Re: unhappy customer
yes...it is all relative....
personally i find calculus to be challenging..however i have a surfer
friend who cant keep 2 dimes in checking account but can do quadratic
equations in his head..(we believe him to have 'Rainman' syndrome...the
more drugs he takes, the smarter he gets...its really freaky)
linux is for people who like to tinker w/their systems......
generalizations like linux is easy or hard (which prompted this thread)
is like Barbie saying 'math is hard'--It can be, it cannot be...it
depends on the individual....
M$ has catered itself to the 'point and click' generation....
used to there were very few gui(s) for linux apps...now most apps
include a command line interface OR a gui frontend, you can take your
pick......
most of the newer distros can automatically set up a system w/very few
questions or clicks.....like it or not that is what the majority of
'puter users want and Mr.Gates has taken that knowledge and used it to
his advantage...us linux folk need to educate the masses--not chastise
them..those who dont study the past are bound to repeat its failures
(pkzip for dos was tons better than winzip...ALL thru its history it had
a better compression algorithm than winzip...but winzip had a snazzy
user interface...now it is on 90% of windows users desktops NOT pkzip)
just remember if the 'BETTER' product won all the time we would all have
Beta machines in our dens and Tucker's parked in our driveways...
-Later,
DAVE
--
Linux because I am a geek
Debian because I am a super-geek!
> On Tue, Mar 30, 2004 at 09:32:10PM +0200, Ulrich Fürst wrote:
> > Hubert Chan wrote:
> > >I wonder if that isn't a general GNU/Linux problem, and not just
> > >Debian. e.g. I wonder if RedHat would be different.
> > O.K. I must admit that I never installed another distribution. (I
tried
> > to install RedHat but had to find out, that I couldn't boot from
DVD)
> > But you wanted to know why people think it's difficult to install
debian
> > so I described how I see it.
>
> I don't think you can make a simple statement of hard/easy for
GNU/Linux
> or individual distros. I've installed Debian with (relatively) few
> problems on 4 different laptops. Of them, I've had one major problem
on
> three of them, and one that worked out of the box:
>
> 1) video card wasn't supported in debian stable, had to upgrade X to
> unstable--not very difficult, just took a short time to find out that
> was what I needed
> 2) 3c59x got "TX Ring Full" errors--upgraded whole laptop to unstable
> and the latest generic kernel; still had problems with one card,
swapped
> it with another (also 3c59x) and it worked fine, so I suspect hw
problem
> 3) no sound--this is the latest laptop, and I have not invested much
> time in figuring it out
>
> Outside of these three issues on three different laptops, everything
> else worked out of the box or with very little tweaking (so little I
> don't remember it). These were three Dells and one Gateway (that
worked
> 100% out-of-the-box).
>
> > >sound than RedHat because RedHat ran sndconfig for me.
> > I ran sndconfig by myself but to not much effort.
>
> Gah. sndconfig never helped me.
>
> > >Hardware detection and configuration is important to getting Debian
> > >(and GNU/Linux in general) usable to the general public. I know
the
> > >new Debian installer has some hardware detection, but I've never
tried
> > >it, so I don't know how good/extensive it is.
>
> I think this may be one large "problem" people see--Debian doesn't
> autodetect or assume things and instead asks during installation. I
> don't think most of these questions involve a tremendous amount of
> technical knowledge but for Grandma it's quite difficult. RedHat is
> slightly better, but suffers from many more problems *after* install
> because it assumed something wrong.
>
> Apple/Mac has GNU/Linux clobbered on this respect because they do the
> hardware and the operating system, so it's only the rare third party
> item that they need to work hard on; Microsoft/Windows has the
advantage
> that vendors spend more time writing drivers, but suffers similarly
when
> the drivers are only available for older/newer OS.
>
> IMO, Debian 'stable' really isn't meant for modern desktops. Debian is
> very focused on server/service priorities (stability and security) so
> you can run a box for years with minimal downtimes, but servers tend
not
> to have need for special multimedia devices. OTOH, home users will
have
> newer hardware focused at multimedia (gaming, video editing/watching)
> and while they want stability, they are not as stringent--rebooting
> occassionally is acceptable as long as it isn't disruptive (can be
> scheduled, rather than a BSOD)--and security is less important (fewer
> services, less bandwidth, etc.).
>
> Running Debian 'testing' or 'unstable' tends to give the same hardware
> support that other recent Linux distros have with a small tradeoff on
> stability (but still better than other distros). Knoppix is wonderful
for
> this. I haven't tried the beta installer, but my recommendation is
only
> to use it for 'testing' and 'unstable' distros since those would be
the
> ones people will need for the better hardware support.
>
> -d
>
>
> --
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