Let me start by saying that I’m desperate for a real alternative to Windows on the PC platform. I like Windows XP for a lot of reasons, and hate it in equal amounts for just as many other reasons. I want to like Linux, I really truly do. I really want to be be in a situation where I can migrate happily, easily and with the minimum of fuss onto another better system in part or fully over time, but at the moment that day just seems too far away.
Editorial Notice: All opinions are those of the author and not necessarily those of osnews.com
I’ve installed and tried really hard with various distributions in the past, going all the way back to Red Hat 5. I’m not a novice computer user and consider myself fairly technically-minded.
I spent the last three days downloading Mandrake 9.1 on my lowly 64k ISDN line and was it worth the wait? …partly yes and, sadly, mostly no.
I burnt my ISO image and rebooted eager to see how things had improved since my last venture with Linux (SuSE 8.0) ended in abandonment when I failed dismally to get anything working properly.
The install process was speedy, easy and very straightforward. I didn’t have to worry about partitioning my system as I already had 9gb free and 1gb swap left over from my SuSE installation, and it found and used them without any intervention on my part. Trying to remember the difference between hda1, hdb5, hdb7 and hdc always leaves me in a cold sweat in case I get it wrong and format my windows drive by mistake ( I never have, though). But I was glad not to worry about it.
As I only downloaded disk one I couldn’t install all the packages but Mandrake made allowances and gave me an option not to install anything from the second disk. (just as well, as I didn’t relish the idea of another 3 days worth of downloading). As my Linux partition is on my Slave drive, I wanted the boot loader at the front of this disk, enabling me to boot to that device first in the bios. This was a real nightmare in SuSE until I found out how to add the “bios=0x80” option, So I was prepared for it this time, but Mandrake didn’t seem to need it and this again was very welcome. (although it did write to my master drive boot record as well and meant I had to repair it with the Windows install CD)
The only real dilemma for me came when it asked for which logon manager I wanted to use and presented me with several options. I hadn’t heard of any them (why would I have?) but I chose the mandrake logon thingy. Why it felt the need to ask me I don’t know. How would I know which one was better, which was one right for me? What if I chose the wrong one, would I be able to change it back? It would have been better if it had just chosen for me unless I specifically asked to change it myself. But chose I did and logged straight in.
Here is where things started to go wrong. Mandrake did find both my Windows partitions for me, and knowing how to add them to the desktop I did so. I then fired up Xmms and tried playing my Mp3 collection (got to get your priorities right!) – No sound…hmm. Checked in XMMS and found an option to change sound output formats OSS or ARTS (just what’s the difference between the two and why would I want two of them?) – changed over, still nothing.
This is where my heart sank, I was going to have to try to configure the hardware as it had clearly not found it correctly, or so I thought. It’s a Soundblaster live 5.1, and had in fact installed correctly. The problem was that all my sound was muted. Why? It took my an obscene amount of time to figure out how to adjust the sound. Turns out there is an applet in the start menu called AUmix. Unless you know what this does, AUmix is meaningless to the average person and it was just by sheer luck I stumbled upon it – surely renaming it to something useful like “sound mixer, or Volume control” would be better.
Next task was Internet access. Mandrake has a very nice Internet connection wizard, so I started that up and went through the motions, only to discover that there is no option to connect my isdn terminal adapter via USB. I get Com 1-8 listed, incidentally, so why can’t Linux use the same notation as Windows here? Sure, Com 1-8 was in brackets next to each ttys port, but why still use this confusing and seemingly archaic terminology if you have to then clarify it by sticking “Com1” next to it. In Windows, my USB isdn adapter connects through a hub but appears to Windows as if it’s on COM3. So I tried that, but that didn’t seem to work, although it’s hard to tell if it worked or not as clicking “apply” in the wizard seems to make it hang for a bit then restart. I guess this means it failed to connect, but who knows? After repeating this several times, making minor changes without success, I quit out and visited the hardware configuration tool. In there, Mandrake correctly identifies my Terminal Adapter (Eicon Diva USB TA) but places it in the “Unknown” section of the hardware. Clicking on the TA’s details yielded no clue as to the problem, or how to resolve it. I know it works in Linux though as I had it working in SuSE, (one of the few things that did work in Suse). Also listed in the “unknown” section was my Bluetooth adaptor (on the motherboard) and my webcam (what still no Creative Webcam go drivers after all this time?)
Hardware problems easily must be one of the most annoying and difficult things to work with in Linux. How do I get my Terminal Adapter and Bluetooth working? Looking at the GUI there is nothing that helps me here and browsing through the help I can’t find anything helpful either. Of course, I could just open up a terminal window and type some clever phrases into it and I’m sure it would work, but that relies on two things, me knowing what to type and me knowing what’s wrong. Neither of which I do know of course. After a couple of hours of frustration I gave up looking — I’d go online in Windows later on and have a look on the web. The lack of GUI tools is clearly a problem for me. I use the command prompt in Windows a little, mainly for pinging servers or performing traceroutes, but in Linux I still feel that you can’t get anywhere without using it and that’s unfortunate because it’s never going to be accessible by novices and is just too damn “hard core” for anyone who just wants to get something done quickly and with the minimal amount of reading required.
So I moved on from that and thought I’d try installing something. I’ve got a DVD that came with a Linux magazine overflowing with apps, so I thought I’d try installing Openoffice and Abiword, two of my favorites. I fired up Mandrake’s package manager, as I thought that would be where I could install things from — it gives that impression when you hover it in the control panel. However, that’s only partly true, it seems I can only install software that comes with Mandrake that I didn’t install first time around. So I tried another route, I opened up Konqueror and found the rpm for Abiword 1.0.3 and double clicked it. Up pops the (seemingly) same package manager and asks me if I want to install, I click the affirmative and it immediately pops up a warning about needing other dependencies. Unlike other distros I’ve used, it actually offered to install the dependencies as well. I was impressed… briefly. After clicking yes I was then told the installation had failed due to conflicts with my system. Oh well, it was nearly successful. In all the time I’ve been trying to use Linux I have never ever managed to install anything via rpm. Not once has it worked for me, it always complains about dependencies, or internal conflicts or missing libraries that I haven’t got installed or just simply fails to give a reason that I understand. Why does this have to be so hard and confusing?
Moving on to to Openoffice then, I know that OOo comes with a nice install program that makes it easy for idiots like me to install it. So I navigate to the DVD cover disk and drag it from the DVD onto the desktop and copying starts… and continues… and continues a bit more… and then stops at 16%. I’m only copying a 70mb file. In Windows doing this takes 13 seconds, but mandrake does 16% in about a minute then stops, not just the copying but all of the desktop stops, XMMS stutters and window redrawing stops. I went for a cup of coffee and returned to see it made it all the way to 17%, whereupon I killed it (CTRL- ALT – ESC). I fired up Gnome system monitor only to see what was happening before I tried again, only to discover Linux using 505Mb of system and 100Mb of swap – Bear in mind that I had nothing else running except 1 Konqueror window at this point. 500Mb! Out of curiosity I rebooted the machine to see how much was being eaten at startup: 200mb, quite staggering really; that’s more than XP uses at Startup even with SQL server, IIS, Trillian, Bluetooth drivers, Activesync and my anti-virus running. But I’ve got 512Mb of Ram, and it’s using about half of it, not to worry I’ve got 300Mb left. That is until I start using Koqueror, doing a search or copying large files. I tried once again copying Openoffice and within a few seconds of the copying starting RAM usage shot up to 500mb again and within a minute or so it had hung at 16% again. Killing the copy didn’t seem to bring any RAM back either. After yet another reboot (I don’t know yet how to get that RAM back without rebooting, but the system was unusable as it was) I tried performing a search (on my NTFS drive). Just a simple search on a 15GB drive once again started eating in memory and processor usage. I’m not sure if this is Linux performance in general or just Mandrake, or just Mandrake on my machine but either way it’s pretty pathetic.
KDE 3.1 looks lovely, and the new features of Konqueror that I’ve read about make it seem very appealing (obviously without Internet access I can’t make any use of it) and the anti-aliased fonts are a big improvement. Although, sadly, even on my Athlon 2400+ KDE still seems sluggish compared to XP and applications seem to still take too long to start.
KDE and Mandrake-Linux in general just seems bloated and sluggish, although I can’t really put my finger squarely on the reason why I feel that. It’s significantly slower at booting than Windows XP. Typically, XP loads on my machine in about 20 seconds, while Mandrake took 65 seconds to get to the log in screen and another 15 seconds after that to load KDE. Gnome on the other hand was much faster to start and felt a lot less sluggish, but just looked and felt too UNIX-like and ultimately didn’t feel friendly or fun, so after a couple of minutes of using it I logged out and back into KDE again; for all its slowness it’s enjoyable to use.
I don’t see why distros bother with shipping more than one window manager, again I’m sure most Linux savvy users would shout about choice for the end user, but in reality KDE is good enough for virtually everyone, Gnome too. Surely it’d be better to just offer one desktop in the package letting the end user then decide if they want to download another WM or get it from the install CD. No other OS confuses its users with a choice of window managers like this. Windows can support other shells and does quite happily, but for most people the default one is all that’s needed. Adding the 5 window managers and all their associated packages, libraries and tools only succeeds in bloating out each distribution. Anyone savvy enough to want to try another desktop will probably be quite happy installing it themselves anyway!
But Mandrake isn’t all bad by any means, it’s far and away the best Linux distro I’ve used so far, beating my previous best SuSE 8.0 in many ways.
The installer is really very good, easy to use and surprisingly flexible and intelligent. The boot loader works well, without any fuss and is flexible enough for non-standard installations. Most of the menu items in Mandrake are sensibly laid out and the default options are more than adequate for most people. It looks great, thanks to KDE 3.1 and the anti aliased fonts, and seems straightforward enough for most users, providing of course that all their hardware is detected correctly and they don’t want to install any other software, ever!
But overall, I still can’t switch yet. There’s no Internet access for me and no Bluetooth support either and ultimately I don’t have the time, inclination or patience to spend days, or even weeks trying to get all my hardware to work, and this is the crux of the problem. For a lot of users, Windows just works, things (mostly) just work, and when they don’t it’s fairly easy to investigate, even if you can’t always fix the problem yourself. Why spend lots of time and effort re-learning a new and seemingly more complex way of working with your computer than you have already?
Try Xandros. The difference is like night and day. You won’t have any of the problems you had with Mandrake, and you’ll be up and running and surfing the internet less than 20 minutes after inserting the install disk.
I don’t think that Xandros (or any linux) supports USB ISDN devices without the use of special drivers for the device that might or might not come by default with the latest Linux kernels.
The author also mentions Bluetooth, which is not part of Xandros either.
And while Xandros has some features that make it easy to use, it lacks other things that Mandrake has, like personal firewalling and internet connection sharing or nicer fonts…
“Note: All packs also include third-party applications such as Zope, Jonas, and additional drivers that support devices such as Conexant® modem and Alcatel Speedtouch® USB.” From the mandrake feature page.. It seems the download edition does not come with many drivers, due to the fact they aren’t open source, so one has to download them and install them on his/her own. Unlucky for this guy, it was his modem
Regarding AUMix – if Mandrake had called it SoundMixer
in the menu, would people be angry and accused them of ripping off the AUMix developer?
I can only use the text mode installer. I dont have any exotic hardware (athlon 1800, GF4/4200/8X, 19160 scsi). The installer goes straight to black screen and keyboard lights flash. weird eh?
I think thats part of the Joy of Linux from the Desktop experience. The anticipation that somehow the next (Latest) release will be it.
This article does a good job of tracking the experience of a user through the daunting task of installing and actually USING linux. Who cares if I can install it in 10 minutes if it won’t play any sound, even if it says it recognizes my soundcard? Linux is still a hobby OS for the most part. I keep trying various distros hoping that I can find one I can use for 90% of my computing tasks. Like the author, I want to like Linux. With every distro I’m able to do a little bit more without getting under the hood. I’m intrigued by the success stories of individuals, major corporations, and even governments switching to Linux. Bravo to all the people who are working on making Linux easier to use for the masses, and I hope a few years from now there is a TRUE windows alternative.
i have a similar machine (athlon xp 1800, 512 ram, geforce 3) and i havent noticed any slow down, it defnitely does not feel slower in kde than it does in win2k. a couple of weird things, the usb mouse bug during installation prevented me from installing on 1st try (used my ps2 adapter and plugged it, then it worked fine), sound was turned down, aumix isnt exactly easy to find if you dont know what to look for (i didnt, i thought it hadnt configured my sound card or something); but so far, i’m really enjoying this release, its definitely more user-friendly than redhat 8 for me (kde menu is less chaotic, despite of course that redhat prefers gnome), the amazing thing was the installation process, it went by so quickly (i’m used to long, sometimes tedious, microsoft os installations and configurations), i was up and running a full-install/3 desktop-env mandrake in 25 minutes
“I think thats part of the Joy of Linux from the Desktop experience. The anticipation that somehow the next (Latest) release will be it. ”
Bingo, (big time).
Yes, and it swells the ranks of those who want the “latest
and greatest” in Linux to more than it will be when product
maturity comes to Linux.
Beleive it or not there will come the a day when news of
a new release of OpenOffice or KOffice is met by most
Linux users with a big fat yawn.
the beauty of this is not just the maturiy of applications but that it will make questions of ease of
upgrading in Linux as well as pricing for interim release
versions less important.
Here’s to the day when Linux’s biggest competition is it’s own users.
I was a reluctant Linux user, I didn’t want to make the switch until I’d found the distro that suited me. I’d tried Red Hat, Mandrake, Yoper, Knoppix (okay, not really a distro in the sense of the others), until I finally decieded one day to try Gentoo.
The documentation for Gentoo is amazing. Even a Linux novice would be hard pressed to fail. Gentoo downloads and builds everything from source. Don’t let the stuff you might have heard about install failures put you off. It installed great first time on my P4 2.53/1GB RAM machine. After about 16 hours, I had the Linux desktop machine *I* wanted, optimised for *my* machine. Portage is a great tool, and blows apt-get or BSDs Ports out of the water, imo.
Want to install gaim? It’s as easy as “emerge gaim”. All the source will be downloaded, compiled and installed. It’s just as easy to uninstall too.
Trust me, once you’ve used Gentoo, no other distro comes close.
(I don’t work for Gentoo, btw.
http://www.gentoo.org
You’ve got to be kidding! Linux is too much like Unix? Really??!!! The first thing you need to realize when and if you get serious about Linux, is that Linux is not Windows. Do not compare it to XP, it’s not trying to be like XP. You are the poster boy for RTFM. Don’t mean to be rude but how many years did it take you to learn DOS and Windows? And you’re ready to criticize Linux because you give it a half-ass try over four years time?
Why were you trying to install OOo from a magazine CD when it comes with your Mandrake 9.1? Oh, and by the way, the conflict you ran into is because you most likely already had OOo installed !
You weren’t looking for an alternative to Windows, you were looking for a direct comparison so you could bash it. Linux isn’t the problem for your hardware problems. Ask your modem vendor. Typically when there’s a hardware issue, it’s the manufacturer that’s the bottle-neck, not Linux. Either the driver is proprietary or none of the hardware specs are released. Tough to write a driver when you don’t get any help from who makes the hardware.
You want to have an alternative to Windows with Linux? Then get serious. Check the hardware compatibility lists, read up on rpm, and get used to going back to the bottom of the learning curve. Linux is a great system if you stop thinking like a Windows user.
Yeah, right. You tell a newbie to use Gentoo.
Well, I used Gentoo for a year and things are not as sugar-candy-kisses as you present it here.
Refer to our gentoo articles and comments for more information about it.
That is precisely what we DON’T want to hear when we can’t get the latest attempt at migrating to fly right. I’ve read the article and I agree wholeheartedly with what he’s writing. I too didn’t get the sound working (why on earth is Mandrakes sound muted as default?), had innumerable problems installing packages, didn’t get my modem to work because of lack of drivers and have been amazed at how long it took to start upp apps.
I’ve got about 20 years of computer savvy (from roughly age 10 in 1982) and with 5 years in the amiga demo scene and 5 years as a windows user. I write this to make it clear that I actually HAVE had some computer experience, ie not a complete noob. I also want to migrate soonish, but… I’ve tried Red Hat 7.2, Mandrake 9.0, Knoppix and various fringe distros but it always ends up with me in tears. The situation now is that I’ve got a dsl modem that has the driver support from hell (Telewell 300b) so I’ll have to buy a new one to get an internet connection. And as for package management, well, I’m just going to wait for Autopackage and see. I’m using Win98SE now and I’ll just probably have to use it until it’s totally obsolete at this rate.
Anyway, he makes a plethora of VERY good points in his artice. I suggest you really read it carefully – because I think it really gives an accurate description of what it’s like to try to migrate to Linux. I really wish the driver & app installation procedure will get fixed in the near future, because at this rate my migrating will probably happen after the last copy of Win98SE has crumbled to dust. Just my 2 cents worth.
This is an excellent review from a new user’s perspective. It outlines exactly why linux is not ready for the desktop. This user is able to read and follow instructions, but Mandrake doesn’t provide the user with sufficient information to make intelligent decisions or solve problems with things like boot loaders, sound servers, and application installation.
Additionally, it shows that linux (at least Mandrake) is broken from a memory management point of view. When reboots are required to free up memory from dead processes that indicates a real problem. (it doesn’t matter that he could have grep|kill|ps whatever to fix it; Mandrake did not provide him the tools necessary to manage memory on his machine)
Yup, the zealots are in full force on this one as they always are, giving the same two lame responses:
1) The author was using the wrong distro. (Of course, if this has been a less than favorable review for either Xandros or Gentoo, there would be other distro fanboys on here telling them to use Mandrake – go figure.)
2) Personally insulting the author – ‘nuf said.
Of course, when anyone has a bad experience with Linux, it’s their own fault, as we all know Linux is perfect, right? *pfffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffft*
Haha, nice one Darius!
— “You want to have an alternative to Windows with Linux? Then get serious. Check the hardware compatibility lists, read up on rpm, and get used to going back to the bottom of the learning curve. Linux is a great system if you stop thinking like a Windows user.”
Although I think the experiences of this user should be kept in mind by Linux developers, I do agree. If he was as uneducated in using windows as he was in using Linux, he would be saying the same things about windows, possibly from a Mac! This fellow seems to think that just because he put the tremendous time and effort in to learn windows so well, he should automatically be as capable in Linux. The fact that he complains that it should be “Com1” makes this plan as day. Does he think this is any less confusing to someone who does not know EITHER operating system?
Imagine how I felt back in the day when I felt just like you: wanting a serious alternative to the Windows paradigm.
This was back in 1994. I was at some store and found this 4 cd set of “linux” for 10 bucks. I had no idea what linux was, the only thing I thought was “Woah, thats a lotta software AND an OS for 10 bucks.”
It was quite a process to install and get running. There was no installer, no hardware detection, no fancy pancy graphical voodoo, just linux.
What I am trying to say is, toughen up a bit. I mean I understand why we want it all to be easy and functional and powerful, yada yada yada. But the researchers think we all need to be more information technology fluent. If you dont agree, read the book:
http://stills.nap.edu/html/beingfluent/
Its available online.
“I’m not a novice computer user and consider myself fairly technically-minded”
“Moving on to to Openoffice then, I know that OOo comes with a nice install program that makes it easy for idiots like me to install it”
I suggest you download that 2nd mandrake CD and install all your juarez off of that such as abiword and openoffice. Then you can be a happy bunny without having to write a 2 page ‘Personal Review’ to bore us with.
Another point: Linux is free to use for anyone. Not just the kernel, but a whole distribution like mandrake and the others. You shouldn’t compare something you must pay for and somethng you get for free. I have been using Linux and freeBSD since 1998 and every time I ran into any problem I just thought: “Ok that’s because I’m not intending to pay several hundred dollars for Windows, Office and all the other windows-based proprietary software. Linux is not just about a free OS it is about free tools, apps as well.
It’s precisely like when you go onto a package holiday. You pay the price you go into a five-star hotel, you try to get by free, well…
On the other hand I must say linux and the BSDs have several strengths where they can meet many people’s needs. Not people’s with USB modems but many average person’s.
On my system, I had no probs with hardware since 1998:
Celeron 900Mhz now
SiS 6326 PCI graphics
SB 16 (the sound is NOT muted on this card by the way)
LAN internet RTL8029
etc
So linux more less perfect for me but that doesn’t mean I would recommend it to anyone. I won’t say Linuy is ready for THE desktop. I can only say Linux and BSD is ready for MY desktop. And that’s the main thing. The author of the article is on the right way, probably some time he will find that Linuy is ready for his desktop as well.
But let’s not forget something. Linux is not a MUST to use. Windows is superior in many ways and Linux is superior in many (mostly OS design related, technical) ways. You choose. On the base of your feelings (eg I wouldn’t like to use any MS product, that’s a grave point for me, maybe not so for others), circumstances(not supported hardware -> goto win), and budget. It’s all a question of devotion, time and money. That’s all. And let’s quit this silly ever-lasting debate which is better. I tell you: NONE. Each can be better for YOU though.
the reviewer wrote:
“Turns out there is an applet in the start menu called AUmix. Unless you know what this does, AUmix is meaningless to the average person and it was just by sheer luck I stumbled upon it – surely renaming it to something useful like “sound mixer, or Volume control” would be better. ”
If it isn’t in a folder that says Sound, then it should be.
Plus for every app in a folder (or desktopicon) a
mouseover should yield a “popup” that at least gives a generic name for the app. eg,Aumix Sound Mixer.
Ro
Portage is a great tool, and blows apt-get or BSDs Ports out of the water, imo.
Ok…Does Portage support reverse depending ? apt-get does.
Gentoo is an interesting distro but as Eugenia said, it still have drawbacks and is far to be that perfect…
C’mon HagerR15, ‘Linux is a great system if you stop thinking like a Windows user’
Most of us uses windows since what? windows3.1? It’s been almost a decade now. We’ve been through so many bugs, glitches and blue screen. We won’t switch for nothing less than XP. XP is like a gift. It boots fast, support everything, reliable , easy and flexible. I’d like to switch, but if I do, it’ll be for something better, that boots faster, that support even more hardware, that is more reliable, easier…. see? I have suse 8.1 at home, and it’s ok, I guess. But there is no great DVD burning tools, still some problems with video codecs, and you know what I hate the most? when you start an app, and nothing happens, no error message, no nothing, grrrrrrrrr.
I have the same card, and I did’nt even have to use the mixer. It worked perfectly. I think a problem might be a bug that makes Mandrake choose the Audigy2() driver instead of the emu101k() one. Goto MDK Control Center -> Hardware and start the Hardware manager. Choose the Live! and change the driver. It should work. Ideally, do it during setup at the summary page…
Another type of response I’m seeing here is something along the lines of “Why do you expect to pick up on Linux so fast? It took you years to learn Windows, didn’t it?”
Well, yes … techically it DOES take some people to learn Windows. So then why do they expect to just be able to pick up Linux and go? I can answer that with one sentence, using a quote from the Suse Linux website:
The installation and operation of SuSE Linux 8.2 is quick, easy, intuitive, and transparent!
Yeah, I’d say that is a far cry from ‘RTFM’, wouldn’t you? Perhaps if these damn distro makers and the ‘Linux is ready for grandma’ crowd would stop blowing smoke up people’s asses, then maybe … JUST MAYBE you wouldn’t have this problem.
One other point of contention – if people are using Windows and something ‘blows up’, as I mentioned in a recent thread, people can usually call up their Windows-literate friend/relative/whoever to come over and help them straighten out the mess – many people won’t have this option with Linux, because they don’t know anybody personally who knows it well enough to help.
Oh, and SBLive worked flawless for me in Mandrake 9.0, as well as Redhat 8.
I just wish linux could detect my raid and sound, both onboard on a KT400 motherboard :/
Did you ensure that the disc is not scratched/corrupted?
and yes, you should have downloaded disc2/3 for office. If this was not a n00b-oriented review, you are not at all techno-competent as you claim to be.
I think the “writer” has forgotten all about the adwantage of a pre-installed machine and has probably newer installed anything by him self previously. The story is thus totally worthless.
I have a KT400 motherboard – MSI KT4V. My board had onboard sound… Find out the chipset’s name- Mine was Via8235. I had to compile ALSA drivers from http://www.alsa-project.org
Obviously Linux is different to Windows and a user has to be willing to learn when switching to a new OS. But I feel that some Linux fans use that as an excuse for every ease of use problem in Linux. Some things are simply far more complex, problematic and time consuming in Linux, regardless of how the user thinks.
Mac OS X is different from Windows too, but I don’t see people having the same problems switching between those two OSes. I certainly don’t see Apple saying that switchers need to change their way of thinking to use it.
IMHO, the most reliable PCs you can buy are the ones that have the little sticker ” Designed for Windows _ _ ” on it – because you know if the HDD fails that you can install windows and it will just work.. no being stuck without drivers for sound or graphics or most particularly, modem.
third party drivers and hardware not supported by default are a pain in the backside on any OS. if you want your system to run an OS well, buy hardware known to work with it.
Installing an OS on a PC built from parts with no consideration of what would run on it is not a recipe for stability, reliability or ease of use.
Apple learned this 10 years ago. We , apparently, still have not.
I have to say Mandrake made an enourmous mistake with this one. Muting the audio, by default, is plain stupid (it did this to me, though alsamixer was my first port of call, once I noticed I had no sound).
Reviewing Mandrake 9.1 only using the first CD is a bit of a joke. If I had a friend who wanted to switch, I would atleast give them a 3 CD copy, however I would highly recommend that they buy a PowerPack box, for the manuals and so they have as much software as possible (in an easy to install format).
>> For a lot of users, Windows just works, things (mostly) just work, and when they don’t it’s fairly easy to investigate, even if you can’t always fix the problem yourself.
I really can’t let this go by without comment. Whilst things in MS-Windows generealy ‘just work’, when they go wrong, and it isn’t just something superficial, they are near impossible to investigate.
>> 505Mb of system and 100Mb of swap – Bear in mind that I had nothing else running except 1 Konqueror window at this point. 500Mb!
How much of that 500 MB was used by programs and how much was used by buffers and caches? Unused RAM is wasted RAM. Your system doesn’t gain anything by having free RAM, but it does loose out by having an undersized cache.
>> In all the time I’ve been trying to use Linux I have never ever managed to install anything via rpm. Not once has it worked for me, it always complains about dependencies, or internal conflicts or missing libraries that I haven’t got installed or just simply fails to give a reason that I understand.
RPM doesn’t complain, it explains, if you don’t pay attention to it’s explanation then what do you expect. Have you ever tried persevere with Linux? Did you learn all you know about MS-Windows in afternoon?
>> Why does this have to be so hard and confusing?
Well if you take one look at the error message, and decide that it is gobble-de-gook and you don’t want to try to understand, how can it be anything other than ‘hard and confusing’.
Thanks OSNews for the entertaining read, sometimes I forget that there are those who won’t accept Linux on the desktop till it is in the form of a black stick with white tips.
I also have the same card. You can also swicth to emu101k() on the MDK installation summary. I have not seen anyone metion this yet until now. Not even Eugenia.
Well I think that for the money ($0.00) Mandrake does a pretty damn good job at what it does. Yes, there are some obstacles here and there but hey, if you want it to Just Work – go spend $1,500+ for a mac or $600+ for WinXP + Office.
Even if you get the MDK boxed set ($50? – too lazy to check the exact price 🙂 think of what you get. A nice OS, full-featured office package, multimedia apps, graphics apps, web publishing apps (not as easy as FrontPage or Dreamweaer but still usefull) and tons more.
Funky hardware has always been a problem for Linux but that’s mostly fault of the hardware vendors who don’t want to open their hardware specs or release drivers for linux. Look at Nvidia – why do 70%+ of linux users have nvidia cards?
normally I give the benifit of the doubt to newbie reviews, but this one just has to a troll (yeah I know you shouldn’t feed them)
I dont usually say RTFM, but rpm from the command line is not a lot
rpm -Uvh, rpm -i rpm -e and –nodeps and –force flags
I think I learned these five minutes after first install in the RH 5.2 docs
The author states he only downloaded a third of the installation cd’s and then complains about neding software.
Comments about gnome – “too unix like” WTF, so because you feel that something looks like your impression of unix (god knows how – this I am pretty sure is gnome 2.2, ie: the “dumbed down” version) you dont even try it seriously
Lastly, pet peeve, criticising Linux for stuff that MS doesnt have (and giving the impression that it does).
My understanding is that MS made a deliberate decision not to include bluetooth support.
And windows problems easy to investigate – give me a break. If windows works everything is fine, if they dont, real fun time.
I can’t hear or read it any more! Why all this “first impression”, “my personal experiance”, etc with Linux?
If you want to use it, then install the Linux OS and live with it. Linux is not a “click&run” OS, but I don’t see any real reason to not use it. I have serval small customers, where they only use Linux and I have other customers only using Windows. At the end of the day it counts only if you can do your job or not. It is not a question of beeing ultra-cool or some thing like this!
To be 100% honest, I eaven have customer where their business critical applications are runing on the host. They would go very quickly off the business, if they would not be able to use the host for more then 1 day. And the end-user clients run Windows and some of them eaven run Sun Solaris. But all of those end-user clients are in no way business critical. If they crash or would be unusable for serval days… who cares? As long they can connect with a dumb therminal to the mainframe, everything is okay.
I realy don’t get it!?!?! What is all this Linux <-> Windows <-> Mac OS X <-> etc war about??
I use Windows and Linux. All my servers are Linux and in no way I would choose Windows bevore Linux for the server, if the application or service I want to run on the server allows me to choose. As for the client: I have a mix of Windows and Linux (not dual-booting! I have to computer with a switch-box). But on the other hand: my secretary only uses Linux (gentoo). She is happy and does not miss Windows at all (for her it is just another system. I think she does not realize the difference). But for me this means, that all the other employees (3 of them) are not able to support her (at least they can not fix those “very deep” problems as they where able on Windows. Anyway… they are not that great on Windows either. When they got problems in Windows, they often just reinstall the OS, where in gentoo, I never reinstalled it. I was able to fix all the problems with either reinstalling/recompiling a package or changing some small settings).
Of course there are some hardware wich do not work in Linux. But I avoid buying them anyway. On the other hand I have some things wich I can do excellent in Linux and I can’t find a replacement (at least not for that money) in Windows. But this is normal!
I am not concentrating my energy to find what is great in Linux and what is great in Windows and what is great in Mac OS X etc. I want to do my work and that’s all. If I find a problem, then I try to fix it. But looking on the other platform and thinking: “ohhh… in that OS I would not have that problem!” is just contra productive and does not help me at all to solve my problem.
cheers
SteveB
after reading just the first half of his review, when i got to the part about the reviewer getting “Cold Sweats” over trying to figure out hard drive partitions such as /hda, hda1, hda5, hda6 etc…etc… i know this guy does not have a clue and should get some REAL help in better understanding, in disk partitioning, Linux file formats & structure…
common Eugina, i know you know better than to bother letting this get posted to your website, don’t make me delete OSNews from my bookmarks!!!
The sound certainly wasn’t muted for me. On the contrary, when Linus did his little “Linux as Linux” bit, he almost burst my eardrums — this is with the volume slider on my headphones as low as it will go.
I disagree Eugenia. I find the Gentoo distro and its docs and forums to be the best out there. Install is long but not troublesome …..sowhat if you have no gui installer. One of the biggest benefits of the Gentoo install is the wealth of knowledge you learn by building linux from scratch. Once the install is completed, I find Gentoo with its Portage system to be ultra easy to use. No rpm hell, no dependency hell, no manually compiling anything, no searching your system wondering where news things installed to, etc. You want to upgrade to a new version of KDE….no problem: emerge KDE and the rest is automated. Linux is not like windows. It requires you to get your hands dirty sometimes. Of all the distros Ive used, I ended up on SuSE for the longest time, but still lacked the proper knowledge of Linux itself. I was bound to YaST to get anything done right. Even some of the simplest linux commands would stump me. I played with Gentoo 1.4 RC3 for a week and learned more than the previous 1.5 years of using SuSE. Now Ive replaced SuSE on my 2 servers and Desktop with it. Also put it on my desktop at work. Never ran into a single problem. I even got it running on my new Asus A7N8X Deluxe nforce2 board without issue.
I would recommend SuSE 8.2 or Mandrake 9.1 to a user that was curious to see if they could get away from windows or dont have a lot of time to fuss with their computer. Most of those users cant handle it and go back to windows anyway. For those that are serious and are basically at a point where they dont want to run windows, Id have no problem recommending Gentoo. With the assurance that “Dont worry, the long install process is worth the end result”
the author was using the right distro, mandrake rocks! (i use gentoo) the author probably knows about as much as my thumb when it comes to computers. i think linux should stop being for mainstream uses and more for the technoliterate. people like the author make it sound hard when it’s very easy and in the end we hate ourselves for having ever used windows! the use of linux is a privilege for people who know WTF they’re doing. to conclude 🙂 linux is perfect but only to those who can do the black majicks required to conjure up the penguin spirits.
Gentoo doesn’t solve the hardware detection problems. You have to compile your own kernel. The biggest complaint this guy had was that hardware detection sucked.
The other complaint, package management issues, is not easily solved by gentoo. There is no need to build from source. apt-get is a much better tool for what he wants.
Honestly, I think that to fix hardware detection, distros should start bundling an install cd and a package cd. The install cd should mimic knoppix hardware auto-detection. The user can see everything that was autodetected, and *know* that if it was autodetected, it will work properly. Then the second package cd should contain the binary packages (really .deb or .tgz is the best existing choice).
We shouldn’t criticize distros for having bad ui design. They will get there when desktop environments have good ui design and enforce higs on apps.
My two cents.
Linux is for people who want/need a UNIX like environment.
End of story.
“Mac OS X is different from Windows too, but I don’t see people having the same problems switching between those two OSes. I certainly don’t see Apple saying that switchers need to change their way of thinking to use it.”
That’s because Mac OS X is a desktop operating system. Linux is not.
I’m glad you love your OS, but Gentoo is not the be all and end all of linux distros. Gentoo users have this hammer mentality – they act like Gentoo is the only linux distro for the job in the same way that a 2 year old walks around swinging with a toy hammer thinking it’s the only tool for the job. I’d like to debunk many of the Gentoo myths but this is not the place, and in any event, the days of compiling that Gentoo users have spent would compel them to deny these outright for fear of having wasted a tremendous amount of their time. For the time being, let’s just agree that Gentoo is not in the same ballpark as Mandrake. Who cares if it has great documentation – newbs can’t find this documentation on their own, and if they do find it, they aren’t willing to spend that much time following such delicate instructions.
because god forbid hardware companies want to stay competative and not release their specs, right?
I understand the linux zealots can be irrating with comments like your using the wrong distro or you dont know what your doing and are an idiot.
It is equally irrating when the opposing faction of equally condescending attitude of well the zealots are in and baggin on this guy therefore linux must be at fault and it will always suck as long as the zealots are around.
Neither approach addresses any issues and is childlike and thoughtless at best. Frankly its true that linux is different than windows, some people do like using it and have little trouble doing so. So be it, the author’s experience wasnt good and therefore he would be better off using windows. As much as I feel more my use of desktop linux is a no-brainer and I spend less time dealing with things I care not to deal with, I’m not going to bag on someone else who is bewildered by linux (no matter how half hearted they’re attempts may be, frankly there is more to life than computers and understandibly its not a priority for everyone to explore and learn said subject).
This is a technically oriented website, and is called osnews, not thisossucks.com, or linux/windows/skyosadvocacy.com. Zealots on either side make me waste my time on posts like this to say stop wasting my time looking through garbage to get to something informative. I guess I should have known better, I will stop wasting words on zealots now (as the tendency is to dismiss any opinion differing from theirs, ergo zealots).
just tell me what is so difficult in the hardware dedection in linux? if the lspci -vv command does not help you, then you better buy a box, where everything is installed and you don’t need to install any driver or any application!
First of all I’m using Linux my self (Debian), and thought I don’t agree with author in many places he is right about one thing: installing new software.
IMHO installing *any* distro is peace of cake for almost anybody (hdaX? c’mon, hard disk a(first), partition X…),
but after you got your eye candy up & running you will need some stuff which didn’t came with distro. Anything… and if it doesn’t got deb, rpm for *your distro* problems begin… compile, get headers, -dev packages… KDE 3.1.1 seems so different from KDE 3.1 (looking ant Qt libs) that all tad bit older programs won’t be binary compatible etc. etc. etc…
To put it short: if you start wanting new cool KDE/GNOME apps, you start asking for trouble, atleast little:)
I can’t say that I took the review as a serious read, but people really don’t need to go so base as to insult the guy on a personal level. Equally what’s the point in making guesses as to his technical know-how just because he can’t install Linux. If someone can’t install a BSD do you see the users of BSD go hunting for an easy flame?
Linux isn’t ready for the desktop and I doubt ever will be any time soon, when against Windows. Windows has had a long time and a huge cash stockpile and so have a lead Linux won’t make up for even with 100’s of developers.
Linux is though fine for workstations and the like – and also for those who do know how to install it, it isn’t a hobby OS, and it’s not a gaming OS. The distro’s really need to sort out who IS buying their product (or downloading in this case) and cater to them before worrying about chipping away at Microsoft’s userbase of the non-tech-savy.
Use Mac OS X man, in an Apple Computer, Mac OS X is the best operating system, like Windows, Linux and Mac OS, test it! very good.
Main difference between switching to Mac OS X and Linux? Mac support by Mac users actually answers the users question, or at least points them to a reference that does. Linux responses are 99% “you’re a noob”, “RTFM”, “you don’t deserve to use Linux”, etc. If all the so called Linux Experts would either take 5 minutes of their precious time to explain it, or actually point to the resource – most new Linux users would be glad to RTFM (finding it is usually the problem, reading/understanding is not).
“That is precisely what we DON’T want to hear when we can’t get the latest attempt at migrating to fly right. I’ve read the article and I agree wholeheartedly with what he’s writing. I too didn’t get the sound working (why on earth is Mandrakes sound muted as default?), had innumerable problems installing packages, didn’t get my modem to work because of lack of drivers and have been amazed at how long it took to start upp apps.”
Why would you need a driver for a modem? Surely you just plug it into the serial port and it works. You might want to know a good Init string for that modem, but a standard one will work.
I too tried out the newest release of Mandrake 9.1 and honestly, I had much the same experiences. I’ve been trying to use Linux since Redhat 6.2 and I’ve never stuck with it, always going back to my main boot of Windows 2000 or XP. Mandrake 9.1 is probably the best distro I’ve played with out of the box, but the key word is play. I don’t want to spend weeks tweaking the system just to do what I need it to do. Its ridiculus that it mutes the sound from the start (I have a Gametheater XP card…C-Media chipset) and the audio quality blows ass in it. Its ridiculus that to install Opera (which wasn’t installed by default even with all the CDs downloaded and used and it wasnt even a choice) I have to hunt down something like five other packages just to install. Yet I’m given something like five other browsers out of the box that I’ve never even heard of and can’t even render the majority of pages out there?
Linux has INCREDIBLE power, yet you need to spend a great amount of time to access that power. Let alone to do what you need to do on a daily basis. Some companies are marketing Linux as the Windows replacement, its not, and it won’t be for some time. I don’t know if it even should be, its power lies elsewhere. The Linux obsessed crowd attack this writer because of his knowledge and how he can’t get Linux to work. Hell, I know PLENTY of people who’ve worked with computers for years that can’t get Linux to work. Not all of us want to spend hours pon hours locked in our basement tweaking an OS to work. Thank you but no…Windows XP does work out of the box, the majority of the time, doing basicly everything a normal person could want. When Linux can do that…thats when we’ll switch.
..is that ACPI support still doesn’t work for my very very mainstream laptop.
It’s not Mandrake’s fault, but this is where OSS isn’t living up to its billing.
ACPI support shipping in XP years ago, and we still can’t get it?
Argh.
You need to have a lesson on hda’s, b’s and c’s. They are much easier than C, D, E, F drives? hda is the master on the primary ide bus. hdb is the slave on the primary ide bus. hdc is the master on the secondary ide bus; hdd is the slave on the secondary ide bus. Simple so far? hda1 is the first partition on hda. hda2 is the second partition. et cetra.
This is much more direct than having a “C” drive. Why is not the first drive “A” 😉
LINLW – Linux is not like Windows, but differences are good.
your right technical knowhow is not an issue however he did like most people who feel they know computers claim to be one. Not defending the trolls but he should have known better thats foolish to claim your technical and then cant back that, I doubt linus torvalds or euginia make a habit of calling themselves technical when they write something.
I have been watching the Unix v. Linux v. Windows v. Mac OS X for sometime now. I have used all of them at one point, but I currently own a 2000 box and a Powermac.
with that said….
I, like the reviewer, would love to use Linux a lot more than I do, but it’s to damn hard to figure out. I think I will agree with what a lot of the local Linux people tell me. Linux is for serious geeks..newbies need not apply. Which is sad because Linux has so much potential. This also begs a question…
Why is it that Apple can make an easy to unix in about 4 years with a handful of engineers and programmers and Linux can’t with hordes of people hard at work. Another thing, why does Linux GUI behaves the same as Windows?
Where have all of the unique Ideas gone?
Maybe you ask in the wrong places, or maybe you are being equally obnoxious (sp?) when asking, which makes people ignore you or brush you off?
Seriously, i never see this kind of attitude unless people are asking rudely, in which case i think a RTFM answer is just fine.
As for the review, i too find it pretty worthless. I mean, if i give my mom a blank computer and a windows cd, im sure she will have most of the same problems too. I am however sure that both my mom and this reviewer would have a lot more luck if they got a preconfigured system to play with.
If he would, after trying out a preconfigured system for an extended period of time, not just a few hours, still have major problems, then i think it would be a whole lot more interesting.
This is i believe why BOTH Linux and Windows seem to be doing well on the business desktop, as people just have to get their work done, and let others worry about the setting up.
i’m a linux user/promoter for a few years. . . but we must accept the reality, linux+xfree86+kde/gnome can’t beat xp in speed, ease of use. . . in desktop terms or course.
linux is more stable. . . ok
has better file system(s). . . ok
. . . generally faster (without gui). . . ok
linux is a perfect server OS, i’m testing oracle 9i and is far better tan w2000, xp, nt4, etc. but again, liux still needs people that knows what’s a computer.
This “article” is of rather poor quality. All it says is how not all hardware worked correctly or at all, and details the troubles this person had with installing software. Hardly worth being posted on osnews, or?
Linux is like a democracy, not a dictator ship. So don’t be afraid of the choices. If want to drive the OS car blindly, use Windows or Apple or …. . But even these systems have learning curves. All systems have a learning curve. Some things can be done easily in Windows, but others can be done way more easy in Linux. IMHO Linux is a better option, because I have A CHOICE. And choice is IMHO the most important characteristic of Open Source.
Stick with one distro and stop complaining !
than other distros. It’s a start at least.
Let me start by saying that I’m desperate for a real alternative to Windows on the PC platform
How about eComStation? I really think it’s worth a try. Still I wish they had a demo disk or a trial version…
Why is it that Apple can make an easy to unix in about 4 years with a handful of engineers and programmers and Linux can’t with hordes of people hard at work.
Because the Mac is closed hardware, more or less, whereas Linux is expected to run on a huge range of hardware, from obscure modems to run-of-the-mill Intel Pentium 4s.
“Why is it that Apple can make an easy to unix in about 4 years with a handful of engineers and programmers and Linux can’t with hordes of people hard at work.”
To be fair to Linux, Apple used NeXTSTEP as the basis for Mac OS X and NeXTSTEP was an easy to use UNIX over 10 years ago. Linux has existed for quite a long time, but until recently it hasn’t been aimed at the desktop, much desktop software is still immature. Also it’s much easier to make a consistent and easy to use OS when one company is controlling it. With Mac OS X there aren’t multiple distributions with different features, package managers, desktop environments, etc.
It’s funny, but the thing I think is lacking most in Linux isn’t what everyone else generally points to; it isn’t a viable Photoshop rival – the Gimp is fine. It isn’t a decent groupware app – Evolution is sufficient and becoming more and more refined. It’s a decent rival to Illustrator.
OK, I am not reviewing the 9.1, but bear with me, because this is relevant.
First, I ordered the CDs, received them after 4 weeks, so I did not dowload.
Next, the computer I chose is a Micron Millennia PII 450Mhz, 256 Meg RAM.
Installation:
I pulled out the CD. So far so good. The CD was shrink-wrapped in an opaque plastic that really clung to the CD. That is when trouble started. There was no obvious place to start tearing off the plastic. I was afraid that if I used a knife, I might scratch the surface of the CD, and I also did not know which side had the data on. Now, before you say RTFM, get this – there was NO documentation as to how to unwrap the CD – it was not included in the box set! However, I am more skilled with computers than your average grandma, so undaunted, I went online. I hit the online forums at Mandrake and searched and searched, but could not find the topic dealing with my problem
(
So, I went googling. Same problem. I got tons of hits on saranwrap, and various cooking sites, but still no help with my problem.
Finally defeated, I had to re-evaluate my move to Linux. Now, I have heard of other distros that use different ways of shipping the installation CDs, but why does all of this have to be so difficult? When I bought my Windows computer, the OS came pre-installed on it already. That’s a lot easier, than having to deal with complicated and unfamiliar ways of software packaging under linux – and further every distro packages their CDs differently! I can assure you, I have never seen this particular wrapping on any other installation CD – only Mandrake uses it. I can well imagine, that after I have finally gleaned the secret of unwrapping Mandrake installation CDs, I’d have to re-learn it all over with SUSE and so on. Why don’t they all just standardize their wrapping?? FRAGMENTATION IN LINUX MUST STOP! Plus, after all this, the pre-installed Windows XP was just an easier installation from my point of view – and I approach it as somewhat of a geek (at least that’s what a girl called me at the supermarket when on impulse I asked her for a date).
OK, so you ask – never mind the installation – I too hate it when reviewers concentrate on installation and don’t pay attention to LIVING with linux. OK, so here are my experiences. I have now lived with the shrinkwrapped CD in my living room for almost a month. I can report that doing laundry is just as much a chore as it was before. Girls still refuse to date me, even after I’ve taken to heart remarks from well-meaning friends (“pay attention to your grooming, don’t just spend all your time in front of the computer – go out sometime”.) After spending years in front of the computer did not result in meeting any girls (I tried “emerge-girl” and “fetch-girl” and “apt-girl”, and never has a girl emerged from my computer screen – except on those XXX sites, where they ask for my credit card number and then I get emails like “Lisa – see me”, I go to the email site and Lisa just asks for more money). Well, with Mandrake 9.0 CD lying somewhere securely on my messy desk, my love life did not improve. So I got out to the supermarket, and cosistent with the grooming tip, I cleaned my coke-bottle glasses, and replaced the tape holding up the frame of my glasses with new tape. The first girl I walked up to in the supermarket, I asked if she’d like go hacking with me, cause my ManDrake is a 9.0 now. She called me a geek and ran away. So, Mandrake 9.0 has not helped me there either. My diet contiues to be Moutain Dew and donuts because breakfast is the most important meal of the day. No improvement under Mandrake 9.0.
My overall conclusion – linux is still not ready for the desktop.
“I can only use the text mode installer. I dont have any exotic hardware (athlon 1800, GF4/4200/8X, 19160 scsi). The installer goes straight to black screen and keyboard lights flash. weird eh?”
It’s not ODD, it’s the Linux kernel. Try pressing F1 when the CD boots up and then type “linux noapic” and press <ENETR>.
That should fix it.
I consider myself to be an advocate of using Linux, but I can see how someone with not much technical know-how could have problems, even with a distro like Mandrake.
Windows is easy to use initially, but when something goes really wrong you quickly hit a brick wall, the trail of documentation dries up (or is not available to the public), and your only option is a re-install. Sometimes what you want to do is just plain impossible, because Microsoft has not made allowences for your particular needs. (Minority language support, strange or demanding hardware requirements etc).
With Linux, many users hit the wall pretty quickly. Most give up, but others relax, take a break, read a little and realise it’s not such a big wall after all. Once you are over that barrier you see it’s not such a big deal. You start to make decisions about how your computer should work for you, rather than just picking from someone else’s pre-sets.
Most people who are interested in switching to Linux already have at least five or six years of Windows operating and fault finding experience. When they come across an OS in which they have zero experience, their first reaction to problems is that the OS is fundamentaly flawed, rather than drawing on experience or asking for help to fix whatever configuration problem they encountered.
To the statement…
“Why spend lots of time and effort re-learning a new and seemingly more complex way of working with your computer than you have already?”
I would quote him again..
“I’m desperate for a real alternative to Windows on the PC platform”
Yes, you are going to have to re-learn a few things, and it is going to take a little effort, but it’s not as hard as the evening you spent with it may lead you to think.
I got the impression from the article that the writer had installed Mandrake for the purposes of writing a review, rather than any real intention of using it as their main or alternate OS.
Iain-
I’m sorry, but your whole article makes it abundantly clear that switching from XP is not right for you. I don’t subscribe to the idea that any OS is, or is not, right for the desktop.
I agree that some things are strange, obtuse, and even downright hostile to the person switching from windows to linux, but, I also havve to say that in all fairness: you can’t switch OSes and expect everything to be “like windows.”
Alot of the equipment you have is designed with windows in mind-hardware support is, and will continue to be, linux’s achilles heel. Alot of people run Linux on fairly high end boxes, some on MicroTel junk. You mileage can vary.
And that’s the point. If you want to switch, it’s going to be bumpy.My rule of thumbs is: if you can handle the quirks of linux, that is, if you have the willingness to tweak away until the cows come home, then by all means go for it. It’s a great OS.
If you can’t, why hit your head against the wall? If you have a philosophical problem with Microsoft, then switch to a mac. It too “just runs”.
Otherwise, stick with XP.
You know something?
Linux ain’t windows. Going into it like it’s going to be an upgrade of your windows just ain’t going to work.
I think distros can actually be somewhat harmful to the extent they seduce noobs into thinking they don’t need to know anything about Linux to use it. It’s actually far better to go through something like Gentoo stage 1 install (ideally with a second computer next to you attached to the gentoo.org site) and LEARN while you install. Then you can manage the system properly, resolve problems when they pop up EASILY. Frustration comes from ignorance; the more you insist on remaining ignorant because it’s your “right” the more frustrated you will remain because you won’t understand how to handle any difficulty you bump into.
All right, so you say why should you learn the workings of your o/s, you don’t have to with Windows, right? Well, most people don’t use Windows properly either. Most people don’t even INSTALL Windows because it just comes on their machine pre-loaded. I’ve done significant Windows tweaking on four system in the family and the results are amazing for speed and stability. But if I insisted on being an ignoramus, guess what? I could be bitching about Windows problems like everyone else!
To use any operating system effectively, you need to overcome your mental resistence to learning about how things work. It’s a small investment considering how many years you’re likely to use a stable system.
I played with Lycoris, Mandrake, Redhat, etc. but in the end, Gentoo worked so much better because I was willing to learn while I installed because I KNEW it wasn’t a load a cd and click CONTINUE install. I also took the attitude that learning what to do (and scribbling it down in a notepad) was going to serve me longterm as I wasn’t just going to continue dancing between distributions, frustrated because none of them combined everything I wanted.
Gentoo let me do things my way: I built the kernel (actually turned out to be quite simple if you take the time to know the devices in your system… my stripped-down kernel worked first try) and chose the packages I wanted. Gentoo happens to have great documentation and a great community at Gentoo.org. And because I compiled everything, it’s optimized for my i686 Athlon. Talk about fast.
I’m sorry Eugenia has had problems with Gentoo, but I think it depends on what attitude you take. If you make a list of core requirements you need like office suite, dvd, cd burning, genealogy, web, mail, instant messaging, mp3 music, etc then just install them and use them until some significant new version comes out rather than update to every latest bit of alpha software every night, you might have a stable system.
This is a long message but for a reason. I’ve played in the Linux world for a year now and was never remotely satisfied until I went with Gentoo.
Gentoo not for noobs? A slighlty higher learning curve to install, but well worth it in the long run. No o/s is for noobs. Just listen to support calls for Windows. Just look at the “Macs for dummies” books.
Why spend lots of time and effort re-learning a new and seemingly more complex way of working with your computer than you have already?
This is one of the many unfair criticisms people throw at linux and it really gets me rattled. Linux is not really “more complex” than windows. The same things are going in each. The difference is you know windows already. People think that knowing how to do things in a Win/Dos world makes them computer savvy and that is pure rubbish. It simply means you happen to have experience with a given OS. Then they are surprised that when learning a new OS with a completely different architecture it takes a little work.
I am telling you. Sit a complete noob who has never used a computer down in front of a linux box and a windows box they will be equally confused by both. They will probably take about the same amount of time to learn either one once they get started as well (as long as they find the right web site or book to help them).
People forget how long the actual learning process takes. I know, I felt similar when I started using linux. Then I realized it wasn’t harder, just different.
If you really TRIED ANYONE can do it!!! USE SOME FORUMS!!! You guys have no idea how many hours/days I spent just typing messages in forums to learn about the system. I took the time to learn as much as possible from people that already knew about the system. LINUX CAN BE USED ON THE DESKTOP! You don’t even need good hardware to do it. I have a Pentium 150 MHz with 16 MB of RAM running linux in a graphical interface http://www.vectorlinux.com enjoy (the installation has some bugs, but after 3 installation attempts I got it). That is the problem with you guys, you expect everything to be done for you. Think back to windows 95 or windows 3.11 It wasn’t as easy, but you still had hardware compadibility because Microsoft had a monopoly.
I spent half a month getting my winmodem working when I first started. It took me 26 hours to set up a network. Thanks to the people on the message boards I posted to, everything is running smoothly now. OpenOffice is buggy, and I don’t know why, but I like Abiword more anyway. That’s the only software package that gives me any problems. The is installed. Some things aren’t the easiest to install from source. The community knows this, and projects like stow are trying to make this easier for the user. You have to realize this isn’t a mature operating system and TAKE THE TIME TO LEARN IT! I can’t stress this enough. If you WANT to use linux you CAN make it WORK for you. I have it running on 2 computers fine, and there will be another added as soon as I can get another monitor.
In principle, I agree, but the flip side is that articles purporting to be a review of an OS cannot simply discredit the OS because it essentially is not windows.
That’s the whole point of alternative/hobby/non-mainstream OSes-they aren’t the dominant paradigm. They are different, they may take some work to get running, and they may explode in your face.
I suppose there are legitimate reasons for switching OSes, such as a legitimate political difference of opinion with Microsoft’s business practices. But, if you think that something else is going to be XP-Free Edition, then that’s just plain naieve.
Face it: alternative OSes are not for everyone, and no amount of evangelizing will change that.
Yeah, right. You tell a newbie to use Gentoo.
Lots of newbies do, and it isn’t strange or wrong to tell a newbie to use it! Most of the people I know who are really fast and effective on Windows (including myself) started out on DOS. Thos of us in this rare breed tend hit Win+R a lot or keep a terminal emulator open. You see, back in the early DOS days you had to understand your computer to use it. You gain a kind of knowledge that makes you more able to fix your problems later.
When my family bought our first computer (a Tandy which costed $2000 at the time) my dad had to get a book on DOS, and this was in the pre-* for dummies days. He sat, and read the book, and actually became quite knowledgable about it. To this day fixes his friends’ computers all the time. This is a guy with no college education! However, everyone now thinks it would be a shame if they actually learned what is happening under the hood. If people would quit being so lazy maybe I wouldn’t have to be bombarded with idiotic tech support calls all day.
Yup, the zealots are in full force on this one as they always are, giving the same two lame responses:
This is pretty insulting. Of course people are going to reccomend their favorite distro. How is that zealotry? If I go to a bar with a friend and reccomend he order a Boulevard, am I a Boulevard zealot? No, I just like that beer, so I tell my friends so they can try it. The same goes for any suggestion I make to someone. I do it in the hopes that they will enjoy it as much as I do. If not, then that’s too bad. I don’t expect to get insulted for it though.
We won’t switch for nothing less than XP.
Good, don’t.
Ever…
I’m serious.
MHO, the most reliable PCs you can buy are the ones that have the little sticker ” Designed for Windows _ _ ” on it – because you know if the HDD fails that you can install windows and it will just work.
Windows will cure HDD failure! That’s incredible that windows can physically repair a broken harddrive. Quick, somebody patent that technology.
“This is one of the many unfair criticisms people throw at linux and it really gets me rattled. Linux is not really “more complex” than windows. The same things are going in each. The difference is you know windows already.”
I can only comment on my experience with Windows and Linux, personally I found using Linux much more complex and time consuming. There were things I needed to learn when I switched to Windows and I had a few problems, but nothing I couldn’t easily solve even as a Windows novice. Everyday use of the system, including installing software, hardware drivers and OS upgrades has been easy and problem free. I certainly never spent days studying documentation and asking for help on forums with Windows.
While in Linux, for the first month of running it I did practically nothing but read FAQs, HowTo guides and man pages trying to learn the system and get things working. Over the past decade I’ve switched between RISC OS, Mac OS and Windows as my main desktop OS and played with quite a few others, including NeXTSTEP, OS/2 and BeOS. Using Linux for a few months was more work than learning to use all of the other OSes put together.
For me Linux has been much harder to use, not just different from other OSes. Obviously not everyone has the same problems so YMMV.
The review is well written and informative. However, on my disease ridden system, it runs perfectly. Unlike RedHat 8.0 which crawls, MDrake 9.1 is zippy and fast. Runs like butter. Purrs like a kitten. I, however, installed all available packages, which might have been helpful. Frankly, for the past week I have been using nothing bu MDrake 9.1! I only need to figure out a way to convert Outlook Express folders to KMail or somesuch app, and install Wine and I’ll be set! For me, this was the Switch. I won’t need any other OS unless I find a better distro in the future, or Bill Gates (or Steve Jobs for that matter) comes aknockin’ at my door and begs me (support by wads of cash) to return to Windows (or “switch” to Mac).
–Mike.
These “Personal reviews” are really getting tiresome. If I want a personal user’s experience, I’ll goto a forum and read.
Please try to keep OSnews more professional with real reviews from people who spend more time actually using/testing the OS than they spend downloading it.
That way I can actually read something semi-intelligent as opposed to rant like this ‘review’ was.
Why is it that Apple can make an easy to unix in about 4 years with a handful of engineers and programmers and Linux can’t with hordes of people hard at work.
This is an easy one. Apple controls the platform. That means that OSX only has to support a limited set of hardware devices that are chosen specifically by Apple. That means that everything “just works” because Apple knows in advance what the OS will need. In contrast, Linux is supposed to be able to run on a multitude of setups using a variety of processors setups, networks adapters, sound cards, video cards, etc, etc. I would have no problem popping out a linux distro that will work for everyone who buys the specific computer I put together for them. However, supporting ridiculously esoteric hardware is difficult when the manufacturer doesn’t release drivers.
WRONG!!!
I got my first PC when I was 13, it took me less than a month to learn EVERYTHING I needed to know to setup anything I wanted quickly! by the time I was 15 I had tried Linux a few times and always gone back to Windows(98SE at the time) because Wine was horrible so I had no games, and everything was slow in Linux.
I am now 16 and have tried Linux a lot more and with almost all of the “bigger” distros(ex. RH,SuSE,Mandrake,Lycoris,Gentoo…) everytime I install it I find old problems solved and new ones slapping me in the face! I am eagerly waiting to download mandrake 9.1 and try it but the servers are always overloaded.
You see, back in the early DOS days you had to understand your computer to use it. .
Yeah? Well, back when I was your age, I had to walk butt-naked through 40 miles of snow …..
If people would quit being so lazy maybe I wouldn’t have to be bombarded with idiotic tech support calls all day.
This kind of attitude pre-supposes that everybody has time to sit around and fuck with their computers all day – try telling this to some single mom who has 3 kids and uses the computer about 30 minutes a week.
Of course people are going to reccomend their favorite distro. How is that zealotry?
Because:
1. It pre-supposes that the problem(s) a person is having is with the distro, not the OS and …
2. There’s a lot of cross-distro recommending. Is Debian installations giving you headaches? Try Readhat. Is Redhat RPM hell giving you headaches, try Debian. I mean, whwere does it end?
If I go to a bar with a friend and reccomend he order a Boulevard, am I a Boulevard zealot? No, I just like that beer, so I tell my friends so they can try it.
Would you recommend this drink to someone that you know who hates beer in general ?
Why is it that Apple can make an easy to unix in about 4 years with a handful of engineers and programmers and Linux can’t with hordes of people hard at work.
This is an easy one. Apple controls the platform. That means that OSX only has to support a limited set of hardware devices that are chosen specifically by Apple.
Yes, you’re right … but also because OSX doesn’t come with 11 window managers, 5 web browsers, 3 email programs, 3,000 emacs clones, etc ….
While in Linux, for the first month of running it I did practically nothing but read FAQs, HowTo guides and man pages trying to learn the system and get things working.
I find this interesting. Obviously, everyone will have different results with everything. However, I switched to linux after being a Dos->Win3.1->Win95->Win98->Win98SE->WinME->WinXP user for the past 14 years or so. We are talking about Dos experience (and even BASIC programming) from a very young age (7 or so). All I can say is, it didn’t take me that long to get the hang of linux. Now, at first I used “shrink wrapped” distros like SuSE, Redhat, and Mandrake. Those didn’t teach me much, but I used them as well as most people use windows (which isn’t that great, but most people don’t know the difference). Once I tried Gentoo I really started learning linux in the same type of way that I had learned windows. Now when I am working in xp I find myself accidentally typing top and ls into the command line.
Hard? Maybe. Harder, not really.
kinda is typical…. you dont know the latest windows version.. cant fix.. you start calling support.. wait!! isnt this the same thing you would do for Linux? duh..
First off, you sound kinda pissed. Please don’t be (it is hard for me to tell someones tone online… it is a big flaw in internet communication).
This kind of attitude pre-supposes that everybody has time to sit around and fuck with their computers all day – try telling this to some single mom who has 3 kids and uses the computer about 30 minutes a week.
The person you are describing is probably not installing their own OS from scratch. I would reccomend that they don’t either. Otherwise, a pre-install or friend-installed linux would work as well for this person as any other OS.
Because:
1. It pre-supposes that the problem(s) a person is having is with the distro, not the OS and …
2. There’s a lot of cross-distro recommending. Is Debian installations giving you headaches? Try Readhat. Is Redhat RPM hell giving you headaches, try Debian. I mean, whwere does it end?
From Merriam Webster: zealot – a zealous person; especially : a fanatical partisan
I think we can both agree that neither of those points indicates fanatical partisanship.
Would you recommend this drink to someone that you know who hates beer in general ?
No, but if he were already drinking beer (ie, experimenting with distros), I could reason to assume he does not hate beer.
Yes, you’re right … but also because OSX doesn’t come with 11 window managers, 5 web browsers, 3 email programs, 3,000 emacs clones, etc ….
There are plenty of Linux versions that don’t include that stuff either. Besides which it is offtopic and doesn’t address the original question.
A few things.
1. 99% of my time I’m using a Linux system.
Whenever I got to a Windows XP machine
I plainly get frustrated because nothing seems intuitive to me.
I never know where my files are being saved, and navigating through
the file system is just a pain in the neck. Plus, the fact that
the window is raised when I click on it just plainly irritates me.
Even a simple thing like using ftp to transfer files to my linux box is
difficult to do because the windows command line blows, especially
when dealing with Folders and filenames that contain spaces. AFAIK,
windows by default comes only with a command line ftp,
and I would have to download version with a GUI.
AFAIK, XP doesn’t have by default ssh, so I have to download this too.
2. The same thing happens when I use OS X. I have no idea how
to navigate around and and I just can’t get used to the 1 button mouse.
The POINT is most people have only seen Windows and that’s what
they’re used to. I’m not used to XP, and so I don’t feel
comfortable with it. For me, because I use a DIFFERENT system which
has a DIFFERENT user interface, I initially have a hard time in another
environment until I get used to it. This is only natural. And I
consider my self to be quite a savvy computer user.
3. Whenever I purchase a computer, say from company X, it already
comes preinstalled with the OS and all drivers for all devices.
Therefore, there is no fuss about installing an operating system and
making the details work for you. Whenever I purchase a new mouse
or and other piece of software, the software comes with a CD containing
a driver, and it knows how to automatically install itself.
The point is, if Joe purchased a computer with Linux preinstalled
from company X, where
all the small details have been taken care of by company X, do you
think he’ll have to make his sound driver work? Probably not. Will
he have a problem connecting to the internet. Probably not
since company X installed the driver for the modem that came with the
PC, or because he installed the driver which came with a CD for
his OS.
4. I’ve never heard of such strange memory problems under Linux,
and I started using it around 1997. I speculate that the process
which used up the memory never exited, and that’s why the system
was coming to a halt. Probably the programs that make up the
desktop were being put into swap space, and that’s what would cause
the system stagnation. In any case, not that a newbie could
deal with this, I’ve never had anything like what the author
describes happen to me… He was unlucky.
The person you are describing is probably not installing their own OS from scratch. I would reccomend that they don’t either. Otherwise, a pre-install or friend-installed linux would work as well for this person as any other OS.
Ok, so your choices are then to either …
a) RTFM
b) Have the OS pre-installed
Only problem with b is that Linux doesn’t really get any less complex after instalation if you need to do something that requires you to RTFM, so you’re still stuck with the same issues as installation.
As for the other comments, I have to get back to work (15 min break) and don’t have time to finish this post … sorry
Only problem with b is that Linux doesn’t really get any less complex after instalation if you need to do something that requires you to RTFM, so you’re still stuck with the same issues as installation.
I really don’t know what kind of things you are talking about here. Editing fstab? Well, most people won’t need to do it, but if they do, I am pretty sure there are graphical tools for it. Same for other command-line things like top, and network setup.
I do all these from the command line of course, so I am not really knowledgable about the gui tools. All I can say is, it doesn’t seem that complex to me. The stuff I am doing there is stuff most users wouldn’t be doing, especially if the os was pre-installed.
You can’t compare a Linux distribution to OS X, for one simple reason, Apple controls everything. They know exactly what hardware is available on the various version of their hardware. Guess what, things aren’t that easy on PCs? You have hundreds of manufacturers making slightly incompatible hardware. Apple has it easy.
Back to the review:
Installing just disk 1 of most distributions gives you a running Linux computer. It may not have all the software you want, since everyone actually makes a 3 disk download, and most of the applications you are looking for aren’t on the first disk. Mandrake comes with Open Office, and many other applications. Complaining that they weren’t there because you didn’t download them is silly. Mandrake wouldn’t install the Open Office from a disk the reviewer had laying around, which is probably for the best, because it might have broken their system. Installing random RPMs can do that, which is why Apt and urpmi (Mandrake’s tool for installing RPMs) were invented, to make life safer.
The biggest disservice that cable and DSL vendors have committed is the USB modem. USB was not designed for networking, and needs wierd drivers to be able to talk on a network. Even then, it doesn’t work all that well. If the computer had a standard network card, and a DSL modem that went with it, then it would have worked better under Windows, and would work with Mandrake.
I’m sorry the reviewer didn’t have a better experience, but 9.1 installed perfectly on my computer, network and all.
//This is only natural. And I
consider my self to be quite a savvy computer user.
//
You consider yourself a “savvy” computer user, yet you can’t navigate around Windows XP or Mac OS X without a lot of difficulty?
Ok. Yah, you’re savvy, all right.
Shaddup.
It’s a breath of fresh air seeing someone reviewing a Linux distro for what it is and not what they want it to be.
This review yet again establishes my point on newbies. Why does any review include.. “MY <insert piece of hardware> did not work”. Ummm obivously RTFM was not applied here haha. Problems adjusting sound volume?? Aumix on the ‘start menu’. Dude… go back to windows. Obivously Mr. Gates has washed away the ability for you to look beyond his products. I could go on an on and create a firestorm as i have in the past, but reviews as such should not even be posted online. A little bit of reading before hand makes things go a long way.
Hi,
read your review. The effort you have put the migration seems to me is NOT ADEQUATE.
GNU/Linux is NOT simple ‘click and install’ – it might never be .. Lets say you want to learn ‘bicylce’ – You will have to put an effort and a bit of practice into balancing, pedelling, looking out and finally multitasking -doing all of these at THE SAME time – I remember when I learnt to bicycle – it was fun, frustrating and exciting when I could finally do it…
Put more effort – DO NOT EXPECT IT TO BE CLICK AND INSTALL.. You say that you are trying to emigrate to Linux .. PLEASE CONSIDER BUYING THE WHOLE DISTRIBUTION – YOU WILL GET A MANUAL ..and PLEASE, PLEASE for your own sake, read the MANUAL. Have you considered using a linux newsgroup for asking your questions ?? Cnet has a good one..
Try Koppix [please GOOGLE] for learning linux.. try it out for a couple of days.
If you are not willing to put an effort on learing GNU/Linux, PLEASE DO NOT EMIGRATE TO LINUX (atleast at the moment) (hopefully things will change to make Linux a ‘mindless’ installation) .. Stick with MicroSoft OS’s – but give this a thought ‘MS OS’s are easy only because you are acclamitised to them’
My 2 cents
-PB
You consider yourself a “savvy” computer user, yet you can’t navigate around Windows XP or Mac OS X without a lot of difficulty?
Ok. Yah, you’re savvy, all right.
Shaddup.
Not only did you completely miss the point of the original post, but you went ahead and went the extra mile to respond with insults. Now that’s class.
Maybe Linux Distros should force people to take an IQ test before they hit the download button. If it’s too low, “Sorry, you’re too stupid to use linux, go post something on slashdot”. If it’s too high, “Sorry, you’re too smart, try a using mac”.
Sorry, but I don’t think this was a fair review at all. Denigrating the OS because you have some weird hardware that causes conflicts is just not reasonable to me. I installed Mandrake 9.1 as an update to 9.0 on a dual-boot P4 system, and never had any real trouble despite this being the first time I’ve ever installed or used Linux. 9.1 fixes the few problems I had with my own hardware in 9.0, and as a longtime Windows user I would say that it is almost at the point where it could seriously contend with WIndows on the desktop. So you have a weird ISDN connection – don’t blame the distro for it!
Angry because you couldn’t get AOL to work with linux?