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That's balony. My Toshiba Satellite 3000-S353 came indeed with a M$ OS. Windows ME to be precise. It came pre-installed, and the reseller hadn't [...] reader. No further applications were installed, and no operating system settings tweaked. In four months the XP rotted and fell apart like yesteryears bread left on the kitchen table... At the same time as I installed XP, I installed SuSE 7.3 alongside it. 7.3 worked beautifully,
Notice I wasn't arguing that Windows was a better product, simply stating that recent Windows installers are very easy and give you what you expect. Personally, I expect trash when Windows finishes being installed, and I can reliably report that I have gotten the same lack of quality after each install. However, it does work. I've never had a corrupted MS Paint or such out of the box - later on isn't worth discussing because it has nothing to do with this discussion (I have had virtually every Windows component break at one point or another).
and kept working, even if I fiddled with it to get the max out of it. When I got 8.0, it flew in, and everything is supported, except the winmodem ( which probably is supported with the correct driver, I just havn't cared yet :).
Same here re: Winmodem.
I really can't for the life of me say that M$ has in any way given me any relief. ( SuSE has )
I agree.
Through my line of work I come across a wide flora of Linux users. The users with least complaints have generally been Debian and SuSE users. The ones with most wireless problems are Mandrake and MacOS-X users. And the
Hmm... odd. You are probably right about Debian, but then again, only the type of people that know how to fix things can even get it installed properly. It's great once you get it going though. :-) One thing I have noticed is that SuSE and Debian users are also fiercely loyal to their distributions. Honestly, I do not see people telling folks to quit complaining about bugs on the Mandrake lists I'm on, but I see it a lot here, and somewhat on debian-user. The concept that it's bad to complain about annoying problems in a commercial product is something that I can't quite grasp.
o Select a distribution that YOU are happy with, and DONT whine
I actually have, I stay on SLE partially out of sentimentality, partly because I'm planning to try 8.0, and partly because I just need to stay informed on different distro fronts. I'm simply jumping in because I think some of the statements made here are very unfair.
Regardless of wether you have a new operating system to install, or a new gadget for your computer, you ALWAYS should read the manual, if only to become aqquainted with the specifics of the software/gadget being installed.
Perhaps you should, but people - frankly - do not. So, you should try to make things either so hard that they must read the manual, or easy enough so that they do not have to. If it's somewhere inbetween, people won't read the manual and will end up messing up.
This is really silly. The majority of a distros job is not programming new software, but packaging up existing software. So if someone complains that important packages are corrupt, isn't that a very valid complaint?
Oh ? What on earth do you think SuSE have been doing ? Yast is their own product. Sax is too. They have a programmer writing for the XFree86
Right. I ONLY said that is MOSTLY what they do, not all. If you looked at the amount of code in a distro, the MAJORITY of it has not been created by that distro (with the lone exception of speciality distros like OEone). Regardless of how much code is contributed to projects by a distribution, so long as it is open source code, I can buy the competing distro and still get it. The point is, when I spend $80 on Mandrake, SuSE, or RedHat, I'm spending it mostly for the packages. If I wasn't, I could just go assemble my on distro on top of Tom's Linux floppy distro. I'm not doing that for two key reasons - the setup software and the software packages.
project. They have programmers working on other projects as well. And they are selling services that require quite a lot more than to read other peoples man pages to a customer over the phone. Get a grip.
Well, that's not what we are talking about though. We are talking about distros, not services. :-)
And the corrupt package... gimp ? It's not corrupt on my disks. Gee wonder if the author of the article got a bad CD ? Shame on the CD company. But to bitch SuSE about it ? Shame on him.
Maybe. Okay, so that might not be a valid complaint. What about the rest?
The former generates a lot of noise, and too many false-positives.
The latter generates almost no noise, and a high percentage of true-negatives.
Which do you think catches more bugs ?
I think the an open beta program. Yes it has a lot of false "noise," but it also has a much better chance of finding bugs. Considering that the most popular open source projects develop in the open and not behind closed doors with limited testing says something to me. This the difference between what ESR calls the Cathedral and the Bazaar. Projects like the Linux Kernel and KDE show the Bazaar method not only works well, it works better then the Cathedral method. I would say Debian proves this also (I would say MDK does too, but I doubt you would agree with that one).
If distros want people to upgrade - thinking people, not click-and-drool Microsofties - then you need to provide a real reason to upgrade. Especially any company targetting the much less charitable IT industry.
SuSE has already shown in 8.0 a real reason for the upgrade. 8.0 is a transition version to something even greater :-) Prove me wrong.
I don't understand. The real reason to upgrade to 8.0 is because it is a transition to the next version? That doesn't make sense at all.
So when things don't work we should just say "Oh well, who cares"? Why is that? I wouldn't spend a hundred bucks on Microsoft Word, and if several key features were corrupted (really corrupted, not buggy, mind you) just say "Oh well, who cares?" I would demand action of Microsoft, so would you, and so would the media. Linux users are naive if they expect special treatment from other users and the media.
Ehm. Where is the line between "buggy" and "corrupted" ? I know that I
Buggy == Microsoft Windows, it works to the extent it can, but doesn't work very well. Corrupted == Something doesn't work as it normally should do to damage during compilation/setup/packaging/etc.
you in your ideas of what you can and cannot do, if you WOULD read the label that has been present on any and all CD cases from SuSE since at least 5.2, it reads ( on 8.0 ) "By breaking the seal you accept the exclusion of warranty." Ths, if you do not accept the exclusion of warranty, you can return your package unopened to the nearest retailer, probably for a full refund.
This makes no sense either. Sure I agree to no warantee if I open a SuSE package (or any other Linux distro). That doesn't mean I'm saying that "Since I have no warantee I promise not to complain if this thing doesn't work as advertised."
If you account yourself as a member of the Linux media, then for sure I hope for a dismemberment anytime soon. There are only a few of the
You've jumped to that conclusion only because I've taken a stance you do not like about SuSE. That does not mean I will get some kind of vendetta to attack SuSE at every move, or even if I did, that I couldn't report the 99% of topics that do not relate to SuSE just fine.
userspace on a personal crusade against M$. Most of us have only gotten fed up with their products, and have found something else that we like better. Since you like Microsoft better ( which must be the case if you dislike Linux so much, as all of the problems described in this much too long and washed out thread can be reproduced on any Linux distro, given the (in)correct hardware for each particular distro )
Waaaaiiiitttt a second here. Not only do I not like Microsoft better, I have a fairly well earned dislike for Microsoft. Disliking Microsoft however, does not mean I'm just going to walk lock-step with the Linux crowd if I disagree with something or see a problem. Further more, I'm not interested in Linux being an elitist OS. I want it to be accessable to the average person - the people that use Windows. That is why I say what I say. That is why I think that setup tools should be as easy as possible (with pro options hidden, but available with the right choices). That is why I think it is not commendable if a certain distro doesn't try to support even flaky hardware. And, that is why I think a distro deserves good, honest criticism rather then just ignoring problems out of loyality.
then why don't you just continue to use Windows ? Each too has its userbase, and its means to and end. Maybe Gates serves you better ? Who knows...
Well, that would be a silly assumption since I avoid Windows at every chance I have, I write articles geared toward enterprises looking to move to Linux, and I haven't used Windows as my primary OS for more then a year (and I've used Linux for almost four years). -Tim - -- - ---------------------------------------------------------------- Timothy R. Butler tbutler@uninetsolutions.com Universal Networks http://www.uninet.info Christian Portal and Search Tool: http://www.faithtree.com Open Source Migration Guide: http://www.ofb.biz ============= "Christian Web Services Since 1996" ============== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE84az2K37Cns9gJ0gRAjWOAJsEAf6eAQdouzLKtGN8TxGt012hwACePf0L L41FBgHO7NuJUnhdManaF0Y= =qWaB -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----