john B wrote:
Hey...remember that the KISS principle and the saying 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' , go hand in hand, together. Sure, *all* the *nix distros have their problems, but for a ten year old on the block, it's doing a damn fine job. It's not worth bitchin' and moanin' about something, because that won't help make it any better. If you didn't want to spend the money and jump on the bandwagon so quickly to have 8.1, then you should have waited a little while and watched.
Well, I let 8.0 slide past, because of the common "dot-oh" troubles. But basically, when you look at one of these lists, it pretty much all looks the same. I mean, I put 6.4 I think it was, or maybe 6.2 on my system, the first Suse after using Slackware for 4 years. It was so easy to install, and a few tweaks, and that was it. Maybe I shouls still be using it! But I do need more recent software so... I just mean it's hard to tell from the problems on the list if the distro is going to be good or bad for me, because the fact is an OS is horribly complex, and there are a million variables that are different for every installation.
You pulled a 'windows user' by going out and buying the latest and greatest, before maybe waiting to see what happens to others (who are 'willing' to test the newest stuff out). Look at all the people with XPee who got the SP1, and are now having even *more* problems with it.
I have overheard horrible things in the local computer shop about XP. Perhaps my biggest mistake is trying to set up 8.1 at work, before spending the time at home fiddling with it in a relaxed atmosphere, to see if I want to go through with it at work, where I have the pressure to get it working as quick as possible.
So, instead of bitching, either do or don't take the time to let the people at SuSE know what's going on. After all, you spent the time writing up this long post, you could have used the time to make as long a post to SuSE. Right?
Ok, you've been civil in your response, critical but civil, so that's Ok. I will not give up on this 8.1. (It is really damned lovely looking, you know, I should have at least put that positive note in my OP.) So I will re-examine each of my troubles, and interact with Suse.
What you did here was sort of like the little spoiled kid who gets a brand-new bike, but doesn't want to take it out on any dirt trails and maybe get it dirty or break something, so cries to daddy that he wants *another* bike to do that kind of stuff with. Ya see what I'm tryin' to say here? I don't mean it to sound like I'm raggin' on you hard, but I am raggin' a little bit about how you went about making this post sound.
Ok. I'll try to keep it to single issues, and as objective as possible. I blew it because I was stressed at work, and it's not good to test a new Linux distro in that environment, I think. I should have known that, as I've gone through this frustration in the last, only to get it all worked out in the end. Good day. -- _____________________ Christopher R. Carlen crobc@earthlink.net Suse 7.3 Linux 2.4.10