While I agree with you that there is an awful lot of software included in SuSE 6.1 (which I purchased), some points of frustration still set in.
* glibc 2.0 * enlightenment DR0.14 * Non-standard rpm names - not only cause problems finding the RPMs I wanted, but also in fulfilling dependancies, so when there were other packages I wanted to install I couldn't.
The thing is, Linux software moves on very quickly, and I have yet to find SuSE specific RPMs for most things that I use (GNOME, Enlightenment, Window Maker apps, etc.). Yes, I therefore turn to the source RPMS, but then they may be set up with RedHat directory structures in mind (which IMHO is also incorrect; they should be distro independant) and not work properly anyways. If I can't flexibly install new software on the system, then the system doesn't work for me.
So, after 3 weeks of frustration, I net installed RedHat 6.0, and have been happy ever since. Great install, great apps (ALL up to date) and after about 4 hours of setup (vs. 3 weeks and still never solving any of the issues) I have networking, ppp, printing and X all set up PERFECTLY out-of-the-box (or net, for that matter). AND, it didn't cost me a thin dime.
SO, please don't flame me, but I have to say that RH is still my favorite.
Leaving the IP blank didn't work. Of course I thought it would, and I did try it as a first step. But it would say that it was an illegal IP address and would put me back in the field for the IP. I didn't want to try something like 0.0.0.0. I just wanted to use some other tool.
Sure, there's a lot of software on the 5 disks, but not somethings that I wanted, like E DR0.15.5.
First off, what are you using to determine that the speaker is a US citizen? Isn't SuSE supported in German? Isn't Pacific Hi-Tech supported in Japanese? Is the speaker saying that his distro is supported in English, but the target of his snide comment speaks Martian, a non-supported language?
I just don't understand how you could take a JOKE that is showing the flaws in arguments like this and turn it into some form of anti-US statement. Unless you're just trolling. In which case, shut up you moron, you're mother blah blah blah...
What works much better? Most things that I liked about RedHat (in particular, netcfg and printtool type tools) are lacking in SuSE. Maybe the equivalents are in KDE, but I don't use it. What really works better?
Since I've already ranted about the problems that I had with SuSE 6.1, I'll just summarize them quickly here to let you know how unhappy I was with it. Some of these I forgot about in my earlier post.
1) RPMs are not named consistantly with RH RPMs. This seems to cause confusion for updates and dependancies. This is a major problem to me, as I couldn't just use most of the tools in RPM form that I previously downloaded and backed up. I now have to get SRPMs and --rebuild or --recompile. I don't really mind the extra time, but the name change seems gratuitous.
2) GNOME is not very well supported. Enlightenment was DR0.14 (yes, yes, I know that I could use another window manager, but I'm happy with E. Shouldn't I get a choice, at least?). Get with it, DR0.15 was out for quite a while before SuSE 6.1 shipped. It just seemed to me that the distro was VERY KDE-centric. In fact, when I tried not to install KDE (unselected those packages from the install process), it installed the KDE base anyways. Why? Also, GNOME is installed in/opt instead of the/usr filesystem somewhere (./bin,./local,./share, whatever!). This, by itself, is not a bad thing. BUT, there was some binary called "panel" in some/usr filesystem (can't remember just now) that preceded/opt in the stock $PATH that came by default, and was launched by gnome-session instead of the GNOME panel. What was even worse was that it appeared to be a demo of something (some X wrapper; not GTK, but maybe Qt or something... I'd have to look to be sure), and hung my box when I shutdown the window manager (WindowMaker at the time, since E was deficient) because WMaker didn't kill the app. It looked to me to be an coding example with no functionality, as the title bar simply said "Panel Test", and did not close for some reason. When the window manager went away, I think it usurped my box, since I couldn't go to a console or kill the X server with ctrl-alt-backspace. So I had to hard reset my box. Very unpleasant to me, and was all caused by a careless (IMHO) setup issue on SuSE's part.
3) Configuration of printer and network cards was clumsy at best. In fact, neither worked for me. Printer - should have used the universal print driver (for an Epson color stylus 740, or at least allowed me to install my UPD), since it was GS 5.10. The network configuration wouldn't let me choose a dynamic IP for my PPP dialup. Since both my ISP accounts are set up this way, I couldn't use YaST to configure my PPP dialup.
4) My monitor wasn't in the (painfully small) Monitors database for X. RH5.2 did have it, and it was great to setup. I had to futz with the GUI X configurator that SuSE developed, which took about two hours, as I didn't have the old configuration anymore; far, far too long for my taste, when RH5.2 allowed me to set up X in about 5 minutes. Granted, this is a small detail, but one reason I switched to SuSE was that it was supposed to be better about the small details.
5)YaST was not intuitive enough. Neither is linuxconf, but I thought YaST was supposed to be a major selling point for SuSE, and better than linuxconf.
6) The manual was almost useless to me. I found that I already knew everything that was generic to Linux, and the SuSE-specific stuff didn't go far enough. Or maybe SuSE just wasn't capable of what I would expect. I don't know, since I still am unable to figure some stuff out (like printing setup, dynamic IP setup, etc.).
So, while RH5.1, RH5.2 and Slackware (the only non-RedHat distro that I've used) weren't perfect, I found them much more palatable than SuSE is. And those are comparably old to me. Things should get better, not worse, when I upgrade to a "better" system.
Just my $0.02. I think that other, more ranting, post helped me clear my head... This one was only SLIGHTLY inflamatory!!
Ignoring all the hate flowing between the two of you, I'd like to say that I thought about RH6.0 pretty much the same way. I was standing in Best Buy (I know, I know), holding RH6.0 and SuSE 6.1 in my hands. RH was $74.99 and SuSE was $39.99. I thought, well, I don't need the RH support, so I should just buy the $40 version off the net, or better yet just go to CheapBytes, but then I don't get it _right now_.
So I bought SuSE. I installed SuSE. I now don't like SuSE. Since I don't use KDE, life pretty much sucks for my X environment. Sure it ships with Enlightenment. DR0.14. BLEACH! Sure I could install GNOME. Since SuSE was good enough to install it in/opt, panel conflicted with another binary "panel" that was higher up in the $PATH that comes by default, and the GNOME panel wasn't being used. BTW, the panel that was used was some sort of demo, and just hung my X Server when I exited Enlightenment before killing it. I hate having to hard reset. Thanks, SuSE!
Now came time to set up networking. I have to say that I prefer linuxconf (which sucks) to YaST (which sucks more). YaST navigation is even goofier and less intuitive than linuxconf; how do you back up from nested menus? If you enter it by hitting the right arrow, wouldn't you expect that you should use the left arrow? NOPE! Try hitting the escape key, THEN the left arrow. Cool. But anyway, since PPP configuration is buried in some menu in the networking section, I didn't even find it right away. Then, when trying to set up my dialin, there didn't seem to be a way to configure dynamic IP; when I try to leave the IP blank, it complains that it's an illegal option. Ok, one of the GREAT THINGS about SuSE is that it ships with a huge manual. Refer to the PPP config section. Any way to configure dynamic IP in there? Not detailed in the manual. Fine. I'll start installing some RedHat tools like netcfg; since this is all RPM based, should be easy, right?
Most, if not all, of the RPMs have different names from RH RPMs, so all of my dependancies are popping off. Gee, I love using the --nodeps --force flags, don't you? So, rather than do that, how about we fulfill all the dependancies? After 4 hours last night, I still have about 10 packages to download (SRC RPMs, by the way, since RH6.0 is glibc2.1 and SuSE isn't; not really upset about this, though, just different and not bad) and rebuild!
I've got so many RH RPMs on my SuSE system, that I might as well have waited the 4 days for shipping and bought RH6.0 from Cheapbytes. It would have saved me the equivalent amount of time spent trying to get SuSE to work the way that I wanted it to.
So, overall, I have to say that SuSE is just not my cup of tea. I'll get it all set up, and when my company buys RH6.0, I'll probably borrow the disks and install it at home, completely wasting the $39.99 that I spent in trying to save time & money. Don't make the same mistake, use RedHat if that's what you've used up til now. Or give Debian/Rawhide/Mandrake/Slackware/Pacific Hi-Tech or whatever other distribution a try. Or, if you don't mind losing GNOME and want to use KDE apps for all of your network stuff, then use SuSE. Thanks for the flexibility, SuSE!
As someone noted in a different thread to this discussion, you assume that the number of kernel developers remains static.
Also, you assume that all kernel development is done by "kernel developers". But don't some packages run as kernel modules (for example, the lmsensors package) and yet they are developed by people who are not improving the main Linux kernel? I would think that it might help if features such as this would be merged into the main Linux Kernel. Especially the features that lmsensors (hardware health monitoring) which would be so useful.
Also, Alan Cox seems to put out an awful lot of patches quickly (I guess that the -ac patches are actually put together by a group of people that Alan supervises or organizes). While Linus can't mandate that developers work faster, as these developers learn more about the kernel, and how it operates, they can work more efficiently and thus produce more code/features/whatever-measurement-unit-you-want.
It also crashed my Palm III immediately. I had to warm reset (hold up arrow for a couple of seconds while hitting reset and keep holding it for a second after) to clear the problem without losing my data. It also installed itself as "This appli" instead of Quikwrite. I have HackMaster with Eco Hack and a couple of other hacks, as well as PalmOS 3.0.2.
Anyways, no real harm done, except for wasted time! But you DON'T HAVE TO HARD RESET. Just delete the app with Launcher (or Launcher III). Hope this saves some people's data, if necessary. I know I was panicked.
I agree somewhat with what people have said here, in that it's not impossible to stay in one field for the rest of your life. But I disagree that your career has ANYTHING to do with the degree you received. As some people say, it's just a piece of paper. FAR more important than which degree you have is how well you learn. I think that it is much more important to learn how to learn something quickly, efficiently and effectively. Of course, you have to have a somewhat good foundation in the basics, but even Mathematics is not really a huge necessity.
If you're still reading this comment after that last sentence, let me clarify that. I think that you must not be afraid of Mathematics, and must be competant in algebra/trig, but that's about all you need for programming. I think much more necessary for general programming is a solid foundation in logic. Which I guess is a field of mathematics, but also philosophy.
Anyway, I think that mostly what you need to succeed as an IT professional is what you need to succeed in an office environment anyways: the right attitude. You need to be disciplined and open to new suggestions while remaining skeptical. At least that is my experience so far (in the two years that I've been in Tech Support and now Software Development).
This has been long, rambling, and far too general, but just wanted to give my opinion.
And I thought that one of the points of the GPL was to ensure that the original developer of software would get recognition. Isn't it a trade off of monetary gain for recognition?
And by-the-way, doesn't any company that enforces trademarks or copyrights demand recognition for product names or work performed? Who does NOT request recognition for work that they have performed? (Unless that work was illegal or immoral...)
Recognition is all that the developer gets (in most cases) from the greater Linux community for writing a GPL'd piece of software. While it is not generally the main incentive, it's still there.
What is the argument here? Demanding money AND recognition for software is more mature than demanding recognition? I don't think so. By what standard of maturity is this to be gauged by?
I don't agree with Stallman's statement that Linux should be called GNU/Linux (although I do so from time to time). I think that is taking things a bit too far. However, so is building a distribution that is 100% GNU free (in fact, I think that the latter is a sillier suggestion).
Anyway, I think that the two extremes of demanding recognition above what other people have contributed (calls for GNU/Linux) and calling the practice of requesting recognition for a job well done (what this article does) are equally wrong.
Perhaps I can suggest two things which would make people happier: 1) Give recognition to people's hard work where it is due, and 2) Don't demand proportionally greater amounts of recognition than other people who have contributed to the greater effort.
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While I agree with you that there is an awful lot of software included in SuSE 6.1 (which I purchased), some points of frustration still set in.
* glibc 2.0
* enlightenment DR0.14
* Non-standard rpm names - not only cause problems finding the RPMs I wanted, but also in fulfilling dependancies, so when there were other packages I wanted to install I couldn't.
The thing is, Linux software moves on very quickly, and I have yet to find SuSE specific RPMs for most things that I use (GNOME, Enlightenment, Window Maker apps, etc.). Yes, I therefore turn to the source RPMS, but then they may be set up with RedHat directory structures in mind (which IMHO is also incorrect; they should be distro independant) and not work properly anyways. If I can't flexibly install new software on the system, then the system doesn't work for me.
So, after 3 weeks of frustration, I net installed RedHat 6.0, and have been happy ever since. Great install, great apps (ALL up to date) and after about 4 hours of setup (vs. 3 weeks and still never solving any of the issues) I have networking, ppp, printing and X all set up PERFECTLY out-of-the-box (or net, for that matter). AND, it didn't cost me a thin dime.
SO, please don't flame me, but I have to say that RH is still my favorite.
Leaving the IP blank didn't work. Of course I thought it would, and I did try it as a first step. But it would say that it was an illegal IP address and would put me back in the field for the IP. I didn't want to try something like 0.0.0.0. I just wanted to use some other tool.
Sure, there's a lot of software on the 5 disks, but not somethings that I wanted, like E DR0.15.5.
First off, what are you using to determine that the speaker is a US citizen? Isn't SuSE supported in German? Isn't Pacific Hi-Tech supported in Japanese? Is the speaker saying that his distro is supported in English, but the target of his snide comment speaks Martian, a non-supported language?
I just don't understand how you could take a JOKE that is showing the flaws in arguments like this and turn it into some form of anti-US statement. Unless you're just trolling. In which case, shut up you moron, you're mother blah blah blah...
What works much better? Most things that I liked about RedHat (in particular, netcfg and printtool type tools) are lacking in SuSE. Maybe the equivalents are in KDE, but I don't use it. What really works better?
Since I've already ranted about the problems that I had with SuSE 6.1, I'll just summarize them quickly here to let you know how unhappy I was with it. Some of these I forgot about in my earlier post.
/opt instead of the /usr filesystem somewhere (./bin, ./local, ./share, whatever!). This, by itself, is not a bad thing. BUT, there was some binary called "panel" in some /usr filesystem (can't remember just now) that preceded /opt in the stock $PATH that came by default, and was launched by gnome-session instead of the GNOME panel. What was even worse was that it appeared to be a demo of something (some X wrapper; not GTK, but maybe Qt or something... I'd have to look to be sure), and hung my box when I shutdown the window manager (WindowMaker at the time, since E was deficient) because WMaker didn't kill the app. It looked to me to be an coding example with no functionality, as the title bar simply said "Panel Test", and did not close for some reason. When the window manager went away, I think it usurped my box, since I couldn't go to a console or kill the X server with ctrl-alt-backspace. So I had to hard reset my box. Very unpleasant to me, and was all caused by a careless (IMHO) setup issue on SuSE's part.
1) RPMs are not named consistantly with RH RPMs. This seems to cause confusion for updates and dependancies. This is a major problem to me, as I couldn't just use most of the tools in RPM form that I previously downloaded and backed up. I now have to get SRPMs and --rebuild or --recompile. I don't really mind the extra time, but the name change seems gratuitous.
2) GNOME is not very well supported. Enlightenment was DR0.14 (yes, yes, I know that I could use another window manager, but I'm happy with E. Shouldn't I get a choice, at least?). Get with it, DR0.15 was out for quite a while before SuSE 6.1 shipped. It just seemed to me that the distro was VERY KDE-centric. In fact, when I tried not to install KDE (unselected those packages from the install process), it installed the KDE base anyways. Why? Also, GNOME is installed in
3) Configuration of printer and network cards was clumsy at best. In fact, neither worked for me. Printer - should have used the universal print driver (for an Epson color stylus 740, or at least allowed me to install my UPD), since it was GS 5.10. The network configuration wouldn't let me choose a dynamic IP for my PPP dialup. Since both my ISP accounts are set up this way, I couldn't use YaST to configure my PPP dialup.
4) My monitor wasn't in the (painfully small) Monitors database for X. RH5.2 did have it, and it was great to setup. I had to futz with the GUI X configurator that SuSE developed, which took about two hours, as I didn't have the old configuration anymore; far, far too long for my taste, when RH5.2 allowed me to set up X in about 5 minutes. Granted, this is a small detail, but one reason I switched to SuSE was that it was supposed to be better about the small details.
5)YaST was not intuitive enough. Neither is linuxconf, but I thought YaST was supposed to be a major selling point for SuSE, and better than linuxconf.
6) The manual was almost useless to me. I found that I already knew everything that was generic to Linux, and the SuSE-specific stuff didn't go far enough. Or maybe SuSE just wasn't capable of what I would expect. I don't know, since I still am unable to figure some stuff out (like printing setup, dynamic IP setup, etc.).
So, while RH5.1, RH5.2 and Slackware (the only non-RedHat distro that I've used) weren't perfect, I found them much more palatable than SuSE is. And those are comparably old to me. Things should get better, not worse, when I upgrade to a "better" system.
Just my $0.02. I think that other, more ranting, post helped me clear my head... This one was only SLIGHTLY inflamatory!!
Ignoring all the hate flowing between the two of you, I'd like to say that I thought about RH6.0 pretty much the same way. I was standing in Best Buy (I know, I know), holding RH6.0 and SuSE 6.1 in my hands. RH was $74.99 and SuSE was $39.99. I thought, well, I don't need the RH support, so I should just buy the $40 version off the net, or better yet just go to CheapBytes, but then I don't get it _right now_.
/opt, panel conflicted with another binary "panel" that was higher up in the $PATH that comes by default, and the GNOME panel wasn't being used. BTW, the panel that was used was some sort of demo, and just hung my X Server when I exited Enlightenment before killing it. I hate having to hard reset. Thanks, SuSE!
So I bought SuSE. I installed SuSE. I now don't like SuSE. Since I don't use KDE, life pretty much sucks for my X environment. Sure it ships with Enlightenment. DR0.14. BLEACH! Sure I could install GNOME. Since SuSE was good enough to install it in
Now came time to set up networking. I have to say that I prefer linuxconf (which sucks) to YaST (which sucks more). YaST navigation is even goofier and less intuitive than linuxconf; how do you back up from nested menus? If you enter it by hitting the right arrow, wouldn't you expect that you should use the left arrow? NOPE! Try hitting the escape key, THEN the left arrow. Cool. But anyway, since PPP configuration is buried in some menu in the networking section, I didn't even find it right away. Then, when trying to set up my dialin, there didn't seem to be a way to configure dynamic IP; when I try to leave the IP blank, it complains that it's an illegal option. Ok, one of the GREAT THINGS about SuSE is that it ships with a huge manual. Refer to the PPP config section. Any way to configure dynamic IP in there? Not detailed in the manual. Fine. I'll start installing some RedHat tools like netcfg; since this is all RPM based, should be easy, right?
Most, if not all, of the RPMs have different names from RH RPMs, so all of my dependancies are popping off. Gee, I love using the --nodeps --force flags, don't you? So, rather than do that, how about we fulfill all the dependancies? After 4 hours last night, I still have about 10 packages to download (SRC RPMs, by the way, since RH6.0 is glibc2.1 and SuSE isn't; not really upset about this, though, just different and not bad) and rebuild!
I've got so many RH RPMs on my SuSE system, that I might as well have waited the 4 days for shipping and bought RH6.0 from Cheapbytes. It would have saved me the equivalent amount of time spent trying to get SuSE to work the way that I wanted it to.
So, overall, I have to say that SuSE is just not my cup of tea. I'll get it all set up, and when my company buys RH6.0, I'll probably borrow the disks and install it at home, completely wasting the $39.99 that I spent in trying to save time & money. Don't make the same mistake, use RedHat if that's what you've used up til now. Or give Debian/Rawhide/Mandrake/Slackware/Pacific Hi-Tech or whatever other distribution a try. Or, if you don't mind losing GNOME and want to use KDE apps for all of your network stuff, then use SuSE. Thanks for the flexibility, SuSE!
As someone noted in a different thread to this discussion, you assume that the number of kernel developers remains static.
Also, you assume that all kernel development is done by "kernel developers". But don't some packages run as kernel modules (for example, the lmsensors package) and yet they are developed by people who are not improving the main Linux kernel? I would think that it might help if features such as this would be merged into the main Linux Kernel. Especially the features that lmsensors (hardware health monitoring) which would be so useful.
Also, Alan Cox seems to put out an awful lot of patches quickly (I guess that the -ac patches are actually put together by a group of people that Alan supervises or organizes). While Linus can't mandate that developers work faster, as these developers learn more about the kernel, and how it operates, they can work more efficiently and thus produce more code/features/whatever-measurement-unit-you-want.
It also crashed my Palm III immediately. I had to warm reset (hold up arrow for a couple of seconds while hitting reset and keep holding it for a second after) to clear the problem without losing my data. It also installed itself as "This appli" instead of Quikwrite. I have HackMaster with Eco Hack and a couple of other hacks, as well as PalmOS 3.0.2.
Anyways, no real harm done, except for wasted time! But you DON'T HAVE TO HARD RESET. Just delete the app with Launcher (or Launcher III). Hope this saves some people's data, if necessary. I know I was panicked.
I agree somewhat with what people have said here, in that it's not impossible to stay in one field for the rest of your life. But I disagree that your career has ANYTHING to do with the degree you received. As some people say, it's just a piece of paper. FAR more important than which degree you have is how well you learn. I think that it is much more important to learn how to learn something quickly, efficiently and effectively. Of course, you have to have a somewhat good foundation in the basics, but even Mathematics is not really a huge necessity.
If you're still reading this comment after that last sentence, let me clarify that. I think that you must not be afraid of Mathematics, and must be competant in algebra/trig, but that's about all you need for programming. I think much more necessary for general programming is a solid foundation in logic. Which I guess is a field of mathematics, but also philosophy.
Anyway, I think that mostly what you need to succeed as an IT professional is what you need to succeed in an office environment anyways: the right attitude. You need to be disciplined and open to new suggestions while remaining skeptical. At least that is my experience so far (in the two years that I've been in Tech Support and now Software Development).
This has been long, rambling, and far too general, but just wanted to give my opinion.
And I thought that one of the points of the GPL was to ensure that the original developer of software would get recognition. Isn't it a trade off of monetary gain for recognition?
And by-the-way, doesn't any company that enforces trademarks or copyrights demand recognition for product names or work performed? Who does NOT request recognition for work that they have performed? (Unless that work was illegal or immoral...)
Recognition is all that the developer gets (in most cases) from the greater Linux community for writing a GPL'd piece of software. While it is not generally the main incentive, it's still there.
What is the argument here? Demanding money AND recognition for software is more mature than demanding recognition? I don't think so. By what standard of maturity is this to be gauged by?
I don't agree with Stallman's statement that Linux should be called GNU/Linux (although I do so from time to time). I think that is taking things a bit too far. However, so is building a distribution that is 100% GNU free (in fact, I think that the latter is a sillier suggestion).
Anyway, I think that the two extremes of demanding recognition above what other people have contributed (calls for GNU/Linux) and calling the practice of requesting recognition for a job well done (what this article does) are equally wrong.
Perhaps I can suggest two things which would make people happier: 1) Give recognition to people's hard work where it is due, and 2) Don't demand proportionally greater amounts of recognition than other people who have contributed to the greater effort.