[BB]

Personally after my experiences with Linux I wouldn't be sticking any distro on something I wanted to use on holiday. If something breaks who wants to spend the time sifting through forums to get it fixed?

My thoughts exactly, which is why I detroyed that useless pile of toss and put windows 7 back on it last night.

Honest to god, I spent 4 hours trying to figure out how get basic network connectivity with my NAS and by the time I managed it I was uttely fucking fuming.

That's quite enough from Linux for me. I'll be sticking with operating systems that you don't have to build from scratch yourself.

I'm still quite sore about the whole experience as you may be able to detect.

Sorry slackers, I tried, but I'm just not interested enough in IT to dedicate the time required to get to grips with it. I just want it to work out of the box.

[slackline]

Personally after my experiences with Linux I wouldn't be sticking any distro on something I wanted to use on holiday. If something breaks who wants to spend the time sifting through forums to get it fixed?

My thoughts exactly, which is why I detroyed that useless pile of toss and put windows 7 back on it last night.

Honest to god, I spent 4 hours trying to figure out how get basic network connectivity with my NAS and by the time I managed it I was uttely fucking fuming.

That's quite enough from Linux for me. I'll be sticking with operating systems that you don't have to build from scratch yourself.

I'm still quite sore about the whole experience as you may be able to detect.

Sorry slackers, I tried, but I'm just not interested enough in IT to dedicate the time required to get to grips with it. I just want it to work out of the box.

I don't care, at least you tried it.

Windows is easy for you because you've already got years of experience and "know" how to do things.  As with any new piece of software (which is all an OS is really) there is a learning curve involved, fair enough if you don't want to go up the learning curve, but with perseverance the angle eases off as you learn things.  Despite your disclaimer at the start (about knowledge of M$ but none of Linux) you shouldn't expect to get everything straight off.  I'm continually amazed that people think computers should Just Work^TM, they're incredibly complex tools, as is the software.  No software is ever completely bug free.

I never started off my computing using Linux (Spectrum 48K actually, and all I used that for was games), its something I've learnt, and I'm now at the stage where I just won't touch M$ systems because of the degree of obfuscation that you have to deal with when things don't Just Work^TM (e.g. in a completely opposite situation to PaulB I got sick of troubleshooting my wife's XP laptop that kept on dropping wireless network connections, tried out Xubuntu from a LiveCD to check it wasn't hardware issue and there wasn't, so on Xubuntu went and its been fine since).

I've found that the documentation available for the distro I use (Gentoo) is brilliant (particularly in comparison to XP) and perhaps the best thing is the community of users who help each other out in forums and IRC.  There's always someone out there who's had a similar problem or knows how to solve things.

I'm never in a rush to get things done absolutely right now, so have a somewhat lackadaisical approach when things don't work and see it as a problem to solve rather than something to get stressed about.  E.g. I'm having NFS problems mounting partitions from my NAS after an inadvertent power-cycle caused by my cat knocking it off the shelf, mounts fine from my laptop, but access is denied from my desktop, strangely though none of the configuration files have changed on the NAS and should permit access, but if I switch the IP address on my desktop to the one used by my laptop (when its turned off) I can manually mount NFS partitions, but not using one of the init scripts.  Anyway, its not the end of my life, I can still move and access all files so its no big deal.

Best of all, at the end of it I've learnt a little bit more rather than just having a black box of tricks that does things all on its on by "magic".

(I watch very little TV though, favouring tinkering and problem solving over mindless crap).

[slackline]

Oh yeah, your NAS is almost definitely running some sort of customised Linux variant and it (by the sounds of it) Just Works^TM, so not everything Linux based requires a steep learning curve to get it working.

Another good example of Linux working well is Google's Android which is based on a fork of the Linux kernel to get the hardware working.  Although with my new phone, HTC Hero running Android, I had trouble seeing a shared Google calendar, bit of poking around forums and I found the solution (person sharing it with me had to allow me to edit the calendar and I then had to clear the phone's cache of the calendars registered under my account).

Basically what I'm getting at by bringing these points up is that one stumbling block at an early stage shouldn't mean you write something off completely (be it Linux or a specific piece of software under another OS).

[BB]

I've cooled down a bit now and despite my frustration, i left a wadge of unpartitioned space when i stuck windows 7 back on and I'll experiement as and when the mood takes me. I don't think at this stage I could rely on linux as my only OS though.

[Tris]

wow BB - I guessed on a week before you go back...I was wrong there!

I would be careful about putting Linux in that spare space you have left. I did the same on my laptop running Win 7 and Linux fucked up my MBR (master boot record) so I could only boot into Linux (Linux wiped all evidence of another OS residing on the hard disk). You then have to piss around in Grub or install EasyBCD to be able to dual boot Win 7 and Linux.

Tis just a word of warning, I've learned the hard way... it's not a nice feeling when you start the machine up and all you can choose to boot from is linux....linux for Argentinian penguins mode.....linux ultra geek mode..... linux using graphics designed by Pingu mode etc etc

Make you follow a guide if you do decide to proceed!

[slackline]

I would be careful about putting Linux in that spare space you have left. I did the same on my laptop running Win 7 and Linux I fucked up my MBR (master boot record) so I could only boot into Linux (Linux wiped all evidence of another OS residing on the hard disk). You then have to piss around in Grub or install EasyBCD to be able to dual boot Win 7 and Linux.

Its perfectly possible to dual boot without any problems you just need to know what you're doing 

I had dual-boot on a comp for years, never booted into Windows, but the option was (and still is there).

[Tris]

Yes it was my fault for assuming that Linux would be that little bit clever and detect another OS on the partition, I was wrong...

You know what they say about assume!

The point I was trying to make was for BB to follow a guide and not make the same mistake I had..

[slackline]

Yes it was my fault for assuming that Linux would be that little bit clever and detect another OS on the partition, I was wrong...

But why wouldn't the operator of the computer know that there is another OS on the partition and be aware of how to handle it?

In actual fact more recent distributions do go some way to holding the users hand through the steps of resizing partitions and setting up dual boot, but you should still  .

You know what they say about assume!

Which one's that?

"To assume makes an ASS out of yoU and ME"

or

"Assumption is the mother of all fuckups"

The point I was trying to make was for BB to follow a guide and not make the same mistake I had..

Always a good idea with anything new 

[Paul B]

The ubuntu disk I used set up a dual boot flawlessly. I absolutely love the idea of linux and some functions of the distribution I tried. Open up a software manager click on what you want and hey presto you have it. Amazing. But when hardware manufacturers don't release their firmware and somebody has come up with a work around (Broadcom wireless cards anybody?), thats when things go wrong or at least they did for me.

[slackline]

And there in lies the crux, confidentiality of hardware specs does no one any favours.  Ultimately it stifles development/progress irrespective of OS.

I have a broadcom driver and once I'd sussed out that you need to use ndiswrapper to get the key part of the Windows driver to work with the linux kernel its been very good.

[Johnny Brown]

I'm continually amazed that people think computers should Just WorkTM

Well it is 2010 now. We flew to the fucking moon fifty years ago.

[slackline]

I'm continually amazed that people think computers should Just WorkTM

Well it is 2010 now. We flew to the fucking moon fifty years ago.

And we've been back how many times since the Apollo program ended?

[Johnny Brown]

Nor have we vapourised any more Japanese civilians. Does it mean the technology hasn't progressed?

[slackline]

Not up to speed on NASA or Soviet Space Program have on the back burner.

Software (or technology) is only as smart as the person who writes it, thats why this month you'll be getting security updates that cover a 17 year-old bug including five "critical" updates.

For all the knocking of Linux that you do its worth bearing in mind that 99.9% of the work thats done on the kernel (the Linux part), the GNU Utilities (that form the base of a working system), the desktop environments and software that are available is done my volunteers for free and not by tower-blocks full of highly paid coding monkeys.

With this fact in mind the various distributions are amazingly functional and useful tools and I can't think of any better example of co-operative unpaid work being so fruitful.

To expect the end user to spend a little time learning how to use their tools isn't that outlandish really, thats why every electrical item you buy and piece of software has a manual that explains how to use it.  It also benefits the user to understand what they are doing rather than relying on mates to sort out OS/software/router problems when they occur.

[Tris]

I think most people would agree with this (apart from slack---line):

[slackline]

Yes, I'm forever tweaking my desktop appearance and settings.   

If I'm customising something its likely because its the first installation and I need to configure the web-server/wiki/nfs/[just installed software].  System updates are done daily and take a whole 2 minutes to sync with the server and initiate the updates.  Its why I've so much time to spend writing crap 

EDIT : Besides which, when things do take time its because you're learning and understanding what you are doing and how to do it (after all its not surprising that different OS's work in different ways, although it does amuse me that the Mac Fan I now share an office with is continually asking me how to do things under Bash/at the CLI for his Apache administration), which in the long run is an additional set of skills that you'll have acquired, and as above it means you become autonomous in your computing, being able to solve problems yourself rather than rely on friends to come and sort shit out for you.

[Jim]

For all the knocking of Linux that you do its worth bearing in mind that 99.9% of the work thats done on the kernel (the Linux part), the GNU Utilities (that form the base of a working system), the desktop environments and software that are available is done my volunteers for free and not by tower-blocks full of highly paid coding monkeys.

I heard the opposite on radio4 the other day, that it is heavily funded by major companies including IBM

[slackline]

For all the knocking of Linux that you do its worth bearing in mind that 99.9% of the work thats done on the kernel (the Linux part), the GNU Utilities (that form the base of a working system), the desktop environments and software that are available is done my volunteers for free and not by tower-blocks full of highly paid coding monkeys.

I heard the opposite on radio4 the other day, that it is heavily funded by major companies including IBM

Some of the main projects are such as OpenOffice, Apache, MySQL, but there are so many facets and levels where people aren't paid a penny and do it out of passion.

[Johnny Brown]

Why dick around with linux when you can rely on Microsoft?

Why bother with Medium Format/DSLR metering from a grey card when you can buy a P&S that 'just works'?

Hardly a solid analogy, I use cameras' built-in metering all the time. Instant review, live-view and histograms have all made digital photography easier. Did I need to assemble the firmware myself? No. Does it just work? Yes.

I still use manual film cameras just as I still use a pen and paper.

Why spend decades learning to climb grit when you can bear down in the cave of justice?

Because, thankfully, I don't live anywhere near the cave, and grit climbing is a skill with wider applications.

I'm not bashing Linux here, I'm all for open source projects, but Slack's comment that

I'm continually amazed that people think computers should Just Work

only serves to illustrate the gulf between him and most computer users. If I buy a computer, a camera, a car, I expect it to just work without me having an in-depth knowledge of how. I welcome a degree of freedom to personalise it, but ultimately I want it just to work so I can get on using it for the purpose for which I bought it.

[Jim]

grit climbing is a skill with wider applications.

? 

[cofe]

Brilliant thread.

[Jim]

For all the knocking of Linux that you do its worth bearing in mind that 99.9% of the work thats done on the kernel (the Linux part), the GNU Utilities (that form the base of a working system), the desktop environments and software that are available is done my volunteers for free and not by tower-blocks full of highly paid coding monkeys.

I heard the opposite on radio4 the other day, that it is heavily funded by major companies including IBM

Some of the main projects are such as OpenOffice, Apache, MySQL, but there are so many facets and levels where people aren't paid a penny and do it out of passion.

It was definately work on the main kernel that was being funded as well, so don't go throwing figures about like 99.99999% when your only guessing

[slackline]

It was definately work on the main kernel that was being funded as well, so don't go throwing figures about like 99.99999% when your only guessing

Don't you know most stats are made up on the spot (it was 99.94% that I'd rounded to 1dp)?

Linux Kernel on donations/sponsorship some of that specificity comes from The Linux Foundation.  Likely refers to the donation of hardware from companies so they can work with the hardware and get the kernel working on it.

Ubuntu was originally under-written by a philanthropist.


IBM does pump cash into projects such as database development ($10m) or Virtual desktop ($4m).  Why?  My guess would be that its cheaper as you fund a few core staff with hardware and also get a wealth of users who are willing to try and test the software, and a portion of these will also contribute patches/fixes for bugs back to the project.

So yes there is funding and money in FOSS, but its grown from humble beginnings where people did do it all for free/passion.  It is a completely different business model from M$, and yes there are a significant number of people who do a lot of work for free (quantifying this is exceptionally difficult though, particularly given its hard to estimate the number of users of a given distribution, let alone who's been submitting patches/fixes and so forth).

ultimately I want it just to work so I can get on using it for the purpose for which I bought it.

Yes, it would be nice if things did just work, but I live in the real world where invariably things do go wrong.  My car needs servicing and on occasions it breaks down.  My camera is doing ok, but could probably do with a service in the not too distant future.  Computers(/routers/NAS/etc.) also develop problems over time and knowing how to resolve these is a useful skill set (if you want to continue using them), particularly if you don't have friends to rely on to sort them out when they do go wrong. 

I choose to pay someone to fix my car and camera, but am happy to learn how to fix and maintain my own computers.  Yes, a lot of people choose to pay to have their computers fixed (or get a friend to do it out of their own free time), but they shouldn't be surprised when they do go wrong.

[Johnny Brown]

I've no beef with servicing my car, but I wouldn't own one that wasn't allowed on the motorway.

[slackline]

I'm guessing your analogy refers to Paul's problems with Broadcom wireless network cards*? (The other mentioned problems in this thread are with Network File Systems and a mis-understanding of Master Boot Records).

Consider it equivalent to a driving test prior to actually being allowed to drive your car on the motorway (as is the case in this country).  I.e. you have to demonstrate that you know what you're doing with a computer before you can take it on-line.  This would probably be a good thing as it would hopefully minimised the number of unprotected computers on the net that can then be hijacked to send out spam, thus benefiting all net users by reduced unwanted network traffic and less spam in the Inbox.

* The reason this particular problem occured is because Broadcom as with many other hardware manufacturers don't release the specification of their hardware, making it very hard to write drivers for them (reverse engineering sounds like a nightmare).  There has however always been a workaround that I mentioned above.

I agree computings not for everyone, but most people would benefit from understanding a little more than they currently know and all this takes is the time to read and understand the documentation, and if unsure ask in the appropriate forum.