On Wednesday 27 April 2005 16:11, Basil Chupin wrote:
An interesting article about v9.3 to be found at www.theinquirer.net. The article is titled, "SuSE 9.3 fails home-use test".
It's also interesting to see the seemingly "narrow mindedness" of many Linux lovers in this thread. Why such fierce reactions ? What's wrong with some reflection and self-critcism on Linux ? I myself am a SuSE Linux user for several years now (since 7.3) and will continue to use it, but I also recognize and agree with a lot of the statements in the article. I love Linux when I have it configured correctly,but it takes a lot of effort, time, and perseverance to get the system that you want/need. This differs a lot from the promises on the box. SuSE's marketing hype is not covered by the technical contents. Although I hate to admit, I would not advise Linux to people who just want to use their computer as a useful tool without any hassle. One does need a certain amount of W$$-dislike, willingness to tackle challenges and have a fair knowledge of computer / operating system technology to get it all done well. Many people don't have this. I'm afraid this is one of the reasons Linux will not be able to become any threat to W$$. :-( Some personal experience examples : * Buying "any" 54Mb wireless PCMCIA card and plugging it in under Linux will hardly ever work right away. In that "other" OS it does, usually. * It requires quite some studying/searching before you get the € (euro-sign) working on your Linux box. Is standard available under W$$. * Have you ever tried to play a DVD-movie right after system installation ? Won't work, you need to install a lot of additional stuff first. No problem with W$$. * Accented characters (common for millions of Europeans) don't work right away after the initial installation. You need to know what to do to get that working. * Activation of a SAMBA server needs quite some studying and detailed configuring first. Under W$$ it is rather simple to activate the sharing services. * Getting checks done on SPAM mail and viruses is another challenge. Equivalent tools for W$$ are easy to install. * Connecting a TV-card, in my case, produced video image right away, but no sound. Even the combined wisdom of this discussion forum has not been able to help me so far !!! Nevertheless, although I am many times tempted to return to W$$, I won't give up on Linux. I still like it a lot. But again, some reflection and self-critcism on Linux won't hurt to my opinion. Cheers, -- Jan Elders the Netherlands http://www.xs4all.nl/~jrme/ "Home of the Network Acronyms"