I don't know man. I have no faith in hard-drives any more. I use to buy Quantum drives and I never had a single crash with any of them. I still have 2 Quantum drives from years past and they are perfect. Unfortunately Quantum was bought buy or merged with Maxtor. Huge mistake. In the last 2 years though I've had 3 Maxtor drives crash on me, and 2 IBM Deathstars die on me. The last time I sent my Deathstar in for RMA, after having read that the entire line of drives was prone to failure, I just sold the factory sealed replacement on eBay. (With full discolusre that I had already replaced the thing twice so the buyer should beware.)
Currently have I have 3 Western Digital drives (2 120GB and a 200GB) and I haven't had any problems with them yet. But they'll have to last at least 5 years to appease me.
"The good: Extremely intuitive operation; robust design; long battery life; clean sound; on-the-fly playlist creation; voice recording; in-line remote. The bad: Battery not replaceable; no display on the remote; no FM tuner or line-in recording; albums don't play in order."
Obviously you're trolling for hate responses but I'll reply anyway with something valid.
For a couple of years I had thrown in the proverbial towel regarding browsers and used IE with the feeling that MS had "won". But a while back I revisted the idea of using an alternative browser and was pleasantly surprised with what I found in Mozilla Firebird. I find it aesthetically pleasing, it has built in popup blocking, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures (optional extention download), and a myriad of other features that IE doesn't have. And I haven't found any compatibility issues while viewing websites. So if you are seriously wanting an IE alternative, there are options for the open minded person.
I found synaptic by doing a google search. The interface looks real promising. If it works as well as apt-get does in Debian then it will be a wonderful tool. Thanks for the tip.
It wasn't in Add/Remove programs where you said. (And I'm using RH9)
Under System there are 3 options. Admin Tools, System Tools, and Printing Support. In Admin Tools there are 10 redhat-config-* packages and 1 authconfig-gtk package. It's not in System tools either, and obvioulsy not in Printing Support.
It might be in one of the other menus but I can find it faster by doing a search online and I'll get the latest version that way anyway.
Well it certianly COULD work out that badly under Linux and be a piece of cake under Windows but the opposite is true sometimes as well,
Absolutely. *Sometimes* it could work out just the opposite. (See my other posts about my USB FM Radio adapter.)
So I'll just agree with you right there and leave it at that. With just this left to say. I've never said Windows was perfect. I don't understand the attitude of so many of the other posters (not you). If a person indicates that Windows has anything good going for it, or that Linux could be improved in one way or another, everyone comes down on them. Sad, truly it is.
finding linux compatable hardware is EASY. it takes doing something that you don't want to do... Think and use your brain.
An elitist? A Zealot? Or are you just a jerk?
Why dont you actually try linux instead of making crap up.
Been tinkering with Linux since August, 1996. Try again sport.
I can find most anything hardware wise I want at a best buy or compusa that works great with linux and usually with 100% functionality.
Bah - I'll just copy and paste from another post. 3rd time...
That was true for my USB FM Radio reciever. It worked under Linux no questions asked. Under Windows, it was a chore originally. But that was a single exception. Read on...
Video card - Getting my tripple-head Matrox Parhelia video card to work under Linux was a nightmare. And when I did get it to work, I learned that I had to use analog for all 3 monitors because the Linux driver didn't support digital mode. Major suck!
My network card - uneventful on both Windows and Linux. Same thing for my soundcard and CD-ROM reader.. They just work.
My Printer - use to be a hassle in Linux but CUPS has made it a snap. I would even argue that it's easier in Linux to get my printer working. However, there is some loss of options on the Linux side.
My scanner - Windows all the way. Major headache in Linux. And the functionality is greatly reduced in Linux.
My webcam - Windows again. It didn't work at all in Linux until fairly recently. And the functionality is so far reduced that it's not even worth having on my system in Linux.
My digital camera - Windows again. It just works. I have been able to get it mounted in Linux in the past by recompiling my kernel and adding additional modules. But even then it's not very user friendly. None of the programs I have tried can see the camera. I have to mount and unmount it manually. (I'm open for ideas for Digital Camera programs though.) Fortunately I don't take a lot of pictures so I just get my pictures when I'm in Windows.
My external Firewire hard-drives - Windows again. They don't work at all in Linux. After hours of screwing with the kernel, reading newsgroups, looking for help on help sites, and so on, I haven't been able to get them to mount. (And when asking for help with a Linux problem, you usually just get a response like RTFM - even after you have clearly demonstrated the extent to which you have gone to figure the problem out on your own.) I'm looking forward to the 2.6 kernel hoping it will resolve this problem.
Digital Video Camera - Forget about it in Linux. It's a firewire camera. Hoping the 2.6 kernel will have better firewire support.
My USB mouse - In Windows it works just fine. In Linux I had to change an option in my BIOS to get Linux to recognize it. No big deal, but I don't understand why Windows sees the mouse without changing a BIOS option and Linux can't? And now that Linux can see it, the extra buttons don't work. This is an acceptable loss though. But still goes to show that things could be improved.
CDRW - I'm leaning towards Windows on this one. The software I've used in Linux is akward but it does work, usually.
------
Let me guess - the problem isn't Linux. The problem is the hardware I'm using right? If it doesn't work well under Linux then it's not important, right?
I highly doubt you're looking for a real answer. Usually those "state an example" comments are nothing more than an attempt to have the last word at the parent's expense. But since you asked, I'll just copy and paste my response to another post because it applys here. (Make adjustments in the tone of the response since it was directed at another person and not you.)
That was true for my USB FM Radio reciever. It worked under Linux no questions asked. Under Windows, it was a chore originally. But that was a single exception. Read on...
Video card - Getting my tripple-head Matrox Parhelia video card to work under Linux was a nightmare. And when I did get it to work, I learned that I had to use analog for all 3 monitors because the Linux driver didn't support digital mode. Major suck!
My network card - uneventful on both Windows and Linux. Same thing for my soundcard and CD-ROM reader.. They just work.
My Printer - use to be a hassle in Linux but CUPS has made it a snap. I would even argue that it's easier in Linux to get my printer working. However, there is some loss of options on the Linux side.
My scanner - Windows all the way. Major headache in Linux. And the functionality is greatly reduced in Linux.
My webcam - Windows again. It didn't work at all in Linux until fairly recently. And the functionality is so far reduced that it's not even worth having on my system in Linux.
My digital camera - Windows again. It just works. I have been able to get it mounted in Linux in the past by recompiling my kernel and adding additional modules. But even then it's not very user friendly. None of the programs I have tried can see the camera. I have to mount and unmount it manually. (I'm open for ideas for Digital Camera programs though.) Fortunately I don't take a lot of pictures so I just get my pictures when I'm in Windows.
My external Firewire hard-drives - Windows again. They don't work at all in Linux. After hours of screwing with the kernel, reading newsgroups, looking for help on help sites, and so on, I haven't been able to get them to mount. (And when asking for help with a Linux problem, you usually just get a response like RTFM - even after you have clearly demonstrated the extent to which you have gone to figure the problem out on your own.) I'm looking forward to the 2.6 kernel hoping it will resolve this problem.
Digital Video Camera - Forget about it in Linux. It's a firewire camera. Hoping the 2.6 kernel will have better firewire support.
My USB mouse - In Windows it works just fine. In Linux I had to change an option in my BIOS to get Linux to recognize it. No big deal, but I don't understand why Windows sees the mouse without changing a BIOS option and Linux can't? And now that Linux can see it, the extra buttons don't work. This is an acceptable loss though. But still goes to show that things could be improved.
CDRW - I'm leaning towards Windows on this one. The software I've used in Linux is akward but it does work, usually.
I've found a lot of devices don't work well with Windows, or work only after extensive futzing with options and opaque configuration playing-around.
That was true for my USB FM Radio reciever. It worked under Linux no questions asked. Under Windows, it was a chore originally. But that was a single exception. Read on...
Video card - Getting my tripple-head Matrox Parhelia video card to work under Linux was a nightmare. And when I did get it to work, I learned that I had to use analog for all 3 monitors because the Linux driver didn't support digital mode. Major suck!
My network card - uneventful on both Windows and Linux. Same thing for my soundcard and CD-ROM reader.. They just work.
My Printer - use to be a hassle in Linux but CUPS has made it a snap. I would even argue that it's easier in Linux to get my printer working. However, there is some loss of options on the Linux side.
My scanner - Windows all the way. Major headache in Linux. And the functionality is greatly reduced in Linux.
My webcam - Windows again. It didn't work at all in Linux until fairly recently. And the functionality is so far reduced that it's not even worth having on my system in Linux.
My digital camera - Windows again. It just works. I have been able to get it mounted in Linux in the past by recompiling my kernel and adding additional modules. But even then it's not very user friendly. None of the programs I have tried can see the camera. I have to mount and unmount it manually. (I'm open for ideas for Digital Camera programs though.) Fortunately I don't take a lot of pictures so I just get my pictures when I'm in Windows.
My external Firewire hard-drives - Windows again. They don't work at all in Linux. After hours of screwing with the kernel, reading newsgroups, looking for help on help sites, and so on, I haven't been able to get them to mount. (And when asking for help with a Linux problem, you usually just get a response like RTFM - even after you have clearly demonstrated the extent to which you have gone to figure the problem out on your own.) I'm looking forward to the 2.6 kernel hoping it will resolve this problem.
Digital Video Camera - Forget about it in Linux. It's a firewire camera. Hoping the 2.6 kernel will have better firewire support.
My USB mouse - In Windows it works just fine. In Linux I had to change an option in my BIOS to get Linux to recognize it. No big deal, but I don't understand why Windows sees the mouse without changing a BIOS option and Linux can't? And now that Linux can see it, the extra buttons don't work. This is an acceptable loss though. But still goes to show that things could be improved.
CDRW - I'm leaning towards Windows on this one. The software I've used in Linux is akward but it does work, usually.
On visits to my dad's place (his computers have Windows) I have found that much of his hardware does not like the drivers (supplied in the box, labeled as appropriate for the versions of Windows on his computers) supplied with it.
I don't doubt that you would have problems with the wireless card, but I find it very unlikely that "much of his hardware" is problematic in Windows. Unless you're using Mac hardware on a Windows machine? Then it could be a problem I suppose.
Solution? (Not really a solution for him, but interesting anyhow.) Pop in Knoppix, and the wireless card works. On one of his laptops, the internal ethernet flakes out frequenly with Windows, is rock-solid under Knoppix.
My laptop works fine under XP, including the wireless card. Pop in a Knoppix CD and the external USB mouse doesn't work and it can't find the wireless card. Otherwise Knoppix is really cool. I use it frequently for fun.
Oh, absolutely! I'm not insinuating that XP is the end all, be all in Operating Systems. I use Linux pretty much exclusively for my Desktop computing needs. But the difference between myself and *a lot* of Slashdot posters is that I recognize that things on the Linux side could be better.
You said - "what you talk about was true like five years ago"... That's partly true. It is better, but it's still not where it could be. And it's not where it *would* be if it weren't for elitist zealots holding things up by proclaiming Linux perfection. Every time something new and great happens they come flying out of the wood works praising Linus and how great and wonderful everything is. But if you suggest something that isn't there yet, everyone dismisses it as unnecessary worthless bloat. "RTFM!", "Go play solitaire", "Grab the source code and fix it yourself", and so on are the general sentiments that are slowing down the progress.
I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my time than resolving dependecy problems and downloading libraries. And I'm talking about last night, not 5 years ago.
I can guess the response. "Install Debian"... OK - that might be alright for me. But are you really going to recommend Debian to the average Windows convert? If Linux is going to achieve "World Domination", things have to be usable for the masses.
I get the same error. But it's not important enough to me to figure it out under Linux. But I do plan on checking it out on my XP laptop just to see how the store works.
DLL Hell and a no-name audio card with a auto-configured IRQ conflict will make bald men even balder, young women turn into Pug-faced hags, and kids turn inside out spilling their Speghetti-o's all over dad's new desk.
Are you trying to be funny? Or are you just stupid?
Nothing you mentioned is valid. And even if it was, how is it any worse than buying hardware for Linux?
Research the product you want to buy to make sure it "works" with Linux. 2 or 3 weeks later when you find hardware that "works" (meaning Linux can see it, although 50% of the functionality is removed), you go out and buy it. You bring it home, plug it in. Nothing. You find out your kernel doesn't have support included for the hardware you bought. So you recompile the kernel. Reboot. Several hours go by of tinkering with config files and boot options. Then you spend another 2 or 3 hours on newsgroups and Linux help sites and find out that your kernel version doesn't have support for the product even though it claims to. So you get a patch. Recompile the kernel. Reboot. Kernel panic. Reboot again back to the old safe kernel. Fix the problem. Reboot. Kernel panic. Reboot. Fix the problem. Reboot. No kernel panic this time. Woohoo! modprobe ModuleName. Some obscure meaningless message. More research. More newsgroup searches. You find 150 people describing the exact same problem you are having. But unfortunatley no one seems to know the answer. You reboot again just for good measure hoping against hope it will magically fix the problem. It doesn't, of course. After a 30 hour marathon in front of the computer to get your device working, you fall over on the floor and pass out. 12 hours later you wake up feeling like death has sucked out your soul, but get back to work anyway. Another 8 or 10 hours goes by. By now you've downloaded 50MB worth of libraries, source code, drivers, scan tools, etc... and installed it on your system. God only knows where. You feel like you need to format and re-install just to clean up your system now. A dozen or so reboots, and kernel compilations later you decide the device might be defective. So you reboot and select your WinXP partition to verify that device is physically bad.
"Found New Hardware -- Would you like to install it?"
Well it's easy to use until something goes wrong. But if the registry gets corrupted or some strange hardware problem crops up there is no way to fix it.
Is it possible that you're so blinded by your hatred for Microsoft that you willingly accept the problems that Linux has as if they don't exist? And that you seek out every flaw, major or minor, with Windows and blow it up as big as possible so you can feel better about your decision to use Linux when you know full well it does have issues that are every bit as problematic?
Here is a paper you might be interested in reading.
If they're screwed up enough to charge for access to the isos, find a better distro.
Oh no! God forbid that a company would actually want to recooperate some of the money the spend on bandwidth and development!
There's nothing wrong with what they're doing. The ISO's can legally be mirrored by anyone who wants to mirror them. Making the ISO's initially available only to club members just provides them with a few extra dollars to pay the bills.
But I guess that's wrong. So tell me, what is this great job you have where you work without getting paid for no better reason than to help others?
Which is the paragon software for the linux side of things.
Is it reliable? And if so, how is it that some 3rd party company can make a simple little program that can read NTFS from Linux when a group of developers around the world haven't been able to do it?
I'm talking about actually converting the partition in-place from NTFS to FAT32
Ah... yeah I wouldn't even try something like that with data I cared about. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
I don't trust repartitioning in place either. Hard-drives are too cheap these days. I mean what does a program like Partition Magic cost? $70 or something? I bought a 120GB Western Digital 7200RPM IDE drive w/ 8MB of cache for $59 after rebate. (Rebate check arrived within 3 weeks.) Seems like a better investment to me.
Slashdot Mirror
I don't know man. I have no faith in hard-drives any more. I use to buy Quantum drives and I never had a single crash with any of them. I still have 2 Quantum drives from years past and they are perfect. Unfortunately Quantum was bought buy or merged with Maxtor. Huge mistake. In the last 2 years though I've had 3 Maxtor drives crash on me, and 2 IBM Deathstars die on me. The last time I sent my Deathstar in for RMA, after having read that the entire line of drives was prone to failure, I just sold the factory sealed replacement on eBay. (With full discolusre that I had already replaced the thing twice so the buyer should beware.)
Currently have I have 3 Western Digital drives (2 120GB and a 200GB) and I haven't had any problems with them yet. But they'll have to last at least 5 years to appease me.
CNet has a review for this proudct.
"The good: Extremely intuitive operation; robust design; long battery life; clean sound; on-the-fly playlist creation; voice recording; in-line remote.
The bad: Battery not replaceable; no display on the remote; no FM tuner or line-in recording; albums don't play in order."
Expect MS to bundle this into their dev studio to try to lock out VMWare and further reduce the ways to run Linux.
No - it can't be. Just the other day Microsoft was saying that it's bad to lock people into a single vendor.
The only way to test on multiple versions of IE is with multiple Windows installations.
Serious question - what about HTML validators that emulate various versions of browsers when you validate your work?
Obviously you're trolling for hate responses but I'll reply anyway with something valid.
For a couple of years I had thrown in the proverbial towel regarding browsers and used IE with the feeling that MS had "won". But a while back I revisted the idea of using an alternative browser and was pleasantly surprised with what I found in Mozilla Firebird. I find it aesthetically pleasing, it has built in popup blocking, tabbed browsing, mouse gestures (optional extention download), and a myriad of other features that IE doesn't have. And I haven't found any compatibility issues while viewing websites. So if you are seriously wanting an IE alternative, there are options for the open minded person.
Just my thoughts.
I'm not one of those people who'll put in a week's worth of extra effort to save myself an hour's worth of money.
Not a Linux user then I take it.
I found synaptic by doing a google search. The interface looks real promising. If it works as well as apt-get does in Debian then it will be a wonderful tool. Thanks for the tip.
So true! But for some reason I still use Linux over Windows. Glutton for punishment I guess ;-)
I use it too. There are a lot of benefits. But God forbid that someone should point out something that could be improved. Oh my.
I'll look around for apt-rpm and give it a try.
It wasn't in Add/Remove programs where you said. (And I'm using RH9)
Under System there are 3 options. Admin Tools, System Tools, and Printing Support. In Admin Tools there are 10 redhat-config-* packages and 1 authconfig-gtk package. It's not in System tools either, and obvioulsy not in Printing Support.
It might be in one of the other menus but I can find it faster by doing a search online and I'll get the latest version that way anyway.
anyone saying otherwise is either ignorant or deliberately obfuscating.
Says the Anonymouse Coward
Well it certianly COULD work out that badly under Linux and be a piece of cake under Windows but the opposite is true sometimes as well,
Absolutely. *Sometimes* it could work out just the opposite. (See my other posts about my USB FM Radio adapter.)
So I'll just agree with you right there and leave it at that. With just this left to say. I've never said Windows was perfect. I don't understand the attitude of so many of the other posters (not you). If a person indicates that Windows has anything good going for it, or that Linux could be improved in one way or another, everyone comes down on them. Sad, truly it is.
finding linux compatable hardware is EASY. it takes doing something that you don't want to do... Think and use your brain.
...
An elitist? A Zealot? Or are you just a jerk?
Why dont you actually try linux instead of making crap up.
Been tinkering with Linux since August, 1996. Try again sport.
I can find most anything hardware wise I want at a best buy or compusa that works great with linux and usually with 100% functionality.
Bah - I'll just copy and paste from another post. 3rd time
That was true for my USB FM Radio reciever. It worked under Linux no questions asked. Under Windows, it was a chore originally. But that was a single exception. Read on...
Video card - Getting my tripple-head Matrox Parhelia video card to work under Linux was a nightmare. And when I did get it to work, I learned that I had to use analog for all 3 monitors because the Linux driver didn't support digital mode. Major suck!
My network card - uneventful on both Windows and Linux. Same thing for my soundcard and CD-ROM reader.. They just work.
My Printer - use to be a hassle in Linux but CUPS has made it a snap. I would even argue that it's easier in Linux to get my printer working. However, there is some loss of options on the Linux side.
My scanner - Windows all the way. Major headache in Linux. And the functionality is greatly reduced in Linux.
My webcam - Windows again. It didn't work at all in Linux until fairly recently. And the functionality is so far reduced that it's not even worth having on my system in Linux.
My digital camera - Windows again. It just works. I have been able to get it mounted in Linux in the past by recompiling my kernel and adding additional modules. But even then it's not very user friendly. None of the programs I have tried can see the camera. I have to mount and unmount it manually. (I'm open for ideas for Digital Camera programs though.) Fortunately I don't take a lot of pictures so I just get my pictures when I'm in Windows.
My external Firewire hard-drives - Windows again. They don't work at all in Linux. After hours of screwing with the kernel, reading newsgroups, looking for help on help sites, and so on, I haven't been able to get them to mount. (And when asking for help with a Linux problem, you usually just get a response like RTFM - even after you have clearly demonstrated the extent to which you have gone to figure the problem out on your own.) I'm looking forward to the 2.6 kernel hoping it will resolve this problem.
Digital Video Camera - Forget about it in Linux. It's a firewire camera. Hoping the 2.6 kernel will have better firewire support.
My USB mouse - In Windows it works just fine. In Linux I had to change an option in my BIOS to get Linux to recognize it. No big deal, but I don't understand why Windows sees the mouse without changing a BIOS option and Linux can't? And now that Linux can see it, the extra buttons don't work. This is an acceptable loss though. But still goes to show that things could be improved.
CDRW - I'm leaning towards Windows on this one. The software I've used in Linux is akward but it does work, usually.
------
Let me guess - the problem isn't Linux. The problem is the hardware I'm using right? If it doesn't work well under Linux then it's not important, right?
Which piece of hardware gave you so much trouble?
I highly doubt you're looking for a real answer. Usually those "state an example" comments are nothing more than an attempt to have the last word at the parent's expense. But since you asked, I'll just copy and paste my response to another post because it applys here. (Make adjustments in the tone of the response since it was directed at another person and not you.)
That was true for my USB FM Radio reciever. It worked under Linux no questions asked. Under Windows, it was a chore originally. But that was a single exception. Read on...
Video card - Getting my tripple-head Matrox Parhelia video card to work under Linux was a nightmare. And when I did get it to work, I learned that I had to use analog for all 3 monitors because the Linux driver didn't support digital mode. Major suck!
My network card - uneventful on both Windows and Linux. Same thing for my soundcard and CD-ROM reader.. They just work.
My Printer - use to be a hassle in Linux but CUPS has made it a snap. I would even argue that it's easier in Linux to get my printer working. However, there is some loss of options on the Linux side.
My scanner - Windows all the way. Major headache in Linux. And the functionality is greatly reduced in Linux.
My webcam - Windows again. It didn't work at all in Linux until fairly recently. And the functionality is so far reduced that it's not even worth having on my system in Linux.
My digital camera - Windows again. It just works. I have been able to get it mounted in Linux in the past by recompiling my kernel and adding additional modules. But even then it's not very user friendly. None of the programs I have tried can see the camera. I have to mount and unmount it manually. (I'm open for ideas for Digital Camera programs though.) Fortunately I don't take a lot of pictures so I just get my pictures when I'm in Windows.
My external Firewire hard-drives - Windows again. They don't work at all in Linux. After hours of screwing with the kernel, reading newsgroups, looking for help on help sites, and so on, I haven't been able to get them to mount. (And when asking for help with a Linux problem, you usually just get a response like RTFM - even after you have clearly demonstrated the extent to which you have gone to figure the problem out on your own.) I'm looking forward to the 2.6 kernel hoping it will resolve this problem.
Digital Video Camera - Forget about it in Linux. It's a firewire camera. Hoping the 2.6 kernel will have better firewire support.
My USB mouse - In Windows it works just fine. In Linux I had to change an option in my BIOS to get Linux to recognize it. No big deal, but I don't understand why Windows sees the mouse without changing a BIOS option and Linux can't? And now that Linux can see it, the extra buttons don't work. This is an acceptable loss though. But still goes to show that things could be improved.
CDRW - I'm leaning towards Windows on this one. The software I've used in Linux is akward but it does work, usually.
Mileage varies, as the saying goes.
Yup.
I've found a lot of devices don't work well with Windows, or work only after extensive futzing with options and opaque configuration playing-around.
That was true for my USB FM Radio reciever. It worked under Linux no questions asked. Under Windows, it was a chore originally. But that was a single exception. Read on...
Video card - Getting my tripple-head Matrox Parhelia video card to work under Linux was a nightmare. And when I did get it to work, I learned that I had to use analog for all 3 monitors because the Linux driver didn't support digital mode. Major suck!
My network card - uneventful on both Windows and Linux. Same thing for my soundcard and CD-ROM reader.. They just work.
My Printer - use to be a hassle in Linux but CUPS has made it a snap. I would even argue that it's easier in Linux to get my printer working. However, there is some loss of options on the Linux side.
My scanner - Windows all the way. Major headache in Linux. And the functionality is greatly reduced in Linux.
My webcam - Windows again. It didn't work at all in Linux until fairly recently. And the functionality is so far reduced that it's not even worth having on my system in Linux.
My digital camera - Windows again. It just works. I have been able to get it mounted in Linux in the past by recompiling my kernel and adding additional modules. But even then it's not very user friendly. None of the programs I have tried can see the camera. I have to mount and unmount it manually. (I'm open for ideas for Digital Camera programs though.) Fortunately I don't take a lot of pictures so I just get my pictures when I'm in Windows.
My external Firewire hard-drives - Windows again. They don't work at all in Linux. After hours of screwing with the kernel, reading newsgroups, looking for help on help sites, and so on, I haven't been able to get them to mount. (And when asking for help with a Linux problem, you usually just get a response like RTFM - even after you have clearly demonstrated the extent to which you have gone to figure the problem out on your own.) I'm looking forward to the 2.6 kernel hoping it will resolve this problem.
Digital Video Camera - Forget about it in Linux. It's a firewire camera. Hoping the 2.6 kernel will have better firewire support.
My USB mouse - In Windows it works just fine. In Linux I had to change an option in my BIOS to get Linux to recognize it. No big deal, but I don't understand why Windows sees the mouse without changing a BIOS option and Linux can't? And now that Linux can see it, the extra buttons don't work. This is an acceptable loss though. But still goes to show that things could be improved.
CDRW - I'm leaning towards Windows on this one. The software I've used in Linux is akward but it does work, usually.
On visits to my dad's place (his computers have Windows) I have found that much of his hardware does not like the drivers (supplied in the box, labeled as appropriate for the versions of Windows on his computers) supplied with it.
I don't doubt that you would have problems with the wireless card, but I find it very unlikely that "much of his hardware" is problematic in Windows. Unless you're using Mac hardware on a Windows machine? Then it could be a problem I suppose.
Solution? (Not really a solution for him, but interesting anyhow.) Pop in Knoppix, and the wireless card works. On one of his laptops, the internal ethernet flakes out frequenly with Windows, is rock-solid under Knoppix.
My laptop works fine under XP, including the wireless card. Pop in a Knoppix CD and the external USB mouse doesn't work and it can't find the wireless card. Otherwise Knoppix is really cool. I use it frequently for fun.
Windows XP has it's issues as well.
... That's partly true. It is better, but it's still not where it could be. And it's not where it *would* be if it weren't for elitist zealots holding things up by proclaiming Linux perfection. Every time something new and great happens they come flying out of the wood works praising Linus and how great and wonderful everything is. But if you suggest something that isn't there yet, everyone dismisses it as unnecessary worthless bloat. "RTFM!", "Go play solitaire", "Grab the source code and fix it yourself", and so on are the general sentiments that are slowing down the progress.
... OK - that might be alright for me. But are you really going to recommend Debian to the average Windows convert? If Linux is going to achieve "World Domination", things have to be usable for the masses.
Oh, absolutely! I'm not insinuating that XP is the end all, be all in Operating Systems. I use Linux pretty much exclusively for my Desktop computing needs. But the difference between myself and *a lot* of Slashdot posters is that I recognize that things on the Linux side could be better.
You said - "what you talk about was true like five years ago"
I don't know about you, but I have better things to do with my time than resolving dependecy problems and downloading libraries. And I'm talking about last night, not 5 years ago.
I can guess the response. "Install Debian"
I get the same error. But it's not important enough to me to figure it out under Linux. But I do plan on checking it out on my XP laptop just to see how the store works.
I fear you a trolling...
If I were trolling, I would have posted as an Anonymous Coward.
DLL Hell and a no-name audio card with a auto-configured IRQ conflict will make bald men even balder, young women turn into Pug-faced hags, and kids turn inside out spilling their Speghetti-o's all over dad's new desk.
...... ......
Are you trying to be funny? Or are you just stupid?
Nothing you mentioned is valid. And even if it was, how is it any worse than buying hardware for Linux?
Research the product you want to buy to make sure it "works" with Linux. 2 or 3 weeks later when you find hardware that "works" (meaning Linux can see it, although 50% of the functionality is removed), you go out and buy it. You bring it home, plug it in. Nothing. You find out your kernel doesn't have support included for the hardware you bought. So you recompile the kernel. Reboot. Several hours go by of tinkering with config files and boot options. Then you spend another 2 or 3 hours on newsgroups and Linux help sites and find out that your kernel version doesn't have support for the product even though it claims to. So you get a patch. Recompile the kernel. Reboot. Kernel panic. Reboot again back to the old safe kernel. Fix the problem. Reboot. Kernel panic. Reboot. Fix the problem. Reboot. No kernel panic this time. Woohoo! modprobe ModuleName. Some obscure meaningless message. More research. More newsgroup searches. You find 150 people describing the exact same problem you are having. But unfortunatley no one seems to know the answer. You reboot again just for good measure hoping against hope it will magically fix the problem. It doesn't, of course. After a 30 hour marathon in front of the computer to get your device working, you fall over on the floor and pass out. 12 hours later you wake up feeling like death has sucked out your soul, but get back to work anyway. Another 8 or 10 hours goes by. By now you've downloaded 50MB worth of libraries, source code, drivers, scan tools, etc... and installed it on your system. God only knows where. You feel like you need to format and re-install just to clean up your system now. A dozen or so reboots, and kernel compilations later you decide the device might be defective. So you reboot and select your WinXP partition to verify that device is physically bad.
"Found New Hardware -- Would you like to install it?"
"Yes"
"Your hardware is now ready to use!"
Well it's easy to use until something goes wrong. But if the registry gets corrupted or some strange hardware problem crops up there is no way to fix it.
Is it possible that you're so blinded by your hatred for Microsoft that you willingly accept the problems that Linux has as if they don't exist? And that you seek out every flaw, major or minor, with Windows and blow it up as big as possible so you can feel better about your decision to use Linux when you know full well it does have issues that are every bit as problematic?
Here is a paper you might be interested in reading.
I guess this would be what they call a first post!
And that negative moderation is what "they" call karma burn.
The higher the number, the newer it is, or am I completely wrong about this?
Then why don't you just run Windows 2003?
Mandrake added spyware and adware to their releases
Says the anonymous coward....
If they're screwed up enough to charge for access to the isos, find a better distro.
Oh no! God forbid that a company would actually want to recooperate some of the money the spend on bandwidth and development!
There's nothing wrong with what they're doing. The ISO's can legally be mirrored by anyone who wants to mirror them. Making the ISO's initially available only to club members just provides them with a few extra dollars to pay the bills.
But I guess that's wrong. So tell me, what is this great job you have where you work without getting paid for no better reason than to help others?
Which is the paragon software for the linux side of things.
Is it reliable? And if so, how is it that some 3rd party company can make a simple little program that can read NTFS from Linux when a group of developers around the world haven't been able to do it?
I'm talking about actually converting the partition in-place from NTFS to FAT32
Ah... yeah I wouldn't even try something like that with data I cared about. Sounds like a disaster waiting to happen.
I don't trust repartitioning in place either. Hard-drives are too cheap these days. I mean what does a program like Partition Magic cost? $70 or something? I bought a 120GB Western Digital 7200RPM IDE drive w/ 8MB of cache for $59 after rebate. (Rebate check arrived within 3 weeks.) Seems like a better investment to me.