Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (3627 mails)

[Terence McCarthy <saki@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Friday 15 June 2001 12:20, Briggs, N. - Neil - wrote:

> Sorry for such a long winded vent. I know people here think linux is great,
> but this has not been my experience. I hope I dont get flamed too much for
> this email.
>
> Kindest regards
> Neil

This doesn't deserve to get flamed- it's too much what it's probably like for 
too many people trying a new O/S.

First it appears there was no clear plan of what the box was to do.

This is essential. If it is an office machine is multimedia important?  What 
is important from a work point of view? There are a number of programmes that 
can be used for most needs. There are numerous word & document processors, 
spreadsheets, databases, web browsers, mail progs etc.. What do you want to 
do today? (or is that question a M$ trade mark?)

Second it appears that you tried various progs, and when they didn't work as 
you expected, you more or less gave up on them. You have three months of 
support from SuSE- did you try them? You've not tried this list as far as I 
remember. Have you tried any good books on Linux, or read trough the supplied 
documentation?

Third, any new system you employ, especially as complex as an O/S, and all 
the associated software, is going to take a lot of hard work. The legacy 
problem with M$ is that most users forget how long it took them to get up to 
speed. There is always a time and hard work penalty for learning something 
complex and new.

Forthly, don't give up. You've found some of the problems, and you've 
probably learned a lot. Build on that by setting limited targets and getting 
them right before moving on. Use what's left of your support period by asking 
specific questions and providing appropriate data to help. Use this list 
(ditto).

There are a very large number of knowlegeable and helpful people here, and we 
would all rather you succeed than fail. 

I spent months trying to get my box to print out when I started. It was a 
real pain having to learn how to configure files by hand after years of just 
installing the supplied print driver under Windows (and re-installing and 
re-installing...), but when I was able to switch to Linux for all my business 
needs it was great- liberating, in short. (As an additional benefit I learned 
a great deal about other things whilst getting the printer to work, as well 
as a great deal of satisfaction seeing the first sheet coming out!)

Don't be despondent, Linux is great, but the rewards are proportionate to the 
efort put in. 

Stay with it.


Terence