![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Linux whining
So, I installed Mandriva on an extra computer here at home. My intent is to use that computer as a file server - take any extra hard drives I have laying around and plug them in for as much storage as I can muster. There's some glitch in the hardware that's preventing me from installing Windows 2000 - which would have been my first choice - but every Linux OS I've put in place goes with no problems. It's in the implentation phase that the rosey glow starts to tarnish.
I've tried five so far, in the hopes of finding one that would make me jump through fewer hoops and just let me get on with the business of ... my business. If there is anything that will ever prevent Linux from making it in the big leagues, that will be it.
Xandros. First one I tried, and worked straight out of the box as if I'd actually installed Windows. Very nice, but a week later Microsoft bought it. Out it went.
Ubuntu. Supposedly the friendliest of all the distros, but installing software is a bitch.
Kubuntu. Same as Ubuntu, but with the KDE desktop instead of Gnome. Nicer looking, but same issues as the other.
Knoppix. Too friendly, e.g. so ugly it's cute. No thanks.
Mandriva. The recommended OS for those coming from Windows. It's in, I've got my shares set up, but Christ on a Chrutch I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it there. I finally got it working this afternoon after finding, buried deep in someone's comments on a barely related post, that I had to unlock the firewall before the computer would accept connections.
I have a firewall and it's on by default? Okay, accepting the fact that Linux is by default more secure than Windows, I'm still coming from a Windows environment, so I'm not automatically geared to look for stuff that's got my PC all constipated. Windows warns me about my firewall. Linux doesn't do that.
My biggest frustration about Linux (every distro I've tried so far) can be summed up in one question: "And you were planning on sharing that essential piece of information when?"
The terminal services client sucks ass, but that's okay. The machine is stable and (finally) shared, and I can live with it.
I've tried five so far, in the hopes of finding one that would make me jump through fewer hoops and just let me get on with the business of ... my business. If there is anything that will ever prevent Linux from making it in the big leagues, that will be it.
Xandros. First one I tried, and worked straight out of the box as if I'd actually installed Windows. Very nice, but a week later Microsoft bought it. Out it went.
Ubuntu. Supposedly the friendliest of all the distros, but installing software is a bitch.
Kubuntu. Same as Ubuntu, but with the KDE desktop instead of Gnome. Nicer looking, but same issues as the other.
Knoppix. Too friendly, e.g. so ugly it's cute. No thanks.
Mandriva. The recommended OS for those coming from Windows. It's in, I've got my shares set up, but Christ on a Chrutch I had to jump through a bunch of hoops to get it there. I finally got it working this afternoon after finding, buried deep in someone's comments on a barely related post, that I had to unlock the firewall before the computer would accept connections.
I have a firewall and it's on by default? Okay, accepting the fact that Linux is by default more secure than Windows, I'm still coming from a Windows environment, so I'm not automatically geared to look for stuff that's got my PC all constipated. Windows warns me about my firewall. Linux doesn't do that.
My biggest frustration about Linux (every distro I've tried so far) can be summed up in one question: "And you were planning on sharing that essential piece of information when?"
The terminal services client sucks ass, but that's okay. The machine is stable and (finally) shared, and I can live with it.
no subject
I don't need a Linux for dummies, I need a Linux for END USERS - you know, for blithering idiots! Then I might learn enough to graduate to Linux for dummies...
bw
no subject
I'll say that I come to the OS table from the same perspective for ALL OSes - nothing that comes with it will function properly out of the box and I will have to manually check EVERYTHING before assuming that it's functional. The result is that I don't usually use the packaged components for anything and I have a checklist for things to check on, even if they have warnings/notification. Frankly, I find the warnings, notifications, and overall hand-holding that MS does more annoying than helpful.
I think that most people also make what seems like a natural assumption -- that all operating systems are going to the same place by a different road. Unfortunately, that's just not true. They each go to their own place by their own road and the assumptions/perceptions/conceptions that take them there are very different. MS was predicated on the consumer market and differentiated themselves by bundling things together and making things "black-box" easy (which leads to a lot of their security issues). That means that they've put a lot of time / money / effort into UI and broad common-denominator things that make life easy for 80-90% of the general public. Consequently they came to servers late, comparatively. Linux was predicated on the academic/server market (atomic and well-behaved, arcane is a plus) and is still making a transition to the consumer market where people expect a simplicity and maturity in the UI that just doesn't exist yet in the Linux distros. The initial user community of Linux was sysadmins, programmers, academics, and those who wanted to be one of the above. The environment from which is spawned expects a certain level of tech savvy and, frankly, there is a core belief that easy makes you complacent and as a sysadmin complacent means broken / hacked / down. Consequently there was a lot of resistance early on to making anything in Linux MS-like in it's ease of use and a disdain for the consumer market. That's changed a long time ago, but it kept them out of the races for a long time.
And, you know, even in the consumer market it wasn't that long ago that MS was in the same sort of position that Linux is in now -- vast quantities of arcane bits necessary to install and get anything to run. I'm sure most of us could regale each other in the war stories of DOS 1-3, Windows 1 - 3, NT 3.51, and the like.
As an afterthought, you can change the window manager fairly easily after install. I usually do because I can't stand Gnome so I switch to fvwm. So if you find a distro that you like, the look-feel shouldn't matter that much. I tend to run with RedHat/Fedora (I like the package management / install handling better) although I have a special place in my heart for GenToo (which can be a huge pain in the ass... if you don't think you have enough pains in your ass and are on the prowl for another one.)
- Jeho
no subject
What I'm coming to realize is that I have taken my computer knowledge for granted: I've been in Windows since 3.1 so as stuff gets moved around transitioning between versions isn't so tough. What I'm going through is really nothing more than what I went through when I was first introduced to Windows, to whit: I'm still figuring out where stuff is.
Every time I try a new distro, I learn something new that makes the next attempt seem easier. This has nothing to do with the OS and everything to do with my own learning processes. So there.
And this is where the water truly turns murky. I don't really care about look and feel, now I want to know which OS I want because of how it works behind the scenes, something which I am not qualified to judge. Seems to me, though, that there isn't a big difference between the distros when it comes to that. I want a file server and - down the line - a computer to serve as a DVD burner so I don't have to tie up my main machine.
Any of the ones I've tried would do that. I just need to catch up.
no subject
Distros typically differ by what they do by default (e.g. the firewall is enabled by default), what they include as default applications (e.g. one might use Firestarter as the firewall and another might use squid), and the flavor of the interface (which usually boils down to how Mac-like or PC-like it is... or how much it tells you about up front.) Most of them are just packages of applications and configuration. Apart from the most basic stuff, though, there is still an expectation that if you don't know something you know how to find it.
Some of them will make kernel tweaks for hardware compatibility and the like, but mostly the kernel is the kernel and differs very little from one distro on the same kernel as another. And, unlike windows, if you have sufficient bragadaccio and tolerance for pain you can always make your own kernel tweaks if you want.
Personally, I think changing OS (or programming language) is good every so often. Coming at the same problems from a different perspective (e.g. figuring out where things are) makes your rethink how you do things.... teaches you something about the guts of how things work. Builds character and all that. Seldom a bad thing.
- Jeho
no subject
What were you trying to install? "sudo apt-get install [name of package]" or running synaptic if I want a GUI or want to search for a package that does what I want has always done the trick for me with little fuss, and there's a GUI for adding repositories; you needn't edit /etc/apt/sources.list.