

Luckly though, implementing updating into your application is only a few clicks and an rss feed away with Sparkle. Sparkle makes it so a developer has no excuses to not to add updating into their application - literally, zero lines of code added. Though - it would be nice to be able to hook into Software Update - just for the uniformity as a user - however I do like the current method (Sparkle enhanced) very much as well.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jedidiah]

That's simple: DON'T GET A ZALMAN.

The target audience for this thread won't even have ever heard of them or any of their products or have any clue why they would care. OTOH, you can get equivalent components with suitable cooling/noise properties that will infact use the cpu vendor standard attachment mechanisms.

This just goes to show that some people are intent on making things difficult for themselves regardless of how things actually could be.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jedidiah]

OTOH, I used something with a standard attachment clip.

It works like a charm, does it's job in the living room and is the whole machine it is attached to is quieter than the TV it's connected to.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jedidiah]

A real one perhaps.

This just goes to show that most certs aren't worth the paper they're printed on.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MBGMorden]

Not sure why it was listed as $109 for me, but I had actual shipping from Newegg included in my estimate ($32 to ship it all - that's a direct price not a guess). Even with $29 shipping for the dell we're still at $434 shipped for the homebuilt versus $448 shipped for the Dell.

This is largely beside the point though. My original contention was that you could build a cheaper system then Dell. You might have to shop around, you might have to skip on tech support, you might have to consult one of 15 different manufacturer's for warranty if something breaks, but you can indeed get a better price. None of these systems would I even consider myself - heck my home system has 3GB of ram, 700gb worth of hard drive space AND a 2TB SAN array (1.5TB useable, 0.5 parity) attached for goodness sakes :) (I am running on a Sempron 3400 just like these systems quoted though :)).

Indeed I still think that most computer illiterate people are great with Dell, and I recommend them to many people (better than them asking me to build one for them and me taking the measly savings I'm quoting here as a minor profit margin). I just say that what you're getting with Dell is not really a cheaper price on a system - you're getting value added services for your money rather than any actual savings.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Junior J. Junior III]

Yes, but now busses explode randomly on a daily basis ;)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Emetophobe]

The home directory is where the system is going to store lots of stuff -- configuration files for applications, downloaded files, you can even install applications in there (if you're the only user who needs them). In this way the "home directory" concept is more expansive than the "My Documents" concept, which is only for document files (your configs are in the Registry, your apps are in Program Files). It's also why the home directory is more useful than My Documents -- if you regularly backup your home directory, you will have nearly everything you need to bring your Linux box back from the dead in case of emergency.

My Documents is only one part of it, you need to backup your entire Documents and Settings folder.

For example, a lot of programs store their config files in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\
Also, some programs store data in C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data (Local settings is a hidden directory)

So it's important to backup from C:\Documents and Settings\username\ and not just C:\Documents and Settings\username\My Documents\

Also, it's trivial to backup/restore the registry, there are several tools that allow you to do this.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Maxo-Texas]

Still running EQ (latest expansion) on Pentium 2.4 with a 9800 graphics card 80gb drive and 512mb ram.

Not "glass smooth" of course but it works.

2800 would be an upgrade.

And azureus running in the background.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[MBGMorden]

In my own personal case I wouldn't be looking at any of these systems, much less caring about the $27 difference :). Dell systems are CHEAP (cost and quality wise. Wasn't always this way, but their modern systems are). My point was just that if cheap is what you're after, you can out-cheap Dell with some browsing and a little bit of effort on your part. Personally, when I build a system for myself, I'm not looking for cheap. I'm looking for a level of quality that Dell doesn't make (or at least not for any reasonable price). My power supply alone (no case) cost $120. I typically use Asus or Abit motherboards (which despite not being perfect, are worlds better than what Dell uses). I use name brand RAM. I still spring for dedicated sound cards rather than integrated.

Basically, my personal "systems" (I usually do upgrades so I never do a complete build from scratch) usually cost MORE in parts that an equivalent Dell system, but they perform rock-solid. Not that a Dell won't get you where you're going (I'm at work right now and as such I'm typing this on a Dell :)), but with a bit of effort whether you are after price or quality, you can beat them out on both fronts. Where you can't beat them is in convenience. It's up to you which is the most important.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[__aaclcg7560]

Maybe I should've mentioned that I had 10 years of experience before I got my certifications?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[delire]

I have a fresh Ubuntu install in front of me. The default page in Firefox is a "Welcome to Ubuntu 6.10 Edgy Eft!". I click on the link "Official Ubuntu documentation website". Which brings me to a short manual introducing Ubuntu and Linux in general.

The first page under 'Linux Basics' gives you all the information you need.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Laurence0]

You say that (not needing a floppy drive), and I thought the same when I built my new computer a couple of years ago... Turns out though that Windows XP required drivers for the SATA controller from a floppy during the install process, so I ended up having to pull a hard drive out of an old computer, just to install Windows. In fact, the disk with the Windows drivers on it is still in my drive (poking out), despite me having been using Ubuntu full time for about 6 months now. So, whilst I agree that floppy drives are almost never required, it can come and bite you!

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[wolrahnaes]

Here's the problem with that system: Not future proof

If I buy even the cheapest Dell, I'll be getting either an AM2-socket AMD or a LGA775-socket Intel. I'll also be getting PCI Express. There likely won't be a video card in the PCIe slot, but it'll be there.

With your configuration, I get a Socket 754 AMD chip and AGP, neither of which have any future at all. No new parts are coming out for either or even have for quite a while now.

Now, let's try this the right way.

For reference, here's a Dell Dimension C521, currently priced at $359 + $29.99 shipping + $26.26 Ohio Sales Tax = $415.25
AMD Sempron 3400+
Windows Vista Home Basic
512MB Single Channel DDR2 SDRAM at 533MHz - 1DIMM
80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM)
16X DVD-ROM Drive
NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
Integrated 7.1 Channel Audio
Dell USB Keyboard and Dell 2-button Scroll Mouse
56k Modem

My system, built from Newegg
Powmax CP808PL-1 case with 450W PSU - $20.99
Sempron 3400+ - $69.99
DFI C51PV-M2/G Infinity - $93.99
--Provides GeForce 6150 Integrated Graphics and 7.1 Channel Audio
Western Digital WD800JD 80GB 7200RPM SATA Hard Drive - $42.99
Patriot 512MB DDR2-533 - $33.99
LG 8164BI 16X DVD-ROM - $17.99
Rosewill RK-101 Black Keyboard - $3.99
Kingwin KWI-123 USB Optical Mouse w/ Wheel - $3.99
Encore ENF656-ESW-AGPR 56K Fax Modem - $4.99
Windows Vista Home Basic OEM - $95

Total Price - $388.91 + $32.82 shipping = $415.73

That's a 48 cent difference in favor of the Dell. Also remember with the Dell it's already installed, tested, and expected to work right out of the box. With the homebrew machine, you're talking at least 20 minutes assembly if you're really good and then about 1/2 hour installing Windows (the new Vista installer really is a lot faster). Figure for another 1/2 hour downloading/installing the nVidia graphics and chipset drivers after that before you're ready to use it. Unlike some, I'll give that time up though, because going and decrapifying a new Dell, particularly the cheap ones, takes about as long.

In the end, you come out 48 cents poorer, lacking a single source of support if something isn't working right, and with no OS support at all (OEM editions of Windows are to be supported by the system builder, i.e. YOU). I love building my own machines as much as the next person (I haven't owned an OEM desktop in 10 years), but given the choice I'll take the Dell.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[19thNervousBreakdown]

I'm A+, Network+ and MCP (Windows 2000) certified. How much professional to do I need to be? :P

*blank stare*

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[wolrahnaes]

It's worth noting, I guess, that for those not intending on buying a new OS along with their new hardware (transferring from an older machine, using Linux, etc) the pendulum obviously swings way back the other direction.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[striker64]

lol the razor blade part made me laugh ... I remember my hands getting cut to shreds back in the day .. the most frustrating thing ever.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[crhylove]

Well I can build just about any computer imaginable, with simple google searches... But good fucking luck with copy and paste in Ubuntu.....

Oh yeah, and if I migrate from any OS, I'd like San Andreas to continue working.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[__aaclcg7560]

*blank stare*

I had that same reaction when several non-certified techs removed the token ring cable and plugged the ethernet cable into the token ring card instead of the ethernet port built into the motherboard. I had to correct all 90 computers after the supervisor sent them home.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[PitaBred]

GAH! My brain is trying to escape! Dude, get a recent version of Firefox. It'll put red dotted lines under like, half the words in your post there. Then right click on those, and choose the correct version. The purpose is dual: other people can read it easier, and they also no longer assume that you're a 14 year old pothead who landed on his (or her, gotta be PC) head falling off his skateboard one too many times.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[PitaBred]

There's almost always a "key" pin, one that's all by itself, that you can use to orient yourself to any diagram of those jumper blocks in which "up" is a non-specific direction.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[PitaBred]

So, wait... you've never had a random game on Windows misbehave? My friend told me that the C&C3 installer almost locked up on his computer, and took forever to install. Mine acted just like any normal install. My computer's a little newer, but other than that, they're very comparable (especially for just a freakin' installer). But that's just a glitch, right? Whereas Linux must be unplayable because it's not 100% perfect in every regard, especially running a non-native implementation of a retarded API? Y'all can't have your cake and eat it too, you know.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[ozphx]

Future Proof?

I cannot remember a single time where I have upgraded a CPU without needing a motherboard update. I usually feel dirty about keeping my old RAM as well. Generally I upgrade about once every couple of socket revisions, which means future proofing is irrelevant on the core components.

Of course I tend to keep my hard disks kicking around. Gone are the days where I was so poor I would upgrade infrequently enough to just copy an image my tiny old drive onto my new enormous one.

I have also never bought an optical drive. I just seem to aquire those things from friends upgrading.

The only future proofing I would consider is a decent case. I even had to upgrade my damn PSU a while ago...

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Sobrique]

Supreme Commander

Total War (Rome, Medieval, Medieval 2)

EVE Online

World of Warcraft (not to my taste, but some like it

Oblivion

That's just off the top of my head mind, it's entirely possible they did make it to console.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Matthew Bafford]

Then: Steel case weighing 20kg, built out of razor blades.
Now: Complete kit with rounded internal edges, fans in the box, you name it.

So true. I recently threw away the first computer I assembled myself, and the inside was still stained in various places with my blood.

These days, I build my new computer by ordering another laptop.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jawtheshark]

As a notorious dumpster diver, I get my parts for free. XP and Ubuntu capable machines... Nice finds have been 1.2GHz Athlon XP and a P-IV 1.9GHz. Thrown away harddisks seem to be in the 20-40Gig range. RAM is rare, but I have a nice collection of RAM that lived in my own PCs. AGP graphic cards are very common in the dumpster, as are 100Mbps NICs.

If I want a "cheap" PC, I go to the local recycling centre. Having so much parts by now, I don't bother with anything that isn't at least a P-III socket 370.

Of course there is no warranty, but you get what you pay for.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jawtheshark]

and don't forget your terminators

Why does everyone do as if SCSI is so hard? Terminator at each side of the chain. Finished. I never had a problem. I had more grief with IDE master/slave disks that with SCSI.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Keaster]

I just installed Ubuntu for the first time yesterday. Firefox, by default, will download to the desktop (/Desktop in your home directory [maybe ./desktop if thats the right denotation for a hidden file]).

I have found "making the switch" much easier with Ubuntu. Last time I tried was Fedora and it was a little painful to make the switch.

Best of luck to you.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jawtheshark]

You shouldn't be installing things like Firefox manually.

I shouldn't? Really? I thought Linux was about freedom. So I should have used IceWeasel and IceDove (the guy that came up with the ugly green, I want a word with... At least keep it blue, like *ice*) on Debian. Well, I have news for the Debian people: I do not want to confuse my users. They have been using Firefox and Thunderbird for ages and they know how those apps look.

So, I installed Thunderbird and Firefox from mozilla.org in /opt, exactly as a decent administrator would do. After all, that's what /opt is for... That's also where Java lives and Adobe Reader...

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[nostriluu]

Well good for you, but I was responding to someone who called himself a newbie, in that case it's best for them to go with the packaged option.

What does opt stand for anyway? Oh, never mind.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jawtheshark]

Yes, you're right... a newbie is better off with packages, but then I use Debian and not Ubuntu. Guess, that also rules out the newbie, eh?

As for /opt, I guess it would be "optional". KDE used to live there, yeah, I know, it shows my age.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[ffflala]

sort of like a translation of M$-speak to LINUX-speak.

You can start here, with the "Windows-to-Linux roadmap":

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar y/l-roadmap.htm

There comes a point where it's not a word-per-word translation, mind you.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[ffflala]

whoops... sorry, cut off the last "l"

corrected URL:

http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/librar y/l-roadmap.html

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Cl1mh4224rd]

Now, you have 5 differant processor sockets, 8 differant chipsets, 3 differant memories all in multiple speeds, differant power supply sockets, PCIx, PCI, and AGP, etc... Plus, it is harder to tell which parts are the fastest or best value now that everyone says their chip all their chips are equivallent to 4 GHz. The chance of being able to upgrade to current equipment is much less than it used to be. Replacing a processor now almost always means memory, power supply, motherboard, and heat sink.

This is going to sound a like a troll, but it's not. I'm genuinely confused about this:

Why is this situation (multiple choices) "bad" for hardware, but the same situation is "good" for Linux?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Fnkmaster]

>>"(for example, the Command and Conquer 3 demo is completely playable but crashes after
>>several minutes)."

>I think it's this definition of "completely playable" that keeps people away from Linux.

This article is talking about a group of people here who don't think they've overclocked their computer high enough until the CPU will POST about 80% of the time. I think this group would define "completely playable" in roughly the same terms.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[dcam]

Then: A dozen different video card manufacturers, twice that many chipsets, equal variety of drivers.
Now: Two major manufacturers, two unified drivers.

Now: PCI, PCIx, PCI Express and AGP (multiple versions). Oh yeah and unified buggy drivers now.

Then: IDE=slow. Master? Slave? Cable? WTF is this?
Now: SATA - plug and go.

Now: IDE plus SATA. I don't see a lot of SATA DVD/CD drives.

Then: Set up your modem to connect to your ISP and hope you don't get any incoming calls. Firewall? What's that?
Now: ADSL. Wireless routers. Built-in firewalls.

This has nothing to do with building your own computer but...

Now: ADSL - 8 billion configuration values (PPPOa, PPPOe), everyone running their own network (DHCP etc). Wireless routers - cross vendor issues, configuration is messy (unless you don't care about security). Built in firewalls are good. ADSL + Wireless etc: let me say 10 years ago my mother set up a dial up connection. Now she needs me to handle their connection to the web. It is better than dial up but more complicated.

Agreed on cases and scanners/USB support.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[wolrahnaes]

Valid point, but future proofing can also help when dealing with broken components.

I'll concede that a computer in this price range is unlikely to be upgraded. In 3-4 years when it becomes too slow for Office Super Duper XXXP 2010 Platinum Edition to load up Word, the user would probably be more likely to just replace the machine with another $350-400 model.

Still, the knowledge that if anything in that computer breaks I would be able to go to ANY computer store in the world and buy a replacement part for at least the next 3-4 years is quite comforting. I guarantee that your S754 parts will be hard to find long before their useful life expires, so a dead part would lead to either replacing good parts just so you can buy new or possibly extended downtime as you search for compatible equipment on the used market.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[trenien]

Not to mention that if you do NOT want windows (to install instead, oh I don't know. Linux?), that's a further $95 you save not going through Dell.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Machtyn]

I've never spent less than an hour with a new OEM computer on the setup.
The main reasons are as follows:

• Unpacking from box and plugging in.
• Setup of user profile and intro stuff that WinXP takes you through
• Close all of the stupid pop-ups I am inundated with from crapware
• Removal of crapware (~30-45 minutes and a few reboots)
• Installation of Anti-virus (AVG, Avast!, take your pick)
• Installation of firewall (ZoneAlarm is my fave)
• Installation of The GIMP (and associated programs)
• Installation of OpenOffice.org (and, likewise, an utter destruction of MS Works and the eval version of Office)
• Installation of Firefox and Thunderbird and associated extensions
• Installation of the several games I like to play (Morrowind, many Valve products from Steam, Popcap games now loaded through Steam, NFS:U2, etc.)
• Last but not least, update all of the above software. WinXP currently sits at around 160MB of compressed downloads, only then to be installed once the d/l is finished.

Now, given that I do this stuff for a living, and that people will pay me to setup their computers, I don't get that extensive. However, I am at the customer's home doing the setup for over an hour. I also take the time to go over the stuff they need to be aware of (how to use firewall, anti-virus, firefox, etc.) It's a total of a two hour job.

Besides, now with all components essentially sitting on the motherboard (video, sound, NIC), it is fairly easy to troubleshoot issues. Granted, I'm above the "normal" user, but with proper care (and most people putting their own computers together will take care), you can get around "dueling tech support". (Random crashes on games? blame the memory and test it first. It's the easiest. Then test your hard drive, also easy. For video, there are some good tools out there. Check out the Ultimate Boot CD 4 Windows It will allow you to include a boot image for UBCD as well.)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Machtyn]

According to a site I read while researching the parts I needed for my ultimate PC (and try to keep it quiet at the same time), the stock Pentium fan/sink does just as good and is as quiet as any of the specialty fan/sinks out there. (Wooh, I get to save $30-50!)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[prelelat]

I find the key is if your working with alot of computers, to have one external floppy drive laying around just in case. That way you have a way to get sata drivers in the computer or other weird things that you wouldn't think of. Or that game from 1993 that you missed.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[o0splitpaw0o]

512? Vista? No no no! The requirements are too low. Basic/Premium needs a gig. Office needs 2, and Ultamate is suggested 4GB for newer PC Game titles!! Ubuntu needs 190MB with Beryl installed. a Gig to run smoothly with Everything! You need to be realistic with your specs! Don't forget what you are going to install on Vista. Anti-Virus, Messengers, Your "Other" pieces of crap that are "free" but rape the system to install spyware to make up the lawsuits that are pending against them... Come on! Don't forget having to replace your printer, your old copies of MS Office. Your Web cameras, so other words it ends up being oh...$2,300.00 after your done with a rectum of replacing all your equipment and software, because nothing going to work with it anyway. Because hardware and software vendors just thought it would be nicer just to sunset support for them. :)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Grimbleton]

I managed to get away with only a few nicks, and avoided any true blood shed. It was still pretty irritating to stretch my hand and feel the skin separating though.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Rocketship Underpant]

"Mac doesn't manage dependencies at all. So everything is a monolithic glob..."

Which is perfectly fine. Cocoa and Quartz APIs do most of the functions that programs share in common, and in this era of cheap hard disk space, I'd rather have self-contained globs than fiddle with correctly installing foo-gnome-lib-24.35.23.b-x86.lib which might conflict with foo-gnome-lib-24.35.22.b-x86.lib or whatever.

"or you have to manually install some other required piece of software."

I've never had one piece of software depend on another one like that.

"Mac doesn't manage system wide updates at all. For every app, you have to hope it has a 'check for update' option, somewhere. "

Amazingly, most of my apps work great out of the box, and I'm not in dire need of updates to make basic stuff like copy and paste work. That said, many or most Macs apps do check for updates automatically, and following a confirmation prompt will upgrade themselves without you lifting a finger.

"Finally, Mac apps and updates are often lazy, and request the system is restarted."

Um, that *never* happens unless it's a major Apple app and involves a bug fix to an OS X framework.

"I don't know what your Linux package management experiences are, but I've rarely had any issues installing, updating and removing apps,"

I gave Mandrake a shot not too long ago when it was still one of the major distros. I managed to successfully install fewer than 50% of the apps I tried installing, and while I'm no Linux guru, I'm better than the typical computer user. I have *never* failed to install a Mac app. I just download it and drag it to my Applications folder; it couldn't possibly be easier.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[RESPAWN]

Yup. But not on this drive. It's actually probably the only drive I've seen where the jumper block is a solid six pins.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[BJH]

True enough (I never actually used IDE until the CD-ROM manufacturers started dropping their SCSI products).
Wasn't as easy in some cases though - do you need an HD68, HD50, VHDCI, or a DB25 connector? Passive or active, or maybe HVD or LVD/SE?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[BJH]

Now: PCI, PCIx, PCI Express and AGP (multiple versions).

You don't remember ISA cards? EISA? VESA? MCA? PnP that wasn't? Manual jumpers?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[nostriluu]

I barely use Mac apps and have had several that depend on others before they can run. One dependency was Growl, I don't recall the others (which is part of the problem when the system doesn't manage it for you).

You selectively didn't reply to most of my message, which is typical since the previous "Mr. I have to immediately interject cause I love Mac" wasn't noticing I was referring to better finding, installing, and updating of system wide software, but I have noticed that just about every Apple update has requested restarting, including iTunes. My more dedicated Mac friends say to just ignore such requests, which sounds iffy.

Just close your eyes for a moment and imagine that the "check for updates" menu option applies to all software on the system. Now stop dreaming, Apple doesn't want it to happen. :)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[WuphonsReach]

My experience been with the AMD Athlon CPUs where a screwdriver and significant amount of force is needed to put the clip where it belongs. It's no fun when the screwdriver slips and you think you just wiped out the motherboard.

True for the old Socket A chips. Not so true for the more modern 939/940/AM2 chips. They use a cam lever to get the necessary force, no screwdriver needed.

Personally, I still prefer to buy motherboard bundles where the stock heatsink has already been fitted. Saves me 5 minutes of horsing around (plus I know that the CPU is compatible with the board and they've at least booted the board once). Well worth the $9 charge for assembly and testing.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[peter_gzowski]

You had an above post that suggested that free shipping was *occasionally* included. I would say that it's frequently included, along with the $150 savings. You can check the archives at dealnews.com for expired deals (ex. here). I don't think this is all "beside the point", though. Your original contention seemed to be that in most cases you could build a cheaper system than Dell, which you illustrated using a single example. I just provided a counter-example. You go on to contend that only computer illiterate people should use Dell, which seems strange to me. I would think that computer literate people would value their own time enough to spend a little time on Dell (or any other site) finding a system that is cheaper, the same cost, or within a margin that they believe is worth the time-saving cost (say, $15 to save hours of my time). What you are getting with Dell is really a cheaper price on a system, generally. This is even before you include the "value added services" you talk about. It's not like those services are some nebulous construct, either. If I want to spend time putting together a computer and getting all the drivers, I would do it for someone else and bill them for $50/hr. I'll let Dell bill me the extra $15.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[WuphonsReach]

Here's our stock build for office PCs. Dual-core AMD X2s, 2GB RAM, RAID1 SATA drives, integrated video, WinXP Pro, Office 2003 Pro. Prices on RAM/CPU may be a bit dated (they've dropped recently). Part #s are from MWave.

$0132 AA15070 WindowsXP Pro OEM
$0299 AA24200 Microsoft Office Pro 2003 OEM
-----
$0431

$0138 MB-BA23082 AMD ATHLON 64 X2 3800+
$0084 Asus M2NPV-VM AM2 MicroATX Motherboard
$0150 Corsair 1024MBx2
$0009 Assemble/Test Bundle
-----
$0381

$0097 BA30107 Antec Sonata II case w/ 450W PSU
$0008 AA36600 NEC 1.44MB BLACK FLOPPY FD1231H-302
$0032 AA52110 NEC AD7170A 18X BLACK DVD MULTI WRITER
$0125 (2) SATA drives (200GB+)
-----
$0262

~$1100/unit

We've put a number of these in already and the users are very happy with them. Our goal is that they last at least 6 years and possibly as long as 12. That should be possible since they are dual-core.

I built a game machine for around $1500 last month, including SLI.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[WuphonsReach]

Advantages to building it yourself:

- Get a motherboard bundle from a place that puts it together and tests that the CPU/RAM/MB are compatible and that it boots

- Buy a good quality case and you'll still be using it 10 years from now. A cheap case or proprietary case is just landfill fodder. I just put a brand new set of components into my original ATX tower case from 1997 (with a new PSU). That new system will probably run until at least 2015.

- You get a better quality system. You get control over what quality components go into the build instead of relying on Dell not to sacrifice quality in the name of profits. Less likely to have no-name parts inside the system.

I build a dozen or two machines per year. I never have random crashes - because I'm smart enough to test my system during the build. (All of my builds run Prime95 and other burn-in tools for at least a day to make sure that memory timings are correct and that the system doesn't fail under load.)

Yes, you run risks and you have to deal with warranties yourself. But it's very rare that you have a failed part arrive out of the box anymore. Imaging products like Acronis, Ghost, or NTFSClone take away the pain of a failed hard drive.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[WuphonsReach]

Even with brand-new parts you can beat Dell's price.

Price out a dual-core 2GB system with RAID1 of 200GB+. Include Office 2003 Pro and WinXP Pro.

Our build price was around $1100, Dell was around $1300-$1400.

Dell mostly holds the price lead in the low-end parts. But we prefer to build systems that are 5-10 year systems.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[WuphonsReach]

Unfortunately, they neglected to tell you that the jumper diagram indicated what it should look like if you held the drive upside down.

Seagate IDE drives make this mistake too (just bought a 500GB IDE). The label is on backwards so that you have to mentally rotate the diagram to figure out which pins to jumper. Fortunately, they show you the power-connector on the diagram, so you know which pin is which.

(IBM/Hitachi and Maxtor always seemed to get it right though. And with SATA, it's no longer an issue.)

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Miamicanes]

In some cases, parts one or two generations old are superior to what's currently available. PC manufacturers have enthusiastically embraced Intel's fetish of using the CPU as a general-purpose DSP for everything... the main reason why a 5 year old 500-750MHz Athlon or Pentium-III based system with a gig or two of ram and discrete videocard (with its own onboard ram) and PCI network card can still hold its own against a brand new $400 PC with a CPU allegedly equivalent to a hypothetical 1.6-2.4GHz PIII. The old high-end system has dedicated chips to handle the MPEG-2 decoding (or at least accelerate the DCT/IDCT computations) on its videocard, likely has a real DSP on its discrete soundcard, and the ethernet card only interrupts the CPU to notify it that a new datagram has arrived and has been added to its buffer. New PCs burden the CPU with all the above.

The fastest and most efficient way to make a brand new $500 CPU feel like the old one it replaced is to bog it down with grunt work a sub-$12 DSP could do better and faster. It's the same reason why current WM5 pocket PC phones usually feel more sluggish than an old 50MHz Palm phone -- on the older Palm device, the phone was totally separate, and the only connection between it and the phone subsystem was a serial data link. The WM5 device, by contrast, is basically a cellular winmodem that squanders at least half the processor's cycles just participating in the phone network. And the PDA phone manufacturers STILL aren't happy... they want to migrate from dual-core processors to single-core ones to cut costs. Happy happy, joy joy...

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[rifter]

Believe it or not, its still cheaper to build a higher end PC yourself than to go with Dell and the like. Sure if you just want a cheap machine just for everyday stuff, they'll be just fine for you... but its when you want a decent gaming and media rig that the big boys just can't offer the same for less. In this case the only reason to end up with a Dell is for it to come with Windows and a 2 year service plan which you will very likely need due to cheap parts.

It will always be cheaper. However, what the poster was pointing out is that it is getting more difficult. There are more options these days and several disruptive technologies which have recently been added with little user-friendly data available. There are a lot more choices. There are things like multicore cpus of various flavours, the question of 64 bit, pci-e pci-x, sata-150 sata-300, etc. The readers of the site in question are power users familiar with all of this, hacking together their boxes and overclocking in a world of multiplier and/or clock locked chips/chipsets.

Linux, particularly the distribution being reviewed, is becoming more and more user-friendly whereas box-hacking and white-box building is becoming less and less friendly by virtue of becoming more difficult. The point of the poster, which eluded you, is that this juxtaposition leads one to the conclusion that perhaps the system-savvy writers and readers of the page where TFA was hosted are not necessarily the best judges of how easy Linux has become, and are not likely to need the level of ease required for mere mortals ( and dare I say Joe Sixpack's grandmother ) to make the proposed leap to Linux.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jhjessup]

Should it be a problem that the software is 36% of the total price?

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[dcam]

Now: PCI, PCIx, PCI Express and AGP (multiple versions).

You don't remember ISA cards? EISA? VESA? MCA? PnP that wasn't? Manual jumpers?

EISA, VESA and manual jumpers stopped being an issue 10 years ago. Before that sure they were a problem.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[jawtheshark]

Having used (and still use) HD68, HD50 and DB25.... automatic terminating devices, and non-automatic terminating devices... Heck, I don't think I've seen them all, but it was never hard. End of chain is end of chain and you just need to know if the device is intelligent enough to terminate itself. Our AFGA scanner is not intelligent enough, my good old 1Gig Jaz drive can do it itself (if I recall, it's somewhere in a closet).

It's become friggin hard to get SCSI CD-Rom drives. We had a CD-R (not RW) before anyone and it was a Plextor, SCSI only. Good old times *sigh*

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[RESPAWN]

Yeah, but at least the Seagate drives provide a "homing pin" that will allow you to properly orient the jumper block with respect to the sticker. My Fujitsu drive simply has a 2x3 row of jumpers and it's left up to you to decide which way is up according to the sticker. :)

SATA is nice, though -- I'll agree with you there. It's about time they came up with something better than the PATA drives we've been using for the last decade or so.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[infinityxi]

Honestly I can't really speak for Kubuntu since I use Ubuntu, and haven't used KDE since 1.92, but as far as I know under the Gnome desktop there is a nice menu that states 'Home' under the places menu that opens up your home directory. Its not important where it is but that it's just Home like "My Documents" etc. Even if K/Ubuntu decided to put your home directory in some obscure place it wouldn't matter. All you would know is "Home". New Linux users will indeed have to get used to the Home directory concept because it isn't windows but I am sure they won't get too scared. I mean if it makes you feel any better you could probably go and rename an icon shortcut on your desktop "My Documents" to make it easier to transition.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[infinityxi]

If I had mod points i'd mod you up. Its ridiculous that the response is "With cheap memory and hard disk space these days...". That isn't the point. Why should anyone have 5281 copies of a library in memory just because. The package management in Ubuntu is top notch and it makes installing most apps trivial. I hope that zero installer works out for installing things that aren't in the repository (non standard stuff).

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Duggeek]

Putting your own computer together these days with all the options, choices to make, etc. is getting harder than it was 10 years ago.

Ok, I give you full credit for spotting the trends and putting it in your own words, BUT...

[...]
First, an introduction: I speak as someone who's actually been in the books; anyone remember the Micro House Technical Library? That was from my earlier career in Visual Communication.

Nothing reminds you that hardware used to be so tremendously complex more than having literally thousands of documents describing obscure, unmarked and occasionally impossible jumper configurations just to set the correct I/O port. (coveniently packed on to four easy-to-carry CD's </plug>)

Speaking as such, I can tell you with utmost certainty that, using the same amount of effort it took to successfully build and install a single PC in 1997, I could build a server farm with a dozen SAN's and set-up fifty workstations... simultaneously.

Seriously, I could crap-out a better PC today than a reasonably-working P/90 (yes, that's MHz) in the same time ten years ago. The sheer number of pre-built options nowadays is a full order of magnitude over what there was in ol' 97.

Don't even mention fifteen years ago! That's the sort of stuff that the MHTL would cover, and let me tell you, it reads like a horror novel. (or a bible? ...depends on your perspective, I guess- but you still get the same ending)

Suffice it to say, PC's are getting easier to build and manage, and so is Linux.

Can anyone truly explain why Microsoft is headed in the opposite direction?

It is nice to see that non-Linux people are continuing to give Linux a try. Most things in the world only get one chance and then its over.

Hear hear! Well put, but you forgot the link to the referring article.

Cheers!

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[Reservoir Penguin]

Wait, I thought 14 year old potheads used macs??

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[CopaceticOpus]

There's also a big advantage for those buying the OS - on the homebrew machine, you have a full installer on CD. This allows you to upgrade/replace the machine in the future without repurchasing the OS. When you buy the Dell, you don't get a real install disk, and your OS is tied to the machine.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[wolrahnaes]

Well, the price I quoted was for an OEM copy of the OS, which has the exact same transferability rights as the one you get from Dell, so the only difference there is having the install media.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[CopaceticOpus]

In theory, you are correct. In practice, when I buy an OEM copy of Windows, it's up to my judgement to decide if I can rightfully transfer that copy to another PC. If at some later date, I build another PC using some parts from the old PC, the OEM license on Windows can and should be allowed to go with it. But with the Dell OEM copy, they don't really give you that option. They take that right away by not giving you a real install disk that will install on any hardware.

I also happen to think that an OEM license is about as silly as selling someone a set of dishes but telling them they can only use those dishes on one specific table. But I digress.

Re:Misguided or simply lazy

[wolrahnaes]

In theory, you are correct. In practice, when I buy an OEM copy of Windows, it's up to my judgement to decide if I can rightfully transfer that copy to another PC. Windows Activation tends to say otherwise. I know in practice you can call up and claim any number of things like computer broke, stolen, etc., but from a licensing standpoint you aren't allowed to do that.

But with the Dell OEM copy, they don't really give you that option. They take that right away by not giving you a real install disk that will install on any hardware. You have the license to the software, it's perfectly legal to download a full install disc. You can easily find OEM-license full install discs online, or modify a retail/VLK disc to take OEM keys (it's one line in a config file).

I also happen to think that an OEM license is about as silly as selling someone a set of dishes but telling them they can only use those dishes on one specific table. But I digress. 100% agreed there.

On the other hand...

[gfxguy]

Linux may not be just a programmer's OS, but the Ubuntu flavor of Linux, IMO, isn't a very good programmer's OS at all. I think it crossed that fine line between control and ease of use.

Re:On the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? Why's that?

I can run or compile about any programming language on my Ubuntu system. C runs great, Java 6 runs great, and other languages too.

Define "programmer's OS."

Re:On the other hand...

[multipartmixed]

Are the configuration files in either a text format, or a well documented format?
Does have a normal UNIX shell environment?

Then it's got all the control you need.

Re:On the other hand...

[McDutchie]

That's allright. This is where the diversity of Linux distributions actually comes in handy. Programs you write on one distribution will work on another with, at worst, a recompile. There are plenty of distributions geared towards the programmer.

(Personally I've found Slackware hard to beat; everything it comes with is 'vanilla' and as the author intended it, and there's no superfluous user-friendly stuff to distract the programmer. And best of all: no dependency hell!)

Re:On the other hand...

[Mateo_LeFou]

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of Ubuntu and am diehard Fedora. The sudo business was very odd to me. You can run a command as root by using "sudo", but you enter your *own password? What gives?

In other news, Most Annoying Distro of the Year award will always go to:
*Any distro that tells me to insert the installation CD #1, at any time, for any reason. I don't have the installation CDs. Get it off the net.

Re:On the other hand...

[Teresita]

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of Ubuntu and am diehard Fedora. The sudo business was very odd to me. You can run a command as root by using "sudo", but you enter your *own password? What gives?

Sudo gives you root access for the purpose immediately at hand, and then takes you back to your account. It lets you get in, get out, and not have your fanny hanging out there on the net in admin mode for someone to burn you.

Re:On the other hand...

[gfxguy]

I agree completely, and I'm still using Fedora. I gave Ubuntu a try after reading all the accolades it got on slashdot, and I think it's a great OS for non-technical types, those people who just want to use their computer for typical end user apps.

Re:On the other hand...

[gkhan1]

I don't get this. I'm a long time Linux user and a frequent programmer that modifies my system in a whole bunch of ways. I switched to Ubuntu two or three months ago, and I think it's great. I previously used Fedora, which is also a great OS, but it is ridiculous to claim that ubuntu isn't as "hackable" or that it is not suitable for programming. I do both just as easily as I've done before. What is it specifically that you are not happy with?

Re:On the other hand...

[mackyrae]

It also means that if you're an admin and there are many users, you can avoid giving out the root password. You can set it so only specific people can use sudo, and you can monitor everything they do while in sudo mode. So, if something goes wrong, you know which person did it rather than a general "someone with the root password did it" and every guy's pointing to the guy next to him going "he did it!"

Re:On the other hand...

[dosius]

Is it that hard to apt-get build-essentials? And you'll have all the important tools. Ubuntu doesn't hide them THAT far away.

-uso.

Re:On the other hand...

[gfxguy]

But you can do this anyway, with any distribution. Only now, you can't just "be" root to accomplish a series of tasks, you have to prefix everything with "sudo", even if you are the system administrator. I didn't claim anything was impossible, it's just that there is a fine line between ease of use and ease of customization, and IMO, Ubuntu crosses that line.

I think Ubuntu is great, otherwise, and would definately recommend it to just about any end user. Just not me.

Re:On the other hand...

[Billly Gates]

Care to elaberate?

Re:On the other hand...

[Stewie241]

But you can do this anyway, with any distribution. Only now, you can't just "be" root to accomplish a series of tasks, you have to prefix everything with "sudo", even if you are the system administrator.

Why don't you just do 'sudo su'?

Re:On the other hand...

[earthgoonie]

In Ubuntu you can set a root password with sudo passwd and then "be" root for a series of tasks.

Re:On the other hand...

[Torp]

sudo /bin/bash...

Re:On the other hand...

[jejones]

>You can run a command as root by using "sudo", but you enter your *own password? What gives?

It makes it easy to do things as root while minimizing the time you actually run with root privileges. On Ubuntu, by default, root literally has no password, so you can't log in as root.

Re:On the other hand...

[Panaflex]

Well, what I've tried on a Mac is sudo /bin/bash - and it works fine. That's pretty all the "being root" I need. I avoid using the GUI as root for the most part anyway.

Re:On the other hand...

[jimstapleton]

Altering sudo to use the root password is also possible. Since I'm the only person on my machine using it, that's what I do for a bit more security.

And as someone else said, it helps keep you from having your ass hanging out, so that someone malicious cant come along and shove something up it.

And then you can turn off normal root login for a bit more security if you like. Want to not have to sudo all the time even with that? Allow 'sudo bash'? Think that's too big of a hole? disallow 'sudo bash'.

I don't know how the documentation is in Linux, but it wasn't too hard to figure that stuff out in BSD.

Re:On the other hand...

[chavo valdez]

sudo -i will give you a root shell. We don't you anyway.

Re:On the other hand...

[paving-slab]

If you were competent enough to be trusted with a root account you would know it is trivial to achieve what you require on Ubuntu.

The sudo program used in Ubuntu is the same as used in every other distribution, so all you have to do is provide a password for root, edit the sudoers file to your taste and your good to go.

If you don't know how to do this are you sure a root account is a good idea?

Re:On the other hand...

[OrangeTide]

Well I'm a professional kernel and device driver developer and I use Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is just Debian with fewer choices for me to make because it just installs a tight little set of packages that fits on one CD, rather than installing via the net or many CDs and giving me all the options in the world to choose from.

If you know all the little secret Debian tricks, then you have a great deal of control over Ubuntu. as much as any other Linux-based OS I would argue. You are free to not use GNOME and other junk if you don't want to, but the Ubuntu CDs are going to install them and that's that. (I use WindowMaker and disregard the installed stuff)

As long as a Linux box has gcc, make, gdb, and some editor I'm pretty much satisfied. I think Ubuntu can be a Programmer's OS (when a programmer wants it to be), and that issue is orthogonal to being a Desktop OS. Mac OS X is rather programmer friendly too, even though there is less control over what goes on than what you see in Ubuntu. (you can do quite a bit on OSX though, if you just learn the little secrets and oddities of it)

Re:On the other hand...

[Mateo_LeFou]

Okay, but I mean:
My cat can log in with her account, type "sudo rm -Rf /", enter her password, and I'm out of business?

Re:On the other hand...

[Vexorian]

hmmm, as a programmer I'd rather spend my time programming than configuring an OS but that's all right...

Flexibility-wise I don't think I found much issues with ubuntu I guess linux could get more flexible but I just don't think there's much sense on it

I got to use latest versions of things from tar.gz packages instead of the ones found in adept, also configured WINE and KDE so they use the same colors and that kind of things. Ubuntu doesn't really stop me from using config files or the shell... ...Also if sudo gets annoying you can use it to simulate a complete root login, but using sudo twice in a round prevents from asking the password twice so it wasn't a big issue.

Re:On the other hand...

[cortana]

Why don't you just do 'sudo -i' or 'sudo -s'?

Re:On the other hand...

[ucblockhead]

How so? The shell is there. sudo is there. You can do anything on Ubuntu that you can do on any other Linux box. My home Ubuntu box is actually running on a compiled kernel to get my KVM switch working. At work, I develop software on an Ubuntu box.

Re:On the other hand...

[Stormwatch]

Define "programmer's OS."

A system so hard to use that only an übernerd can handle it.

Re:On the other hand...

[ballmerfud]

Linux may not be just a programmer's OS, but the Ubuntu flavor of Linux, IMO, isn't a very good programmer's OS at all. I think it crossed that fine line between control and ease of use.

That's just plain silly. I've been programming professionally for ten years and in my experience, Ubuntu is exactly what you want for a developer's workstation. It has practically zero maintenance, installs right out of the box with little to no configuration, almost every major software package is available in binary form, being little more than an apt-get away. Beryl, OpenOffice, Apache, PostgreSQL, MySQL, Rails, you name it -- Ubuntu has the most up to date builds of everything, wonderfully configured, and ready to install. Do you need the GCC toolchain and related developers tools? apt-get build-essential. Done. Do you need various multimedia or Win32 codecs not in the main repos? apt-get easyb-ubuntu or automatix and with a click-and-drool interface that even a Windows user would love, a few mouse clicks will fetch and install it all, plus some stuff you hadn't thought of or knew existed.

You have over 12,000 available software packages compiled for Ubuntu, in the official repository alone, not to mention all the others. I came from Gentoo, and Ubuntu is infinitely better because I can put my effort into building *my* software, rather than everybody else's. That is the point of programming, right? Working on your software, not spending days compiling your system from scratch.

Yes, there are some dependency issues with some packages, in that they may link with other libs you may not want (e.g. amarok brings in MySQL client lib), but this is true with *all* distros. You are at the mercy of the package maintainer. If you don't agree, you have to compile from scratch -- as with any other distro. But typically with a workstation, who cares if you bring in other libs? You've got tons of disk space and the goal is comfort and ease. Perhaps on a server you may mince over deps, but that's another story.

And -- getting on my soapbox I just have to add it -- since Linux/UNIX/OSS is so incredible, once I have my system exactly as I want it, I drop to single user mode, mount a USB drive and to do a dump of my root filesystem, making an exact backup image of my system. From that point on, I will *never* have to reinstall from scratch no matter what happens. If my drive hoses, I simply boot from a live CD of any distro, create a root file system, restore from my backup image, update grub, and reboot. Right back to normal. No online activation or phoning home, no install keys, nothing -- just rewrite the system image to disk. What would take three hours in reinstalling Windows (reinstalling the OS, activiation, and all installing other software) takes under 5 minutes with Linux. Of course, if I *buy* more software with Windows (e.g.Ghost), I could follow a similar process, but it still takes longer, and is still more of a pain in the ass. I've done it -- I know. My solution now is to run Windows in Linux using VMWare player (free). Now, my Windows partition is actually sitting inside a Linux file system, which I back up to USB using the aforementioned process. Windows backups/reinstalls are now as easy as Linux (thumbs nose at M$).

Re:On the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Is it that hard to apt-get build-essentials?"

Over and over again this is thrown in our face. Which is the better solution, get all the build essentials in one package burned to disk, or sit there apt-getting the 5000 little pieces to build them all?

Do you have any idea what a pain it is to deal with a package that comes in source form only and depends on three obscure libraries available only in source form on a flaky server in Nowhereistan? And compiling the three source libraries requires six packages to apt-get, except this one has critical security flaws and that one refuses to install unless it removes GTK and this one insists that it is there already, but the softlink is pointing to version 4.0 and you need 5.2? And you only discover this when you look at it in dired mode in Emacs (which you also had to apt-get), after blundering around in a console for hours? And if you ask "why is package foo failing to compile with error blah" in the Ubuntu forum, everybody goes, "I never heard of that package - is it in the Gnome menu?"

Have you ever programmed a goddamn thing in your entire life? Ubuntu excells at being a Windows replacement for Aunt Tillie. It sucks vulture carcass through a black hole at programming. Deal with it already!

Re:On the other hand...

[CmdrGravy]

A fair point but my cat can push my PC off the desk, cover it in firewood, pour on petrol and set it alight destroying not just my PC but my house and possibly my neighbours houses into the bargain. I've even caught it dragging a couple of kilos of semtex to my off site backup locations with a joyful gleam in it's eye but luckily I was able to distract it with tuna.

For this reason I've now banned my cat from playing with matches. I had a maths teacher once who claimed his cat could do quadratic equations better than anyone in his class which did make me wonder that if he was able to teach his cat so successfully to do maths why he couldn't teach his class to do it so well, I suggested he may have had a more fulfilling career in a circus at which he looked surprised and said he thought that's what he had done.

Re:On the other hand...

[nuzak]

'sudo -i' seems to be newer and doesn't work on all versions of sudo (though it does always work on ubuntu).

If you install ubuntu with the expert install option, it enables root logins by default.

Re:On the other hand...

[Anonymous Coward]

Ehh, not quite. If you don't trust your cat, I strongly recommend _not_ granting her those rights.

sudo lets one user run commands as another, but the second user has to give that privilege to the first user. This can be handy on a large system with multiple administrators, if you care about separation of duties or anything.

The reason it asks for your password is so that your cat (untrusted) couldn't sit down while you (trusted) are logged in and type "sudo rm -Rf /" without knowing your password. And obviously it asks for your password instead of root's because if you knew root's you could bypass sudo. Blocking administrative changes without knowing a trusted user's password is just one reason Ubuntu forces sudo.

Read more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sudo

Re:On the other hand...

[spxero]

Usually when I have a bunch of 'sudo' required tasks, it's easier just to do a 'sudo bash', and it'll drop me into root so I don't have to keep typing 'sudo' for all the commands. Kudos for giving it a try-

Re:On the other hand...

[eldepeche]

No, because only administrative users are given sudo access. For others, I believe, it will spit the error about trying to do something not allowed and that the system administrator will be notified. And entering a user password is the normal behavior for sudo, isn't it? I remember setting it up manually a while ago; that's what it's supposed to do.

Re:On the other hand...

[jb.hl.com]

Best comment ever.

Re:On the other hand...

[Stewie241]

well, that's a bit of an unhelpful argument...

The article was about Ubuntu on the desktop, and in essence, people new to Linux trying it out. If we have new Linux users trying to use their computers, they will have to sudo at some point, and there will be times when they will want to do more than a one off command.

Re:On the other hand...

[arevos]

My cat can log in with her account, type "sudo rm -Rf /", enter her password, and I'm out of business? Why would you give your cat administrator access in the first place? Cats can be very spiteful creatures, so I'd advise giving her an account with reduced sudo privileges.

The idea behind the Ubuntu system is that instead of giving certain users the root password, you instead give them administrator access via sudo. It's better for tracking who changed what, and gives more fine-grained control over access priviledges.

Re:On the other hand...

[peepleperson]

Sudo Kudos? Has this got something to do with putting the numbers 1-9 in the right boxes? In DOS? Arrrgghhhhh.

Re:On the other hand...

[kbielefe]

You can specify what users have what privileges in the /etc/sudoers file. Usually, the default gives full privileges to members of a certain group, like wheel. You just make sure your cat isn't in the wheel group, and you're good to go. You can also make more fine-grained controls, like allowing one user to restart the web server, but nothing else. You should really read the manual --- you'll be pleasantly surprised.

Re:On the other hand...

[skoaldipper]

Only now, you can't just "be" root to accomplish a series of tasks, you have to prefix everything with "sudo", even if you are the system administrator.

Not so. You can always set up a root password and login as root. For kde, you will also need to edit /etc/kde3/kdm/kdmrc and change AllowRootLogin=false to true. You will also need to do that login step for Gnome. Logout, login, and Bam! You are now root with all those caveats.

* A very important reason is sometimes overlooked when discussing sudo (within the context you framed it): Have you ever tried to access a GUI in a user login session as root? You can't - unless you start an xterm with "su" and inherit all the user environment vars like XAUTHORITY and DISPLAY by setting them. Compare that with just "sudo xterm" and then running whatever by locating bin apps with which (if not known).

And for _non_ GUI root access from within a user session, it's no more difficult than just setting up a root passwd and starting an xterm with "su".

Sudo is a layer of flexibility built on top of security - the best of both worlds. It just takes time to fully appreciate it by understanding it and using it. This sudo model integrated into ubuntu is a testament to the insight of the devs and this distro.

Re:On the other hand...

[DerPflanz]

Can you comment on that a little more? I am a professional programmer (in the industrial automation business) and I use Ubuntu now for the last 2 years or so. I must say I am very happy with it, and it lets me do everything I want in a Linux distribution. It has a vast repository of tools and programs and everything works nice next to eachother. As an example: I use Eclipse for development, and in testing I write my own stuff and also use the 'socket' program (a better netcat, IMO) and wireshark.

Must say that the user interfaces are built in Borland on Windows, or with C# (the Visual C# UI editor is unsurpassed). But the main work I do is not on UI anyway.

Re:On the other hand...

[soleblaze]

Don't give your cat sudo access. I believe in ubuntu only members of the wheel group can use sudo. Sudo is rather nice actually, you can do all sorts of logging, give people access to only specific commands, setup sudo groups for machines, users, etc. It has a nice lengthy man page, but generally most people just set it up with @wheel = ALL (ALL) (or something like that, I haven't messed with the sudoers file in awhile) and that'll give anyone in the wheel group access to sudo to run root commands. You can even setup sudo to run commands as another user, and not just as root. It's a rather nice and versitile program.

Re:On the other hand...

[paving-slab]

It's not my argument, it's Ubuntu's argument. They seem to think it's a good way to protect new users from themselves.

I don't like it so I changed it, but I still think it has its merits.

As for multiple commands as root, 'sudo xterm' will give you a root environment to work in.

Re:On the other hand...

[unapersson]

"hey will have to sudo at some point, and there will be times when they will want to do more than a one off command."

And that's just what "Applications -> System Tools -> Root Terminal" is for. A root account is easy to set up if you know what you're doing and not really necessary for someone who doesn't.

Sudo can do more than one command, you enter the password only the first time you use it. After that it's like "simon says" until the time limit expires.

Re:On the other hand...

[vtcodger]

***Linux may not be just a programmer's OS, but the Ubuntu flavor of Linux, IMO, isn't a very good programmer's OS at all. I think it crossed that fine line between control and ease of use.***

What's the problem? Either run Ubuntu from the ISO for a while or install it in a temporary partition. Then you can devote your spare time for the next three weeks to installing Slackware package by package in another partition one missing library at a time. Given any luck at all, you should have Slack running perfectly before the first (American) Football game of the 2007 season. Lest anyone think I'm making fun of Slackware, that's not my intent. I'm actually quite fond of Slack. I just picked it because if has a reputation for being somewhat purer than some other popular PC Unixes.

Seriously Unbuntu (or Kunbuntu actually) has the usual six consoles and python, perl and gcc seem to be there. In what way is it not a programmer's OS?

Re:On the other hand...

[AP2k]

I think the Java rant is the only thing that can top this.

Re:On the other hand...

[Hatta]

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of Ubuntu and am diehard Fedora. The sudo business was very odd to me. You can run a command as root by using "sudo", but you enter your *own password? What gives?

Figures, the only people who would run fedora would be too dumb to understand sudo.

Re:On the other hand...

[bweinman]

Yeah, I never understood the appeal of Ubuntu and am diehard Fedora. The sudo business was very odd to me. You can run a command as root by using "sudo", but you enter your *own password? What gives? Since when is sudo an Ubuntu thing? I've never used Ubuntu or Fedora and I use sudo every day. It even comes on my Mac by default.

In fact, here's one on a comic: http://xkcd.com/c149.html

--B

Re:On the other hand...

[Lodragandraoidh]

Try using 'slapt-get' to speed things along...

Re:On the other hand...

[ET_Fleshy]

Well they're not going to have something like this just shown by default. If you click on the Add Programs (or w/e booted into Win atm) you can add it with, what, three clicks of the mouse.

Re:On the other hand...

[mackyrae]

You do don't have Applications > System Tools? Are you using KDE? It's somewhere in the K-menu too. And in case you don't remember being 6, in Simon Says, you have to say "Simon says" for every order you give, or they don't do it.

Re:On the other hand...

[wellingj]

My mom uses Linux. She still asks the same amount of questions as she did when she was using Windows...
My mom is 55 years old, and one of those baby boomers that is affraid of computers. If that tells you
any thing about Linux vs. Windows is that for a non-technical non-gamer user won't be able tell the difference.
That still doesn't change the fact that some one was trying to root-kit her Windows 98 computer and now can't.

Re:On the other hand...

[binford2k]

What does this childish rant have to to with

apt-get install build-essentials

?

Re:On the other hand...

[miro f]

not if you don't give your cat sudo access. It's the same as giving your cat the root password but you can easily revoke sudo access whereas you can't easily force your cat to forget the root password.

Re:On the other hand...

[dosius]

One, build-essentials installs all the packages for gcc, make, etc.

Two, I *use* Ubuntu - on a daily basis as my main distro.

Three, I've written Dapple, RMFCOM (a replacement for Command.com), and a few other, smaller programs (some of which are part of the BSDish-Linux project "FOX" I run, see my link). I think it's safe to say I'm a programmer.

Why did I pick Ubuntu? Because I liked Debian, and I wanted to get this computer set up quickly and didn't feel like going through the bullshit of installing a million packages to get a GUI.

-uso.

Re:On the other hand...

[mackyrae]

If that were the case you could "su" and then hit enter. That's not the case. On Ubuntu the root password is by default some crazy random combination of letters and numbers and I wouldn't doubt symbols. If someone tries to get into your box, they know there's root. Root's password won't be guessable. Your password might be guessable, but they'd need to know both your username AND your password.

Re:On the other hand...

[physicsnick]

Actually it's blank; the root account is just locked.

Re:On the other hand...

[physicsnick]

You can easily change it to have an ordinary root password, and can have sudo use that instead. Just sudo visudo, add "rootpw" to the list of options, then sudo passwd and enter something in. Takes, like, two seconds. I did it. (Just sudo -i in a separate shell first in case you screw it up).

For ordinary users, it really is better to have sudo than it is to have a separate root password. The reason Ubuntu is set up this way is not to prevent people from getting root access, but to prevent viruses and spyware. Users simply don't need a separate root password.

Also, is your installation CD comment about Ubuntu? I've never even heard of that.

Re:On the other hand...

[mackyrae]

http://www.linux.com/article.pl?sid=06/06/08/16512 25 says "The Ubuntu installer doesn't set up a root user -- a root account still exists, but it's set with a random password."

Re:On the other hand...

[physicsnick]

That article is wrong. It's just written by some blogger. Here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RootSudo

"By default, the root account is locked in Ubuntu. This means you cannot login as root or use su."

The password is not random; it simply does not exist. The account is locked, which means NO root login is possible ANYWHERE, not through a console, not through su, not through X, not through SSH, nowhere. sudo works by asking a daemon (already running as root, spawned by init) to run the process for it; the daemon does the authentication itself, which is totally separate from normal account methods.

Re:On the other hand...

[mqduck]

Cat's can be dangerous to your mental health.

Re:On the other hand...

[Anivair]

Are you serious? To begin with, sudo means that you can have the luxuries of a root account without the inherent danger of being root. I don't need to open a command line and su to root to run a root command. I can sudo it and be done. I also don't have to remember multiple passwords. That's a big bonus for some. Also, sudo means that a script kiddie hack that try to hack your root password don't do a thing on a sudo system. Maybe that's the least impressive reason to use sudo, but I like it. Also, using sudo you can give specific users higher access without giving them everything. They can add and remove users, for example, but not modify the root filesystem (or whatever you grant in the sudo config file). Sudo has a LOT of advantages. And of course you're entering your password. You're the one running the command. Whose password would you use?

Re:On the other hand...

[zdebel]

Do you have any idea what a pain it is to deal with a package that comes in source form only and depends on three obscure libraries available only in source form on a flaky server in Nowhereistan?

In fact, I do, but I don't find it as pain. Compiling programs/libraries/etc from source is one of the best way to learn how your OS is built, what influences what and so on, and most of all, a programmer shouldn't have ANY problem with compiling stuff from source.

Re:On the other hand...

[dosius]

It's only a pain the one or two times it comes up. A base system, for example, won't need a million weird libraries and such.

The worst of my programs is for needing Allegro, which is pretty common.

-uso.

Re:On the other hand...

[szap]

Why don't you just do 'sudo su'?

Or, I'd just use 'sudo /bin/bash'

retromercial

[Stanistani]

We've quietly replaced his copy of Windows XP with Folger's Coffee Crystals. Let's see if he notices any difference.

Re:retromercial

[gfxguy]

Oh man, how many of us are old enough to get this joke...

Re:retromercial

[Gr8Apes]

I wish I had mod points. Excellent joke!

Re:retromercial

[truthsearch]

/me sadly raises hand ...then realizes he's sitting in front of a screen and no one can actually see the hand raised ...then sadly lowers the hand...

Re:retromercial

[Stanistani]

It's my small contribution to the dialogue between the prematurely old and the young.

From the wikipedia entry:
Another famous advertising campaign from the early 1980s took the viewer inside various gourmet restaurants as a voice-over whispered, "We are here at (insert name of four-star restaurant), where we've secretly replaced the fine coffee they usually serve with Folgers Crystals. Let's see if anyone can tell the difference!" Of course, no one ever did.

Re:retromercial

[Stamen]

I am, I cracked up... now get off my damn lawn kids (oh, and you don't need an IDE to program, or debugger for that matter, damn kids these days)

Re:retromercial

[Odin_Tiger]

That was in the eighties?! My, how time flies...

Re:retromercial

[Aladrin]

(Showing my age here...)

"Of course, no one ever did."

Actually, quite the opposite, as I remember. All the 'patrons' exclaimed how wonderful the coffee was.

Is this the first known attempt at an astroturf campaign? I say 'attempt' because it was very poorly done and failed miserably. Nobody in their right mind truly believed those people acted like that, and they aired it on national TV, as there was no other medium available.

Re:retromercial

[Poeir]

It's also referenced in this Penny Arcade comic.

I remember similar stuff said about XP

[0racle]

Look what happened there. People that might be interested in Linux or OS X will try Linux or OS X. People who aren't, won't. In the end, very little will change.

Re:I remember similar stuff said about XP

[truthsearch]

Except now Linux is much more user friendly and easy to install. Usability is way up since XP came out, so those who are willing to try it today are probably more likely to enjoy the experience than they would have 5 years ago. Of course that's just my guess...

Re:I remember similar stuff said about XP

[Erwos]

I first seriously got into Linux when I found out about XP's activation system back in 2001 or so. Until then, I had used it for home server applications (like a web server for PHP testing, and a cheap NAT/firewall router) and a development environment for college programming courses, but the news of the crazy activation scheme drove me to actually using it as my primary OS, with the intention of phasing out Windows 2000 at some point.

I still use Linux (Fedora Core 6) as my primary OS, and I'm pretty happy with it. It does all of the day to day productivity tasks that I need, and I like the flexibility it gives me in terms of technical capabilities - if I want to, SSH into work write a program in C++, test a web page, try out a new language, and so forth, I can do it with minimal hassle. I don't really see switching off of Linux as my own personal desktop OS.

However, I still have a Windows partition, and it's not going to go away any time soon. The Linux gaming scene is still pretty much dead (no offense meant to Michael Simms and the folks at LGP!), for one thing, and my console isn't a complete replacement for that yet. Outlook is still (unfortunately) the best local email client when it comes to remote-synchronized calendaring, email, and address books, especially when you toss smartphones and such into the mix, at least until I move to Google Apps. And when it comes to my own needs, Windows Media Center provides a better fit than MythTV. I'm waiting for 30 people to chime in that MythTV is everything to everyone - but that's just not true. :(

So, much as I hate to say it, Vista's probably in my future. But so is Linux. :)

Re:I remember similar stuff said about XP

[Coryoth]

I think it is worth noting that similar stuff was said about XP before it's release. Once XP was out it became pretty clear that the uptake was going to be very fast. Here we have slow uptake of Vista and comments made about switching after the release. It isn't entirely wishful thinking this time - though wishful thinking clearly come in to it to some extent.

The other point is that Linux has come a long was since Windows XP was released while Windows has... well, just look at Vista. The difference between Ubuntu 7.04 and Vista will be very small in comparison to the difference between Redhat 7.2 and Windows XP, which, in turn, was small compared to the difference between Redhat 5.2 and Windows 98. This is the real concern for MS - that while Linux might have been behind in desktop user friendliness it has been improving much faster than Windows.

Re:I remember similar stuff said about XP

[ukemike]

I remember similar stuff said about XP. Look what happened there. People that might be interested in Linux or OS X will try Linux or OS X. People who aren't, won't. In the end, very little will change. Not entirely true. Windows XP was actually eagerly anticipated by most of the windows using world. The possibility of a stable OS that would work with existing applications, games, and be compatible with the stuff we use at work, was exciting. It's easy to forget the dark years of Win9x (especially for me since I held out using DOS/Win3.1 until 1 year before XP came out) but they were terrible with BSODs every day. I remember how a computer could not be left on overnight and be expected to run well in the morning. I remember that even if you setup password protected logins you could bypass all of that by clicking 'cancel' at the login prompt. Windows XP was a HUGE improvement. It was massively adopted upon release.

Now Vista on the other hand has elicited nothing but hand wringing for several years. For what I can tell it has little good to offer except eye candy. On the downside the OS has DRM in it's DNA, it has a ridiculous security sceme. It fails to run lots of current software. It claims but fails to be more secure (can't use 3rd party anti-virus). It has extreme hardware requirements. I built my last new PC within months of the release of XP. I will not build a PC for Vista. I will not buy a PC with Vista. I do not look forward to the day that I must start using Vista at work.

The big question is this: Linux or Apple? I have an older PC in the house running Ubuntu. It's great, and it also sucks. It has tons of free software. It can't legally play DVDs. It is supremely stable and runs really fast on very antiquated hardware. Getting it to do something out of the ordinary (like using the midi keyboard I got for my son) requires navigating a byzantine maze of forums, scripts, command lines. It fit nicely with my philosophy. You can build your own. On the other hand, Apples "just work." They cost more. You don't get to build your own. Since I don't have as much time as I used to I'll probably buy an Apple for 90% of my use, and I might have a 2nd PC with linux for doing stuff that requires high end software that I don't care to buy.

That being said, am I a typical user? Hardly. I've been on the internet since 1988. I built my last computer myself. I know enough to know how little I know. Lots of people think I'm some sort of computer guru. I realize that I am just barely competent. I would never recommend linux to my Dad or a computer-clueless friend. I tell them, "Go buy a Mac. They just work." When they get their Apple, they are happy. I'd rather USE a computer than ADMINISTER one.

Re:I remember similar stuff said about XP

[ericrost]

I said the same thing (won't buy a PC with Vista) until I wanted a laptop. I'm a budget buyer at the moment, and wanted something with a decent video chipset (for a laptop) that would run WoW under Ubuntu. So I looked over at System76.. great, Ubuntu preinstalled lappys... wait a minute, these laptops are all $1000+ to get anything with an nVidia chipset... Well off to Best Buy, and my laptop has never booted into Vista... but given the fact that Dell has shown that M$ subsidizes THEM to keep Windows on their machines, I don't mind taking some of Micosofts Vista checks.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[wframe9109]

I had a fun time with Ubuntu too, although my problem was a bit more tame: the installer won't load.

I've been told this is a "hardware" issue, but given that Debian, XP, and Vista work with it, I tend to blame whomever wrote the software.

Decent article. I've been trying to do the same, but I've kept a dual boot setup and am often tempted to boot back into windows instead of searching for solutions to things I already know how to do. Oh well...

Hooray

[spellraiser]

I, for one, welcome our new Linux-using recruits.

Ubuntu has done a lot to make Linux mainstream, and I think it's the best distro out there for 'regular' people who have grown up on Windows and want to give Linux a try.

Frankly, I'm perplexed that anyone would pass on the opportunity to try out a free (as in beer) OS. Except gaming junkies, of course, but I think that with the maturing PC userbase they've become less relevant. Or maybe I'm just getting old ...

Re:Hooray

[rjpear]

" Except gaming junkies, of course, but I think that with the maturing PC userbase they've become less relevant. Or maybe I'm just getting old ..."

--Heh..Gaming Junkies are one of the only reasons Computer Hardware get's updated... I can see Server hardware getting updated depending on the # of 0's an1's they push around..but the average, web surfing, word processing,emailing user doesn't need a cutting edge machine... Maybe Circa 2000... And it's a big reason why many don't completely Jump to Linux.. I mean it's hard enuf to get the Frame rates out of a PC which the games are designed for.. but to Emulate a Win Box on Linux to run Battlefield or something would be crazy shizzle.!!
      --- And as for being old... Me too!! I am just trying to fight it!... ;-)

Re:Hooray

[vtcodger]

***Frankly, I'm perplexed that anyone would pass on the opportunity to try out a free (as in beer) OS. Except gaming junkies, of course, but I think that with the maturing PC userbase they've become less relevant. Or maybe I'm just getting old ...***

I suspect that the average PC user would have a vague discomfort deep in his belly that the free new OS might not work, and that the old OS might not work either when the new OS was removed.

AFAICS, that'd be an entirely reasonable concern.

Re:Hooray

[Hatta]

Except gaming junkies, of course, but I think that with the maturing PC userbase they've become less relevant. Or maybe I'm just getting old ...

The maturing PC user base goes hand in hand with a maturing gaming audience. People who were in their teens when Pac-Man came out are in their 40s today. If anything, it makes gaming more relevant, because video games are played by all segments of society, not just the kids. I don't think it's long until they start marketing games and controllers as being friendly to arthritic hands. What else are you going to do cooped up in a retirement home all day?

Re:Hooray

[alphamugwump]

But most gaming junkies, (the kind who build their own hardware) are already power users, to some degree, and have the ability to install linux. Furthermore, i think that with the takeover of consoles, those hardcore gamers are going to be stranded on a shrinking ice flow, so to speak. Although there is much fud on the topic, the general consensus is that vista really does have a performance hit attached. Add to that the fact that UT, Quake, WoW, and HL all run on linux. And, of course, the bar for linux adoption is steadily getting older.

I actually think that if linux is ever going to become mainstream, the first adopters will be disgruntled hardcore gamers. Most people think that linux should focus on education and the third world, but the vast majority of computers in education are "self-maintained" (teachers and librarians without a clue) and the third world seems to prefer to pirate windows. IMHO, ubuntu should try to make a distro suitable for workstations (no, it isn't quite there yet), and then cater to the gamers by adding serious 3D support and stable wine.

Realistically, directx9 is going to be around for a while, and it can be emulated just like any other old platform. Actually, it's regular old x86, so it doesn't even need to be emulated. The only slowdown is from a little bit of indirection.

Re:Hooray

[rjpear]

the Sick part regarding Linux is that, while I hold these Certifications and such and can build machines etc... Installing Linux has been a Pain in the Arse for Years...Until Ubuntu (and now Debian)... I have 2 machines running either Ubuntu and Debian... Now the Ubuntu has a FTP server on it... which was setup by a Linux Buddy remotely..I couldn't do it (with the time I wanted to dedicate to it..) and the Debian is installed to see if I could get it running.. Which I did... The Package installer works great in Ubuntu and Debian... But what falls apart is when I try to Install anything not listed in the mananger.. I CANNOT DO IT.. It's probably me... and I am not saying it cannot be done.. It's just not worth the effort. I can afford to buy a Legit version of XP Pro or XP Media Center Ed.. and Download pretty much any program and install it in seconds.. Linux would have been great when I was 15 and had all summer or weekend in my room to play with the computer (like my old C-64 and the Programs you could type in from Computer Magazine... and then Save them to the Data-sete (tape)..Does that show my age ;-) ).. I really like linux on Devices like the Nokia 770 Tablet..or cell phones, Wii's, Xbox,es etc... Where there is not supposed to be mods..and the users create them.. Thats Power...

Re:Hooray

[alphamugwump]

I'll confess: I got my brother to set up my linux firewall for me. It's just so complicated, and would require so much playing around, that it wouldn't be worth the time I have now. And yeah, the package manager is a double-edged sword. It is easy to install anything in the repos, but difficult to build your own packages properly. I haven't yet seen a really good tutorial on building debian packages.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[hal2814]

Wow, you got it to install? I couldn't get that far. If kept crashing in the middle. Fortunately, Debian didn't have such an issue. I was really wanting to get rid of Fedora and move to something using the Debian package system. And while my hardware wasn't spectacular, I expect a 700Mhz Thunderbird with 512MB RAM, 250GB HDD, and Radeon 7500 AGP video card to at least install even if I don't get great performance out of it.

The good news is that my wife really likes Debian's default WM and the packages I've installed in apt so now so she's not harping on me to get a licensed copy of Windows for that computer anymore. It looks like soon we'll be running Linux on our desktops and Windows on our laptops exclusively now.

That depends ...

[khasim]

... sorry, problem ain't on my end.

That depends upon what the problem is finally determined to be.

Since there is no way anyone else can diagnose your problem, you are free to make any claims you want to about it.

Meanwhile, your experience seems to run counter to the majority. I have installed Ubuntu on many machines without a single problem. Ubuntu does have problems installing at times, but mostly with SATA drives on specific chipsets in specific configurations.

Re:That depends ...

[Jaysyn]

Every time I've had a problem with Ubuntu it's been because of bad RAM. Other than that installing Ubuntu is generally easier than Windows (NT/XP/2000).

Re:That depends ...

[orasio]

Enough yelling.

If you can't install it yourself, maybe you should pay someone to do it.

The software is free, and not just as in beer. The personalized support is not always so.

Sometimes you can expect good suppot from other people. Some other times, your problem needs more work than other people are willing to do for free, and you need to either learn something you didn't knew, or pay someone to do the work for you.

The whole idea of a community, is that other people help because they want to, not because they have to. But you can always pay someone to happily fix your issues.

And they _do_ need the version of the OS, because that implies a specific version of the bootloader, and probably some specific boot issues.

Commendable but...

[Sobrique]

The place where Linux really needs to start to shine is the workplace. People run PCs at home, mostly because they run PCs at work. There's exceptions, but this is definitely the majority.

What's really needed is some 'professional' IT organisation to sell a definitive Linux solution for a whole workplace. And support it. And point out that actually it a) costs less to support and b) is way cheaper.

Personally, I think it's viable, and I can see IBM gradually moving that way, and perhaps Sun too. But they'll have a lot of work to do to overcome the 'No one ever got fired for buying Microsoft' attitude that's ingrained into most of the workplaces in the world. (I'm still somewhat stunned at the complete lack of understanding of the mere existance of Unix that I see in my current, IT company).

*shrug* I look forward to a day when every business desktop runs Linux. I think there's a lot of people who's talents are wasted being support monkeys for cranky windows bogosity. But at the same time, I can't see it happening, simply because it'll put a lot of people out of work.

Re:Commendable but...

[MontyApollo]

Too many companies run specialized Windows-only apps, often custom written. It could be something as simple as a custom timeclock program, or something more critical like a specialized ordering platform. It would be expensive and take forever to re-write all of these, and I think it would be hard to justify.

Re:Commendable but...

[Salsaman]

If they run on .net, then most likely they will run on Mono. Miguel de Icaza estimates that by the summer, 70% of all .net apps will run natively on Linux, either out of the box, or with less than a dozen changes.

Re:Commendable but...

[Paulrothrock]

Wine. VMWARE. Hell, dual boot the machine.

My dad had a similar problem. He wanted a Mac, but all of his financial software was in Windows. Now he boots into Windows once a week and does his financial stuff, then reboots back into OS X.

Re:Commendable but...

[MontyApollo]

Dual booting kind of defeats the purpose of a free OS.

Re:Commendable but...

[Sobrique]

It's a nice thought, but ... well, the argument will go something like:

IT: Here's Linux, it costs no license fee, and is more supportable, so everything's better and faster.

Customer: What about app XYZ that Fred over there bodged together in Lotus-1-2-3 12 years ago, and is a vital part of our payroll*

IT: Hmm....

If you're really lucky, you'll have an IT department that's 'strong' and can declare what's supported and what's not. At which point you _can_ start to look at the things that'll work. You'll probably do OK too. However, then you'll face a 'product evaluation' as you try and convince The Business that it's a good step - after all, Windows is the devil they know. These things cost money, and time, and I'm pretty sure Microsoft are sufficiently intelligent that they'll avoid that.

Sounds stupid, I know, but ... business users are conservative. Loss of 'time' is very expensive. You'll have to convince them the advantage, and it'll be hard.

* Yes, actually there was a finance app that was a Lotus-1-2-3 macro, that stalled us upgrading to Windows NT -> 2000 -> WinXP, simply because it was both payroll critical, and no one would pay for the development time to port it.

Re:Commendable but...

[bunratty]

That may be so, but many industries have been running Windows for years. They may have problems, but they at least know there are no showstoppers. Switching to Linux is expensive in the short term, and has lots of risks compared to running the old tried-and-true OS.

Let me make this point clear with a concrete example. I'm the sole IT person for a new startup. All the employees in the startup are coming from an industry where everyone uses Windows and MS Office on the desktop. Most of the employees run many (perhaps dozens) of different applications successfully. Do you think I should try to use Linux on the desktop on the computers for this startup? I don't know if it would be able to run all their programs successfully, even under Windows emulation. I don't know how long it would take for me to even find out. Go ahead and convince me why I should take the time and expense to evaluate using Linux on the desktop, rather than just going forward with Windows which I'm absolutely sure will work. What should I say to convince everyone else to go along?

Re:Commendable but...

[Stamen]

I'm old enough to remember a time when you would get laughed at if you suggested Windows would be used in the office, this was around the Windows 3.0 days. Novell ruled the smaller server space, and Word Perfect and DOS were king.

Windows started to penetrate the desktop first with Windows 3.1 (IIRC) and Office. Then Novell made some serious mistakes, like making it hard for Windows desktops to connect to Novell servers (actually Microsoft did this, but Novell could of done much better), and not supporting TCP/IP and going with their IPX protocol instead. Because of those two things, as well as others, it started to become easier to use Windows Server or Windows for Workgroups (peer to peer serving) instead of Novell server, even though it wasn't even close in regards to performance, ease of administration, or reliability (you could do some very cool things with Novell NetWare).

Linux is starting the other way, with the servers, and then going to the desktop. So it's a different challenge. But one thing, IMO, that Linux needs to do is develop some features (not just copying Windows or OS X) that aren't available anywhere else that makes people demand it on the desktop. LInux does, of course, have the very real benefit of not having many issues with viruses and malware, but it needs more than that. If you take a look at the history lesson above, perhaps Linux Desktop could leverage the large install base of Linux on the server to solve integration issues that you just can't on Windows, making it so that the IT people demand Linux on the desktop, as we use to demand Windows on the server (before we got smart and started demanding Linux on the server :-) ).

Re:Commendable but...

[Teresita]

Dual booting kind of defeats the purpose of a free OS. My galpal's employer's website requires IE to get PDFs of her pay stubs. IE runs under Whine, but you need to launch the application from an existing install of Windoze. If you can get IE unbundled from Windows the EU would like you to testify at their anti-trust hearings. Linux is not ready for prime time when it comes to music software. The only program I've found that automatically detects my MIDI keyboard is LMMS. Whine chokes on Cakewalk software installs. Google Earth installs but the graphics are slower'n crap. This is also why the gamers are sticking with Microsuckware. When this motherboard blows up I'll go with Linux 100%, but in the meantime, I'll stay with XP. But there's not a snowball's chance in hell I'll get Vista.

Re:Commendable but...

[bunratty]

If you need to run Windows, why not just run Windows? Isn't that just easier than running Windows and another operating system, especially Mac OS X? It sounds like you're advocating using other operating systems just for the sake of bragging rights. You're not doing it to stick it to Microsoft if you cave and pay for a Windows license anyway.

Personally, I'm thinking about buying a Mac, but if I did that it would only be if I could get by without any Microsoft software at all. Otherwise, what's the point? Even running an open-source Windows emulator would admit defeat.

Re:Commendable but...

[Stamen]

This is very true. However the key is to provide seamless backwards compatibility to allow the transition to occur, without that it will never work on the Corp desktop.

Windows did this well with allowing users to run DOS in a window. It took many, many years to transition all those old DOS apps into Windows, but it happened.

Apple does this very well too. They successfully went from OS 9 to OS X, which couldn't be a more different OS; they did this by providing Classic mode that allowed users to use their old apps until they were ported or rewritten for OS X. Then again later, they switched from PPC machines to Intel machines, and provided Rosetta technology that allows users to run PPC apps just as before until they are ported to Universal or Intel binaries. So basically they changed OSs twice in 6 years seamlessly.

Linux has Wine, and Crossover, Java, MONO, and VMWare, but all these don't cover everything, and the VMWare solution is less than ideal. Like the parent says, all companies have mission critical legacy applications written in VB, Access, FoxPro, etc that have to run in order for them to even consider switching desktop OSs. Perhaps a Crossover marketed to the enterprises, with emphasis on the development environments such as VB, Access, etc, with strong consulting services to fix the few applications that don't work under it.

Obviously since many applications are developed as web apps today, this problem is going way, thankfully.

Re:Commendable but...

[killjoe]

If a CIO is dumb enough to prevent an application written in lotus 1-2-3 to halt a strategic move that could save the company money then sell your stock in that company now and start looking for a new job if you work there.

Honestly I think darwinism will sort those companies out. If they are being run by idiots they should be out of business before too long.

Re:Commendable but...

[CastrTroy]

You've never seen the code of most windows apps have you? People do stupid things like assume the program is located in C:\Program Files. If it's not, the application doesn't work. Programmers, especially on platforms like .Net, don't understand things like different platforms. I'm sure a lot of apps out there would require major rewrites to work under Mono.

Re:Commendable but...

[Sobrique]

The key point there being 'could'. It's not so much a hold up, as the depressing task of maintaining interoperability, when the alternative is to maintain the status quo, or just bodge on a few revisions or something.

Re:Commendable but...

[cyclop]

IE runs under Whine, but you need to launch the application from an existing install of Windoze.

False. You can install IE standalone, and in fact I have IE 6 installed under Wine. And my actual pc has never seen a Windows install (it's a Gentoo system). You can find a dumb-easy script to install IE6 here.

Linux is not ready for prime time when it comes to music software. The only program I've found that automatically detects my MIDI keyboard is LMMS. Whine chokes on Cakewalk software installs.

This is sad but right. LMMS is very promising but is very limited now (However I'm nicely impressed by its painless VST support)

Google Earth installs but the graphics are slower'n crap.

"Installs" under Wine? There is a native Google Earth binary for Linux. I have it running on my machine and works well. If you have problem with slow graphics, check you have direct rendering enabled on your machine.

Re:Commendable but...

[Toon Moene]

> What's really needed is some 'professional' IT organisation to sell a definitive Linux solution for
> a whole workplace. And support it. And point out that actually it a) costs less to support and
> b) is way cheaper.

Perhaps. But for a typical can-do manager, it's far easier to say: Office automation is not part of our core business, so I'll outsource it (not necessarily to a country half a day away timezone-wise).

Re:Commendable but...

[Paulrothrock]

I'm advocating the use of other software because it's been shown to be more secure. If you need windows, then you should have it installed. But that doesn't mean you have to use it all the time. By dual-booting or running it in a virtual machine you're limiting your exposure.

And take it from this Mac user, you can get by without any MS software on OS X. My parents are a special case because they've got legacy data and no will to buy replacement software.

Re:Commendable but...

[yuna49]

I'm probably going to roll out a test of the Linux Terminal Server Project for one of my healthcare clients in the next few months. We think thin desktops with no local storage and a single shared OS image is the way to go for healthcare providers that need to meet HIPAA privacy and security regulations. Having a single OS image has a lot of appeal to their support staff as well.

Re:Commendable but...

[killjoe]

Again if you let your legacy applications prevent you from moving forward with your strategy and especially save money darwinism will eventually sort you out. Your competition isn't stuck, if you are then sucks to be you.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[apathy maybe]

Here is *my* experience. http://www.revleft.com/index.php?showtopic=60672&v iew=findpost&p=1292270782

I had had trouble with Debian and Knoppix before, but Ubuntu installed like a breeze. I admit I'm not your average computer user, having used GNOME/X/GNU/Linux for a few years now.

Once I had Internet (which as I mentioned required knowing the name of the network in the default install, at least as far as I could tell), I quickly installed a very nice tool called "Wifi-radar" which picks up networks and connects. A pity this isn't installed by default.

I recommend Ubuntu, and for people who aren't happy playing around or who don't have much experience, having a friend or other person who knows a bit to hold your hand might be the way to go.

Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[parc]

I switched my 80 year-old grandmother to Ubuntu 6 months ago. I won't pretend there were no problems, but they all revolved around user interface. Specifically, things didn't EXACTLY match Outlook/Internet Explorer's interface. Once I explained that and she used it for about 2 weeks, she has no problems whatsoever.

She DOESN'T do any DVD editing. She DOES use digital photography (in that I send her pictures of her great grandson and she views them). She's even managed to solve minor problems on her own. She writes documents, receives documents (both word and excel), and has had no issues to date that could not be solved in 10 minutes on the phone.

Her only major complaint? It's not the user interface. It's not the multifunction printer/copier/scanner. It's not the funky colors. It's not the email. It's that she can't make the computer wit more than 2 hours before hibernating.

Perhaps these "reviews" of "typical users" should evealuate what a real "typical user" actually is.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Zelos]

I've done it several times using iDVD. Things like hacking together a DVD show reel for an actress friend.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Sobrique]

How much effort was there in you doing the 'switch' though. Windows usually comes with your PC, and if it isn't mostly just installs. Don't get me wrong, I really like Linux, but I have to say my dad went back to Win98 (yes, I know) because the Linux he tried to install did a couple of 'bomb out' crashes, and he got frustrated by it being obscure in what was up.

It's all well and good to get a running copy of Linux for someone, but that cuts out 90% (or more) who either get it pre-installed, or want to install it themselves to see what it's like.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[metlin]

One of my biggest problems with Linux is - believe it or not - stability.

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. Secondly, getting the WiFi to work wasn't a cakewalk, either. And during the whole messing around with install process, I had to restart the system at least a few times (Linux, meet Windows - one and the same). Now, I've also had problems with the GUI in getting things done - sure, I finally end up resorting to opening a terminal and doing what I wanted, which defeats the purpose, I think. I won't even go into the number of times I've had to restart X. 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. Tried every damn thing, and finally booted into Windows and did what I wanted. And I still can't get my printer and scanner to play nicely with Linux. Half the time, the box ends going bonkers. I finally upgraded to Edgy Eft and things seemed a little better, but not much better (I did get Beryl working though!).

And I won't even go into such things as DVD burners and the like - half the time, I just use Windows than go through all the trouble of getting something to work.

Linux is great, but it still is not as usable nor intuitive as Windows is for a lot of things (spare me the "you're used to Windows" crap - I've been using *nix for at least 10 years). Its support for other things (e.g. Indic language support, accessibility etc.) is also nowhere near Windows.

And the thing is, as Linux becomes more usable, its stability is going down the drain.

There is also the problem with drivers - yes, I am aware that folks don't always make everything with Linux in mind or do not release the appropriate drivers (although many are starting to). But this is a chicken and egg problem - the reason they are not is because Linux isn't picking up, and the reason Linux is not picking up is because it is hell to install. And the reason it is hell to install is because you have to go hunting for drivers, appropriate fixes etc.

Secondly, the amount of free (as in beer) apps in Linux maybe more than in Windows, but they are nowhere as stable or usable. For instance, compare Paint .NET with, say, GIMP - the former while low on features is infinitely more usable (and in my experience, stable) than GIMP. The fact that the MS Paint replacement is faster and more stable than the (supposed) Photoshop replacement is a little spooky.

Personally, I think that despite what Slashdotters may believe, Linux has at least another 5-10 years to catch up to Windows in terms of accessibility, usability and stability.

The day I can get my box up and working without having to go through the trouble of hunting around the net and spending a few weeks in fixing it will be the day Linux will be comparable to Windows on the desktop.

Linux is only free if your time is not money - and for some of us, our time is money.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Zelos]

Exactly, I'm not sure why the GP is modded so high: is this how low expectations are of linux? You could do most of the functions he describes on a decent PDA. The problem for Linux is that, even if it can provide 90% of the functionality, it's the remaining 10% that's going to annoy people - the webcam that won't work, the lack of a large base of commercial software, the lack of syncing software for PDAs/phones etc.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Coryoth]

How much effort was there in you doing the 'switch' though. Windows usually comes with your PC, and if it isn't mostly just installs. When I moved from NZ to Canada I left my old machine behind with my parents. It was a Linux box, and they were a little daunted by that. I had all my data copied off the machine anyway, so I bought a copy of Redhat 9 for them and let them install it themselves (I was nearby in case nay problems came up, but they would dutifully read everything, click on help whenever they were uncertain, and found everything to be self explanatory). Once they had done that they found the whole things less daunting. My machine had been set up in parallel with their old machine which was running Windows (I figured leaving them a safe fallback option was a good idea). Over time they slowly moved more and more of their daily computer use over to the Linux box. These days they use that machine pretty much exclusively. Unless you're trying to install a particularly un-user-friendly distribution the install should work just fine - it is only the rarest of cases that seem to have problems.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[BJH]

Let's take your points one at a time.

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.

Secondly, getting the WiFi to work wasn't a cakewalk, either.

Details? Driver problems, installation problems, configuration problems, connectivity problems?

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.

Now, I've also had problems with the GUI in getting things done - sure, I finally end up resorting to opening a terminal and doing what I wanted, which defeats the purpose, I think.

Specifics?

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?

And I still can't get my printer and scanner to play nicely with Linux.

Again, please bitch to the manufacturers.

Half the time, the box ends going bonkers.

Details?

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.

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.

Linux is only free if your time is not money - and for some of us, our time is money.

Sounds like you would indeed be better off giving more of your money to Bill Gates. I'm sure he has a good use for it.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Zelos]

Looks like we've hit the Linux Fault Threshold.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[elgatozorbas]

I switched my 80 year-old grandmother to Ubuntu 6 months ago... Perhaps these "reviews" of "typical users" should evealuate what a real "typical user" actually is.

I know many people that do video editing (compressing DVDs and the like) both in linux and windows. And with all due respect, I think we should aim a little higher than for the needs of the average octagenarian. This whole 'linux for the masses'-thing is not about minimal standards (being 'admitted' to competition), but about kicking ass.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[theantipop]

I can't get to TFA, but I would assume OCP is recognizing their typical user. Nearly every article they write is slanted towards the overclocking, Quake benching crowd.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Anonymous Coward]

Looks like you're a fucking moron.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[BJH]

And oh, treating someone complaining about the problems like an idiot is a great way to get things done.

Treating someone trying to help you like your personal support bitch is also a great way to get things done.

Why is "complain to the manufacturers" such a bad answer? It is the ONLY way that device drivers in Linux will improve in anything other than incremental fashion.

And BTW, if by saying "I've given talks on writing Linux device drivers", you actually mean "I've ripped off other people's work to make it look like I know something about writing Linux device drivers", then perhaps you shouldn't bring it up.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[metlin]

You weren't offering help - you were offering excuses.

Complaining to manufacturers is not a bad answer, it just does not solve my immediate problem. My immediate problem is getting something to work and your answer does nothing for that. So, as a frustrated user, you do nothing for my problem. Hence, the answer is pointless.

And about using other people's work - as long as they are duly credited, I do not see the problem? Secondly, what is wrong is using materials by others for a talk - what matters during the talk is how you handle the material and the hands on demo. The supporting material came from elsewhere - so what?

Because college professors make slides that are totally their own right? Borrowing someone's ideas, especially for some things such as talks, is not a bad thing.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[BJH]

Whether you've written Linux device drivers, met people who have written them, or sent spam to a guy who knew somebody who met Linus, is not relevant.

From what little information you saw fit to provide, most of your issues (Broadcom wireless, Intel wireless, NVidia/ATI video card?) seem to be with binary drivers.
In that case, talking to the manufacturer is the ONLY way you are going to get a stable system. Some people may be able to provide ad-hoc workarounds, but only the manufacturer can solve the cause.

(I also found it interesting that you gave the level of Indic language support as proof of the superiority of Windows, when it's apparent from the site you linked to that Windows' out-of-the-box Indic support is fairly sucky.)

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[metlin]

Oh, some manufacturers do provide drivers (for instance, I use the Intel GMA which has drivers from intel) but even with the right drivers there are conflicts with other parts of the system that take time and effort to find and solve.

Yes, Windows' support for Indic IMEs off the box is quite sucky, but it can be fixed without reasonable hassle (in terms of time required to find and fix a problem).

My point is simple - Linux off the box takes time and effort to be up to the mark of a Windows install on the same box. It may be the fault of the manufacturers or it may be the fault of Santa Claus, but as an end user my needs are not met.

And as a technology agnost, I would choose whatever fits my bill perfectly with the least effort (for some people, money constitutes effort, for some people time does).

All I'm saying is that today, Linux isn't yet at that stage where everything will work out of the box the way things do for Windows - is it because most boxes come with customized OEM installs etc? To an extent, yes, but even outside of that I have found Windows to be a lot easier to install and maintain than Linux.

That's my experience (and opinion), and yours may vary. And I would hold that opinion until such time that I can install Linux on a box and have everything working perfectly out of the box.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Al Al Cool J]

I do tech support for a number of friends/family and they all fall into that category. They use email, web, and word processing, and that's it. Heck, one of my friends only does web as he can't figure out email.

We're talking about people who can't handle the nested Start menu on Windows, and for whom double-cliking icons is both physically difficult and confusing (how do I know if it's one click or two?)

The one who lives farthest away is also the one who needs the most help. So I set her up on Kubuntu, with a simplified desktop featuring big obvious panel buttons for launching apps, as well as a big red OFF button. It's worked out pretty well. Now I can do most of my support by phone (I also use KDE) or ssh.

I wish there was a dummed-down linux distro specifically for extremely non-techie users, but to be installed and supported by techies like me. Simplified interface, and a special GET HELP button that would fire off an email to the techie to allow them to connect via ssh or remote desktop. It would also be nice to have a FIX PRINTER button for flushing the print queue and restarting the printer (and if necessary CUPS), for when they run out of paper, then hit print 12 more times before they realise what the problem is.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[bunratty]

In that case, talking to the manufacturer is the ONLY way you are going to get a stable system.

That, or just run Windows. Which do you think Joe Schmoe user is going to do? Do you understand the original poster's point now? This is exactly what he meant by "Linux is only free if your time is not money - and for some of us, our time is money."

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[mackyrae]

What does "there is no driver for this" have to do with stability? Do you know what stability means?It means your computer doesn't crash all the time. My computer's not unstable just because a "Windows only" (not even Mac!) gadget I got for Christmas doesn't work. I mean, it IS unstable, but that's not the reason. The reason is that I'm alpha-testing Feisty Fawn. If you look at Ubuntu, though, it isn't hell to install. Neither is Fedora or Sabayon or Knoppix (all I've ever done). Put in the disk, answer like 5 questions, hit "install" and it goes off on its own. If you have unsupported hardware, it's tougher, but even something I've been told is a PITA to install (drivers for a Broadcom bcm43xx) turned out to be a matter of 10-15 minutes because there are auto-installer scripts for them. I know it doesn't work for everything. I'd like drivers for my little photo keychain, but that's miniscule. Can I play mp3s? Yes. Can I browse the web and chat? Yes. Can I type my papers? Yes. Can I play Flash games? Yes. Can I make really nice genealogy reports (the kind that make Windows users jealous) using GRAMPS? Yes. Can I set up a printer without installing any drivers at all, just by clicking 3 or 4 buttons (new driver, next, next, next)? Yes. Does it crash? Provided I don't block the air vents on my laptop so that it gets no circulation and hits 88C, no, it doesn't. If I DO do stupid things that make it overheat, then yeah. Does the unstable version I'm running crash? No! It's "unstable" and "alpha" but it's rock solid!

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[kwandar]

I'd like to convert my wife and her mother to Ubuntu, since they don't play heavy duty games like I do, and it would cut my having to support screwed up machines.

The Problem: There doesn't seem to be a good MSN with video capability that they can use, as mother-in-law is in former Yugoslavia (not to mention all their friends are on MSN)

Suggestions? Anyone?!

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[General Wesc]

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.

We know. We are. In the meantime, 'That's not our fault' is irrelevant. No one is blaming Linux. He's simply pointing out problems many people have when switching, and it being the fault of the manufacturers doesn't solve the problem--only the blame. The new user doesn't really care whose fault it is that things are broken--he just cares that they're broken.

But you do have the right solution. When the person trying to switch says 'Oh, well if XYZ won't work with Linux, I'll have to stick with Windows', you say 'Okay, but don't forget to email the manufacturer and ask them to release the specs or their own driver. Then you can try again when the problem's fixed.'

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[howlingmadhowie]

when you have undocumented hardware, linux will probably not work. i remember when i got my athlon64 in 2004. there wasn't a windows version for 64bit processors, but linux installed without a hitch. i would try to install windows on my sparc64, or my mips, or my powerpc, or my arm handy, but i don't think it would work. so don't claim that linux has bad hardware support, it has excellent hardware support provided the manufacturers produce the specs for their hardware. if they don't, well, it shouldn't be required of linux developers to go and reverse engineer drivers for every last bit of cheap plastic bought at walmart. i'm happy that i can use the same linux distribution on 7 or 8 totally different architecture and get work done. does windows come with an ftp server or an ssh server? does it have ipsec capabilities? i don't now, but unless it does, it is totally inadequate as an operating system for my needs.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[mackyrae]

Yeah, pretty much everyone I do tech support for is like that too. I think my boyfriend's the only person I know with a PDA (Crackberry) that syncs to the computer. I think he's the only person I know with a PDA, and he's far from an average user. He's a hacker. Everyone else just sends email using webmail or types things in Word (or Writer in my family's case) not realizing Notepad/Wordpad (or Gedit) exists or uses AIM (or Gaim) or browses the web on Firefox. They do understand single/double click, but I know my mom is afraid of right-click. In the interest of getting her to stop fearing her computer, I set her up with no sudo rights so she doesn't have to worry about breaking it. I mean, I'm in college. I look around my dorm, I see AIM, a web browser, Word, and iTunes. That's it. That's what average users use. There's also a few guys who play video games, but they're very outnumbered, and most are console-gamers anyway.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Hatta]

You'd be surprised how much filler there is in a typical NFL game and how much the filler ruins the flow of the game.

No I wouldn't. And neither would anyone else who's missed a show because the last 5 minutes of a game took more than 30 minutes to play out.

My game DVDs are a joy to watch.

That would actually be a surprise.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[Hatta]

Use Gaim, X-chat, whatever for the text and VLC for the video.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[HolyCrapSCOsux]

I'll see all that and raise:
Can I use my linux install as a print server? - yes. Even to those Macs and winders machines? -Yes. Can I play my games?, Cedega to the rescue) -yes.

Only thing I haven't gotten to work is a USB video capture thingy I used to play Playstation on my PC.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[T.E.D.]

I switched my 80 year-old grandmother to Ubuntu 6 months ago. ...she can't make the computer wit more than 2 hours before hibernating.

She's not hibernating, she's just napping. 80-year-olds do that.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[bheer]

> Again, please bitch to the manufacturers.

Dude, you do realize every time you say that, people hear "...or use Windows or OSX." Your enthusiasm for Linux is great, but honestly -- this sort of fanboyishness is exactly what Linux does NOT need.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[jZnat]

People give the same exact answer when people bitch about lack of support in Windows [Vista] or OS X as well. Not much difference there...

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[jZnat]

Kopete is perfect. I've used it several times for webcam, and it works perfectly.

You could also use pretty much any H.323 application as well, but that isn't how MSN works.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[micpp]

The fact that the MS Paint replacement is faster and more stable than the (supposed) Photoshop replacement is a little spooky.
Well, I find MS Paint to be faster and more stable than Photoshop.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[larytet]

similar story here. my mum is 60+, today she is a rather competent user of Internet browser (firefox+adblockplus really simplify the browsing by removing banners), housekeeping related forums. She watches movies on the same machine using Videolan. Indeed it took approximately 2 years to start using the computer. Today she is completely independent. She does not know how to fix things if something goes wrong, but Linux is fairly stable and she does not know root password.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[bheer]

Except the small fact that Windows (and to a lesser extent OSX) customers make up a large enough fraction of the market that manufacturers actually take the incompatibility seriously.

Re:Who the hell is this end user that edits DVDs?

[infinityxi]

Uhh I would hope that Paint is much faster than something that is supposed to compare to Photoshop. Tell me, is photoshop faster (or more stable) than Paint. Paint should be simple enough to be stable compared to the complexities of both Gimp and photoshop and while I agree GIMP is no Photoshop. Stop comparing Apples and Pears.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Wait, was your problem really a faulty hard drive?

No, no, no, no, no. I have used that exact same hard drive without fail *on Windows* since the incident.

Most people who were on that forum or read it, smugly dismissed it as a hard drive problem because I had tried to install a hard drive that *actually was faulty* the week before. This was not the same hard drive. The people that blamed it on a hard drive error were just being idiots.

Now, it may have been a hard drive Ubuntu wasn't prepared for, but the hard drive itself is functioning as designed.

It's the Internet!

[frieko]

I 'switched' to Linux several times in the past, only to get frustrated and switch back. But Kubuntu has stuck. I'm Windows free for a year now. The reason it stuck this time is simple - with Firefox, Flash 9, Acrobat Reader, and w32codecs, the WWW is now as good on Linux as it is on Windows. I'm surprised more people don't make a bigger deal about this. For me it's huge.

Re:It's the Internet!

[smellsofbikes]

Ditto that. For me it was Mepis 6.0, which is based on Ubuntu. *I* didn't have much of a problem using Fedora Core (2-4), if I screwed around a lot trying to make things work, although I never got some of my USB stuff running right. Mepis? works, for both me and my previously-windows-only-I-hate-Macs girlfriend. I won't say she likes it as much as Windows -- she uses the Win machine for photoshop -- but the linux boxes are the only things that are exposed to the internet as a whole and they do everything either of us wants (with occasional Flash exceptions.) They even do things we didn't know we wanted: options like intelligent, well-chosen context-dependent menus are really convenient. (right-click on a jpg and it'll let you rotate the image: that's really cool. right-click on anything and there's a move-to/copy-to option: I hate it that Windows doesn't have that, now.)

Re:It's the Internet!

[CastrTroy]

I had been using Linux for about 2 years, and I recently only switched back to windows. The reason? Couldn't get my TV Tuner working properly under Linux. An Hauppauge PVR 150. It's supposed to work, and even though I tried a million things, I couldn't get it to work. It wasn't even a driver issue, because cat /dev/video0 > video.mpg worked fine. And it worked fine in mplayer, with reading from /dev/video0. The problem? couldn't find a program that actually could act as a good TV watching program that supported my card. XawTV, KDETV, MythTV, Freevo, and I think a couple others. None of them worked. I don't think I actually got MythTV to work. Installing a MySQL database is not something I should have to do to watch TV. Even with KnoppMyth, I couldn't get it to work. I just went to windows. Bought SageTV, and I've had no problems since. Windows does have it's problems, and I still use VMWare for programs like Digikam, and Amarok, which I can't find a suitable replacement for in windows. But for the most part, I'm happier on Windows.

Re:It's the Internet!

[Atuin the Great]

I'm also converted to Kununtu.
Some time ago, I've also installed Ubuntu on my parents' computer. It used to run WindowsNT, but it was getting really sluggish. And having to solve problems every other weekend was no fun either. Once Ubuntu and all the software they needed (ooffice, skype, mail, photo manager, ...) were installed, I sat them down for a 20min introduction and they're using it ever since.

More recently, I bought a new notebook (HP Pavilion dv9000), and installed Kubuntu 6.10 next to the installed Windows XP media center.
Now, I hardly boot in Windows anymore, especially after I had installed Beryl (simple apt-get) which looks and acts great.
However, using it on a relatively new laptop, it still needs some special attention if you want to use all features.

In my case, these were:
- automatically connecting to wireless networks to WPA-protected networks. after browsing some forums, I installed wpa_supplicant + edited some conf-files
- built-in speakers/microphone do not work out of the box. First had to find out which was included (Conexant) and then downloaded latest ALSA drivers + a specific patch which I found on the ALSA forum. After compilation/installation all specific buttons and the speakers worked. unfortunately, the built-in microphone is still not working.
- built-in webcam. This is a Ricoh webcam and is not UVC-compliant (although the company itself claims it is). After finding and mailing with some people who had similar hardware, I got in touch with someone who was willing to write a new usb-driver specific for this camera. After a lot of back-and-forth (he did development, I did the testing), the webcam now works.
Other then these problems, everything else worked beautifully.

Over the last few years, I've really become a big Ubuntu-fan and when I buy a new desktop machine, it will run Ubuntu as well.
I feel it has grown substantially over the last year, and is already a good candidate OS for a lot of people. What's needed at this point is even more hardware support. Hopefully, the initiative of the Linux kernel community will give a boost in this area.

Re:It's the Internet!

[cuby]

I also switched to ubuntu half a year ago and never switched back to XP. I must say that I did't find a definitive solution form my tv card... Now I'm using TVTime, it has a very good image, but has very annoying controls. Did you try it?

Re:It's the Internet!

[mackyrae]

For Photoshop, check out Crossover Office. The regular version is $30 or it's $70 if you want tech support (Crossover Pro), but there are .debs and .rpms and .sh floating around the web too if you know where to look.

Re:It's the Internet!

[smellsofbikes]

I'll take a look. Mostly all we need is crop/resize but getting GIMP running under KDE is too much of a hassle. Thanks for the tip.

Re:It's the Internet!

[yuna49]

What distro are you using again? In Fedora, I go to the Graphics menu and select GIMP. That's it. And, I'm running KDE.

Re:It's the Internet!

[smellsofbikes]

I'm using MEPIS, which is ubuntu-based. The problem is that I have an evil, lying DSL modem -- the one Qwest telephone sells -- that blocks traffic somehow such that apt-get and dpkg and the like don't work. So I can't upgrade easily, and instead get stuck in dependency hell for every package I want to try and install, and generally my algorithm for installation is that if I go to install package A, and see its first dependency is package B, whose first dependency is package C, whose first dependency is package D, then I give up and do without A, because I *know* what A's second dependency is going to be at least as bad, as is B's, and probably C's, and I don't have time to spend forty eight hours just tracking down and downloading packages and fighting to get all the inconsistencies resolved. So, I do without. SOME day I'll find a DSL modem that isn't an evil, lying piece of junk and then my life will be so much better.

Ubuntu

[vwstickman]

I tend to agree with the mass consensus, Ubuntu has gone a long way to bringing home the Linux desktop but still needs work in some areas. One such area is laptop support. When I installed Ubuntu my standby was flaky and hibernate hung on restart forcing a hardboot. These are key areas that do not work properly and there are many other little bugs like that. As I said it has come a long way but still does not work 100% out of the box.

Re:Ubuntu

[PrescriptionWarning]

I tried Ubuntu on my laptop and also was fairly disappointed... however I'd be more than willing to give it a shot on my Desktop at work, or as a dual boot for my main home computer

Re:Ubuntu

[quintesse]

Well I've got a brand new Dell Lattitude 620 at work and guess what? Hibernate doesn't work. This was with the OS installed by Dell. Then the company's sysadmins re-installed the laptop and it still won't work. I'm sure there is some simple solution, that's not it, but Windows definitely has it's own problems. (And this is a system with an installed OS, the manufacturer has supposedly made sure that everything works allright while Linux normally doesn't have the same advantage)

Re:Ubuntu

[drpatt]

WinXP on my Dell laptop does the same thing.

Re:Ubuntu

[mackyrae]

When hibernate/suspend fail, it's usually a driver hanging it up. In Linux, you can tell it to shut down that driver when you suspend/hibernate and restart it when you unsuspsend/unhibernate if you know which driver is causing it. Figuring out which driver it is can be tough, but if enough people report it, someone will notice which one's doing it.

Re:Ubuntu

[quintesse]

Definitely, it's not the easiest of things to get working yet but I'm happily using swsusp2 on mi Linux desktop for quite some time now. The problem I had was on a Windows laptop that are supposed to work 100% out of the box.. uh huh

OS changing is too complicated for most people

[fantomas]

"Frankly, I'm perplexed that anyone would pass on the opportunity to try out a free (as in beer) OS. "

Changing OS is too complicated for most people, and there's not enough payback. If it works, why break it? If you can send email, and look at the web, and write a letter, and it took a lot of pain to get that far, why change the system you use and have to learn all over again, maybe losing your old files? That's how most people see it.

Changing OS may cost nothing financially, but for many people, their time isn't free. The time required to install the new software, get up to speed using the new tools and assuring yourself that you can access your old files and all your other hardware (printer, digital camera, internet connection, etc) is either lost business time (=costs money) or lost personal time (=time away from more pleasant use of leisure time). It's only "free" if you were going to spend that time messing around with a computer anyway. For many people that's not the case.

Re:OS changing is too complicated for most people

[3vi1]

Maybe this is a troll, but I'll bite:

Changing OS is too complicated for most people

Who areeee these people? Who can't download the a Live CD, burn it, and reboot their computer. You don't even need to install it to evaluate it as a replacement option.

Want to install it? It's all menu driven, with very simple wizards. Anyone who can't install it probably couldn't install Windows either.

If it works, why break it?

A) You're not "breaking" it, you're replacing it. You can even keep your old OS as a bootable option, should you not want to replace it.

B) Consider this: Your old computer works, why would you ever break it?

C) It probably *doesn't* work when lots of people decide to try Linux. One day you replace your motherboard and Windows generates a blue screen whose only viable resolution (as per the MS Knowledgebase) is to re-install Windows completely (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316401/en-us as an example, but there are lots more like this).

Unfortunately, manufacturers only include "recovery CDs" specific to the hardware they sold you - not full versions of Windows, so re-installing without buying another copy of Windows is impossible (unless you don't mind pirating a copy, and all the hassle that comes with that should Microsoft deactivate your key). Are you going to spend $200 and reward Microsoft for forcing vendors into the recovery-cd scheme, are would you fully investigate your options?

Changing OS may cost nothing financially, but for many people, their time isn't free.

And the knowledge they gain through the process isn't useless, especially for any techie. Experience can only help your resume'.

Plus, think of all the free time you could get back - not having to worry about the vast majority of spyware, trojans, and DRM-supporting rootkits.

-J

Re:OS changing is too complicated for most people

[BlackSnake112]

Changing OS is too complicated for most people

Who areeee these people? Who can't download the a Live CD, burn it, and reboot their computer. You don't even need to install it to evaluate it as a replacement option.

try the older (over 50) people. They may have not even had a computer until the last 2-3 years. Also A lot of people have software that they use where a linux equivalent doesn't exist. Or the one that does exist is lacking in functionality. If it takes two programs to do what took one in xp, they may not like it. The learning curve. Not everyone wants to learn something new. They did it this way before, and they want to do it that way now. It sucks but that is the way many people are.

Want to install it? It's all menu driven, with very simple wizards. Anyone who can't install it probably couldn't install Windows either.

true. I go a few further that these people are also the ones who don't install software or updates because they are afraid of breaking something. Good ro bad depending on what you are talking about installing.

A) You're not "breaking" it, you're replacing it. You can even keep your old OS as a bootable option, should you not want to replace it.

not every os give this choice. And with the default dell, hp taking all available disk space and making it ntfs, the only option is many distros is to delete the existing partitions and start over. Do you actually think these people back up their data and know where the software is at?

B) Consider this: Your old computer works, why would you ever break it?

C) It probably *doesn't* work when lots of people decide to try Linux. One day you replace your motherboard and Windows generates a blue screen whose only viable resolution (as per the MS Knowledgebase) is to re-install Windows completely (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/316401/en-us as an example, but there are lots more like this).

I have switched motherboards quite often and not had to reinstall. Update drivers yes. Totally reinstall, only if the person wanted to. Not every time. Switching motherboards and going to a totally different proccessor type and memory type. (i.e. PIII to an AMD FX60) all the drivers are different. Now if windows actually had a way to boot to a prompt and then update the drivers. (I can boot to a C:\ prompt but I have never tried to update the drivers from there) Then maybe one wouldn't have to reinstall. But ms wants people to use the graphic interface not the command line. Other then a failure, A major upgrade (replacing proc, RAM, motherboard) isn't it better to start clean? I do this for linux installs too (I back up first, format, install, restore). I am only restoring my files, stuff I made.

Unfortunately, manufacturers only include "recovery CDs" specific to the hardware they sold you - not full versions of Windows, so re-installing without buying another copy of Windows is impossible (unless you don't mind pirating a copy, and all the hassle that comes with that should Microsoft deactivate your key). Are you going to spend $200 and reward Microsoft for forcing vendors into the recovery-cd scheme, are would you fully investigate your options?

I have yet to have more then a 10-30 minute phone call to get windows reinstalled. There are cds with most computers, unless you didn't check off include reinstall cd/dvd. IF you didn't the instructions say to burn the CD (it is on the hard drive) Most people do not do this. The person setting up the computer is supposed to do this. I have used the same OEM xp cd with a bunch of people's computers. They have their code. Enter in their code. IF the install complains, call the phone number explain that you are reinstalling, give them the code, they give you a new one, your set. It is a PITA (pain in the ass) but it is doable and not too time consuming.

Changing OS may cost nothing financially, but for many people, their time isn't free.

And the knowledge they gain through the pr

Re:OS changing is too complicated for most people

[fyoder]

Anyone who can't install it probably couldn't install Windows either.

And there's the rub. They didn't install it. It came preinstalled on their computer. And when they run into troubles, they call their nephew. Damn the nephews for all spam. Damning the average user is just a waste of breath.

My quest to "switch"

[fed0up]

I have been meaning to try out Linux for years, but never ventured. Thanks to reading /. (can't remember how long; should be 3+ years) I finally decided to take the plunge two weeks ago.

I chose openSUSE, simply because it got some Press(Read: Novell).

I have XP on Toshiba Laptop and wanted to have a dual boot on it.

I used GParted for partition, though openSUSE came with partition manager. GParted was very easy and "Windows like"

The installation went smooth and openSUSE recognized all hardware. I chose GNome as the desktop, simply because Firefox came with it.

I played around and customized to my liking. Opened the Terminal and played with the vi editor. It seems like vi skills are etched in memory(I used to program in C years ago).

I hit the road block with wireless network. The installer recognized Intel 3945 wireless card, but would not connect.

Doing a Google search(are you happy now Google lawyers?), I found I am not alone. I tried ALL solutions offered on various forums.

1. Using Intel's Linux driver - This required a kernel version of 2.6.8 or greater. openSUSE 10.2's kernel is 2.6.16 or something. It is only sensible to use the native driver right? I hit the wall again and again.

2. ndiswrapper - Grudgingly I tried this as a last resort. Same result.

Time spent: Few weekday evenings and a weekend (to the dismay of spouse)

I absolutely love the shiny OS. Unfortunately I can not use it without an wireless internet connection.

So it sits there unused.(I changed the default OS to Windows in GRUB).

Re:My quest to "switch"

[Motion Marvel]

offtopic: Your story resembles mine a lot, but I persevered a little bit longer. If you would add the non-OSS repository of openSUSE to your install sources, you can install 2 packages from intel with drivers for the 3945 chipset. They work like a charm on my Tecra A8

Re:My quest to "switch"

[imroy]

Using Intel's Linux driver - This required a kernel version of 2.6.8 or greater. openSUSE 10.2's kernel is 2.6.16 or something.

Um, the kernel version number is three numbers that happen to be separated by a period. It's not a fraction. Version two point six point sixteen is indeed greater than two point six point eight.

Re:My quest to "switch"

[budword]

My (unasked for) advice seems fitting for the story at hand. Try Kubuntu. Fedora choked on my wireless card too, but Kubuntu just handled it, no kung fu required. At least pop in the live cd and see if it works. I bet it "just works".

Good luck....

David

Re:My quest to "switch"

[SwedishPenguin]

The driver for 3945 is in the kernel, the daemon to regualate it however, is not.
Under Ubuntu, the daemon would have been installed automatically. (its in linux-restricted-modules I believe)
From what I've been able to gather, you need these two packages:
ipw3945d
ipw-firmware

Presumably you can install them from the package manager. If not you may have to add some repositories.
Also, 2.6.16 is more recent than 2.6.8.

Re:My quest to "switch"

[Pecisk]

Damn, I must be lucky. Total beginner with my help launched the same wireless card in 1 hour digging in google on Ubuntu. In Feisty - newest Ubuntu release - it is even on by default.

From my Linux expierence (already 9 years) Debian and Ubuntu is most robust and serious about hardware support. Sure, enterprise versions of SUSE and RedHat are more kickin ass in this field, but Ubuntu shows significant improvements after each release in hardware detection.

So, try Ubuntu Feisty Herd5 LiveCD just in case (no install needed). If it doesn't work, then propably one binary daemon is needed.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[nfgaida]

700mhz Thunderbird? I thought the first AMD thunderbird cores were 1700+.

Works for me...

[jpellino]

As noted on another thread, I spent a week running my iBook G4 (HD died...) with an Ubuntu LiveCD. Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice, flash drive. It did 90% of what I needed to get my job and life done, and with less speed bumps than swapping over to a standard windows XP Pro for the subsequent week the machine was in the shop. Very impressive.

I switched to Debian desktop in 2005

[br00tus]

Ubuntu is derived from Debian. I had qualms about making my main desktop Linux for various reasons, but in 2005 an attempt to have my Windows do wireless screwed up the whole system, and then I needed to use that OEM Windows CD crap, which not only mucked with my C drive but erased my whole D drive for some reason. I got tired of it and switched to Debian.

I thought I would miss some things in Windows but I didn't. The thing I thought I would miss most was Microsoft Word, but Abiword did fine. I was always concerned I would have to modify my resume and send it out in a nice Word format that Linux wouldn't have, but that was never a problem. I never missed Windows for anything. They talk about Windows having better hardware support, but my (then) 802.11b wireless was a hell of a lot easier to install on my system then Linux. I also liked the ability to open a shell and just be able to do stuff - do an awk or sort or whatever on a file, have multiple windows and so forth. It had all the nice user brain-dead stuff of Windows, but I could drop to a shell and actually do stuff, instead of getting some MS-DOS prompt crap. It's much better nowadays than my old days when I had a Linux kernel version 1 running fvwm as one of my work desktops (the other desktop at that time was a Sun IPX running SunOS 4.1.3_U1).

My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[Programmer_In_Traini]

I'm a long time windows user, from the DOS days and I've always remained on the windows side of things mainly because at work its all we use. I never saw any point of switching of linux at home knowing that knowledge would not serve me at work.

I'd usually spend efforts trying to improve on things that would help me at work.

Anyway, now im starting a web hosting and web design (very) small company. I'm not really impressed by the direction MS is taking nor by the fees its charging. Vista smells like a truckload of overhead shit that i have zero interest in even trying out. The 2003 line of servers from MS is just too expensive just to avoid mentionning i hate the notion of online activation/tracking.

I've installed Ubuntu and other distros of linux at the time and while I've always got stuck with the file structure and various command lines to learn, i feel this is something i could get the hang of over time.

But what brings me back everytime to windows are my own limitations regarding programming. At work, we do ASP and ASP.net. Not c#, vb.net. I can read c# but i don't really program with it.

I have no interest in learning php, ruby or other languages despite all their advantages. Because at work that's not what we use and I'd rather re-use my skills rather than split into a new branch just because im having something on the side.

so, my question is, is there any (easy) way i could be running the .net framework on ubuntu ? no virtual machine if possible, no emulation, just run .net framework on ubuntu ?

I know its pretty contracdictory but i dont want to install overhead on my server just for the benefit of running .net, I don't think its possible otherwise but that's why im asking to people who knows more about this.

So, is it possible ?

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[pembo13]

When one invests their time in platform dependant skills, one has to live with the fact they will be forever tied to that platform. I'm pretty sure that what you want is not yet legally possible.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[Doctor Crumb]

It depends on what you mean by ".NET framework". If you mean the *Actual* framework, as in the thing that takes your c# code and runs it, then yes, you can easily use Mono (which is a competing implementation) in ubuntu.

If, however, you mean Visual Studio, then there may be issues. There are several nice IDEs in linux (Eclipse, KDevelop, etc), but none are exactly the same as Visual Studio, and I don't know how well any of them deal with .NET.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[josath]

The notion that you shouldn't learn something because it's not used at your current job seems somewhat foolish to me. I guess if you plan to work there until you die, and you are 100% sure that they will never ever consider using some other technology besides the outdated vb.net. Maybe you work at some dinosaur company that refuses to ever change, but at least where I work, there have been several instances where my "on-the-side" learning has eventually had a direct positive impact on my job.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[skiman1979]

Check out the Mono Project. Mono is a .NET implementation on Linux. You will need to make some source code changes to get it to work in Mono, but a lot of the code should work out of the box. I used Mono to port an in-house application we use here at the office into Mono. Our aplication is in C#, but I believe mono will also do ASP.NET. Someone correct me if I'm wrong? I only had to do some minor code changes to get a majority of our .NET application to work under Gentoo and Ubuntu. Some features had to be disabled, like ActiveX of course. I don't believe ActiveX is supported.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[MarkLewis]

The Mono framework is the Linux implementation of the .NET runtime. It has a working ASP.NET runtime (quite stable) and a VB.NET compiler (stable now, but only fairly recently).

The latest version of Ubuntu (6.10, aka Edgy Eft) does include Mono, but if you plan on doing ASP.NET development and not just hosting, then you'd probably want to download the latest version from the http://www.mono-project.com/ website, because compiler/dev support for VB.NET is pretty new and I don't believe that the tools bundled with Edgy will handle it gracefully. This may require compiling the Mono framework which can take some doing, so you probably would want to check and see if the Mono packaged with Edgy would suit your needs first, because installing that is point-and-click.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[Programmer_In_Traini]

First I'd like to thank everyone that answered my question. I didn't know the mono project but it does seems like its the answer I'm looking for. Its too bad it doesn't support .net 2.0 but thats something i can live with.

As to your comment, unfortunately, I fit in the old dinosaur environment, happily working for government of canada where we still use windows 2k as dev machines and ASP / vb.bet as the mainstream language.

I plan to be here for as long as I can just because the benefits are good for the family guy that i am.

but that doesn't mean i don't seek challenges and learning opportunities. Just because I won't change my programming languages just yet doesn't mean it never will.

I strongly believe that doing it the baby steps way is good because it allows me to smoothly transition from MS to linux instead of sitting in front of the computer with a huge question mark over my head trying to not only figure out how the OS works but not even knowing how to do a simple "hello world" page, let alone a complete web site.

I plan on having ubuntu as my web hosting/mail server. My dev machine will remain windows XP for now. but maybe, over time when i get comfortable, i'll switch that machine to ubuntu as well but keep developing in vb.net. (i can always game with my good ole PS2), then after a year (or more ? who knows) i'll start playing around with other programming technologies.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[mdielmann]

Because at work that's not what we use and I'd rather re-use my skills rather than split into a new branch just because im having something on the side. No offense, but I've never understood this statement. A spreadsheet's a spreadsheet, whether it be 1-2-3, Excel, or whatever. How long do you expect it to take to be able to pick up the basics of it? After that, learn what you need to get things done. I went from MS Works to a shareware clone of 1-2-3 for DOS. Guess what? Most of it is the same, any serious stuff takes some different commands, but they all do pretty much the same thing.

I feel the same way about word processors, GUIs, and programming languages. If a language can be made to work with the CLR, it follows a fixed set of rules. Yep, that includes Java, VB, C, C++. You've already learned conditions, branching, looping, etc. So, now you know what needs to be done, you know the structures to use, take the next step and try to make it in another language. Worry about the unique features after you've done the translation - it will come a lot faster.

I'm not knocking your choices. I live in a MS world, work in a MS shop, and have been working (and playing) in VB from 6 to current. I've also had the mixed pleasure of using far too many versions of Access. But I've also played around in Java, javascript, and a couple others. I've also done serious work in SQL stored procedures and a custom programming language that looks painfully similar to Delphi. What I do in each looks pretty similar, just a different syntax in different environments (and maybe some unique features available in one vs. the other).

Remember, that first step is going to be the hardest. But once you get comfortable with a useful language for the tasks you have at hand (and I don't pretend to be knowledgeable about web programming), it shouldn't take too long to start learning the unique features that make that language extra useful. And as a bonus, you won't be tied to MS and their somewhat arbitrary changes.

Also, you may want to check out the Mono project. This may be in the direction you're looking for.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[DoofusOfDeath]

I have no interest in learning php, ruby or other languages despite all their advantages. Because at work that's not what we use and I'd rather re-use my skills rather than split into a new branch just because im having something on the side.

It sounds like you've identified some pros and cons for each of Windows and Linux. With Windows, you get the familiar (i.e., you can stick with asp.net). With Linux, you get the cheap. You may need to just decide which matters more to you.

But consider this: learning PHP and/or Ruby on Rails is a one-time investment for you (you may eventually decide you want more extensive knowledge of MySQL, Apache, and Linux, but that can probably wait for a while). In contrast, the cost savings of using free software for your server-side web stuff are perpetual. And as you tackle larger and larger sites, the software cost stays $0, whereas Windows Server licensing costs will be proportionate to the number of boxes (or is it CPUs?) the site needs.

But you also asked about why the switch is worth it. Speaking for myself, it's that I just don't have to worry about licensing at all. I never have to wonder if I'm going to have to get on the phone with someone from Microsoft to get my OS activated on a different machine than it was previously installed on. I never have to worry about buying extra licenses so that I can work on a work project at home. And as with Google, I never need to worry about extra software costs as I scale my site to more hardware to handle greater visitor loads.

So basically, using OSS just makes a whole category of things to worry about (licensing legality / costs) go away. For free. That lets me better focus on more important things.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[Coryoth]

If, however, you mean Visual Studio, then there may be issues. There are several nice IDEs in linux (Eclipse, KDevelop, etc), but none are exactly the same as Visual Studio, and I don't know how well any of them deal with .NET. If you want an IDE for .NET on Linux then your best bet is MonoDevelop. It's not Visual Studio, but it is reasonably nice.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[caudron]

so, my question is, is there any (easy) way i could be running the .net framework on ubuntu ? no virtual machine if possible, no emulation, just run .net framework on ubuntu ?

http://www.mono-project.com/ASP.NET

That's about all you need. Now, that said, I'm a bit confused about something else you said...

At work, we do ASP and ASP.net. Not c#, vb.net. I can read c# but i don't really program with it.

ASP.NET is nothing more than c# or vb.net applied to the code-behind files for ASP. If you do ASP.NET at work, then you /are/ using either c# or vb.net or you are just writing html, in which case, you don't need the .net framework anyway. Find out from those doing to coding which language they use for their ASP.NET files. If they use c# you're golden, if it's vb.net, well the support is not quite as solid yet in mono.

To see which language they use just open an aspx file in notepad and look near the top, you'll find a line like this:

<% Page Language="C#" etc....
or
<% Page Language="VB" etc....

That'll tell you what language they are using.

Hope that helps.

As a side note, you ae making a good choice moving to linux for hosting. Once you get used to the idiosyncracies, you'll find it much easier to maintain. Congrats.

Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[Prien715]

As someone who's programmed both on MS and Linux platforms, I'd say that you're using the wrong tools and would ask why you don't switch. MS languages are notorious for being rapidly shifting, meaning you're going to have to "port" your program every 5 years, even if you continue to use what you're using.

I did webwork for a while but got my choice of tools to use on WinXP/Win2K. I chose Perl even though I didn't know it. It worked great and when I applied for my second job, I could do Linux as well, but if a client wanted windows, we could do that too.

Using WinXP/Apache/MySQL/Perl is very similar and offers very similar advantages to using the traditional Linux/Apache/MySQL/Perl setup but allows for a smoother transition since you can use C#/MSSQL. In the great platform wars, it allows you to not have to choose a winner, since you work well with everyone.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[MrMunkey]

You sure can code ASP on Ubuntu/Linux. http://www.mono-project.com/ASP.NET_and_mod_mono It works with the apache web server.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[jeevesbond]

strongly believe that doing it the baby steps way is good because it allows me to smoothly transition from MS to linux instead of sitting in front of the computer with a huge question mark over my head trying to not only figure out how the OS works but not even knowing how to do a simple "hello world" page, let alone a complete web site.

Whilst this doesn't suite the impatience of most /. readers (we expect you to spend five minutes switching away from Microsoft, for you to be productive immediately, and a to write a nice note here telling all the people that replied to your question how wonderful they are) it does seem like a very sensible policy.

There are a couple of things you need to know about Mono and Ubuntu in general:

• The Mono Project is developed by Novell, they have a patent cross-license agreement with The Evil Empire. This has resulted in a lot of FUD and sabre-rattling, which could have a some effect (I am not a lawyer, so don't know what that effect might be) on the Mono project.
• When you want to download mono etc. don't think like a Windows user and get it directly from the Web site. Open up 'Synaptic Package Manager' and install from there. It's in the Sytem menu (I believe, am not a GNOME user :) )
• Mono has a small webserver that comes with it. This will be good to get you started and for testing, but for production applications you should use the 'mod_mono' module for Apache. Again, all this juicy goodness can be found by searching in Synaptic.
• All configuration files for this stuff can be found in the /etc directory--making changes without a GUI might seem strange at first, but believe me it makes much, much more sense than GUI + Registry. For a start think how easy it is to backup settings, or even clone your server configuration.

Hope this helps.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[Procyon101]

My comment has nothing to do with your solution, but...

As a fellow programmer, I have to put in a plug for using your time at home to learn other languages you don't use at work. Picking a new language and then forcing yourself to do a project in it will seriously make you a better programmer in your primary language, and will make your life much easier at work. When you dive into a language that is substantially different than your original you learn completely new ways to approach problems, many of which you can add to your mental toolbox back in your original language.

Now, as an ASP developer, going home and learning PHP would be a bit of a waste of time as they are pretty much the same, and you wouldn't get much from your pain. But going home and building something in C#, prolog, ruby, python, scheme, haskell, etc... would work miracles in expanding your brain because they are so very different. You may still do all your primary development in ASP, but you will find that you are 10 times the programmer in ASP having learned a couple of completely different ways of approaching programming.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[drig]

But consider this: learning PHP and/or Ruby on Rails is a one-time investment for you I would argue against this. I spent the time to learn Perl back in the early 1990's for CGI development. That knowledge is pretty much useless to me now. I learned GW basic in the 1980's. Useless now. I learned some ASP back in the early 2000s. Not quite useless, but learning C#.NET was a new experience. I learned PHP a long time ago, and I'm having to go back and learn object-oriented PHP now. And, now I have to go learn Ruby on Rails if I want to keep up with the state of the art.

Tools, languages and architectures change. Maybe not as frequently as you buy new servers, but the cost of learning a new language is higher than the cost of a Windows installation. I'd say that the advantage isn't a lower cost of switching, even in the long-run. But, that you can spend your time and money giving yourself more tools to get the job done, even if the true cost is more or less comparable.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[Programmer_In_Traini]

Well, I'm not sure which part of my comment triggered so much anger in you that you had to post *that*

But at least i got enough balls to log in to show my ID when posting my comments.

Besides, if you think not wanting to learn php was the point of my not switching then clearly you have no business posting here since you obviously cannot read.

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[spitzak]

I can read c# but i don't really program with it.

Sounds like you are actually quite a genius. I can assure you from personal experience reading others and even my own code, it is far easier to write C# and C++ than to read them!

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[DeathElk]

Wow! Someone got out of bed on the wrong side this morning! Phew! Take a chill pill, bro!

Re:My question to Ubuntu/linux preachers

[bram]

I would have to call bullshit.

I followed more or less the same path as you did and my perl knowledge never proved useless.

Once you know a language, all the other languages make more sense.

Well, most of them at least.

It isn't about trying, it is about sticking around

[Anonymous Coward]

There has never really been a problem with people willing to give Linux a honest chance. I've found that I could even get my mother to try with "Slackware 96".

The problem is having people that do try out Linux stick around. Most go back to what is comfortable and they are used to after the novelty has wore off. There seems to be so much fluff about those that try out Linux and not about about those that stick with Linux. There hasn't really ever been an issue with those trying out Linux.

This is not entirely realistic..

[phazer]

None of the two computers have an ATI video card. Allegedly the ATI drivers sometimes even work, but I have yet to see this for myself.

The author has a HP Laserjet standing around? Nice. Good luck with a Canon "software" printer or other GDI printers though.

One or the other would've made the report much more interesting to me.

Re:This is not entirely realistic..

[heroofhyr]

I think the printer is actually an underappreciated device in the whole "switch off Windows" game. Most of the focus tends to be on graphics cards, storage devices, etc., but there are a lot of printers that still have closed drivers. One of the reasons I still have a computer running Windows in the other room is because I didn't feel like buying and hoping TurboPrint for Linux would run on FreeBSD in order to support a Canon MP110 copier/scanner/printer that I lack the funds to replace. By the way, the guy in the article seemed kind of harsh and blamed Linux for the lack of printer support. That's not where the blame belongs. And watching the video of his desktop with him narrating, you'd think after 30 days he'd have learned to pronounce "Linux" correctly.

By the way, he probably did his best to avoid getting hardware that a simple Google search would pop up a billion complaints for. He did say in his "rules" in the beginning that he wasn't going to go into the test blindly. Criticizing his report for being unrealistic just because he checked that he'd at least have minimal hardware support is like criticizing someone for running Microsoft's hardware checker utility before installing Vista. Realistically, people are going to make at least a medium amount of effort ensuring their system meets the recommended requirements before plunging into changing operating systems and the potentially expensive costs that they could incur. Maybe that's not "realistic" but it's certainly common sense.

Re:This is not entirely realistic..

[boyko.at.netqos]

(I'm the author)

I would have loved to test ATI, unfortunately, neither of the computers had ATI cards - that's just how it worked out.

I do have an HP Laserjet 1020 - it's a small little number, a personal-sized laser printer, NOT a full-sized behemoth. It's what I had to test with. And if you read the article, you'll notice I did have quite a few problems with it (but eventually it worked.)

And I will let you know that the HP Laserjet 1020 does not work in Vista, at all.

Re:This is not entirely realistic..

[MooseMuffin]

Hi author.

I just wanted to say that I checked out the article this morning and found it to be spot-on. This was very much the same experience I had with Ubuntu, including the extra frustrations of trying out the x64 flavor. I especially liked that you didn't just bail out when you ran into problems, and googled around until you got things working, since your readers are likely to do the same.

If I have one suggestion, its that you give your readers a bit more credit. Hand editing a config file is not rocket science, and chances are its mostly going to be copy/paste from some website. Same with many of the console commands you posted. Coming up with that stuff, or understanding it may be hard for a novice, but just using them is simply following directions.

Re:This is not entirely realistic..

[Procyon101]

Actually you would NOT have loved testing ATI. Oh, you may think you would, having never done so, but trust me, there is no love there.

/successfully (mostly) running an ATI x1600 under gentoo.
//no love here.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UncleTogie]

Nope. As seen here, they started at 750Mhz. If it's at 700MHz, it could very well be a Duron, instead.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Just Some Guy]

4) Commands to diagnose the problem won't run.

Oh, and:

5) If you act like a spoiled jerk on a community-driven forum, stamp your little feet, and absolutely refuse to try any of their troubleshooting ideas or provide them with the information they repeatedly ask for, then they probably won't help you.

Yeah, I read the thread where you "tried" to get help. Your take on the episode doesn't have a lot to do with what you actually posted at the time.

Moderators, before you mark me down, actually read the Slashdot thread he linked to. I'm not the one who initially pointed out his tantrums and complete refusal to help fix his own problem. I can't believe that he uses that thread as supporting evidence of why Ubuntu is broken.

Not viable on my ThinkPad

[Wormholio]

I'm used to Fedora but I thought I'd give Ubuntu a try, so I downloaded and burned a copy of the install CD for 6.10 and tried to install it on a ThinkPad A22m which already has W2K on it but more than enough space for something else as well.

Booting from the CD seemed to take a lot longer than, say, booting from a Knoppix CD. And when it was done, I had a desktop with an icon item marked "Install". No helpful dialoge to take me through the process or even a hint of what was expected next.

I assumed that to install Ubuntu on the machine I had to launch the thing marked "Install", so I double-clicked. After a short while the whole thing just froze.

Viable alternative? Not for that machine.

Re:Not viable on my ThinkPad

[kseise]

My used Thinkpad A21M will not give me 3d with either 6.06 or 6.10 using the fglrx or ati drivers. It is really frustrating. I can not change wireless networks without a reboot. My desktops are Windows free and have been for over a year now. OK, I admit, I have the ability to dual boot for a few games. Windows 98 runs nicely in a small VM for some of those Office type apps that refuse to run with Wine.

The problems with Linux.

[LWATCDR]

Well the list is typical I am afraid.
1. No 64 bit Flash. Or the lack of support in the X64 version of Firefox for 32 bit plug ins.
2. You can not watch DVDs you buy at the store with out breaking the law... Thank you US government...
3. Drivers specifically the fact that it is IMPOSIBLE for a manufacture to put a binary linux driver on a disk and stick in the box with his product.

The first part the Linux community really can not do a lot about. I guess that the distros could ship the 32 bit version of Firefox as the default until Adobe catches up.

The second issue is a legal fiction and can only be fixed by lawyers... And that is never a good state of affairs.

The third is my least favorite problem because it could at least be helped by the kernel developers. If they would just put in a stable binary driver interface then it would be possible to put drivers an a CD. Currently they don't want to put one in because they feel it would encourage closed source drivers. They will use excuses about performance but the simple truth is it is all about politics.
This article was a great example. The new network adapter didn't have a driver in distro. In this case the driver hadn't made it to the kernel yet. Even if the manufacture had produced a FOSS driver there would be no way to put it on the CD. There would be no way of knowing if it would work with the users kernel. They would have put a bunch of source code on the disk and maybe a script to compile it... If the user has a development system installed and the right headerfiles...
I hate technical problems caused by politics.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[PrescriptionWarning]

64-bit OSes just aren't ready yet, simply put.

as for the legality issue, if this is a for home media player computer, I'd say "stuff it" to the law. There's no media police that's going to go into your computer and fine/arrest you for having a DVD linux player.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[LWATCDR]

"s for the legality issue, if this is a for home media player computer, I'd say "stuff it" to the law. "
That is all fine and good but it means that the people makeing the distro can not INCLUDE the files on the CD. You have to hunt it down and install it yourself.
Not a problem for most people on slashdot but still a problem.

As to the comment on 64bit OSs... Can I view flash sites on Vista64? Yes I can... That needs to be fixed in windows.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[LWATCDR]

3. We don't want closed source device drivers, if you do then stick to Windows or OSX.

A stable binary driver interface doesn't mean enable closed source drivers. Linux already has closed source drivers. ATI, NVidia ... So too late most Linux desktops are running closed source drivers.
A stable binary interface just means that you can stick a binary driver on a disk and it will work.
Not having a stable binary interface is just a political game to make closed source drivers harder on the end user. It hasn't stopped them it just made them a tiny pain to use. So it hurts the user not the manufacture. Is that the GNU way? Make things hard on the end user so they pick the manufactures follow your dogma? That is just great. As I have pointed out a stable binary driver interface would be a benfit for user even if the driver was FOSS! The hardware manufacture could include a driver disk with the hardware with the driver!
And who is "we" AC?

Re:The problems with Linux.

[Todd Knarr]

For #3, I'd refer you to Linus' position on the stability of the internal kernel ABIs. I happen to think he makes a very good point: while stable defined ABIs are good for public interfaces, they're bad internally. A fixed, unchangeable internal ABI means that if you've figured out a rework of the device-driver architecture that'll double performance across the board, you can't implement it because it'd break the ABI. Even though the change would be invisible to applications and require not even a recompile of any application code. This would be a very bad thing for Linux, since it'd foreclose things like the memory-management and scheduler changes that made such massive improvements in the 2.6 kernel series.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[xenocide2]

Is that the GNU way?

I'm pretty sure the GNU way is to switch out entire kernels every two to three years. Try writing ANY kind of driver in that environment!

But seriously, if you like Linux, that's great. But I feel Linux's greatest strengths all originate at the same place: open source. It lets everyone see and possibly fix a bug in the source code. It also lets anyone see and add a new crazy feature to the source code -- be it FUSE, or new I/O schedulers, or real time event handling. Open source encourages the reuse of code: 802.11 drivers all look awfully similar, so Intel's donated framework is handy (their binary daemon is less so handy). Forcing a fixed ABI is time kernel hackers could be spending fixing bugs, improving xen, or writing their own pet features.

One thing you're bound to get with closed source drivers is a ton ported windows drivers. And closed source stupidity, like MPEG codecs in the kernel, breaks suspend, 32bit only, architecture dependent, etc. Let's face it, if every piece hardware you used already had drivers in kernel, you shouldn't care whether you have a driver disc to lose or not. Moreover, that disc driver is going to get outdated rapidly. You might as well just take advantage of your distro's update capabilities, which unlike Windows Update, nearly universally covers video drivers. No need to play musical CDs and insist to the autorun.exe that you really don't need Adobe Acroread eight times.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[Hatta]

Not having a stable binary interface is just a political game to make closed source drivers harder on the end user.

Having a stable binary interface is just a way to make things harder on the programmer. When the programmer wants to do a rewrite to optimize such and such and he can't because it's going to break the ABI, does that make things easier on the end user? You know, the end user who actually has to use the code that's not optimized because of politics?

Re:The problems with Linux.

[LWATCDR]

1. The kernel has a stable driver api. I would highly suggest that the you don't write drivers that violate that API.
2. The kernel doesn't have a stable binary driver interface.
3. A stable binary driver interface doesn't make it harder for the programmer. It makes it a little harder for the the kernel developers because it is a new feature that must be written and debugged just like any other feature.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[FrostedChaos]

1. No 64 bit Flash. Or the lack of support in the X64 version of Firefox for 32 bit plug ins.
That's a Macromedia problem. Hopefully they will release their 64-bit version soon, or the GNU flash will catch up...

3. Drivers specifically the fact that it is IMPOSIBLE for a manufacture to put a binary linux driver on a disk and stick in the box with his product.
Driver disks suck. By the time you buy your hardware from WallyWorld, the driver disk has been gathering dust for a few months, and is no longer current. Bugs may have been discovered, or new features added, in a later release. Also, it's a huge pain to insert 10 different driver disks to set up your new computer.

It's much easier to just do "apt-get" or "yum," and get the drivers you need. But if you really feel nostalgic, you can ritually insert and remove a few floppies.

The other issue you alluded to, not having a fixed ABI for drivers, is actually an advantage for Linux. It can adapt and change over time much easier than any version of Windows, for exactly this reason. And the kernel maintainers keep all in-tree drivers up to date, anyway, so companies have no reason to complain.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[LWATCDR]

You fall into the same trap as everyone else. A stable binary interface doesn't == closed source drivers unless you think that the lack of a stable binary interface prevents closed source drivers. If you do I suggest you look at ATI and NVidia.
I have said time and time again that if ATI produces good FOSS drivers I will drop NVidia tomorrow. I am willing to support people that support FOSS. What I don't like is people trying too cram their ideal down my throat and then making up things like "It will hurt performance".

I don't like is this political game with drivers.
A good example of how a stable binary interface would help is in installing on a new system.
If the network I am using hasn't made it into the the kernel of the distro I am installing I am in a world of hurt. Maybe it has made it to the repository already but without a network how the heck am I going to get on the Internet to run apt-get, yum, or yast?
What if the driver is for my SATA or RAID card? I don't care if the driver is outdated if I can get my system installed and then download the updated drivers. That should be part of the install.
With a binary interface the manufacture could offer the driver on a disk. Right now that really isn't an option.
The lack of a stable binary interface hasn't stopped binary closed source drivers on Linux. It has only made it harder for the casual user to install Linux.

If the FOSS community really wants to encourage FOSS drivers I say start a certification program. I would love to have the option to buy hardware that was certified tow work with Linux without guess if that network card or webcam uses a supported chipset. Right now some hardware people are getting a "free ride" just because they use a chipset that some Kernel developer happened to write a driver for. It could even be a revenue stream for OSL. But for that to happen there needs to be a stable binary driver interface so they can stick the bloody drivers on a disk in the box.

Re:The problems with Linux.

[Todd Knarr]

Yes, but what happens when you have an internal architecture change within the major release that makes the previous interface go away? This is what happened with several major component re-works in the 2.6 series. Versioning of the ABI doesn't help you there, because retaining the old ABI would make it impossible to implement the new features. Remember that at the kernel level the interface the drivers use isn't just a set of function calls, it's things like how the data structures the kernel uses to manage memory are laid out. Change those structures, you break the driver interface. Yet to improve memory management you have to change how those structures are laid out.

Re:30 days of Vista?

[Teresita]

Did I miss the 30 days of using Vista article, or has no one lasted that long yet?

People keep getting out to 28 or 29 days and then Microsoft issues an automatic set of patches that removes Vista "features" and totally invalidates their notes, so they have to start over.

Re:Get the mono

[denis-The-menace]

(Not the caulking...)

http://www.mono-project.com/

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[nfgaida]

NM, I'm thinking Thoroughbred. 1700 was the first of those. Too many T horse words.

Grandma != typical user

[iceperson]

I deal with typical users every day. Most of them have at least 1 device that won't work at all or at least loses functionality in Linux. These are common things like webcams, digital cameras, mp3 players, multimedia keyboards, Bluetooth/wireless cards, cellphones etc... The fact that you said she uses digital photography because you email her pictures and she views them is naive at best. So you setup a linux box to do what your grandmother could have done with webTV. Call me when you setup a box that your uncle can seemlessly syncronize his PDA/Cellphone on while his 3 kids can update their 3 no name brand $40 MP3 players and his wife can print edit/print photos on her 3 year old canon photo printer taken on their Suprema digital camera...

Re:Grandma != typical user

[lattyware]

Actually, the ipods are the problem, they need software, the cheap ones you just dump the MP3s on like a memory card.

Re:Grandma != typical user

[mackyrae]

In which case you use gtkpod and you can sync the iPod just dandy

Re:Grandma != typical user

[mbrod]

You can do most of that if you read this:

http://ubuntuguide.org/wiki/Ubuntu_Edgy

I know because I didn't have time to spend on a lot of the little details and everything I needed to just work (sans my digital voice recorder, which is my fault for buying the wrong one) was addressed in that guide. Everything worked really well with Ubuntu with little to no fuss. I actually formatted my Windows partition and run just Ubuntu, even my wife uses it sometimes with no instruction and hasn't complained yet.

I however don't play any of the new games, so I don't need Windows for that. So for people who don't play games I honestly think Ubuntu is THE best choice for them on nearly all fronts. Sync'ing with my Ipod was better on Windows using Itunes but Amarok (sp?) does a good enough job, a couple extra clicks are required but in the end I achieve the same result.

Re:Grandma != typical user

[Sir Homer]

Call me when you setup a box that your uncle can seemlessly syncronize his PDA/Cellphone on while his 3 kids can update their 3 no name brand $40 MP3 players and his wife can print edit/print photos on her 3 year old canon photo printer taken on their Suprema digital camera...

What's your phone number?

Flash problem

[mdsolar]

One of his big problems was getting flash to work with a 64 bit browser. He solved this by going to a 32 bit browser. It is also possible to wrap the 32 bit flash binary using nspluginwrapper http://gwenole.beauchesne.info/projects/nspluginwr apper/ which works OK most of the time using 64 bit Seamonkey and FC6.
--
Flash on solar power: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

Re:Flash problem

[AaronW]

I've had no problems running Flash in a 64-bit version of Konqueror, though I think Konqueror takes a much saner approach to running plug-ins by using a separate process to run the plugin than the browser. That way if the plug-in goes haywire it doesn't take out the browser, or if I see a plug-in consuming 500MB of memory and 90% of the CPU I can just kill it and leave the browser running just fine. The other advantage is that the plug-in process can be 32-bit while the browser itself is 64 bit. I would think this is also good for security.

I wish Firefox would adopt this feature.

I think so...

[michaelwigle]

I'm not a programmer but I did come across this site. I think it has the answers you are looking for. I haven't programed since C++ was brand new and have been trying to choose a versatile language to learn so I can get back into programming again and I came across this. It appears to be a way to allow Linux machines to have access to the .net framework and allow you to compile and run .net apps on a linux box. Hope this fits your needs.

A very good review in general

[crush]

I was impressed by the author's attention to detail and clear specification of the tested systems and the steps involved in using them.

One useful correction would be that programs are just as easy to install on .rpm-based systems as they are on .deb-based systems. The default tool on Fedora Core 6 is called YUM and it does all the dependency resolving necessary. There are even simpler front ends to it such as Pup and Pirut. Package installation, deinstallation, upgrade and update are just as easy as they are with Aptitude.

The problems that the author experiences with 64-bit Flash are unfortunately a result of there being insufficient pressure from GNU/Linux consumers on vendors to supply Free software. A similar problem is experience by many Ubuntu users that rely on the non-Free drivers produced by Nvidia for their graphics cards, or the various non-free binary blobs used for some dodgy wireless hardware. This will continue to be a problem as long as distributions like Ubuntu facilitate the manufacturers of this hardware in evading one of the central principles of Free Software. The manufacturers can't do a good enough job of staying current with the kernel and so GNU/Linux will always be a second class citizen as long as we accept this. Fortunately there are manufacturers, such as Intel that provide Free software for their 3D graphics cards and their wireless chipsets and so it's worth choosing their components when building a new system. (I used to buy ATI stuff because the Free 3d drivers were better than the Free Nvidia ones, but apparently the nouveau project is opening up the list of working Free Nvidia cards. I'll probably be giving Nvidia and ATI both a miss in favour of Intel though).

Unfortunately Mark Shuttleworth is a short-term thinker who is pushing many of the Ubuntu developers into including binary, closed blobs that work until you update your system. This is the tired old "I'm a pragmatist" line which has been releiving the pressure on manufacturers to open their drivers and on users to choose non-closed hardware while purchasing new systems. It's anything but pragmatic and leads to the sort of frustrations seen in the article.

Re:ya but

[Anonymous Coward]

Sim City 3000 (happy penguin pay)
Tremulous: http://tremulous.net/ (Repositories free)
Legends: http://legendsthegame.net/ (download free)
Uplink: http://www.uplink.co.uk/
Darwinia: http://www.darwinia.co.uk/
Defcon: http://www.introversion.co.uk/defcon/

Don't assume they're all rubbish till you've actually played them. Preferably on Linux. (Except Sim City. Thats rubbish.)

Not even custom

[DogDude]

We fall into the category of having some customized apps that won't port (or aren't worth taking the time to re-write). But more importantly, there's not a single decent financial app (ie: Quickbooks functionality) that runs on Linux. That's kinda' basic, to say the least. Until the day comes when there are a bunch of good ones to choose from, Linux isn't an option for most small to medium sized businesses.

Re:Not even custom

[GRW]

Have you tried Quasar?

Re:Not even custom

[DogDude]

No, I'd never seen that before. Looks promising. The only big sticker I'm seeing with it right off the bat is I don't see payroll support. Calculating all of the various tax withholding stuff by hand is damn near impossible... Looks like it might be worth taking a look at, especially as cheap as it is.

Re:Not even custom

[GRW]

There are others. See http://www.aaxnet.com/design/linuxacct.html. I am not an accountant, so I don't know what is good and what is not, but accounting is often brought up a reason for needing Windows, though there seem to be several options on Linux.

Recently Took the Plunge

[cyana]

I recently decided came to the exact same conclusion as the article supposes some people will--Vista was not getting on my computer and I didn't want to continue patching XP for the next 5 years. I have almost no Unix experience and the command prompt is something that I have never been comfortable with. But I had a lot of faith in The Community since I'm a regular /. reader and I figured that I could learn.

I use my computer for a couple of things:

1. Most importantly, media server, synchronizer of iPods and center to my home entertainment center.
2. Email, browsing, messaging.
3. Office documents.
4. Warcraft III.

Setting up Linux was difficult, I won't lie. I went with Fedora 6 after not really finding any distro review sites that I could understand what they were talking about. I don't "blame" the setup difficulty on anything--I expected it to be difficult for me. Configuring a dual-boot system took me 4-6 hours to figure out, setting up the right partitions (making sure nothing on my windows partitions got erased) took me wayy too long (screwed it up twice). Figuring out how to move from firefox 1.5 to firefox 2.0 was surprisingly difficult. I don't really understand why that particular thing isn't part of the yum update process but that's just an outsider's perspective. The other thing that was surprisingly hard was the browser plugins--I have an x64 chip and none of the plugins have x64 versions that I could find. So I had to install some firefox extension that creates cross-compatibility.

I haven't figured out Samba yet--this seems like it should be easy but so far it's not. Honestly, I'm inclined to believe that this is the fault of Windows Networking. Regardless, it's hard. As for Warcraft III, one day I'll set it up to run under Wine, but for now I'm happy dual-booting. It encourages me to play much less, which is definitely a very good thing.

Everything else has been pretty reasonable. It hasn't been easy, but it was more or less what I would expect moving from one platform that I've been using for 8 years to a totally new one. After 2 months, I'm now up and running and can use my computer for basically everything I want. I love the feeling of security I have in the system. File security is so easy and I love the fact that everyone doesn't log in as administrator. And I'm no longer terrified of viruses.

I'm very glad I invested the time and would encourage others in my position to do the same. Just keep at it--the answer is always there on a message board somewhere :)

Re:Recently Took the Plunge

[8-bitDesigner]

I'd highly recommend you have a look at Crossover which is a nice wrapper to Wine that makes running and installing Windows prorgams much easier, however you're still bound by Wine's compatability.

Outside of that, maybe you should check out Ubuntu. I've tried both, and I can easily attest to the fact that Samba under Ubuntu is a breeze (just select the folders you want to share, and you're good to go!).

Re:Recently Took the Plunge

[yuna49]

You seem pretty happy having made the switch. Let me toss out some advice about some of the issues you raised.

Configuring a dual-boot system took me 4-6 hours to figure out, setting up the right partitions (making sure nothing on my windows partitions got erased) took me wayy too long (screwed it up twice).

Configuring dual-boot on a single-drive system is hard. Installing a second drive makes the task much easier. Move the Windows drive to the secondary, install the new drive as the primary, install Linux. When I did this with Fedora it detected the Windows partition on the secondary drive and set up dual-boot for me without a hitch. I didn't have to play with the partitioning of the Linux drive either; I could just accept the defaults.

Figuring out how to move from firefox 1.5 to firefox 2.0 was surprisingly difficult. I don't really understand why that particular thing isn't part of the yum update process but that's just an outsider's perspective.

Most distros take a snapshot at release time and update that software throughout the life cycle of the distro. Firefox 2.0 will be in Fedora 7, but Fedora 6 will continue to stick with 1.5.x until FC6 reaches end-of-life. That's a good decision from a support perspective, but problems can arise as you discovered when you try to update something directly from the developers rather than through the distro's package-management mechanisms. Hell, the Linux kernel in things like RedHat Enterprise 4.4 is still around 2.6.9 while the current kernel release version is 2.6.19. The RHEL kernel is heavily patched to keep up with security fixes, etc., but it's still fundamentally 2.6.9 which shipped quite a few years back now.

I haven't figured out Samba yet--this seems like it should be easy but so far it's not.

I often install webmin, a web-based administrative tool. You can install this with "yum install webmin" if you have the "extras" repository enabled. Afterwards, use a browser to open https://localhost:10000/, and log in as root, and you'll have access to a very nice and ever-growing collection of graphical Linux management tools. (You might want to change the default webmin admin account or the webmin port if you're concerned about local security.)

This is much simpler way to configure Samba if you're not used to editing config files. You do have to set up separate user accounts in Samba, but after doing that, all you need do is issue two commands at the prompt (as root):

#chkconfig smb on
#service smb start

The first tells the machine to start Samba upon reboot; the second starts the server right now. Once nice feature of having separate accounts for Samba is you can use a Windows login that doesn't match your Unix login. For instance, I have the same username in both cases, but different passwords.

There are GUI tools that you can use for service management, but I prefer to use the command-line for simple tasks like this.

Re:Recently Took the Plunge

[mackyrae]

Current kernel is 2.6.20

Re:Recently Took the Plunge

[Tripster]

I can confirm that Warcraft III runs great under wine these days. I recently set it up under Ubuntu, it even has Battle.net support. One tip is to run it under OpenGL mode, it will run in DirectX mode too. Only problem mine has is viewing the cinematic movies, it just shuts down at that point but the actual game play works very well.

Not sure Ubuntu is best for overclockers...

[kale77in]

I use linux for complete control and configurability. That might appeal to the overclockers. But after using any enjoying Ubuntu for a few months, I went back to the configurability of KDE/Debian. Once again I have the exact desktop and the exact set of tools I want -- plus some impress-anyone items like Katapult and AmaroK. I think the overclockers would like this flexibility, but they'd also need Windows for showing off their l33t machines at LAN parties: games only available on Windows are part of *their* toolset. So they may as well stay with Windows for at least another five years until that changes.

Re:ya but

[__aaqvdr516]

actually you can get quite a few newer games to work. Unreal has had Linux distros for a while. Wow can be made to work under WINE. The problem with most of these games is the setup time required to get it to run. Why spend an hour or two attempting to get WoW set up under linux when you can spend 5 minutes installing it under windows?

It's a catch 22. More people would use Linux if the games were there. But the games aren't there because not enough people use linux.

For the record (before I get poo pood) I've had ubuntu and mandrake on 2 seperate comps. My laptop (3-4 years old) runs everything just fine. My desktop (2 years old) did not have driver support for what I have in it, and most likely will not receive driver support (Soundblaster X-fi sound card). Not to mention the config editing I had to do to get the Nvidia 6800 to work.

As a hobby Linux is fine. You won't get the gaming freaks to switch over any time soon.

Re:ya but

[Imagix]

"ugly amateur console-games like Nethack" Spoken by someone who has never played Nethack.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[xs650]

Dude, you acted like a spoiled jerk.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=122473

The thread on Unbuntu forums confirms that and shows what a patient bunch of people there are on the Unbuntu forums.

BYO Computer: NOT harder than it was 10 years ago

[Cordath]

"Putting your own computer together these days with all the options, choices to make, etc. is getting harder than it was 10 years ago."

Think back to what computer hardware was *actually* like 10 years ago. PNP was well established on the desktop, but ISA cards were still in use and there was still the occasional oddball card around that you had to mess around with IRQ,DMA, etc. settings for. (i.e. dipswitches/jumpers on the cards) Linux was a little late to the PNP party too, so you could expect a little difficulty in getting everything to work. There were also a good deal of device conflicts in those days. (e.g. I had a Diamond SCSI card and a Creative soundcard that I never did get to coexist peacefully... Both companies were "aware of the problem" but assigned responsibility to the other party.) Today, you can plug things together and reasonably expect them to just work. How is that harder?

Choice of components wasn't all that much different 10 years ago either. For gaming cards, your choices were 3Dfx or one of several competitors jockeying for second place. You actually had to worry a little about 2D performance in those days too, although that was rapidly becoming a non-issue. Today, if you go with either ATI or NVidia you're pretty safe. (Choose wrong, and you're obsolete one month sooner. Oh no!) You don't even need to buy a soundcard these days since practically every motherboard has onboard sound. You can still buy a creative card and enjoy their crappy drivers and support though. (That hasn't changed much really) Or you can buy a decent audio card. (Why is it that makers of decent, well-supported, sound cards die out so fast while Creative has been with us since the days of the Soundblaster?) There are, admittedly, too many flavors of RAM on the market, but it's not that hard to figure out what is appropriate for a given CPU. There are two choices for CPU's these days, which is truly a blessing. One generally has the edge at any given time, but if you pick the wrong brand your computer isn't going to burst into flames and kill your children with toxic smoke.

Choosing components for an "optimal" price-performance computer might still be challenging, but assembling a working machine is definitely not harder than it was 10 years ago.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[tha_mink]

Yeah, I read the thread where you "tried" to get help. Your take on the episode doesn't have a lot to do with what you actually posted at the time. I actually didn't think he was being *that* much of a dick. I mean, you can tell he was frustrated. He takes a bunch of shots at the people trying to help him, but still, he just seems frustrated. I can relate. When I first started trying to use linux years ago, I encountered the same types of problems installing RedHat and suse. The point of his bitching is that it didn't "Just Work" which is probably what has been forced down his throat by the people telling him to use Linux. Can't blame him for being pissed, only for being a dick about it. Just my opinion.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[hal2814]

It might be a 750MHz. There's a stupid splash screen instead of showing the mem test and hardware info so I don't see the clock speed every time I turn on the computer. But I do know it's not a Duron.

Burning my mod points to reply

[iceperson]

You and the people in that thread are the reason I haven't tried a linux distro since my 3rd and final attempts a few years ago. The guy gave all the information I'd expect a user needing help with 'doze to give (ie. more than enough.) He progressively got more and more frustrated and the kids went for blood. The biggest problem with linux is the community. You pointing to that thread and not seeing that shows everyone else that the fanboys are too obtuse to realize that linux isn't ready for the mainstream desktop.

Re:Burning my mod points to reply

[Chris Burke]

You and the people in that thread are the reason I haven't tried a linux distro since my 3rd and final attempts a few years ago. The guy gave all the information I'd expect a user needing help with 'doze to give (ie. more than enough.) He progressively got more and more frustrated and the kids went for blood.

And if the amount of information given turned out not to be enough, and people on the 'doze forum asked for more, would this 'doze user refuse to provide the information because he felt he shouldn't have to, then blame the forum when he got no help?

"More frustrated"? Sorry, he was a dick from the first post. Back in the day I was in more than one "help with windows" user community forum, and nobody who acted like such a dick as him got any help either. Frankly, he was lucky to get more than one attempt at help after the way he responded. If you think a guy acting like that should be entitled to free help from the community, then fine, don't use Linux, we don't want you in our community.

I find it hard to believe than anyone thinks they could walk into any volunteer-based help group anywhere with that kind of attitude and expect to get help. This is -not- specific to the Linux community.

You pointing to that thread and not seeing that shows everyone else that the fanboys are too obtuse to realize that linux isn't ready for the mainstream desktop.

Yeah, Linux isn't ready for the mainstream desktop because people who walk into a community forum with a sense of entitlement soon find that they aren't entitled to anything. If you want to feel entitled to help regardless of your attitude, then pay for a commercial support contract. Their help desk is paid to listen to asshats who demand that the help desk fix their problem without them doing anything at all. They'll still think you're a dick, but they will keep listening to you because they're paid to. Nobody else will.

Re:Burning my mod points to reply

[iceperson]

""More frustrated"? Sorry, he was a dick from the first post." How so? 99% of the english speaking population can read his first post and not see it.

Re:Burning my mod points to reply

[Chris Burke]

You must be reading a different post than I. And by the time you get to the 2nd? Please. Pure asshole.

Games

[Oblio]

The problem is still games.

I upgraded my hardware in January and installed Gentoo as my primary OS. I figured if I could get a few old games to run under wine or cedega, I wouldn't have to dual-boot. And all my other software needs were more than taken care of by open source apps.

But my experience, specificly with guildwars, has been poor. Under wine, it worked poorly (that is, looked bad, but performed OK) if I did a specific patch to the source, so I bought a few months of cedega which claimed to support it. Under cedega, once I dug through the forums to find a configuration that worked, it ran, and was pretty, but performance was very poor (20fps) even at low graphics settings (and this is with a core2duo6600 and a nVidia8800gts).

Anyway, I've been happy with the switch, but dissappointed by having to dual boot for games. I really hoped that if I stayed off the cutting edge, I would be ok.

Wireless

[microTodd]

This comment is almost certainly redundant, and it certainly is with the usual Ubuntu forums. But my number one problem is WIRELESS. For whatever reason, the wireless chipsets that my laptops have (Broadcomm) do not work easily in Ubuntu. Yes, I have gotten them to work, but only by some minor hacking and lots of forum-crawling.

Wireless is becoming part of the "out-of-the-box" requirement for a home personal user. I want to be able to just put the Edgy Edge CD in, install, and everything just works. And if the LiveCD worked with wireless out of the box...that would be pure heaven.

Other than wireless, everything else is fine. Printing, OpenOffice, web browsing, everything else works out of the box!

So we (the community) are *almost* there...

Re:Wireless

[microTodd]

Too bad you posted anonymous...this could have made "+5 Funny" or "+5 Informative"

So intel 2200bg works out-of-the-box for Ubuntu? Good to know...

Re:Wireless

[rapete4]

I have recently installed kubuntu on a thinkpad t23 system. I also had a great amount of difficulty getting the WPC54G v3 broadcom 4318 wireless card (ndiswrapper) to work. However, I did succeed and the system is now solid, including printing to my netgear 606 wireless printserver. Part of the problem was that the dist includes a 43xx driver that did not work. This needs to be black listed. I was a newbe to linux but succeed after a few days of tinkering.

My Ubuntu Experience

[alexgieg]

I'm also trying Ubuntu Linux on my desktop. I'm liking it a lot, although I didn't remove Windows yet. This is my 3rd install (1st one got wiped when my previous HD crashed, 2nd one I managed to destroy by running Nautilus sudoed and making all the files owned by root.root), and after some tweaking with Automatix and Automatix Bleeder, and uninstalling the older OpenOffice available in Edgy and installing the newer 2.1.0 one, everything so far is working well.

What I really miss in Ubuntu is a good and simple file manager. Nautilus is okay, but doesn't work in the intuitive way Windows Explorer works. Some annoying usability problems I have with it:

a) The tree view on the left panel doesn't answer to keyboard commands that work on folders and files in the right panel, such as pressing Del to delete a folder. Windows Explorer is consistent in this regards.

b) It doesn't get updated properly if I use a bookmarked folder to jump to a folder, I must press the Reload button for the tree structure to appear correctly. The same feature in Windows Explorer works as intended, with the tree instantaneously opening to where I jumped.

c) When I delete a folder I'm inside by right-clicking it in the tree folder and choosing Remove, it moves both the folder and the fact I'm inside it to the trash, thus making me lose the position I were in the tree. Windows Explorer deletes the folder and put me in the folder directly below the one that was deleted.

d) I can't move a file or folder with the mouse right-button. Windows Explorer allows this by showing me a context-sensitive menu when I release the button, offering options such as move, delete, create link, and other features integrated into the shell.

e) Lastly, even though Nautilus recognize some oddly named text files as such, double clicking them is an exercise in guessing: sometimes it will offer me a window asking me whether I want to run it (when it doesn't have the executable attribute set) or open it, other times it'll simply open it in GEdit, and others still it won't allow me to open them in GEdit, forcing me to right-click and choose the "Open with Text Editor" option. Windows Explorer, on the other hand, allows me easily select a default action for files with this or that extension, and it simply works.

If someone knows of a Linux file manager that works in intuitive ways, if possible a Windows Explorer clone with Gnome integration, please tell me. I'll start using it right away.

PS.: Interestingly enough, I play World of Warcraft, and while it started breaking in my Windows XP installation, showing latencies of up to 15000ms and disconnecting, in Ubuntu with Wine it works almost flawlessly. One more reason to keep Ubuntu running. :)

Re:My Ubuntu Experience

[Lugae]

Personally, I'm a spatial Nautilus user, but Thunar is another file manager that works with Gnome and has tree views. You might check that out.

Re:My Ubuntu Experience

[cortana]

Your points A, B and C are good--have you considered filing bugs about them so that the Nautilus developers know about these shortcomings?

For D, try dragging with the middle mousebutton. When you release the button you will get a menu offering the choice of copying, moving or creating a symbolic link.

Re:My Ubuntu Experience

[gov_coder]

KDE's Konqueror does a great job as a replacement for windows exploror. You'll just need to install KDE - if it isn't there already. Here's a screenshot from the KDE org site:

http://www.kde.org/screenshots/images/3.5/06-konqu eror-mc.png

Re:My Ubuntu Experience

[Anonymous Coward]

For a, b and c I don't have an answer, but for d you can use the middle button of the mouse; it gives you the context menu you are looking for. For e, nautilus uses the shared-mime-info http://www.freedesktop.org/software/shared-mime-in fo database. You can customize the behavior by right click on the file, and in "Properties" select the "Open With" tab and choose the default application. After that, it will use that as the default application for all the files of the same type.

Re:My Ubuntu Experience

[Hatta]

What I really miss in Ubuntu is a good and simple file manager

Everyone's telling you to install KDE and use Konqueror. If you do that, you should check out krusader too. No windows explorer clone to be sure, but it's by far the most intuitive, easy to use, and downright pleasant file manager I've ever used. It's the only one that's been able to pull me away from the command line for most tasks.

Re:30 days of Vista?

[iceperson]

The fact that you can't see why the lack of those articles says more about Vista than Linux is funny...

Ubuntu wifi woes

[wraithinfinite]

Love the Ubuntu, dual booting it on my HP laptop. Compiles proggy's hella fast, and Blender render's like a beast with ubuntu's native 64bit drivers. Problem of course is that I just can't get the Broadcom 4318 wifi card to work. Every driver fix i've found on the intarweb failed. Which is highly annoying because I have to plug in to do any updates or anything, or for that matter switch over to windows xp in a wifi environment. I do hope they fix this little issue (and yes I know it's a proprietary driver mess) in Fiesty Fox.

Re:Ubuntu wifi woes

[Gr33nNight]

That is odd. I have an HP NC8000 with Ubuntu installed and wireless worked right from the install. Maybe my wireless is Intel?

Re:Ubuntu wifi woes

[fuego451]

Have you checked this page? There is help for 64bit under Troubleshooting.

bullshit

[oohshiny]

I think it crossed that fine line between control and ease of use.

Ubuntu gives you as much or as little control as the packages that make it up. And those packages are pretty much standard Debian packages, except that they're more up-to-date than Debian Stable and less buggy than Debian Unstable.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Just Some Guy]

Right, I didn't tell them which version of Windows it was. Of course, when it *doesn't even get to the point where it would load an operating system*, that is clearly not necessary.

You were asking for help from people who presumably know more about the issue than you do. After all, if they didn't, you wouldn't be asking them, right? OK, here's the deal: there's nothing, nothing I hated more when working tech support than to ask a question and be told that I didn't need to know the answer. Well, the fact that I asked it would strongly indicate that I needed that information to help you. Furthermore, I don't necessarily have the time or energy to explain why I need every individual piece of information (although I'll usually tell you if you ask nicely and I can spare a few seconds). The usual reason is that there's some obscure interaction involved that I know about and that wouldn't usually occur to a novice, but I don't want to confuse the issue until I've confirmed the hypothesis.

No, people who insist that my questions are irrelevant are my single biggest peeve. Now that I don't get paid to deal with it, I won't. I'm willing to treat you like an adult by answering your questions accurately and intelligently, but your end of the contract is to treat me like an adult by answering my questions, even if your experience isn't enough to tell you why I'm asking them.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Chris Burke]

But when people recommend doing exactly what I already said I did several times ... sorry, problem ain't on my end.

Some did, others asked for actual pertinent information or for reasonable -- even if difficult given your situation -- action to assist them in diagnosing your problem for free. You refused them all regardless, saying "I shouldn't have to". Sorry bucko, you do have to, "should" and "should not" ain't involved. Don't know what your ultimate problem was, but a problem was definitely on your end, sitting in your chair.

Don't give me this crap about reading the posting guidelines only to be angered by the response. You were an asshat from the word "go", treated everyone like shit as if it was their fault you had the problem in the first place. What, you think you're entitled to free help no matter what kind of jerk you are? Walk into a Salvation Army or a free clinic with that kind of attitude and see how far you get, and they at least get paid to be there.

Sorry the ubuntu installer broke. Not sorry about what happened on the forum, because that was a completely and utterly predictable response to your own actions. As in your fault. You keep bringing it up as if anyone should feel sorry for you, and no one does for reasons that are plain as day.

Every day you continue to deny that you had anything to do with that is another day you deny yourself some basic growth as a human being.

One other small correction

[crush]

The author states that batch scripting for repetitive tasks which is available in Photoshop is not present in the GIMP. That's just not true. There's a aimple batch mode and a whole lot more with the ability to use Perl and Scheme for scripting. Photoshop's batchmode pales by comparison for power users.

Re:ya but

[thc69]

Why spend an hour or two attempting to get WoW set up under linux when

Yeah, I mean, who ever spends a whole hour or two on WoW? It's not like an hour or two setting it up would merely be a drop in the bucket compared to the RL-ignoring relationship-destroying thousands of hours you'll spend in WoW...

that's not Ubuntu's problem

[oohshiny]

I tend to agree with the mass consensus, Ubuntu has gone a long way to bringing home the Linux desktop but still needs work in some areas. One such area is laptop support.

When you try to install Ubuntu on a random laptop, of course, it's not going to work some of the time.

Ubuntu can't address that, only you can. How? Buy a laptop that comes with Ubuntu preinstalled. There are some vendors that offer it.

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[teh_chrizzle]

Buy a laptop that comes with Ubuntu preinstalled. There are some vendors that offer it.

there are plenty of vendors out there that will preinstall and support linux on your laptop for not quite twice what the equivalent windows laptop will run you.

don't take that as a criticism of ubuntu, linux or linux laptop vendors... think of it more like a glimpse into the world of PC vendors and the effect that the invisible hand of MS has on it.

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[Zantetsuken]

I call bs - you shouldn't have to buy a certain brand laptop or through a reseller that configures it - it is Canonical and Linux driver dev's problems if Ubuntu doesn't get a critical peice of hardware working - ok, WiFi isn't life or death, but sure as hell will make or break my moving to Ubuntu (or any other distro for that matter) and my sticking with Windows...

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[pjbgravely]

there are plenty of vendors out there that will preinstall and support linux on your laptop for not quite twice what the equivalent windows laptop will run you.

Are these the prices you are talking about?

I am not familiar with prices of new Vista laptops, but there are a lot more options out there. I am dreaming of their dual core, dual processor workstation. Would be nice not to have to build something like that myself to avoid having to get a expensive coaster with it.

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[mackyrae]

Actually, System76 (add a .com) sells Ubuntu-pre-installed laptops. I'm comparing a System76 Pangolin with a Dell Inspiron E1505 both with similar customizations because the base ones aren't that great for either.
Core 2 Duo 1.83Ghz
15.4" Widescreen XGA
1GB RAM (2x512)
100GB HDD
CD/DVD burner (DVD+/-RW)
Intel graphics
Intel sound
Intel Pro Wireless 802.11 ABG
1 year warranty

Total prices:
System76: $1192 Dell: $1103

Now, taking into account that the System76's come with the office suite pre-installed and Dell wants to charge $149 for Word, Excel, and Powerpoint, plus you'll probably have to buy an anti-virus ($99 for 3 years from Dell), a Linux pre-installed laptop doesn't come out to a bad price. Ignoring the last stuff I said about office suites and anti-virus, the Linux-pre-installed, where you are guaranteed for your hardware to work is $89 more. When you count that unless you intend to not have internet access you're going to *need* to pay for an anti-virus on Windows, the laptop from System76 actually comes out to being less expensive than getting a Dell.

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[mackyrae]

Well, do you think Microsoft makes the drivers for your hardware? No, the companies making the hardware write the drivers. They figure that if they don't it won't sell because the Windows users won't buy it without drivers. Linux use is starting to reach the point where there's almost enough of us to pressure companies on drivers just like Windows users can.

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[teh_chrizzle]

if you feel comfortable sending 1-2 grand to some company you've never heard of i suppose system76 are the ones to beat. if you are interested in the peace of mind that comes with buying from an established vendor in the linux laptop space (like most people do with dell or HP), then you want an emperor and their prices start pretty much where dell's stop. with that said, system76 is a good find and i will definitely check them out.

a good part of this is MS's shinnanegans (giving deep discounts on the two products the buying public is pretty much guaranteed to be interested in if they drag their feet on supplying linux) and a small part of it is fear or ignorance on the part of the vendors themselves.

it should also be mentioned that open office installs on windows as well, and so does clamAV

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[teh_chrizzle]

i'll admit it's been a few years since i gave up on buying a linux laptop (when VA linux got out of the hardware game the only vendor left for a long time was emperor linux and their stuff doesn't come cheap.

it should also be mentioned that open office installs on windows as well, and so does clamAV

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[mackyrae]

Yeah, I know there's OOo for Windows. The install files are on the Ubuntu cd, actually. If you put it in while running Windows, you can install Firefox, OOo, the GIMP, and Gaim, I think. That's why I said the office suite pre-installed not just office suite in general. I believe the problem with ClamWin is that it doesn't do real-time virus-stopping. The for-pay ones monitor everything going in and out and then have a scan you can do at specific times. ClamWin only runs a scan when you tell it to, so if you know anyone who doesn't run their AV manually (come on, you have to know someone like that, it's most people), ClamWin is no protection for them. Things like Norton and McAffee run in the background all the time trying to prevent viruses rather than just pointing them out afterward like ClamWin would.

Re:that's not Ubuntu's problem

[mackyrae]

I wouldn't call System76 too much of a no-name. They are recognized by Canonical as an Ubuntu vendor and they have their own support section on the Ubuntu Forums. They do have some credibility. I played with one at Ubucon. They're very nice.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Just Some Guy]

I actually didn't think he was being *that* much of a dick. I mean, you can tell he was frustrated. He takes a bunch of shots at the people trying to help him, but still, he just seems frustrated.

But that's all it takes to end any chance of him getting help. These aren't paid employees, but people who want to help others just like themselves use the system that they're all learning together. Maybe he had a reason to be frustrated (although I don't think so), but you absolutely cannot take it out on people who are altruistically trying to help you and expect them to keep doing it.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[xs650]

I did read it all the way through, that's exactly why I made my comment.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Alright, then I'll give you the floor: explain to me why the solution to Grub error 25 at stage 1.5 on a dual boot Windows/Ubuntu install, could hinge on which version of Windows it is.

check first!

[oohshiny]

You can't expect Linux to run on some random piece of hardware; no other operating system does that either. In fact, genuine Microsoft Windows frequently doesn't even install on supposedly supported hardware--you need the vendor's preinstalled image. In comparison, Linux works like a charm.

If you want no-hassles installations, buy a laptop that's know to work with Linux. Even better, buy a Laptop with Linux preinstalled, and it will work out of the box.

Re:check first!

[strider44]

Could I just point out that the vast majority of the time Linux does actually run on a random piece of hardware. I did have slight troubles with my new laptop where I had to update the sound drivers - not pleasant, not quite as bad as having to search through the vendor site since the place to upgrade the sound drivers is always in the same place but it did surprise me that I had to do it. Of course when I tried to install a new sanatised version of Windows (lots of crap pre-installed) I incredibly failed after three days of trying which was even less pleasant. These days you can pretty well be confident that Linux will run on any modern computer.

yes, but we don't want you

[oohshiny]

so, my question is, is there any (easy) way i could be running the .net framework on ubuntu ?

Yes, there is. In fact, it's essentially pre-installed. You can even do ASP programming on it (either this release or the next one).

But, take my advice: just stick with Windows. If you're an ASP programmer and not willing to learn anything else, that platform is the best choice for you.

It's an OS, not a girlfriend.

[khasim]

I mean, you can tell he was frustrated. He takes a bunch of shots at the people trying to help him, but still, he just seems frustrated.

It's an OS. It's not your girlfriend.

Who gives a fuck if it works or not?

There's no need to be an ass over it. It was a free download. It didn't wreck your car or give away your TV or cheat on you.

If it didn't install right, maybe you'd take some time and see if you could figure out why. If not, why would you worry about it anymore?

I had trouble with Gentoo when I first tried it. But you don't see me putting styling myself as "GentooDupe" and repeatedly posting about how Gentoo didn't work, do you? Of course I don't. That would be stupid and pathetic. Why focus your identity on an installation problem with an OS? And do so in public?

Find yourself a girlfriend and get some perspective on this.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[BJH]

OK, let's see how you acted on the Ubuntu free support forums:

Before you make this even more frustrating for me:

Nice way to ask for help. Sure makes me feel like giving you a hand (or maybe a boot up the ass). Mm-hmm.

I should never have believed all that crap about "providing access to all".

Useful information? Missing. Needless slagging off of OS you're purportedly trying to convert to? Check.

Thanks for any assistance you can provide in helping undo the damage Ubuntu has done.

I guess there wasn't quite enough needless slagging off yet.

I thought -- probably because of all the liberation/openness rhetoric of Ubuntu -- I wouldn't need Microsoft software to get Ubuntu to work.

And I guess he thought you were actually interested in recovering your PC instead of trolling the forums.

So in other words, you didn't read my first post, in which I said that the disc is fine and I've tried reinstalling multiple times. This just makes my day.

If this is how you act towards people you've never met who are trying to help you, I'd hate to work with you.

Don't see what difference that makes, given as I can't even get into Windows, and the problem is obviously due to GRUB. Seems like a fishing expedition there.

How about just giving him the fucking information he asked for? Too much to ask for some people, I guess...

Just yesterday I thought I knew what chutzpah was.
"Starting on the right foot" would include "not getting locked out of my computer because I installed a OS billed as 'Linux for Human Beings' ". "Starting on the right foot" would include finding instructions that answer the frequently asked question of "how do I set up a new partition and install to that partition?". "Starting on the right foot" would include an Ubuntu forum that doesn't take me a week of trying to access from different computers and connections before it consistently loads.
Stop making excuses. So I wouldn't answer what Windows version it is. Can anyone think of any reason why one version of Windows over another would cause GRUB error 25? No? Okay then.
The problem is not the devices, or the Windows version, or getting the latest install CD, or scratches on the install CD. The problem is the boot loader. The problem has already been diagnosed. You just want to chase all these wild geese because you don't want to admit that maybe this "access for all" OS has a serious problem.
Would somebody just tell me how to edit, modify, fix, whatever, the boot loader? That's all. It should be really simple, given the rigorous testing that they would put a software capable of locking you out of your computer through.

Sheesh. You actually expected that to make people want to help you more than they were already?

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[a.d.trick]

1) Ubuntu (HIGHLY) recommends unnecessary bootloader.

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.

2) Bootloader messes up and freezes so I can't debug it there.

Yeah, that stinks.

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.

My partial switch experience

[MrNiceguy_KS]

I've been trying to gradually make the switch to Kubuntu for several months, but I'm still booting into XP about 75% of the time. The two biggest obstacles:

1) I can't get my dual monitors to work. This weekend I figured I'd buckle down and try to get it working again and spend most of two days working with Google, the Ubuntu forums, and xorg.conf. With the open-source ati driver, the best I could do was both monitors cloned. But the frustrating thing was that the pager showed a double-width desktop - I could even drag windows onto the second half of the desktop, I could just never see that half. After deciding to try the closed-source fglrx driver, I eventually got to an even more frustrating state of almost-working. I was extremely excited to see a dual screen desktop at the login screen. Once I logged in, I was back to the familiar clone mode. I swear to God this thing is mocking me.

2) Some sort of insane system slowdown. If I leave my PC on overnight, it is running insanely slow in the morning. The truly bizarre thing is that the clock down in the corner will be off by several hours, almost as if the machine thinks time is slowing down. I have my suspicions that this one is hardware related -- likely either RAM or power supply, but my windows boot on the same hardware is rock solid.

All this being said, I have switched my laptop from Win2K to Xubuntu, and I'm not going back there. But I just can't make the switch on the desktop yet.

Re:My partial switch experience

[BJH]

The clock slowdown sounds vaguely like it might be the result of power management.
Try switching off as much of the power management settings under Linux and/or the BIOS as you can and see if it makes a difference.

If you need some more details, try googling for terms like "Linux APM ACPI power management".

stop complaining

[oohshiny]

The author has a HP Laserjet standing around? Nice. Good luck with a Canon "software" printer or other GDI printers though.

Linux can't support printers for which no technical documentation exists and never will. But the same is true for Vista: there are plenty of devices that don't work under Vista. In fact, Linux supports a huge number of devices, many out of the box and with fewer hassles than Windows. And Linux supports far more devices than that other consumer operating system, OS X.

If you want to use Linux, do what you do with any other OS: use hardware that works with it. You can do that by buying a computer with Linux pre-installed or by doing your homework.

In terms of money, for the price of a Vista license, you can replace your printer, your graphics card, and your Wifi card, and have money left over. And the Linux-compatible devices will generally be of higher quality than the Windows-only soft-printers and soft-modems.

Re:ya but

[iogan]

It also runs stuff such as Flightgear (http://flightgear.org) which kicks Microsoft Flight Sim in the ASS. Not because of nicer graphics, but because you can do such cool stuff with it because it's open. Like use a webcam to get headtracking (instead of buying a $200 IR device) and just about every other cool thing you can think about.

I think we need more linux game developers, and for them to develop games that truly surpass anything available under Windows.. as soon as we have really cool stuff that's not available under windows we can get the hardcore people to at least double boot.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[whoever57]

Well, Ubuntu Dupe, I read the thread.

You were asked what your hardware setup was -- including motherboard. I did not see any answer to this question.

I don't know if this was related to the problem, but I would certainly suspect it could be. You have a 1250MHz Athlon -- that's about a 1400+ or 1500+, correct? The sort of motherboard that would accept such a processor might not have BIOS support for >137GB disks

And you had your installation on a 200GB disk, correct?

So, I don't know if I have hit on the solution. You have not revealed it (why not unless you are just a troll?), but YOU FAILED TO ANSWER A CRITICAL question.

You were also rude, which is hardly a way to get help. In fact, I don't think you really wanted a solution -- you just wanted an excuse to complain about Ubuntu. That's why you have not revealed what the eventual solution was.

*70

[LotsOfPhil]

Then: Set up your modem to connect to your ISP and hope you don't get any incoming calls. Firewall? What's that?

Ahh, the memories. *70-xxx-xxxx

Re:*70

[joshetc]

All I remember is how fun it was to find modem drivers for Windows 95 with no internet connection and an OEM modem (without a driver floppy)

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Thuktun]

As someone who has never seen this particular exchange before, yes, you come off like a jerk.

You may not have meant it that way, but that's certainly the way it appears to someone reading it. In every response, you made a snide remark about Ubuntu or the other posters, rather than being polite with the people from whom you're seeking help. Implicit in all your responses is that it's all Ubuntu's fault, that there could not have been any user error.

That's not how to ask people for help. Remember, you're asking volunteers for help, not demanding support from a company to whom you've paid money. I think the respondents were more than patient with you; I didn't see a single flame returned at you.

Re:ya but

[theantipop]

I'd agree with your sentiments. At home, Linux is a hobby that I indulge in on a secondary machine that is primarily use as a HTPC. At work, however, I would love to be running Linux. I had the pleasure of developing exclusively on a LAMP workstation a couple years ago and I was easily twice as efficient in Linux as I was in Windows. What really made the process a breeze for me was the ease of remote operation for pushing test code to the development server.

count me in the "continues to attempt" category

[niall111]

Tried ubuntu again last week, attempting to make the switch from windows. Boots to liveCD mode, which is a cool idea, with just an install button on the desktop for permanent install. So i tried that out, selected a partition, which is difficult since the labels i apply in windows to all my partitions aren't displayed in Ubuntu... So i selected what looked like my old windows partition, and told it to blow that away and install there. It went through the install process, got me to remove the CD and reboot. "could not load operating system" Well, that was fun, back to windows. Talking to a linux friend the next day, we figured it probably installed to a hard drive that wasn't the primary one (I have 4 SATA drives, thus the confusion) Really though, you just can't have that sort of thing happen during an OS install! Why can't it figure out such an obvious problem on it's own!?

Re:count me in the "continues to attempt" category

[AusIV]

Can't choose your partition during the install? How can it do that on it's own? I know it's a difficult question for new users, but if all of your hard drives are formatted and have data on them, how do you expect it to choose one to resize or wipe out? When you install, it gives one option of installing to the largest empty space. Otherwise, choosing a partition is simply a must.

People are mostly lazy...

[CasperIV]

/RANT It's not that hard to figure things out in the modern age with the huge amount of documentation, forums, how-to articles, and online communications. People are just getting lazy. It's easier to say "it's too hard" rather then to just try to figure it out. Heck, I offer to show people how to do things all the time, but in reality, they just want me to do it for them. I can guarantee my time is worth more then most people who use the "time is money" excuse, but I still am willing to try new things and even *gasp* help other people try new things. Since when did everyone decide that learning "just enough" was ok? I need to stop before I get off on the topic of "professional students" and these idiots who think a degree makes them smarter.... This could get really long. /END RANT

Re:People are mostly lazy...

[RKThoadan]

The main difference between us geeks and everyday users is that to us, its fun. Even when we are trying to untangle the thorniest of problems, we are secretly having some amount of fun. For some people, simply being in the same room as a computer drains their soul of all fun (okay, that's a little extreme).

Some people seem to think that reading Charles Dickens is fun and since I can check out his books from the library, why in the world wouldn't I want to read them for free? The answer is that I consider that to be torture. (sorry all you Dickens fans)

Re:ya but

[Anonymous Coward]

And here you have stated the problem perfectly.... Linux is for the guy who has no problem spending a few HOURS to get something working. People who want the machine to just do it with a minimal amount of effort use something else. Hell, I'm perfectly comfortable at a command prompt, spend the majority of my day there, but if I want to sit back and play something, I'd prefer to spend the time playing the game, not configuring the game and tweaking config files just to make ti work.

Re:30 days of Vista?

[mdsolar]

I know of one person who returned a computer within 15 days because Vista would not run or install basic VOIP software.

Re:ya but

[Carik]

Not necessarily true:

It may simply be spoken by someone who values big explosions and flashy effects over playability. (Face it... Nethack IS ugly. It also happens to be a good game, but that doesnt' change the fact that it's ugly.)

Re:Replaced Windows and not noticed

[Technician]

We've quietly replaced his copy of Windows XP with Folger's Coffee Crystals. Let's see if he notices any difference.

For me and a guest speaker, we made the switch and he didn't notice.

One of our social groups (not business) had a guest speaker. He requested we provide a computer and projection system for a PowerPoint slide show. The newest laptop I have is a Windows 2K/Ubuntu machine running Office 2K & Open Office.

He came and spoke and complained that his slide show wasn't working properly. The text boxes appeared all at once instead of Bullet line by line. In some simple troubleshooting we found the file worked properly on my wife's work machine running XP and Office 3K (not a laptop and not borrowable). Since I didn't want to spend lots of money on upgrades, I tossed the PowerPoint presentation at my Ubuntu partition. It worked perfectly.

I let the guest speaker know we fixed the problem with the presentation computer. At the next meeting, we simply ran the presentation on the Ubuntu partition using Open Office. Since we set it up for him and had it ready to go, he didn't notice the switch.

Searching later, I did find out about the free PowerPoint viewer from Microsoft.

Re:Hi....I'm Anonymous Coward, and I'm a Windows U

[Fantastic Lad]

Good post! Both witty and insightful at the same time. Around here, that's like finding a nice olive in your salad, (if you like olives, which I do.)

--And if you had posted with a "real" name, I'd have modded you a +1 Something since I have Mod points today. Because, you see, I'd rather spend a point raising a good comment to a higher viewing level AS WELL AS raising the poster's karma. When you spend a mod point on an AC's post, you don't boost his/her Karma. (Well, not the digital Slashdot kind at any rate.) So instead, I'll just post this little note.

-FL

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Chris Burke]

Who recommends burning a CD from a computer that can't load an OS?

I don't recall them saying it had to be the computer with the problem. Sure, this didn't make it easy for you, but I'm willing to bet that with just a little effort you could have found another computer with a burner and a high speed connection. I'm am 100% certain that it was "physically possible". And if you had done this, your problem would have been fairly simple for the forum members to solve for you. Instead you yelled at and insulted members of a community volunteering to help you with a problem for even suggesting that you take the most straightforward method of fixing the computer, because you "shouldn't have to".

Sorry, but you did have to, "should" doesn't enter into it. You didn't want to. Your problem didn't get fixed. What a surprise.

I listed four things, none of which had anything to do with my attitude, that had to happen, and did happen, for me to be in my predicament. None of them should have happened. Ubuntu should not have recommended Grub, at least not without explaining the possible consequences. Grub should not freeze when it gets that error. The files should be where there's supposed to be. The commands to diagnose should not fail.

Of course! Ubuntu/Grub had a serious bug, and should never have put you in that situation. Sympathy was naturally on your side. You managed to burn through most of that sympathy two sentences into your first post, and you burned through the rest when you replied to serious attempts to help with derision.

If any one of those had not happened, the install would have gone fine. Think about it.

And if you hadn't been an asshat with a sense of entitlement and a "I shouldn't have to" attitude towards self-help, you would have gotten better help to try to fix it when the install didn't go fine. Think about it.

So changing from XP is also too complicated?

[walterbyrd]

eom.

Re:So changing from XP is also too complicated?

[Bacon Bits]

Nobody is going to buy Vista as boxed retail except bleeding edgers who need DirectX 10. The vast majority will buy a PC within the next few years and it will ship with Vista pre-installed. Microsoft learned how this worked back with Windows 9x.

To most people, a computer is indistinguishable from a microwave or a VCR. The OS might as well be embedded.

Re:ya but

[mcvos]

Sure. Oh, you meant ones that do not suck greasy cocks ... no, sorry; it only does ugly amateur console-games like Natheck and Hangman.

Install Cedega. It's not Open Source, but it does come in a nice and friendly .deb package, and it runs a reasonable number of my favourite games perfectly. In a way, the installation, starting the game and running it in a window instead of a stupid fullscreen mode, works even easier and smoother than on Windows.

For some games, that is. Others just don't install or install but don't work properly.

Re:I switched to Linux

[Technician]

-Crashes so much that I'm tempted at times to switch back to windows.

I've heard some people get to experiance that, but in all the time I have been running Ubuntu, I have had the oposite experiance. The wife's XP machine was the worst for a while. It's root cause was Flash 9. Backgraded to Flash 8 to fix 95% of the crashes on that machine. I've heard lots of problems with Flash 9 on Linux also. Have you installed Adobe Flash?

Even with the Flash 9 on Mozilla on XP resolved, the Ubuntu box is still the most stable box in the house. The only times I recall it going down is when we shut it off for the night.

The unstable machines are the Windows 98, Windows 2K and Windows XP machines in that order. I would not consider the Ubuntu machine unstable at all.

Have you tried another distro?

Shopping.

[pavon]

For me what has changed the most is that the reliability of hardware is much harder to predict. 10 years ago there were good brands and as long as you stuck with them you would have a reliable machine. Now-a-days it isn't anywhere near as clear-cut. Every brand is trying to aim for the low prices and thus has it's occasional stinkers. And the hardware review sites are no help because they only test for performance not reliability. Pricing has also more time consuming as half the online retailers advertise artificially low prices which they make up for with high shipping costs. And if you are running linux, the amount of work necissary to check if the hardware has drivers has increased as well.

So while slapping the components together has gotten easier, shopping for them has gotten harder. Even 10 years ago, shopping for parts was always more time consuming then actually building and configuring the machine, now it is even worse. Not wanting to deal with all that and not wanting to buy a crappy HP/Dell was a big factor in convincing me to get a G5 for my last computer rather than a PC. Probably as much of a factor as the OS.

This may seem tangental to the original discussion, but I don't think it is. Like building computers, it's my opinion thatthe limiting factor in moving to linux isn't lack of technical skill, but being willing to spend the time lookup up how to do things that are different from windows, and scouring mailing lists and forums to find an answer when something goes wrong. So if someone is willing and able to spend the time to learn about everything you need to know to pick out PC components, and deal with windows driver issues on bleeding edge hardware, then they have the skills needed to use linux. The question is one of motivation - why would they do so if linux doesn't do what they want, ie play games.

Re:Shopping.

[BJH]

I think you may have a point. One difference that I find now in comparison to ten years ago is that at the time, Linux drivers either existed for a particular piece of hardware and were rock solid, or didn't exist at all. Now, there's many different drivers floating around (built-in, manufacturer-developed, Windows drivers with wrappers, etc.), but it's difficult to find a particular combination of hardware that has decent (free) drivers for everything.

Re:Shopping.

[WuphonsReach]

Only if you go for lowest cost. I have a few brands that I've worked with over the past 5 years that I trust. And one motherboard manufacturer where I've used a few dozen of their motherboards in systems with no issues.

I also plan for failures. That means RAID1 for work machines (the newer boards include RAID on the motherboard and a 2nd hard drive isn't that expensive) along with imaging the system periodically.

The newer motherboards (Asus M2N-E) use heatpipe and cooling fins instead of tiny fans that fail. That removes a big issue in longevity. And there are fanless video cards (or just go with an integrated video like the GeForce 6150 boards).

Re:Shopping.

[pavon]

I never bought the lowest cost components, and still had problems. I used to be able to trust ASUS to always have good boards, and then they started putting out some flacky ones in pursuit of looking good on those silly motherboard benchmark tests. IBM used make great drives, then the deskstar debacle happened (okay that example is fairly old). Seagate is still pretty consistant, but they have had a small number of bad batches. The case fans that I used to get (forget the name of the company, but they were nice and quiet) - never had problems with them, then I had several seize up within a few months of buying them. I can't think of a single reliable manufaturer that hasn't put out at least one crummy product recently. Name alone isn't enough anymore.

Re:And I can beat your time.

[emor8t]

You expect us to believe your computer has been running since 1951 and no hardware failure or anything? Must be the stability of all those tubes!

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Pigeon451]

The blame falls with both you and the ones helping you. Instead of trying their suggestions, you repeated that it didn't work, without giving concrete examples (ie, using a livecd and using that to diagnose, fdisk -l, etc). They provided lots of useful and helpful suggestions, but the actions of a couple bad apples can wreck the support environment and escalate frustration.

It would appear to me that the install hiccuped because of the 3 drives. Linux can of course be installed on any drive you like, but may require extra configuration (like yours). Using the Windows install CD was a great suggestion to get your Windows back and working, unfortunately you didn't seem to like that idea. I've only been using Ubuntu for 2 months now and am finally happy with Linux. I've tried on 3 prior occasions since 1999 to get Linux going (Mandrake, Red Hat, Fedora Core) and it was nothing but frustration, I can relate. Ubuntu "just worked", although I didn't try dual boot -- I used an old computer to run Linux with a spare hard drive, while our main system is Windows for everyone's use. No dual boot, no worries about data, if it goes south, I just reinstall.

Maybe you can try Linux again in a couple years, it might be ready for you then. Good luck.

Re:ya but

[mcvos]

blockquote> And here you have stated the problem perfectly.... Linux is for the guy who has no problem spending a few HOURS to get something working. People who want the machine to just do it with a minimal amount of effort use something else.

Not true. Ubuntu installs very smoothly, and if you don't mind paying for Cedega, Cedega and the games it supports also install very quickly, easily and smoothly. Installing firefox was a lot harder. Or installing WinXP. Or those very same games on Windows, even. Seriously, for gaming, Ubuntu+Cedega is as easy as you could hope for, annd it gives you a lot more control than you'd have in Windows.

I've been using Ubuntu for 30 days too

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using Ubuntu for about 30 days myself now and I'm not switching back to Windows XP / Vista. I've been a Windows for over 10 years - I am a computer programmer though.

Here are the things I've had to do / got me confused:
    Had to edit my fstab in order to mount a partition which wasn't added by default. I found the switch to the Linux filesystem style a bit of a mental shift, but there's tons of information online on what to do. Although, I did make a mistake and Ubuntu booted into the command line, but I just copied the backup I'd made over the original file. Couldn't editing the fstab get a GUI?
    Tried to access my Windows XP installation (NTFS) - still can't get it read/write even with NTFS-3G, but I'm not bothered anymore.
    Had to enable Universal mode in the package manager in order to get DivX and Mp3 support etc. Standard movie player still doesn't work (and I can't un-install it) but VLAN works great.
    KTorrent seems a lot slower than uTorrent and sometimes the icon appears in the wrong place, but I don't really care.
    Didn't like the built in text editor, but that's OK, I'll get another one!
    I successfully repartitioned and formatted a FAT32 drive to a size greater than 32GB with QTParted. That's not even possible in Windows.
    Easy to get quality software with the package manager.

The hardware support has been better than XP. No need to download the drivers for my HP Deskjet printer, my scanner just worked, no need to drag out a floppy disk drive in order to install Serial ATA drivers to install the OS (like on Windows). Graphics card worked at correct resolution and correct colour depth out of the box. I really can't complain at all about that.

Clicked on a PDF and it just opened (didn't have to wait an hour for Adobe acrobat reader!).

My wife doesn't like it because as she says "Everything is slightly different." so she's got her XP partition. I'm sold though, I can do everything I want / need to do for free, without the irritations of Windows.

There are some other minor niggles with Gnome, but in general, I'm very impressed and can't wait for the next version.

Re:I've been using Ubuntu for 30 days too

[justthinkit]

I successfully repartitioned and formatted a FAT32 drive to a size greater than 32GB with QTParted. That's not even possible in Windows.

Fat32Format

Re:I've been using Ubuntu for 30 days too

[joemod]

Tried to access my Windows XP installation (NTFS) - still can't get it read/write even with NTFS-3G, but I'm not bothered anymore Have you tried ntfsmount? I am using it at home(read/write) and if i recall correctly it is part of ntfstools.

So we did it again.

[fululian]

that site just crashed. i get really cute dos prompts since deux minutes ago.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Chris Burke]

Can't blame him for being pissed, only for being a dick about it. Just my opinion.

You make a good point, and I agree. If he showed any ability to distinguish between his justified anger and his unjustified abuse of community members providing free support for a problem they didn't cause, even in retrospect, then I could also think he maybe has a point.

Re:I was one of these converts

[Technician]

Gaming - I am learning to live without

Why? I don't.. I have more than one PC.

For safe internet browsing, photo editing, and office applications, I use Ubuntu. For games, I use the Windows 98 machine.

Re:ya but

[clark0r]

Not to mention Doom 3, Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe, Neverwinter Nights (both) and don't forget Tux Racer :p

Ubuntu over XP

[neowolf]

This is probably mirrored by many other people, but I wanted to say I had a similar story...

I had gone through all of the RCx versions of Vista, and decided rather quickly that I hated it. Nothing but eye candy and incompatibilities that slowed my system to a crawl.

I dug out my old Windows XP disk to re-install it, and stared at for a few minutes- thinking about how much of a pain in the ass it will be to install it (yet again- since it seemed to be a quarterly deal anyway). I also remembered the service packs, the 2+ hours of update downloads (via T1), and all the other stability and security issues XP STILL has. I then said "It's time to look at Linux again." I've tried Linux on the desktop before, and have been disappointed. I use it on almost exclusively on my servers, but that is an entirely different animal.

I installed Ubuntu (Edgy) and love it! It took a bit of time to work out things with my higher-end ATI graphics adapter, and it has taken some time to find some reasonable alternatives to some Windows apps, especially for playing media and (gulp) DVDs, but I'm very, very happy with it. It still isn't quite to the point where I would tell any of my less-computer-literate relatives to install it, but I feel it is getting really-really close. The only issue I could really see is most games haven't been released for Linux (and may/may not work with WINE), but I'm not a big gamer and don't really miss any of them. Actually- there is ONE thing I really do miss- iTunes. I can't see how it would be that big of a deal for Apple to port it from BSD to Linux. Fortunately I have a Mac sitting on the same desk.

Re:Ubuntu over XP

[legoburner]

Dont worry about itunes, install amarok and you will never want to go back to itunes again. A nice comparison between the two can be found here. Nice comments after that article too 'In regards to music management, amarok beats the shit of out itunes'.

Re:Ubuntu over XP

[SwedishPenguin]

"Actually- there is ONE thing I really do miss- iTunes. I can't see how it would be that big of a deal for Apple to port it from BSD to Linux. Fortunately I have a Mac sitting on the same desk."
Try Amarok, IMO the best music player by far, of any OS. It's KDE based, but works under GNOME too.

Re:Ubuntu over XP

[AusIV]

iTunes is only a must if the iTMS is a must. I used iTunes for ages, but as soon as I got my music over to my Linux box and fired up Amarok, there was no going back. In fact, Amarok was the deal breaker when it came to dropping Windows all together. It doesn't eat up my CPU nearly as bad as iTunes did. It handles my iPod (or any other music device) wonderfully, allowing transfers both from the computer to the iPod and from the iPod to the computer. It has an alarm clock plugin that lets me specify different wakeup times for different days of the week, which is incredibly useful for a college student who has 4 different start times during a 5 day school week. Plus, because it uses dcop for to allow interfacing with it from the command line, I can use my remote control to control it. You can also automatically download lyrics and the wikipedia entry about each artist just by going to the context tab.

Nobody ever got fired for WHAT?

[Phat_Tony]

That's great. IBM's going to have trouble overcoming "nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft" syndrome. I'm not arguing against your point, just pointing out the irony, since the origin of the expression is "nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."

And Lexus is the Cadillac of automobiles.

Re:Nobody ever got fired for WHAT?

[Sobrique]

The choice of idiom was intentional. I still remember when 'no one ever got fired for buying IBM' :)

Re:ya but

[Chris Burke]

It's a catch 22. More people would use Linux if the games were there. But the games aren't there because not enough people use linux.

Which is why Wine/Cedega exist and why they are both good and bad.
Good, because they attempt to break the Catch 22 by bringing the games to Linux without having to have the large user base to justify ports.
Bad, because even as the Linux userbase expands because of the increased amount of games, it also removes the incentive for the game makers to make Linux games.

WoW is a perfect example. I'm sure there are a goodly number of people who would be running Windows just for WoW, but instead they can use Linux. Yet Blizzard, who has flatly stated they have no interest in supporting Linux, certainly isn't going to see this as motivation to start doing so. After all, the Linux users get the support they need through Cedega, and if Cedega didn't exist, most of the people would just dual-boot to Windows anyway.

So unfortunately the windows emulators doesn't really break the Catch 22, it just changes the rules. Still, I love having it as a Linux user.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Some did, others asked for actual pertinent information or for reasonable -- even if difficult given your situation -- action to assist them in diagnosing your problem for free. You refused them all regardless, saying "I shouldn't have to".

No, if you actually read the thread (*crossing fingers*), I did follow many of their suggestions, specifcally, the ones tailored to the troubleshooting I had already done. None followed up after that.

Is it too much to ask that people read my posts? Are you going to defend the community as a whole, when so many of them didn't bother to read what I had posted?

I have to follow their suggestions? Fine, as long as someone can go on record saying "You need proprietary software to run Ubuntu."

The only things I felt entitled to were:

1) having my posts read
2) non-miserable software design
3) people following up when I try their suggestions
4) people recommending solutions that are possible given my predicament.
5) that attempting to install Ubuntu would, at worst, not work, NOT that it would lock me out of all OSes.

None of those is unreasonable, and all were violated. And you do have to admit there's something fishy about, "Try this operating system, it's the greatest ... you have problems? HAHAHA, on your own now, sucker!"

Every day you continue to deny that you had anything to do with that is another day you deny yourself some basic growth as a human being.

Now you're just being unfair. I admitted, right from the get-"go", that this was my fault. Did you read the "It's my fault, really. I never should have ..." bit? That wasn't sarcasm.

I openly admit I *never* should have trusted Ubuntu with my home computer. I mean, how can you take the level of software design that produced GIMP and trust your computer with it? That, I have always admitted, was my mistake, and my alone.

But we have to distinguish different levels of responsibility. If I hire a convicted felon to work in child care, and he abuses the children, it is no contradiction to say, "The felon was responsible for abusing the children" *and* "I was irresponsible by not properly screening child care workers." (Spare me the lecture about poor software design not being equivalent to child abuse. It's an ANALOGY.) I absolutely should not have believed the crap on the Ubuntu page. When push comes to shove, you really do need proprietary software to safely run Ubuntu. The crap about it being Free-as-in-speech? Yeah, I shouldn't have believe it. I get that. I learned from the experience: don't be so gullible.

But still, none of that takes away from the poor design that went into Ubuntu.

Re:ya but

[spazmolytic666]

Face it... Nethack IS ugly

You sir, Mr. sour grapes, have obviously never gotten the AoY and ascended.

Windows installs on anything...

[iceperson]

pretty much. Maybe during the days of NT 4 did I have to check the HCL, but if it was made in the last 10 or so years you can pretty much bet that it'll work in windows.

Re:Windows installs on anything...

[EsbenMoseHansen]

Don't bet too hard. My last computer can't install windows XP. Doesn't recognize the hard drives. I am told that the drivers can be slipstreamed, which is a quite complicated process judging from the docs, or I could buy a disk drive for the sole purpose of installing windows, and move the drivers there using linux. But I only used it for a few games, and very seldom at that. So now I just play atitd :)

Re:ya but

[The Crooked Elf]

Here at the University of Southern Maine we have a computer science lab full of machines: We have Sun systems, Red Hat Linux systems, and Windows XP systems. I think the original intention was to expose people to work on different platforms, but it's broken down as follows:

The Red Hat Linux systems are there for study and work. The Windows XP systems are for video games. Nobody knows why the Sun systems are there.

If there was some free software solution to the video game problem, there wouldn't be any need for anything but Linux boxes. And, indeed, video games are the only reason I have a Windows partition (which I never boot too except for games).

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[BJH]

Since GRUB was apparently having difficulty in stage 1.5 (where it tries to read from the disk), it's possible that it was looking for the bootloader in the wrong place (since you had three hard drives, a fact which you failed to mention until halfway through). The location of the bootloader would be affected by the Windows version. Depending on whether you're running Windows 95/98/Me or Windows NT/2000/XP, the bootloaders that are installed are completely different.

Now will you shut the fuck up, you loudmouthed waste of oxygen?

Seriously?

[iceperson]

Do you believe that crap?

Re:ya but

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention [...] Open Transport Tycoon Deluxe

Is that the one where you compete to network the most Classic Macs together?

Re:I switched to Linux

[mcvos]

Cons:
-Crashes so much that I'm tempted at times to switch back to windows. Of course this might just be Fedora that I'm using, but I've noticed KDE and GNOME both to be pretty unstable.

Really? I've never had any Gnome instability problems in Ubuntu. I can't recall having *any* crashes *ever*, actually. Only with Windows, or with older linux distros.

-Software installation is improving with the likes of yum, but many software packages still require endless reading of documents and setting flags for configuration files etc.

On Ubuntu, I had a problem installing firefox 2 (which doesn't come in a .deb package), but I've never had any trouble whatsoever with anything in a .deb.

My advice: give Ubuntu a try if Fedora isn't working for you.

30 days here too...

[naChoZ]

I've just completed my first 30 days with kubuntu. Normally I use FreeBSD, but I wanted to try some newer bells and whistles like the 3d gl mode desktop. I installed opensuse 10.2, but that only lasted ten days before yast became unusable and the zen package manager did an impromptu mindwipe of its own.

So my next stop was kubuntu. Although the package management system has some bugs of its own, it's been great so far. Everything just works with very little hassle. My touchpad, my wireless, the gl desktop. Very little difficulty. I hadn't ever touched a debian based distro and I had a bit of a learning curve with that. There seems to be a different set of issues with each package management tool, adept, apt-get, synaptic, aptitude, but it's not bad once you learn your way around and I haven't found myself in dependency hell yet.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Since GRUB was apparently having difficulty in stage 1.5 (where it tries to read from the disk), it's possible that it was looking for the bootloader in the wrong place (since you had three hard drives, a fact which you failed to mention until halfway through). The location of the bootloader would be affected by the Windows version. Depending on whether you're running Windows 95/98/Me or Windows NT/2000/XP, the bootloaders that are installed are completely different.

So GRUB needs to know which version of Windows it's using? Then why didn't the installation screens ask for this when it installed Grub?

Soundcards

[jsoderba]

On Windows, the sad fact is that Creative's mid-range X-Fi models are pretty much as good as it gets for audio quality. And unlike every other manufacturer's cards EAX actually works if you care about that.

The cards are pretty worthless in Linux, though. Anyone know the driver situation for VIA's Envy24 cards?

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[BJH]

GRUB does not explicitly need to know what version of Windows you are using.

However, at that point you were saying that all you wanted was a way to recover the bootloader. If that was the case, then the version of Windows you had previously been running was a relevant piece of information.

BTW, did you ever stop to consider that the cause of your problem was that you chose to install GRUB on the wrong drive?
Maybe you missed the part in the installation instructions where it told you to choose the appropriate drive to install GRUB onto, instead of just randomly guessing as you appear to have done.

Re:30 days of Vista?

[Frumious Wombat]

Most people have put "30 days of Vista" off until after they finish "Two Years Before the Mast" and 120 Days of Sodom.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

GRUB does not explicitly need to know what version of Windows you are using.

Then its location does not depend on which version of Windows I'm using.

BTW, did you ever stop to consider that the cause of your problem was that you chose to install GRUB on the wrong drive? Maybe you missed the part in the installation instructions where it told you to choose the appropriate drive to install GRUB onto, instead of just randomly guessing as you appear to have done.

Um, no. I installed it in the place where it was HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, the main HD. If I had not done so, it would not have tried to run at startup.

Re:ya but

[menkhaura]

Yeah, the usual ones: all the stuff from Id Software (Quake 1-4, Doom 1-3, Wolfenstein), UT2k3, Neverwinter Nights (the original, and its expansions), Darwinia and Uplink, and the run-off-the-mill patience, majhongg, tetris, sokoban &c., besides the ones ported by Loki (Soldier of Fortune, Kohan I [GREAT RTS], Rune &c.) and by Icculus (America's Army up to version 2.5.0 among others).

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Johnny Mnemonic]

If you act like a spoiled jerk on a community-driven forum, stamp your little feet, and absolutely refuse to try any of their troubleshooting ideas or provide them with the information they repeatedly ask for, then they probably won't help you.

If we're going to restrict Linux usage to just those that are mature enough to solve their own problems, or ask about their problems politely on message boards, it won't ever grow above a 10% marketshare.

That's why people actually charge to provide support--you know, because it's not a fun task.

While you may be ok with consigning Linux to this marginal role, many people aren't. So that will either require Linux advocates to adopt new attitudes towards support issues, or to support Linux by charging fees like any other OS does.

Re:ya but

[bigbadwlf]

Why spend an hour or two attempting to get WoW set up under linux when you can spend 5 minutes installing it under windows?

Whoah. You obviously haven't installed WoW under Windows. It's 5 CDs for WoW, 4 more if you have Burning Crusade.
Then there are the patches. When I installed on my notebook, there were at least 3 of those. The first was in the neighbourhood of 500MB.
In reality, you're looking at a couple of hours.

My point is that the actual copying of the files from CD is the big hassle with installing WoW, regardless of the OS. At least configuration is better than watching a mind-numbingly slow install, waiting to be prompted for the next disc.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[BJH]

The MAIN HD where your Windows bootloader was installed? Or some other MAIN HD that everybody trying to help you is magically supposed to know about?

Too many choices?

[HotBBQ]

Good info, but I think this brings up an issue with Linux on the desktop. Indeed the home directory is analogous to My Documents in Windows, but it could be anywhere on the file system. (I know it can be anywhere on Windows, but most of the time it will never change for normal users) I guess my point is that Windows is Windows. You can pretty much expect to see the same thing from box to box as far as the OS goes. Linux on the other hand, you never really know what to expect.

Re:Too many choices?

[fyoder]

There are differences between Linux distributions and distribution families (an important one is package management), but where the /home directory is isn't one of them. If you were to sysadmin at a colo that was predominantly an OSS house, you would find a great deal of similarity between different distributions and even FreeBSD. The various quirks also exist, but you learn those as you go. If you know what it is you want to do, the how usually isn't that difficult to figure out.

Though Windows may have a place for the clueless. I once saw an example of a Linux based network that was so gunked up with web admin based control applications and backup and mysql backend for everything including web logging and such that the owner might actually have been better off just going with Windows. Prior to that I maintained that Microsoft should never be allowed on a server, but rather than butcher a brilliant OS with chaotic crap, it might be better to go with one that's pre-pooched in a much more orderly way.

Re:Too many choices?

[saforrest]

You can rely on $HOME to be set to wherever the home directory is.

Re:Too many choices?

[Bacon Bits]

I've not seen any *nix distro use anything but /home for years, with the exception of the superuser wich always uses /root. The last time I did was about the time Microsoft changed from %windir%\profiles (the Windows NT 4 directory) to Documents and Settings.

Additionally, you can use the '~' shortcut. '~' is current user's home directory. It's equivalent to %userprofile% in Windows. '~fred' is user fred's home directory. Also, 'cd' with no directory always changes you back to your home directory (it's the same as 'cd ~').

Linux's unified directory structure is very confusing especially compared to the Windows system (everything is a file, logical to physical mapping is not obvious), but home directories are one of the easiest things possible. The most complicated thing for me was figuring out the difference between /bin, /usr/bin, and /usr/local/bin (and then /sbin and it's contemporaries). It boils down to needing to learn the FHS (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesystem_Hierarchy _Standard), and then learning the history of the directories. For example, /opt and /srv are still rather new, so a lot of systems still use /var.

If you think about it though, Windows's directories are also rather complex. Windows doesn't install in C:\Windows. It's really in C:\Windows\System32. Program Files is supposed to be read only, and it's one of the reasons so many apps only work when you're an admin. Documents and Settings, while an accurate name, is filled with hidden directories where the OS is trying to keep the user from breaking it, but you still need to get into them from time to time. pagefile.sys is the system pagefile, hiberfil.sys is for hibernation. NTLDR is the bootstrap, and the bootloader is kept in the volume MBR and is completely hidden since all it does is find NTLDR and run it. Most systems have an \i386 directory copied from the CD since Windows wants it from time to time. There's also \RECYCLER which is the recycle bin, and \System Volume Information which contains information Windows itself uses as well as where it store the Restore Points. %userprofile%\NTUSER.DAT is the user's registry hive, while the other registry hives all live in C:\WINDOWS\system32\config. %windir%\system32\config\systemprofile and %documentsandsettings%\.Default user also exists on most systems, containing information on the default profiles. %windir%\system32\drivers is filled with kernel-mode code (real mode, mostly drivers) and %windir%\system32\dllcache contains protected-mode code (user-mode apps). Then there's 5 or 6 different temp directories, and storage locations for Group Policy, security objects, system logs, etc.

IMX, none of that is half as well documented as the Linux stuff.

Re:Too many choices?

[HotBBQ]

I don't think 75% of Windows users could manage to open up a terminal window and find the value of an environment variable in Linux, but I've been suprised before.

Re:Too many choices?

[spitzak]

Actually you are supposed to use some rather obscure system call to get the "Documents and Settings" directory name, and another obscure call to get the "username". In addition the Desktop for the user is not under this directory. Certainly easier to do getenv("HOME").

In any case it is pretty obvious that Microsoft fixed this in Vista. It is now "/Users/username" and the desktop is this directory /Desktop. Oddly enough this is exactly the same as OS/X and the same as many Linux machines (some use "home" instead of "Users" but one symbolic link will fix that. Not sure if they put the directory name into an environment variable.

What I was shocked at was the amount of hoops they jumped through to avoid calling this directory "home" in the GUI. For instance, no icon and rather convoluted descriptions in the start menu, to avoid use of the word "home" or a house image. They are worried sick about being too compatable with Unix, no doubt.

Re:Too many choices?

[arevos]

Good info, but I think this brings up an issue with Linux on the desktop. Indeed the home directory is analogous to My Documents in Windows, but it could be anywhere on the file system. (I know it can be anywhere on Windows, but most of the time it will never change for normal users) It's the same with Linux; most of the time - indeed, practically all of the time - the home directory will never change. Indeed, out of all the Linux distributions I've seen, only GoboLinux puts the users in a different location, and GoboLinux is a distribution whose primary claim to fame is its unusual filesystem layout. Every other distribution is fairly standard.

Re:Too many choices?

[jonasj]

I've not seen any *nix distro use anything but /home for years,

Mac OS X? :-P

Installed Linux on a machine running linux?

[iceperson]

Wow. Clearly if you can make the switch from linux to linux seamlessly then it's ready for prime time...

The "my mom/grandma/monkey's uncle has been using linux for..." meme got old years ago (right after everyone realized that they used a $500 computer to do what a webTV box did for $99.)

Re:Installed Linux on a machine running linux?

[Coryoth]

I'm not suggesting it is ready for prime time. I was merely trying to provide a description for the OP of how helping someone overcome initial difficulties/fears can pave the way. He was interested in helping his parents switch, and I was merely suggesting to him good ways to do that. I think the fact that you read everything as a "Linux is ready now!", whether it is or not, says more about you.

Worst of all...

[jbeaupre]

No giant Computer Shopper to find all the parts in. Back when men were men and CS could kill small pets by dropping it on them.

Re:Worst of all...

[Digz]

...and, worst of all, no more Hard Edge...

My Windows Experience

[argent]

As someone who uses other sustems more than Windows, but with quite a bit of Windows experience as well, I have to agree that you've hit one of the places where Windows actually shines.

The tree view on the left panel doesn't answer to keyboard commands that work on folders and files in the right panel, such as pressing Del to delete a folder. Windows Explorer is consistent in this regards.

Consistent keyboardability was one of the things that impressed me in Windows right from the start... and the first version I used was Windows 2.something... but over the years Microsoft has gratuitously broken existing shortcuts, introduced new controls with inconsistent or *no* keyboard access, and generally degraded things until I would hesitate to use Windows mouseless.

But for all that they're still better than Apple or X-11-based systems.

It doesn't get updated properly...

Another strength of Windows, though it's not consistent. Luckily F5 almost always works to refresh.

When I delete a folder...

Losing the selection when deleting files or directories, or losing the selection on refresh, is another annoyance that Windows mostly avoids. Mostly.

I can't move a file or folder with the mouse right-button.

That's something that I thought would be really useful, but I find I don't actually do it on Windows... instead I do copy/cut and paste/past-shortcut when the default drag isn't the right thing, and I'm more bothered by Finder not having "cut" on OS X.

Lastly, even though Nautilus recognize some oddly named text files as such, double clicking them is an exercise in guessing

I'm wary of double-clicking anything these days, particularly on Windows. Open With is my friend.

The things that bother me about Windows Explorer are mostly things like "you can't open that in a Window, that's on the desktop!" and "you don't really want to see these files, yes I know you said you did last time, but I'm still going to hide them anyway". That, and the whole "html desktop integration" fire drill.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Wherever Ubuntu HIGHLY RECOMMENDS it install Grub.

Which, by the way, doesn't depend on which version of Windows you're using. :-)

Re:ya but

[Panzergheist]

I'm not much of a PC gamer these days, but unless Linux gets real support (not Cedega, nor Wine, nor any other form of emulation/non-native method) of WoW, there's no reason for me to drop my XP box.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[rudlavibizon]

In Serbian "dupe" actually means ass!

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[BJH]

So which hard drive was it? Did you even bother checking?

And if you're so clear on every possible cause of the problem, why were you unable to fix it yourself?

STFU

[Anonymous Coward]

The patience is that they gave you advice, any advice, rather than telling you to STFU like I would.

But you obviously haven't worked for tech-support, or any other customer service job (you sound like you're 15), or else you would understand what a "pissed off and wants to vent" customer/user is, and why you don't want to deal with them.

Because you didn't have a free tool that would do the job, the proprietary solution is a kludge to get free software working. No one (not even RMS) would have a problem with that.

And the person who told you to burn a liveCD apologized for not reading your post fully.

And finally, you yelled at a fucking volunteer, not Dell tech support. Every technical person I know has a story where tech support read through a list of things that were obviously not important (though some of the things you thought were unimportant actually were), and dealing with that can be frustrating, but yelling at a volunteer is just uncouth.

You demonstrated that you are not the type of person that tech-support wants to deal with, the people who were trying to help you realized it, and STILL, tried to help you even though they didn't have to. That's the patience of a saint at any tech-support job I've worked at.

Look up a latin term, "ray ipsa loquitur", if you're forum post didn't prove that you're a jerk, the fact that you critize a handful of volunteers every time an Ubuntu story is posted does.

Shame on you!

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[leftcase]

What on Earth are you on about man? Your laughable attempts at stringing together a coherent comment bely your ignorance. Really, why do people bother?

"...it's never served any purpose at a satisfactory level for me and I do everything with a PC you can possibly imagine from graphics, video, games, programming, web design, chat, email, office tasks, research, etc"

If you do indeed use your PC for every possible task please try the dictionary, thesaurus and grammar checker.

Honestly I must be too stupid for linux

[jrhawk42]

I've tried to get into linux two times now (once w/ Ubuntu) and each time I can't even get past the installation. The worse part is I've had to reformat my C: drive because of these installation errors. Now I wouldn't normally call myself a neophyte when it comes to technology either I've been using PCs since my childhood and the C64, and I'm one of the very few people I know who doesn't have any problems with windows XP, and only needs to reformat or call tech support about once every 18 months cause I get some stupid idea like "I think I'll try linux again". Learning linux to me feels like learning to milk a cow, sure it's free milk but is it worth the trouble when I can just run to the store for a gallon.

Re:Honestly I must be too stupid for linux

[nick.ian.k]

Here's the thing: if you're interested in doing anything, whether its learning to milk a cow or installing a new OS, you don't try it just two times, each book-ended by a 1.5 year window and then throw your hands up when it doesn't go quite how you expected. Now, it's fine if you're just not at all interested, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. You need to tell yourself that, despite all of your experience with something vaguely similar that would seemingly be analogous to the new thing you're trying out, you're only making those comparisons based on what you know, and the analogy may not in fact map as well as you'd like or think.

If you're doing something more complex than the default Ubuntu install, you need to take time to actually learn what's going on during the install and why, not just poke idly through the prompts and hoping you'll get it right by coincidence. If it's just the graphical installer crapping out (yup, loathe as many are to admit it, it's still flaky as hell on a ton of hardware), you need to try the alternate install disc. If it's something else, please be specific as to what it is so you can not only get help, but something can stand a chance of getting fixed if it is indeed broken.

Personally, I can't promise to fix anything that may be wrong with Ubuntu, but if you need help on the install, let me know, I've done many Ubuntu installs and I'm willing to help.

Re:Honestly I must be too stupid for linux

[pembo13]

Try Fedora, and go to the Fedora chatroom _before_ installing to get advice.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[eldepeche]

Unfortunately, you didn't follow the suggestions that could have helped. You also assumed that you knew the solution to the problem, which is pretty much never the case, especially when you're troubleshooting an installation of an operating system you don't have much experience with.

You absolutely don't need proprietary software to install GNU/Linux. You, quite unfortunately, didn't download the desktop CD. I'm not sure why, but that had a pretty big effect. If you had downloaded the desktop CD, you could have booted a working system and examined what was going on. Since you didn't have one, and refused to try to burn one on another computer, it was suggested that you find your Windows disk so that you could repair your computer to boot Windows.

I admitted, right from the get-"go", that this was my fault. Did you read the "It's my fault, really. I never should have ..." bit? That wasn't sarcasm. I don't suspect it was, but it was pretty chode-tastic. The end of that sentence was basically "trusted all you fucking assholes." I wonder why they didn't really want to help you?

Re:ya but

[moogs]

He has a point. Before I started college, my main use for my pc (custom built) was to play games. In fact, i ditched my old win98 running on an AMD K6 basically because of Half-Life 2 (previously, I only used it for the basic stuff - word processing, surfing the net, playing starcraft occasionally, eg). But even now that I'm in college, I use it for... more word processing, C programming, drawing stuff with CATIA, eg. But my time is also spent playing games. Which is basically the reason my SuSe dual-boot is just something I do for fun, instead of thinking of it as a viable replacement for my XP. What did this add to the conversation? Nothing.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[BJH]

Jesus fucking Christ. You still think your approach was the right one?

Everybody was telling you to do exactly the right thing - boot from a CD that would allow you to overwrite the bootloader with something that would work - and you just kept whining about how you didn't have anywhere to burn a CD.
Perhaps you need a nanny to spoon-feed you everything, but at least make an effort to listen to the people who are attempting to help you.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[eldepeche]

You can't edit the bootloader from a non-bootable system. You needed a live CD.

Re:I can beat that.

[soleblaze]

My one question about linux machiens with an uptime of a year+ is. How do you update the kernel? There must be a few show stopping bugs or exploits available for a kernel over a year old.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[eldepeche]

It's still poor software design, and depressing that no one admits it. I think you're referring to the fact that a broken bootloader makes it hard to boot as "poor software design." I'll let you think about that a little while.

Re:ya but

[Ephemeriis]

What I've found interesting is that, in my experience, Linux is most appropriate for some of the folks you'd think least likely.

Sure, your hardcore geek can get along fine with Linux. They either make their system work (by hunting down obscure drivers and submitting their own patches) or find work-arounds (alternative software). It's really not terribly surprising to see a computer geek running Linux these days.

For gamers and power-users it really doesn't work. Many games don't work, or don't work as well, or don't work without substantial tinkering. Power-users who've really learned the in's and out's of Windows frequently aren't willing to spend the time and effort to learn a new OS.

What surprises me is that Linux actually works fairly well for those who are almost completely computer illiterate. The folks who only use their PC's for a few hours a week to check email and surf the web. Sure, they need to learn a new button to click on to get email...but all the functionality they've come to expect from a computer is right there. There's little if any need to get odd bits of software working, force games to run, hunt down obscure drivers... All they need is a web browser and a media player.

I did this with SuSE 9.3

[cheros]

Even then it was a viable alternative - once you had USB printing stable. But yes, Ubuntu is awesome. Even Knoppix doesn't recognise hardware that well..

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

I think you're referring to the fact that a broken bootloader makes it hard to boot as "poor software design."

Your assumption is in error.

I'm referring to the fact that a flaky bootloader is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, and there's no warning whatsoever about what will happen if it fails, when I already have the viable, low-risk option of having Linux boot by telling the BIOS to boot from a CD or a different hard drive when I want to go into it.

Yes, failing to consider ways to bolster a critical path, is poor software design, regardless of the brokenness of the HIGHLY RECOMMENDED bootloader.

I also don't see why it has to freeze on an error and refuse further input, but I'm going to err in Grub's favor and assume that it must, since I don't know much about it, even though most people casually assumed I could give it further input.

Language support

[mackyrae]

In Ubuntu you just install the language pack you want (in the Settings menu) and then whenever you go to log in, you can click "languages" in the "options" menu and pick which one you want to use. I have mine set to allow me to choose English, Japanese, or Russian.

Vista has c:\Users now..

[a16]

The home directories, logically enough, are all stored in the /home branch of the filesystem. So if your user account name was "cpnabend", your home directory is probably /home/cpnabend In Vista, the home directories, logically enough, are all stored in the c:\Users branch of the filesystem. So if the user account name was "cpnabend", your home directory is probably c:\Users\cpnabend.

In this way the "home directory" concept is more expansive than the "My Documents" concept, which is only for document files (your configs are in the Registry, your apps are in Program Files). I'll agree with you on older versions of Windows (although even in XP, go up one level from My Documents and you have a "user" directory still) - but this article is directly comparing to Vista. And in my c:\Users\username directory (which is where things go as default now) - I have seperate directories such as Documents, Pictures, Music, etc. etc.

Your point on the registry stands I suppose, although a lot of Windows apps save their user level settings in the home dir now. As for programs, most windows programs are in c:\Program Files\ in the same way that most programs in Linux are in /usr/local or whatever (which is fairly confusing, as the grandparent post was trying to say) - you can install your own programs in your own home directory on both OS's.

The newly organised Vista home dirs are one of the things I like most, as someone who has used Debian and then Ubuntu for the last few years. Now just give me a decent terminal please MS..

Re:Vista has c:\Users now..

[PitaBred]

And stop using that backwards, pointless drive lettering thing while you're at it. You can already mount a drive at a folder... why oh why do you insist on having drive letters? It does nothing but confuse your users (ever plug in a multi-card reader and have to guess which newly created "drive" actually has your flash card in it?), and has no place in a modern system. Not to mention it limits you to 26 devices, a few of which are reserved for pointless legacy reasons (A and B). C'mon MS, learn from your mistakes.

Re:ya but

[HermMunster]

Linux used to be a hobby for me. For a few years linux was on the fence and one could fall off quite easily. Today though Linux has really matured. The biggest problem still exists--the linux zealot. They kill Linux, they harm the community, and the completely stifle growth on the desktop. The Linux community should shun them hard. They are like an outdated car. They are more broken than they are worth. It's best to move past them instead of trying to fix them. You can't appease a Linux zealot--they are harmful just by their very existence. I think the BSD community needs them now, and they should relent to the desktop.

You know in reality this fanaticism toward total open source is just ridiculous. On the one hand you see everyone saying Linux is only good if you are true open source while the majority say that they want quality commerical games and apps running under it. You can't have both. No one is going to release a commercial application or game as open source. So just consider the OS open source and get the applications/games running so the market share can grow.

I see the zealots holding everyone in a catch 22 with their false logic. We need development and yes that means comemrcial apps. Linux is just an OS. The applications and games are just applications and games. What benefits the users is more important then even open source. Never relinquish the open source product to the commercial venue but realize that the OS is just that, the OS. It is meant to be installed and forgotten. The users don't interact with the OS they interact with the applications and games. If you can get that through those zealot's thick skulls we'll have growth in the market. But that also means a real stand-alone universal distro applications installer.

It's about the USER not about the OS. Never has. These zealots have the same disease that Microsoft has -- OSitis. We, the users are the king. It is us that make or break you. It isn't about the OS. Your OS should provide the services to the apps and games so that we the users can benefit the greatest in the smallest amount of time.

All in all, I use Linux as my main box. My favorite game (Enemy-Territory) plays just fine on it. If I want to get any of my other games installed I can. Not that I can get them all but through Cedega or Wine I can. Keep in mind that there are quality commercial games out there such as Doom 3, Neverwinter Nights, Quake 3, UT2003/2004.

The problem here is DX9 and 10. It is a closed environment which requires a sizeable investment to learn and develop for. With Vista discontinuing support for OpenGL (even though OpenGL is still a widely competent and quality product) it makes it hard for developers to choose to target OpenGL even as a secondary target audience. These are efforts of a Monopoly power using tactics to close down its competition, clearly.

Re:ya but

[Joe Snipe]

*Cough* Vultures Eye *Cough*

Gave Ubuntu a fair trial myself - bought Vista

[Cloud K]

I ask that instead of automatically going "OMG he went with Microsoft he must be stupid / evil / a troll / whatever" - you think seriously and constructively about the pros and cons of each platform and why the MS route was more suitable for me. And perhaps, how Linux can cater to my type in future.

I've been interested in Linux for a long time, but as yet I haven't found it suitable to be a *complete replacement* for Windows; and unfortunately because it's so inconvenient switching back and forth, I might as well use the platform which works for me. I find myself facing Compromises quite a lot with Linux, and this is fine for a secondary machine but not a primary one. The compromises are fully understandable - most of the software is written by unpaid volunteers in their small amounts of free time, there are patent/DMCA issues holding back certain areas and many hardware and software manufacturers simply refuse to develop for Linux. However the fact remains that there are still compromises to be made - and ones which I'm not willing to make when I can pay £67 and do everything and never have any compatibility problems, compromises or headaches.

I have a long log of my experience with Ubuntu somewhere, but basically it boils down to this:

- Installation itself was ridiculously easy - on par with Vista. It was after installation that things went downhill...

- It didn't recognise my 1Gb network port (Asus P5B) so I had to use the 100Mb one until I *recompiled the kernel with patches* (messy, and getting the bits together for compiling it was a bitch)

- I never got wireless networking going, it would see the access points and connect to them but not get any data through and signal quality read '0'. I knew what I was doing and it was clearly a bug. Even ndiswrapper with the win98 drivers didn't work. There were endless other people encountering exactly the same problem in the Ubuntu Forums (network section) but nobody coming up with working answers. I am not willing to accept "well you have a wire connection, use that" as an answer.

- I got bluetooth kind-of working, although it was flaky to say the least (to be fair, the same usually applies in Windows. I only know of Macs and other non-PCs that have decent, reliable bluetooth support)

- Getting something other than 60Hz on my monitor, required hacking xorg.conf manually... I can do this so it's not a problem, but really I shouldn't have had to. A flaw with Ubuntu rather than Linux itself (and a long standing flaw as I had the same problem with early versions) as other distros handle monitor detection and configuration perfectly.

- Getting things like java, flash, etc were a ballache, as ever, due to all the licensing/patent issues.

- World of Warcraft didn't work in WINE or Crossover when I tried it. I didn't get around to messing with it much, to be fair, but I expected the latter to work as it's advertised as one of their primary supported products.

- I'm a keen photographer, and photography in Linux is "pants", to say the least. The only decent, configurable RAW converter (not dcraw, which only does the basics) was the commercial Bibble, and even then - due to it not using Canon's SDK - it's not a patch on Breezebrowser Pro or Canon's own DPP in Windows when the results are put side by side. Photography was essentially the deal-killer with me: there are many things I'm willing to compromise on or 'live with' - but I am not willing to compromise on my photos, otherwise I wouldn't have bought a 30D.

- What with all the other bits of software and games for Windows which are not ported to Linux or supported in WINE, and the sheer amounts of time you *still* have to invest in getting anything out-of-the-ordinary working (not nice after a hard day at work when all you want to do is spend the few available hours having fun) I'm afraid I went with the horned devil. £67 (Home Premium OEM) seems like a very reasonable amount to pay after all the wrestling with Ubuntu :)

Re:Gave Ubuntu a fair trial myself - bought Vista

[oGMo]

World of Warcraft didn't work in WINE or Crossover when I tried it. I didn't get around to messing with it much, to be fair, but I expected the latter to work as it's advertised as one of their primary supported products.

I believe it's one of the primary supported products of Transgaming's Cedega, not Crossover (which is more oriented toward Office compatibility). I have used this myself, and it's pretty easy to get going. Not as easy as if it were native, no: a few more buttons to click, perhaps. But not a hassle.

Seriously, though, if you're into pro audio/video/graphics, and want an easy desktop replacement that does what your Windows box does with zero hassle, go OSX. I'm a diehard Linux user, but it's not for quick and simple hands-off use, and the promedia tools suck. OSX however fills this niche nicely. And I think WoW runs natively.

Re:Gave Ubuntu a fair trial myself - bought Vista

[Cloud K]

Yeah...

Crossover does actually advertise WoW support, and had a free trial (whilst Transgaming doesn't, you buy it and take the risk) but I didn't get that far due to the photography issues.

I have a Powerbook, it's one of the last PPC models and pig slow. It's pretty, but it can't handle more than a few apps open without chugging to death (with 768MB) so it doesn't appeal to me for the image stuff. Now, when I'm rich I'll consider a Mac Pro and it'll be a different story :)

Re:Gave Ubuntu a fair trial myself - bought Vista

[KayosIII]

On the Camera Front there are a few dcraw based products that I would give a chance... That do give very decent configurability.... I have compared quality between Canons Software and these on an EOS5D and the results are very decent.

1) Ufraw works both as a standalone product and as an importer for the gimp. It gives you excellent and very detailed control.

2) Rawstudio - gives you some management capability, Fairly decent colour correction, Rotation, Cropping & Batch Processing. This has got to be the most usuable piece of software - too bad it doesn't yet support my Fuji F810.

3) Kipi plugins work accross several KDE Apps. The raw converter plugin does give access to all the newer dcraw options including noise reduction and highlight recovery, supports batch processing- Is nowhere near as usable as the other two...

4) Lightroom is another commercial product - it offers a free linux (java based) version. Haven't done any serious testing....

On the Network adapter front... Give everything a month or two for the drivers to trickle down to ubuntu... Next release happens in April... I imagine it will be working by then.

For wireless the Ralink chipset seems to be the best supported under linux at the moment (has open source drivers). I have a usb ralink based adapter and it is plug and play on ubuntu edgy.

Yes the monitor thing is a PITA... Ubuntu uses very conservative settings here... Fixing it means editing a config file... Grrr this really needs to be fixed

Re:Gave Ubuntu a fair trial myself - bought Vista

[Pecisk]

Nope, you won't be labeled as "evil/troll/whatever", it is rare to give such pros and cons for trying to adapt Linux :) Thanks for insightful post.

Re:Gave Ubuntu a fair trial myself - bought Vista

[Cloud K]

Read the thread in context :o)

I was in no way trying to get WINE working on OSX/PPC. That would just be silly.

Re:Gave Ubuntu a fair trial myself - bought Vista

[Cloud K]

Hmm, thanks for the suggestions.

ufraw and rawstudio were a bit too simplistic for my tastes (have a go at the trial for Bibble - or better still Breezebrowser Pro if you have a Windows box - and you'll get an idea of what I mean)

kipi I haven't tried (not keen on KDE, personal choice)

Lightroom.... hehe, nothing like dreaming :) Adobe are wedded to Microsoft and Apple (bloody bigamists!) and so won't even remotely consider Linux out of political issues let alone market share.

I'm assuming you mean Lightzone. Yeah, it's not bad, I found it a little odd in places and some standard features (can't recall what) were missing. Definitely the best of the freebies though.

Sadly I doubt any of them will do the colour 'magic' that Canon SDK based software will do, such as how it somehow enhances the blue in the skies wiithout affecting the rest of the image. I'm not sure what Canon's licensing is like, but I suspect that'll be the cause of the issue - and therefore not technically the fault of the Linux crowd.

All is not lost though, I still run Ubuntu on a second system, it's just suitable for me to replace Windows. Yet.

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[DingerX]

Hey man, I have issues with XP and Vista, and it's not through lack of very basic knowledge. It's because the damn thing puts on airs. Better than. It pretends to know better than I what I want to do. I cut and paste in a document, and it puts an icon directly over the text I'm trying to edit, and doesn't give me instructions on how to change it. I click on a document on the web -- while I have 10 browser windows open, 4 Word files, a specialized text editor, a media player, and a graphics editor running -- and it decides it's a PDF, so it kicks up Adobe. Adobe kicks up, decides it needs an update, and decides the best way to get it is to change the focus. So it halts the whole damn browser, and puts a mandatory "Yes/No" dialog box underneath all the windows on the desktop, and which doesn't appear on the task par, and all for an update I can't run, because it requires installing files that are on part of the network I don't have access to.

Then I have issues with the programs that change the focus correctly, so they alert me to a non issue. Hey, I'm trying to work here! Maybe I should find out who gave the OS the right to bother me, and call them up every time I curse at the computer.

I've got issues with the registry hive being one giant memory leak. Why do does the PC need to remember every single configuration of my wireless cards, especially the ones I never got to work?

I've got issues with the computer deciding to allow programs to run at startup without asking me, then yelling at me when I disable them.

I've got issues with Word deciding, on the basis of properties I don't have access to, what language a document is written in, even after I turn off auto-detection, (because I'm the funking philologist here, not this bucket of bolts that thinks Portuguese was at some point the language of the University of Paris), and then applies auto-correction schemes in the clearly wrong language. Don't like it? No problem. Just dig out your install disk with support for the language we're auto-correcting in, and you'll be able to disable it. What? You bought an English version?

So, yes, I've got 'issues' with XP or Vista, and with the way many programs use the OS to lord it over me. I am the God, not the computer: and if you believe differently, then that is the basic knowledge you lack. The computer is not some capricious Zeus, firing thunderbolts at My Documents and siring children with my wife.

Re:ya but

[mcalwell]

I was easily twice as efficient in Linux as I was in Windows. What really made the process a breeze for me was the ease of remote operation for pushing test code to the development server. Linux really comes into its own here - with sshfs/fish etc the network just disappears as a potential obstacle. Add to that the fact that X Windows is client/server from the ground up and you can export applications running on machines half way across the world to your desktop through ssh. I mean, how would you go back to a Windows machine for development/systems administration after that?

almost but...

[chrwei]

... you have some built in differences.

Dell - 80GB Serial ATA Hard Drive (7200RPM) w/DataBurst Cache(TM)
You - Western Digital Caviar WD800BB 80GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive

Dell drive is MUCH faster, might even be SATA2, and that makes a HUGE difference. ATA100 is way slow these days.

Dell - NVIDIA GeForce 6150 LE Integrated Graphics GPU
You - SiS 761 GX integrated video

While the 6150 isn't a great card, it's worlds better than the SiS. The 6150 will nicely play most any game released 2004 and earier. I had a SiS integrated not all that long ago and it wasn't even very good for desktop use, the S3 is even better.

If you shop around though, I bet the savings on parts could allow getting better parts and even beat the Dell in performance and price.

Re:almost but...

[jedidiah]

For just about everyone (even those of us building MythTV backends), the difference between the IDE drive and the SATA drive is going to be completely negligible.

The filesystems you use will make more difference than the whole IDE vs. SATA thing.

Re:almost but...

[chrwei]

MythTV and "just browsing" sure, you load an app once and you are done. But when you are loading things like OOo HDD speed makes a difference. Even something as simple as upgrading a laptop drive from 5400 to 7200 RPM makes a notable difference. The difference is most certainly not negligible, unimportant to personal goals maybe, but it is most definitely notable.

"i don't care if it's slower because it still works fine" is different than "a negligible differnce". The HDD is STILL the slowest part of the system after all.

Re:almost but...

[Nimey]

Um. ATA100's 100 or 133 megabits/sec is much faster than the fastest hard drive. The speed advantage from SATA-150 or SATA-300 is when you read directly from the drive's cache, and caches are small, typically 8-16 MB, so it's not much help.

It's less efficient to have 2 devices on 1 IDE interface, but that's the only real advantage. Plus the smaller cables. And nice red uniforms.

30 + days with Ubuntu

[r1_97]

It's more like 90 days since by Xp computer's hard drive crashed and I switched "everything" to my Linux hobby computer. I haven't looked back. Running Open Office, Firefox and Thunderbird gives me everything I need. I replaced the hard drive on my former "main" computer, re-installed Xp and went through Windows re-registration hell, but still use Ubuntu for all my everyday work except for an income tax program and a game. There's no way I'm going with all the added baggage to upgrade to Vista and MS Office '07.

Re:ya but

[utopianfiat]

I think exactly what you said is what ubuntu has caught onto. Ubuntu is a complete change in paradigm away from the configure-everything linux to an OS that is user-aware, configurable-yet-sane, and generally does what Microsoft fails at (and fails on an epic magnitude).

Re:ya but

[nebopolis]

>I'm not much of a PC gamer these days, but unless Linux gets real support (not Cedega, nor Wine, >nor any other form of emulation/non-native method) of WoW, there's no reason for me to drop my XP >box. not to be picky, but wine is native. Wine Is Not An Emulator (W.I.N.E.). Wine can run games at native speeds, so what is the problem really? I have heard that Wow isn't that hard to install in linux. If that is the only thing holding you back, why not spend a little time to drop the habit forever? That said, I would welcome the day that games are made for both Linux and Windows.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UncleTogie]

Have you used any CPU identification utilities?

Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[superbus1929]

Full Disclosure: I was weaned on Microsoft product as a young boy, with the exception of a brief incubation period with the old Macintosh operating systems. Started with MS-DOS 5.0 and went up from there, really cutting my teeth on Windows 3.1 running off of DOS 6.0. I went up the line, learning primarily on Windows systems - 95, 98, NT 4.0, 2000 and up - with the exception of a brief period in high school where we had to use OS/6. I have primarily been a Windows user for my entire life that I've been involved with computers.

That said, I am not very happy with Microsoft, to the point where I recently decided that, yes, I would take the Linux plunge, and try to learn to make the operating system hum. I am certainly capable; I've got enough qualifications - both universal and MS-acquired - to ensure that I'm no dummy when it comes to any computer system. What I learned after awhile was that, while most modern Linux OSes are indeed superior in terms of doing most daily tasks, the system did not compete in one key area: games.

This sounds stupid, right? Well, let's look at the key components of my PC Gaming repertoire:

Football Manager/Worldwide Soccer Manager 2007 - No Linux version, haven't gotten it to work with WINE yet.

Pro Evolution Soccer 6 - No Linux version, almost surely a WINE casualty.

Gametap - Please. Gametap barely works without a hitch in Windows.

Various console emulators - Good SNES and NES support, limited for others, nonexistant for more obscure emulators.

So what does that mean? It means that if I want to play those games, I have to run Windows. Simply HAVE to. The only actual game on that list that even has support for any other non-Windows based OS is Football Manager, which has a Mac version. As for the emulators, just because the emulators work doesn't necessarily mean that I'll be able to find drivers for my controllers. I use an XBox 360 controller on my PC, and from the looks of it, getting that thing to work in Linux might as well be an all-day event.

When I tell Linuxvangelists this, they tell me to get alternate games on Linux, which, at best, are inferior versions of their more popular sibling titles. Furthermore, they look at my games as if I was a corporate whore for playing them. "Why would you need to play Pro Evolution? That's closed source!". As if they have the right to judge my, or anyone else's, gaming habits, based on weather or not it has a GNU attached to it.. While I have the temerity to pat someone like this on the head and give them a LFS installation to keep them busy for awhile, that's going to turn off - rather, already HAS turned off - a large part of the community that would look towards Linux as a viable alternative to paying $400 a pop to Microsoft everytime they are determined to be a pirate. That cannot happen; having to search forums is hard enough on the average end user, you think they want to be told that they're too stupid to run Linux when they finally get there?

Until these two very basic things are taken care of, I will continue to dual-boot XP and Kubuntu. And that means I will still spend the majority of my time in XP, as the benefits of using Kubuntu, to me, are offset by the fact that I am a certified expert in all things Microsoft as it is, and therefore, my expertise eliminates 95% of the problems your average end user has with the OS. Why load Windows just to play a game when I can literally use it for everything I need?

Re:Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[FishWithAHammer]

Why load Windows just to play a game when I can literally use it for everything I need?

Because what you need will disappear under the weight of crud and cruft in the future? An ounce of prevention, and all that.

Re:Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[superbus1929]

To respond to that, I'll borrow a page from the Ropple Playbook:

<blockquote>I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.</blockquote>

Take that for what you will, old friend. :)

Re:Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[Todd Knarr]

Unfortunately there's very little Linux can do about game developers not releasing Linux versions. And I'd note that Microsoft themselves make it as hard as possible for game developers to support anything non-Windows. For example, there's an open standard for 3D graphics: OpenGL. iD Software has used it extensively for their games. But Microsoft has tended to ignore OpenGL in favor of their own Windows-only APIs, Direct3D and the other DirectX family. Using OpenGL involved third-party library support, and if the game developers had problems the only response from Microsoft would be "It must be a problem in your OpenGL libraries, can you replicate it in Direct3D? No? Sorry, we won't help.". Vista takes this even further: OpenGL isn't just ignored, it's actively hindered and interfered with by Vista. That leaves game publishers with a choice: release only for Windows, or maintain 2 complete code-bases since the DirectX APIs are so drastically different from OpenGL (OpenGL is relatively hardware-independent while DirectX is basically a direct mapping of hardware interfaces and a set of functions to let you figure out which set of interfaces you've got at the moment).

Re:Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[wrook]

Perhaps my response is not so different from responses you've had before. But for what it's worth...

Yes, there is a lack of good football management games for Linux. I really don't know why. It's not like they are hard to write. Bygfoot is definitely improving, though. It isn't as good as the games you mentioned, but it is improving all the time. What is needed is for people to *play the games* and make constructive comments. Not, "This isn't the same as X", but "What about a feature like this". I haven't really talked to the Bygfoot guys (I only have so much attention span for that kind of game), but they seem like nice guys. I'm sure that active discussion will lead to an improved game.

There is a similar answer to your hardware issue. SNES9X runs SNES stuff as good as I can imagine. But I realize you want to use a specific piece of hardware (I suppose because that's what you've got lieing around). However you don't seem to have even *tried* to get it set up. Personally I don't know if it will work either. Maybe it will take you all day. Or maybe it's impossible right now. So help people to help you. Try to get it working. Ask questions. Impress developers with your sincerity. There's bound to be someone with the same interests that has the skill to do it. Just excite them enough to want to do the work.

Really, that's how volunteer organization works. If that's not good for you, you can always just pay someone to do what you want. But I'll tell you it's not necessary. Just good old enthusiasm and kind words will be enough.

What probably won't work is moaning that "it's not good enough". That doesn't really encourage anyone.

Mind you, I really don't care if you use Linux, Windows, Mac OSX, or Plan 9. I'm quite happy to completely ignore you. I expect that most people are. And I don't really care about any of the things that you mentioned. Probably most people also don't care (which is why they haven't been done yet). But I do know that *some* people care. And, frankly, you could be doing a lot better for those guys -- and yourself!

Re:Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[FishWithAHammer]

How's that apply? I'm a little lost on that.

Re:Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[superbus1929]

I find Microsoft's rules a little too obnoxious for my liking.

So... I break them. With a smile on my face, and a hop in my step.

Re:Why Linux Will Not Become A Full OS

[FishWithAHammer]

You can't break the rules when a technical failure hits. Switching now will save a lot of trouble later on, when the entire damned thing goes tits-up.

Re:ya but

[Fyre2012]

Unreal Tournament 2003 and 2004 has a native Linux client also... =)
( I can't remember if UT'99 has one also...?)

Re:ya but

[zurtle]

Precisely. My mother is using a Linux box that I set up for her to check her e-mail and read the news online each day.

She boots up, logs on, clicks KPPP (cunningly renamed to "Internet"), then Firefox (cunningly renamed to "News"). Then she shuts down by right-clicking and selecting "Turn off computer".

Simple. And cheaper than a Windows license without the virus risks etc etc (I refer you to Apple's latest ad campaign...)

Re: installing

[chrwei]

you left out the time it takes to gut the Dell of all the spyware and 3rd party crap that you didn't want installed in the first place. Last one I did took 4 hours to clean up and the last clean install I did, including drivers and a basic toolset like PDF reader, Flash, and media codecs took about 3 hours.

As far as compatibility goes, that's what reviewers are for. Buy stuff that you can verify works together.

However, when people that don't game and just need basic PC functions ask me what to buy, I say get an off-lease system. You can find 2 year old "re-certified" systems with a COA with decent specs for well under $300. about a year ago got my wife a new pc, HP DeskPro SFF with a p4 2.8Ghz/HT 60GB 512M for $275 w/o COA, put linux on it and it's been a great PC. And just to make this fully on topic, my wife perfers Ubuntu to Windows and she is not a "techie", in fact she's a program director at a botanical garden. Oddly, one of her favorite features is xkill, so when an app does mess up she can easily kill it.

I also only have linux on my kids pc, it's been a while since either complained about it, except when they complain that they don't have rights to install stuff. initially i did this because they had a bad habit of installing things like bonsai buddy and spyware ridden crap on windows. OOo has been useful enough, and my daughter has even asked her teacher if she could install open office at school or take the work home because the weird stuff Word does was frustrating her.

Yeah, linux is ready for the desktop. Has been for some time now.

Re:And I can beat your time.

[mackyrae]

How is 423 days 1951? That's 2005.

Re:I was one of these converts

[the_greywolf]

WoW has been running exceptionally well in vanilla Wine for quite some time now. Recent versions (0.9.18 to current - 0.9.31 is particularly nice, and I see 0.9.32 is out already) are very nearly glitch-free. I play quite regularly on Linux, actually.

As for other games, you'll just have to petition the publishers to add Linux to their regular cross-platform plans - perhaps point out that porting to Linux is little different from Mac OS X.

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[EsbenMoseHansen]

The answer, no matter whether I spend 30 minutes in Linux or 7 days, is always the same. It's not a solution and won't be for a very very long time nor do I see it ever becoming a real solution unless considerable changes are made not only in the current state of these distros, but in what the Linux community considers a "real solution/alternative".

You don't say what you want to change, so I assume that is hot air --- I'm not psychic. But it certainly took me longer than 7 days to be reasonable productive when I first had to use windows, or linux for that matter. Just finding the command line completion character in windows (2000, it was then) took me several months, as did the short cut to paste in a console window. (It can't be changed, and it is alt-space e p... puts emacs to shame, I thought).

I won't be switching anytime soon or in the next ten years. In the 7 years that I've experimented with Linux, it's never served any purpose at a satisfactory level for me and I do everything with a PC you can possibly imagine from graphics, video, games, programming, web design, chat, email, office tasks, research, etc. Windows is an always has been better, just as stable or more stable (yes, Linux will crash on you, contrary to what everyone is led to believe - and will do so on occasion after the first 30 minutes of being installed) and this is especially true with the release of XP and now Vista.

It is true that you can crash linux, especially running the proprietary drivers. I find linux generally more stable than windows... say, maybe a crash every month instead of 2-3 days with windows. This was back in the windows 2000 days, I never tried XP (as it didn't support my hardware enough to install).

Another truth is that anyone having issues with XP or Vista, usually (almost always) lack very basic knowledge of how to use a computer -- CONTRARY to what they will CLAIM. I personally have never had more than a few problems with XP or Vista. I've used Vista since the day it was released without a single issue, except with manufacturer's lack of ability to release drivers in a more than sufficient time frame. As I said I do everything in Windows and it all works. It's always stable. [...]

I do no lack basic knowledge with a computer... go ahead, challenge me to any non-OS specific question... yet I have had severe problems with windows. Not that it was those intermittent problems that turned me away, it was that it was so "damn limiting" to paraphrase a colorful character.

It works. It does the job. It does it well. It's not ugly like every distro of Linux. It's not very hindering in day to day activities and it works for me.

Ugly... I don't see that from here (using Beryl/aqaumarine, but nor did I when I was using KWin). Breathtakingly beautiful at times, especially the water effects, maybe. Windows lacks some tools (2 random examples that always spring to mind: valgrind, bash, oprofile. Yes that was a M.P. reference, I can't help it).

If it doesn't work for you, your problem isn't your operating system, it's you.

And that is an outright lie. You can use windows, and I won't say you are a fool, especially if it works for you... (my distant cousing who just ditched windows after losing his homework to a virus didn't like windows much at the time)... but saying that so many people who have ditched windows are just bad people are a bit over the line, don't you think?

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[DingerX]

Well, I'm glad you found them hilarious.

And, just to take the Adobe case: it's not only Adobe that does this, just that they're the worst offender. Windows media player, to give another example, does the same thing. Windows itself facilitates it by allowing/requiring an application to halt and kick up a focus-changing system prompt which is not selectable through switching tasks. When I switch tasks, I use the OS, not the software. When I switch to an application that has halting everything while awaiting input, I may as well see that input box when I switch to the task, no?

The response "Learn your software" is completely out of place: you can only "learn" stuff that follows a set of principles, from which you can predict behavior. Windows has been hashed by so many committees working on the completely erroneous design philosophy that "the interface should hide what the computer is actually doing", and "An interface that 'gets it right' 80% of the time is intuitive". The first rule means you can never learn how to run software from the interface. (Classic example of this is the original Macintosh "desktop", which was a space that existed on all storage devices. Screw up on a one-drive Mac, and you got the dreaded "insert disk A"/"insert disk B" endless loop) The second rule means it will never work. A 20% per-operation failure rate (hell, even a 2% one) spread across a complex, multitasking environment means that your odds of doing anything efficiently are 50/50. I mean, okay, it might work for writing business letters, btu for anything more complicated than that, the features that are designed to "help" start getting in the way.

Finally, I didn't say Linux was better. In fact, it's probably just as bad or worse. My point was: issues with OS functionality do not boil down to gross ignorance. In my case, it's the OS (and, sure the applications written for the OS) creating friction that impedes my efficiency. Of course, I'm probably ruined from having used Amiga OS for 6 years, which was (at its time), the one, true, OS.

Re:Gaming, gaming...

[bwcook0]

I have an xbox, and a playstation. and a nintendo. but the damn things won't run World of Warcraft. And that is what everyone means when they say "it won't run games" right? Just come out and say it. I mean, Linux runs TuxRacer just fine, and TuxRacer is a game. Linux won't run World of Warcraft. There, I said it. :)

Re:ya but

[19thNervousBreakdown]

Have you ever actually tried that? I did, with a 1Mib link and average 15ms latency, and forget it.

Intel wireless is easy in Kubuntu

[Micah]

I just installed Kubuntu Feisty Fawn Herd 5 on my new ASUS laptop with Intel 3945 wireless. It recognized it immediately on the default install and let me connect to my home router. Didn't have to do anything else!

Kubuntu rocks, try it! :)

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Chris Burke]

No, if you actually read the thread (*crossing fingers*), I did follow many of their suggestions, specifcally, the ones tailored to the troubleshooting I had already done. None followed up after that.

I read the thread. I read the thread when you first posted this shit, when I was completely willing to go along with your premise that the community (at least one web forum subsection of the community) had treated you badly and refused to help someone in need, since I'd seen it happen before. However your first post before there was a single reply made it clear you weren't giving all the story, hiding the fact that you began with an atagonistic attitude. Your first reply to someone suggesting the live CD proved that you were being a complete asshat, and I was shocked as I kept reading and still saw people trying to help you, while you continued to blow them off.

Every reply you got after that which wasn't an outright flame you should consider a blessing you did not deserve. I sure as fuck wouldn't have replied after your second post.

You protrayed it as an example of the community gone bad. It turns out it was actually an example of an asshat barging into a community and demanding help while insulting those he was demanding help from, and lo and behold, said community didn't like the asshat.

Frankly it continues to amaze me that you want people to read that thread. Your story of being the poor abused supplicant blown off by the evil community works much better when we can't see what an asshole you were. I actually believed you, before I read it and realized the truth.

Is it too much to ask that people read my posts? Are you going to defend the community as a whole, when so many of them didn't bother to read what I had posted?

Some didn't, one even appoligized for it. Are you going to assault the community as a whole when so many of them tried to help you? Yes, yes you are. I find it funny because the one who appoligized really had no need to. You said "no error in burning the CD", but you never said shit about actually checking the md5 of either the CD or the downloaded .iso to verify that the data was correct -- writing the wrong data with no errors is not the same as having the right data.

But apparently you were being given the benefit of the doubt by the guy who appologized. I feel no need to do so. As far as I'm concerned you ran off on this expedition without so much as making sure the boot CD was correctly downloaded. And you'd probably blame the Ubuntu Community Forums for not making the Internet perfect, because you're entitled to an error-free internet connection.

I have to follow their suggestions? Fine, as long as someone can go on record saying "You need proprietary software to run Ubuntu."

Someone, somewhere, has found a Linux live CD useful in fixing a broken windows install when they didn't have a Windows install CD. Therefore you need free software to run Windows? Does that make any sense to you?

But more importantly, that has nothing to do with the fact that you were given a solution to your problem. You invent a reason not to like that answer -- you were running Windows before, so I highly doubt you care about using proprietary software to fix a problem -- just so that you can claim that you got no help. Well, you did. You were just unwilling to do anything about it. That is not the same thing. One is the community being unhelpful, the other is you being a giant asshole.

The only things I felt entitled to were:

1) having my posts read
2) non-miserable software design
3) people following up when I try their suggestions
4) people recommending solutions that are possible given my predicament.
5) that attempting to install Ubuntu would, at worst, not work, NOT that it would lock me out of all OSes.

What kind of rich-boy handed-everything-on-a-platter white priviliged fuck upbringing did

Re:I can beat that.

[iogan]

http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/0305 .0/0855.html

Not that I've actually done it.

Re:ya but

[Panzergheist]

Let me preface this by stating some facts that will provide perspective to my argument.

I am quite used to Linux. I used to help my local University setup Linux in their computing labs. I was also one of those nuts who found it fun to use LFS. I started on Slackware and have since become accustomed to every distribution from Debian to Gentoo. I still run OpenBSD (yes, I know it's not Linux) as my network firewall, and have developed production firewalls using IPTables for government contractors. Nothing is "holding me back" from switching. I switched a long time ago. My statement is that there are still applications, (WoW is just one example) that are good enough and have no comparable replacement on Windows, that I need to keep it around.

Now to address your question of why I would not use Wine for WoW. It's really simple. There is a risk that as long as Blizzard does not produce an official client for WoW that your account may be banned for using "third-party" programs. Notice that I stated there is a risk, not a certainty.

I know what wine is. That is why I prefaced that list of tools with emulation/non-native methods. Wine is most certainly not native in the strictest sense. It is a reimplementation of the Windows APIs. It will never run applications as well as those that are made for Linux. It may run them as fast, but never as well. Please note the difference.

The biggest problem with wine itself is that it lets developers be lazy with regards to Linux. Why would I, a game developer, write any cross-platform code when I know that Wine will run it "good enough"? I wouldn't. And I'm obviously not the only one who thinks this way.

In conclusion, you're preaching to the choir about the virtues of Wine or Linux. I was evangelizing these same things before the turn of the Millennium. The comments I make are not really complaints of Linux, but legitimate observations of the software market.

Re:ya but

[the_greywolf]

Did I miss the press release or isn't Defcon still Windows-only?

Re:ya but

[mcalwell]

Obviously its uses are limited but for things like creating/editing MySQL tables I find it easier to export mysql-query-browser to my machine and the latency is hardly noticeable.

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[Hatta]

It works. It does the job. It does it well. It's not ugly like every distro of Linux. It's not very hindering in day to day activities and it works for me. If it doesn't work for you, your problem isn't your operating system, it's you.

Sorry, no. Windows does plenty to hinder my day to day activities. For instance, no virtual desktops. Yes, I know there's a powertool. But 1) I have to go out of my way to get it, and 2) it's crashy. VectorNTI (the sequence analysis software from invitrogen) crashes with the virtual desktop powertool every time. I'm sorry but in this day and age, any desktop without virtual desktops is just plain broken.

Here's another one. "always on top", is there a way to set "always on top" on windows? As far as I know the only way to do it is to replace explorer entirely. These are utterly basic usability features. There is simply no excuse for their omission. If you don't feel hindered by their absence, you simply haven't been using your desktop to its potential.

And don't get me started on that sorry excuse for a shell.

Re:ya but

[djh101010]

You sir, Mr. sour grapes, have obviously never gotten the AoY and ascended. Who wants that stupid amulet anyway. Probably cursed.

You were killed by a slime mold. Do you want your possessions identified (y/n):

Re:ya but

[X0563511]

Sorta, look for "unreal tournament loki installer" on google.

Re:ya but

[spoco2]

Did you read the article? The experiences he had with Cedega were less than stellar, problems, low framerates etc. Not ideal

And $5 a month? I thought one of the points of Linux was that it was free... surely by paying $5 a month you're just paying the same amount as windows over a longer period of time, and all for less performance, installs that take 10 times as long as their Windows counterparts (read the article), and worse graphics and performance.

Sorry, doesn't cut it for me.

Cedega does not cost $5/mo

[Sparr0]

The article incorrectly states that Cedega costs $5/mo to use. The $5/mo is a subscription to the website, which allows access to the precompiled binaries and copy protection code, as well as voting in the "what games to support better" polls. You can pay $15 once (3 months), get a 3 month subscription, and use the program forever. It does not "expire" at the end of the 3 months, you just cant download new versions any more.

Re:Cedega does not cost $5/mo

[Wyzardking]

True, what you've purchased will always work (at least until changes in the kernel or libraries causes cedega to not run correctly).

The problem that I've found with Cedega is that I don't like the subscription model; I personally see little benefit spending money every month if their monthly releases don't solve problems I'm experiencing or add new games that I'm interested in. I'd much rather pay a set amount once every so often for the product (even if it's somewhat higher) when new version of Cedega interests me.

I could do as you suggest and repeatedly do the $15 three month subscription, but I've had problems in the past getting WorldPay to cancel my subscription; just getting my account information was a chore.

// former cedega user
/// now just dual boots
//// slash-junkie

Defcon for Linux

[tjwhaynes]

Did I miss the press release or isn't Defcon still Windows-only?

You missed the press release. Download the beta (direct link) or place an order with TuxGames.

Cheers,
Toby Haynes

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[hal2814]

Just the System dialog in Windows 98 Control Panel but that was a LONG time ago.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[zentagonist]

The very first reply to your problem in the ubuntu forums suggests using a LiveCD.
To quote: ... that's how I eventually resorted to fixing it.

Maybe it is poor software design, but that's not even the point. The first suggestion fixed your problem, but somehow it's their fault.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Maybe it is poor software design, but that's not even the point. The first suggestion fixed your problem, but somehow it's their fault.

Yes, that is the point, and it is "their fault". If a Live CD is necessary for ths most rudimentary troubleshooting on software that has virtually no testing, the website should recommend you download this when you install. That solution goes far out of my way and it should not have been necessary, since all troubleshooting should have been either possible via the install CD, or it should be listed in the "required downloads". (Of course, you *might* want to have a word with the 30 people who claim that the install CD *is* the Live CD, but logical consitency is apparently not a requirement for Ubuntu advocacy.)

Kinda odd that a flaky, unnecessary bootloader's installation to the MBR is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, and in fact, SO HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you don't need to know any of the potential risks of doing so (even if it will necessitate software you weren't told to download), but the Live CD, which is necessary to fix any problem ... isn't.

There's no "maybe". That is poor software design, period. Software design isn't just about hammering out as many lines of code as you can; it involves thinking about the end user. But apparently, the user interface designers were pulled off to work on the far-more-important project of thinking up cutesy names for each version, for heaven forbid we be taken seriously, right?

Apparently, some people want me to sugar-coat this: "Oh, golly gee sir, it sure would be nice if you adhered to minimal standards of software design, because that might get more people to use it."

You can have a programmer's OS and know why people won't use it; or, you can make a minimal effort to make it usable and wonder why people don't. What I object to is those that want to have it both ways.

It keeps getting better!

[Chris Burke]

Do you recall all the people (including but not limited to the Berkeley guy) who insisted that as a logical consequence of having burned the install CD, I must be able to burn a Live CD?

Do you recall the exact some post where he also said "Since you're reading this, you have a computer at your fingertips"? He was pretty clearly implying that you should have access to CD burning technology regardless of the state of your own computer. You of course ignored that part of the post, because you might have had to admit that this indeed was possible, just so you could make a snarky reply, and then complain that nobody helped you. Pathetic, because in reality:

Oh, of course ... that's how I eventually resorted to fixing it. It's still poor software design, and depressing that no one admits it.

So what you're telling me is that you've spent all this time bitching about how badly treated you were, how nobody helped you, how everyone gave suggestions that were physically impossible, you're saying that the correct solution, the one you eventually used, was in the very first fucking reply to your question?! And you kept bitching out the community, saying how you should "never have believed all that crap", despite already having been given the correct answer?!

Oh my GOD what an asshat you are!

By the way, everyone admits it is a problem that the installer broke. The installer should not leave the system in an unuseable state. Yet nevertheless "should" and "did" parted ways, and you were left where you were. Yes, that's bad design. This is the part where everyone has sympathy for you, and you're just lying if you say otherwise. Then you decided to come into the community forum with a chip on your shoulder, you told everyone off including the one who gave you the correct answer, and even though they were not responsible for your problem. That is when sympathy turned into hostility. Nobody is responsible for that except you.


That's what happened here: not only did they recommend a solution I couldn't do, they recommended a solution I couldn't do specifically because I listened to them in the first place, and which, if possible, would have rendered the problem moot.

Do you now consider my anger at the suggestion justifiable?

No way, for two reasons:
One, you were angry and pissed and telling off the whole community before that person came along, so blaming them for your anger is just a ludicrous lie.

Two, because obviously you could implement their solution, just slightly modified. So a couple people online were allegedly dumb and said use your own burner when you couldn't. That doesn't erase the rest of the thread where people were trying to help you in spite of yourself. And a non-asshat would have replied something like "Obviously I can't use my own burner because the computer won't boot, but assuming I could get ahold of a working computer with a burner, which obviously I can, what would I do next?"

It's funny. You can pick and choose a couple posts out of the whole thread where someone was unreasonable, or where someone was unkind to you. Every post you made in that thread was rude, unhelpful, obnoxious, and filled with resentment that the all-volunteer community didn't magically fix your problem for you without you having to do anything. All before any of your own examples of people being mean to you come into play.

It's so fucking sad. You got the answer in the first reply. You have no right to feel that you weren't helped beyond what you deserved. If your second reply was "I don't have a Live CD, I'll go make one and be back", then that thread would have been nothing but yet another example of a person with trouble in Linux being helped by the community quickly and effectively. Instead, you were an asshat, and try to turn it into an example of the community being unhelpful, but in reality it is just an example of you being an asshat.

See my other reply to you for the rest.

Summary: "I feel a profound sense of entitlement to the efforts of a community of volunteers, because I'm special."

Re:It keeps getting better!

[UbuntuDupe]

Wow, you took that "The LiveCD was the right solution all along bit" and ran with it, eh? I mean, you seriously beat that horse well into its afterlife.

If the first reply had been to format all drives, and I eventually had to resort to doing that, would that have been "the right solution all along"?

No, that's a last-ditch solution you don't want to try first.

If finding someone I knew with a high-speed connection and CD burner were easy, I would have done that from the beginning. It wasn't. My brother's a 90+ minute drive away. A Live CD was not the right solution all along, simply because it should have been possible to fix from the install CD. Well, except replace "was" with "should have been".

Are you going to go to all the people in the previous story I linked, who insisted that "LiveCD = install CD", and correct them? Or are you going to join the chorus of people who think I'm supposed to know in advance which STRONG RECOMMENDATIONS I should take and which I should ignore, even when they contradict each other?

Which is it: is the install CD a LiveCD, or isn't it?

Do you recall the exact some post where he also said "Since you're reading this, you have a computer at your fingertips"? He was pretty clearly implying that you should have access to CD burning technology regardless of the state of your own computer.

Of course -- there exist CD burners in the world, irrespective of what happend to my computer. But what does his point about *my* access to *a* computer mean? He was implying that because I have access to a computer, I *must* have access to a CD burner. That's ridiculous as well.

Summary: "I feel a profound sense of entitlement to the efforts of a community of volunteers, because I'm special."

No, "Summary: you make the same points over there, so see my reply over there." But since you want me to reply here, I will.

Apparently, you missed the point in all that. I didn't feel entitled to help. I just had very minimal expections of what would happen, such as "that it not lock me out of my computer". I didn't even feel entitled to a response, whatever ridiculous assumption you might have been making to stroke your ego. But I thought that people wouldn't respond unless they read the post. And then I thought if people responded without reading my posts, I wouldn't be lectured on how important it is to include certain information in my posts, so that people wouldn't make responses that assume it wasn't given. Wrong, on both counts.

I wonder, how frustrated would *you* be if you did someone a favor and in return, an unforseeable, drastic event occurred? Like, say, you lost your legs trying to fix someone's fireplace, and someone told you, "Oh, it's easy to fix your legs, just walk over to the hospital on ..." I'm sure you'd be calm and collected too.

Re:It keeps getting better!

[Just Some Guy]

Chris, he was a troll and got modded as such. Forget about him.

Re:It keeps getting better!

[Chris Burke]

Wow, you took that "The LiveCD was the right solution all along bit" and ran with it, eh? I mean, you seriously beat that horse well into its afterlife.

Yes, and I will continue doing so as long as you suggest that you weren't helped at all, because that is obviously a blatant lie you are using to slander a community. You were helped, the solution you said was "physically impossible" not only was physically possible, it was the correct solution. You were a whiny and insulting bitch about it. The contrast is amazing, and bears repeating.

If the first reply had been to format all drives, and I eventually had to resort to doing that, would that have been "the right solution all along"?

No, that's a last-ditch solution you don't want to try first.

Are you mental? It wasn't it being the 1st reply that made it right, it was it being right. If it had been the 4th reply that gave the right answer, I'd be saying "But the 4th reply was correct!" Booting off the Live CD isn't a last ditch solution, it's the easiest and best solution. The only way to fix the problem was to edit a config file on your HD. That required booting the computer into an OS capable of mounting the HD. The only feasible way to do that is with an Install CD. The logic is simple, and it was laid out for you amply well in the thread. You refused to acknowledge it. That doesn't mean they didn't help you. It means you are an idiot.

If finding someone I knew with a high-speed connection and CD burner were easy, I would have done that from the beginning. It wasn't. My brother's a 90+ minute drive away.

And instead of saying that, or "I would make a Live CD, but the only one I have convenient access to is an hour and a half away", you just slagged off everyone who made the suggestion as not helping and proving everything about Ubuntu's philosophy was bullshit. The only thing that you proved was that no matter how much you blather about people reading your posts, your posts simply and deliberately did not contain the information needed for the forumgoers to know what solution would work for you. You apparently like it that way, because you not only refrained from giving information like this, you refrained from answering any other specific questions.

Sad. And in the end, you were given the answer right away, even though you insulted them and everyone else for giving it to you.

A Live CD was not the right solution all along, simply because it should have been possible to fix from the install CD. Well, except replace "was" with "should have been".

Exactly. It wasn't possible. It is completely retarded to say that a Live CD was not a solution because something that wasn't a solution wasn't a solution. Something is a solution if it fixes your problem. Live CD fixed your problem in the easiest way possible, ergo it was the right solution.

You can say whatever "should" bullshit you want. "Should" and $0.50 gets you a cup of cheap coffee. You were given the right answer, and did everything possible to deny it, even though that's what you ended up doing. Truly sad.

Which is it: is the install CD a LiveCD, or isn't it?

What a stupid question, especially since you already know the answer. At the time of your slashdot post, Ubuntu Install CD == Ubuntu Live CD, thus the confusion. At the time of your post on the Ubuntu forums, install CD != live CD. Nobody on the ubuntu forum seemed to be confused on this issue, so why are you even bringing it up?

The funny part? Not only did the Ubuntu forum posters give you a solution to your problem, Ubuntu itself fixed your problem into the future, both by improving Grub and by making sure that anyone with an install CD also had a live CD.

The reason this is funny is because it means that Ubuntu learns from its mistakes. You however don't.

No, "Summary: you make the same points over there, so see my reply over there." But since you want me to rep

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[einnar2000]

You know.. I've read through the threads on the Ubuntu forums. I've followed your posts here...

I just find it highly ironic that you spew what you do about people not reading what you are typing, have the signature you have, and just can't seem to read their responses all the way through for content before you lash back out.

Stick with windows. The world will be a happier place.

P5B-E Network Drivers Included On Disk

[Game_Ender]

The P5B-E network drivers are included in source form on the same Driver disk that the windows ones come on. You can compile and install it rather painlessly by following the readme included with them after you have installed the needed packages for building (build-essentials and linux kernel headers). That is kind of hard to do without a Internet connection but I got it done somehow (possibly off the install disk). The driver also has a flaw in that requires you to run "sudo ethtool -K eth0 tso off" everything you boot in order to get upload working well. Its not easy, its not intuitive, but you it can be done and the future it won't have to be. Welcome to Linux.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[mbrod]

why isn't the Live CD HIGHLY RECOMMENDED like Grub?

Because it isn't needed by the vast majority of users. Want it to be more clear then get it to work on your three hard drive, won't listen to advice setup and write a wiki entry explaining how to do it so the other two or three people on Earth like you can run Ubuntu.

It's community supported software. You need to be prepared to be a part of the community not simply served by them.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[zentagonist]

I think the people arguing that the LiveCD *IS* the install cd think this because, at least since Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper), to get a console-only install you had to download the "Alternate" install cd. "Alternate" indicating it's an alternative (for, say, if the LiveCD installer failed to work). I typically choose the alternative myself, because I *have* had problems with the LiveCD's installer. But I can see how that wouldn't be the case for most of the users in the Ubuntu forums.

Just because it didn't work for you doesn't mean it hasn't had extensive testing. I've never faced any huge problems with an Ubuntu install, nothing like your example (system hang on boot), but I'd never argue that "because I haven't had a problem, that must mean it's perfect."

Similarly, before moving to linux, I had encountered many install/boot/mbr issues with Windows. Many of which left me with a completely useless system until I found a fix. I do not blame these issues on poor software design, I just found that problems were a fact of life when building and configuring my own system from scratch.

While I consider myself an Ubuntu advocate (though not an expert, and I'm certainly no guru), and reccomend it to many people; I typically undertake dealing with the install and configuration myself, then show them the ropes after the fact. Eventually I do hope that Ubuntu gets to a point where I won't feel the need to do this. But I do realize that Linux/Ubuntu is not for everyone, even once a user manages to get it successfully installed. And, no, I don't wonder why people don't use it. I can think of *many* reasons why they might not, regardless of usability (OS X is often regarded as a model of usability, but I haven't seen it overtake much of Microsoft's market share).

Re:ya but

[Anonymous Coward]

Blizzard already DID do this. However, they apologized and said that they supported people running WINE under Linux.

Re: Yet another personal experience

[mrbluze]

In the past year, three of my friends' home Windows XP boxes died due to trojans, viruses and that other phenomenon where if you simply use XP for a few months it slows down to a crawl for no other apparent reason. I convinced them to switch to Linux by demonstrating it on my Dell laptop (first it was Suse 10.1, now it's Ubuntu Edgy). However, in two out of three cases, they have found the systems too difficult to learn to use daily (even using Gnome, one managed to accidentally rearrange the desktop panels and remove buttons so they couldn't find a way to start applications anymore without me going in and fixing it), and upgraded their desktop PC to a Mac. They both use the Linux PC's, but have essentially relegated them to network storage tasks only, as that was easy as pie to set up in Ubuntu. They do, however, run linux on their older laptops exclusively now, as all they do on those is browse the net and update timetables in spreadsheets and other mundane stuff. They said the Macs were also a pain in the butt to do anything interesting with - but on the other hand the Mac ran their Skype dual phones without a hitch, worked with their multifunction printer, worked with their video camera - and every bit of hardware that they had accumulated from their windows PC. Whilst Linux (especially Ubuntu) is ready for my desktop, it's not ready for theirs. And whilst the likes of Linus Torvalds has a point to make when they say KDE is more configurable and less insulting to the intellect compared with Gnome, the real world consists of people who have enough uses for their intellect already and want a PC that is absolutely dead simple to use from the word go. For two out of three of my friends who tried linux, they needed a system that boots up, gives them a desktop which simply says "Go", brings up a menu that says "Office, Internet Browser, Email, Games, Music, Pictures and Video", with no submenus, saves everything to their desktop or a folder on the desktop, and that's it. None of them was aware that the desktop was a subfolder of their home folder (they saved stuff there, and couldnt find it anymore). Additionally, they have had similar problems even with OS X. I think destkops need to come out of the box with two modes (basic, expert) or something - such that in basic mode, the whole thing is locked down, almost like a kiosk mode. Make it so simple a four year old can use it - and then you will find that every adult will use it.

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[Fantastic Lad]

Haha. Typical. Bash a commenter while complaining about his or her "grammar" skills, of which almost no errors exist and avoid the real point and facts at hand; your alternative OS doesn't stand up to the hype.

Okay. I'll do it for him. (Since I don't use Vista, XP or Linux, I can speak without an OS bias in this case.) --Your grammar is rotten. Wading through your sentence structure is like experiencing a brain hemorrhage. While there may be some validity to your points, the advantage those responding to you have is that they sound intelligent. If I had to choose an operating system based on this discussion, I know exactly which way I'd go.

-FL

Then let's make a list

[r_jensen11]

one thing that Linux needs to do is develop some features that aren't available anywhere else that makes people demand it on the desktop

Let's make a list of things that it already has/supports, and see what's marketable. Odds are I'm going to get modded 'troll' or 'redundant', but hell, I have plenty of Karma left:

More supported filesystems - This doesn't sound big, but speed, reliability, and security are huge. Just remember that this was one of the original selling points for Vista, except we're already delivering
Legacy (hardware) support - Granted, I don't think this is terribly important, since the only thing that will push Linux into being a major competitor is it being provided on new hardware via OEM.
Level of "customer" support - Sure, there aren't many phone numbers to call (which could be a problem if you can't connect to the internet), but assuming you're able to connect to the internet and need help getting scanner ABC and printer XYZ to work, you'll get support.
Multimedia support - Sure, MythTV can be a pain in the ass to install, but if a distribution cares about this enough, they'll make it as simple as two clicks; click one - select MythTV from package manager, click two - install

Things to not evangelize very much:
Lack of viruses - You can make a passing reference to this, but this gets overplayed too much
It's (perfect) for everyone - There's no such thing as a "One-Size-Fits-All". Not for Apple, Microsoft, Linux, or Amiga.

Re:ya but

[cp.tar]

Ditto for my until-a-year-ago-so-computer-illiterate-he-couldn' t-turn-a-computer-on father.

The only problem with Ubuntu was the fact he didn't have Internet connectivity, so he couldn't useall the wonderful codecs; so he dual-booted into Windows when he wanted to watch some videos.

Now that that part is fixed as well, he tells me he doesn't even bother booting into Windows any more save from downloading pics from his old digital camera, which is apparently broken as Linux cannot see it, though it once could.

Now I just have to teach him the basics of command line usage...

Video editing problems

[Salsaman]

I read his comments about his negative experience with Kino. I wonder why he didn't just install LiVES from getdeb.net ?

Ahem

[iluvcapra]

X-Plane also has a Linux version. Any flight sim that lets you fly on a terrain- and physics- accurate model of Mars is king in my book ;).

Re:Gaming, gaming...

[ronrib]

Maybe I'll get a game console when they can match the experience of games like World of Warcraft and Half life 2.

Jerk illustrates good/bad of linux community

[ukemike]

OK, let's see how you acted on the Ubuntu free support forums:..... goes on to illustrate with quotes how one user failed to make good use of the unbuntu forums

This discussion about the jerk and his problems with ubuntu and his interaction with the forums can be used to illustrate the greatest strength and weakness of Ubuntu.

The forums.

They are really amazing. There is a huge community of VERY helpful people that will usually step forward to help you solve whatever problem you have, for FREE. That's a great strength.

The weakness is that answers often come in the form of several commands with lots of switches and operators that should be copied and pasted into the command line interface. It often works but leaves the seeker of help ignorant as to WHY it works. After months of using Ubuntu, and getting really excellent help from the forums several times, I am still so ignorant that I don't even feel worthy to post a question anywhere but in the "absolute beginners forum." When I've learned how to do something in win or mac I can show another person how to do it, because I understand. With linux my answer would be, "post a question on the forums." It's like that weirdo in the computer lab said back in 1989 when I asked a dumb question about how to do something on the unix mainframe, "It's Unix son. You just gotta know." There is a significant culture of elitism linux and the culture that nurtures it.

Several times I have been given a correct bit of advise, but I have to ask several follow-up questions before I know what the hell the original answer was suggesting that I do. Someone once told me that their family owned land near Peoa. I asked, "where's Peoa?" The answer was, "near Oakley." Which was true but totally unhelpful. With windows and mac I know that the difference between newbie and power-user is time and experience. With linux I'm beginning to believe that there is a huge hurdle that must be surmounted before time and experience will help at all. I fear that I will never make it past that hurdle.

I hate to make this analogy but it is very useful to me. Windows 1.0 thru 3.1 (and really all the 9x's) were just graphical user interfaces tacked onto DOS. The modern Linux distros are really just a hodgepodge of extremely varied GUIs tacked onto the OS and onto each of the many different applications. When you need to get something out of the ordinary done you have to get into the command line. I am past the age where I have years of time to spend learning the intricacies of another CLI. That's why my 3 year old son's computer runs linux. HE will have the time to learn this stuff. So I guess I'm breeding/raising my own tech support, much like my Dad did.

Second Life has an Alpha Port

[Elbowgeek]

It appears to be quite stable and be the equal of the Windows version. Which is to say it's absolute rubbish. But for SL addicts its there for ya...

Re:I can beat that.

[soleblaze]

ah yeah, I've heard of doing it the kexec way..I wonder how stable/viable that really is. Never known anyone that has actually done it.

Re:ya but

[Mattsson]

Actually, installing WoW in windows is about an hour or two... If you have all the patches at home, otherwise, it's more.
But, of course, you don't have to spend several hours trying to get it to install and then having to install it several times to get it working and then getting banned by blizzard for using linux. (Yeah, I know they no longer do that, but it had to be mentioned. ;-)

Use Mono

[chuhwi]

There is an implementation of .net for linux called mono and it appears to have asp.net support. I don't know about asp.net specifically, or the quality of the support in monodevelop or other ide's, but mono is extremely impressive and you should definitely give it a try! Actually, you could even install mono on windows first to check it out. Don't listen to people who give you a hard time for wanting to use asp.net on linux; you should use whatever development tools work for you. Trying linux will also make it easier to try out other languages or web frameworks if you ever want to. Also, if you can insure your programs work under linux, it might be extremely beneficial for your company. Anyway, there's no reason not to give it a try, so good luck!

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[Bertie]

Man, are you still bleating like a stuck pig about this? You know, with the sheer amount of effort you've put into this whine over the past months, you probably could have rewritten Grub from the ground up.

Any chance of you putting a sock in it?

Usuability counts!!

[bensch128]

I was a little confused how to take screenshots and create a text file at first, but I checked the applications list and found applications called "Take Screenshot" and "Text Editor." Doesn't get much more obvious than that.

Someone has been taking their usuability studies seriously...

Funny how a little designing goes a long way...

Ben

That good? I don't think so...

[Sithgunner]

After touching Linux for over 5 years and having had Gentoo on servers and on desktop couple of times, and tested out a dozen other distribution in the past years and using Linux daily on server operating, I just gave Ubuntu a shot just some weeks ago.

Boy... how is this supposed to be called the most famous distro?

Sure, it installs pretty painlessly graphically and not like needing to wait half a day for Gentoo to comiple the entire desktop suits, which was good.

Now I reboot, happily goes into my own desktop. Ok, first, I want to watch a DVD... err, imcompatible file format? what?... ok fine... let me Google... ok, I found out Ubuntu keeps things cleanest as possible to avoid problems in certain countries which simply puts majority of people away by having these functions off by default, why can't Ubuntu let user answer couple of questions at install time... if the user lives in a place where s/he can watch DVD s/he owns on his/her computer (which sounds just damn straight nonsense to even question about), then install a DVD playable Totem or something or Goggles or Ogle or whatever.

Now I read through their documentation about enabling DVD... wow... I can't... It tells me to install couple of libraries, of one of them, I could, the other one, even adding that apt source, nope... What's going on? The package the doc says to install doesn't even exist!... Now, I'm more of the experienced Linux user than average Joe, but come on, I can't even do, then no average users can. Good luck really making Linux reach to end users. They don't edit sources.list by hand and type some magical apt-get line on unknown shell application, I'm sure.

Ok, don't blame I just complain without knowledge, because you're blaming every single average Linux trying users out there, because they will certainly have less patience and knowledge about Linux to get this done. If I can't do it in 5 minutes, 95% average users will give up.

Ok, I gave up DVD watching, now how can I listen to my flac collection? hmm can't even play mp3? although the files are already associated with some applications... my patience is up, good bye Ubuntu, hello Gentoo =)

Gentoo works if you know what you're doing, add some USE flags about DVD/flac, things work. Ubuntu otoh, is just simply broken for either side, average users won't get it, experienced users neither get it, unless only experienced in Ubuntu itself.

This is NOT Gentoo is better Ubuntu is worse claim. JUST pointing out Ubuntu didn't work, thus concluding that Ubuntu penetrating average users isn't coming too soon.

Now, just a few suggestions...

Ask users at the installation point whether they can install DVD players at the least... If average user thinks, Linux can't play DVD, can't play mp3, isn't what they're used to, then they won't come back for the next 5 years.

And why is it not Thunderbird but Evolution? Does that mean it targets business users? Come on... home users don't want a big fat all in one Evolution but easy working Thunderbird or Sylpheed... Also, people do install Linux on their lower end machines, because many don't just infiltrate their primary machine with unexperienced OS, so get lighter packages default please...

At least the good thing was Japanese fonts were preinstalled and did render web sites properly, though it wasn't my favourite font.

After all the hype about Ubuntu, I'm rather not stepping on it. Please at least fix the docs so experienced users at least feel like using it to make it reach end users. I'm all for hoping Linux to become the real alternative to other OS's, but I see it's not happening this year.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[a.d.trick]

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.

That might be interesting for slashdotters, but some people want computers that actually work without fangling with external media drives and magic keyboard buttons. I like to press the power button and have it load Ubuntu or $DISTRO without this nonsense. Also, you're not really solving the problem, you've just offloaded it to the CD disk. If the bootloader is screwed up, it will be screwed up on your CD as well so you gain nothing.

Re:I was one of these converts

[GFree]

If you're using a Win 98 machine for gaming, I'd hazard a guess that the games that run on such a machine would be old enough to run sufficiently well in Wine anyway.

As for myself, a lot of games bore me these days, so a smaller selection of games like Q4/D3/NWN/UT2004 is plenty for me and since they work fine in Linux, I have no reason to complain. I'm learning to live without the really big-game stuff like BF2142 and Supreme Commander, the latter I can't even run in Windows due to its massive hardware requirements.

He installed Flash the hard way.

[jdp816]

I read the article and came up to the Flash install section and I did a WTF?! When you browse to a site with Flash in FireFox, it gives you the missing plugin notice. You click that, and it tellS you that Flash isn't installed, would you like to do so? You hit ok, follow the prompts, and ta-da! It works. Why do people still do stuff the hard way? In several places in the article, he tries to do it the hard way (thinking that the easy way doesn't work right, I guess), fails, RTFM, does it the easy way and it works. This a bit late in this thread, but geez. Grandma would look at the top of the page and see the missing plugin notice an click there. She won't figure out that Adobe makes Flash, go find adobe.com, search for the Linux section, download the file, go to a command line and install it. AND SHE DOESN'T HAVE TO!

Re:He installed Flash the hard way.

[mackyrae]

He's using 64-bit. There is no 64-bit Flash for Linux.

Re:He installed Flash the hard way.

[jdp816]

And... if you continued to read it, he had to install a 32-bit FireFox and install Flash for that on his 64-bit system. And he also tested 32-bit Ubuntu, and noted the differences in several places.

Thanks, please drive through. ;)

Re:Cedega

[laparel]

We, the geeks, know cadega, yes.

But a gamer who tries on linux would certainly be surprised when he/she finds that their games wont _just_ install on linux. How hard could it be, pop in the CD and click on the setup icon!

And yes there are alot of great games that runs natively on linux, God bless their souls. But surely there are more games out there that simply wont 'install' on a linux machine that those that can. And this is the wall that linux faces, when Windows users migrate to linux and find that their apllications (which are so common! they use/find it in school, work, cafe computers!) aren't present in Linux.

Migrating to linux means not just a change of operating system but a change of a whole set of software that they use in windows.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[mackyrae]

Feisty (which will be released in April) has wireless roaming through the network-manager applet by default. That was one of the big things they wanted to get in this time. Another is Compiz being installed (though not enabled) by default.

Re:I was one of these converts

[Technician]

If you're using a Win 98 machine for gaming, I'd hazard a guess that the games that run on such a machine would be old enough to run sufficiently well in Wine anyway.

Many games including new ones run just fine on older versions of Windows. Older versions of Windows has a lower system demands leaving more resources for the game. I've upgraded the hardware several times. Unlike newer versions of Windows, the Windows 98 SE came with a full install CD. It's not the disk image recovery so common with Windows machines. I would be using Windows 2K for games, but it came with a recovery CD and not an install CD. It dies with the hardware upgrades. I'm not spending the asking price for a retail version of XP. (I'm not pirating it either.)

I'm a Linux noob. I have Ubuntu on a machine and have not had the time to learn Wine. I've printed the manual and installed it from the applications add/remove, but haven't gone into getting it to run any Windows programs yet. It does have a learning curve. When I get some undivided free time, I'll tackle the project and see if I can get Unreal and Half Life running. In the meantime, the Windows box plays them fine with no install learning curve needed.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[mackyrae]

GRUB is recommended to be put on the main hard drive, but that's assuming Ubuntu is on the main hard drive. If Windows is on the main hard drive, you should chainload from the NTLDR in Windows to GRUB on your Ubuntu install. If you put GRUB where NTLDR was, NTLDR can't run. You can use GRUB to boot Windows or to chainload to NTLDR if GRUB/Ubuntu are on main and Windows is on secondary. GRUB and NTLDR just can't be in the same place at the same time. One of them should chainload the other, but you'll have to decide which does which and set it up for that. The "recommended" way is what works on 99% of dual-boots because 99% of the time, you partition 1 hard drive. The fact that you have multiple drives is why you are an exception to the recommendation. If you had told the other forum-member sooner that you had multiple drives, they would have been able to tell you how to set up the chainloading for multiple drives.

Arcane

[ozone_sniffer]

[...] and there are some times you will be typing arcane commands into a terminal window, hoping for the program to do what you want. Mwwwahaaaaa, I am a great magician! Your clothes are red!

Printable link

[NaDrew]

http://consumer.hardocp.com/articleprint.html?art= MTI5OCwxLCxoY29uc3VtZXI=

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[mackyrae]

Uh, you can buy a support contract for Ubuntu from Canonical. Then you have a nice phone number you can dial and yell at the people on the other end all you want. You can't complain about free tech support on a forum. You CAN complain about the for-pay kind. If the for-pay kind from Canonical wasn't helpful, he could say something about it. These people weren't being paid, they were trying help just to be nice. Do you demand free help from the guy across the street then get mad if he doesn't know the answer or doesn't have time to go through every tedious step with you?

Re:I switched to Linux

[mackyrae]

Weird. Mine doesn't crash. My mom's computer used to crash with Windows. The video driver would go and you'd have to reboot or sometimes it'd just randomly reboot (which is what XP does to avoid letting you see a BSOD). As far as I'm aware, there have been no issues since I installed Ubuntu. I'm fairly sure I'd get a call in a hurry if there was a kernel panic or something. Instead, I've heard my mom telling her friend who's in the market for a new computer about how much she loves having Linux and how fast and easy to use it is.

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[redtux1]

What like you did in relation to linux

Re:kubuntu is not that simple for masses

[mackyrae]

In Feisty (due out in April), there is an option in the Add/Remove (that's the GNOME equivalent of Adept, I think) for a meta-package that installs all the codec support you need.

Well about codecs...

[mackyrae]

http://ubuntuguide.org/ has everything for the codecs. Feisty Fawn (will be out in April) also has a choice the "add/remove" for a package that installs all of the codecs. Oh, and Ubuntu just hooked up with Linspire to get Click N Run so you can get legal versions of a lot of proprietary stuff.

Re:ya but

[LDoggg_]

( I can't remember if UT'99 has one also...?)

Epic was cool enough to do the linux port as soon as they released the windows version. They later had Loki maintain the port. I liked it better than the windows version because you could even play online without having to keep the CD inserted.Here's one place to get it. That link also has a download for an installer of the bonus packs.

The original Unreal Tournament is still a blast to play, and it'll run great even on something as old as a TNT2 video card.

Also, the original Unreal can be played if you have Unreal Tournament installed.

Great comment

[__aailob1448]

Well, I have to say that was a great comment and a great explanation. Thank you!

Valid points

[jamyskis]

I'm an ardent Ubuntu user, but the guy does bring up some valid criticisms of the distro and Linux in general:

* 64-bit Ubuntu just sucks. No beating about the bush with this. Other 64-bit distros are just as bad. Until they sort out proper backward compatibility with 32-bit apps (hell, even Windows manages this) without having to resort to linux32 every time, 64-bit Linux has no chance.
* I'm not a Photoshop user and GIMP does me fine. However, I have heard from people that have gotten Photoshop to work more or less fine under WINE.
* There are a decent number of games for Linux. Granted, not the enormous selection available under Windows, and Cedega sucks big time, but there are enough to get you by. Still, hopefully WINE will get there eventually, I don't see Cedega making any big inroads anytime soon.

Rather knowledgeable compared to average consumer

[Mathinker]

Even after reading only the first three pages, I come off with the distinct impression that this "consumer" has been exposed to Linux before. At the very least, he read (and understood) an awful lot compared to what I would expect from your "average consumer". Look, for example, at his explanation of the history of software packaging for Linux.

Linux and hardware

[Builder]

A lot of people like to rag on Linux for having issues with hardware, but here's a challenge for you - find me an IR Adapter that runs on a current version (10.4) of Mac OS X.

I bought a device that was known to run on 10.1, but it flat out does not run on 10.4 on either the powerbook, the powermac or the Intel iMac.

In the end, I just plugged it into my Linux box and it works a treat.

What???

[TheCreeep]

Linux not a "Programmer's OS anymore" ?? Okay, that's it. Pack you're stuff guys, we're moving to Hurd. Take portage with you, take Firefox, OpenOffice, and KDE with you. Leave Gnome behind. Sacrifices have got to be made. If we all make a consistent effort we can make it ready for the desktop in 5 years!

Re:kubuntu is not that simple for masses

[llista]

Thank you I completely agree, kubuntu lasted me 30 seconds, just enough time for the computer to freeze on the kubuntu splash screen, even up to this day I still don't know what is wrong with it but I am definetly not reccomending to friends.

Read all my posting

[fantomas]

Read all my posting chap. First part referred to money and it's a real issue for businesses when they consider converting from one platform to another. In business, time is money.

But as for the rest of my posting, which I think you neglected....

At home, for many people, time in front of a computer means time not spent with loved ones, or keeping sane doing a hobby like gardening, sports, walking the dog. I'm sitting here finishing off my PhD looking glancing at a picture of the adorable little nieces whom I am proud to be an uncle of. I wish I could spend more time with them than sat here in front of a computer writing up. Would I give up a weekend to rebuild a computer instead of spending time with them? No way, not on my priority list.

I have to pick up on one of your points:

It's a sad, pathetic excuse for a human being who has no free time

Get out and see the world pal. You are in a lucky minority. A lot of the world is surviving on a dollar a day and working every hour just to survive. Rich arrogant idiots like yourself are the problem with the world.

Re:ya but

[pAnkRat]

This is a major mistake in the article.
5 Dollar per month is the subscription price to download cedega and further updates.
Minum subscription is 3 months.

You can use cedega as long as you want, even if your subscription is no longer vallid.
If you want an update, you have to be a current subscribing member.

The free in linux refers to freedom, not "free of charge".
You can choose to donate $5 a month to a project/company like cedega,
or you can choose to get things runnig on wine, the DX9 implementation in wine is good enough to play Half Life2.

Cedega: easy installer, very easy to have multiple games installed, support for copy protected games without an no-cd-crack
Wine: free, also free as in beer, may not be so easy to use

See it's , your choise

not true

[oohshiny]

On many systems, the original Microsoft Windows (that is, not the version bundled by the hardware vendor) does not work unless you go through a lot of trouble manually downloading additional drivers and configuration software. That frequently fails because the drivers are hard to find, don't exist for the current version of Windows, they aren't certified, the configuration software doesn't install or doesn't work, and a host of other problems.

It's just a fact that for any given version of Windows, there is a lot of hardware that doesn't work with it, either because the hardware is "too old" or because it's "too new" or because the driver and support software is plain broken. Configuring a Windows PC from scratch is as tricky as configuring a Linux PC. The only reason Windows seems easier is because most people buy Windows pre-installed and throw away the machine when they need to upgrade.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[LibrePensador]

This idiot has copied and pasted the same bullshit all over the internet. In fact, I would argue that his supposed problems where posted on ubuntuforums to give credence to his FUD. Had he really had those problems and been genuinely interested in fixing them, he could have easily done so.

bullshit

[oohshiny]

I call bs - you shouldn't have to buy a certain brand laptop or through a reseller that configures it

I call bs on you. You have to buy compatible hardware for Windows, you have to buy compatible hardware for OS X, and, of course, you have to buy compatible hardware for Linux.

Furthermore, if you don't buy Windows pre-installed, getting a system up and running from a Microsoft Windows distribution is often a harrowing experience because so many third party drivers and software need to be installed separately.

Finally, for the amount of money that Windows costs (not to mention all the proprietary third party Windows software), you can replace any piece of misbehaving/incompatible hardware, and you're still left with plenty of money to spare.

but sure as hell will make or break my moving to Ubuntu (or any other distro for that matter) and my sticking with Windows...

Don't let the door hit you on the way out.

Re:ya but

[joemod]

As far as i know MAC is using gcc for program compilation. If this is correct then what bothers me is why gaming companies don't compile the source code with gcc in Linux? I don't think that it would through many errors, and these errors would be corrected fast enough...

Re:ya but

[Thyamine]

How is this off-topic? Probably the major reason why I haven't switched my home computer over to linux completely is that gaming (and various related graphics driver issues) is such a headache. There are certainly games available for Linux, but you can't expect that any game you want to play is going to be released for Linux. If I have to 'make' it work (emulators, etc), or hope it will be released one day (Steam) then it's not viable for a week, let alone 30 days.

Re:ya but

[HuguesT]

My own experience shows that you must keep paying though, or stay with the exact same distro you started using Wine/Cedega with.

New features in the kernel can quickly make Wine/Cedega obsolete (as in not working at all). The only way to keep running the same old games you have and keep a modern distro is to keep paying for Cedega (or give up playing games altogether, which was my solution :-)

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

So, to summarize what I've learned:

-Having only one hard drive and installing Linux on one partition of it: normal.
-Test-installing Linux on a separate, disposable box to hedge against the realistic probability of being locked out: normal.
-Installing Linux on a non-main hard drive to hedge against the realistic probabilty of being locked out: WTF how are we supposed to accomodate weirdos like you????

Most people have more than one hard drive, and I don't think it was some kind of abnormal case they couldn't anticipate.

In any case, the problem is more that it doesn't explain the risks of the HIGHLY RECOMMENDED Grub install. There's no footnote that warns against the risk. In fact, it says (or implies, I can't remember) that the "safest" option is just to wipe the Windows MBR. Huh?

And telling them that wouldn't have helped with my problem at the time, only with future installs -- the Windows MBR was already gone, and even then, it would only mean that I'm "only" locked out of Linux.

The easiest fix would be to accomodate whatever was causing Grub error 25. That was diagnosed early on, and I received no answer.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[mackyrae]

"Most people have more than one hard drive"? Since when? I've never bought a computer and had it come with two hard drives. Laptops generally can't have more than one hard drive. Most people do not open their computer and add hard drives. If you are good enough with computers to know how to install multiple hard drives, you should be good enough to know how boot loaders work, that they generally go on the MBR, but can go on a partition to be chainloaded from the MBR, etc. Look, the deal is, if you don't install GRUB *somewhere* it can't load and therefore cannot boot your Linux kernel. You have to install it unless you intend to install Lilo from a live cd after getting Linux installed. Either way, you need your Linux bootloader.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

"Most people have more than one hard drive"? Since when?

Well, replace "most people" with "Most people who install Linux on a desktop".

I've never bought a computer and had it come with two hard drives.

As differentiated from all the computers that come with Linux pre-installed.

Most people do not open their computer and add hard drives

Right, and most people, to their better judgment, don't install Linux. Within the set of Linux users, it's a different story.

. If you are good enough with computers to know how to install multiple hard drives, you should be good enough to know how boot loaders work,

How do you get that? I've installed installed new hard drives, several times, without even having to hear the term "boot loader".

Look, the deal is, if you don't install GRUB *somewhere* it can't load and therefore cannot boot your Linux kernel.

Even so, that *somewhere* (as my point all along) doesn't have to be over the MBR on the main HD. One can load Linux by telling the computer to boot from a different HD, or even from a CD drive! Either of which would have been a no-brainer decision to offer from a software design perspective, but of course, the user interface design people were pulled off that effort to work on cutesier names for the Ubuntu versions so as to appeal to people of your persuasion. I just don't think that was a good choice, is all.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[basscomm]

Okay, I understand that you had a bad experience with Ubuntu. You've made that abundantly clear. Whose fault it was or the quality of help you got is completely irrelevant at this point.

Seeing a giant flame-war every time a story that has something peripherally to do with Ubuntu is getting old. What do you hope to accomplish by bringing this up every time? Instead of simply deciding that the software wasn't for you, did you decide to bacome an anti-Ubuntu evangelist? Do you want attention? Revenge? If Ubuntu's that bad, people will stop using it. It really is that simple.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Seeing a giant flame-war every time a story that has something peripherally to do with Ubuntu is getting old. What do you hope to accomplish by bringing this up every time?

Hold on -- I don't bring it up every time. I need about a three-month karma-whoring period between any two stories in which I'm going to criticize Ubuntu so I can build a sufficient buffer in between. Just thought I'd point that out. Draw your own conclusions. (Draw further conclusions from the fact that I'm invariably modded up to 4 or 5 on my initial post on such matters, and not for "funny" either, only to be hammered right back down, possibly with a few intervening cycles.)

What do you hope to accomplish by bringing this up every time? Instead of simply deciding that the software wasn't for you, did you decide to bacome an anti-Ubuntu evangelist? Do you want attention? Revenge?

Answer:

If Ubuntu's that bad, people will stop using it. It really is that simple.

Well, the problem is that that claim is wrong. It would be more accurate to say, "If Ubuntu's that bad, it will not gain additional users." Because people who use it are completely ignorant of why it's not catching on. I can understand why people would treat Linux as a programmer's OS and expect it to maintain small marketshare. I can understand why Linux users would make a serious effort to make it usable by a broader audience, and wonder why it doesn't catch on. I cannot understand why people would make such a pitiful effort to make it usable, and stay in serious wonder as to why it has not caught on.

The answer is right in front of you all: the design is a mess! Whose idea was it to bet everything on Grub, even though that would transform "You can't install this OS" into "And you can't get into your original either, SUCKER!" ? And remember, that's just the part I can see *before* looking at the code.

And what had to happen to put me in my predicament? First, Grub had to be strongly recommended with not explanation of any possible risks. THEN Grub had to fail. THEN, it had to freeze my computer. THEN the directory for the menu.1st file had to be missing (hehe, remember, "Hey, just copy/paste your menu.1st file into the forum!" ?). THEN certain commands had to fail. If any one of those had not happened, the install would have gone fine, or at least not lock me out.

I can guarantee you that if someone ever did make Linux user-friendly, they would be reviled as "destroying the community". (cf. Deaf people who oppose cochlear implants.) People don't use Linux because the Linux users don't want them to use Linux. Oh, they're charming to those who "make the switch", but only after you've established that you're "one of them", i.e., geeky enough not to "bring down" the community.

So I am telling you now, and I will continue to tell you, why Linux isn't being adopted: because no one wants to do what's necessary for that to happen. You can accept that, or you can change that, but please, don't complain about the choices of 90% of the market. Light a match before you gripe about the darkness.

Re:Window's knowledge != Linux knowledge

[UbuntuDupe]

Wow, why so many unusually-intelligent AC responding?

I'm sorry I didn't say this before, but, the answer to all of that is:

Microsoft isn't desperate to build up inertia; Windows already has inertia.

Ergo, it's not as necessary for them to go out of their way to do all of this.

If I were designing an underdog OS that I wanted to compete on par with Windows, I'd act like it. Make sense?

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[basscomm]

I don't think you understand. I don't care what you think of Grub, Linux, the Linux community, or what you think is affecting Linux's adoption on the desktop. That's why I didn't ask you about those things.

In your herculean effort to avoid answering most of the questions I did ask, you've answered my questions: You crave attention -> you had a bad experience with Ubuntu -> you took the whole experience extremely personally -> you have a vendetta against Ubuntu and Linux as a whole by extension -> you post to Slashdot every so often to stir it all up again.

Don't bother replying, I'm moving on. Please do the same.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Er...what? Your question was "What do you hope to accomplish by bringing this up every time? Instead of simply deciding that the software wasn't for you, did you decide to bacome an anti-Ubuntu evangelist? Do you want attention? Revenge?"

I answered that question. No "herculean effort to avoid" it.

You're apparently just as wise as the rest of the Ubuntu users:

"I tried re-installing already, several times." "Ooh! Try re-installing!"
"I don't have a burner." "But ... er ... how could you have burned it the first time?"
"At the time I tried the switch, the install CD was different from the Live CD." "omg moron don't you know that they merged them?"
"Answer my question." [Answers question.] "In an effort to avoid answering my questions, you've answered my question. Bastard." [storms off]

Join the club, pal.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

LOL! I'm sorry, that was just funny.

That might be interesting for slashdotters, but some people want computers that actually work without fangling with external media drives and magic keyboard buttons. I like to press the power button and have it load Ubuntu or $DISTRO without this nonsense.

*tears of mirth*

Yeah, I don't want to have to fangle with all that messy hitting-F8, then selecting a drive. That's gosh, just so COMPLICATED! I'd much rather risk locking myself out of all operating systems and hardware so that I can go find an extra computer to beg for help until I can access my own files. YES!! SO LIBERATING! It's so user-friendly to suppress my frustration so I can nicely ask some snobs what arcane command I have to enter so that I can get back into my original OS!

Because the last thing I'd want to have to do is hit F8 at startup. Every interface designer knows that is just not cool.

Also, you're not really solving the problem, you've just offloaded it to the CD disk. If the bootloader is screwed up, it will be screwed up on your CD as well so you gain nothing.

Um, yeah, except that I'd be able to load Windows still, as if nothing had happened before. Then -- and I'm going out on a limb here -- I'd be able to access the high-speed internet connection and CD burner. Then, if someone ever told me I had to burn a new CD to fix the problem, I'd be able to do it.

But if the bootloader did fail, well, no one would suggest burning a CD ... right?

Thanks for the laugh.

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[Christino]

Why is no one talking about VMWare? You can actually simulate Windows on your Ubuntu so you don't ever need the unstable windows.Kubuntu and xubuntu are very colorful and full of graphics but Ubuntu looks mature and I prefer it.

FYI, VMWare is an Emulator software, especially for Windows to Linux simulations. Only a handful of Games or Apps cannot run on it - very few, so you don't miss your windows experience e.g. Outlook ;D

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

I just find it highly ironic that you spew what you do about people not reading what you are typing, have the signature you have, and just can't seem to read their responses all the way through for content before you lash back out.

Example?

Be careful -- it's painful when you find the error is on your end.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

I think the people arguing that the LiveCD *IS* the install cd think this because, at least since Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper), to get a console-only install you had to download the "Alternate" install cd

Okay, let's test that assumption.

Here is my original post. Check out this line:

"Use a Live CD." Don't have one. "You mean you didn't burn that along with the install CD?" Didn't say to. "You mean you didn't try the install on a spare box first?" You're fucking kidding me, right? (This was before they combined them, geniuses.)

See the bold disclaimer? I specifically pointed out that this was before they combined the two.

Now, let's count the number of people who went ahead with the the insightful bit of knowledge that the two CDs are the same, shall we?

1
2
3
4
5 (Note: this is one of the idiots from today. Ooh! It's the girl-Linux-user!)
Just a minute or so of browsing through, I'm sure there's more.

So, got a better excuse?

It's like, the gene that makes you want to switch to Linux also makes you not read posts.

In fairness, of course, number 4 claimed that the install CD *that I really was using* still counts as a Live CD, just without prettiness. The problem with that argument, is, of course, that I did try to follow someone's advice about how to fix the problem by running the OS off the CD, and that didn't work either.

Just because it didn't work for you doesn't mean it hasn't had extensive testing.

Oh, I'm sure it was, just not enough to justify HIGHLY RECOMMENDING that it be installed over an MBR.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[basscomm]

Try reading my post again, I asked four questions:

1. What do you hope to accomplish by bringing this up every time?
2. Instead of simply deciding that the software wasn't for you, did you decide to bacome an anti-Ubuntu evangelist?
3. Do you want attention?
4. Revenge?

You answered (I'm paraphrasing): The people who use Ubuntu are blind to the obvious flaws of the installer.

Grub sucks.

Grub sucks.

Linux is not user-friendly.

Linux isn't being adopted because of fundamental design flaws.

Anyway, arguing in circles is a waste of everyone's time. Done.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

So, I gave the answers you asked for:

1. What do you hope to accomplish by bringing this up every time? To explain the flaws of Linux and why, if you want more people to use it, that goal will not be accomplished at the present rate.
2. Instead of simply deciding that the software wasn't for you, did you decide to bacome an anti-Ubuntu evangelist? To answer those who deem it a mystery.
3. Do you want attention? I want this issue to gain attention for those to whom it is relevant.
4. Revenge? No.

How you didn't see that in my initial answer is beyond me.

This isn't mix-and-match, sometimes you have to think about what you read.

Re:We're not switching to Linux anytime soon

[Fantastic Lad]

First off, no one cares what you or anyone else thinks about my grammar, so stop wasting your time.

Yes they do, or they wouldn't call attention to it. You're lucky. Most people don't get that kind of feedback. --I've seen countless examples of people losing out on opportunities without even realizing it, all as a direct result of sounding stupid.

Second, I would like you to point out these "rotten" grammar errors.

Okay. Let's look at the last sentence you wrote. . .

"I almost feel sorry for you and many other, but then again I could care less."

To be grammatically correct, it should read: I almost feel sorry for you and many others, but then again I couldn't care less.

But it still sounds awkward, so instead you might try something like: I almost feel sorry for people like you, but it's not worth the effort to care.

Though the real problem sits with your attitude. Accusing people of stupidity while you sound stupid yourself is just plain annoying. That's why you've seen such a backlash to your post. Arrogance combined with poor communication skills is a self-defeating combo, especially in a forum where communication is the name of the game.

-FL

Still too rough around the edges.

[Austin Milbarge]

I think the problem is not with Linux itself (the kernel) but with the concept of open source. Not to say open source software is poor quality by any means, but that the most of developers involved in creating this type of software seem to put very little emphasis on usability for non-geeks. To see this in Ubuntu, all you have to is go to the synaptic package manager and bring up any package. Most require two, five, ten, sometimes twenty different dependencies in order to function. Most people don't understand (or don't care to understand) why AbiWord requires abiword-common, libart-2.0-2 and libatk1.0-0 and that's if you have enough bandwidth to download them in a reasonable time period. Although the package manager does a descent job of locating and installing all of the required packages; uninstalling them without errors is hit and miss at best and then your stuck hand editing configuration files so that dpkg can can continue removing the remaining packages. NO ONE WANTS TO DO THIS!! On any modern day operating system, libraries (or any dependencies) should not be of concern to everyday users and so anything that begins with "lib" should not have to be dealt with by the user. Plain and simple. This is excatly why Linux will never be taken seriously by desktop users. Fancy icon and screen saver graphics and are not enough. Now it's time for some serious usability overhaul.

Re:Still too rough around the edges.

[Austin Milbarge]

Two words, Anonymous Coward. an Anonymous Coward who obviously has reading problems. Or better yet, comprehending what others post. If anything, your an example of exactly the kind of schmucks that are out there ruining Linux, not helping it.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[einnar2000]

I'll let you go back and read your own postings.

The first step is always the hardest to get past, but if you try really hard, you might get there.

The whole community is telling you you're way off base. Step back, re-assess, and just let it go, dude.

I'm not going to bother to respond to you after this. The thread is old and dead at this point, and you should just let it die.

Re:Obligatory karma hit

[UbuntuDupe]

Oh, I understand how you feel. I'm just saying: what *specific* thing did I fail to read before making a post? Did someone claim something, and then I responded in ignorance of it? Where?

If you run off, fine, just reveal that you make baseless accusations. I've had my share of it: the whole "it must have been a hard drive failure" thing, remember?

Re:ya but

[spoco2]

You'll never read this as you're a cowardly AC, however I must state that you sir are the less than brainy individual.

My point is that one of the big selling points of Linux is that it's free. One of the sticking points of Windows is its cost. However. Being that I can get Vista for about $170AUS, and Cedega costs $6.45US a month (current rates) then I get about two years of less than stellar game performance complete with instabilities and it not making full use of my hardware for same price as buying the system that the games run natively in, which will remain as a fully supported operating system for a good 5 or more years.

I'm just saying, as soon as you start paying to make the machine start doing the things you want it to, you've got to compare it to the 'evil' Windows.

People like _you_ are just making it worse for everyone else by being a rude, ignorant little shit... but hey, you can't even be bothered to post as you.

Re:ya but

[spoco2]

The free in linux refers to freedom, not "free of charge". But it's sold as in free as in beer... and being that one of the major sticking points people have with Windows is its price (although I have to say, on looking at OEM prices of Vista Home Premium running at $170AUS, I don't think that's terrible for an OS that is most likely going to be fully supported for 5 years or more, seeing as games run at $90AUS and they give you but a few weeks of fun), then if Linux starts being something that also is something you have to pay for then people are going to pretty quickly get shitty with its 'quirks' and 'issues' when things don't go right. When you haven't paid for it you can live with a few issues around the edges, cause, hey, it's free... but if I'm paying $5 a month just to be able to play games, and then find that they take 10 times as long to install, don't look as good as they should once they do, AND run slower... no thanks, give me the $170 up front...

Having said that, I'm off to download a Ubuntu LiveCD

Re:Obligatory krap karmaccident

[aqk]

YOU ARE CRAP. YOU ARE WORTHELESS PIECE OF DOG SHIT. YOU ARE FUCKING UNTELLIGGIBEL TYPIST. AND YOU STINK OF WORTHLESS
CATSHIT, YOU MOTHERFUCKING INCESTUOUS NANCYBOY!

    Well.. I just thought I'd contribute my two bits to a discussion... I just hope I never meet you in a bar or a some kind of familial party. Thanx, you erudite asshole.