On Sunday 14 December 2003 01:33 am, Guy Rouillier wrote: > Before I begin, let me start by saying I am a fan of Linux, so the > points I raise below are from the "converted." Last night I spent an > exasperating 6 hrs struggling with numerous issues. I'll submit them as > bugs if appropriate. I feel these issues (and many more like them) are > impediments to the widespread adoption of Linux as a desktop platform.
Well, based on the rest of what you say, you don't sound very converted to me. <snip> > (2) To connect to some Windows shares, I tried both LinNeighborhood and > Gnomba. LinNeighborhood does a good job of finding resources, and > mounting was as easy as a double-click. But when I selected a mounted > resource and clicked the unmount button, LinNeighborhood crashed. This > is repeatable. You may have processes that have opened files on the share and when you unmount it, some of those processes crash. Could be that LinNeighborhood is one of those processes. One should try to keep in mind that, unlike windows, many applications under Linux are not integrated highly into the kernel and are separate processes. They may not be fully system aware of all of the other processes going on. This is by definition a good thing for security, but may not be the best thing for ease of use. One other factor. Samba is an implementation of Windows networking, which itself is highly insecure and not very stable. Some of the insecurity and instability has been replicated, right along with the functionality. > Gnomba, on the other hand, simply can't locate any > resources. I finally figured out that by providing it an IP address > range, it could then find resources. But obviously it should be able to > do this in normal mode. I finally gave up and just did smbmount2 and > smbumount from a command line. BTW, why can any user do smbmount, but > only root do mount? Doesn't seem to make sense. Because Samba is mimicking windows which is less secure than Linux. Since security is limited with Windows, it is also limited with Samba. Does that make more sense to you? Mount is a Linux command and smbmount is a Samba (Windows) command. One is secure by limiting to root, the other is not by allowing all users access. > (3) I've been trying for a month to connect to a Microsoft VPN server at > work. I gave up trying under 9.1, but decided to give it another go > with 9.2. I finally got it going (by reading for hours and with the > help of some people at work.) But for some reason I have to insmod mppe > every time I restart the computer. I only had to insmod ppp_generic one > time, so I don't know why mppe won't stick. But obviously a less > experienced user would never figure out all this insmoding and other > gyrations I had to go through to get this to work. Well, all you need to do to get that done automatically is put the line in rc.local, or add it to modules.conf. If you think that the process of connecting to a MS VPN server is not friendly with Linux, there are probably a lot of Linux developers that would agree with you. You should direct those issues back to MS who refuse to publish any info about their software and force Windows developers to sign NDA's about their own products. Complaining to open source developers or users about proprietary software issues is preaching to the choir. > And why won't > Mandrake upgrade to PPP 2.4.2? Why don't you just upgrade it yourself? Why do you have to wait for Mandrake to do it? > (4) I have to log onto over a dozen Unix servers at work, and use ssh > via SecureCRT under Win2K. I realize Linux has ssh available in every > terminal, but it's nice not to have to retype [EMAIL PROTECTED] every > time, so I figured I'd give GTelnet a try. It remembers the user name > and server via a drop down list, but it doesn't remember the protocol > for each server, so you have to reselect the protocol every time. This > is a usability irritant and would be easy to fix, but the product hasn't > been updated in ages. I've given up on it and will just type "ssh > [EMAIL PROTECTED]" inside gnome-terminal. Gee, a complaint about a developer who didn't build your requested feature into his free product. Here is an idea. If you want a feature, either pay the developer to add it to his product or add it yourself. However, complaining that someone else didn't do something that you wanted for free is not going to make you any friends in the open source world. > (5) While I was installing GTelnet, I figured I would install a bunch of > other software I've been meaning to install, like Open Office. After it > finished, my menus were completely hosed. Most applications were > missing, including Configuration-Packaging. I started up MenuDrake, and > it showed everything; it was in total disagreement with the real menus. > Don't know how that could be, but all I did was do a Save without > changing anything, and the menus were fixed (except I can't get the > Office menu to show up for root no matter what I try, even though > MenuDrake says its there.) Again, a "normal" end-user wouldn't know > what to do if all his/her menus magically disappeared. Actually, I have to disagree here. A "normal" end-user, provided that he has been conditioned by years of Windows use, would reflexively reboot his computer to see if that fixed the problem. It would have done so, and if you had done the same thing, your menus would have been corrected. The fact that you found a solution that didn't require a reboot only shows that Linux is superior, especially when you are not the "normal" end-user, but a normal windows user would have had no problem moving along with the standard windows solution. > (6) I use Mozilla Thunderbird and Firebird for IMAP mail and web > browsing, respectively. URLs don't work in Thunderbird; they show as > URLs, but if you click them, nothing happens. This issue has been known > for at least 6 months. Thunderbird in Windows works just fine. I don't use this product so I can't comment on this one, however, I would regard such a feature to be an improvement myself since automatically executing anything, including a URL, is a security issue in my book. > (8) Actually, the Windows GUI is much more responsive than Gnome under > 9.2. I have old, slow hardware (dual Pentium 233 MMX), will be > upgrading to dual Opteron soon. But dragging a window around, e.g., > under Linux leaves trails for about 1/2 to 1 second. Under Windows, > dragging is pretty smooth, and never leaves trails. One of the things that should be kept in mind when comparing Linux to Windows is that Linux is a true multi-tasking and multi-user OS. Windows is NOT. Windows can devote maximum resources to active tasks and the GUI because it doesn't have to worry about other processes/users that are running. Linux needs to devote resources based on its assessment of what each process needs. Thus, the GUI may not get a maximum amount of resources because Linux is providing attention to the mail server, ftp server, NFS server, Samba, etc. If you really want a responsive desktop client, simply remove all of the other server software from your system and create a small footprint client machine and you will see a vast improvement. > Lest I come off as a complainer, many things under Linux are done very > well. rdesktop is really slick - looks great, faster than Remote > Desktop under Windows. gCVS is a great first attempt, though it's > missing some basics (like context menus) and hasn't been updated since > v1.0 came out in January. gFtp is also well done. But unfortunately > the fit and finish on many things is wanting, and those less zealous > than the people on this list will find Linux as a desktop frequently > exasperating. Well, my personal peeve is thus, if you like Windows, then use Windows. If you like Linux, then don't complain that Linux is not Windows. If you want an OS that gives you all the things that you like in Windows but is free like Linux, then build it. I don't personally have the money to do that, so I don't complain that someone else hasn't done it for me. -- Bryan Phinney Software Test Engineer
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