Re: Open Source was Re: New to the list

On Friday 09 February 2007 19:55, Keith Ratliff wrote:
> First, installation of software is horrid. Even dealing with Mandake type
> installers - or even better - the Ubuntu software library - feels sometimes
> like I have to have a PHD in Linux software.

Referring to "Mandrake" indicates you may not have tried any Linux distros 
recently - Mandrake became Mandriva almost two years ago.  Developments in 
Linux are rapid.  You'll see a *LOT* of changes in two years, in hardware 
support, app features, bugfixes, and general improvements.


> Then, when something goes wrong, it's a nightmare to figure out why and how
> to fix it. 

What went wrong for you?


> Some fixes even go as far as to give instructions like "edit the source and
> modify the hardware properties of XYZ".
>
> Yuck.

While not as difficult as you imagine, those kind of instructions are aimed at 
programmers and advanced users.  If you found such an instruction through 
Google, keep in mind that a lot of those patches have *already* been 
incorporated into recent distro releases.  If you have questions, ask in a 
newsgroup or forum dedicated to your distro and you'll get great up-to-date 
help.
eg.
http://www.linuxquestions.org
http://www.ubuntuforums.org


> Or, the classic -
> Go to install package A
> "You need Package B"
> Google package B
> Find it (maybe)
> Install B
> "You need package C and D"
> etc...
>
> I've spent entire evenings just trying to install software.
>
> Yuck.

Dependency Hell is a thing of the past.  Installers such as APT (GUI frontend 
Synaptic) for Debian/Ubuntu and Urpmi (GUI frontend RPMdrake) for Mandriva 
will automatically download and install any required dependencies.


> And then, it gets even better! I run my AIM program (GAIM at the time) and
> then start up my music player.
> "Cannot access the sound device because another application has locked the
> device"
> OK fine, disable sound in GAIM. Now, I get my tunes going...
> Open a game - "Cannot access the sound device because another application
> has locked it"
>
> So, I go searching for fixes. There is a Unified Linux Sound Architecture
> (or something like that) and guess what? To use it, I have to edit and
> recompile each application I want to give access to it at the same time.

With the sole exception of Skype before they made it ALSA-compatible, I 
haven't had those kind of audio problems in Linux for many years.


> Now, don't get me wrong, I really do think that having an open source O/S
> is a big win for consumers, but that O/S has to come a long way until I
> adopt it.

Try the *latest* release of PCLinuxOS, Ubuntu, Mephis, or Mandriva and see if 
it hasn't already come a long way.


> The ability to use my existing programs will be big amongst that 
> requirement as well.

Most Windows programs have open source equivalents, in many cases better than 
their win32 counterparts.
http://www.linuxrsp.ru/win-lin-soft/table-eng.html

Which programs specifically do you need?


> And WINE, LINDOWS and XWindows are still too buggy. 

Lindows became Linspire almost three years ago:
http://www.techweb.com/wire/26804598

I've never used WINE or Lindows/Linspire so I can't comment on those.  I find 
Xwindows (x.org) to be extremely stable.