Mahmood's/SuSE's post-sales service/servicio post-venta
(versión en castellano abajo). Christopher Mahmood is an unpleasant and uneducated guy ! 1.- Instead of helping, he wrote in a past message : it is not my responsability if SuSE doesn't help. Where then does he take the authority from then to be the one who decides an unsubscription from the lists. 2.- My problem is typically spanish (PPPoE instead of PPPoA like in most countries) but, from the other hand, there are very few experienced ADSL people, generally, and less again in the spanish list. Hence the dual application of the message. 3.- Last time which was also the first one, - this is the second one -, I sent my message in english to the spanish list, (it was obvious that my problem occured in Spain). Chistopher Mahmood sent me an Email saying that was very rude. For that reason, now, I sent it in dual language, not to be rude. 4.- last time, in spanish, I answered to Mahmood's Email pointing out that the most rude and impolite was not to ensure service after having sold a product. One of his answers was that I sd not use his private EMail address (see point 1.-) Now it seems, that for such unpleasant matters, it is the only one I should use. Well, Mr.Mahmood, don't worry : unsubscribe me : if I remain linuxer, - I don't know -, any way, I have learned not to remain SusEr. So good a service ! And Your people wanted me to pay for the "Professionnal Class" help ?!!? (lets remember there was not even an online pay for private user ad hock solution available). ¿ Does democracy disturb You, Mr.Mahmood ? Bye ! ____________ Christopher Mahmood es una persona desagradable y maleducada. 1.- en lugar de ayudar, él me escribió en un reciente mensaje : no es mi responsabilidad si SuSE no presta ayuda alguna. ¿ De donde saca entonces la autoridad para dar a alguien de baja de las mailing lists ? 2.- mi problema es particular a España (PPPoE en lugar de PPPoA como en la mayoría de los países) pero, por otra parte, hay muy poca gente con experiencia en ADSL, i todavía menos a la lista castellana. De ahí que mandará mi requerimiento de ayuda a ambas listas. 3.- la primera vez, - ésta es la segunda -, mandé mi mensaje en inglés a la lista castellana. (Era evidente que mi problema occuría en España). Christopher Mahmood me mandó un mensaje escribiendo que eso era muy grosero. Por esa razón, esta vez, mandé mi mensaje en ambos idiomas. 4.- La última vez le contesté a su EMail al Señor Mahmood mencionandole que lo mas grosero y maleducado era de vender un producto y, despues, de no asegurar ninguna clase de servicio. Entonces, una de sus respuestas fue que no podía utilizar su dirección privada de correo electrónico. ¡ Ahora, para asuntos tan desagradables, parece que sea la única que se pueda utilizar ! Pues, Señor Mahmood, no se preocupe : de me de baja, si sigo de linuxero, - no lo sé -, en todo caso, no será de SuSEro. ¡ Un servicio tan eficiente ! ¿¡¡ Y su gente quería que pagara por el servicio de la clase "Profesional" !!!?? (Acordémosnos que ni siquiera había una variante de pago por caso, en linea, para fines privados, domésticos). ¿ le molesta la democracia, Señor Mahmood ? ¡ Adio-oos ! -----Original Message----- From: Christopher Mahmood <ckm@suse.com> To: Jacek Boboli <hussaile@ant.pl> Date: jeudi 21 février 2002 3:44 Subject: Re: [SLE] last-último /var/log/message conexion ADSL connection
[ this is a private mail, do not reply to the list please ] I asked you nicely not to crosspost between our lists (which you forwarded to SLE in a response). The next time you're address will be unsubscribed and blocked from further subscriptions.
And no, I'm not picking on you. All crossposters get nasty messages from me.
--
-ckm
Here's a couple answers to your questions. * Jacek Boboli (hussaile@ant.pl) [020221 01:17]: ->(versión en castellano abajo). -> ->Christopher Mahmood is an unpleasant and uneducated guy ! ->1.- Instead of helping, he wrote in a past message : it is not my ->responsability if SuSE doesn't help. Where then does he take the authority ->from then to be the one who decides an unsubscription from the lists. He is the lists admin and the systems admin at SuSE Inc ..he has the authority to unsubscribe anyone he wishes or to set rules for the lists which by and large are not moderated and usually a free for all. It isn't his responsibity to make SuSE GmBH respond ..he has no authority to make anyone do so. Please direct complaints about SuSE's product to those who are responsible for taking care of your needs. I would also remind you that these lists are free and no one that has a subscription to these is obligate to help you. If someone knows the answer to your problem and they wish to help you...it is up to them. You don't pay anything for access to this list. These lists are a liabilty to SuSE because they cost money as far as bandwidth to keep going. They DO not have to provide any such services. ->2.- My problem is typically spanish (PPPoE instead of PPPoA like in most ->countries) but, from the other hand, there are very few experienced ADSL ->people, generally, and less again in the spanish list. Hence the dual ->application of the message. Duel language postings are fine. I'm not sure what Chris could have said to make you feel otherwise. Many Germans post dual messages but for the most part it's socially acceptable to post in English hence the name of the list. ->3.- Last time which was also the first one, - this is the second one -, ->I sent my message in english to the spanish list, (it was obvious that my ->problem occured in Spain). Chistopher Mahmood sent me an Email saying that ->was very rude. For that reason, now, I sent it in dual language, not to be ->rude. Just because Spanish is your native language doesn't give you the right to not realize that posting in English on a Spanish list is rude. People posting in German to the English list is rude..so why isn't what you did rude? Are you above good manners? ->Well, Mr.Mahmood, don't worry : unsubscribe me : if I remain linuxer, - I ->don't know -, any way, I have learned not to remain SusEr. So good a ->service And Your people wanted me to pay for the "Professionnal Class" ->help ?!!? (lets remember there was not even an online pay for private ->user ad hock solution available). If that's how you feel..then that is fine. We don't need someone around who things they deserve treatment above and beyond what other people get. You get 90 days of tech support for your product (Pro) that comes from tech support. What is supported is layed out very nicely in the books that came with your box. If you wish to get more support then that you can always call customer service. There is most likely a number on the website for the closest centre to you. Mr. Malmood is not a tech support rep. He is the list admin and systems admin for the Oakland, CA office. He doesn't have to support you in any way unless it is related to the mailing lists, www or ftp servers. You talk about this idea of "service" but you are asking for something from someone who has no business giving it to you and who has no obligation to give it to you. Just because his address ends in @suse.com does not mean he has to be at your disposal for tech support. Your problem is a networking issue. It's not covered under the basic installation support which is what you get. You get basic support. Which is much more then you would ever get from Microsoft. If you think the support for other distributions is so much more then what you get from SuSE..hey feel free to check them out. If you weren't so cranky and you send a clear, ledgable message to this list. It is almost certain that someone will help you. If no one knows they answer to your question. You may have to actually RTFM to get your answer. It's just how life works. ->¿ Does democracy disturb You, Mr.Mahmood ? No..most likely he is disturbed by whiny..me..me..me. I want special treatment and I can understand how things work types of people. Your use of the word democracy is out of context and just doesn't make much sense at all. Please just send another email with your exact problem and lets see if we can get you fixed up..or at least in the right direction. Please respond to the list ..if I see a direct response in my inbox I will delete it. Nothing I have said is up for debate. Thank you, -----=====-----=====-----=====-----=====----- Ben Rosenberg mailto:ben@whack.org -----=====-----=====-----=====-----=====----- "I've never been quarantined. But the more I look around the more I think it might not be a bad thing." -JC
On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 13:16, Ben Rosenberg wrote to Jack, about Christopher and lists and SuSE and... and... :
It isn't his responsibity to make SuSE GmBH respond ..he has no authority to make anyone do so. Please direct complaints about SuSE's product to those who are responsible for taking care of your needs. I would also remind you that these lists are free and no one that has a subscription to these is obligate to help you. If someone knows the answer to your problem and they wish to help you...it is up to them. You don't pay anything for access to this list. These lists are a liabilty to SuSE because they cost money as far as bandwidth to keep going. They DO not have to provide any such services.
No doubt the man was just frustrated. I feel his pain. :-) What we have here is a perception problem. Possibly also a lifestyle problem. I don't think SuSE considers the lists to be a liability. I think -- from the evidence -- that they consider the lists a free way to offload pesky questions from people who are not already Linux experts. I bought the boxed 7.3 Pro set, and I tried to ask a support question. It seems I'm not registered. I tried again, very, very, very, very carefully reading and typing in the number from the sticker on the box. I kept getting the message that the number was not valid. I believe that the possibility of a "bootleg" copy is nil, since I purchased direct from SuSE (our local retailer no longer carries SuSE product -- you can't buy SuSE in Ottawa, ON, Canada anymore). So, from my perspective, it appears that I have been passed off to this list as my entire tech support. Not sure what I paid for, in that case...or, if I look at it another way, the list is paid for by us non-corporate SuSE purchasers... Much like the fellow you were addressing, I begin to feel an attraction to Red Hat. Probably the support would be no better, but at least my 18-month-old video card -- and probably my sound -- would be supported right out of the box, with no requirement for mysterious incantations nor any sacrificing of virgins (and who can find a virgin anyway, these days...). On the other hand, I can understand that Linux geeks and gurus might get tired of newbie questions and wish that the whiners would just "sit down, read the docs, and learn the system." You have just met the /i/n/t/e/r/f/a/c/e/ discontinuity between small-community Linux and Linux-for-the-average-desktop. The people who are now trying Linux are not hobbyists who enjoy all-night sessions digging into the steamy entrails, to maybe get something working. Instead, they are people who have job pressures and deadlines that are unrelated to OS-tinkering. They just want it to work so they can get on with earning a living... or playing (if there's any play time after the workday is done). They're never going to be motivated to learn grep and sed and how to trace startup scripts and how to decipher where the modules disappeared to that were plugged into their kernel and working fine last week. They'll just go back to Windoze and wonder what anybody thought was so good about Linux. This is not speculation. My most recent personal confirmation is my brother (government worker in Canada) who did that last week. I bought him a laptop, filled it with SuSE 7.3 and gave it to him. Then, he needed dial-up, instead of the ADSL that I had set up (there was a backlog on ADSL in his locale). We wasted 50 hours and over $100 in long-distance charges as the blind (me) tried to lead the blind (him) through the adjustment. YaST2 and then YaST just laughed at us and refused to let it work. We especially enjoyed the part where, in the middle of a YaST2 session, the mouse suddenly went mad. We gave up. A buddy of his wiped Linux, installed Windoze 98 and had him connected before they'd finished enjoying a couple of beers. No pain. No hassles. No cursing frustration. Windows found all the hardware and configured it without asking any obscure questions. Windows found the modem and recognized it instantly. Windows asked two questions to identify the ISP... and he was connected... browsing and getting e-mail. So that brother, like my wife, is permanently lost to Linux. No matter how much Linux improves in future, he'll never forget how much he learned to HATE it over the course of three evenings and most of a Saturday. Even if I had been able to convince the SuSE registration engine that my legitimate purchase was... legitimate, and to let me register, the SuSE Support would have been utterly useless to my brother. Their phone lines are closed long before he gets home from work (according to their web site). Web and e-mail support (even if they had been available) are rather useless to a person who doesn't have a working internet connection... surprise, surprise... Anyway, I keep plugging at Linux because I'm a masochist who doesn't like Uncle Bill. But,every time I turn around, something else is broken. I'm sure it's just an attitude problem, but it's hard to fake a positive attitude at 02:00 in the morning when nothing seems to work, nothing has worked for the last 8 hours, the web search engines aren't offering anything that seems appropriate, and I've already frightened the cat with all my cursing... and the alarm clock is going to ring in three hours. Looks like I'll have to re-install SuSE for the fifth time in three months. Hmm. Just re-installing all 1863 packages from CD does not seem to have fixed the broken configuration, so I'll have to do a full re-install that replaces the kernel and modules, I guess. Probably that will wipe out my e-mail and lots of other stuff, but I'm past caring... Maybe things will work though... for a while. Well, not the USB or the joystick... those never worked (unless I boot into Windows, and then they work perfectly, mockingly). But, maybe my ethernet device will come back so that ifconf and routed will work again... maybe. HUH! You call that a rant? No, no. That was just an accurate but trimmed-down summary of my recent experience. No exaggeration at all. Cheers, /kevin
** On 21 Feb 2002 15:47:10 -0500 Kevin McLauchlan <kmclauchlan@chrysalis-its.com>dashed off this message: pmfji: **We gave up. **A buddy of his wiped Linux, installed Windoze 98 and **had him connected before they'd finished enjoying a **couple of beers. No pain. No hassles. No cursing **frustration. **Windows found all the hardware and configured it **without asking any obscure questions. Windows found **the modem and recognized it instantly. Windows asked **two questions to identify the ISP... and he was **connected... browsing and getting e-mail. I find this story hillarious, as my experience w/ most all versions of Windows parallel your ( and brother's) experience trying to get Linux to run. I haven't never had a completely correctly running windows of any stripe, not even when using the various "Windows approved" hardware and drivers. I just wonder , tho , if putting an OS you aren't a semi guru w/ on a laptop , most of which are using at least *some* proprietery hardware , isn't asking for trouble ? Posibly, if you had teh little thing in your home you would have figured out the solution ( if there is one ) but doning anything like that long distance can be a hassle. **So that brother, like my wife, is permanently lost to **Linux. No matter how much Linux improves in future, **he'll never forget how much he learned to HATE it **over the course of three evenings and most of a **Saturday Now, if only "Uncle" Bill could learn this lesson, and leave those of us alone who simply don't interface well w/ his product , rather than bludgeoning us , or threatening us, or worse, trying to get some government flunky to outlaw us, the whole computing world would be better off. <heavy sigh> For most of the world there will be some OS or other that they will actually like/enjoy or at least be able to use in a way that doesn't threaten equanimity of home and hearth. Witness the Folks on tech tv, that bastion of MS usage , telling people last night on "Call for help" to go get a Macintosh , rather than to attempt to go thru the near future horrors of (dot) net ! ( Call for help seems to be more a beginner's show than , say, ScreenSavers where there are even references to LInux ! ! ) At least there are now mentions on variuos tech news outlets that ,in fact, there are OTHER systems out there. They aren't just for script kiddies, grownups , in fact can and do real work on these systems, and for the most part , one never even NEEDs to know what operating system anyone else is using. ( that's what file filters are for <G>) -- j afterthought : You sound reasonable ... time to up my medication.
**We gave up. **A buddy of his wiped Linux, installed Windoze 98 and **had him connected before they'd finished enjoying a **couple of beers. No pain. No hassles. No cursing **frustration. **Windows found all the hardware and configured it **without asking any obscure questions. Windows found **the modem and recognized it instantly. Windows asked **two questions to identify the ISP... and he was **connected... browsing and getting e-mail.
Hi: Just a thought. Linux was a "problem". Windows wasn't. That means you had hardware that worked fine with Windows. Now, was that hardware also compatible with Linux? [sorry, haven't followed the thread]. Determining that my hardware was compatible for Linux, I then installed SuSE7.1 with little fuss. After that, all hell broke loose, as I began a long campaign of misreading, not reading the right info, ad nauseum. <grin> hmmmm. Thanks, Tom
Tom, When I first brought that two-year-old, surplus-from- the-recent-layoffs machine home, it had just been wiped by our IT department. In addition to wiping the hard disks -- to prevent company info from going out the door -- IT dept. made some "homemade" Win 98 CDs for us. (Company had acquired Win 98 legitimately, one license per purchased PC, but had installed Win NT Workstation on them instead, so nobody kept track of the original "this goes with a pre-loaded-PC" CDs.) So, I put on a barebones Win 98 install just to hold the partition in a dual-boot, in case of later need. Then, I installed SuSE 7.3, connected the laptop to my home network, and did some browsing through my ADSL -- I told my brother the computer was coming, and advised him to get ADSL (which I'd verified was available in his area). Basically, I did a trial with my installation to confirm that all the bits seemed to work with SuSE linux. Then, I drove to the east coast (adventure story available separately) and gave the brother his Christmas present. He informed me that the local supplier was experiencing a 6-months backlog for ADSL hookups ("maybe less, but we aren't promising"). "Oh, crap, I said." "Not to worry", sez brother, "they're giving me a dial-up account while I wait." Problem... the computer (and SuSE) was setup for ADSL and the dial-up would be available only the week after I returned home (this was Christmas week, so things were slow/erratic at the provider). So, I had no opportunity to attempt to re-configure for dial-up, in person. You know the rest of the story. But, my point is that I had already proven (before I delivered) that SuSE and the DELL laptop were "compatible enough". The fact of my trying to operate a computer novice by remote (telephone) control, while not being a Linux guru myself, was what killed us, and sent my brother into the clutches of /t/h/e/ /B/o/r/g/ er, I mean Uncle Bill. Sigh. Another innocent, lost. Moan. /k On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 17:47, tom poe wrote:
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**We gave up. **A buddy of his wiped Linux, installed Windoze 98 and **had him connected before they'd finished enjoying a **couple of beers. No pain. No hassles. No cursing **frustration. **Windows found all the hardware and configured it **without asking any obscure questions. Windows found **the modem and recognized it instantly. Windows asked **two questions to identify the ISP... and he was **connected... browsing and getting e-mail.
Hi: Just a thought. Linux was a "problem". Windows wasn't. That means you had hardware that worked fine with Windows. Now, was that hardware also compatible with Linux? [sorry, haven't followed the thread]. Determining that my hardware was compatible for Linux, I then installed SuSE7.1 with little fuss. After that, all hell broke loose, as I began a long campaign of misreading, not reading the right info, ad nauseum. <grin> hmmmm. Thanks, Tom
On Wednesday 27 February 2002 11:21, Kevin McLauchlan wrote: . . . . letter
The fact of my trying to operate a computer novice by remote (telephone) control, while not being a Linux guru myself, was what killed us, and sent my brother into the clutches of /t/h/e/ /B/o/r/g/ er, I mean Uncle Bill.
Sigh. Another innocent, lost.
Moan.
/k
Excellent rants, Kevin. You write very well and your thoughts stir up many feelings, perhaps because they ring true to so many of us. As a newbie, I would have given up long ago were it not for this great mail list and the gentlemen who so graciously reside here and help others. I concur--SuSE (or any other distro) is not ready for application to the masses as a suitable home/office desktop candidate as long as there are other OS's which are much more friendly. Unlike Windows in it's early days, Linux must prove itself an adequate replacement to what already exists, if it is to have a life on the mainstream desktop. Linux is more than robust enough . . . but driver and app support leave it lacking. Printing is a pain, 3D video is a hit-n-miss proposition, and networking is nothing short of voodoo for a newbie like me. One brief enounter with SaX2 is enough to fry one's ability to reboot into a graphical interface or use a mouse. I'm on my second go with Linux, having found RedHat too much to handle a few years back. SuSE 7.3 is far more attractive and I am determined to learn and make it work for me, sharing your distaste for Billy G's empire. I've come to accept that it will simply not be an easy experience. Yet I am fascinated sufficiently with the depth, power, and solidity of this OS to go a bit further, as are obviously you. Then again, I also like other forms of self-abuse. May God help us all. Mike R Fresno, CA
I concur--SuSE (or any other distro) is not ready for application to the masses as a suitable home/office desktop candidate as long as there are other OS's which are much more friendly.
Well I would have said this might have been true up to the release of 7.3. I know there's a lot of luck in this in terms of hardware (tho' it clearly helps if you use mainstream stuff), but I recently had to reinstall both Windows and SuSE 7.3 when a motherboard broke. The SuSE installation was the faster and the easier of the two, and set up all hardware right first time, unlike Windows. This went down as far as the mouse-wheel, parallel port zip drive and pass-through to the printer. I was ready to run, including a decent (if not wonderful) office suite in the shape of Star Office. And this cost a *tiny fraction* of setting up anything like a similar working environment under Windows, in which I would have paid for the office suite, a graphics programme, anti-virus, you name it. 7.3 required no 'guru' tricks, which is a good thing, because I'm not one. I only boot Windows now in order to play the odd game. Just my 2 euro-cents, Best Fergus
I concur--SuSE (or any other distro) is not ready for application to the masses as a suitable home/office desktop candidate as long as there are other OS's which are much more friendly. U
At 08:57 02/28/2002 +0000, Fergus Wilde wrote:
I concur--SuSE (or any other distro) is not ready for application to the masses as a suitable home/office desktop candidate as long as there are other OS's which are much more friendly.
Well I would have said this might have been true up to the release of 7.3. I know there's a lot of luck in this in terms of hardware (tho' it clearly helps if you use mainstream stuff), but I recently had to reinstall both Windows and SuSE 7.3 when a motherboard broke. The SuSE installation was
faster and the easier of the two, and set up all hardware right first time, unlike Windows. This went down as far as the mouse-wheel, parallel port zip drive and pass-through to the printer. I was ready to run, including a decent (if not wonderful) office suite in the shape of Star Office. And
the this
cost a *tiny fraction* of setting up anything like a similar working environment under Windows, in which I would have paid for the office suite, a graphics programme, anti-virus, you name it.
7.3 required no 'guru' tricks, which is a good thing, because I'm not one. I only boot Windows now in order to play the odd game.
Just my 2 euro-cents, Best Fergus
/snip/ I saw the next version of Star Office at the Linux show in New York last month. If it really does what they showed, it will be stupendous. I only wish they had imitated more of WordPerfect, but maybe some of that's in there. It's supposed to be available in April, some time. Free. (I think.) I always liked the WordPerfect 5.1 Windows version. I think they made it worse with all the extra stuff they added later, but I STILL like the current version better than WORD. (I refer to the Windows version. I could never read the screen fonts in Linux.) If I didn't have to read modern word processer docs all the time, I would cheerfully run WP5.1 as mine. --doug
If you guys must continue this thread can please remove my name from the subject...it's starting to get annoying. -- -ckm
jfweber@bellsouth.net mocked me with:
I find this story hillarious, as my experience w/ most all versions of Windows parallel your ( and brother's) experience trying to get Linux to run. I haven't never had a completely correctly running windows of any stripe, not even when using the various "Windows approved" hardware and drivers.
Well, as I explained in another post, *I* had the laptop working fine with SuSE and with my home network and my home ADSL. I'm sure it wasn't perfect, but video worked, sound worked, I pre-configured some icons to mount the Windows partition and open Konqueror on it, the CD and floppy worked, etc., etc.
I just wonder , tho , if putting an OS you aren't a semi guru w/ on a laptop , most of which are using at least *some* proprietery hardware , isn't asking for trouble ? Posibly, if you had teh little thing in your home you would have figured out the solution ( if there is one ) but doning anything like that long distance can be a hassle.
Well, here at work, I have a slightly newer model of the same DELL laptop, with dual-boot WinNT and SuSE. The only problems I have are with the laptop profiles that let the computer send different video to the LCD or to any external monitor (works under Windoze, but I don't know where to begin with Linux, and DELL and SuSE point fingers at each other -- so much for my 90 days of support...). See, from my view, it was like this: 1) I got it working initially, so there couldn't have been any unworkably proprietary components. 2) My impression of the failed re-config effort was that SuSE (particularly YaST and YaST2) was only giving me/us grief BECAUSE it already had a network connection configured and simply did not want to let go of it. I could almost hear YaST snickering "Ve don't give you girly-men a vay to back up and go anoddah vay. Now that you haff a config, ve make you learn Leenuks, ya? Ha, ha, ha, ha!" I'm reminded of the way that SaX (or SaX2) **STILL** destroys a working, default mouse config, and leaves you without a usable mouse in the middle of configuring X... I met that the first time in SuSE five.dot.something, and they must think it's either a *feature* or a good joke, 'cuz I've met it again in every subsequent release including 7.3. Perhaps it's a sneaky way to make me learn some command-line Linux, cuz I now know how to edit the video sections of the X config files without blowing up my monitor... much... /kevin
**So that brother, like my wife, is permanently lost to **Linux. No matter how much Linux improves in future, **he'll never forget how much he learned to HATE it **over the course of three evenings and most of a **Saturday
Now, if only "Uncle" Bill could learn this lesson, and leave those of us alone who simply don't interface well w/ his product , rather than bludgeoning us , or threatening us, or worse, trying to get some government flunky to outlaw us, the whole computing world would be better off. <heavy sigh> For most of the world there will be some OS or other that they will actually like/enjoy or at least be able to use in a way that doesn't threaten equanimity of home and hearth. Witness the Folks on tech tv, that bastion of MS usage , telling people last night on "Call for help" to go get a Macintosh , rather than to attempt to go thru the near future horrors of (dot) net ! ( Call for help seems to be more a beginner's show than , say, ScreenSavers where there are even references to LInux ! ! )
At least there are now mentions on variuos tech news outlets that ,in fact, there are OTHER systems out there. They aren't just for script kiddies, grownups , in fact can and do real work on these systems, and for the most part , one never even NEEDs to know what operating system anyone else is using. ( that's what file filters are for <G>)
-- j
afterthought : You sound reasonable ... time to up my medication.
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On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 03:47:10PM -0500, Kevin McLauchlan wrote: [major snippage]
HUH! You call that a rant? No, no. That was just an accurate but trimmed-down summary of my recent experience. No exaggeration at all.
Cheers,
/kevin
Whew, that was quite a gust of frustration. I would like to offer a few points to consider. Yes, Linux can be very frustrating at times and we are still swimming upstream against the rest of the Windows oriented computer industry for now. But things are getting better, really. Linux gives you something Windows never can, freedom. Not only freedom of the code, but freedom from lots of nasty Windows things like the e-mail virus of the day, the security patch of the day, the frequent crashes. You also get your privacy back. You're listening and viewing habits aren't harvested and sent back to Microsoft, or the NSA, or the FBI. You can encrypt your data without fear of hidden backdoors. No need for multiple levels of registrations, fear of surprise BSA audits and jail terms if you happen to install some program on two computers without paying for it twice. But freedom comes at a price. Linux demands more from its users than other operating systems. But you get more in return. Your growth is not limited. The more you learn, the easier it gets and the more powerful you get. You can suddenly do things your Windows using friends can't, like eliminate spam from your life, run your own web, mail, and database servers. You can actively get involved in the development of your favorite programs and have some real effect on their development. Try e-mailing a MS programmer with a feature request or bug report :) Windows makes some of the simple things easier than Linux (at least when you are first starting out with Linux), but the hard things will ALWAYS be hard, regardless of OS. Can your brother set up a SQL database that feeds dynamic data to a web site? Can he set up a strong firewall that also masquerades internal machines and port forwards mail and ssh to internal servers? Can he set up a secure public kiosk for web browsing that can't be tampered with? These are all things that are hard in any OS, and I think, harder in Windows than Linux. The software I run on my home network would cost me over $14,000 if I licensed them from Microsoft. I can no longer afford to run Windows even if I wanted to, unless I want to give up a lot of the features I am using every day. To drag out the tired old car analogy, if you want to drive a minivan, Windows is for you. If you want to drive a race car, Linux may be more to your taste. It is fast, powerful, and dangerous. It requires a level of driving skill not required by minivan drivers. I prefer the race car, but I understand it's not for everyone. Best Regards, Keith -- LPIC-2, MCSE, N+ wielder of vi(m), an ancient, dangerous and powerful magic free your mind, and your OS will follow
Nice anaolgy(the race car thing) that is beautiful
On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 16:30, Keith Winston wrote:
On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 03:47:10PM -0500, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
[snippety-doo-dah]
Windows makes some of the simple things easier than Linux (at least when you are first starting out with Linux), but the hard things will ALWAYS be hard, regardless of OS.
Well, give that another moment's thought. Linux already HAS all the geeks, and SuSE has a goodly portion of 'em. The people whom Linux (and the various distributions) wants now are the NON-geeks, the folks who just want to press the [On] button and then start working on ordinary tasks that they do every day. This means that the most basic setup stuff needs to be made either intuitive or automatic/bullet-proof. "Most basic" includes: - finding and supporting video cards to some standard higher than VGA (worry about fancy features and non-standard 3D accel later) - finding and supporting pointing devices to some standard that includes two buttons and maybe a wheel - finding and supporting sound cards sufficiently to play audio CDs and system sounds - finding and supporting modems and ethernet cards. It's *NICE* if your distribution happens to support the new 4D blit-blatter functions of your bleeding-edge video card. But, if it doesn't, then it should still support VESA and XVGA. If you are a Windows user, trying to set up a Linux install, you need to be talked to in terms that 100 million Windows users have learned to recognize. If you start off trying to configure a dial-up connection or a LAN connection, you don't need to have terms like "host" thrown at you, when "host" means your ISP on the other side of town... and then the wind changes and "host" means your own computer. If you don't have an internet hookup, then it really, really, really is not helpful for the "Help" to keep trying to open URLs at some site on the other side of the world. It isn't all that helpful that man pages and info pages sometimes contradict. To the new person, trying to puzzle it out in isolation ("isolation" being what you've got when you can't figure out how to get connected, and your work schedule doesn't let you attend Linux User Group meetings...) means that each and every man page or info or HowTo, or FAQ is just as important and valid as any other. (Try to imagine the mess I made when I first tried to set up SuSE 5.x and traced through every man/info/HowTo that made any mention of e-mail or dial-up or network or... I had so many daemons and apps and processes and servers and... and ... but I had no way to know. To the newbie, all the words carried the same weight. Never, anywhere did any man page or info, or HowTo ever say "not only do you NOT need such'n'such app/daemon, but you must not use it if you are using the method described here." I had already heard from several people that "Linux is like UNIX. Instead of big, cumbersome programs, everything is a separate, refined little tool that can be put together with others to do what you want. Thus many of the small-but-important tools have been perfected, and have not changed for years." That's why I was running things from the 1980s along with all the other stuff I started up. I had started (or at least attempted to start) things that **nobody** uses anymore, but that keep getting dragged from release to release for "compatibility" reasons. Needless to say, the mess and the damage were considerable. The fellow who finally got me reading e-mail from my dial-up ISP spent literally HOURS weeding out all the unnecessary stuff. Basically, I ended up with Netscape and pppd, but only after he had turfed sendmail, procmail, fetchmail, biff, mutt, pine, several things to do with networking, several servers, forwarders, most of which had just been started, but not really configured, and many of which were in direct/mutual/multiple conflict. 'Cuz, y'see I had also taken somebody else's advice: "Don't wait until you are absolutely sure you understand it, or you'll never get started."
Can your brother set up a SQL database that feeds dynamic data to a web site? Can he set up a strong firewall that also masquerades internal machines and port forwards mail and ssh to internal servers? Can he set up a secure public kiosk for web browsing that can't be tampered with? These are all things that are hard in any OS, and I think, harder in Windows than Linux.
But, that's the point... he doesn't *want* to do most of that stuff. He just wants to do the things he does everyday with Windows. He wants to turn it on and start working, or turn it on and start playing. He is turned OFF by having to open the hood and tinker in the engine, while referring to a manual that includes everything back to the Model-T Ford.
The software I run on my home network would cost me over $14,000 if I licensed them from Microsoft. I can no longer afford to run Windows even if I wanted to, unless I want to give up a lot of the features I am using every day.
Y'know what's amazing? What's amazing is how the same set of statements can take on a whole different complexion with just a tiny shift in the point of view. My wife would look at that paragraph of yours and say: "Listen, Bud, just what do you think my time is worth, anyway? There's no way I want to spend $20,000 worth of my precious time to learn how to do a bunch of things the obscure Linux way, just to save a few thousand dollars 'cost of convenience'." See, you are speaking from the point of view of someone who would be in there tinkering "just 'cuz it's neat", even if you didn't need to, in order to do your job. That's the hobbyist or the geek mentality. Like I said, Linux already HAS all the geeks it needs. Linux wants to harvest some ordinary folk who have interests that DON'T involve the workings of the box and of the OS. Y'see, to a certain fraction of the populace... oh, heck, let's just say "the majority", time that is used attempting to understand the OS and to make it do what is required (and what the other OS seems to do naturally, without deep learning), is time taken away from making a living, or time taken away from precious recreation moments. Most people who have gotten beyond the personal- immortality mindset of teenagers have come to know that time is really all they have. Sure, it may be beautiful and fulfilling to delve into the mysteries and acquire deep understanding that allows you to make the system sit up and beg. But, it's only beautiful and fulfilling to people who are bent that way. The shocking discovery is that other people not only fail to get misty-eyed over a well-written shell-script, they actually resent the time needed to make it work. To them, it is not time well spent, it is time that caused them to miss a work deadline, or time that should have been their relaxing and happy weekend... but wasn't. I'm some kind of a hybrid, in that I am interested in the workings, but even I have found that my work suffers the next day after I've stayed up until 02:00, failing to get something working... and then up at my usual 05:45.
To drag out the tired old car analogy, if you want to drive a minivan, Windows is for you. If you want to drive a race car, Linux may be more to your taste. It is fast, powerful, and dangerous. It requires a level of driving skill not required by minivan drivers. I prefer the race car, but I understand it's not for everyone.
The race car is great for he who has independent wealth or sponsorship to support the costly endeavor. A race car needs a pit crew. You can't just pull into any garage and have it serviced. You need special tires that can't be bought in the local tire shop. You can't even drive it on the roads, unless you have enough wealth to buy your way out of the fines and punishments. A race car goes fast and provides thrills, and then you have to strip down the engine and rebuild before you take it out again... onto the track. Meanwhile, the minivan can be serviced anywhere. It probably won't ever need to have the engine rebuilt. It wears out a set of tires after a couple of years, not a couple of hours. It has room for not only the dog, but the girlfriend, too... AND the skydiving equipment for both of you. Unlike the race car, the minivan can carry the stuff you use for your life and your business and your recreational pursuits, and it can even be a place to sleep, in a pinch. The race car requires the driver to be a dedicated professional, whose life is competition, and who had better show some successes if he wants to keep the job and the access to the speed machine. The minivan takes regular unleaded fuel, it doesn't require more than a standard drivers licence, and is a tool that is used part-time to provide comfort and utility in life. It is not a focus and an end in itself. Unlike the race car, the minivan doesn't need high-intensity, full-on, undivided attention just for normal operation and survival. Anyway, I'm suggesting that the expanded target audience, that Linux/SuSE now seeks, is the audience of ordinary Windows users. I mean, think about it. There's not a big audience in people who don't have computers and aren't likely to get one soon. So what's left is: - people who have computers and already use Linux (mostly early adopters, by definition) - people who have computers and run Windows - the small numbers who use other OSs. Guess where the opportunity lies? Cheers, -- Kevin McLauchlan Chrysalis-ITS, Inc. "Ultimate Trust(TM)"
On Thu, Feb 28, 2002 at 10:54:17AM -0500, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 16:30, Keith Winston wrote:
On Thu, Feb 21, 2002 at 03:47:10PM -0500, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
[snippety-doo-dah]
[snippety-ay]
Well, give that another moment's thought. Linux already HAS all the geeks, and SuSE has a goodly portion of 'em. The people whom Linux (and the various distributions) wants now are the NON-geeks, the folks who just want to press the [On] button and then start working on ordinary tasks that they do every day.
I'm not sure Linux "wants". It seems there are a few Linux distros that want to reel in the NON-geeks.
This means that the most basic setup stuff needs to be made either intuitive or automatic/bullet-proof.
"Most basic" includes: - finding and supporting video cards to some standard higher than VGA (worry about fancy features and non-standard 3D accel later)
- finding and supporting pointing devices to some standard that includes two buttons and maybe a wheel
- finding and supporting sound cards sufficiently to play audio CDs and system sounds
- finding and supporting modems and ethernet cards.
My experience is that Linux gets better at this stuff every release.
(Try to imagine the mess I made when I first tried to set up SuSE 5.x and traced through every man/info/HowTo that made any mention of e-mail or dial-up or network or... I had so many daemons and apps and processes and servers and... and ... but I had no way to know. To the newbie, all the words carried the same weight. Never, anywhere did any man page or info, or HowTo ever say "not only do you NOT need such'n'such app/daemon, but you must not use it if you are using the method described here."
I went through the same thing, too. My point is that to become competent at anything requires some effort. This goes for Windows users, too. I can't tell you how many of Windows using friends have toasted their computers trying to install a new program or install a new piece of hardware. Sometimes these things are easier in Windows, sometimes not.
The fellow who finally got me reading e-mail from my dial-up ISP spent literally HOURS weeding out all the unnecessary stuff.
Many Windows users suffer the same just to get their dial-up account working, often requiring a geek friend to help them out. [snippety-ay]
But, that's the point... he doesn't *want* to do most of that stuff. He just wants to do the things he does everyday with Windows.
He wants to turn it on and start working, or turn it on and start playing. He is turned OFF by having to open the hood and tinker in the engine, while referring to a manual that includes everything back to the Model-T Ford.
Is he not turned OFF by the frequent crashes, the daily/weekly security holes, the constant threat of e-mail virus meltdowns, the increasing costs of forced upgrades, the stealing of personal information, the lack of control? I'm not implying that man pages aren't cryptic or that Linux isn't hard to master. But I have found Linux to be the best documented system I've ever used, from PCs to midranges to mainframes. I like that better than not being allowed by law to understand what my computer is doing. [snippety-ay]
My wife would look at that paragraph of yours and say: "Listen, Bud, just what do you think my time is worth, anyway? There's no way I want to spend $20,000 worth of my precious time to learn how to do a bunch of things the obscure Linux way, just to save a few thousand dollars 'cost of convenience'."
To do all the things I do with Linux using Microsoft software would be every bit as complex and time consuming. So, you've spent a few thousand dollars on software licenses PLUS $20,000 worth of precious time. In fact it might be more complex since many products are integrated only with other certain versions, service pack levels, etc. of Microsoft software. And every service pack you load carries the chance of breaking something else integrated invisibly behind the scenes.
See, you are speaking from the point of view of someone who would be in there tinkering "just 'cuz it's neat", even if you didn't need to, in order to do your job. That's the hobbyist or the geek mentality. Like I said, Linux already HAS all the geeks it needs. Linux wants to harvest some ordinary folk who have interests that DON'T involve the workings of the box and of the OS.
Again, I don't know what Linux "wants", but I am guilty as charged on the geek mentality.
Sure, it may be beautiful and fulfilling to delve into the mysteries and acquire deep understanding that allows you to make the system sit up and beg. But, it's only beautiful and fulfilling to people who are bent that way. The shocking discovery is that other people not only fail to get misty-eyed over a well-written shell-script, they actually resent the time needed to make it work.
Then, these people should not be allowed to put unpatched IIS web servers on the Internet where they will be infected with Code Red or Nimbda in less than 24 hours. Maybe we need a "server license permit" similar to a driver's license before people are allowed to connect to the Internet and cause damage and headaches for the rest of us.
The race car is great for he who has independent wealth or sponsorship to support the costly endeavor. A race car needs a pit crew. You can't just pull into any garage and have it serviced.
But Linux is far better. It doesn't require special hardware, it runs fine on the hardware you have. You can service it yourself. Yes, it takes time and effort but it does on Windows as well.
Meanwhile, the minivan can be serviced anywhere. It probably won't ever need to have the engine rebuilt. It wears out a set of tires after a couple of years, not a couple of hours.
No, the minivan in our analogy breaks down often. It needs it's engine rebuilt every week from leaking oil, it's tires wear out in days while the Linux tires will literally run for years. The race car is fully street legal and runs rings around the minivans. When the minivans pull onto the freeway, they sputter and spew noxious gases into the faces of the race car drivers. And of course the minivan cost lots of money. There is a repair shop for minivans every other block because they break so often. Due to illegal licensing agreements, car dealers have not been allowed for many years to sell anything other than minivans. When they have tried, the minivan makers threaten them.
Anyway, I'm suggesting that the expanded target audience, that Linux/SuSE now seeks, is the audience of ordinary Windows users. I mean, think about it. There's not a big audience in people who don't have computers and aren't likely to get one soon. So what's left is:
I think there is a huge audience, especially in poor an underdeveloped countries. Even in the U.S., there are many poor schools that can't afford the high cost of Windows and Office. Most of the world population does not even have telephone service, there are billions of people that Linux can help.
Kevin McLauchlan Chrysalis-ITS, Inc. "Ultimate Trust(TM)"
Even though I took a few jabs at your post, I really did enjoy reading your point of view. I do think many people will benefit from continuing ease of use work on Linux, but it should never come at the expense of security or loss of rights as a user. And I still maintain that the hard things will always be hard, regardless of OS. Computers are complex and no amount of GUI sheen can hide that. Neal Stephenson used the term "metaphor shear" to describe it. If you haven't read his "In the beginning was the command line" article, I think you would enjoy it. You can read it here: http://www.cryptonomicon.com/beginning.html or here: http://www.spack.org/words/commandline.html and other places. Peace, Keith -- LPIC-2, MCSE, N+ wielder of vi(m), an ancient, dangerous and powerful magic Don't get lost, show no fear, and you'll be ready for a new frontier -- d.w.
On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 12:47, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
I bought the boxed 7.3 Pro set, and I tried to ask a support question. It seems I'm not registered.
Uhm, did you register your product? I don't think SuSE 7.3 shipped with the mind-reading module; that's for later. I'm being sarcastic. A more-helpful answer is for me to suggest you visit: http://support.suse.de/en/register/ Once your product is registered, I'm sure your experience will mirror mine - I was grateful for the tech-support that came as part of my SuSE 7.2 Pro purchase. Further down your e-mail, you allude to having tried to register your product; was it through this mechanism? If "yes", and it barfed, I too would be upset. This is a situation for justified anger...
you can't buy SuSE in Ottawa, ON, Canada anymore).
Bummer :-( I was born and raise in Ottawa (Nepean, actually). I find it hard to believe that *no-one* carries SuSE in the Nation's Capital, when I can get it in small-town White Rock, BC. (in my case, retailer != support).
A buddy of his wiped Linux, installed Windoze 98 and had him connected before they'd finished enjoying a couple of beers. No pain. No hassles. No cursing frustration.
There is no doubt in my mind that the user-installation and breadth of support for devices is very high in Windows. In part, this occurs because Microsoft is a front-line participant in developing emerging technologies (I'm personally familiar with their involvement in USB, right from the get-go). This formative involvement will *always* allow their products a running head-start. That is a fact of life. My choice is to live with bumpy initial support for my leading-edge hardware, knowing that the Linux community will catch up. In the meantime, I manage to side-step a lot of problems, like e-mail viruses, spy-ware, hidden files that track my every move, an OS that requires re-registration after I make 6 hardware changes, an OS which costs a truckload of money (particularly when you add in apps), a supplier that offers no contact/support. It's not a perfect world, and the choices aren't crystal clear. Windows and Linux occupy somewhat different spaces. Linux is getting better for non-geeks, but a bump or two *can* cause severe problems. What I find totally impressive is that Linux is so flexible and can do so much. Everything from embedded systems (Intrinsyc), to PDA's (Agenda VR3, others), to desktops, to servers, to Beowulf clusters. Linux is also customizable if I want :-) or not (as my wife wants). Sorry to hear of your bad experiences. At the end of the day, I completely agree with your assessment that the tool that works is the one to use. Some of us do need to do productive work with our PC's, and keep a roof over our heads. For a few, that "best choice" will remain Windows; for others (even non-geeks), Linux has a lot to offer. -Gord -- Gordon Pritchard, P.Eng., Member IEEE Technical University of B.C. - Research Lab Engineer mailto:gordon.pritchard@techbc.ca direct phone: 604-586-6186
On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 18:54, Gordon Pritchard wrote:
On Thu, 2002-02-21 at 12:47, Kevin McLauchlan wrote:
I bought the boxed 7.3 Pro set, and I tried to ask a support question. It seems I'm not registered.
Uhm, did you register your product? I don't think SuSE 7.3 shipped with the mind-reading module; that's for later.
I believe I said that the online registration form (at the same URL you give below) refused my ID number. I tried laboriously typing it in from the label on the SuSE 7.3 Pro box, several times. I checked and triple-checked, including verifying that I had left no inadvertent spaces at the end of the number. I tried WITH intergroup spaces and I tried it as one, long, space-free number. Over and over, the SuSE registration form would reject it, saying it was not a valid number. As I also mentioned, I purchased directly from SuSE, so I don't think there was any middle-man giving me a bootleg copy of the boxed set. I did not purchase an "Update". I purchased the full stand-alone boxed set. Full price, plus shipping and currency exchange.
you can't buy SuSE in Ottawa, ON, Canada anymore).
Bummer :-( I was born and raise in Ottawa (Nepean, actually). I find it hard to believe that *no-one* carries SuSE in the Nation's Capital, when I can get it in small-town White Rock, BC. (in my case, retailer != support).
Well, I've bought several, since version Five.dot.something here in Nepean (now Ottawa... we've been assimilated...), but now all the Linux-selling shops tell me that the regional distributor is no longer carrying SuSE, so they can't get it. I mean, they could order direct, just like I did, but then they'd have to charge more to make it worth their while. I'm sure the political/commercial situation will get sorted eventually. Somebody in the local LUG will make sure that *somebody* picks up the distributorship.
There is no doubt in my mind that the user-installation and breadth of support for devices is very high in Windows. In part, this occurs because Microsoft is a front-line participant in developing emerging technologies (I'm personally familiar with their involvement in USB, right from the get-go). This formative involvement will *always* allow their products a running head-start. That is a fact of life.
My choice is to live with bumpy initial support for my leading-edge hardware, knowing that the Linux community will catch up.
Leading-edge?!?! This is a 2+ year-old laptop from DELL. Do you know what that is in computer years? :-) It's not quite "trailing edge", but it ain't far off. The modem was the same standard USR/3COM PCMCIA card that went into hundreds of thousands of laptops, if not millions. For many years, now, modems have been like video cards. They may have fancy features, but they all present a basic, common feature set, with basic, common interface. If you can make one work in default fashion, you can make another work ... in default fashion. It's only in the fancy stuff that they depart from standards. Hell, there were literally only three chip-sets in 95% of modems sold (Rockwell and I forget the other two). Their basic command-sets/interfaces did not change; only the few fancy features required special treatment. If all you wanted was an ordinary dial-up connection, there wasn't anything special. Just like mice. If you don't care about the fifth and sixth buttons or the force-feedback, then pick a generic mouse and you'll at least have two buttons and cursor movement. My brother, new to configuring computers, found that Windows gave him a sense of "place", as in "here's the place where you set up an internet connection". Also, while he was in that "place" the questions that it asked him seemed understandable and related only to the immediate task. Unlike linux, when Windows wanted to configure an internet connection, it asked questions that let you decide between some options at each step... and then it only presented further questions that related to the path you had started down. It didn't keep throwing up questions like "Start grfbnitz with snaggle2 or snaggle3 (Note: snaggle1 is for people with older NVidea chipsets; snaggle2 is best choice with SMP; snaggle3 is alpha release and best not to use unless you are expert. [Continue] [Abort]" "Note: if you abort, the current configuration attempt will be abandoned, but some items will be partially changed anyway, and we are not telling you which ones. Go look it up in the /etc directory ... or perhaps the /opt directory, but we also aren't telling you which files will be affected. You should already know." "What??!?? I'm trying to configure a friggin' MODEM!! Why do I need to know about video chipsets (I've got ATI) or Symmetric Multi-processor? Or, is this somehow still about communications, so SMP is a typo that should have been SNMP... oh, god, all possible decisions are wrong... aaaaargh!" The above slightly-tongue-in-cheek sequence was not an exact reproduction of a session with YaSTn. It was merely representative... SuSE/Linux, on the other hand, would LET you configure all kinds of things, but it assumed that you already understood WHICH dozen separate things in which dozen separate menus (or config files) you had to modify, and WHICH combinations might work together. And god help you if you TRIED modifying things one at a time. You got no clue as to what you had broken. With Windoze, for example, it would help you set up a LAN internet connection, or it would help you set up a dial-up internet connection, but it would not mix up the two. One worked, or the other worked. You might have to think a bit to have it store TWO possible setups, so that you could use one at the office and the other at home... but it would still keep them separate and complete.
Sorry to hear of your bad experiences. At the end of the day, I completely agree with your assessment that the tool that works is the one to use. Some of us do need to do productive work with our PC's, and keep a roof over our heads. For a few, that "best choice" will remain Windows; for others (even non-geeks), Linux has a lot to offer.
Yah, but only the geeks (and the masochists) have the motivation. For the rest, Linux is where Windoze was in Win 3.1 or early Win 95 days. You mostly wanted to have a roomful of IT people down the hall to make things work, so you could do your job. If it broke, you called them to fix it. The problem is that Windoze didn't have entrenched, ubiquitous competition. When Windoze was falling on its face (and you had to call IT for the third time today), you didn't have a working example of something solid to point to. Yes, there were UNIX systems in a few companies, but they were 50-thousand dollar workstations on a few engineers' desktops. Today, when Linux falls on it's face (and don't tell me that it isn't broken, it's just a config problem or an X problem.... it still needs intervention by a geek to make it work again... so, effectively it's broken), people can point to mature Windoze that they've worked with for years. Unlike Windoze in the early days, Linux DOES have something to compare to, on the ordinary desktop. Linux geeks forget that a non-geek user does not make a distinction between "broken" (Word crashed again and I had to reboot Windows) versus "went for a long break and took the X server with it". A naive Linux user doesn't care that a guru could press a mysterious key combination to open a text screen, log on with an "administrator" password and maybe restart X and the apps. Lacking that guru or the guru's knowledge, the naive user gets to press "Reset" and flush his work, just like in Windoze (and Windoze doesn't do that *nearly* as often as it used to do). As a matter of fact, having failed for three weeks of evenings and weekends to discover how to re-instate my eth0 device at home, this nearly-naive user is just about to perform a full "like new" installation of SuSE 7.3... wiping all my config and various bits of stuff from several months. In fact, I can't see from the SuSE install that there is ANY way to put everthing in from the CDs without formatting the partitions. It looks like all or nothing. I may try to backup my e-mail and some data, but I dare not attempt to save any tiniest aspect of configuration... because I don't know what- ties-to-what and might corrupt a new install with whatever has killed my eth0 device and my sound device. Windows, at least, would have told me "Are you sure you want to uninstall your sound module and your ethernet device?" and I would have said "Hell, no!" YaST just went ahead and did it when I tried to back out of dial-up configuration without saving... Once I saw the conf stuff begin to scroll past, I knew I had done something, but I didn't know how thoroughly bad it was. The least YaST could have done was to say: "Hey, girly-linux-naif, by attempting to escape from dial-up config, you are telling me to rip the Ethernet device and the sound module right out of the kernel. I give you no graceful option to evade this, but you could at least try to press Reset ..." But no. Only when it was too late was I told that YaST equates modem config with killing ethernet and sound. Is there a club, with special initiation, where they tell you this stuff? Hmm. I wonder if anybody would sell me Windows 2000? Several people did offer single bits of advice, but none of them worked. Thanks anyway. /kevin
On Thursday 21 February 2002 10.18, Jacek Boboli wrote:
(versión en castellano abajo).
Christopher Mahmood is an unpleasant and uneducated guy !
Not at all my experience.
2.- My problem is typically spanish (PPPoE instead of PPPoA like in most countries) but, from the other hand, there are very few experienced ADSL people, generally, and less again in the spanish list. Hence the dual application of the message.
From the message below he was complaining about cross-posting - this means posting one message to more than one list at the same time - not about dual languages. Cross posting is EVIL. Many people choose "reply-to-all" and this can lead to hugely increased loads on the server. If you *must* send a message to two lists send it twice. It's not that difficult, and it's good netiquette.
//Anders
participants (13)
-
Anders Johansson -
Ben Rosenberg -
Christopher Mahmood -
Doug McGarrett -
Fergus Wilde -
Gordon Pritchard -
Jacek Boboli -
jfweber＠bellsouth.net -
Keith Winston -
Kevin McLauchlan -
Mike Reith -
rev rob -
tom poe