Re: Debian vs. Fedora on Laptops

[norton@ic.unicamp.br]

> The
> installer has too many problems. Once you get to the point of cataloging
> your CDs, it can't find my CD ROM on any laptop. (2 Toshiba Satellites and
> 2 Gateway Solos) And my external CD ROM is useless with this distro.

that is really strange, for I have already installed in 2 laptops and got
no problem.

> On the computer which I had Sarge installed on, I could not access any
> SCSI devices, which I had several of. It also seemed to easy to corrupt
> the system by installing the wrong program from one of the downloaded CDs.

again... never found it...

> (Sarge comes with 14 CDs. People like me have no idea what most of those
> programs are or how they are supposed to be used.)

yeah... but download only the 2 first... that was all I needed for one of
the laptops... the other I used a net install. But I agree that
documentation is really bad.

> I think that Knoppix is probably the best distro, but FC3 comes in right
> afterwards, and RH9 follows that. I might have a more favorable opinion of
> Debian if it installed correctly, if it supported more hardware out of the
> box, if it allowed me to log in as 'Root' (Which I sometimes need), and if
> the software on the CDs worked without corrupting the operating system.

I understand your point, for these are precisely the reasons why I gave up
Fedora... it did not recognize half of my hardware. It could not even
switch off my laptop... with debian it was REALLY smooth... so, I guess we
were unlucky with some distros

> But as you can see, my thoughts are not limited to Debian. I feel that
> entire Linux scene is like a toy where children get things almost done,
> then they loose interest and try to pass the buck on to someone else.

we know it is not like that... those guys are working for peanuts, and are
doing a bloody good job. Even Aple is using linux, and they have many good
guys working for them... so it is not like this.

I agree that linux lacks some humanities (hehe), like work from interface
guys and so... but so far the linux comunity is mainly composed by
technical guys... I think that is the main reason for the lack of
documentation and so.

Plus, I really think that seeing linux as a service provider is wrong. I
think it is against its ideas. The thing that I like the most in linux is
that if I hate something, I change that something and make it better... is
it perfect? Well, if we were earning as much as the M$ guys it might be
closer to that... but considering everything, no, it is not perfect, but
it is unfair to label it as a child work.

And if you worked with potato, woody and sarge, RH6, RH7... RH9, FC1 and
FC2, you will see an improvement. Geez, potato would make you cry... it
was a nightmare to install a network on RH6... today it is easier...

Things are improving... but here is my personal advice: wake up! stop
dreaming and start doing something ;-). That is precisely the linux idea.

Cheers

norton