Re: [Wolves] Linux for idiots Was: Why does Ubuntu want the CD to install portmap?

[mad-malc at tiscali.co.uk]

Peter Cannon wrote:
>Show me a newbie idiot and I'll show you another loss to Microsoft.

Some Linux distros' are more straight forward than any windows offering for
the man in the street, now piles of driver cds for example.
But it's not all that straight forward depending on hardware and distro support.

I have got the bug and have loaded RH9,Fedora 1,2&3, Mandrake 7.1 onwards,
Suse 8.2 onwards, Ubuntu Warty and Hoary hedgehog, Debian Woody and Sarge,
slackware 10 as well as PClinuxOS and Mepis just recently.
The results are mixed, a few support all hardware and fly out of the box,
some do not, I particulaarly like Apt on Debian.
But the inconsistencies are also within an individual distro's range, for
example Mandrake 9.2 flies the 10 series will not allow internet access,
on the same machine, and PClinuxOS works on one machine but not the other,
whereas with Mepis gives the same result but opposite machines.
So i don't think that linux is for idiots just yet.
The fact that distros' are freely distributable means that you can find one
that gives you what you want.
Just for the record treating WindowsXP as a distro ie loading it and see
what functionality my hardware has straight out of the box gives me just,
a GUI with the ability to alter screen resolution, thats all.
I think if you are a newbie to linux you should get your hands on as many
distros as you can and then play to see which give you what you want.

Mad Malc

If of course if you want to pay £25 plus a month for an extended warranty
on a PCWorld box containing obsolete parts it's up to you to accept the apellation
of idiot


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