Author: Guido Schimmels
Date: 16:56:25 05/21/02
Go up one level in this thread
On May 21, 2002 at 12:07:59, Vincent Diepeveen wrote: >On May 20, 2002 at 15:41:08, Guido Schimmels wrote: > >>On May 19, 2002 at 11:49:18, Christophe Theron wrote: >> >>>BTW I'm trying Linux too, but I can't get used to it. I thought it was small and >>>elegant, but actually it is as bloated as Windows and quite slower. >> >>Try WindowMaker or XFCE (which I prefer) as a desktop environment. >>You can boot in both of them with <30MB total memory usage, which >>isn't too much nowadays. >>Then try ROX-Filer as a file-manager and prefer gtk/gnome based apps. >>Problem is, I admit, there is no real alternative to Star Office/OpenOffice >>and Mozilla/Netscape/Galeon, which means you still won't get very far with >>64MB, if you want to do professional text-processing and painless web-browsing. >> >>>And too hard to use. The guys who write programs for Linux only have the >>>experienced users in mind. Fatal mistake. >> >>Maybe that's still true for too many open source projects, but >>in general this is no longer true. Example: >>GNOME 2 will add lots of support for disabled people. >> >>>Shit. I really hoped to get rid of Windows, but Linux is still not ready. >> >>Ok, Linux is not perfect in respect to ease of use, like MacOS(X), but not >>much behind Windows I find. And some things are now even easier in Linux >>than Windows. >> >>Real issues are: >>1. The latest or exotic hardware will often not work with Linux - and that won't >>change until Linux is mainstream. >>2. Lack of apps in some fields >>3. Proprietary data-formats, like btw. Acrobat Reader 5 for Linux and Solaris >>has just been announced, one year after the Windows and Mac ports. Again, won't >>change until Linux is mainstream. >> >>> Christophe >> >>I'd like to ask, what exactly you found so hard or didn't get working in Linux ? > >Ok a lot of things are still solved in a big nerd way in linux. > >Let's give some examples. > > >I'm using linux since its first version, nowadays i boot it nearly >every day. Recently i installed redhat 7.2. Compared to the early 90s >it's working very well. I used to use linux in the early 90s only >in textmode. Never got X to work in these days. > >Problems a normal user will have with linux: > - soundcard doesn't install by default, not all > soundcards are default in kernel. I happen to have a soundcard > which by accident gets supported now, because it is an expensive > soundcard. But most $10 to $20 soundcards do not get supported that > easily. For $20 you'll get a Creative SounBlaster 128PCI. My motherboard as C-MEDIA 8378, which is also 100% supported. sound-card support is pretty good now, maybe with the exception of some notebook chipsets. And not every feature of the more expensive cards is usable. Then if it works the next problem is: HOW do you run your > MP3s which are on the NTFS partition? > - NTFS partitions do not get recognized. Someone who installs linux > in 2002 is very likely to have more than 1 OS under linux. Default > kernel of redhat doesn't have NTFS. Most kernels do not have NTFS > support by default, which is pretty idiotic as it is the default > partitioning format from win2000/XP and a very GOOD file system format > which both Linux and windows should be able to use. Note that linux > is doing a read only on NTFS if you compile it in the kernel. NTFS specs are not open. Because NTFS is much more complex than FAT, reengineering is tricky.Blame MS ! > Compiling the kernel??????? Do you really think a normal user can > compile a kernel? Though i happily compile kernels. Normal users can > not. So default kernel MUST have all compatibility inside ACK. > - getting files from and to a floppy drive. > In windows you click on 'my computer' then on the floppy drive. In > linux it is NOT so easy to transfer files from and to floppy > - getting files from a CDrom. Default the cd drives aren't automounted. > Note it is good the cddrives are installed. I remember a time that > you had to compile in ISO9660 or whatever the protocol from normal > cdroms. Yes, this was an annoyance to as well - until recently. I have found a simple but effective solution to this inconvenience: As I've mentioned in my post to Christophe, I use ROX-Filer http://rox.sourceforge.net/ as my file-manager. Like NextStep's file-manager and the finder of MacOS X (aka NextStep 5) ROX-Filer supports app-folders. This means you can start apps by clicking on the folder they reside in (you can enter the folder with SHIFT-click). All you need is to script inside the folder called 'AppRun'. So how does my 'supermount' work ? Create a folder /usr/Computer. create a folders: /usr/Computer/floppy /usr/Computer/CD-ROM /usr/Computer/CD-RW Put following scripts into respective folders: AppRun script for floppy: #!/bin/sh case $1 in -f) gfloppy exit 1 esac mount /floppy rox -n /floppy umount /floppy AppRun script for cdrom: #!/bin/sh case $1 in --eject) eject /cdrom exit 1 esac mount /cdrom rox -n /cdrom umount /cdrom AppRun script for cdrw: #!/bin/sh case $1 in --burn) gtoaster ; exit 1;; --eject) eject /cdrw exit 1 esac mount /cdrw rox -n /cdrw umount /cdrw How does it work ? click on floppy folder - mounts floppy - opens a new filer window with floppy content - closing this new window will unmount floppy - right-click on folder opens pop-up menu: select 'Format floppy' will open gfloppy program click on cdrom folder: same as floppy right-click opens pop-menu, select 'Eject' and floppy tray will open. same with cdwriter, additionally right-click, selecting 'Burn CD' launches GnomeToaster burning software. Enough for now :) In my /usr/Computer folder I have lot's more of stuff like this. Believe me, simple but effective ! same > - network (interface) cards do not work. Especially the cheapest > NICs do not work by default. In fact RH7.2 isn't recognizing my > NIC. It's a cheap $12 card, which is produced in such quantities > (zillions) that it is pathetic that it works in all OSes by default, > except linux. Of course i know how to recompile the kernel and i know > how to figure out which network card it is. I already did this before, > but the average user?????????????????? How the HELL do they find out > which network card they have? Answer: never. ACK. > - Scanner. Could *anyone* tell me how to get to work my HP scanner under > linux? I do not know it at all. I would appreciate if someone knew. > So after nearly 10 years of experience with linux, i still don't know > how to get a scanner to work! For this very reason I bought a Epson Perfection 640U (Epson Perfection series scanner all work well.) I'm very happy with it. Quite a few scanners work. You have to do some research beforehand of course. > - capitals versus lower case. This is IMHO the biggest mistake in the > unix world, which Bill didn't make. Linux sees a difference between > Linux and linux. It is called linux, not Linux. Because linux sees > a difference between lower case and capitals. So please spell it as > linux. Not as Linux... Couldn't disagree more on this issue. Unix has always been case sensitive. You are used different from DOS/Windows, but Unix has 'the older rights' :) Apart from mere habits, I think the Unix way is better. For example I create a folder MIR-spectra to place Mid Infra Red spectra inside and Windows will rename it Mir-spectra. Thank you ! > - knowing 1000s of commands. I know several thousands of commands under > linux, but i'm not a holy man. In fact i'm a poor idiot when we talk > about linux, because i keep forgetting even how to compile the kernel, > as i don't do it daily. Is it make xconfig; make dep; make modules; > make; make install, or did i forget something or is the order not > correct? - make mrproper (if you've patched the kernel recently) - make xconfig - make dep (xconfig will tell if that's necessary upon exiting) - make bzlilo - make modules - make modules_install Ok, Ok, end users should be required to compile a kernel. > - i regurarly rename files to other files and the 'mv' command AFAIK > only can move 1 file at a time only. It's sick. Even DOS is better here! > 'rename a?.* b?.*' works great there. > Try this within 1 command in linux! Please read http://www.washington.edu/computing/faqs/html/unix.rename.wildcard on that issue ! DOS shell better than unix shell. That's a good one, Vince :) > - default prompt at all distributions sucks. To get technical: > I want > PS1="\$PWD/> " > - yesterday when installing a program i got 4 errors which prevented it > from getting installed: "missing blabla.so.4" > Even as a freaking nerd i don't know how to find out which RPM is > having this file. Yes, with some help i managed to list all files > in my RPMs at the RH7.2 cdroms, but it simply wasn't there. So i > need a file which is > in some for me unknown RPM, but god knows how to find it. This program > needs it though! 1. apt (Debian) and urpmi (Mandrake) do a better job on that. 2. Red Hat sucks, rpm sucks. 3. The package maintainer did a lousy job in this case.
This page took 0 seconds to execute
Last modified: Thu, 15 Apr 21 08:11:13 -0700
Current Computer Chess Club Forums at Talkchess. This site by Sean Mintz.