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.
--
____________________________________
Christopher R. Carlen
Principal Laser/Optical Technologist
Sandia National Laboratories CA USA
crcarle(a)sandia.gov
