Time Review of Linux 161
afniv writes "Time.com as a short article about Linux. The reviewer talks briefly about Linux install troubles and will have future installments. "
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Time Review of Linux
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Reality must take precedence over public relations, for Mother Nature cannot be fooled. -- R.P. Feynman
How to install on that freaking laptop (Score:1)
You'll be up and running in less than 2 hours.
Re:*yawn* (Score:1)
We should instead show cautious encouragement, methinks; pointing out the documentation that really should be read beforehand, say; the various uses of Linux, and admitting that it's not yet for anyone. But I'd rather see the community help a bit.
And perhaps the bit about reading _first_, to avoid problems, should be stressed a bit more? The frequent screams for help, from people that want to install Linux simply out of disgust with Windows or whatever, but who have absolutely no background with any *nix or possibly even CLI, might be alleviated a bit...
Sharing Disk with Windows is not Trivial. (Score:1)
Re:How to install on that freaking laptop (Score:1)
It's no wonder people have trouble with installing Linux. It's easy, you just don't treat it like windows. If it doesn't work first time, then try another way (Something you don't dare do with windows. It's either CD/Hard Drive, or from [ugh] a Beeeeg stack of floppies).
(RedHat 6.0 does support NFS installs, right? I think it would since Slackware has done so for longer than I remember...)
Picture the average user.... (Score:1)
Most people reading the article are everyday users who are already quite intimidated by computers, and don't want to deal with them.
From that perspective, Linux is indeed quite difficult to install/use. I have had *programmers* new to linux asking me how to change the resolution in X, or why the mouse slides off the monitor into the virtual desktop. For Joe Sixpack, linux is way, way too difficult and confusing to use. Would you seriously recommend it to your grandma or someone who struggles to change the screensaver in Windows? You need to keep that perspective in mind.
Most people do not enjoy using computers and don't want to deal with techie details, much like you don't want to sit and deal with accounting techniques for a few hours to deposit your cheque.
They just want simple, easy-to-use systems, and linux is not there yet. This article was very well balanced from the viewpoint of the everday user.
If you disagree with this viewpoint, there's a very high likelyhood your friends can swap ethernet cards and laugh at recursive jokes.
Freeware Partition 'Magic' -Exists! (Score:1)
If you use it, you may want to send the author, Mikhail Ranish, a small amount to show your appreciation. He is a student at CUNY Brooklyn, and beer is very expensive there. Partition Manager is also available on every Cheapbytes Redhat disc (and probably other distros from Cheapbytes, too.) Look for /part in the "bonus" directory.
You'll need to copy it to a bootable DOS disk or run it off the CD from inside Windows as it is a DOS program. You can use it with LILO --Ranish's own BootManager is not necessary to the operation of the Partition Manager.
Let a thousand flowers bloom.
Installation is no fun .. for most of us (Score:1)
I do not feel that people should be expected to install systems. Applications and upgrades, yes.
There are pitfalls and unexpected difficulties even for very competent computer techs in installing almost any system. It mostly depends on luck in having fully supported hardware and a well thought-out partitioning strategy. Most computer techs who make a fair living installing systems *don't install anything*. The have a master disk image which they get from headquarters and copy it to a bare hard disk on the destination machine. They don't know how to install Windows or anything else. Sad but true.
I think most computer techs can learn about installation and configuration, but mostly they have not needed to know much and so have become lazy, just as consumers have become.
The ideal solution is hands-on support, preferably at one's local computer store. What this means is that you should be able to buy computers pre-installed with Linux alone, or dual boot with Windows or Mac or something else. If one already has a computer and wants to install Linux with or without keeping the pre-installed OS, tech support at the store should be able to do that for a reasonable fee. If they can't, contract it out to a local nerd. Hell, I'm good and will gladly do it for a small fee or even free in some cases.
Maybe much of the above is unrealistic given the short supply of people with know-how in these skills, but I'm not sure. The supply of such people may be greater than one thinks, but for various selfish and petty reasons such as current employment practices favouring age discrimination against anyone over 35, and a general shallowness and lack of intelligence (yes, that's what it is) among IT managers, currently there is no relationship whatsoever between skills and careerism in the IT world. If someone is making a good living in this field odds are he or she is not very smart - just good at talking a good line and lying. I've never seen a field where there is so much hype and so little substance except perhaps in used car sales and among television evangelists.
People who work in computer stores, even in the tech area, often don't have the skills, but they will learn if there is financial incentive to learn. Most outlets curently don't preinstall Linux at all - but that will change. Already preinstalled Linux is very available mail-order. Cheap, good systems too, finally. Not just high end servers and workstations.
Despite the best efforts of several people who have posted here to put a positive face on the review in TIME, the article is very discouraging to a non-technical person who wants to try Linux.
This reviewer was able to get good technical support by telephone from RedHat. Most home users don't have the initiative to do that, and they are not doing reviews for TIME magazine. They will give up too easily even if they have paid for tech support with the $79 boxed edition of RH. Most users do not have a publication deadline to meet. They would rather eat the $79 than embarrass themselves by calling for support and looking stupid. (Although that is really the smart thing to do).
Given all that, the best way for current Linux users who feel comfortable with installation and configuration chores to help is to offer their services to people who want to install Linux but get cold feet and to local computer centers. Hands-on, in-person help is much better than email or telephone for support. Of course commercial customers needing help should be charged the going rate, but not necessarily home users. If people do not feel comfortable letting nerds into their homes to set up computers then maybe they won't be able to use computers like they want to. Nothing risked, nothing gained. Installfests may be a way for some people to get hands-on help without such risk, but these are only available in some geographical areas and don't provide any permanent source of support for home users. Newbies can make contacts and get names, though, for later contact or follow-up.
In my opinion Open Source and Linux is mainly a people thing, and a religion. Sure, some of the technical aspects are interesting, but something much larger is at stake. It's not just Linux or GPL'd software but the whole internet which is based on open standards and reasonable access rates. Freedom in access to and use of information is a religious issue. Only by getting people involved, not in some kind of abstract "movement" but by enjoying and appreciating the benefits of free software and freedom of information in a practical way can that freedom be nurtured. Therefore it is necessary for "nerds" to interact more with non-technical people and help them as needed, with or without the exchange of money for services.
Then, perhaps, reviewers of Linux and other free software will not even have to think about installing it. The natural response will be to call your local nerd, or someone where you work who knows the ropes. Of course the benefits of learning to to these things one's self are great, but there are only so many hours in a day and days in a lifetime for us all. Everyone does not have the time or the interest nor should they be expected to in order to participate in and enjoy free software and have access to information.
Re:Ha! Difficult Linux installs ... (Score:2)
Here's a thought: instead of writing this reporter a bunch of nastygrams, let's help him figure out how to add and integrate things like the RealPlayer G2 to his Netscape, and Sort out Xanim and Mpegtv and X11amp. And properly install StarOffice an/or WordPerfect and SANE and Hylafax. These are things that will get his respect for the OS and the people who use it.
Re:Difficulty of installations (Score:3)
This is just FUD. I'm running Win2K beta 3 now, and there's definitely a command line unless they changed something in the 15 builds between the one I'm running and the official release candidate sitting over there on the corner of my desk daring me to install it.
Don't get me wrong - I don't like Microsoft any more than the next slashdotter - but FUD is FUD and should be avoided.
I refuse to acknoledge it... (Score:3)
IMHO, 99.5% of these "install" whiners don't even know what thier talking about, they just freak out because it askes them a couple questions. 89% or more have never tried to install Windows or anything else, so they don't even have a frame of referance.
You know what, I think it's time for a new Linux distribution, one that just reformates the whole dang drive, doesn't ask a single question, and installs as much stuff as it can fit. That's what they seem to want anyway, "Huh? what IP??" Let them figure that out after the system is installed like they do in windows.. just set up X at 640x480, and let them see it's there, and let them configure it later... or else they will whine.. GRrrrrrrrrrrr... Just do everything for them, then it "installs" easy, it's post installation configuration they have to do, and with GUI tools insted of a dialog box during install, they seem to want it that way anyhow..
Look, Red Hat installs with very very little effort, and when it's done, your have things all set exactly like you want them. Windows 95 was a nightmear to install, and Win98 isn't any better. Windows NT was sorta better than Windows 95 to install, but not as easy as RedHat. These are the same people who said NT was hard to isntall, because they never installed Windows95.. so don't believe a word of it..
Ok, I'm off my soap box, I'll go read the dang thing now...
Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:4)
Yes, Linux can go easy, if you don't stray from the path. I recently installed RH/6 on a fresh machine in order to build a gateway between my Win/98 machines and my DSL line. After trying different combinations of network cards, innumerable "gotchas" and about 15 reinstalls, I got it to work. Don't get me wrong -- it works well -- but I wouldn't want grandma setting it up. And by the way, I've been using Unix for 10 years, so I understand Unix.
I have to say: The documentation for RedHat (which is supposed to be one of the best) is absolutely atrocious. What there is OK -- just OK -- but it's insanely incomplete. I'll spare everyone all my trials, but if it wasn't for Deja News, I never would have got the thing working.
I like Linux. I want Linux to succeed. But it does the cause no good to exaggerate the pain of Windows installation (which literally millions of bonehead users have made work), and minimize the very real problems of Linux.
Re:Easy. No. (Score:1)
Re:Redhat not recognizing CD (Score:1)
Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:1)
It went more like the following:
1) Boot to Windows, put the CD in drive (the CD is not bootable itself).
2) Find the proper disk image to make a boot disk with (i needed sbpcd.i to use my non-IDE CD-ROM drive. Use fat32.i if you want to read a fat32 drive. If you want both, I guess you're out of luck).
3) Make a boot disk using the disk images on the CD and the included-on-the-CD DOS boot-disk-making program
4) reboot with the disk
5) wait about 20 minutes for it to find my non-IDE CD-ROM drive.
6) Pop up a really bad install program.
7) wander through options, having no idea (with no explanations being offered) of what exactly a "D" package or a "X" package is.
8) Pick some packages and install
9) some un-explained configuration questions come up. I have no idea what to answer for most of them, so I guess. Some stuff works.
10) Realize I didn't install the "X" package, so go back and do that.
11) Try to run X. It won't start.
12) Reboot to win95, ask for help on IRC, am told to run XF86Setup. Run it.
13) It does not detect my video card. Instead I have to mess with tons of options.
14) Reboot two or three times when the display becomes irreversibly messed up.
15) Finally get it working. startx.
16) Ok, now what? Most of the items in fvwm95's psuedo-start-menu won't run, saying I haven't installed them (so why is the menu item there then?). Mess with the non-intuitive file manager, and try to get cut-and-paste working.
17) Try to get modem working.
18) Give up, try to get printer working.
19) Reboot to win95, use that instead.
Re:Wimps! (Score:1)
Re:Ha! Difficult Linux installs ... (Score:1)
Well, if you have unsupported hardware on win95, it won't work well. The same goes for Linux. The problem is that there's more unsupported or not-very-well-supported hardware for Linux than for Windows, which is why Linux is harder to install for most of us. That, and Windows does a better job (usually) of detecting and picking decent default configurations.
P.S. Please, you don't have to reboot to set X, the network, you modem, you sound card, Linux isn't windows. Just run on level 3, if X fail to start properly, CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE, that should do it.
Next time, by RedHat or OpenLinux, must simple for newbies like US.
I didn't reboot in X. I rebooted in XF86Setup, because I didn't know the exact specs for my video card, and apparently I picked settings that didn't work. That caused my display to get really messed up, and I had no idea how to fix it. ctrl+alt+backspace didn't work, since I was in XF86Setup, not X itself.
I ended up having to reboot more times for Linux (around 4 or 5) than for Windows (once).
Re:Ha! Difficult Linux installs ... (Score:2)
Then I installed Slackware (3.0). After messing with some disk images, I managed to get a boot disk to support my non-IDE cdrom drive (using the sbpcd.i disk image). The boot-up took about 20 minutes as it scanned (really slowly) various addresses (or something, it didn't explain what it was doing, just took a while) to find the CD-ROM drive. After it found it, the install went relatively smoothly, except for the fact that all the packages were just listed by a single letter, with no explanations, and being a Linux novice, "D" did not mean anything to me.
Then came the X setup. I played around with XF86Setup for about an hour, rebooting two or three times in the process. Finally I got a working 640x480 8-bit color X server running. After a day or so i managed to get 800x600 16-bit color working. And I never did get my printer set up.
Re:free diplomas? (Score:1)
Re:Not to show ignorance... (Score:1)
I also have the same problems here. I have installed Linux before in the classroom with several generic PC's and they went mostly smooth. Most problems coming from configuration.
Now I am trying to install it on an old 486 Compaq machine and install craps out on me. It starts copying packages over, crash...reboot, reinstall, it gets past installing packages, then it does something else..crash, reboot.
Tried it 10 times before giving up. I thought random crashes were a feature of Windows!
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"Wars, conflict, it's all business. One murder makes a
villain. Millions a hero. Numbers sanctify."
Crap (Score:1)
So there's my opinion. The whole "3 distros" nonsense makes it sound like there isn't much to do
Anyways, people can just buy a Dell or VA box with the OS preinstalled if they're concerned about the installation process.
Re:The letter I wrote to the editor of time.com (Score:2)
>>Gnome, while developed with help from Red Hat,
>>is also open source software and is available
>>from www.gnome.com...
They'd probably benefit even more from knowing it was at www.gnome.ORG, since there's some silly company at www.gnome.com.
Failure to proofread is bad for all of us...
"look mommy..." (Score:1)
well theres one more journalist that has installed Linux...at least we're getting more supporters in the media, even if they seem kinda on the fence as to their enjoyment of it (do they get it why so many ppl like linux? prob not...oh well)
my.cents = 2;
"There is no spoon" - Neo, The Matrix
Difficulty of installations (Score:5)
I think Linux has a bad reputation for installation because people actually *do* have to install it, unlike Windows---few people actually install Windows because it's preinstalled.
I certainly hope that the people doing these reviews have actually installed the "competition", because Windows 95/98/NT can be quite difficult to install. I remember having particularly difficult problems getting NT to recognize a mainstream sound card and had a horrible time trying to make it do anything other than 16 colors.
I'd still like to see the Linux installation process get even better, and I know it will.
Re:Installation difficulty (Score:1)
I certainly haven't gotten to the point where it gets much easier yet.
Re:Installation difficulty (Score:1)
This is part of the problem KDE and Gnome are supposed to solve (like OPEN LOOK and Motif before them). That we have both KDE and Gnome, with GNUStep trying to get into the stage, and OPEN LOOK and Motif not quite dead yet, are contributing to the problem.
Competition is not always good.
Re:Linux hard to install? Try RedHat hard to insta (Score:1)
If you have a fairly modern PC, the beauty of RedHat is that you DONT have to know what kind of hardware you have. It autodetected my Video Card, mouse, sound card, and ethernet card.
Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:1)
I then booted, ran d:\setup.exe and watched as it hard locked half way through telling me there wasn't enough free space on C:. It took me a while to figure out that the installer doesn't know how to deal with an unpartitioned, unformatted harddrive. ARRGGH!! I went back to dos and used fdisk and format which are certainly worse than disk druid especially since they are not in the installer.
I question whether any newbies really install Windows on a really bare computer or whether they call it an install when they are really re-installing or upgrading.
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Re:The letter I wrote to the editor of time.com (Score:1)
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Re:The letter I wrote to the editor of time.com (Score:1)
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Re:Crap (Score:1)
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Installers are open source, just not standard (Score:1)
installers... (nearly?) every distro has its own installer, and how many system config tools?
Red Hat and Debian (and probably others) both have open sourced installers and configuration tools, but they just use different ones. Open source does not mean standard, although it certainly makes standards easier. I think we should push for LSB first, a standard config tool second, and a standard installer a distant third. Realisticly, the installer is one of the major differentiation points between installations. As long as everything is open source and standards are adhered to where it matters, we have nothing to fear from diversity.
In the best of all possible worlds, perhaps a standard installation format could be agreed to so a single tool could be used on any distribution, but distributions would have the option of developing their own tools as well. As I have said, I feel that uniformity in filesystem structure, etc as defined in a LSB spec would be more valuable in the near term.
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Red Hat support (Score:1)
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Really? (Score:2)
Millions of non-technical people have done windows upgrades, not bare installs. There's a big difference. Any slouch can do an upgrade, even a Linux upgrade.
While the Red Hat install has some rough edges there is no non-technical person on this planet that could install Windows 98 on an computer with an unpartitioned hard-drive with only the CD, a blank floppy disk and another computer running 98. They might have a shot at installing Red Hat (although admittedly they would not be likely to be able to get past the login prompt at reboot).
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Re:Quittner is an idiot (Score:2)
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The letter I wrote to the editor of time.com (Score:5)
I appreciated Josh Quittner's Linux article [http://cgi.pathfinder.com/time/personal/19990524
The perception of easy Windows installations is largely due to the fact that the vast majority of PC's come with Windows pre-installed. Most users are unlikely to ever do more than upgrade their Windows which is a relatively painless proposition. Upgrading a Red Hat system is just as easy. In my estimation, installing a Red Hat system is easier than installing Windows in any case except when the computer has Windows pre-installed and has no unpartioned disk space.
Overall the article was very informative and made the virtues of Linux clear, including it's open source code, stability and low cost. Your readers may also benefit from knowing that Gnome, while developed with help from Red Hat, is also open source software and is available from www.gnome.com, and that a very viable alternative to Gnome called KDE is available from www.kde.com and is also open source and included in Red Hat 6.0 as well as Caldera, SuSe and other distribution. Finally, it might be noted that an alternative to downloading a distribution or buying a boxed set is to pay a couple of dollars and get the distribution from www.cheapbytes.com which redistributes all of the major distributions sans book documentation and support. I would still recommend that the average user buy a boxed set.
I hope to see further linux coverage in the future.
Sincerely,
Michael Cope
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Re:Installation difficulty (Score:1)
Part of the power of Linux is its versatility and configurability. We don't want to lose that just to make installing easier for people who don't know what they're doing.
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Redhat not recognizing CD (Score:1)
[offtopic] 2 cents? (Score:1)
GNOME (Score:1)
"I paid $80 for Red Hat 6.0, a two-CD distribution that includes -- since you're paying -- a copy of Gnome and a lot of extras"
seem to (falsly) imply that GNOME costs money?
Re:Really? (Score:2)
Sometimes is good to start clean, though.
And its nice that I can reinstall a full gig+ linux system in a half hour.
The install experience I described before was NOTHING like my attempt to upgrade Windows 95 to 98 on this machine. I won't even try to describe that one, for fear of the government cracking down on obscene content on Slashdot.
Ironically with Windows, I've had better luck running Windows 98 on this computer (AMD K6-2-3D, VIA Apollo MVP chipset, 64 meg ram, UDMA drives, ATI Rage Pro adapter) under VMWare's machine than by itself. Good to know Linux can run Windows better than it can run itself!
Windows 98 still crashes anytime I use OpenGL applications. Which means no Quake3 Test.
Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:5)
On two machines at work, I install linux:
1) Put CD in drive, turn on machine.
2) Keep accepting defaults
Voila! Done.
Same machine, Windows 98:
1) Put cd in drive, boot machine.
2) Voila! Linux
Wait... no Windows installer? NO! Windows 98's install CD isn't bootable.
3) Search for the box Win98 came in for an hour.
4) Stop searching, start searching for a DOS boot disc
5) Disc boots, no CD-Rom driver.
6) Search for a half hour for the cd-rom drivers
7) Hack up a new boot disc
8) Reboot
9) Oops, there goes Linux, too bad it didn't even ask if I wanted to partition the drives.
10) Let it chunk away for an half hour
11) Hard lock? Dammit!
12) Reboot
13) Perform step 10 again
14) Reboot
15) Nope, still not done installing.
16) What do you mean, unknown ethernet card?
17) What do you mean no drivers for the sound card?
18) Why the FSCK am I only getting 256 colors?
19) Search for the G200 driver CD
20) Install video drivers
21) What? Why the HELL isn't the ethernet working any more?
22) Oh yeah, never was. Search for ethernet drivers again.
23) Oops, not online. Go use a linux system to search for drivers.
24) Woohoo, ethernet, lets install Quake3
25) Dammit to hell, never found sound drivers
26) Search net for an hour for sound drivers
27) Give up for a few days
28) Found drivers, install them
29) System's working, three days later. Except now I've got to install software. Lets hope the newer Microsoft applications don't remove any DLLs that are going to keep other stuff from working...
That's easier?
Where does one get an unsupported cd drive? (Score:1)
I can understand add on things like mpeg decoder modules and such not being recognized, but what is this difficulty in reading raw data itself? Who makes it?
Re:Ha! Difficult Linux installs ... (Score:1)
>relatively smoothly, except for the fact that all
>the packages were just listed by a single letter,
>with no explanations, and being a Linux novice,
>"D" did not mean anything to me.
It's not the problem of being a novice, it's a problem with reading the docs. Last time I installed a Slackware distro ('95), it came with a small "book" that explained, among things, what each package set was about (D is development tools, iirc).
I must add that Slackware is not the easiest distro to start with, its motto is KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), so you have to have some hacking abilities to enjoy it.
My experience (Score:1)
free diplomas? (Score:1)
Hmmm...I guess I'll be watching my mailbox for this nifty little piece of paper. Should help boost my wage a little.
Re:Is Linux for me..(?) (Score:1)
Personally, I have used Slackware and Red Hat. I have since stuck with Red Hat. Slackware, in my opinion, is not very easy to use. RH has a very good software mgmt system and has alot of software included. I think Caldera 2.2 is probably easy to install, but you don't need to be a rocket scientist to install RH.
See the following:
www.linux.org
www.redhat.com
www.cheapbytes.com
sunsite.unc.edu/mdw
www.xnet.com/~blatura/linapps.shtml
www.littleigloo.com
www.freshmeat.net
www.stardivision.com
(OK so I'm biased.)
Am I missing anything else...
Any questions -- send them to me or post in a newsgroup (comp.os.linux......)
Re:I think Linux is ready for the Desktop (Score:1)
It will be very interesting to read what the guy has to say in the future installments of this series.
noah
Re:Difficulty of installations (Score:2)
When I put SuSE 5.3 on instead, KDE set up the modem so it would at least dial. It always hung up at connection though, even when I manually connected with minicom and my settings looked right. Oh well. Windows does not give much info if something fails, but every OEM out there contributes to the Microsoft by testing their stuff. In Linux land, all that work falls on the developers (who are already volunteering to begin with), the users, and the distro people.
There's just a certain threshhold in popularity we have to pass through before things get easier to install. Another issue is the lack of open sourced installers... (nearly?) every distro has its own installer, and how many system config tools?
Where it exists, we have better quality than Microsoft. There's just a few areas we're not treading yet. Microsoft is taking a harder and harder line against opening up despite their "rumors". They're even killing the Command Line in Windows NT 2K. They are really, really screwed when the big shift occurs. It kind of worries me they're buying all the bandwidth now... another attempt at holding a brick over our heads while refusing to play on a level field. Grrr....
(At least Bill is smart enough to jettison his Microsoft stock. )
Support through Red Hat (Score:2)
Try to get that kind of support from Microsoft.
Re:GNOME is the only graphical interface? (Score:1)
I guess that'll be forever, then. The only reason this doesn't apply to Windows is that the functionality you really want isn't available at all...
Re:Free version of PartitionMagic (Score:1)
the issue of ease (Score:1)
Time article on Linux (Score:4)
BTW, I believe I fixed his problem with the Thinkpad. I work for the same company.
Installing onto a disk WITH windows. (Score:2)
Re:Hard to install? Nah... (Score:1)
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
Agreed: FreeBSD Install No Cakewalk (Score:1)
I run Linux, but I respect FreeBSD, even though the install was quite intimidating.
Re:I think Linux is ready for the Desktop (Score:1)
Any graphics design gurus out there into typeface design? How about a good looking monospaced typeface for monitors called 'Linux'?
Re:How to install on that freaking laptop (Score:1)
Also, naive users may not appreciate having to configure their network connection before installing. Granted, the network install is a great feature - I love it dearly, and use it whenever I can, but it's not for everyone.
GNOME is the only graphical interface? (Score:1)
Re:GNOME is the only graphical interface? (Score:1)
Re:Installation difficulty (Score:1)
Also, Linux is not yet helpful enough to the user the way Windows is. While you still need to know what you are doing in Windows to get it done, more clues are provided for you through the interface. It is like the design principle that people recognize information more easily than they recollect it. Linux at this point is an essay test, Windows is a multiple choice test. MS takes a well deserved beating for their business practices and general corporate arrogance, and disregard for technical quality, but you have to give them credit. If the back-end of Windows was as functional and stable as the front end is useful, there would be no contest between Windows and Linux.
Installation difficulty (Score:5)
Linux is, from both an installation and use view, a real dividing line amoung computer users. If you have no computer experience, Windows is difficult until you get the paradigm at which point it becomes much easier. The paradigm for Linux, if there is one, is much more difficult to get.
I don't expect that Linux will ever become the favored OS of the casual user, but I also do expect that, due to the pervasiveness of computers and early age at which children are being exposed to them, the average adult user will be head and shoulders more savvy about the machines in another 10 years than they are today. Hopefully the proportion of casual to serious users will decline, and that is where Linux will grow.
Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:2)
Any OS that came out three weeks ago (RedHat 6) is obviously going to have more current device drivers than one that came out nearly a year ago (Windows 98).
When Win98v2 comes out in a couple weeks, try again and see if it's got support for your sound and video cards.
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Re:Installation of various OSes (Score:1)
Which isn't to say NetBSD is 'wrong,' somehow, just to say that there are advantages to the Debian way that I, personally, appreciate over a simplification in the install process.
--Parity
don't have to be con-sci (Score:1)
Linux hard to install? Try RedHat hard to install (Score:1)
Try installing at least two other distributions, and then your opinion on the topic might be marginally more relevant than that of my cat.
Re:I think Linux is ready for the Desktop (Score:1)
Re:Is Linux for me..(?) (Score:1)
After that you can move on to RedHat or Debian or some other more "user friendly" distributions so you can truely appreciate how easy they are trying to make it.
Linux Systems Labs [lsl.com] is a good place to get Linux CD's if that's your thing, but if you've got ADSL you can just FTP the entire distro in about half an hour or so (i did a recent RedHat install from an FTP site).
Read some of the docs over at the Linux Documentation Project about making boot and root disks. After that, one of the options for install is "install from FTP site." Have the name of a FTP site (actually have five or six in case your first doesn't work) that has got the distro and then you are off. The install program will download a package and then install it.
I'm biased because I think Linux rocks so my opinion about the operating system probably can't be trusted. But if you actually go through with it you will not regret it.
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"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Re:Wimps! (Score:1)
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"War doesn't determine who's right, just who's left"
Re:Hard to install? Nah... (Score:1)
HEY!!!! (Score:1)
*desperate sigh*
maybe it's cause slack is a bit more difficult than redhat to set up.....he really plugged RH.
Beware the Dark Side. (M$)
Llewyn
Re:maybe its cause redslut payed them off (Score:1)
i have been a fervent supporter of the slack cause for a while, and the one time i tried to install RH it was truly like learning another language. it's just culture-difference as far as im concerned, and upon re-reading my comments about wanting a plug to slack, i reconsider that comment, because slack wasnt the only one snubbed...also because if everyone used Linux (*is there such a place, Toto?*), where would the controversy be? it would be about the same as saying "oh, i use win3.1 instead of your 95! eat flaming death!!"
so im just happy we're hitting mainstream now...in my household my eight-year-old brother uses Linux, and likes it better than windoze...there is some truth in the future.
:)
Beware the Dark Side
Llewyn
Re:Quittner is an idiot - agreed (Score:1)
(I would say Linux is harder when just installing a desktop client kind of setup, but comparison should precede criticism.)
Nice article (Score:5)
Well, you have to look at the big picture. You have to consider how this will look to the average user. In many ways, you can deal with the reporter as an average user. Installing Linux might be no picknick, it certainly wasn't when I installed my first GNU/Linux six years ago, but we've come a long way since then, havn't we? The installation tools are practically as good as for Windows. You have to remember that this reporter would probably even need some help installing Windows to get everything right! But he mentions that there are support to get so this kills one of the most common misunderstandings about Linux.
He never deals with the general system, but he does say that there's something called Gnome that will make things easier. He also mentions the Gnome logo, which kills another misunderstanding about GNU/Linux being all text and no graphics.
In the end, he gives an impression that he's content with what he sees and that he's interested in learning more about the system and he leaves a little hook for the reader saying that he'll be back with more information.
This would feel good to read as a user I think, it takes an average guy that probably doesn't know any more about computers than you do, and it explains that he kind of liked GNU/Linux and after having read this article, you'd probably be very curious about the system.
Mission accomplished.
Re:*yawn* (Score:1)
Having to do a linux install should be part of a job interview for beoming a tech journalist.
It's not that hard.
Imagine somebody writing car reviews who is unable to use a stick shift. As a result, this person would always hate Porsches.
You think Win98 is easy to install? (Score:1)
Everything is easy the second time around. Let's see how 'difficult' he finds RH6 to install when he's done it a few times. He'll never want to install W2K again!
Re:Difficulty of installations (Score:1)
I think Linux is ready for the Desktop (Score:1)
Im glade to see Linux in some non-computer publications. It shows that Linux is going places. Im happy again.
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Re:Installation difficulty (Score:1)
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Re:Installation difficulty (Score:1)
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Hard to install? Nah... (Score:1)
Re:Hard to install? Nah... (Score:1)
Panasonic KXL-D745 (Score:1)
Re:Is Linux for me..(?) (Score:1)
Slackware is also a very good distribution to learn Unix, if you really want to, since Patrick Volkerding tries to make it the most "Unix-like" Linux distro.
A good place to buy install CDs is www.cheapbytes.com At $1.99 a CD, you can, for less than $10, get several distributions and try them, see which one suits you.
And a book that was very helpful to me at the beginning, free and available on-line, is "Linux installation and getting started" by Matt Welsh et al. You can find it at: http://metalab.unc.edu/LDP/LDP/gs/gs.html
Installation of various OSes (Score:1)
In my experience, NetBSD is the easiest system I have installed. I downloaded all the tgz files needed from the NetBSD ftp site, put them on a Linux box configured as an NFS server, put my el-cheapo PCMCIA network card into my laptop, made a NetBSD boot diskette into the laptop, and booted it into the install scripts. NetBSD directly supports most PCMCIA network cards on a laptop directly in the kernel, not with a bolted-on package as with Linux.
The other reason NetBSD was so much easier to install is that the base install comes out of about ten (aprox.) clean *.tgz files, not a whole mess of different packages from all over. Packages are installed after you have a good base system installed. And if you're willing to build all your packages from source, you can put the whole pkgsrc tree onto your machine somewhere. If you want LyX and haven't put a single other package onto your system, you just go to the LyX folder and type "make && make install". It takes awhile, but it builds and installs all dependent packages (TeX, and huge amounts of other stuff) beneath LyX before proceeding on to LyX itself. It's very clean. Some of the RPM-based Linux systems work kind of the same (and Debian drags you into a morass that checks dependencies on first install) but none that I have seen is as clean as with NetBSD.
I'd pick Slackware as the second easiest install, but only if you know the buttons to push. I can have a Slack system up and running in maybe 20 minutes.
Re:Red Hat support (Score:1)
Free version of PartitionMagic (Score:1)
Re:How to install on that freaking laptop (Score:1)
I have also used this method to go "the other way" on occasion. When you want to add Windows to a machine that already has a networked Linux on it, you can just drag the Win95 install directory over from the CD-ROM on another machine. This is nice for installing Win on a machine that doesn't have a CD. But be SURE you make a Linux bootdisk for the machine before installing the Windows as it will zonk your boot record. You'll have to boot from this disk to get into your Linux system to edit and re-install Lilo after Win has done it's damage.
It's important for beginners to know how to go both ways, even tho these days I personally find the idea of a dual boot system repulsive. (that's what Ethernet and crowded rooms full of too many machines are for!)
Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:1)
I can just talk about what happened tonight (well...a few hours ago
I've re-installed windows on his puter a few times, due to different things, and the last two times, I made him do it, while I was watching TV besides him, ready to answer his questions if needed....last time he installed, it took him about an hour or so.
Tonight/last night, I decided to make him install RedHat 6 on a spare computer, to see if it really is as hard for non-techs as people say it is....I gave him a CD, a floppy disk, a printed copy of an installation howto I found somewhere, a printed copy of the System/Device Manager thing in windows (so he had the IRQs and stuff like that) and I went off to pick up dinner.
I returned 30 minutes later to find him trying to get the soundcard working (he got it in 5 mins once I told him about sndconfig or whatever that one is called
So...a non-tech dude took 35 minutes to install RH 6 on a pretty vanilla p200/MMX puter (soundcard, NIC, no modem)....he's been playing with the box for the last 5 or 6 hr, and he's having fun with it
When a linux install goes well, it's a piece of cake...when the problems show up, it can be a royal pain in the a$$...but then again, so is with any other OS out there, in my experience.
Vox
PS: Yes, I've installed NT and 9x a bunch of times...I make computers for a living, and discovered Linux only a couple of months ago...9x is easy to install when the hardware is right, NT is a pain in the a$$ even if the HW is the right one...linux is right between them, in my experience. After tonight, I'am going to start offering Linux pre-installed as an option for my clients
Wait a minute... (Score:3)
Multiprocessing? Great, no need to buy that new mb, I'll just install Linux!
Dumb little nickpick, I know, but this is Time; I'd hope their Tech columnists would know a enough not to make such an obvious mistake. (OK, not *that* obvious to most people, but I got used to double checking for it, and so should he--*before* he writes a column for a major magazine.)
Re:Difficulty of installations (Score:1)
Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:1)
You should have stopped right there, while you were still ahead.
Re:Ha! Difficult Linux installs ... (Score:1)
On the contrary, I must tell you that, with my system, installing a WinNT/95/Linux partition (yes i know, i'm foolish sometimes), the worst part was installing 95, than NT and what a smooth ride with Linux.
It took me 2 days to install and configure NT/95, due to lack of support for my SCSI Adapter (I rally don't know what's wrong with those NT drivers). I cannot count the number of reboots, reinstall this and that, reboot, shutdown on windows protection erros bla bla bla.
My wife told me once: "Why do you keep on trying!? I can find you better things to do with your hands.
That was VERY tempting, but i still had Linux to install
So with some doubts about how this would turn out, i started the RedHat boot sequence. I was right, The most painfull thing was to decide HOW i gonna set my PARTITIONS straight. It tooked me 1 hour to decide how many Gigs i will set for
and went to sleep (at last). In the morning i found my computer telling me that it detected my new Logitec mouse..(I calculated that it took it 15 minutes to load all the selected packages, 4 hours in the mouse detection dialog box !!!)
I said to me "well, that a good start, let's go forward then".
I must say also that the installation program detected my SCSI adapter firts!! Amazing. But after the sound, video, Lilo setting, the installation ended. I reboot once and that was about it. Since than, i think i recompile my Kernel a numerous time (cause SMP, PPro must be compile to have max perf).
And i must add that i enjoy the Kernel developement pace (now i use 2.2.9, like most of you).
Ho by the way, I didn't reboot since...(well my last Kernel update, check the 2.2.9 release).
Make no mistake.s My first installation and Linux usage was in january 1999. So i call myself a newbie. But i have some experiences with computers. So you can call me a "small" Geek if you wish.
Anyway, since this glorious day in my life, i keep on learning new things. I guess, you must like to lurn if you want to run Linux and thats the best part of it.
P.S. Please, you don't have to reboot to set X, the network, you modem, you sound card, Linux isn't windows. Just run on level 3, if X fail to start properly, CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE, that should do it.
Next time, by RedHat or OpenLinux, must simple for newbies like US.
P.S.S. I must leave you here, my wife is calling for some handy work
Cheers
Re:Ha! Difficult Linux installs ... (Score:1)
I didn't reboot in X. I rebooted in XF86Setup, because I didn't know the exact specs for my video card, and apparently I picked settings that didn't work. That caused my
display to get really messed up, and I had no idea how to fix it. ctrl+alt+backspace didn't work, since I was in XF86Setup, not X itself.
Have you tried to go to another console? You go there by crtl+alt+F1(F2,F3,F4,F5,F6.. F7 is for your X Server.).
After that kill the XF86Setup process by "killall XF86Setup". That work if the screen isn't locked black dead.
For the Windows 95 installation process, how come did you reboot onlu once? If i recall, the first reboot is when the program has finish copying your files, then when configure the settings of your de
sktop, time, help, video, printers etc..(that's two). After that, if you install a program wich requier dlls in windows system directory, reboot.
Some installation or modification in Windows(even the mouse!!), modification of the registery, you have to reboot. On the contrary in *nix, the only time you have to reboot is when you have recompiled your kernel. All t
he update (network, sound, printers, mouse, programs, modules running, modules stop) can be donne live and the change takes effect after restarting the service, not the OS.
Can you beat that? I think not.
I ended up having to reboot more times for Linux (around 4 or 5) than for Windows (once).
You must be a genius to only rebooted once on any Windows installation.
Well, if you have unsupported hardware on win95, it won't work well. The same goes for Linux. The problem is that there's more unsupported or not-very-well-supported hardware for Linux than for Windows, which is why Linux is harder to install for most of us. That, and Windows does a better job (usually) of detecting and picking decent
default configurations.
That's because EOM industries, in the beginning weren't paying attention to the "little" free open-sourced OS's. The trend is reversing now.
I must admit that for user unfamiliar with unix, Linux is somewhat disconforting. Why? Because you don't have to click to change things. And that's, IMHO is "scary" for user who cannot type
Point and click. That too can be damaging:
The other day, i was showing to my friend gen how to setup Samba, with a neafty Samba utility called SWAT, by the internet. He was on the Globals settings and clicked the "Reset values" button!! I just had lost all my Samba files/printers server settings. In the same mouse mouvement, he clicked "Restart smbd/nmbd" buttons, the FOOL!!! In matter of 4 clicks, he disconnected 15 users. NO PANIC!! Wisely, i saved a backup of the cofiguration file. In one line: "mv
It took me 10 seconds to type the command, 0.01 at samba to restart. No need to reboot. The users didn't noticed the server reseting and restarting.
Can you beat that? I think not.
BTW, i'm doing Windows files and printer serving from a Linux box to 30 Windows NT/95 clients; clients didn't even noticed the server change. The users only noticed the positive difference in speed for large file tranfer.
Linux make a great Server, no doubt. On the desktop market, he is catching up fast, very fast.
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Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:1)
Like i posted before, by RedHat 6.0. You will find it a brease.
And before buying and installing, please gather all your harware informations. That's a must.. Then came back to us.
'Nuf said.
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Re:Nice article (Score:1)
SCORE +10
No kiding, very good point indeed.
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Ha! Difficult Linux installs ... (Score:2)
Re:How many hours can they use per story? (Score:1)
Winbloze uninstaller.
Someone already has.. it's called fdisk
Re:How to install on that freaking laptop (Score:1)
http://www.ryans.dhs.org
Re:Can we be serious for a minute? (Score:1)
> heroin' all at the same time.
Hell ya!
http://www.ryans.dhs.org