Giving up on Linux...

[xyzzy at hotpop.com]

On Sunday 22 February 2004 1:05 pm, Paul wrote:
> Hi,
>
> > I could try the 2.6 kernel (and I have a LOT of experience with
> > computers), but what's the use?  The 2.6 kernel is not ready for
> > prime-time, not by a long shot, and neither, it seems, is Linux in
> > general.
>
> Correction. The 2.6.x kernels are ready prime-time. They are far faster
> and far more efficient than the 2.4.x kernels and support a far larger
> range of devices. It has two very large advantages over anything MS can
> offer - one is that it's stable and the second is that it's secure.
>
> > I have seen too many bugs and posts on these topics about
> > SMP/hyperthread/ACPI and other issues that cause the system to lock up
> > after a time of running or not run at all and no fixes seem to be in
> > sight - maybe because these problems are intractable without inside
> > information about ACPI and other things that Intel will give to Microsoft
> > but not to Open Source developers.
>
> Have you ever thought that people don't complain about MS products for
> two reasons - the first is they know it gets sent to /dev/null and
> secondly they don't know who to send reports to?

I'll agree with this up to a point.  M$ DOES listen in its own fashion, 
otherwise there wouldn't be any updates.

>
> The big advantage with open source is that the developers listen.

Ok, they listen.  Where are the fixes for the latest hardware?

>
> Intel is a big supporter both financially and materially of the open
> source sector. They've even revealed stuff about the centrino processor
> which has been kept from MS due to the way Windows works there is little
> or no point telling them about as they won't be able to make use of the
> technology.
>
> > Maybe Redhat just doesn't care. Who knows?
>
> If they didn't care, do you think that those of us using the test
> version would take the time to report the problems?

Again, where are the fixes?

>
> > I pity the average user that tries to install and run Linux on their
> > latest hardware.  If I, as an experienced software engineer, throw up my
> > hands, what would a relative newbie who just needs the system to work do?
>
> I bought a brand spanking new, only released onto the UK market last
> Monday motherboard which comes with EIDE, RAID, S-ATA and a pile of
> other stuff on. Made by AOpen (not exactly God's gift to motherboards,
> infact, I wouldn't normally touch them with a dirty barge pole!).
> Whacked on the memory, a new P4 (2.8GHz), network and Soundblaster 5.1
> (with the front panel). Attached the CDRW, DVD-RW and DVD, Zip, SCSI
> card and all the other stuff I had in the old machine, plonked in the
> Fedora CDs and an hour later, I had a fully working machine.
>
> > I have real problems seeing how Linux is going to make it to the desktop
> > by 2005 with these kinds of road-blocks.
>
> It is sadder that people think WinXP offers anything more than constant
> headaches, broken software and an uncaring despot on the throan.

Religious propaganda aside, the pragmatic bottom line is that for my hardware, 
WinXP DOES offer a working system out of the box.  Linux is what is giving me 
headaches and broken software.  As for uncaring despots, again, where are the 
fixes?  Where are the lines in Bugzilla that say "Fixed in kernel version 
such and such"??

What I am trying to say here is THIS is the stranglehold that M$ has on the 
desktop market; i.e., they are able to come out with an O/S that boots off of 
the install CD, installs, and WORKS (however lousily).  Until these problems 
are addressed and Linux is able to work like this and to react with alacrity 
to state-of-the-art hardware, it will remain a desktop hobbyist/hacker toy 
and server software that runs on year-old hardware.

>
> TTFN
>
> Paul