Re: Re: annoyances digest, Vol 1 #58 - 1 msg

On Wed, 2003-09-03 at 14:12, [email protected] wrote:

> 
> Of course, applications sometimes segfault and hang, but a quick ps and kill
> is the most that's needed to sort that out.

I've had apps hang, and yes, killing them worked.  But that wasn't my
point.  My point is that before I started using GNU/Linux I kept reading
articles and how people have run their systems without a crash for five
months and how stable it was.

This was very misleading from a newbie's perspective and led to
unrealistic expectations.

I have run RD 7.2, 7.3, 8.0 and Mandrake 9.1 and to name just some of
the things I've had problems with:

OpenOffice crashing and losing work
Mozilla crashing when using Sun's Java 
(losing the thirty tabs I had open)
Konquorer crashing
My modem locking up and reporting as busy
Kdevelop crashing (just last week)
KPanel crashing a half an hour after reading your e-mail
Xine locking up
Etc.

Some of these were solved with upgrades and others could probably be
solved, but I don't have enough time in the day to root out every
problem.  But like I said, my point is to give realistic expectation to
people so they are not disappointed when they start using GNU/Linux.

Sure, crashes and stability will very from distro to distro and will
depend on what you are running and what you are running it on, but it
happens.  That is my point.  To deny it would be a lie.

I'm not here to point fingers at whose fault the problem is being caused
by or find a solution to those problems.  You can do that with your
time.  I'm writing this e-mail based on the context of a newbie reading
this book and pointing out that there is a problem they should be aware
of. 

Yes, some distros are more stable than others (like Debian-stable) and
yes I could probably run Linux in init 3 as a web server for years
without a reboot or crash, but that isn't what a newbie is going to
experience with the download of RH, Mandrake or Suse.

GNU/Linux apps do crash.  

DW