Can Ubuntu Overcome The Status Quo?
People often say certain software is “not ready for prime time.” But in reality, those people actually have a fear of the unfamiliar. Take my wife. for instance. When I started using Ubuntu, she was dead-set against me installing it as the lone system on our laptop. She couldn’t bear the thought of being without Windows because “it’s what I know!” But she finally came around to Ubuntu. Here’s how.
I tired of having a third of my hard drive formatted to NTFS (NT File System), so I started on a quest to help her realize that all she really was worried about was being able to perform usual tasks — and that Ubuntu was just as good if not better at doing those things.
I first customized her Gnome desktop to resemble Windows, with a single bottom panel and XP-style window borders and controls. Then we moved to a regular Gnome desktop. Eventually she admitted that Windows or Linux didn’t matter so much to her for what she needed to do. She did notice though that it’s more stable and runs faster on the same hardware.
Handy Little Device: The eeePC
Next, I bought her an eeePC 4G Surf this year as a congratulatory gift for beginning her Master’s Program (in early childhood intervention specialist, because she’s awesome and wicked smart). She was a little hesitant about the modified Xandros at first. The tabbed interface was **almost** too different. Several times she exclaimed “I don’t like this!” And while she’s easily distracted or frustrated sometimes, she played around with it for a couple of days, mostly due to the size. She’s very petite and therefore really enjoyed how well the keyboard fits her hands. (I can’t touch the thing without hitting three letters at once.)
As she grew familiar with the interface and asked me questions, she was cruising on her own in no time. Initially, she was so unsure of the interface that I asked her if she wanted me to install another distro on it (Ubuntu, of course) but she declined. She had learned the interface, learned how to move documents around, how to use the network connectivity tools, and everything was right in the world.
Interfaces and distros aside, between her eeePC and my Ubuntu 8.04 Gateway laptop, we’ve more than effectively integrated into the “Windows world.” In another post (you’ll see it on this site soon), I detail how I work in a law firm with a large MS Active Directory environment which I administer from my Ubuntu laptop. My wife works in a school that has Mac OS X as well as Windows machines. They use Google Docs and Calendar, and other web interface tools, so her ability to integrate into that environment was a non-issue, especially since Google Docs was built right into the desktop.
Lingering Concerns
The only real problems we’ve had at all are because of hardware manufacturers. My laptop’s wireless card refuses to work so I have a USB dongle. Our printer is a Lexmark x5470 all-in-one. Lexmark refuses to write real drivers for Linux, and therefore we have an XP box still around as a print machine.
So in my not-really-that-humble opinion, it’s not whether Ubuntu and Linux in general are ready for the prime time, it’s whether or not people can recognize that different just might be better. My wife did.
(And whether hardware makers will pony up to a more solid and efficient operating system. But that’s another discussion altogether, right?)
Works With U Contributing Editor Toby Deemer runs Ubuntu 8.04 to manage a large law firm network. WorksWithU is updated multiple times per week. Don’t miss a single post. Sign up for our RSS and Twitter feeds (available now) and newsletter (launching January 2009).
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What brand/model/chipset is your usb wifi dongle? I feel the pain with the printer. Dell deserves a shout for including a direct AND network laser printer option with their Ubuntu offerings.
I can’t write or say the word dongle without feeling at least a little silly.
No, what they really mean is that Ubuntu is not nearly as prime time capable as say Mandriva Linux, which has, and has had for a long time, a much better and more comprehensive toolset for easy configuration of the system. In addition Mandriva isn’t hampered by the butt ugly GNOME desktop.
The status quo is Windows. The status quo offers consumers access to many peripherals that support the needs of professionals, students, and hobbyists.
Windows is a small set of related systems that pretty much share a standard set of conventions. The standard enables vendors (of peripherals) to support Windows.
Linux is a large set of systems that do not share a standard set of conventions. Because of the variety, vendors cannot support Linux.
Since Linux will not be standardized in the near future, and IMO may never be standardized (fortunately), speculation that the status quo will become Linux is optimistic.
quote:Linux is a large set of systems that do not share a standard set of conventions.
What in the hell are you talking about? Do you even have any idea? At all.
Tracyanne: I see you’re still out evangelizing Mandriva Linux. Our sister site, TheVARguy.com, promises to give it a try and write a bit about it. Curious to hear if additional Works With U readers have any experiences (pro and con) with Mandriva. I must concede: I don’t know much about it, but plan to get up to speed fast.
Hey Joe.
Well I’ve use Mandriva Linux since 2000, when it was Mandrake Linux, I started with Version 7.2. A friend I worked with (he was a Debian user) in 1999 put me on to it. I tried Red Hat, Lycoris and SuSE before I tried Mandrake, Mandrake worked on my hardware, and the KDE desktop coupled with the Mandrake Linux Control Centre, was easy to use, especially for someone coming from Windows. Over the years I installed Mandrake/Mandriva on a lot of hardware, and had almost no problems with it, mostly it just works. The only problems I’ve had are with Winmodems, thankfully not a real problem, and BroadComm Wireless cards (1), easily fixed with ndiswrapper, and one strange one with a Lenovo BIOS. Media CODECS are, and always have been, easily via the plf repositories, which are configured automatically from the easyurpmi website, and Mandriva have made it even easier with the ability to obtain the Fluendo supplied CODECs.
I’ve upgraded a lot of people, the non technical (technology illiterate types) users who just use a computer with out really understanding them, to Mandriva Linux over the last 3 years. With very few exceptions they have no problems at all.
I try lots of different distributions, including Ubuntu, KUbtuntu etc, in fact I use MythBuntu on my media system to record free to air TV and serve it up to the rest of the house, among other things, but with the exception of MythBuntu, I really haven’t found (k)Ubuntu to be as user friendly or intuitive to use as Mandriva Linux, and I’m not actually using the desktop on the MythBuntu machine. It’s the Mandriva Control Centre that makes the real difference. The other thing, I’ve found, is that Ubuntu doesn’t always play nice with the range of hardware that Mandriva does, sometimes it won’t boot, other times it doesn’t seem to detect the Video card properly.
Great article. Last week I convinced my wife to use Ubuntu too. In fact, she was very eager to get it, as she saw who smoothly it runs on my computer. She uses her Laptop mostly for Writing text files and doing work for university, and so far she is very happy with Ubuntu.
Mandriva Linux is THE best distro to get your hardware working out of the box….and with KDE makes for easier transition to Linux
Hi all-
Thanks for the feedback. I do bit of distro testing myself, mainly for kicks. I’ve installed openSUSE, Mandriva 2008.1, Mint, FreeBSD, OpenSolaris, DSL, Puppy, etc. on this same laptop using a couple of spare hard drives (all same speed). And I’ve honestly found that Ubuntu handled everything the best. Again, that’s me, on this hardware, so…
I did like Mandriva’s control center though, and I don’t fault any other distro at all. I suppose it’s partly because my Linux experience started with Ubuntu, but it always feels like coming back to home base after trying other things out.
And just a thought on standards- Windows is a “standard” only in so far as it is the largest market share. Granted. However, they are famously, stubbornly, notoriously non-standards compliant. From W3C and other Internet protocols to internationally accepted document formats, they refuse to play well with others. Only literal government reprimands have gotten them to move towards interoperability.
Does Linux have its own file formats, media standards, and Internet protocols that it refuses to make available to others to be able to use?
I think we all know the answer to that one.
And it does support professionals. Check out http://www.linuxmovies.org/index.html just as a quick example. A small set of related systems that share a set of conventions is not a “standard”, it’s a common system that works with… itself. A standard is a common convention that is available to any vendor, for any system, implementable by anyone, for the dissemination of technology and information.
To Freddy- thanks for the kind words, and here’s to all geeks getting the wives on board!
-toby deemer
Joe: I have used Mandriva before and I do like it. I see lots of people talking about the control center. I’m not a big fan of the control center. Its a little clunky to me. As a former windows only user I actually found simply clicking on System and either then going to preferences or administration much more intuitive than Mandriva’s control center.
I also had a lot of problem with broadcom wireless. They have improved it some with the latest release but you still have to use NDIS Wrapper. I much prefer the 3 clicks it takes with Ubuntu and you have drivers installed. Mandriva also fails with ease of getting 3D effects to work especially with ATI hardware. I know ATI isn’t preferred on any distro but my laptop with ATI video runs 3d flawlessly and was just as easy as wireless to get up and running.
Finally I think Ubuntu’s package management is far superior to Mandriva’s. I have found from my experience that deb’s are superior to rpm’s. That’s my take anyway. Mandriva isn’t bad, but from a functionality standpoint it is in a lower class than Ubuntu from my experience.
The idea that linux will become the norm is rather stupid. The idea we should support is that we don’t want anything to be the norm. That’s what makes people rebel! The idea is to persuade ‘cross platform’ useage, and now it seems that some more applications are becoming available which can be adapted and installed with a linux setup. If not, then advancement in virtual machines may allow us to run Windows games with hardware acceleration, personally I love software for windows – more options and generally it’s superior – but I never want to boot windows. You can’t deny – Open Office isn’t up to MS office standards, Rhythmbox isn’t a patch on iTunes (podcasts make it crash a lot), and there are many problems with just doing what you want to do!
Hey-
Me again. I just realized that I forgot to answer the question regarding what the model is of my USB wireless dongle (that really *is* a silly word…).
It’s a Hawking Technology HWUG1 Wireless-G.
Here’s a link to one, but I bought mine locally at Micro Center and therefore got it a little cheaper. Nevertheless:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16833164015&Tpk=hawking%20HWUG1
Worked flawlessly out of the box, and only dropped a signal once. But that was because of a faulty Airport.
tracyanne – curious that you find it necessary to attack me rather than just deal with what I said. But here is an example of the lack of standards (though it isn’t hardware related)… My ISP runs Linux in-house. They have lots of Linux expertise. But the ISP does not support Linux for customers because there are too many variations (this is according to a support staffer who then went on to demonstrate that he was a Linux enthusiast who could care less about the company policy).
Toby – there are so many conventions that one cannot train support staff to deal with it all. Who has expertise in everything from Red Hat to Puppy to Gentoo? LSB is an example that shows that even the big guys can’t agree on what to do. Many Linux enthusiasts and distributors don’t even support ODF, releasing Live CDs with “office” software that is not ODF compliant.
Ben – Completely agree that that becoming the norm might not be a good thing for many of us Linux enthusiasts, myself included. Our options might be reduced. I often run Linux from a flash drive – something that might not be so easy with some “standarized” Linux.
Although Open Office lacks the polish of MS Office, it now offers a feature set that many professional offices need. The obstacle to OO is that many Linux fans don’t like it… the “bloat” that they would remove is the set of advanced features that I need. So, while the great bulk of Windows users discuss how to do things with Word and easily exchange files, Linux enthusiasts generally don’t have the same common interest in Open Office.
The variety that makes Linux the perfect OS for many of us is the variety that makes vendor support unlikely.
quote:: My ISP runs Linux in-house. They have lots of Linux expertise. But the ISP does not support Linux for customers because there are too many variations (this is according to a support staffer who then went on to demonstrate that he was a Linux enthusiast who could care less about the company policy).
That’s quite different from your original assertion that
quote::Linux is a large set of systems that do not share a standard set of conventions. Because of the variety, vendors cannot support Linux.
Linux in fact is based on standards, every Linux distribution shares those exact same conventions.
Linux is the kernel. It is absolutely a standard. It’s the GUI that gets bolt on to it and the auxiliary programs that make the not standardized complaints.
I can install a number of different GUI’s on that same core and they all run fine. I don’t know how you could be more standardized than that.
When you find most advice for Linux in command line format, that’s the reason.
It’s not different from tech support tell users to open a cmd line to start pinging and checking DNS. Your argument of needing expertise in every Distro is a bogus one.
As far as the ISP goes, it’s more likely that they have made the decision not to train staff because of the low percentage of users and the vast number of dirt cheap Windows support. Just looking at the turnover numbers at help desk personnel shows it to be a good business decision.
Gnome and KDE are the most widely used GUIs. It’s not harder supporting stuff that an ISP would need to know, pulling up a menu, clicking on network or network tools, or opening a terminal and typing ifconfig is all that involved. It doesn’t require in depth knowledge of every Distro GUI.
I’ll take being able to boot a full operating system including a GUI from an 88 meg flash drive any day. And that OS is using the same exact kernel as my full blown desktop install.Pretty standard as far as I can see.
with all going so well.. it’s time for you to get a linux supported wireless all in one printer (HP?)
With regard to people having printer problems. The answer is simple buy HP. They provide excellent open source printer drivers. I have never had any problems with the three HP printers I have owned on Linux.
In fact HP printers are virtually connect printer, power on printer, print. On a new Mandriva system, where the HP drivers have not yet been installed, you get prompted to install the printer drivers, you click ok, supply a password and the package manager takes over and installs the drivers, and in most cases configures the printer without any additional input from the user. It could not be simpler.
@tracyanne-concerning “butt ugly gnome desktop”
I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I personally cannot stand KDE (3.5x or 4.1x)
Of course my gnome desktop is modified with compiz/emerald/avant and screenlets with customized gtk bits as well, and yes you can modify kde as well, but I find gnome works and does what I want well and to my eyes looks better. (IMHO here, not a flame.)
I’m playing with mandriva on virtualbox, and I just don’t see enough added appeal to even think about leaving ubuntu. That and rpms blow. They might seem fine for a time, but I’ve been seriously bitten by dependency hell more than once in the past, and have NEVER had issues with .deb.
@lexmark stuff–
Lastly, lexmark is the worst WORST possible printer solution to drop on a desk. Its too bad (from a driver standpoint) that IBM sold em’ off. I’d bet that if IBM still owned the division, there would be a much different story regarding how good/bad lexmark is in relation to linux.
With regard to there being too many different Linux distros for “vendors” to support, note that there are lots of “vendors” who have absolutely no problem with such support: look at projects like GNU, KDE, Apache, the Linux kernel itself–they just release the source, and let the distro maintainers worry about the specifics of packaging things up for each particular distro. Problem solved, in a scalable way.
As for hardware vendors, they don’t know how to write good driver software (as experienced Windows users will know), so they shouldn’t even bother. Just release the necessary specs, and let the open-source community make the drivers. Result: they sell more hardware, and users get stuff that works. Everybody’s happy.
To Paul and chemicalscum-
I have been reading a lot about HP printers lately, and am pretty impressed with the feedback they receive. Definitely on the top of the list when this current printer dies.
Does anyone have any experiences (good or bad) to report on the HP photo printing ability on Linux?
Thanks again.
-toby deemer
I set up an old Dell Pentium III 450mhz with Xubuntu for my wife, and it took a little time for her to get use to. However, when I upgrated my old Toshiba Satellite with 192megs of ram which allowed an upgrade from DSL to Xubuntu, my wife was very happy to see the same interface on her new (old) laptop as her desktop since she had come to like that interface.
Yes, HP printers are great. There is a great tool out there for Linux for HP printers which allows for easy network setup. Piece of cake compared to Windows (stupid SP2 firewall). I just haven’t gotten the scanner function to work (haven’t had the time) in Xubuntu as of yet, but I have a Powermac on my network, so I just use that.
On the Mandriva question, I use it too. I couldn’t say whether it’s the best because I haven’t really tried any others in some time. A few months ago I was moving up from one release to the next and tried installing a couple of other distros (Mint, I think Ubuntu, stock Debian), but they all had enough hiccups in the installation process that I decided I’d had enough hassle and went back to Mandriva. So I never really got a fair comparison in. But I do like the control centre, it gets done nearly all of what I want done.
Incidentally, I actually run Mandriva with a Gnome desktop most of the time. So liking Mandriva as opposed to Ubuntu is not necessarily an “I don’t like Gnome” thing. I like a full “kitchen sink” distro, and Mandriva is practically the only such that’s desktop oriented and hasn’t done dubious deals with Microsoft.
Aquaadverse –
“The” kernel is often customized by individual developers. There are many options and modules that may or may not be installed. Some may quibble with semantics, but the number of variables in this “standard” can make support complicated.
The GUI is built upon more than the kernel. It is built upon many conventions/standards… some may quibble about semantics… but there are many variables between the kernel and the GUI. Even if the components are the same, which they often are not, the major developers can’t even agree on where to put the components, or even where to put startup scripts. (Are yours in /etc/init.d or /etc/rc.d/init.d or /etc/rc.d?)
Script location is just a small thing, but a great example of the inconsistencies between distros. Some people may call the script locations “standards”, but the fact remains that a vendor staffer must deal with variety if he needs to instruct customers about how to add something to this script.
The CLI is a good thing. But one of the reasons that GUIs exist is that lots of people (customers) have trouble with the CLI.
And using the CLI doesn’t mean that vendors don’t have to deal with differences among distros. For example, how do you add software with the command line?… the commands may vary depending upon what distro you use. If a vendor determines that you need a different version of some library, he has to know the particular package manager your distro uses to tell you how to install it.
My semantics about standards/conventions may be poor, but the careful observer can identify a huge number of differences between distros… even in the kernel… even at the command line… and that makes support difficult.
quote::Does anyone have any experiences (good or bad) to report on the HP photo printing ability on Linux?
I’ve done a bit of photo printing with HP and Linux (Mandriva 2008.0 and 2008.1), as far as I can tell there are no issues, it just worked for me. I’ve use the GIMP, and some other photo printing tools that are available, but not Hugin, and DigiKam, of course.
A couple of the people I’ve set up with Linux (Mandriva of course) have used the direct printing functionality in some of the PhotoSmart HPs, where you insert the SSD card into the printer. The’ve also used this to “serve” up photos to the computer from the printer, DigiKam recognises the printer as a camera device when the SSD card is inserted.
Just a note about the people I’ve set up with Linux. They are older people mostly 55 +, many of them are in their late 60s, early 70s, two are in their 80s. None of them are particularly technology literate, but all of them have no trouble using Linux (at least the KDE desktoped Mandriva I give them), and in the case of the two ladies that use the PhotoSmart functionality I just described, they worked it our for themselves, and showed me what they could do (being particularly proud of themselves).
@standards:: Most of the “difficulties” you describe standards are furfies.
There are three major control centres on Linux MLCC, YAST, and the GNOME/Ubuntu setup. Editing scripts is entirely unnecessary at level 1 support, and is never offered (or it’s equivelent) at level 1 for Windows users, so there is no necessity to offer it at level 1 for Linux users. Most problems that hit level 1 support can be fixed from the script that the level 1 help desk person reads and follows, level 1 support does not require that the support person be particularly knowledgeable about any OS.
Most of the support issues I deal with for any version of Linux, Mac or Windows, are simple, easily sorted with only a minimum knowledge of the Desktop in question.
tracyanne -
“Most of the support issues I deal with for any version of Linux, Mac or Windows, are simple, easily sorted with only a minimum knowledge of the Desktop in question.”
Ah, well that explains our different opinions.
If you have dealt with a wide range of hardware, well it’s like we’ve lived in a different world. Guess you’ve had no serious problems with Vista either.
Linux users sometimes find it necessary to tinker with the operating system to coax hardware along… and not just with RAID and NAS and WIFI, but even video and sound. It’s not trivial and it’s not uncommon… and it’s no secret as anyone can see it in support forums.
When you must dive deeper, you will find that administrative tools provided by various distros actually vary quite a bit; some distros brag about their superior tools. The underlying system structure does vary, sometimes substantially – you will never ever confuse Puppy with Ubuntu. Yes, kernels do vary too, and sometimes that’s the difference between something working and not working.
The variety is good; we do like having our choices. But the variety makes it unlikely that Linux enthusiasts will enjoy lots of vendor support in the near future. Without vendor support, it’s unlikely that Ubuntu will threaten the status quo.
“Linux users sometimes find it necessary to tinker with the operating system to coax hardware along… and not just with RAID and NAS and WIFI, but even video and sound. It’s not trivial and it’s not uncommon… and it’s no secret as anyone can see it in support forums.”
I’ve had to tinker with Windows to get things to work as well. Especially when Microsoft releases a new version and breaks compatibility.
having to tinker is a fact of life when working with computers. There isn’t a single OS out there right now that works absolutely 100% perfect with all it’s peripherals.
quote::If you have dealt with a wide range of hardware, well it’s like we’ve lived in a different world. Guess you’ve had no serious problems with Vista either.
I never said that there are no serious difficult problems raised by any operating system. Windows is the one that I find has the most serious problems most often. In support terms that means level 2 or even level 3 support.
What I said was that MOST of the support issues I deal with for any version of Linux, Mac or Windows, are simple, easily sorted with only a minimum knowledge of the Desktop in question. That is they are level 1 support issues. The sort of problem that is solved by a help desk person reading from a script, which is precisely what level 1 support does.
When you get to level 2 support you are dealing with people who CAN be flexible, that is they usually know something about different computer systems and are not reading from a script. For example, when I ring my ISP for network support I always ask for level 2 support, they are the ones who CAN understand that my network problems can’t be solved by reading from a script, anything else I’ve checked and or fixed myself.
The point is that MOST problems for any OS can be solved by level 1 people reading from a script, that’s why the issues you raise are furfies.
quote:: Linux users sometimes find it necessary to tinker with the operating system
That’s why I am a Linux user, it’s because I can if I want.
“The point is that MOST problems for any OS can be solved by level 1 people reading from a script…”
I have no reason to take exception to that point. However…
The fact remains that Linux forums are full of people with more serious problems, often problems that hardware vendors will not resolve, often problems that require distro-specific answers. (A person who received instructions on how to use the Mandriva or PCLOS control center to resolve some issue can’t use those instructions verbatim on Fedora.)
Sometimes problems are easy… the sound doesn’t work because the volume needs to be turned on. It appears that these are probably the problems that you deal with. You say that there’s lots of easy problems and I don’t dispute that.
Sometimes problems involve system changes/adjustments. These are the problems that are resolved by people who are familiar with the idiosyncrasies of the distros and the particular administrative tools offered. Here I will rely upon the evidence that I can see in forums, as well as my own experience.
Regardless of how many problems can be resolved with a volume control, the other problems remain.
As aikiwolfie says, problems occur on all operating systems. The issue isn’t that there are more problems with Linux than with some other system. The issue isn’t that there are lots of easy problems. The issue here is that with Linux, problem resolution is often distro-specific, and that makes it less likely that hardware vendors will soon offer the support for Linux that is offered to the current “status quo” computer operating system.
quote::The issue here is that with Linux, problem resolution is often distro-specific, and that makes it less likely that hardware vendors will soon offer the support for Linux that is offered to the current “status quo” computer operating system.
The hardware support “problem” is actually the easiest of all to solve. In fact most hardware vendors already support Linux. Greg Kroah-Hartman has already proved that. The problem here is that most hardware vendors are not taking advantage of the Linux software management system which makes it easy to install the drivers.
The “problem” is easily solvable, because it isn’t actually a Linux problem, yes it has serious repercussions for Linux users, but it is still not actually a Linux problem, and as such even if the manufacturers refuse to use the optimal solution they are still not developing against anything that is distribution specific, they are developing against the one thing that is a constant in every linux distribution… the Linux Kernel.
All they need to do to make the whole hardware “problem” go away is to give the Linux Device driver developers, a group set up by Greg Kroah-Hartmen, full access to the specifications of the devices, They can even insist that the device driver developer sign an NDA (Greg has been working with the FSF and SFLF to develop a legal framework that protects the Hardware manufacurers “precious” IP. Once this happens the hardware manufacurers will get free (that’s Free as in Free beer) development of their drivers by Linux hackers who can develop against the kernel API without the overhead of having to provide “shims” to it possible for the Binary blob to talk to the Kernel.
All it takes is will on the part of the Hardware manufacturers and the “problem” will go away as if it never was, the latest and greatest divice drivers will then be included natively in the Linux kernel.
You are wrong hardware issues are not Distro specific, they are manufacurer specific. It only appears to be distro specific because of the choices the Distribution developers make to work around the issues caused by the manufacturers not taking advantage of the Linux Development model that is freely available for their use.
On the other hand I have installed Mandriva on a lot of different hardware. I currently have Mandriva running on several Lenovos, an Optima Centoris, an Asus, a Toshiba. I’ve installed it on uncounted numbers of White box hardware, Dells, Compaqs and had very few problems, none of which couldn’t be fairly easily sorted. I’ve had very few problems with peripherals like printers, usually finding a driver that will do the job, on the odd occassion that I couldn’t find the right driver, LinuxPrinting.org almost always has the answers. even the damnable BroadComm wireless isn’t that much of a problem.
*Somebody* here said…”I tried Red Hat, Lycoris and SuSE before I tried Mandrake, Mandrake worked on my hardware, and the KDE desktop coupled with the Mandrake Linux Control Centre, was easy to use…”
It appears that there are important enough hardware-related issues, and distros are different enough, that these factors can determine which distros people use and recommend.
*Somebody* here said… “The other thing, I’ve found, is that Ubuntu doesn’t always play nice with the range of hardware that Mandriva does, sometimes it won’t boot, other times it doesn’t seem to detect the Video card properly.
Yet… “… hardware issues are not Distro specific” ???
Visits to Linux forums indicate that there are more than enough hardware problems, and not just with Ubuntu. Careful observers see that there are plenty of people reading many of these forums, and not because they make delightful reading material. They are looking for answers. Yet some people are reluctant to post because they find the attitude of some of the “experts” to be demeaning. (Some of these experts just love to press people’s buttons.)
The evidence suggests that there are more than a few serious problems.
Those who would like Linux to become the “status quo” should be glad that somebody other than the LSB folks are working with them. Because when it comes to universal adoption of Linux standards, evidence of success is mixed, at best.
Hmm, speaking of LSB, it looks like Mandriva 2007 does require additional packages and an optional kernel to be certified LSB… you didn’t know that when you blasted me about standard conventions, did you?… or do you just like to press buttons
“most hardware vendors are not taking advantage of the Linux software management system”.
“THE” system? The variety among distros in this regard is one reason why vendors are reluctant to support Linux, IMO.
This exchange has been interesting for me because I often resist conforming to the status quo. If the Linux community wants to become the status quo, I hope that the effort won’t take a big chunk of fun out of the community.
Good Luck.
quote::*Somebody* here said…”I tried Red Hat, Lycoris and SuSE before I tried Mandrake, Mandrake worked on my hardware, and the KDE desktop coupled with the Mandrake Linux Control Centre, was easy to use…”
That somebody was me, and the year was 2000.
quote::It appears that there are important enough hardware-related issues, and distros are different enough, that these factors can determine which distros people use and recommend.
This is simply FUD, based as always, on old out of date facts.
quote::*Somebody* here said… “The other thing, I’ve found, is that Ubuntu doesn’t always play nice with the range of hardware that Mandriva does, sometimes it won’t boot, other times it doesn’t seem to detect the Video card properly.
Yet… “… hardware issues are not Distro specific” ???
Yes that somebody was me. Indeed they are not, and I’ve already answered this, read the post you are quoting.
quote::“most hardware vendors are not taking advantage of the Linux software management system”.
“THE” system? The variety among distros in this regard is one reason why vendors are reluctant to support Linux, IMO.
For the hardware manufactureers to make use of the Linux distribution sytem requires no work on their part. The work is done by the Linux distributors themselves. It is the Linux distributors who build the packages, and would be doing so for the hardware manufacturers, all they have to do is make the code available exactly the samas every other software developer who’s software is installed from a Linux package management system.
The Vendors don’t have to support any Linux distribution. They choose to do it the hard way, by trying to support various Linux distributions, for them and their customers.
quote::it looks like Mandriva 2007 does require additional packages and an optional kernel to be certified LSB… you didn’t know that when you blasted me about standard conventions, did you?…
Yes, this is a furfie. every Linux distrubtor is free to do what they like with respect to the Kernel. Second it’s only about what device drivers are added to support LSB, it’s a non issue.
With respect to all those suggesting that Level 1 support staff can solve most Windows issues from scripts. This is simply not true. If you are using anything other than WinXP support is extremely poor. Even Vista support is still patchy and anything older is simply not supported at all. Why should a PC user with very limited needs (usually email, web and word processing) be forced to upgrade OS and retire a perfectly good computer simply to receive help from their ISP or whatever. Even when the customer is using XP or Vista if you are not using the expected hardware in terms of ADSL router etc then support is still rubbish.
As a PC support engineer I spend several hours a week doing home visits when telephone support has simply given up and said call a technician. Even Apple support is pretty poor from most ISP’s and when the actual product is sold by anything other than Apple Stores in house help is less than stellar.