Linked by Iain Alexander on Thu 17th Apr 2003 07:28 UTC
Several days ago I wrote a rather scathing article about my utter dismay and disappoint with Mandrake 9.1 and by association, Linux as a whole. Since then I have had many many flames and equally as many agreeing emails (is there a simple opposite word for flame?) Since then I have been trying, really really trying to get my system working fully. But time and again I'm coming up against the same brick wall of (un)usability, computer esotericism and down right idiocy. 
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No, it takes me about two hours to get a box up and running on linux with minor tweaking and such for my personal environment because I am picky that I would go through on any machine no matter what OS.
The deal is that the installation of linux for me has been the easy part. It is the postinstallation that is a pain.
Go through the online update process for your distro and get the latest updates first. Just in case they did a kernel update before you get the third-part drivers and such.
Download and install Nvidia or ATI or ltmodem drivers (got to have these ahead of time of course or you are not going anywhere in modem dial-up land).
Install the msttfcorefonts.
For the my distro already has plugins and multimedia support crowd, you still need to update your plugins to the latest and greatest or there are flash sites that will kick you to the curb.
Mplayer and xine comes with your distro but even if you find the win32 codecs and put them on your box will your version of mplayer or xine that came with your distro use them? What libdvd stuff? Nope. It is a painful outside install for RH but at least once it is on it works.
Then if you want quickstart of OpenOffice you have to find that shell script that keeps that going if you want to give up the extra memory that sucks down. I don't mind as long as OpenOffice starts quicker.
Want something faster than Mozilla you have to go out and grab phoenix.
Got RH9 and want to be able to edit the menus in Gnome? That is an extra step for god's sake.
Thought about scripting this stuff and publishing it but what to script is dependant a lot on stuff you have agree first to licenses to get or even worse I do not have the range of hardware to test all the 3rdparty stuff.
Get the picture. I have been using linux for years. Up and going in 30 minutes? Nope not if you want a system that actually does something.
Linux is my preferred desktop. I am a unix professional though, a geek and a tinkerer. Is it for everyone. Hell no. Pick the best tool for what you want and let the snobs yell and scream all they want.