[KLUG Advocacy] A User Leaving

Adam Williams advocacy@kalamazoolinux.org
Thu, 11 Jul 2002 08:40:32 -0400 (EDT)


>>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.

I understand that distros have enough variance to be frustrating.  But
that doesn't help explain why people distro jump.  It makes me wonder what
they are using there computer for.  Installing/re-installing an OS just
isn't an option for me.... I need my computer to do stuff,  and it isn't
doing anything useful during an OS install.  Not to mention the obligatory
couple of hours of configing after and install.  My question remains;
what makes people think this is a productive strategy?

>>>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.

Right.  I'm using $5 Matrox Millenium II cards, and my display is snappy.

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

He mentioned nVidia,  so it really doesn't make sense.

>>"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.

Same here.  I had boxes that would crash under Xfree86-3,  but since
Xfree86-4 I don't think I've had an X crash.

>>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).

True, and with xft there is real anti-aliasing, etc...

>>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.

So is it already too late to pick this up by the time kudzu runs?

>>The tools for making CDs do such however.
>No comment, I still use the command line.  :-)

Me too, but I see the need for a decent gui tool.

>>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.

I've heard mixed reviews about their support.  But I have some compassion
for support guys,  as most users can't reliably describe their problem.

>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. :)

I've never called M$ tech support.  I've had other people callm and they
universally return pissed off.  I just smile.  I called gateway support
once.... Grrrrr.....  I love IBM RISC support,  those guys ROCK!