[Lancaster] Lancaster Digest, Vol 181, Issue 1

[David Smith]

Ken,

I'd definitely agree with those sentiments and, as we discussed at the 
pub last week, judging by everything I've heard about openSUSE lately, 
the general hardware support from the get-go is very positive news, and 
I'd be in full agreement with you that Ubuntu and (to a certain extent) 
Debian and co. should be much closer to that goal than they appear to be.

The caveat about Debian is a tough one though as it's always been the 
'Freedom loving' distro, intentionally making it (slightly) more 
difficult to install proprietary versions of things - a big stumbling 
block for advanced graphics support, wireless etc in the past. 
Hopefully, the LinuxDrivers project will get the momentum it needs to 
make the change here. Of course, this is heavily supported by Novell, so 
it's nice to see improvements appearing all the time!

As regards the comments versus a Windows install, I think it's a tricky 
one (I say this with the caveat that I haven't tried to install Vista 
yet..).
With XP, installation is every bit as problematic as with Ubuntu, if not 
more so. It may be a little easier in some areas (it doesn't worry 
itself too much with partitions, but neither do recent Linux setups) but 
once it's setup it can be just as tricky to get things working how you want.
Admittedly, manual hacks are not a common-theme to a Windows install, 
but it still requires a fair deal of time to get all the 'extra' drivers 
installed to get things working nicely (such as USB 2.0, graphics 
acceleration, sound, and sometimes even networking). The advantage 
Microsoft has - again (and I hate saying this because it feels like such 
a lame excuse) - is that Hardware suppliers supply support CDs with 
their hardware (Motherboards, Graphics Cards, Sound Cards) that come 
packaged as nice, shiny Windows applications, and often without Linux 
packages.
Of course, having said all that, providing 'click and run' installable 
packages for all the different distros and their packaging systems would 
be a nightmare...

I guess the point I was trying to make though is that generally, out of 
the box, a lot of the current 'top line' distributions handle 
installation better than my Windows experiences, which is where I 
believe the difference comes in in looking towards any 'Year of the 
Linux Desktop'... :-)
For it to be truly as effortless and easy for end users as Windows 
currently is (sic), it needs to come pre-installed more, whichever 
distro it is, as Dell have started to do recently.

As mentioned earlier, I would whole-heartedly agree with such comments 
about the wobbles and the difficulties detecting some hardware without 
intimidating command-line hacks affecting first impressions and hence 
the conversion to Linux for new converts but I just can't really see, 
without rapid evolution of the LinuxDrivers Project and similar, these 
changes happening across the board any time soon.

As a positive, every time this comes up I become reinvigorated to try 
and fully test out a SuSE install on my home PC.. :-)
Whilst I've not encountered any major difficulties using Ubuntu 8.04 on 
both my work Desktop and laptop (I tend to default to Ubuntu after 
finding it easiest on my old Mac), I have been a little irritated by 
such apparent problems as them sticking pulseaudio in the latest 
edition. On both the above examples I've had to remove it and go back to 
esound in order to get all the multimedia applications actually playing 
sound... a little embarrassing seeing as how it worked fine on 7.10 - 
also seemed like an odd choice to stick a relatively new technology into 
a Long Term Support edition... ho hum!

Well, this reply ended up longer than intended, and more than a little 
circular!

Hopefully you'll have SuSE back in place on the laptop next time we're 
at the Brit - would be nice to have a poke around it!

Best,

Dave


> Date: Mon, 11 Aug 2008 12:05:39 +0100
> From: Ken Hough <kenhough at btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Lancaster] Observations on Installing and setting up
> 	Debian, Ubuntu, and SUSE on a Thinkpad T21:
> To: lancaster at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Message-ID: <48A01D03.8020504 at btinternet.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252
> 
> Umm! I think that my comments re problems that I had with Debian/Ubuntu
> v SUSE have not been taken as I had intended.
> 
> I didn't intend to bang the drum for SUSE above all other distros. I was
> trying to make the point that some distros do not 'work out of the box'
> as perhaps one might reasonably expect.
> 
> Competant sys admins and other experienced Linux hackers, might not
> think this to be important, but to a 'newbie' it can be a real show
> stopper. Imagine if Microsoft Windows were to throw up problems during a
> simple installation......
> 
> I appreciate that Microsoft have a different business model/phylosophy
> from the Linux community, but if Linux is to really make serious inroads
> on the (non-professional/corporate) desktop and become widely popular,
> IMHO, it must work reliably straight out of the box, and with most
> PC/laptop hardware. This is the point that I was trying to make.
> 
> While Ubuntu is widely publicised as being (MS Windows) user friendly
> and still suffers from 'wobblies' and inabillity to properly recognise
> and configure for well known hardware, this can only adversely affect
> the case for Linux in the eyes of potential non-technical users.
> 
> Perhaps Linux is it's own worst enemy in that it can be configured to
> tackle pretty much any computer based task. I don't believe that should
> be an excuse for not providing rock solid configuration for desktop use.
> The potential benefits for computer users in general are IMHO too great
> to duck this issue.