Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (4348 mails)
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Re: [SLE] My patience has run out
- From: Alex Daniloff <alex@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 29 Oct 2002 19:27:18 -0800
- Message-id: <200210291927.18095.alex@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Hello Chris,
I'm sorry for your disappointment and frustration with SuSE8.1 Linux distro.
However, in our eng. dept. which runs solely on Linux SuSE 7.1/7.3/8.0/8.1
situation is right opposite to yours.
Our engineers were very frustrated with WinNT as a desktop OS due to its
constant crashes, especially during critical data analysis operations.
About two years ago we started an experiment within our engineering group
to run WinNT via Vmware on the top of the Linux boxes.
The more my colleagues were getting familiar with Linux the less they were
firing up Vmware with Winblows. Finally all installations of WinNT and Vmware
were wiped off from our hard drives.
I admit that the office programs in Linux still immature and KDE still didn't
reach its pick of usability yet.
Why don't you go back to basic if you're so unhappy with all these GUI
applications?
Use 'mc' Midnight Commander as your file/ftp browser instead of Konqueror.
You can use Windowmaker instead of resource consuming KDE.
You can prepare the content of documents you need in plain text files using
vi or other simple editor. When you need, you can produce your final documents
in pretty much all desirable formats using LaTeX. If you need to plot your
data use GNUPlot or Perl.GD and other graphical modules.
This is actually how most of scientific and research publications done.
If you need database to store and retrieve your data use MySQL or PostgreSQL.
For document exchange in M$ format, StarOffice6.0 or OpenOffice1.0 can
substitute the great deal of M$Office features except macros.
The best way to spread Linux around is not to brag about it but to teach other
people how they can use it applying their brains not a button pusher reflex.
Don't you think that you're relaying too much on GUI?
Just relax and get a life
Alex
On Tuesday 29 October 2002 17:11, Chris Carlen wrote:
> Sorry folks, but as a long time Linux user since Slackware, and Linux
> kernel 1.2.8, who has tirelessly advocated Linux to my professional
> colleagues, hoping one day they would realize how much better Linux is
> to use on their desktops than Windows (but they never believe me, and
> maybe I don't believe it anymore either), I have become so disappointed
> with my recent experiences with Suse 8.1 that I really want to just give
> up. Maybe I will try reviewing another Linux distro in a another few
> months when I have some more time. But I have blown several days
> without acheiving even a modicum of useability out of this thing,
> uncovering nothing but quirks and bugs, that I just can't take it anymore.
>
> I could spend several more hours documenting my problems in even more
> detail than I have recorded here, to submit to Suse so they might
> improve it, but I have work to do. I have had a similar experience with
> StarOffice recently, after several weeks of work on a document, I began
> to spend most of my time documenting bugs and not doing any work. I
> can't have this as a hobby anymore, I need to do work, I need to have
> food to eat at the end of the day. So I gave up on OpenOffice, and now
> I am reaching the same level of frustration with Suse 8.1. I have been
> using 7.3 for about a year, which has worked reasonably well after the
> several weeks I spent getting it tuned up a while back.
>
> I am a user in a corporate environment, and everyone around me is
> working without a hitch on the system I despise with all my faculties,
> Windows, and I waste hour after hour fussing with this thing to get the
> most basic things to work right. Here are some of the things that went
> wrong in 8.1:
>
> 1. Having two konqueror windows open in 8.1: Copy file in one window
> doesn't make the paste option become available in the other window.
> This used to be so. Why is it not now? I posted about this before and
> some folks have responded that they either don't have the problem or
> were on KDE 3.0.4. I just can't accept continued headaches about such a
> simple operation that should be intutive. Perhaps something got screwed
> up on mine, but if it is that easy to cause wierd quirks to develop
> after using the system for only a few hours, then I can't have that. I
> should go back to Slackware and fvwm.
>
> 2. If I have klipper running, I can copy a file from one konqueror,
> then if I go to klipper and select the file that I just copied, the
> paste button becomes active in the other konqueror! Things are looking
> up, but when I click the paste button in the other konqueror, it gives
> me a dialog "Konqueror, Filename for clipboard content:" with a space to
> type in something. Well if I wanted to type long filenames, I would be
> using a terminal. I know this is asking for the filename to give the
> copied item, but this isn't very logical considering that it was clearly
> a file that I am trying to pastet is now
> what should happen when I click the paste button. I would suggest, that
> PASTING should happen!
>
> 3. Mozilla of course has Java broken by the decision to compile it
> with the new gcc. But it also has no mail or newsgroups window! What
> the heck is this? Great decision to install Mozilla, but pretty lame to
> have broken it almost completely. As usual, it's better to install it
> myself.
>
> 4. Let's try the documentation. Back in the 6.4 days, the
> documentation tools were simple but actually useable, with the web
> interface. Since the 7.x versions, I have hated the Suse life preserver
> icon, and it never gets any better.
>
> The first annoying thing is having to make an index or whatever to use
> the search, which has to be done as root. Why can't this just all work
> because the packages were installed?
>
> Next stop within the Suse help center: "Linux documentation." Here we
> have a great chance to make Linux look like something other than a dark
> ages UNIX in pretty wrapping paper. What do we see? Info pages and
> man pages. Man pages will always man pages, and they are fine. But
> info pages are so patheticly disorganized that their inclusion in this
> manner is almost useless. Hint: get them in alphabetical order, and
> if that list is too long then categorize them and alphebetize the
> subsections. But the present arrangment, which has been the case for
> years now, is a disorganized mess, and is inappropriate on an OS
> desktop that might even remotely possibly appear in a business climate.
>
> The man pages are organized into sections, that is good. When I click a
> section and see the list of commands, I see a "no idea yet" next to each
> one. That is very bad folks. This looks like something is terribly
> wrong. Fortuately, clicking a command does at least produce a man page.
>
> Let's go to the Development|Languages section of the Suse help. You
> know, I have heard that C is an important language in Linux. I would
> anticipate that one of the first language references I would encounter
> in the development section would be titled something like "C." Nope.
> Instead I find a list of four things, two of which I've never heard of,
> and only two of which are useable. The "gperf" selection gives results.
>
> The java2-jre selection gives a page with some links. Clicking any of
> them gives a "could not connect to host" error. Hint: it is bad to
> depend on external web sites for your documentation. At least if you
> need to link outside, provide the links in a form that people can copy
> to their usual web browser, which may have the necessary proxy
> configuration set up, which is probably why this help is broken. Very
> dumb.
>
> Clicking "phoenix" causes nothing to happen, the help center still shows
> whatever I was looking at last, the error message. I would count that
> as another in the lengthy growing list of bugs.
>
> Finally, "SELFHTML" works but it is in German. Ok.
>
> In Libraries, there is the glibc info fortunately converted into a
> working html interface.
>
> Well the documentation is such a disaster, that I just can't believe it.
> I know the searching is broken, because I read about it on Suse's web
> site. But this is really really inexcusable. This stuff is basic,
> fundamental, core, critical, elementary components of the system, that
> are just horribly buggy.
>
> 5. I was originally writing this list of gripes in kwrite 4.0 (KDE
> 3.0.3). Some sequence of actions that I performed caused kwrite to
> explode several words of my text onto different lines. This happened
> twice and was very irritating to have to go and unexplode the text, so
> I copied the text into OpenOffice. I have never experienced such
> problems in KDE editors before, so I would say there is something very
> broken in this editor, which is not good for such a basic tool which
> should be absolutely dependable.
>
> 6. Let's see if OpenOffice as installed and polished by Suse is able to
> impress this business user: The default font in OpenOffice is Times.
> I type some random text with Times, and it looks like crap because the
> characters are practically laying on top of each other, and the cursor
> doesn't sit just after a typed character like it should, but lies sort
> of right on top of the characters. Changing to 14 point and type some
> more, the new chars are more widely spaced, but not taller than the 12
> pt. 16 pt. Scales up, but 18 pt. Is the same as 16. The spacing
> scales, so presumably the print looks fine, but this is the same
> scaling awkwardness that I've experienced in StarOffice/OpenOffice for
> years (yes I know how to make it just the way I want by a very
> extensive manual overhaul of the X font installation, but that shouldn't
> be needed in Suse 8.1 in the year 2002, it should just all be perfect),
> and which is slowly getting better, but this is still not good enough
> for the business desktop.
>
> I switch to Utopia, and this font is antialiased, but Times wasn't.
> Gotta love the consistency folks! A sequence of 18 pt., 16 pt., 14
> pt., 12 pt., and 10 pt. Chars typed in Utopia scale beautifully. Why
> didn't Times? I don't really care, I just want whatever fonts there
> are to work right, and the standard here could be considered the
> Utopia. Therefore, Times is either broken or limited, and this should
> have been polished.
>
> 7. Several times now while typing in OpenOffice, I have had some sort
> of menu from KDE pop up on top of my typing. The pop-up menu related
> to inserting or opening URLs ?local file URL, actions for file...; send
> URL; send file...?. I don't know what sequence of actions makes this
> happen as I can't make it repeat, but it is very annoying. Ah, I see
> it is klipper, and it pops up when I highlight and delete a line of
> text in OpenOffice! Whatever enhancement to useablility this program
> was trying to accomplish, it has instead proved to be a confusing
> annoyance. Oh, and I looked at the documentation for klipper, and the
> KDE application manual refers to being able to configure it to act like
> Windows or UNIX, by following this instruction:
>
> ?In order to change clipboard modes, select Preferences from the Klipper
> pop-up menu, and in the dialog box that appears, select the General
> tab. The Synchronize contents of the clipboard and the selection check
> box determines the clipboard mode. If the box is selected, the
> clipboard functions in the UNIX. mode; if not, the Windows./Mac. mode
> is used. ?
>
> Well, this selection doesn't exist in the klipper I have. Just another
> example of the disorganized mess.
>
> Well, I have spent an afternoon wasting time describing the problems,
> and finding more problems at such a high rate that I am left with no
> other choice but to conclude that this distribution is unuseable for
> business in it's current state. I could spend another few weeks
> cleaning it all up, but I have work to do. Maybe hobbyists have that
> kind of time to play with their toys, but I have work to do, and this
> doesn't fit the bill. Can someone point me to a professional computer
> user's OS that works please?
>
> A sad day.
--
Microsoft Windows users should be covered
under the Americans with Disabilities Act!!!
Try Linux and you'll understand why...
I'm sorry for your disappointment and frustration with SuSE8.1 Linux distro.
However, in our eng. dept. which runs solely on Linux SuSE 7.1/7.3/8.0/8.1
situation is right opposite to yours.
Our engineers were very frustrated with WinNT as a desktop OS due to its
constant crashes, especially during critical data analysis operations.
About two years ago we started an experiment within our engineering group
to run WinNT via Vmware on the top of the Linux boxes.
The more my colleagues were getting familiar with Linux the less they were
firing up Vmware with Winblows. Finally all installations of WinNT and Vmware
were wiped off from our hard drives.
I admit that the office programs in Linux still immature and KDE still didn't
reach its pick of usability yet.
Why don't you go back to basic if you're so unhappy with all these GUI
applications?
Use 'mc' Midnight Commander as your file/ftp browser instead of Konqueror.
You can use Windowmaker instead of resource consuming KDE.
You can prepare the content of documents you need in plain text files using
vi or other simple editor. When you need, you can produce your final documents
in pretty much all desirable formats using LaTeX. If you need to plot your
data use GNUPlot or Perl.GD and other graphical modules.
This is actually how most of scientific and research publications done.
If you need database to store and retrieve your data use MySQL or PostgreSQL.
For document exchange in M$ format, StarOffice6.0 or OpenOffice1.0 can
substitute the great deal of M$Office features except macros.
The best way to spread Linux around is not to brag about it but to teach other
people how they can use it applying their brains not a button pusher reflex.
Don't you think that you're relaying too much on GUI?
Just relax and get a life
Alex
On Tuesday 29 October 2002 17:11, Chris Carlen wrote:
> Sorry folks, but as a long time Linux user since Slackware, and Linux
> kernel 1.2.8, who has tirelessly advocated Linux to my professional
> colleagues, hoping one day they would realize how much better Linux is
> to use on their desktops than Windows (but they never believe me, and
> maybe I don't believe it anymore either), I have become so disappointed
> with my recent experiences with Suse 8.1 that I really want to just give
> up. Maybe I will try reviewing another Linux distro in a another few
> months when I have some more time. But I have blown several days
> without acheiving even a modicum of useability out of this thing,
> uncovering nothing but quirks and bugs, that I just can't take it anymore.
>
> I could spend several more hours documenting my problems in even more
> detail than I have recorded here, to submit to Suse so they might
> improve it, but I have work to do. I have had a similar experience with
> StarOffice recently, after several weeks of work on a document, I began
> to spend most of my time documenting bugs and not doing any work. I
> can't have this as a hobby anymore, I need to do work, I need to have
> food to eat at the end of the day. So I gave up on OpenOffice, and now
> I am reaching the same level of frustration with Suse 8.1. I have been
> using 7.3 for about a year, which has worked reasonably well after the
> several weeks I spent getting it tuned up a while back.
>
> I am a user in a corporate environment, and everyone around me is
> working without a hitch on the system I despise with all my faculties,
> Windows, and I waste hour after hour fussing with this thing to get the
> most basic things to work right. Here are some of the things that went
> wrong in 8.1:
>
> 1. Having two konqueror windows open in 8.1: Copy file in one window
> doesn't make the paste option become available in the other window.
> This used to be so. Why is it not now? I posted about this before and
> some folks have responded that they either don't have the problem or
> were on KDE 3.0.4. I just can't accept continued headaches about such a
> simple operation that should be intutive. Perhaps something got screwed
> up on mine, but if it is that easy to cause wierd quirks to develop
> after using the system for only a few hours, then I can't have that. I
> should go back to Slackware and fvwm.
>
> 2. If I have klipper running, I can copy a file from one konqueror,
> then if I go to klipper and select the file that I just copied, the
> paste button becomes active in the other konqueror! Things are looking
> up, but when I click the paste button in the other konqueror, it gives
> me a dialog "Konqueror, Filename for clipboard content:" with a space to
> type in something. Well if I wanted to type long filenames, I would be
> using a terminal. I know this is asking for the filename to give the
> copied item, but this isn't very logical considering that it was clearly
> a file that I am trying to pastet is now
> what should happen when I click the paste button. I would suggest, that
> PASTING should happen!
>
> 3. Mozilla of course has Java broken by the decision to compile it
> with the new gcc. But it also has no mail or newsgroups window! What
> the heck is this? Great decision to install Mozilla, but pretty lame to
> have broken it almost completely. As usual, it's better to install it
> myself.
>
> 4. Let's try the documentation. Back in the 6.4 days, the
> documentation tools were simple but actually useable, with the web
> interface. Since the 7.x versions, I have hated the Suse life preserver
> icon, and it never gets any better.
>
> The first annoying thing is having to make an index or whatever to use
> the search, which has to be done as root. Why can't this just all work
> because the packages were installed?
>
> Next stop within the Suse help center: "Linux documentation." Here we
> have a great chance to make Linux look like something other than a dark
> ages UNIX in pretty wrapping paper. What do we see? Info pages and
> man pages. Man pages will always man pages, and they are fine. But
> info pages are so patheticly disorganized that their inclusion in this
> manner is almost useless. Hint: get them in alphabetical order, and
> if that list is too long then categorize them and alphebetize the
> subsections. But the present arrangment, which has been the case for
> years now, is a disorganized mess, and is inappropriate on an OS
> desktop that might even remotely possibly appear in a business climate.
>
> The man pages are organized into sections, that is good. When I click a
> section and see the list of commands, I see a "no idea yet" next to each
> one. That is very bad folks. This looks like something is terribly
> wrong. Fortuately, clicking a command does at least produce a man page.
>
> Let's go to the Development|Languages section of the Suse help. You
> know, I have heard that C is an important language in Linux. I would
> anticipate that one of the first language references I would encounter
> in the development section would be titled something like "C." Nope.
> Instead I find a list of four things, two of which I've never heard of,
> and only two of which are useable. The "gperf" selection gives results.
>
> The java2-jre selection gives a page with some links. Clicking any of
> them gives a "could not connect to host" error. Hint: it is bad to
> depend on external web sites for your documentation. At least if you
> need to link outside, provide the links in a form that people can copy
> to their usual web browser, which may have the necessary proxy
> configuration set up, which is probably why this help is broken. Very
> dumb.
>
> Clicking "phoenix" causes nothing to happen, the help center still shows
> whatever I was looking at last, the error message. I would count that
> as another in the lengthy growing list of bugs.
>
> Finally, "SELFHTML" works but it is in German. Ok.
>
> In Libraries, there is the glibc info fortunately converted into a
> working html interface.
>
> Well the documentation is such a disaster, that I just can't believe it.
> I know the searching is broken, because I read about it on Suse's web
> site. But this is really really inexcusable. This stuff is basic,
> fundamental, core, critical, elementary components of the system, that
> are just horribly buggy.
>
> 5. I was originally writing this list of gripes in kwrite 4.0 (KDE
> 3.0.3). Some sequence of actions that I performed caused kwrite to
> explode several words of my text onto different lines. This happened
> twice and was very irritating to have to go and unexplode the text, so
> I copied the text into OpenOffice. I have never experienced such
> problems in KDE editors before, so I would say there is something very
> broken in this editor, which is not good for such a basic tool which
> should be absolutely dependable.
>
> 6. Let's see if OpenOffice as installed and polished by Suse is able to
> impress this business user: The default font in OpenOffice is Times.
> I type some random text with Times, and it looks like crap because the
> characters are practically laying on top of each other, and the cursor
> doesn't sit just after a typed character like it should, but lies sort
> of right on top of the characters. Changing to 14 point and type some
> more, the new chars are more widely spaced, but not taller than the 12
> pt. 16 pt. Scales up, but 18 pt. Is the same as 16. The spacing
> scales, so presumably the print looks fine, but this is the same
> scaling awkwardness that I've experienced in StarOffice/OpenOffice for
> years (yes I know how to make it just the way I want by a very
> extensive manual overhaul of the X font installation, but that shouldn't
> be needed in Suse 8.1 in the year 2002, it should just all be perfect),
> and which is slowly getting better, but this is still not good enough
> for the business desktop.
>
> I switch to Utopia, and this font is antialiased, but Times wasn't.
> Gotta love the consistency folks! A sequence of 18 pt., 16 pt., 14
> pt., 12 pt., and 10 pt. Chars typed in Utopia scale beautifully. Why
> didn't Times? I don't really care, I just want whatever fonts there
> are to work right, and the standard here could be considered the
> Utopia. Therefore, Times is either broken or limited, and this should
> have been polished.
>
> 7. Several times now while typing in OpenOffice, I have had some sort
> of menu from KDE pop up on top of my typing. The pop-up menu related
> to inserting or opening URLs ?local file URL, actions for file...; send
> URL; send file...?. I don't know what sequence of actions makes this
> happen as I can't make it repeat, but it is very annoying. Ah, I see
> it is klipper, and it pops up when I highlight and delete a line of
> text in OpenOffice! Whatever enhancement to useablility this program
> was trying to accomplish, it has instead proved to be a confusing
> annoyance. Oh, and I looked at the documentation for klipper, and the
> KDE application manual refers to being able to configure it to act like
> Windows or UNIX, by following this instruction:
>
> ?In order to change clipboard modes, select Preferences from the Klipper
> pop-up menu, and in the dialog box that appears, select the General
> tab. The Synchronize contents of the clipboard and the selection check
> box determines the clipboard mode. If the box is selected, the
> clipboard functions in the UNIX. mode; if not, the Windows./Mac. mode
> is used. ?
>
> Well, this selection doesn't exist in the klipper I have. Just another
> example of the disorganized mess.
>
> Well, I have spent an afternoon wasting time describing the problems,
> and finding more problems at such a high rate that I am left with no
> other choice but to conclude that this distribution is unuseable for
> business in it's current state. I could spend another few weeks
> cleaning it all up, but I have work to do. Maybe hobbyists have that
> kind of time to play with their toys, but I have work to do, and this
> doesn't fit the bill. Can someone point me to a professional computer
> user's OS that works please?
>
> A sad day.
--
Microsoft Windows users should be covered
under the Americans with Disabilities Act!!!
Try Linux and you'll understand why...
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