Sorry people, but Linux sucks!

The BBQ Pit
1

In a nutshell, Windows XP is far better then Linux. Why? Because it works, and because it’s easy to use and easy to fix. If it isn’t Windows, it will be some other easy for the masses to use OS, but it will never be Linux.

Old comp was dual boot Win98 / Redhat 7.3 P3 600 mhz

Install went fairly smooth, but Linux always ran sorta laggy on it. (maybe the graphic settings in KDE were up too high) I never really used it much, so of course when I finished building my new comp, I wanted to throw it on. New comp is about as fast as it gets, so no more lagging.

I decided to go with a new distribution. Why you ask?

For starters, I could have installed my old 7.3, but that runs KDE 2.0 and the newer version 3.1 is supposedly much better. I have no fucking clue how to upgrade, which I assume would involve recompiling some crap, or shitloads of typing in a command line. So I said let me start of fresh with a distribution that will already have the latest shit in it.

Strike one - Too many different versions is a bad thing.

What the hell is up with the 50 million distributions? I don’t know how to make heads or tails of them. SUSE was some type of crazy network install, Debian has some archaic installation process, and RH lacks basic multimedia support. Sure I can add it on later, but then I have to do some crazy command line bullshit. Bottom line, each version had it’s own fucked up install style, and none of them made sense.

Strike two - If you can’t install it properly, you can’t use it!

I get the RH 9.0 ISO files (about 2 gigs, thank og for broadband), burn 'em up, boot from CD, install starts, then halfway through, screen goes blank. After a few more failed attempts, I do a text install (there was obviously something wrong when it tried loading graphics), and everything goes in OK. I go to boot up for the first time and the screen goes blank again!

Strike three You’re out! - Help sucks, because everyone assumes you know Linux

I googled for the problem, and lo and behold it’s pops up as a fairly common problem with RH 9.0. some shit with Nvidia drivers. I then go on to find the most insane technobabble on how to remedy it.

Me: the problem is…
Them: Oh, not a problem, just get the latest Nvidia drivers.

Well how the hell do I do that if RH won’t even boot the fuck up?

I try a different place.

Me: the problem is…
Them: Get the latest Nvidia drivers, then open up #%#%# and reboobulate the combobulater by typing somefuckedupcommand/load/load/load/fstab/libraryx/blahblah-345./45645/dfgert/57645674567###
Me: ???

Do yourselves a favor, stick with Windows.

/off to GQ, the Internet, and to buy a Linux for special people book.

:mad:

2

Why did you want to use Linux in the first place?

3

No it’s not, Suse has an installer just like Windows does. Put the disk in, reboot and let it install itself for you. Works perfectly first time.

Do yourself a favour: buy a distro, instead of downloading one. Why do you think they charge money for them? For the telephone, email and paper based support, designed for people who have never used Linux before.

4

And that pretty much puts the finger on it.

Linux is lovely once it’s set up, but it’s a total bitch to install if you’re not already well aquainted with the Unix command line.

Far too many installations I’ve done of Linux and on Linux have relied on hacking text files and typing commands from solutions downloaded off the internet. Commands, I might add, that I rarely have more than a slight idea of what they’re doing and what they mean.

And too many times when it all goes wrong are you either faced with a complete freeze, or a error report that is either technical to the nth degree and makes no sense to anyone without 5 years Unix kernel experience, or vague beyond words.

More recent versions are getting there, but until someone with even my experience can install Linux in one evening without being driven near to tears with frustration, it has zero chance of competing with Windows.

5

Amazing. I can’t understand how so many people have so much trouble installing Linux. I assume you aren’t using some sort fo archaic hardware combination? Perhaps I just got lucky, I don’t know.

Last year I bought a Linux distro for the first time, Suse Linux 8.1 Pro. I put the DVD in, rebooted, let it resize my Win2k partition for me, then install itself. It was able to find drivers for every piece of hardware (which, in general, cannot be said for Windows, < XP at least), the only trouble it had was with my WinModem (hardly surprising).

What distros were you using by the way?

6

To liberate myself from Winblows. :stuck_out_tongue:

Seriously, though, I like to fiddle around with my comp, so I thought it would be a perfect fit.

My problem is I know a lot, but not enough, if you get my drift.

7

cackles and points with glee at the newbie Sorry, just had to get it out of my system.

I’ve done my fair share of time helping people out with installs - I have mostly used slackware linux - which has a simple, archaic install system. It’s on the console, it’s not X based, and I haven’t had it screw up yet (when it wasn’t my OWN fault, that is). That being said, it’s also for a user more familiar with unix. I am not fond of Red Hat - I had heard Mandrake was easy to use but brianjedi had a heck of a time trying to get that running the other night.

I find, for the reason that Futile named (error report that is hugely technical and non-sensical to a layperson) that it is very very helpful to have a second computer with a network connection so you can get help as you work on it.

Also, the ‘crazy command line bullshit’ is a very very big part of linux. It will be for a long long time, as far as I can see. If you do not want to deal with the command line, linux is most definately not for you.

8

For $22 you can purchase a beginners manual such as this:

It has an easy to follow step by step guide for installing Redhat 9, and a CD that’s as easy to install from as any Windows install I’ve used. You can then buy open office for £20/$30. On top of this there are any number of excellent open source products, from web servers to databases.

This means for a total expenditure of $50, plus a little time learning some new software, you will have a computer that lets you do everything you might ask from a windows system that would have licence costs of $600+ (WIndows xp $199, MS Office $500). It will run on pretty much any second hand hardware from the last 4 or 5 years.

I must contend then that Linux is a very good thing.

9

My understanding is that for SUSE they don’t make a (an?) ISO. You install it via ftp, not by popping in a CD. I would have tried Debian, but every link I went to DL it from was a 404.

Not to mention if I want to take it off now I have to restore my MBR, but how the hell to do that with a (an?) NTFS partition.

Acually while I’m at it, what the hell is the deal with “a” & “an”? I never know which one to use.

From my rudimentary research it looks like I have a problem with Xserver.

/off to go figure out wtf “Xserver” is.

Linux blows.

10

Better in what way?

No clue on how to upgrade KDE? Then why even try it?

Pick one version, pretend the others don’t exist.

Your Windows install went smoothly, I take it.

When I first installed Linux, it was a bit of a pain.
Lately, though, installing RedHat (for example) is easier than installing Windows. Unless you have some unsupported hardware or like tweaking everything in sight, it’s only a matter of clicking a few buttons. Pick the ones that say “Default”.

Who assumes you know Linux? What help are you talking about?

It would be nice if more manufacturers sold computers with Linux already installed, I’ll admit.

Yes, that is unfortunate. Nvidia doesn’t play nice with free software. They have provided some closed source drivers for Linux, but that can’t be part of a free distribution. Someone that works at Nvidia, I think, has helped with the XFree86 drivers (which could be part of a free distribution), and those work pretty well. But perhaps it was too late for RedHat 9.

Incompatible hardware is the biggest problem with Linux, but it isn’t as big as it used to be. The various free software developers do a pretty good job of supporting most hardware. To someone buying a computer to install Linux on, probably the best advice would be to make sure the hardware is supported.

Ah, here’s the help you were talking about. Depending on where you asked, it might have been assumed that you knew a bit about Linux already. Next time, make it clear you don’t really know much about it, and ask if someone can give you some clear, step-by-step instructions on how to fix your problem.

Regarding HELP, I’ve heard that Microsoft help isn’t very helpful itself. (Can’t say for sure, though, since I never tried it.)

How detailed were these instructions? Did you try typing

somefuckedupcommand/load/load/fstab/libraryx/blahblah-345./45645/dfgert/57645674567###

as suggested? It may have worked.

Jay

11

'Tis OK, I know I have to take my lumps.

**

I know it’s not the same, but I spend about half my day running batchfiles in DOS and zooming around directories in DOS, so I have a a vague grasp of command line stuff. I know how efficient it can be so its something to learn not fear. I was hoping I could get my system up and running before I started messing around with the command line stuff.

Looks like this will be a trial by fire.

12

Does everything you don’t understand “blow”?

13

Mandrake kicked my ass the other night. Thanks for all your help, Ven.

I’m still going to have to format and reinstall, but I think I can handle it now.

14

I spend a lot of time working with Linux at my job. I use it (plus Windows 2000 running in vmware) as my desktop and administer Linux (along with Solaris) servers.

While Linux may suck as a desktop (and unless you’re very familiar with Unix, you can make a strong argument that it does), it does not suck as a server operating system. Installing Redhat on a supported platform isn’t any harder then installing Solaris on a Sun/sparc platform, it has all the features you need on smaller systems, and a 4-way Dell box running Linux has better performance (for many applications) at a lower cost then “traditional” vendor-Unix boxes (e.g., Sun’s sparc stuff, IBM’s AIX stuff, SGI’s Irix stuff, HP’s HPUX/Digital Unix stuff, etc.).

15

I’ve had much better luck with Linux since I stopped installed X Windows. That gave me such headaches over the years. I’ve found that the things that Linux does better are almost invariably easy to do just by telnetting in.

16

In my last point, I was talking about small vendor Unix boxes. I’m sure as hell not moving an Oracle instance running on a 16 CPU Sun machine with 8 gigs of ram to a little Linux box. Vendor-Unix definately has its place…

17

I have had the same exact experience, Worldy. While I can build a computer from scratch momentarily and with no head-scratching, install any non-unix OS I want in hours, Linux bites ass. Having gone through the install(took many days and many tries to get the graphics to work right), I junked the fucker.

If it takes a degree to install, it’s no good.

Sam

18

P.S.- When I say Linux sucks, I really mean as Metacom said, as an end-user desktop OS. It most definitely has it’s place in the enterprise, just not at home.

19

Linux may suck for you. Fine. It’s exactly what I was looking for. Something I could tinker with, something which was extremely close to the machine, something where I could find my own place to pitch in.

Linux should be an elite community. I don’t like the increasing flood of dumbasses who want it to be “easy” and “simple”. Why can’t they just buy a Mac? Linux doesn’t need idiots who want everything done for them and who refuse to contribute anything because they don’t know how to code.

UnuMondo

20

You can buy SUSE Linux at the odd stores, Best Buy, CompUSA, Border’s, and Barnes and Nobles (to name a few).

Even Amazon has it.

I just installed this on a fresh hard drive for a friend’s PC and had no problem with it. I just popped it in the drive and it went along its merry way.