[KLUG Advocacy] A User Leaving

[Bruce Smith]

> 1. Distro flopping
> 
> He starts out the explanation of his Linux experience with a laundry
> list of distributions he tried.  I've noticed that some people seem to
> flop between distros like they flip channels on TV.  And these same
> people seem to universally end up frustrated.  I just don't get the
> psychology/rational behind this behaviour.  Things like "Eventually I
> became dissatisfied with Mandrake," and he moves on to Debian.  Why was
> he dissatisfied?  Then he compliments Debian on how he gets to get his
> hands dirty and learns alot.  Then he is frustrated with Debian, and
> between the stable/unstable versions.  Huh?  So he goes on the Mandrake
> 8.1....  I don't get it.

Since I keep a wide variety of distros for sale at KLUG meetings, I
occasionally play around with them on a spare PC.  I can see where this
would get very frustrating if I wasn't playing, and planned on actually
using them.  There are enough differences to make this a pain.

> 2. X11
> 
> "My experience with X is that it's too big, bloated, slow and unstable
> to be any good to the home user."
> 
> Is this a general experience?  He later states how snappy things like
> window moves are on XP.  I use X remotely at home and on an 'old' box
> and home and *never* wait for widgets to paint, etc...  So I just
> haven't experience this.  

The ONLY time I've ever seen X run slow on Linux is when running a video
card in unaccelerated mode.  That happened occasionally when a new
chipset comes out and the drives are being developed.  That would be my
only _guess_ about his experience of slowness.

That's also easy to remedy by spending <$50 on a supported video card.

> "Most crashes that I ever experienced with Linux have been X's fault. My
> servers don't run X, and they never crash."

That USED TO BE true, but I can't remember the last time I've had a X
crash.  It's literally been years for me.

> This is true.  But video drivers make the same rule apply to M$, but
> there I can't turn them off.

Right.

> "Fonts are truly awful under X."
> 
> The font mechanism is a pain.  But I think he left Linux must a little
> too soon in this case.  Real solutions are almost at this end of the
> pipe.

M$, and many web developers, are also to blame.  Since M$ supplies 
PROPRIETARY fonts on Windows, and may web designers use those fonts,
many web pages look like crap on Linux.  Manually adding those fonts to
a Linux install can be a minor pain (it used to be a REAL pain).

> 3. Drivers.
> 
> Driver support can be a problem.  But most devices I've used "just
> work".  I haven't recompiled a kernel is almost a year.

Right, he must be using some really non-standard hardware for this to be
the case.  Redhat and most other distros supply drivers for just about
all hardware.

> 4. Hardware setup
> 
> He seems to think this works pretty good,  and I concur.  RedHat
> automatically does the IDE-CDRW + SCSI module loading,  or did on a box
> I used.  His "It's an IDE device, it's not that complicated!" comment is
> a gross over simplification.

Redhat seems to setup a CDRW drive fine during install (as do many other
distros).  The problem I've seen is Redhat doesn't handle it very well
if a CDRW drive is added to a existing installation.  Recently I had to
talk Mr. DNS through changing his grub.conf file after he added an IDE
CDRW drive on Redhat 7.3.

> The tools for making CDs do such however.

No comment, I still use the command line.  :-)

> 5. Software distribution.
> 
> He didn't look very hard for a solution to this problem.  GnoRPM,
> red-carpet, etc...  I don't see how it can get easier than red-carpet.

For sure!

> 6. Support
> 
> Silly.  You want to avoid jerks, immigrate to Antarctica.  I somehow am
> confident he isn't active in any political or religious organs.  This
> kind of drivel annoys me.

He could have purchased supported from Redhat, and many other places.

And that would probably be cheaper than M$ support.  Ever call the M$
900 number for support and pay big bucks while on hold waiting for the
next available idiot?  (I haven't either, but I've heard stories. :)

--------------------------------------------
Bruce Smith                bruce@armintl.com
System Administrator / Network Administrator
Armstrong International, Inc.
Three Rivers, Michigan  49093  USA
http://www.armstrong-intl.com/
--------------------------------------------