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.
Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
NOTE: To view screenshots of the issues discussed in this article, please check here: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
My last article was written shortly after I’d spent a day and a half pulling my hair out trying to get Mandrake to work satisfactorily, it was written undeniably in the heat of the moment and right on the cusp of me removing Mandrake’s EXT2 partition and never touching any form of Linux again. However against my better judgment I decided to leave it installed – after all I’m determined that this will NOT beat me. (I actually did nuke the partition and reinstall it)
Hardware Configuration
I find this the single hardest thing to track down and fix. As I
mentioned in the last article. I was disappointed that Mandrake didn’t
want to let me use my USB ISDN Adapter. It seems to correctly identify
it in USBView but there is no means to select it in the Mandrake
internet config program, using either basic or expert options.
I’m sure there is a config file somewhere I could edit but a few
problems arise from that theory.
1 – I don’t know where that config file might be or what it’s called
2 – I wouldn’t know what to edit or what to change anything to
3 – I have no idea how to identify the usb port it’s connected to (In
windows this is USB port 3)
I also couldn’t get Bluetooth working with Mandrake – so no Personal
Network and no syncing with my phone- even if I knew how to do that in
Linux. But one of the comments I received after the last article was
from someone who claimed that it was supported in Mandrake 9.1. as he’d
personally put it in there. Apparently the module is called
Bluez. So I looked, and I looked and I looked but nothing comes up
anywhere when I do a search for “Bluez”. But running “lsmod” shows a
module called bluez as present (incidentally why can I only lsmod as
root?)
But I can’t find any documentation on my computer about Bluez, nor
anything on the mandrake site, nor indeed anything anywhere that tells
me how to use or configure it. So it’s just sitting there on the
computer, maybe doing something maybe not, I can’t tell. With he
best will in the world, how on earth am I (or anyone else) going to know
that Bluez is the Bluetooth module? If it was called bluetooth (or
contained the word bluetooth in it somewhere) it would be easy to hazard
a guess as to it’s function, but the only way to know what Bluez is/does
it by someone telling you! Surely there has to be a better way than
that?
As someone else pointed out, perhaps I should have visited the Mandrake
site PRIOR to installing it and finding out if my hardware was
supported. A very good point I thought, so, belatedly I did return to
the Mandrake site to check their hardware compatability list. It err…
doesn’t seem to work very well, or was it just me? Typing in
“Eicon” (for my USB Terminal Adapter)… nothing comes back.. Type in
USB ISDN nothing comes back…. Type in Webcam Go, nothing comes back…
finally in sheer desperation I enter “ISDN” to which I get about 6
entries back all with showing the “not compatible with Mandrake” icon.
Not a good sign. Tried typing in Bluetooth…. nothing… Bluez,
nothing. Maybe I just went on a day it was down or not working
properly, but even a couple of days later was still not getting
anything back. Surely Mandrake have tested their OS with lots of
hardware, but perhaps not my specific bits, but surely other Mandrake
users have tried them.. Looking through the newsgroups and archive
there are loads of people using a similar kit as me and running Mandrake
(and having similar problems). Ok, next stop: the Eicon site.. Oh
dear, the USB TA is not shown to be supported by Linux. Not good news,
but I know that it DOES work, as I had it working correctly in Suse 8.0.
Can’t actually remember how I configured it though, other than to use
the Hisax driver and connect via USB… Suse seemed to do the rest!
Next up, my graphics card (Matrox G550). Seemingly, something is wrong
somewhere as whenever I try to run any OpenGL thing, the computer locks up completely.
Tried with Unreal Tournament, several OpenGL games and some XMMS
visualations–all do the same. So I pop over to the Matrox site and download
their latest Linux drivers and their latest incarnation of Powerdesk,
their graphics card tweaking utility. Apparently, it will allow me to
stretch my screen (good) as well as adjust the screen resolution easily
and refresh rate (excellent). Download the tgz files, extract
them, examine and digest the install instructions, seems easy
enough. So, I open up a terminal and run the install.sh file as instructed.
But oh dear, once again I’m thwarted in my attempts to get anything
working.
Apparently the latest drivers aren’t compatible with this latest
version of Xfree86. (Luckily I know what Xfree86 is). But the drivers
are dated last month, so in my mind, that means they’re fairly new. So
why are they incompatible? Perhaps these drivers are already installed –
it’s definitely using some kind of Matrox driver! So I decide to skip
that and try and install the Powerdesk tools by double clicking the
rpm and going through the installer process. It works. Fantastic,
my first proper install of any application ever. (Well, it doesn’t throw up
any errors!) But there’s a problem. I don’t know where the program has
been installed or what it’s called. How on earth do I find out? After
lots of searching for possible names I take a guess that it’s called the
same as the rpm, and it is. I su into the shell (as it asks me to do)
and run it again. Click Ok to continue at the pop up window and “poof”,
it logs out of KDE and returns me to the log in screen (I’m guessing X
restarts as the screen blanks for a long time). Try as I might it won’t
do anything else but this every time. Bummer! but not to worry I just
have to remember not to run anything OpenGL and I can live with it not
working 100% for now.
Next up Xine. Oh dear oh dear, where do I start?:
It was always my understanding that Xine enabled me to play movies,
specifically unencrypted DVDs (or encrypted ones with the DeCSS plugin).
So I’m guessing that Mandrake (or any distro) doesn’t come with DeCSS
installed but I was curious to see what happens anyway, so I started it
up and inserted a disc. For starters no autoplay, but that’s fair
enough as Linux doesn’t really seem to manage that yet and I felt I was
being a little optimistic expecting that. However try as I might I just
can’t find the “play DVD” button. There’s a play VCD button, A DVB
button and one marked CD. Obviously I know what that VCD button is for
(Video CD) and CD is for compact disc obviously, but not idea what DVB
is for. Hovering over it with the mouse and the tooltip reveals it’s
for Digital TV input – neat! If only I had any of those on hand to test
it with!
Xine is the epitome of a bad interface design. Not only does it have dark grey text/icons
on a black/dark grey background (a visual nightmare), but lots of what
look like working buttons but confusingly aren’t. It’s cluttered with
tiny little meaningless icons that tell you next to nothing, even with
mouseover tooltips. Just what the hell is an MRL browser for? What is an
MRL and why would I need it to browse it? Clicking it brings up a file
explorer type window, nowhere does it give even a hint at DVD
playback. and after much trial and error I find that I can only play
.vob files one at a time (or sequentially by creating a playlist) and
even then I can’t just type in the path to file, but have to clik up
from my home to directory to the root and back down again to
/mnt/cdrom! I thought the DVD element may be missing because I hadn’t
installed DeCSS and it hadn’t enabled the right bit of Xine. So I
rebooted into Windows (still no Internet access for me in Mandrake)
popped over to a site that has the plugin, downloaded it, rebooted
back into Mandrake and tried to install it. Oops! can’t just download
that plugin on it’s own, I have to download the other 8 or so library
files as well. So back I go to Windows and back onto the Internet where
I decide to download everything on offer on that site. I’m sure
that’s overkill as there is probably just one of two packages I need,
but I don’t know which ones they might be, so I downloaded the lot (all
12mb of them) just in case I needed them it would saving me rebooting
every five minutes. Back into Mandrake and finally get Decss and the
dependencies installed. (note: this is now 2 things I’ve managed to
install: mandrake is already allowing me to do more than any other
distro thus far) Fine, now to retry Xine, but strangely it’s the
same. I load a random .vob file…. Nothing happens, no error, no
playback, nothing. (previously when I’d tried this without the DeCss
plugin it complained about not being able to play it). Tried another
disc, same thing, Tried loading the main menu, great it works… only I
can’t navigate around with the navigator nor just click on the screen
element as I do in any windows DVD players. So for all the fantastic
skill of the coders it’s still useless to me as far as I’m
concerned, as I can’t play DVDs, but due such having such a
dreadful inept and annoying interface I almost feel that it’s a blessing
in disguise. (But I would like to point out that I think the work been
done to reverse engineer DVD encryption, navigation and playback is
truly stunning. I tip my hat to all concerned). At some point
I’ll download videoLan and try that, at least that had a simple
interface and easily allowed the playback of DVD discs. (Well, it did in
Windows anyway)
Installing from Source
After the resounding success of installing from RPM in Mandrake,
I thought I might be lucky installing from source (tar.gz file, as
opposed to a srpm in this case). I download gocr, to try my luck with
optical character recognition. Xsane works brilliantly for scanning
already so I hoped GOCR would be the perfect compliment. Downloaded it
from sourceforge unzipped/untarred it and followed the instructions, which were
(after untarring) “2. Change to gocr directory and run make.
cd gocr[version]; make install
That’s it.” if only that were true!
When I installed Mandrake (using all 3 discs this time unlike last
time) I didn’t check the “development” tree in the applications. My
logic was thus: I am not going to be doing any programming in Linux
(would do if I could program c or c++) the most I’ll be doing
programming wise will be html, php, sql any maybe a modicum of Python. I (wrongly)
assumed that the development tree would be for coders developing linux
applications and didn’t make the assumption that it was in fact
“virtually compulsory” in order to install source code. But not to
worry, I just installed GCC (and libraries) it from the original
Mandrake discs and reran the installer. Sadly only to be met with
another error message.
I’ve never managed to install anything from source ever, regardless of
distro. I’ve always encountered spuriously obscure errors like this. Not
being a C coder I have no idea what they means, and therefore no way to
know how easy is they are to fix or resolve: Is it my fault they won’t
install or is it a fault with source code or have I downloaded an
incorrect version?
Program installation is one of the THE most annoying things in Linux.
When it’s not dependency hell from rpms, it’s the necessity to download
15 different library files, or just getting an install error message
that I can’t understand. Sure, it might be much easier with Xandros/Lindows/Debian/Gentoo etc (if I could
access the internet of course) but surely Linux is mature enough that
some bright coder could build an installer framework for Linux, so
regular people needn’t have to compile source? There are dozens for
Windows and I’m sure as many for Mac (Nullsoft, Vise, Installshield
and Microsoft leap to mind for Windows)
“ah!” I hear you all exclaim.
“but haven’t you come across that ‘missing dll’ hell in Windows
often enough?” you ask?
err… well no actually, not really! I can think of no more than about
two or three occasions when (back in 1998) I was running windows
98 and downloaded a VB based package that needed VB5 (or VB6) runtime
files. Mostly when that happens now though, the author repackages the
.exe with runtime files included or gives a link to download them from
Microsoft – (certainly that’s a bit of a pain, but simplicity
itself to install by anyone: download file, double click .exe… click
“next” a couple of time and that’s it, done. Then run desired
application!)
Neither of these issues is the specific fault of Mandrake or the GOCR
developer(s) but they’re not helped by them either. Perhaps I’m just not
thinking like “a geek” enough to use Linux effectively and get it
working properly. But I keep thinking that it shouldn’t be this
complicated. I’ve had to re-install MacOS a couple of times in the past,
as well as build literally dozens of Windows machine from scratch and
it’s not this complicated (Windows certainly wasn’t brilliant, all that
rebooting you had to do with win9x was ludicrous – but at least it is
much better now in 2000/XP) Perhaps it’s just that every other
operating system is geared towards “real” people whereas Linux isn’t.
Installing anything on Macs, Amigas, RiscOS, Beos and even Windows is
simple. With Linux it’s complex, slow, tedious and immensely
frustrating, especially when it doesn’t install (as it is in Windows
when things don’t/won’t install) – but it’s an exception in Windows, not
the norm (In my experience anyway)
Too much choice
Obviously, choice is a good thing; no one really disputes that. But too
much choice always runs the risk of being overly confusing, and
contributing to many people overlooking the good and using the bad, or
at least using the not so good. Mandrake comes with far far too much
duplication in applications that just breeds confusion (and frustration)
it needs a lot more rationalization of the apps it installs by default.
Why are there three basic text editors installed with KDE? I’m sure if
I’d installed Gnome there would be even more? If just one was installed by
default, with the others being left on the CD or downloadable from the
web, knowledgeable, power users could go ahead and get them if needed.
But as it is, its’ just confusing, to my eye, they all look and perform
about the same anyway, I mostly use them as a basic text editor, or for
opening up readme files. (as I’m sure most people will do with them)
I’ve also got what initially appears to be four different image viewers,
Is there a reason for them all? Why not just have one good image/camera application rather than 3 or 4 that are similar – I don’t have a digital camera, so have no idea why I would need any one over another. I’ve got two competing Audio ripping tools installed, Grip andKaudioCenter, two sound and volume mixers, the badly named Aumix and
Kmix, several cd players: Xmms, KSCD, Noatun, Xine and Kaboodle, two
multimedia audio player: Kaboodle and Noatun. There’s three word
processors, OpenOffice Writer, Kword and Abiword. Two ICQ clients, two
ftp clients, three web editors (Mozilla, Quanta and Bluefish, two
scanning programs: (Xsane and Kooka), three image viewers, Two KDE
system monitoring tools, two version of Ghostview, several email
clients, two slideshow, spreadsheet and flowcharting programs and
a myriad of terminal tools and I only installed KDE I didn’t install
Gnome, goodness knows how many other duplicate programs I would have got
had I installed that as well?.
Don’t get me wrong! There’s nothing wrong with these programs; they are
all fine in themselves but there’s no need for them all to be installed
by default for every user, when just one, the “best one” would suffice.
I wonder how many CDs Mandrake would ship on if they supplied just the
best or most common applications needed by most people? Not to mention
how much money they would save on packaging, testing and configuring the
apps. Let alone how much less confusing Linux would be.
There is so much about Linux to adore. KDE and most of the KDE
applications are brilliant, Koffice is truly wonderful, (I’m writing
this in Kword and it’s genuinely superb). I can burn CDs effortlessly
with K3d, Scan easily and quickly with Xsane, quickly get to what I want
with Konqueror, manage my diary, address book and sync with exchange
using the wonderful Evolution (Kmail is pretty damn good too). But the
wonderful and brilliant applications of Mandrake-Linux (and Linux in
general) are hugely overshadowed by the sheer difficulty in getting the
system working, using it day-to-day and the sheer and needless
complexity of some of the basic operations and the sheer amount of
redundant (i.e. duplicate) applications.
Footnote & Resume
Many of the comments I received last time commented that I didn’t give
much detail about myself and level of ability, so in an attempt to
rectify the situation I will conclude with a brief resume of my computer
experience.
My first computer experience was my next door neighbors Atari VCS
(can’t remember the model version, but pre 2600, the one with the wood
effect paneling), from then on I was hooked. My Dad bought a ZX81 for
£99 (mail order) in 1981 (when I was 10) and this was my first
experience with personal computing. It grew from there to a ZX Spectrum,
(AKA Thompson/Timex I believe?) Dragon 32 (my dad’s computer
actually), Commodore Plus 4 (sadly), Commodore 64 and then to the
(godlike) Amiga and BBC/Acorns at school. Spend most of my time in
Secondary school working in a computer shop selling home and business
machine (at that time that was AT compatible Amstrad 1512s 1640s and
then 8086s and Amstrad PCWs, Back in the days when 4 color monitors and
high density 5.25″ floppies were a BIG deal!)
Went to university with my Trusty 286 in tow, after taking it to bits
and “improving” it several times. I finally “improved it” a bit too much
🙂 and ditched it in 1995 for Pentium 90 that was the dog’s bollocks of
processors then and which I built myself. Moved from Win3.11 to Win95
(via OS/2 briefly). At University worked extensively on Macs (OS7), HP
Workstations, (HP/UK) and Sun boxes (Solaris). Then left Uni and started
working in IT as a web developer/graphic designer. (Primarily
developing on Sun boxes running Apache/Perl and when I installed Linux
(Red Hat 5) for the first time) 7 years down the line from
University I’m a freelance web developer/graphic designer/System
Admin/network kind of person, who also dabbles in a bit of journalism
now and again (not always IT-related).
I mostly (though not exclusively) develop for Windows web platforms
nowadays: .NET/ traditional asp, SQL server/ MySQL, a little PHP and the
odd bit of Python and Rebol (www.rebol.com) – thankfully no more
Perl…ever!!!
I’m currently using a self-built computer:
AMD Athlon XP 2400+,
MSI motherboard, with USB2 and Bluetooth (onboard),
60gb HD + 30Gb (slave),
1GB ram,
Matrox g550 Graphics card,
DVD+RW drive
Real Magic Hollywood+ Decoder card
USB ISDN TA (EIcon Diva)
PQI USB 6 in 1 (removable) Media reader/writer (for writing Mp3s to my
PDA and mp3 player)
Wacom Graphics Table (A4 size) – Serial
all running in rather nice Orange colored “i-Tee” PC case.
this guy is a fake.
he claims that by default Mandrake 9.1 installed OpenOffice, Koffice and Abiword, yet Abiword does not come with the Mandrake CDs, you can only get Mandrake RPMs from a contrib source which has to be configured manualy.
it could not have been installed by default, he is either lying about Abiword being installed or lying about being a clueless idiot.
Why do people insist on getting rid of the command line to make an OS easier to use??? Only morons who haven’t used a computer in industry always suggest doing so. Otherwise, they would realize that having everything configurable via the command line allows you to script everything, making things both easier and more automated for the end user. Do I expect regular Joe’s to write a script to automate things??? NO!!! But I do expect engineers to study business flow and write scripts to automate standard procedures, leaving end users only work that requires thinking.
Its wierd reading articles about all the problems people have. I switched to Linux 7 months ago and I have had no problems at all. Everything installed correctly and all my apps work perfectly. The only thing I did different than some I guess is I looked to make sure that my hardware was supported before building my new PC. Sure learning a new OS was a challenge, but no more than what Windows was when I was using that. I am currently running RH8, but have Mandrake 9.1 coming in the mail (and cannot wait). BTW, I knew nothing about Linux before 7 months ago…
So many of you don’t get it. The vast majority of desktop computer users are not computer geeks and do not want to be computer geeks. They just want to use the computer for productive non-geek tasks.
When Linux folks say Linux is ready for the desktop, it doesn’t wash. The desktop of a computer geek? Sure. The typical user, no. When you denigrate people who try desktop Linux, accuse them of not being geeky enough, the point is proven.
Oh well, it’s time to run down the block and manually configure the telephone switch so I can order a pizza.
jgitz said:
“So many of you don’t get it. The vast majority of desktop computer users are not computer geeks and do not want to be computer geeks. They just want to use the computer for productive non-geek tasks.”
The vast majority can’t/won’t install winblows XP 2000 etc. and have it loaded on their brand new Ultra-fast-turbo-super xxx Ghz computer by “experts”. Then they use to read the aol email and play solitare. Non of my clients who have Linux in their networks have to use Linux, they sit in front of a Windows/Linux workstation and click on icons to start programs and that is what a “user” should do, not write pages of rant about how difficult it is to load the OS.
In the browser of your choice (Internet Explorer, I’m sure), go to
http://www.google.com
In the Search For box, type
Linux Bluetooth Bluez documentation
This was just the first thing that occurred to me to search for when I read your tale of woe. And the first result that is returned is to the Bluez location on Sourceforge, with clear links to a FAQ and several areas of documentation.
Was this not there when you had your unpleasant experience a few days ago?
I’m certainly no Linux guru, but I’ve never found it hard to find help when I got stuck. And if you have to use some device that can’t be supported under Linux, your choices seem clear: either buy a new, equivalent device that is supported (which starts to look cheap after several hours of head-banging), write drivers for it to work with Linux (even if you have the needed programming skills, you’ll probably find that you can’t get the specs you need, which is likely why it isn’t already supported), or keep hating Windows while you’re using it.
Linux may just not be for you.
<rant> I’m fed up to here (appropriate gesture) with people who write that they’re not newbies because they’ve “worked with computers” (whatever that means) for twenty years, and think Linux is too hard. I suspect that these people started as the best DOS or Apple ][ user in the office, and moved into a more formal support role, without ever having had the opportunity to work with any “real” computers: mainframes, VAX, AS400, anything running UNIX, etc. Then, because they’ve been able to survive, they assume they have a solid knowledge base, and that they know everything they need to know. Here’s a flash: if you’ve been an adult for twenty years, it’s a lot harder to learn new stuff than it used to be, and you’re much more reluctant to put forth the effort, and a lot of what you already know won’t directly apply to a new environment. Get over it. Actively trying to learn new stuff earns you a lot more points with the community than whining about how hard it all is. I was over 40 when I got my first (DOS) computer twenty years ago, and it was a real struggle. And when I discovered Linux, it was (and still is) another real struggle, but it was (and is) also very liberating and exciting.</rant>
On the other hand, you get points for making the effort. Believe me, it gets easier; actually it doesn’t, but it stays hard on a deeper level, if you’re open to learning new things. If you are, keep on keeping on; if not, well, that’s exactly what Microsoft is counting on.
Best.
I’m a long time linux user and a gentoo buff but I have to agree with the author on this one. Like others I want to see linux keep the flexability but some things really need to change.
Who needs 3 of everything on a basic install? It’s annoying. Granted the first thing I do on a new install is use KDE’s menu editor and start striping the crap out but it really shouldn’t be there to begin with. 1 ftp client, 1 email app, 1 browser, 1 icr client and 1 icq/IM client is enough for a BASIC install. Getting rid of the excess would be a first good step for the “big” distro’s.
As for the installer issues AMEN! Geez! But the good news is there are efforts under way for create a generic linux app installer. Hopefully we’ll see something from those efforts within the next year. Then we can only hope that distros and developers pick them up and start using those installers.
I think the linux community has come together a great deal in the last 2 years and I can only hope it continues. We need to pull it together a bit tighter I believe. After all do we really need someone to start another ftp client project? I’m hoping more developers JOIN projects and share their ideas with that project rather than starting yet another app that there are a 100 others for that do the same thing. Where would we be if a 1000 setiathome projects were out there all working separately with different clients contributing results to different groups? Doesn’t working together accomplish more than working seperate? I’ll answer that for you, YES!
It sickens me to see yet another project started for something that already has a 1000 apps that all to the same thing already. It’s just a waste of time and development effort.
The fact that the issues shared by the author haven’t been addressed yet are a DIRECT result of the lack of focus I outlined above.
Companies like Redhat aren’t helping matters any either. Let’s see there’s already a certification effort out there (LPI) but how about creating our own and diluting both certifications so they mean less to people! Or geez 4 companies are coming together to help unify linux (UnitedLinux) and come to common ground let’s ignore that too! Or hey there’s a effort to help with dependancy issues (apt-get and debs and portage and ebuilds) let’s stick it out with rpm and dependancy hell! RH resists any and all efforts to unify the community. I’m sure in the future if these installer projects really get going and produce some awesome products that are an ISV’s wet dream RH will likely say “hey let’s start our OWN installer that’s completely incompatible with current projects!”. Or how about their most recent effort to corrupt KDE/QT and fork it and break KDE apps by altering the core libraries for just a theme? It’s it’s just a theme as everyone that’s pro-bluecurve likes to tell me why are their 100s of themes at kde-look.org none of which alter the core libraries? Can you say RH=M$? I thought you could.
Anyway I’m sure many of the problems the author speaks of will be address in the next 12 to 18 months with the current rate of the desktop push. Watch for it!
Robert
Maybe you should try a different distribution ?
The bottom line is that while Linux has made it to the Desktop, it is nowhere near fully matured yet and for the most part, it’s still a “hobbyist OS” on the desktop.
I come from a very similar background to the author – the whole zx81/spectrum route at an early age, commodore 64 etc. etc.
I would advise that Linux be used where it works best – as an office desktop or a server, unless the authour wants to really get to grips with Linux and get under the hood, so to speak.
I love tinkering with Linux and use it a good 40% of the time. It’s my firewall, backup, webserver, mp3 server and divx/dvd player, all spanned across several machines in several locations.
My primary work OS is windows – working in a multimedia/web design environment, I require numerous applications that are not available under Linux.
Iain – I recommend you try a few other distributions in your spare time, or alternatively, try using linux for other uses.
As I said – Linux on the desktop is in it’s infancy, so you can’t expect miricles from it.
For every unsuccessful user experience, there’s a successful one.
I’m a long time linux user and a gentoo buff but I have to agree with the author on this one. Like others I want to see linux keep the flexability but some things really need to change.
Who needs 3 of everything on a basic install? It’s annoying. Granted the first thing I do on a new install is use KDE’s menu editor and start striping the crap out but it really shouldn’t be there to begin with. 1 ftp client, 1 email app, 1 browser, 1 icr client and 1 icq/IM client is enough for a BASIC install. Getting rid of the excess would be a first good step for the “big” distro’s.
As for the installer issues AMEN! Geez! But the good news is there are efforts under way for create a generic linux app installer. Hopefully we’ll see something from those efforts within the next year. Then we can only hope that distros and developers pick them up and start using those installers.
I think the linux community has come together a great deal in the last 2 years and I can only hope it continues. We need to pull it together a bit tighter I believe. After all do we really need someone to start another ftp client project? I’m hoping more developers JOIN projects and share their ideas with that project rather than starting yet another app that there are a 100 others for that do the same thing. Where would we be if a 1000 setiathome projects were out there all working separately with different clients contributing results to different groups? Doesn’t working together accomplish more than working seperate? I’ll answer that for you, YES!
It sickens me to see yet another project started for something that already has a 1000 apps that all to the same thing already. It’s just a waste of time and development effort.
The fact that the issues shared by the author haven’t been addressed yet are a DIRECT result of the lack of focus I outlined above.
Companies like Redhat aren’t helping matters any either. Let’s see there’s already a certification effort out there (LPI) but how about creating our own and diluting both certifications so they mean less to people! Or geez 4 companies are coming together to help unify linux (UnitedLinux) and come to common ground let’s ignore that too! Or hey there’s a effort to help with dependancy issues (apt-get and debs and portage and ebuilds) let’s stick it out with rpm and dependancy hell! RH resists any and all efforts to unify the community. I’m sure in the future if these installer projects really get going and produce some awesome products that are an ISV’s wet dream RH will likely say “hey let’s start our OWN installer that’s completely incompatible with current projects!”. Or how about their most recent effort to corrupt KDE/QT and fork it and break KDE apps by altering the core libraries for just a theme? It’s it’s just a theme as everyone that’s pro-bluecurve likes to tell me why are their 100s of themes at kde-look.org none of which alter the core libraries? Can you say RH=M$? I thought you could.
Anyway I’m sure many of the problems the author speaks of will be address in the next 12 to 18 months with the current rate of the desktop push. Watch for it!
Robert
to take them in order:
you can’t use your USB ISDN adapter because, due to the crappiness of the hardware and the complete intransigence of the hardware manufacturers, it’s basically impossible to support these horrible bits of crap with open source drivers. The free edition of Mandrake doesn’t ship anything that isn’t open source. The paid-for edition may well have drivers for your adapter, otherwise you’ll have to find them on the manufacturer’s site.
XFree86 4.3 came out a couple of weeks before Mandrake 9.1 was released (Cooker had been on CVS snapshots of it for quite a while).
yes, Xine’s interface is hideous. So don’t use it! Use sinek. or kxine. or gxine. or mplayer. Or ogle (for DVDs). As you said, choice is good.
Of course you’re going to get horribly frustrated trying to install Mandrake packages by booting back and forth to Windows, because that’s NOT HOW IT’S DESIGNED TO BE USED. You’d get very frustrated driving five hundred miles in first gear, for the same reason…that’s not how a car’s designed to be used. So that whole rant is a bit misplaced. It’s just a corollory of your internet access problem: because you have no internet access in Mandrake, you have no way to install software *properly*, so you’re installing it badly, which is frustrating you.
once you got decss and dvdnav (you did install dvdnav, didn’t you?) installed, though, dvd playback is as easy as falling off a log…put in a DVD, launch xine, hit the DVD button, hit play. I’ve not had a DVD playback problem on xine for a year or so…
compiling from source – if you’re going to do it, install the development package tree. that’s it, nothing else for it. it installs a big selection of commonly needed -devel packages, which you WILL need. I made this mistake too first time I installed Mandrake. *shrug* – it’s not so hard to deal with.
“Program installation is one of the THE most annoying things in Linux. When it’s not dependency hell from rpms, it’s the necessity to download 15 different library files, or just getting an install error message that I can’t understand.”
“but surely Linux is mature enough that some bright coder could build an installer framework for Linux, so regular people needn’t have to compile source?”
not without introducing all the horrible problems that come with the “wonderful” installshield and nullsoft installers. no. ever wondered why people complain about Windows getting bloated after a few months / years of installation? those wonderful installers is why. looked through your registry cruft lately? believe it or not, it’s linux’s installation philosophy that makes sense to anyone who wants a reliable and predictable system. once you understand how it works you will understand that.
“Why are there three basic text editors installed with KDE?”
Well, because there’s people who like all three. Hard disk space is cheap, so use it…
“But as it is, its’ just confusing, to my eye, they all look and perform about the same anyway, I mostly use them as a basic text editor, or for opening up readme files.”
so, use any one of them. it doesn’t matter. as you say, they’ll do the same job. what’s the problem?
further examples – same answer. I like grip, other people like kaudiocenter. where’s the harm in having both? what’s the PROBLEM?
“Don’t get me wrong! There’s nothing wrong with these programs; they are all fine in themselves but there’s no need for them all to be installed by default for every user”
well…no…there’s no NEED to install anything at all, when you get down to brass tacks, is there? but if you install lots of stuff, then the user gets to play with lots of stuff, and find out which stuff they like. what’s the problem with that?
footnote and resume…
bluntly, if you have that much experience, you’re not trying hard enough. i’m 21, i’ve been using computers since I was about three, and had never touched a *nix system till I installed Mandrake for the first time a little over a year ago. it took me roughly a week to have my system functioning ENTIRELY, and about a month to understand pretty much everything I wanted to about how the OS works and WHY it works that way. it’s NOT THAT HARD. really.
Strange how the most heated comments have the least impact.
Like watching Jerry Springer or the WWF: mostly noise.
After 18 months with Linux I’m still a noob.
Win98 deserted me like a rat.
Had to have email & web.
Tried Mandrake 8.1, then 8.2:
I liked them and haven’t looked back since.
MOST of my rare problems have been self induced.
— Linux needs more protection from us newbies.
One improvement might be a single safe source for
vetted documentation and help.
Google is a start, but can waste a lot of time on
extraneous or marginal information.
Likewise the plethora of Linux websites have a variety of
sometimes good, bad, or conflicting information.
I believe Linux has great potential, and I would hate to see
it wasted as “only a hacker OS” or “just another GUI system”.
Linux has the potential to be both, delivering the security
and stability that Windows lacks, plus the ease of use most
non-geeks need. Each new distro version comes closer to
achieving that goal.
I hope we, the Linux community, can cooperatively
consolidate our advances, rather than end up with a
balkanized, fragmented assortment of conflicting distros.
Yes, Linux is about choice, but the choices should be
compatible all-around.
Today’s standard installs pretty well set up a noob with a
generalized workable system. “Expert” install options
can be confusing. Deeper onscreen help explaining the
options and their consequences would be helpful.
This noob deploys “Expert” installs to enhance security and
limit bloat. But too many of my install choices are based
on my own limited information and intuition.
RTFM is not the answer for everyone. I can RTFM, given the
time, but many of my family and coworkers cannot.
They just aren’t tekkies.
Therefore I have to tell them that Linux isn’t quite ready
for Aunt Tillie yet. And, in consequence, I am leaving them
burdened with an increasingly invasive, and expensive
choice of proprietary OS’s.
I believe the future is Linux or its descendants.
The sooner, the better.
Had you just did a very small amount of research you could have saved yourself a great deal of trouble and complete embaressment!
Its not that hard to kill Ext2 partitions. Just booting the install disc then going through to the partitioning agent in advanced mode lets you erase the emtire disc or single partitions and reformat that area as a win segment if thats what you want! Simple Simon… and easy too!
Not to mention getting rid of the lilo boot sector is just as easy if you ever bothered to make the boot disc you were supposed to. Don’t remember what “fdisk /mbr” is for either ? Not surprising.
According to the anchient no longer acknoledged Windows manyuals it replaces your master boot record on the hard disc with the one from the floppy you are currently booted from. Most useful when a virus garbages the boot sector but currently disavouwed by God Bill as “We don got no steenkin DOS in Windows”.
Next time try Reading The F**king Manual. Oh, I forgot you are a Windows user, Sorry!
Why not try writing about what a great thing the DMCA as inforced by the RIAA and Microsoft is for the public instead?
This author said it all when he stated that he has had few computers. He has no really relevant experience with configuration of any OS. If he thinks that getting Linux to run was difficult, he should try to get a previous version of Windozzze to run on something “Designed for Windows $next_higher_version”. I tried for various security and stability reasons to get Windows 2000 Pro to run on a Compaq notebook that was “Designed for Windows XP.” No dice. Almost everything was working, the only thing I could not find was display adapter drivers. The drivers only worked with Win XP.
Another comment, when first I was introduced to the Alt.NIX world, I was given a piece of sage advice. RTFM, Read The F___ing Manuals. Linux, like all the Alt.NIX’s are documented very throrougly, unlike Windozzze.
Also, most of the “easy” configuration that is available to us today has to do with a long history of predatory business practices by Microsoft. The Alt.NIX community has suffered by this. Witness software modems (a.k.a. WinModems), a bane to Linux users everywhere. Actually, a bane to computer users everywhere. These devices are actually the source of many more support issues than almost any other component.
If you don’t use google and you don’t type “Bluez” into the search.
First link google returned was bluez.sourceforge.net this site is full of docs including this howto (http://bluez.sourceforge.net/contrib/HOWTO-PAN) on setting up Personal Area Networks.
Windows IS much better, XPs Network Wizard ALWAYS sets up your computer as a DHCP client even if you’re just trying to share a directory. The simple difference is you CAN fix the problems you encounter with Linux. In Windows, all you can do is click “Next”.
I’m one of those guyz that just shakes his head every time he reads about one of these people that try to install Linux expecting to find a version of windows. It really comes down to what you’re used to. If you’ve spent all your time in windows then sure… Linux is going to confuse you. The only thing that upsets me is when you’re critical of the OS because of this confusion. There are things that windows does better than Linux, there are things that Linux does better than windows. For me… I hate windows for nearly all the same reasons you hate Linux. You see, I am on the exact oposite side of the tracks… being a Unix geek for the last 15 years, I find windows machines to be utterly confusing. The installation doesn’t make any sense to me at all, it asks too many stupid questions, without asking the important ones. It doesn’t come with any software besides telnet and it’s so horrible, you run the risk of corruting data by using it. It’s crazy. What’s up with those drive letters? That’s got to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard of on a computer. What’s the deal with having only one desktop? That’s so limiting it’s insane! See… to me… installing Linux is a beautiful thing. Full install takes about 20 minutes, no reboots. Configure all the applications (including the dvd player and gl games), setting up the connection to the internet takes under a minute, tune the hardware for optimum performance takes another 2 minutes and then never reboot again until it’s time to upgrade pieces of your hardware, or the whole pc 4-5 years later, your choice. I think configuring a windows machine to get on the internet is way too confusing, and it never works right, it’s slow and unreliable. I could go on and on for hours on end about all the things I take for granted in Unix/Linux but don’t exist in the windows world, but that’s not really my point. My point is that Linux and Windows are not the same, it takes different skills to operate each, you gain these skills through experience. Until you gain the level of experience needed to operate Linux, I don’t believe you’re qualified to critique it.
Like a lot of comments that came before mine. If ya wanta things to work outa the box then stick with M$ Windoze Ex Pee or that soft Rolly Royce Mac OS. Of course you would need to pay for the hardware that comes with it. Can you ‘assemble’ a ‘Mac’ ?
I’ve been with GNU/Linux for a while now and have had fun getting me hands dirty. In the process I sure learnt a lot more about computers and computing than I could possibly have with outa the box stuff like M$ Windoze Ex Pee or Mac’s.
One thing I would like to point out is that the average hardware that is available over most of the world is recognised by GNU/Linux distros and have not had much trouble with that kind of stuff. I wonder how many people use a USB ISDN adapter. As far as the PC is concerned ISDN is a non-starter. DVD is a problem because of the proprietory bullshit that is attached to it. The RIAA and MPAA are organisations that are out to suck people’s blood. Such petty pieces of trash trying to stand in the way of the technology juggernaut. Because only scum like them would lose big time if DVD became free.
I am glad that I am in a very small way part of THE BRAVE GNU WORLD. And I sure ain’t moanin’ about it.
The next American who starts to pick and posts FUD story’s about the French Linux distro Mandrake 9.1, will be treated as a whistle blower from now on. God d..m why are all those former ‘windoze’ clickers located in the USA suddenly picking on the French distro mandrake 9.1 ? I have never seen so much FUD story’s about mandrake 9.1 from that continent in a single week.
Maybe RedHat 9 is not really that succesfull?
Robert
Its fine to bitch & moan about Linux being un-usable, etc, and in many ways the author is correct. However, Linux is an open system. Get in there and fix it! The author claims to be a “graphic designer”, well then get a better skin for Xine made!! “Oh, I don’t have time…” ok, then the problem will always be there.
Linux has been built up from scratch by dedicated people. Its amazing to look at how far it has come in so short a time… and with much of the “behind the scenes” work being done (for example, KDE is now a rather full-featured WM) there is more and more talk of improving the usability of Linux. But guess what? It needs people to help it out!
I read this article and the author’s previous one.. while I agree with many of the points, I saw very little suggestion of how to improve the state of things… mostly just complaining.
Its fine to bitch & moan about Linux being un-usable, etc, and in many ways the author is correct. However, Linux is an open system. Get in there and fix it! The author claims to be a “graphic designer”, well then get a better skin for Xine made!! “Oh, I don’t have time…” ok, then the problem will always be there.
Linux has been built up from scratch by dedicated people. Its amazing to look at how far it has come in so short a time… and with much of the “behind the scenes” work being done (for example, KDE is now a rather full-featured WM) there is more and more talk of improving the usability of Linux. But guess what? It needs people to help it out!
I read this article and the author’s previous one.. while I agree with many of the points, I saw very little suggestion of how to improve the state of things… mostly just complaining.