WalMart.com Linux PC Shootout

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1. 2003-07-02 3:25 am

   Anonymous

   “being the inquisitive Alpha Geeks they are, they’re trying find out which bit of code is responsible so they can rewrite it instead of the much more expedient approach of wiping the damn drive and restoring from a back up.”

   Translation: There are no backups.
2. 2003-07-02 3:28 am

   Anonymous

   First, I’d like to reply to those who think Consumer Reports was being biased. I do not agree. As someone who works with folks who used to work for testing and benchmarking corps., it is commonly stated by them that if CR started a full-on PC/Mac testing lab, the benchmark companies would look like the snake oil companies they are.

   The Consumer Report article was very direct about what was wrong, you guys just chose to ignore it. They plugged in a compact flash memory card into the machine, and it didn’t detect it. Maybe its just me, but the biggest revolution recently seems to be flash based devices, mainly digital cameras. How the heck can a serious box ship and not recognize the most common consumer item available today, the compact flash module??? Answer me, damn it! Not possible, and everyone here knows it, except in the merry land of Linux where subpar is acceptable. On the other hand we have this glowing review of the PC setup here on OSNEWS by someone confessed to already using it. Where was the hotplug of a digital camcorder or a digital camera or compact flash into a stock install (or even a stock install + manufacturer’s driver)? That’s right, it won’t work, so it won’t get tested, but this is what real users want — they want to plug in their kit and have it work — or at least pop-up a dialogue and handoff smoothly to some app designed to handle their device. If it doesn’t at least, the instructions In The OS will direct them to a manufacturer’s website or MS’s website to grab the driver update. This is 2003, ya know??

   Now for the solution which, mind you, will never be implemented or accepted into the kernel or dists, even if it was properly developed and supported, is a package type setup like OSX and a consistent kernel driver interface for simple drivers that can live in user space or more complex kernel drivers. OSX apps have their lib depends included in the package. This does not mean OSX is wasteful though — it is intelligent enough to figure out if the packaged DLL can be superseded by a system dll (as determined by the program’s author), and if it can’t or doesn’t exist, it will load the component in the package. The package is atomic in terms that the app is really the core bin, and all necessary DLLs that must accompany the program.

   Finally, Linux offers no consistent kernel or userlevel to plug and play devices such as firewire devices or USB devices. They change within stable kernel roadmaps, and not just in minor ways. This is unacceptable to a manufacturer attempting to sell a device at CompUSA. Much is the worse, that even if they offer web download, they may have to offer as many as 30 some odd different builds just to support the varied distros that are available and the subsequent kernel updates that occur in each distro rev (and even kernel revs on a single distro rev).

   Until Linux has these things, Linux will always be a technical OS. Ok for me and people like me, but I have no dreams of it being the OS of the common man. It just ain’t possible. The developers of Linux core technologies don’t even want these capabilities, so it is no doubt that it will be a very long time before these features are even hinted at being added to Linux. And as long as the status quo is maintained, Linux will suck on the common man’s desktop. Heck, I’ve already been lured away to OSX, I admit my adultery, OSX is alot better in every way I can imagine, even when running on ancient macs, which can be had for a song on ebay (in most cases cheaper than the WAL-PC).

   ChipSlush
3. 2003-07-02 4:08 am

   Anonymous

   For newbies LinuxInstall 3.0 works great with very easy install and is the only Linux distro that I have been able to play DVD’s on and Runescape which is a Java program. It also has Synaptic which makes it easy do download, install & update your system. Another thing its only $5.00 now thats a good value. I am waiting for the new Xandro 2.0 to come out as I like the ease of installation of software.

   I have tried Mandrake, Lycoris, Xandros and Linuxinstall, I find Mandrake to difficult, Lycoris is plain outdated and getting older the longer it takes to get out a new stable version, Xandros has promise if they make the correct updates KDE 3.1, play DVD’s, update Java and keep updated drivers for Nvidia video cards.
4. 2003-07-02 4:14 am

   Anonymous

   The windows way:

   1) Insert CD

   2) Autorun pops up

   3) Next > Next > Next > Install

   Icon is on Desktop and in start menu.

   may seam to be just as simple as the Linux 2 step process.

   But you miss one thing. The ease of support. All these “Next” steps where the user perhaps unknowingly may enter some strange values means that the support person e.g needs to ask where a certain peace of software is installed.

   In linux software installs itself into standard places, this makse support much simpler.

   And as for unistalling software in Linux most distros comes with some form of graphical packagemanager where software can be installed just as easy as in windows. In fact even easier as many uninstallers in windows have a tendency to leave garbage in the windows registry that have to be removed manually.

   You say there is dependency problems in Linux, well so far I have sean far more of them in windows than in Linux. In one case I was even bin forced to reinstall windows from scratch just because I happened install some packages in the wrong order.

   The weird an unintuitive file system in Linux is designed to hide complexity. Users should not see hardware, this is something that only the admin have to deal with. Instead they should see how information and applications is structured.

   This means that you e.g. can add a new harddrive wihtout changeing where users look for information, the only thing that happens is that they all of a sudden feel that they have more room for their data. I don’t have to send them a mail telling them that they now also can use E: for storing their files.

   What’s the most intiutive C:WINNTPROFILESUsername for some user information, some other in the registry and some in C:SETINGS AND DATAusername compared to Linux where all informaion and settings for user usnername is collected in one single place: ~username.
5. 2003-07-02 4:20 am

   Anonymous

   The problem with long rebuild time in case of a system failure could easily be avoided by making backups.

   But even so, you have a point, corporate users will probably avoid it due to long install times.
6. 2003-07-02 4:34 am

   Anonymous

   If dependency problems using SQL server somehow should be an exception how about upgrade your encryption level to 128 bits in IE on winnt4

   This is impossible to do if you had installed the latest servicepacks that was available when the encryption upgrade was released on net. The solution was uninstall previously installed servicepacks, that is if you installed checked the option of backing them out when you installed your servicepacks in the first place. If you didn’t your only option is a complete reinstall.
7. 2003-07-02 4:53 am

   Anonymous

   Hoops and loops to avoid dependency problems in Linux?

   Sorry, but most distros contain installers that automatically resolves dependency problems and even downloads missing software. E.g. urpmi, aptget, even the most hated plain rpm system usually tells you what packaage is missing, and does not only like window say that xyz.dll is missing whithout telling you what application it belongs to.

   One other thing in windows, dlls are often replaced without the user being asked. If US-english software is installed on international versions of windows this often results in dialog boxes and errormessages in mixed languages. This can be avoided by manually reinstall the old dll if you manage to identify what dll is the offender that is. Speeking of hoops and loops.
8. 2003-07-02 5:08 am

   Anonymous

   “Let’s take for example kSmoothDock and ObjectDock. In Red Hat 9 I had to download kSmoothDock, resolve some dependancies, compile and install. In Windows XP I downloaded ObjectDock to the desktop, double clicked and it installed. 99% of things that most people will want to install on Windows is not going to have you running around trying to find DLL files. ”

   Your example is somewhat flawed. When was the last time you downloaded source code for windows XP and actually compiled it . If the program wasn’t available in binary form you would not even try to install on XP. In Linux on the other hand you actually managed to do it even if it was a bit harder than just get it from your distribution vender.
9. 2003-07-02 5:18 am

   Anonymous

   “One other thing in windows, dlls are often replaced without the user being asked. If US-english software is installed on international versions of windows this often results in dialog boxes and errormessages in mixed languages. This can be avoided by manually reinstall the old dll if you manage to identify what dll is the offender that is. Speeking of hoops and loops.”

   On winxp, any software can install their preferred DLLs and XP will save them in Windows WinSxS (side by side) directory with a sort of checksum for each unique DLL – the result is that every app will be happy with their own DLLs, as at app startup time, windows xp will load the proper DLL for each app.

   GLIBC definitely needs this sort of features.

   The author of cdrecord has this to say about linux

   “Linux is the most self incompatible OS I know …”

   (ftp://ftp.berlios.de/pub/cdrecord/README.linux)

   To be fair, it shouldn’t be linux the kernel, but linux distros – but it is an integrated jungle out there 😎
10. 2003-07-02 5:23 am

    Anonymous

    i dont know which world you live in but since win xp i havent seen any dll issues , ever again…doesnt xp store all the different versions of dlls to avoid problems??? of course i have had crashes, etc, but they were due to hardware problems and not the Os. All this linux hype as being ready for the desktop is out of controll, as if people are going to throw away their current windows setups and software to move to linux to learn the command line. If they are going to move, they will move to something substantially better and at this point, as a desktop linux, is not substantially better than windows xp or osx.
11. 2003-07-02 5:24 am

    Anonymous

    This is still heavily flawed, and the outcome is that sharing of object data can seriously break down between apps, because no one really designs with the capablity that you detail in mind. Also, its so weak, it can cause overuse of RAM by loading in libraries unnecessarily — there must be a complete subsystem for making the process more flexible for library selection. MS is pretty much attempting to resolve a complex issue with a very big and stupid hammer.
12. 2003-07-02 5:24 am

    Anonymous

    it is a single platform – maybe 99% of time 😎

    The rest of the world can hardly deal with one single binary, sanes Mac
13. 2003-07-02 5:26 am

    Anonymous

    BTW, MS basically confirmed the flaws, I believe its been redesigned yet-again in .NET based systems that use the new .NET methodology for handling versioning of libraries.
14. 2003-07-02 5:32 am

    Anonymous

    Another person wit XPerience thinking his is the THE XPerience, I see…

    Do this:

    1) Install Office 2000 on Windows XP locally (not a network install)

    2) Now install the service pack for Office 2K

    3) Now start exchange and setup up a corporate server

    If you strictly follow that sequence, your Exchange client will be forever fubar until you uninstall the entire mess and reverse steps 2 and 3. I never bothered tracking down the libs that cause it — it happens in Win2K as well — both platforms support side-by-side in one form or another, plus DLL protection, and yet this simple sequence can render Exchange pretty much useless.

    I’m sure win-vets here can recount a hundred or so stories just like that one. I am happy that you seem to have had good luck so far though.

    ChipSlush
15. 2003-07-02 5:33 am

    Anonymous

    This has always? bin possible in Linux/Unix, each application can have it’s own LD_LIBRARY_PATH
16. 2003-07-02 5:33 am

    Anonymous

    “This is still heavily flawed …”

    It is a much better CURRENT solution than say compile form source code – what if you need 20 libs for one app, what if you can’t find the rpm, due to a temp net outage ?

    “Also, its so weak, it can cause overuse of RAM by loading in libraries unnecessarily”

    Yeah, true, yet it is still better than a broken setup

    Linux distro has to care memory usage, since the state of art apps are so bloated, even with shared libraries.

    I just check my XP/WinSxS dir – there are two dir for common control, two for C++ runtime, two for GDI+, the rest are single entry for each sort of DLL – not bad
17. 2003-07-02 5:34 am

    Anonymous

    Not sure why, but I used Exchange for Outlook. Step 3 requires that you configure Outlook to use a Exchange corporate server. Basically, when you do this it sucks file off the O2K CD, and screws up the nice new DLLs sent over by the O2K service pack. This is so brain dead as to be ridiculous.
18. 2003-07-02 5:38 am

    Anonymous

    LD_LIBRARY_PATH is not a real solution either. It still relies on some intelligence to figure out where things should be. It could be the pathway that some semi-intelligent program launcher could use to configure a program at runtime to the right library set though, I will give it that.
19. 2003-07-02 5:40 am

    Anonymous

    while, for linux, you just download openssh src to redhat linux and do a compile/install – and you will see ssh/sendmail etc break down miserably.

    I guess exchange client breakdown would not bar you from loging on through RDP.
20. 2003-07-02 5:48 am

    Anonymous

    “This has always? bin possible in Linux/Unix, each application can have it’s own LD_LIBRARY_PATH”

    That’s true, but it has only theoretical value

    say app1 needs LD_LIBRARY_PATH1, app2 needs LD_LIBRARY_PATH2

    now in unix land, it is not uncommon to see

    app1 | app2

    In a world that setting up an app shortcut hasn’t been easy, I don’t see the practical value of individualized LD_LIBRARY_PATH

    It should be fixed by now 😎
21. 2003-07-02 9:38 am

    Anonymous

    I don’t understand why you guys don’t use URPMI and set up the sources ! It’s so freaking simple ! Not too mention you get access to all of the PLF and TexStar rpms ! It’s pretty hard not to find something with just those two urpmi sources !

    http://plf.zarb.org/%7Enanardon/urpmiweb.php
22. 2003-07-02 9:40 am

    Anonymous

    I think that Linux will make it well before 5 years have passed. But I do think that the RPM based distros need alot of work. I agree with the guy that said: It looks good enough already. Now over to the usage of administration.

    My hope lays with KDE. In my view, KDE has the chance of getting all the functionality of a distro like Mandrake, with hardware configuration etc. I think KDE has the chance of becoming an OS of it’s own, on top of the Linux kernel. Perhaps in the future, we will see that KDE distros emerge, that just install KDE on the computer, and has the library set to run KDE applications. Then the functionality of keeping packages up to date for the KDE apps. I already see a different community with KDE and Gnome, so perhaps, in the long run, these to operating environments will separate and become OSes of their own, with their own app portofolio. CheeseTracker, a soundtracking program, now was released with a QT gui. Thus, it integrates nicely with KDE’s UI. KOffice matures, perhaps mosfet Paint will emerge soon. With apps coming along for each OE, I think they will be more of their own operating systems than just environments.

    I’m up for a Gentoo or Deb based KDistro
23. 2003-07-02 11:07 am

    Anonymous

    Those “reviews” are crap.

    | Rip and Encode MP3’s:

    | No, I installed Grip with YaST2 and it could rip and encode to

    | Ogg Vorbis format. But since lame was not installed (no doubt

    | due to licensing issues) it could not encode to MP3 format.

    | Conclusion:

    | Rip and Encode MP3’s

    | Lindows: No

    | Suse: No

    | Mandrake: No MP3, Yes Ogg Vorbis

    hey, didn’t he read his own review? Either: Suse and Mandrake: “No”, or both “No MP3, Yes Ogg Vorbis”.

    And:

    Emacs No.

    Huh? Aren’t Emacs and Xemacs (both included) enough?
24. 2003-07-02 11:22 am

    Anonymous

    Did I mention that my enterprise manager problem also happens on XP? LOL
25. 2003-07-02 1:39 pm

    Anonymous

    It seems he looked at what is possible with the default software selection. It has accidentally happened that Mandrake installs a ogg/vorbis encoder by default, and SuSE does not.

    The same accounts for emacs: it is not installed in the default installation.

    I can agree with the MP3 etc. A “dumb” user wants to do certain things with the default install, so it is good to look if a word processor, mp3 player and such is installed by default.

    However, if you know what Emacs is, and if you know what encoding MP3’s is, then you will also probably be enough computer-literate to be able install the right packages using YaST or such.
26. 2003-07-02 2:05 pm

    Anonymous

    <grin>

    I’m pretty new to using windows (4 years vs. 11 years of UNIX…at home I always had a mac). But hey… last year when I had some issues with DLL’s… I just set the

    PATH

    variable. In Windows land (mayber DOS too, I dunno) they use this to figure out where the DLL’s are, too.

    Regardless, our application (java app + some MFC stuff communicating over a local socket) now sets the PATH to point to location of where I want our DLLs loaded.

    <grin>

    so in lieu of export $LD_LIBRARY_PATH, there is always %PATH% in windows.

    ps: using windows has been a fish out of water expirience… but the windows vetrans I work with love it. Its all about what you’re used to, I guess.

    Quack! Quack!
27. 2003-07-02 5:08 pm

    Anonymous

    Had Apple allowed clones, and had a better business plan, we would all be using Macs. Damn you Apple!
28. 2003-07-02 8:37 pm

    Anonymous

    I bought a $299 WalMart computer running LindowsOS for my wife and she absolutely loves it. She refuses to use any of the other comptuers in the house, including those running Winblows.

    I have to admit, even I was very surprised at how well it ran and how easy they’ve made Linux. Click-N-Run is exceptional.

    Rf
29. 2003-07-03 1:15 am

    Anonymous

    Well as Walmart is a US company – I cant buy their products and I wouldnt support them because they sell handgun ammo.
30. 2003-07-03 5:36 am

    Anonymous

    Well it may very well be that Lindows and Lycoris are not very good, I’ve never seen either. But reading the results you folk have had clearly you must have been shit out of luck with your hardware.

    Since -95 I’ve been building Linux boxes using the big distributions with very few problems, at least nothing like what the earlier posters claim to have been through.

    I’ve given Linux to kids and computer idiots and they prefer Linux over Windows by choice. With the last years GUI enhancements I find it’s hard to find a computer that does not run Linux just fine.

    Usually I install RedHat or Mandrake for newbies.

    If you buy a computer for $300 and you’re surpriced it does not work well, you must be pretty naive!
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