Re: Re: perspectives on 32 bit vs 64 bit
Hamish Moffat wrote :
>> And you might want to give Ubuntu a try. The amd64 version is quite
>
> How nice of you to say so on the debian-amd64 list! More like how
> insulting...
Dear Hamish,
I am not a total newbie in using Linux or Debian (I must still have e
set of floppies bearing ham, in the same box where lies my treasured
two-floppies linux 0.12 lies...). Nonwhistanding this experience, I have
to tell that, when I made a very serious effort to install debian-amd64
on a new shiny laptop, I had the hardest time Debian gave me since the
time some idiot messed with PAM modules in unstable, locking hundreds of
unstable users out of their machines... In detail
The debian-amd64 netboot disk installs a kernel (2.6.8) that does not
support my hard disk controller, failing back to IDE PIO mode, of all
things ! I had to first install development packages, kernel sources, a
decent editor and recompile and install a new kernel. At PIO rates, I'll
let you guess how much time I needed... Icing on the cake : the old
kernel did not support keyboard properly, and I had to hack something at
boot time.
The curent tasksel insists on an X version that does not support my
hardware either (ATI X700). I had no choice but to install XFree, *then*
upgrading to xorg.
Then it turned out that my new, shiny kernel did support my touchpad,
but only when unloaded then reloaded. Yent another hack to do (playing
with modules ==> yet another kernel...).
Then, and only then, I hade a useable system ... with no openoffice. I
had to install a chroot and grab a $#-+load of ia32 packages to do that.
All of this took me two days. And require a load of previous Linux and
Debian knowledge. Yet, all of this was deemed as "obvious" by the Debian
Ordained Developers (TM).
In contrast, putting an Ubuntu (amd64 5.10 preview) CD in the drive and
installing took me one hour (two to get some fine-tuning working)... The
one thing I had to sweat on was Wine (I still have to read some .mdb
databases, inf*cluding forms and reports) : I had to install a chroot.
Since I am interested in *USING* a computer (biostatistics and stats
algorithms development + desktop apps overhead), I decided to keep
Ubuntu for the time being...
So, while Debian remains my tool of choice, its current amd64
incarnation *CANNOT* be given to Linux newbies. Ubuntu almost can.
[ Donning asbestos longjohns... ]
I'd like to add a general comment on Debian : while it is, IMHO, the
best Free Software distribution available, its useability is somewhat
spoiled by two factors :
- "Die-hard hackers", who seem unable to understand that recompiling a
kernel is *not* something the average end-user (or even the average
engineer more interested in engineering than tuning his tool) will do if
it can be avoided at all... Ditto for xorg.conf hacking, ditto for
cdrecord anomaly, ditto for ... (well, I won't make the list).
- "Holier than Stallman" Free Software bigots, who object at anything
not GPL, unable to understand the value of a temporary compromise... (e.
g. refusing to provide a pointer to libdvdcss in totem or xine docs)
While the latter factor seem to dwindle a bit these days (their latter
effort to have non-free removed from Debian servers seems to have failed
for good), the first one still remains a problem. Not much, I agree, but
those quirks are irritating.
[ Off longjohns. Pfew ... ]
So the point made by T. Steffens seems quite valid to me. I tend to
think that, if something is "insulting", it is the currend usability of
Debian-AMD64 on modern hardware by newbies/end-users/non-hackers...
Emmanuel Charpentier
Steaming off...
--
Emmanuel Charpentier charpent@bacbuc.dyndns.org
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