Re: Thinking about using Debian
Hi Chris,
Are you a fan of Shakespeare tragedies? I think Linux is a good subject. It's so hard to comment constructively without seeming to bitch. It's a tragedy.
I'm an electronics engineer technoweenie with over 3 decades of experience with such a wide range of mainframes/minicomputers/microcomputers it would make your head spin. If ever there was a customer for Linux, I would be it.
Linux scares the crap out of me. Windows has its problems, but they're known problems and I have decades of experience with them. I use applications, not operating systems. Linux and Mac users put Windoze down a lot, but they do a lot of lying in an attempt to hide problems with those OSes and that's what scares me... that, and the knowledge that, because it's free, people who could help, won't (or bail out at the first sign of trouble)... and because it's free, complaints and/or suggestions seem like bitching and no one likes to listen to someone bitch.
So what am I doing? I'm bitching. Hahahahahahahahahaha.
I despair.
I have a Dell Precision M90. It's not listed as candidate hardware for Debian (http://tuxmobil.org/dell.html). But I know what hardware is in the M90. I know the video chip. I know the CPU. I know the bridge chip used.
If I go to Intel or Nvidia or Ricoh and find drivers for the chips that claim to be Linux drivers, will they work for Debian?
What if I don't find Linux drivers at the chip-manufacturer sites? Then what? If I invest months learning the care and feeding of Debian to the point where I can be comfortably secure with it and can advise others, will I be able to maintain that level next year when Debian is different?
I could just try it and see, but that could eat a lot of my time and I don't have the time to waste.
I won't go past WinXP. The latest versions of MS-Windows don't enforce interface standards at all. Even in later WinXP applications, some programs are almost impossible to figure out how to use. Some don't even have menus!
What's Debian going to be like? It's an OS with no GUI-cops at all. No one wants to do anything standard ...it's boring and you can't bore volunteer programers and keep them as volunteers. Look at Firefox and Thunderbird. They're getting harder and harder to use by the day. Why? Because no one is enforcing interface standards. But you can't say anything without someone else throwing "What do you want for free?" in your face.
Also, my experience with Firebox and Thunderbird may advise against Debian. In my opinion, success is everything. And success is a lot easier when you keep things simple. Firefox and Thunderbird are not simple. They are overly complex and are becoming less reliable quickly, but one can't even talk with the developers. They are in a world of their own. And who can blame them? They're doing what they want and you can't criticize because they're not getting paid. So I should just shut up.
That's why I'm lurking the Debian list ...to see what people's attitudes are. To see whether the developers are accessible.
I tried to get involved fixing the PAM authorization stack architecture for my server. I got absolutely nowhere because the developers of PAM didn't want to talk with anyone who wasn't willing to write and compile code. Will Debian be any different?
Do you know of any very-experienced Debian folks who speak truths and wouldn't mind holding my hand? (and who maybe won't be put off by a little bitching?)
Ciao - Mark (who spent 2 very pleasant months in NZ in the mid-80s, but decided that the Hutt Valley was not enough like Silicon Valley).
On 2013/2/24 8:16 PM, Chris Bannister wrote:
On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 07:48:10PM -0500, Mark Filipak wrote:
Thanks for the encouragement, Hugo, but I'm not real keen on freeware.
Open source is great, but free generally means not good and not
supported - and a user forum is not support.
I don't like forums either. Yes, this is a mailing list. The support is
better than a lot of commercial software, and I personally believe the
quality is better than a lot of commercial software.
Have a read:
http://www.debian.org/intro/about
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