Mailinglist Archive: opensuse (5100 mails)

[Eugene Lee <suse@xxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, Jun 11, 2004 at 01:27:34AM -0700, Riccardo Facchini wrote:
: --- Eugene Lee <__> wrote:
: > On Thu, Jun 10, 2004 at 04:06:23AM -0700, Riccardo Facchini wrote:
: > : --- Mike McMullin <__> wrote:
: > : > On Thu, 2004-06-10 at 05:17, peter Nikolic wrote:
: > : > > On Thursday 10 Jun 2004 09:46, Eugene Lee wrote:
: > : > > >
: > : > > > At this stage, SuSE can NEVER be a home desktop solution.  Why?
: > : > > > 
: > : > > > Because there is no simple control panel to chage
: > : > > > fundamentally trivial settings like switching duplex
: > : > > > of the Ethernet card on boot.
: > : 
: > : Question N? 1: How many times a day do you change switching duplex
: > : of the ethernet card on boot?
: > 
: > Never.  However, due to the requirements of datacenter, the machine
: > must *not* default to slower autonegotiation.  I haven't yet found a
: > way via YaST to do this.
: 
: Maybe I'm missing something.... are we discussing if SuSE 9.1 is a Home
: Desktop Solution or a Datacenter class server?

The subject line didn't specify which SuSE 9.1 distribution.  I am
working with 9.1 Professional version.  However, my specific feature
request should be, IMO, available on any version of SuSE.

: > Also, if the machine is rebooted for some reason, then I would have
: > to remember to drive to the datacenter, log in, and change the
: > duplex.  This is extremely stupid and stands against The Unix Way.
: 
: I repeat myself:
: 
: Maybe I'm missing something.... are we discussing if SuSE 9.1 is a Home
: Desktop Solution or a Datacenter class server?

My assertion, which is only my own opinion, is that SuSE is not ready to
be a desktop solution.  My proof points to the fact that user-friendly
interfaces like YaST cannot be used to make relatively simple changes
such as setting the duplex of an Ethernet card on boot.

As to the general question, average Linux users are more intelligent and
more persistence if they want to make things work.  Average home users
are not interesting in runlevels, enabling/disabling kernel modules,
building and upgrading tools from SRPMs.  Average home users want to
browse the web, send email, write Word docs, burn CDs and DVDs, manage
photos from their digital cameras, use webcams to do online chatting,
transfer files via external USB/Firewire hard/Flash drives.  So while
average Linux users might share similar needs as average home users, the
converse is rarely true.  Compared to other home desktop OS platforms
(i.e. Windoze XP and Mac OS X), SuSE (and all Linux distros) fulfills
some of needs of average home users but misses other needs.

At this stage, SuSE can NEVER be a home desktop solution.

But maybe it will get better in the future.  That's the hope.