Annoyances

I've been reading this list for a while, and a few thing have struck me.
I'll try and explain them as best I can, so bear with me a little.

First off, [prospective] Linux users seem to belong to one of three camps:

1) Those looking for Windows, but with stability
2) Those looking for UNIX, but free
3) Those looking for MacOS X, but on non-Apple hardware

Similarly, "Linux" is becoming increasingly a term which is only worth using
to describe what it actually is - a kernel. Debian and RedHat are no more
similar than Debian and FreeBSD. Each "distribution" is an OS - not just a
collection of software ported to a kernel. The fact that each of these
operating systems are based on the same code for various parts of the system
doesn't actually make much of a difference (anybody who's struggled trying
to install RPMs from non-free vendors such as IBM on a non-RedHat system
will soon testify to that).

The fact that this is a "Linux Annoyances" list is a little bit weird, in a
way. In one sense, Linux itself has plenty of scope for annoyances. But in
the broader sense, there's Debian annoyances, RedHat annoyances, SuSE
annoyances, Mandrake annoyances, and so on and so forth.

For some history, it's worth bearing in mind how all of these operating
systems started life - as a free alternative to UNIX. Now, any qualified Sun
sysadmin would tell you that you were taking a big gamble if you were going
to switch from Windows to Solaris and it expect it to be anything but pain
if you weren't used to UNIX. Many Linux-based systems fall into the same
boat - Debian, Gentoo, Slackware - they all try, to varying degrees - to be
like UNIX, and a bloody good job they do if it too. If you think Debian's
unfriendly, try an installation of Solaris out of the box! Most of the users
in the second category have annoyances which tend to be the sorts of things
experienced users tend to think of when asked about "Linux Annoyances" - NFS
hangs (mount with the 'intr' flag), core files aren't named anything useful,
shared libraries can be a pain, etc.

On the other hand, there are the "friendly" operating systems - RedHat,
Mandrake, Lindows, and so on. Ignoring "Enterprise Server"-style offerings,
these operating systems *do* pitch themselves at Windows users, and in some
ways they do it well, and in others they do it badly. Those out there
looking for a 'stable Windows' just aren't going to get what they want yet -
free operating systems just aren't ready for that market right now. Most of
the annoyances from these users could be applied to most operating systems
which haven't come out of Redmond.

The third category of users are even trickier - NeXT, then Apple, managed to
do something quite stunning - produce a version of UNIX which, for the most
part, wrapped everything up into a nice user-friendly GUI that a graphic
designer could use. The sheer number of man-hours which have gone into this
- and they've done it by focussing on a specific goal - are immense. I
suspect it will take a lot of time, along with a serious amount of
integration effort from a determined vendor, for this to happen to the open
source/free software worlds.

To sum it all up, I have immense respect for Dee-Ann, and this project, but
I suspect it might be a little too ambitous to try and compile a book of
"Linux Annoyances" - in a way, it'd be akin to writing a book on "PC
Annoyances". 

At the end of the day, though, those offering solutions or arguing about
whether something constitutes an annoyances or not need to bear in mind the
great big spectrum not only of types of user, but of types of operating
system based around the Linux kernel.

I hope all that made sense! Finally, I want to wish Dee-Ann and co. the best
of luck with the book, and look forward to seeing the final result!

Mo.

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