[Klug-general] Fwd: Using Linux (Fedora Core 1)

[Wayne Brown]

George Prowse wrote:

> Peter wrote:
>
>> Thanks for the encouragement George.
>>
>> I've got the modem working even if it's only at half speed. It's a 
>> dial up.
>>
>> To be honest I'm thinking of giving up on Linux altogether. It's a 
>> good idea but it's got too many bugs. As I said I upgraded to Core 3. 
>> I can't create a second user. The Find Files seems to freeze and I 
>> still have the original printer and Mozilla problems to get back to.
>>
>> It's all taking up too much time.
>> Peter.
>>
>>
>>
>> George Prowse wrote:
>>
>>> sheppey at sheppey.free-online.co.uk wrote:
>>>
>>>> I decided to upgrade to Core 3. to see if that would help the 
>>>> printer installation.
>>>>
>>>> Now my modem doesn't work and I simply do not have the time to wade 
>>>> through the
>>>> mass of possible drivers and kernal upgrades I might need to get it 
>>>> going again.
>>>>
>>>> Does anyone have a Linux friendly modem that will also work on 
>>>> Windows 98 and has
>>>> a full set of drivers?.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> Kent mailing list
>>>> Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
>>>> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/kent
>>>>
>>>>
>>> The trick is to get it working so you know what to do next time, 
>>> you've done it once, you should be able to do it again or submit a 
>>> bug report.
>>>
>>> What kind of modem is it?
>>>
>>> If you really wanted to get another anyway then what kind of 
>>> internet connection do you have?
>>>
>>> George
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Kent mailing list
>>> Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
>>> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/kent
>>>
> Well Fedora Core is Red Hats "testing ground" for what goes in their 
> Enterprise package. My opinion (and i state that it is only that) is 
> that you would be better off with Mandrake or SuSE.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Kent mailing list
> Kent at mailman.lug.org.uk
> http://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/kent
>
>
Hi Paul,
I know how it feels - it can be frustrating when things don't just work. 
For me, given the choice, I'll take a bit of extra work and a system 
that's rock solid with great software than use MS products - I have 
thrown good money at their stuff in the past and been very dissapointed 
(I've used every version through my work up to the current XP) I'll 
never buy their products again.

Some of the problems you experience are driver related - they are 
getting fewer now, a symptom of one companies monopoly on the desktop 
market (although Linux is winning slowly) and some can be because you 
are using 'bleeding edge' software. As George says it's Red Hat's 
testing ground (Fedora Core) so although it's stable, you might find a 
few bugs in some of the software packages(not to be confused with Linux 
the OS itself which is rock solid)

It's worth sticking with Linux, there is a wealth of great software, 
with no restrictive licences to contend with. So much in fact that 
sometimes the easiest thing is to ask others for recommendations and 
save yourself time trying them all out :-)

I'm glad you've got your modem working again - for what it's worth - 
external modems that connect via the serial port are the way to go 
because no driver is required!  Much like if you go for broadband - it's 
worth getting a modem that connects via a standard ethernet connector 
and then you don't have any problems.
I find nearly all other hardware well supported - I recently installed 
ubuntu (I had gentoo for ages until my hard disk died, backed up of 
course; disk was only 15mths old, shocking really) and was pleasantly 
suprised that with no configuration, no shuffling through a pile of 
driver disks and no annoying 'you have moved your mouse, you need to 
re-boot' a zillion times, around 30-40 minutes I had a completely 
working system with configured:
monitor, graphics, keyboard, mouse, sound, internal usb card reader, cd 
writing capability and even hot plugging usb devices working!
The only downside was multimedia support of things like mp3 and dvd 
playback, you have to go and get it, but hey, I reckon if I installed 
windows, then all the drivers and then all the software, it would take 
me a day so I'm 7 hours to the good :-)

Mandrake is also very good for beginners too.

HTH and good luck

-- 
Regards

Wayne
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