On Wed, Jul 18, 2007 at 11:37:38PM -0400, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> On Tuesday 17 July 2007 09:29:38 Alan Mackenzie wrote:
> > On Tue, Jul 17, 2007 at 04:41:39AM -0400, Matthew Harrison wrote:
[ .... ]
> > Upgrading software really isn't fun. Downloading it, unpacking it,
> > ./configure; make; make install, yes, that can take less than an
> > hour. Or sometimes it hits incompatibility bugs ("can't find
> > iplv6.h"). Then the fun really starts.
[ .... ]
> > So I tend not to upgrade software as such. Unless something is
> > really badly broken, I don't try to fix it. Being without the help
> > file counts as broken here. (BTW, would somebody, please, PRETTY
> > PLEASE, tell me the name of the file I need?) Things get upgraded
> > when I install a new version of GNU/Linux.
> You are a very stubborn person.
That's an unkind thing to say, and quite uncalled for. The fact is, my
experience of things is different from others', perhaps my needs are
different too. So I get disparagement. I really don't need this,
particularly after taking such great care to specify my environment
precisely in my opening post.
> Upgrade to a much newer system with all the newer more automated
> features .....
I downloaded Ubuntu 7.04 yesterday, burnt it onto a DVD and booted,
live-DVD style. It was impressive: it even managed to find my Ethernet
card and set up an internet connection through my router, probably with
DHCP. Not sure what it was using as a name server, but what the heck.
However, although it recognised my Matrox video card, it booted up in
800 x 600 at 60Hz, which is too coarse a resolution and flickers
horribly on my 17" CRT monitor. I found the screen adjustment thingy,
and the only alternatives it presented me were 640 x 480 and 56 Hz.
Yuck!
I eventually found out how to start the installation (although this
doesn't seem to be documented). It started by opening a large window
asking me to select a language. English is just fine. So now I want to
click on the "OK" button. What "OK" button? The window is larger than
my screen, so presumably this button (and some sort of "cancel") are
down off the bottom of the screen somewhere. No problem, just make the
window smaller. Err... can't. The fine Ubuntu engineers seem to have
disabled this feature, perhaps because it "might confuse people". Just
hit <CR> and hope? That might work, up till the point where the answer
is more complicated than OK/Cancel or the question hidden at the bottom
of the screen is "Repartition your hard drive?" - I'd really rather not.
So I'm stuck.
[Incidentally, I had to give up here, and when I clicked the button,
Ubuntu asked me "Abort the installation now?", giving me the two options
"quit" and "cancel". Wonderful ;-( Like Iain Paisley (the formerly
bigotted Northern Ireland politician), they seem to have trouble using
the "yes" word.]
> .... and all that pita stuff you talked about will go away.
Really? I haven't got past first base with the Ubuntu installation, and
I'm already stumped. I'm faced with many hours drudgery registering
with support forums or googling the web, or whatever. Please note, I'm
not saying any of these things are difficult - they're just an infinite
time-sink and mind-numbingly tedious. If they were the only problems I'd
have to work around, I'd just slog through them. Chances are, though,
I'll get hit by another 5 to 20 such "simple little" problems.
Here's a challenge to you: specify a GNU/Linux distribution to me that I
can download and straightforwardly install - only routine questions to
answer - no gotchas, no "oh, that won't work on _your_ hardware I'm
afraid, _sir_". That is, it will recognise my video card and mouse and
set up my X-Windows properly, recognise my Ethernet connection and hook
up to my router, set up my Printer (it's on the parallel port, by the
way), leaving me all the customary virtual terminal stuff. My PC is 6
years old, has a 1.2 GHz Athlon and 768 Mb of RAM on an EP-8K7A+
motherboard, and only bog-standard hardware expect for my hard drives
being at /dev/hd[gh], hanging off a bolt-on UDMA100 IDE chip on the PCA
bus. Distributions which have patent agreements with Microsoft are out,
by the way. I doubt you can.
I think I'd rather install GNU/Linux on a PC than wade bare footed
through raw sewage, but since I've never tried the latter I can't be
sure.
Funny thing is, all the people I know personally who've managed to get
GNU/Linux running (and they are few) have had similar experiences.
Rather more have tried and simply given up. All of these people bar one
have been professional software engineers. It only seems to be people
writing on blogs and posting in mailing lists who effuse enthusiastically
on what a straightforward joyful process it is. I suspect there's a lot
of "Emperor's new clothes" about.
Just to be clear, I'm not asking this list for help on Ubuntu, since
we're already well off topic for the list. Sooner or later I will have
to go through the motions again and install a current GNU/Linux. But I'm
not going to enjoy it.
--
Alan Mackenzie (Ittersbach, Germany).
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