On Thu, Oct 06, 2005 at 10:17:14AM +0200, Emmanuel Charpentier wrote: > I am not a total newbie in using Linux or Debian (I must still have e > set of floppies bearing ham, in the same box where lies my treasured > two-floppies linux 0.12 lies...). Nonwhistanding this experience, I have > to tell that, when I made a very serious effort to install debian-amd64 > on a new shiny laptop, I had the hardest time Debian gave me since the > time some idiot messed with PAM modules in unstable, locking hundreds of > unstable users out of their machines... In detail
Laptops love proprietary hardware. New laptop implies new chips, which of course require a newer than that kernel to support. The kernel in sarge hardly qaulifies for that. > The debian-amd64 netboot disk installs a kernel (2.6.8) that does not > support my hard disk controller, failing back to IDE PIO mode, of all > things ! I had to first install development packages, kernel sources, a > decent editor and recompile and install a new kernel. At PIO rates, I'll > let you guess how much time I needed... Icing on the cake : the old > kernel did not support keyboard properly, and I had to hack something at > boot time. At least you got a fall back to pio mode. Many people don't even get that. > The curent tasksel insists on an X version that does not support my > hardware either (ATI X700). I had no choice but to install XFree, *then* > upgrading to xorg. Hmm, you bought something with an ATI. Well you deserve the trouble that causes then. :) > Then it turned out that my new, shiny kernel did support my touchpad, > but only when unloaded then reloaded. Yent another hack to do (playing > with modules ==> yet another kernel...). Also fixed in a newer kernel. So are many acpi problems. 2.6.8 isn't that good a kernel really, but 2.6.10 (the other option sarge had) had some other worse problems. 2.6.12 looks to be a kernel that would have been great for sarge, had it been around when sarge needed a kernel. > Then, and only then, I hade a useable system ... with no openoffice. I > had to install a chroot and grab a $#-+load of ia32 packages to do that. So openoffice was coded by peopel that didn't code things cleanly. So it doesn't work in 64bit (for 1.x releases that is). So ubuntu does the 32/64bit mix for you, and debian amd64 aims at being a pure 64bit system. Different goal, different result. > All of this took me two days. And require a load of previous Linux and > Debian knowledge. Yet, all of this was deemed as "obvious" by the Debian > Ordained Developers (TM). I wouldn't know, I am not one. It does seem obvious to me that installing software older than your hardware should result in problems. > In contrast, putting an Ubuntu (amd64 5.10 preview) CD in the drive and > installing took me one hour (two to get some fine-tuning working)... The > one thing I had to sweat on was Wine (I still have to read some .mdb > databases, inf*cluding forms and reports) : I had to install a chroot. And what kernel does that version of ubuntu use and when was it released? I suspect the latest testing/unstable installer would work fine too (if it's not one of its broken days). Of course I have heard ubuntu has some very nice laptop support by default that debian doesn't do. > Since I am interested in *USING* a computer (biostatistics and stats > algorithms development + desktop apps overhead), I decided to keep > Ubuntu for the time being... Makes pretty good sense. They can mostly share packages anyhow. > So, while Debian remains my tool of choice, its current amd64 > incarnation *CANNOT* be given to Linux newbies. Ubuntu almost can. i386 would have given you almost exactly the same problems (except OO.o, but that's a different issue). > [ Donning asbestos longjohns... ] > > I'd like to add a general comment on Debian : while it is, IMHO, the > best Free Software distribution available, its useability is somewhat > spoiled by two factors : > - "Die-hard hackers", who seem unable to understand that recompiling a > kernel is *not* something the average end-user (or even the average > engineer more interested in engineering than tuning his tool) will do if > it can be avoided at all... Ditto for xorg.conf hacking, ditto for > cdrecord anomaly, ditto for ... (well, I won't make the list). Does any other distribution include a tool to help you do that (kernel-package)? Does debian tell you you need to compile a new kernel? (No it doesn't). It even has a tool to compile modules from source for your debian provided kernel (module-assistant) or even against your own kernel build should you choose to make one. > - "Holier than Stallman" Free Software bigots, who object at anything > not GPL, unable to understand the value of a temporary compromise... (e. > g. refusing to provide a pointer to libdvdcss in totem or xine docs) > While the latter factor seem to dwindle a bit these days (their latter > effort to have non-free removed from Debian servers seems to have failed > for good), the first one still remains a problem. Not much, I agree, but > those quirks are irritating. Actually many of the debian developers aren't too pleased by the GPL, and especially are worried what the FSF will come up with for GPLv3 given what they did for the documentation license. Debian's main weakness it the infrequent release which mean new hardware is not supported for a long time by stable. Debian's main strength is that is doesn't release a new release very often, so you know your installed system will be supported for years without requireing you to upgrade and retest that the upgraded stuff will run your services without making changes. > [ Off longjohns. Pfew ... ] > > So the point made by T. Steffens seems quite valid to me. I tend to > think that, if something is "insulting", it is the currend usability of > Debian-AMD64 on modern hardware by newbies/end-users/non-hackers... Linux (and bsd and anything else, even windows) always has trouble installing and working on new hardware until you get drivers for that new hardware. Computers have always been that way. This is not a Debian specific problem at all. Ubuntu just happens to think making a new release every x months no matter what is the right idea. For some people that works. For others it would not. Ubuntu also does not try to support 10+ architectures with the same source code, it sticks with the common ones which seriously helps in getting things to work quickly. Again, different goals, different results. I have not personally tried ubuntu, but I have heard good things about it, and I don't tell people not to try it if they want to. I don't usually recomend people to try it either, since I haven't tried it myself so I have no idea what I would be recomending, but I hence also can't discourage it's use since I don't know what it is like. Len Sorensen -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
