[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.
> 
> 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. 

I can't afford to distro jump on my primary computers either.  I have a
"test" box which can have it's hard drive wiped clean at any time. 
(primarily used to run test installs on new versions of BSware)  This is
the only PC where I play with "other distros".

I even hate new installs of my primary distro (Redhat), which is why I
almost always do an upgrade when new versions come out.

> My question remains;
> what makes people think this is a productive strategy?

If I were to move from one OS to another, I'd probably try some
different distros before I picked one.  i.e.  If I decided to switch
from Linux to BSD, I'd probably try FreeBSD, OpenBSD and NetBSD to see
which one suited me best, and learn something about the BSD's in the
process.

BUT once I made the switch, I'd stick with it.  It'd take something
major that I overlooked to make me switch to a different BSD.

So, in answer to your question, my only _guess_ is that he was never
really serious about switching to Linux, but was only evaluating the
whole time.

> >That's also easy to remedy by spending <$50 on a supported video card.
> 
> He mentioned nVidia,  so it really doesn't make sense.

Depends on the time frame.  If this was back in his early Linux days,
nVidia may not have been well supported at that time.

> >>"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.

Ditto.  Plus Window managers have improved too.  A Gnome/KDE crash can
also resemble a X crash, and it can be hard to tell the difference
without digging into the logs.

> >>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?

Maybe, but kudzu doesn't modify the lilo/grub.conf file in any case.  
So even a 2nd reboot (ala M$) won't make it work either.

IMO, that's a bug that should be fixed.

> >>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.

Yes, but I have no idea the current state of the CDRW GUI tools.

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