my complaints about linux in general


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now don't get me wrong i like linux, i really do but it really needs alot of work as far as im concerned. for example tonight i tried to install kubuntu 8.10 and had nothing but issues with it not booting and constantly crashing, same with regular ubutnu 8.10. it must be a bug because 8.04 worked fine for me. i then was doing some reading online and i see alot of people are having issues with the new ubuntu in general, especially with kubuntu and the not too stable new kde version. you should go on the ubuntu forums and read all of the complaints.

what is wrong with the linux team ? i mean if they ever want this OS to go mainstream they have got to make things easier for the average user. i mean im an advanced user and i really don't feel like spending all of my time configuring a system to get it to work right. im a patient person but i have my limits too. IMO 8.10 is not stable enough and should not of been released yet.

i was even going to go with mandriva 2009 because it supports full wm syncing but that had issues too. i guess im done trying with linux for now, ill stick to windows even though id love an environment where i don't have to worry about spyware and viruses.

does anybody else agree with me on this stuff ???.... and im not here to promote windows and bash linux as im a "former" user.

Edited by smooth3006
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Your gripes don't seem to be general regarding linux, more specific problems with Ubuntu. Ubuntu isn't the only option you have with Linux, try other distros - although it sounds as if Linux isn't for you.

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Your gripes don't seem to be general regarding linux, more specific problems with Ubuntu. Ubuntu isn't the only option you have with Linux, try other distros - although it sounds as if Linux isn't for you.

no i haven't tried every distro yet, ill give you that much.

but ubuntu, kubuntu & mandriva are my biggest problems right now. ive tried to be patient but i can only take so much.

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Do you actually get spyware/virus issues on your Windows PC though?

I'm using Windows XP without any Virus/Firewall software and have no issues - although I am behind a hardware firewall.

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I think for personal use, and personal education linux is amazing. I have a linux server that converts about any doucment type on the fly to PDF for our end users, it also serves as a relational database, however, this is where linux and I stop. Server based computing *nix is beast, and nothing is left out....

I recently attempted to convert an office to linux in an all Windows Business enviornment and it was a complete disaster. Open office was to slow for my test users to accept, for some of our legacy applications vmware was just is not a solution in linux. When compared to performace on a Windows or Mac it was painful.

I use *nix at home, and enjoy learning with it, but I don't feel it's ready to replace the business sector just yet. It's getting there, much more so than just 3 years ago... and I'm willing and waiting for that time to come.

As the other poster said, you need to expirement with other distros, and learn the OS, it is a learning experience treat it as so and enjoy it. Also do not expect all Windows applications/devices to work, hence Windows Mobile syncing, I would never expect a MAC device/application to work on Windows, even if it is so called "supported".

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Wonderful blog post. Honestly though, why does everyone assume people want linux to be mainstream. There are many of us out there that don't. Less users and less popularity lead to less malware in the wild. While less users does mean less innovation and less support, it also means less complaining and bitching from those users (not speaking to you OP, I know you've been around the block for a while) who can't figure out a few commands in a terminal.

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no i haven't tried every distro yet, ill give you that much.

but ubuntu, kubuntu & mandriva are my biggest problems right now. ive tried to be patient but i can only take so much.

Have you ran any hardware diagnostics like memtest (on the Ubuntu Live CD) to rule out potential hardware failures? I assume you never had a single issue with Windows installed on the same machine? There seems too be alot of buzz about Fedora's upcoming release. Maybe you should give that one a go :)

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Have you ran any hardware diagnostics like memtest (on the Ubuntu Live CD) to rule out potential hardware failures? I assume you never had a single issue with Windows installed on the same machine? There seems too be alot of buzz about Fedora's upcoming release. Maybe you should give that one a go :)

no vista runs flawlessly on my laptop. i may try linux mint next, i dunno, i was just venting a bit.

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no vista runs flawlessly on my laptop. i may try linux mint next, i dunno, i was just venting a bit.

Don't know about other distros, but Ubuntu and Laptops seems to be a crapshoot. I've only played with Linux on Desktops (old ones at that). There are more issues with Linux and Laptops due to more proprietary hardware I believe. I suspect Markjenson will visit this thread shortly, so he can probably clear this up for you.

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8.10 just came out about a week ago-- Usually is best to wait at least 2 months before upgrading to (or that is my honest opinion) I mean just look at the issues that SP1 did for XP it was not until SP1a that XP became stable for most systems... So just give it a few-- and there will be fixes and patches..

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8.10 just came out about a week ago-- Usually is best to wait at least 2 months before upgrading to (or that is my honest opinion) I mean just look at the issues that SP1 did for XP it was not until SP1a that XP became stable for most systems... So just give it a few-- and there will be fixes and patches..

Well SP1 was different from any other SP's that MS has for Vista or XP. SP1 caused major problems and SP3 did cause some problems, but it all got sorted out very fast.

The greatest quote I have heard for Linux is, "Linux is free if your time has no value." It is absolutely true. No computer I've seen has worked out of the box with Linux. You always have to configure it someway. Even my roomate's netbook, which came with gOS preinstalled was absolute garbage. The wireless didn't work out of the box. Seriously? End users should not have to go through so much trouble as to get their computers working out of the box. He had to compile a lot of things just to get things working.

Linux is definitely not ready for mainstream. Not even close.

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Wonderful blog post. Honestly though, why does everyone assume people want linux to be mainstream. There are many of us out there that don't. Less users and less popularity lead to less malware in the wild. While less users does mean less innovation and less support, it also means less complaining and bitching from those users (not speaking to you OP, I know you've been around the block for a while) who can't figure out a few commands in a terminal.

The command line is one of the most ignorant tools there is, for the average joe. May be a super powerful tool to the truly geeked out freakazoid, but useless for the main part. Half of what has made me give up on Linux several times.

Yes,

I still use Linux in a dual boot mode along with Windows XP. Can't give Windows up as unzipping some rar files is impossible in Linux as is using either of my Visioneer scanners (that one is not a Linux fault)

To the OP,

Yes, I can go along with your gripe, especially when talking about that overbloated, fanboy favorite Ubuntu. What a POS!!

You want to try a REAL version of Linux that has EVERYTHING work out of the box on any machine I've tried it on, try Blag, http://www.blagblagblag.org/, or Zenwalk, http://zenwalk.org/.

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To be quite honest, I did the upgrade from within the package manager on my existing install. Literally had only ONE problem* - my keyboard driver update changed the keycodes for the "extra" multimedia type non-standard keys that I had defined shortcuts to. So my "email" key, "browser" key, and "calculator" key did not work after upgrade. I ran xev to get the updated codes for these keys, and fixed those 3 lines in my keys file, and my 8.10 is running just as good as 8.04 did, but with newer kernel and apps.

Did you not want to do the upgrade from within the OS for some reason?

* While that was the ONLY problem, the upgrade did ask me for an action on three different files: grub, xorg and one other. I had to click "keep original" or "use updated", and these things might bother a newer user who would not know what to do - a little clarity and guidance for new users would be nice for those items.

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Same token-- How many windows installs work out of the box-- Same token-- I installed XPSP2 OEM and stil had to install motherboard drivers to get it to run the onboard sound and networking... And this system was "Built for XP"

So you see same token is for Windows-- not to mention some systems from Dell the wireless does not work that well until you update at their site the drivers.. So really no system works right out of the box-- unless you would want to talk Apple-- I have only heard of few issues of people having issues right away with apple computers.

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The greatest quote I have heard for Linux is, "Linux is free if your time has no value." It is absolutely true. No computer I've seen has worked out of the box with Linux. You always have to configure it someway. Even my roomate's netbook, which came with gOS preinstalled was absolute garbage. The wireless didn't work out of the box. Seriously? End users should not have to go through so much trouble as to get their computers working out of the box. He had to compile a lot of things just to get things working.

Linux is definitely not ready for mainstream. Not even close.

I agree on the quote, but I've installed Linux on both my laptop and desktop, both worked without any issues at all.

Yes,

I still use Linux in a dual boot mode along with Windows XP. Can't give Windows up as unzipping some rar files is impossible in Linux as is using either of my Visioneer scanners (that one is not a Linux fault)

sudo apt-get install rar

Linux can unrar too...

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...

The greatest quote I have heard for Linux is, "Linux is free if your time has no value."

...

I think of my learning Linux as an investment. Certainly, people pay for Windows. Pay in dollars, and pay in configuration and maintenance time.

Linux is not free from configuration, but my experience is that a configured box stays stable - even for casual users naive to malware threats. And the dollar costs... Just not there.

For me, it has been a worthwhile investment of my time to learn a bit about Linux and have an OS that suits me well, and does exactly what I need. Could XP/Vista provide others an OS that suits them and does what they need? Certainly. Will users often end up with problems in XP/Vista? Sure, it is not somehow immune to problems - neither is Linux, BSD, OS/2 or BeOS.

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I think a lot of the problem here stems from the fact that people, especially newcomers to Linux, expect too much from it.

Linux is often touted as an alternative to Windows, and that gives the impression that it is Windows-like. In some ways it is, but it is also fundamentally different. Seasoned Linux users can easily overlook the difficulties of ex-Windows users coming to terms with the command line, and you'll often see "well, it works in Windows, so how come it doesn't now?". The answer is usually a string of indecipherable commands to be issued in a "terminal" ("what's one of those?") to which the new-comer just balks at.

I'd agree. Linux isn't ready for prime-time mainstream use, and it will never likely be either. But therein lies the reason why many Linux users prefer this OS to any other....

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Same token-- How many windows installs work out of the box-- Same token-- I installed XPSP2 OEM and stil had to install motherboard drivers to get it to run the onboard sound and networking... And this system was "Built for XP"

So you see same token is for Windows-- not to mention some systems from Dell the wireless does not work that well until you update at their site the drivers.. So really no system works right out of the box-- unless you would want to talk Apple-- I have only heard of few issues of people having issues right away with apple computers.

Most people, as we all know, don't install any operating systems. They get them preinstalled and so issues are not apparent (mostly).

If you buy an Ubuntu computer or laptop from Dell or some other company that preinstalls, then you are sorted. Just like if you buy Windows on a machine from a company. They've already done the work for you. I don't know that Windows works out-of-the-box on as many computers as Linux. With Windows, you still need, as you say, to find other drivers to install to get every thing running.

My laptop came with XP. It had a CD of drivers for me to use if I ever reinstalled Windows (which I did a few times). It was: (a) install Windows and (b) install about twelve drivers from that other CD that weren't in Windows. This same laptop works entirely out-of-the-box on the current Ubuntu. Maybe I'm lucky but I think that that is often the case.

End of day, Linux can work on any machine in principal if the OEMs put it on and make sure the drivers are there. Linux itself has more drivers ready to go than any other operating system out there.

But of course, again, no one but techies installs OSes on machines anyway.

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But of course, again, no one but techies installs OSes on machines anyway.
Not true, lot of average Joe's install OS's, when something goes wrong.
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....

With Windows, you still need, as you say, to find other drivers to install to get every thing running.

My laptop came with XP. It had a CD of drivers for me to use if I ever reinstalled Windows (which I did a few times). It was: (a) install Windows and (b) install about twelve drivers from that other CD that weren't in Windows. This same laptop works entirely out-of-the-box on the current Ubuntu. Maybe I'm lucky but I think that that is often the case.

.....

why not just slipstream your driver .... there are plenty of tools that can do so

take nlite as example

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why not just slipstream your driver .... there are plenty of tools that can do so

take nlite as example

That's a good idea and if I still used Windows I'd take your good advice there. My main point was, though, that Operating Systems generally have to have drivers to get them to work properly and that "out of the box" is in most cases just not possible: not for Windows, not for Linux, and certainly not for Mac (they control the hardware for a good reason, to make sure it all works).

Linux can't really go mainstream unless people buy it preinstalled, like Windows. Most people, apart from the likes of us, would never install an OS fresh.

Not true, lot of average Joe's install OS's, when something goes wrong.

I just don't know anyone IRL who does this. They get me to do it or pay someone.

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Not true, lot of average Joe's install OS's, when something goes wrong.

You don't hang around a lot of average people. :ermm:

Seriously, the people that go into Circuit City Best Buy to get a computer. They don't re-install their OS, they get a friend like you or I to do it.

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