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Journal tomhudson's Journal: Dumping 4 sisters, dumping linux ... it's about the same ... 20

Journal by tomhudson

Update: The latest linux update has also rendered the Windows drive unbootable. Way to go, hero!

After more than a decade of 4 of my 5 sisters games, lies, and stupidities, I let them know a couple of days ago that if anyone asks, we're not related, I don't know them, have a nice life. My daughters feel the same way - we're just tired of it all.

It's the same with linux. I've been increasingly dissatisfied with the lack of a coherent strategy, the bugginess of every single desktop, the constant breakage on updates, so when the latest update left my laptop unable to boot linux, and I had to boot into Windows to download and burn an install dvd, I guess I was primed.

After a fresh install, my email is gone (good thing I have a backup), my dvd is gone, my linux printer is STILL not supported, dual-monitor support is AWOL (not even an option to configure it), wireless is still MIA, just like it has been for most of the last 2 years after an update killed it, and the "we'll pause for 10-20 seconds every few minutes for no reason just to do nothing" while top shows minimal cpu use bug is still there.

I *was* going to migrate to FreeBSD, but why bother? If I need a *nix in the future, I'll run it off a thumb drive.

After more than 15 years, linux is still, in so many ways, behind even Win95 on the desktop. That's just messed up.

I'm just cleaning off my 16-gig thumb drive so that I can reformat it so that Windows can see it, then I'm going to do the "copy files to thumb drive, reboot into windows, copy files, reboot into linux" thing a half-dozen times, then delete all the partitions and "embrace the dark side".

This last 24 hours is just full of disappointments, but I guess that's the reality of it. Whether it's my sisters or linux, I don't feel as bad about it as I thought I would. I'm in a sense relieved - it's over!

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Dumping 4 sisters, dumping linux ... it's about the same ... More

Dumping 4 sisters, dumping linux ... it's about the same ...

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  • "Life, loathe it or ignore it, you can't like it."
    -- Marvin, the Paranoid Android

  • I don't have the Linux problems you report when I run Kubuntu on my laptop or desktop. WiFi works right on my laptop, and dual monitor support - even with two very different size monitors (one is 19" 4:3, the other is 23" wide) - works just fine on my desktop. Printing is handled by CUPS, although I have no local printers so if you're trying to setup parallel or USB printing I have no experience there. But everything I have needed has worked fine for me in this so far.

    I went to Kubuntu after using Free
    • CUPS won't support my scanner/printer, so that's out. And I'd still have to reboot for compatibility testing, so why bother? Just to run linux? I've spent more time running linux in the last 15 years than I have Windows, and most of the last decade was months without looking at anything from Redmond, but I'm just tired of all the breakage.

      I've used Ubuntu, Kubuntu, and Xubuntu, and they all had issues. They could be the next best thing to sliced bread today, but I'm just no longer willing to go throug

      • CUPS won't support my scanner/printer, so that's out

        I'm pretty sure there is another way to setup a printer in Linux than CUPS, I just haven't had a need for it. Out of curiosity what scanner/printer are you using that isn't supported? CUPS even supports windows printer drivers for many printers now...

        And I'd still have to reboot for compatibility testing, so why bother? Just to run linux?

        You could run a VM inside Linux that runs Windows. Then you can do your compatibility testing without having to worry about your compatibility testing taking down your entire system.

        but I'm just no longer willing to go through yet another install, just to find out 6 months down the road that something is broken again

        You might be doing it wrong here. Nobody forces you to upgrade your OS,

        • The booting problem was a grub idiocy - it doesn't properly enumerate the drives when I had an unpartitioned USB key plugged in ... linux mounts as /dev/sda1 thru 4 AFTER swapping the real /hd0 and /hd1, and windows as /dev/sdb1 and 2, and the usb key was /dev/sdc - and the bootloader was looking for /dev/sdb1, like it should, but trying to mount the key instead. That's a bug, not a feature, and it would cause most users to have a haemorrhage.

          It reminds me of how I used to use a hex editor to modify the

          • The booting problem was a grub idiocy - it doesn't properly enumerate the drives when I had an unpartitioned USB key plugged in

            I'm not sure that is really idiocy. Can you provide a good reason to boot your computer with an unpartitioned USB drive plugged in? It doesn't seem like a very useful situation to me. Perhaps an error message saying "hey dumbass you have a USB drive plugged in that can't be booted" might be useful?

            Granted, the drives should be numerated in a more logical manner, such that hot-plug devices such as USB would start at high enough numbers as to never disturb the others, but that is a different matter.

            • When the enumeration fails to get complete partition info, it just overwrites the last "good entry" in the list. To me, that's a bug. Also, I can think of several reasons to leave an unpartitioned USB drive plugged in ... maybe you're using it as raw storage w/o a filesystem (it's done all the time in some "big iron" database setups, for example).

              Since I already downloaded the BSD dvd, I'll probably install it. I kind of miss the demon :-)

              • Also, I can think of several reasons to leave an unpartitioned USB drive plugged in ... maybe you're using it as raw storage w/o a filesystem (it's done all the time in some "big iron" database setups, for example).

                I don't think many users have that need. I would be inclined to say that >90% of all USB drives are used to sneakernet files around and their owners would not be inclined to set them up as bootable drives. However because a fair number of people do have occasional needs to boot off of external optical drives, the USB device remains in the boot list.

                I could see this causing lots of head-scratching, though I'd bet that it's dependent on each individuals' setup, so most users probably won't notice.

                I don't think many users would intentionally leave a USB drive connected to their system when rebooting. And since the most used ports on most desktop sy

            • Repeated, this time with a properly partitioned and formatted USB key, with the same results - the drive enumerator code overwrites the last entry with the USB key device info and tries to boot off the last device in the list as the 2nd device ...

              I could see this causing lots of head-scratching, though I'd bet that it's dependent on each individuals' setup, so most users probably won't notice.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by pnutjam ( 523990 )
        I find Linux very valuable, but not as a primary desktop. I use a windows desktop, with a nearby always on linux "server" running headless. I can pull up a linux desktop with NX, or just a SSH session. My kids and wife do use linux as a primary OS, but they are only using web and word processor. I have a Windows game PC the kids share.

        My linux server does my torrents, my file share, remote network access, etc... All these things work much better on linux.

  • on vacation, so see $subject and connect the dots yourself

    • Thanks for the thought. My first beef is with the latest iteration of KDE, so kubuntu isn't an option. They're really breaking modularity, and there is no way that it's maintainable in the medium term. KMail has really messed up with the whole "multiple daemons" thing and that's the shape of the K future, bloated, easily broken ... as happened with 8 years of mail yesterday. I'd be really cheesed off if I didn't have backups.

      LXDE ... suse managed to mess that up.

      Gnome? Uninstalling tracker (indexin

      • Yes, I agree... It's the PRIME issue with Linux Desktop Environments... Creating new stuff, while dropping the old stuff as "unsupported", when it's not needed and then expecting people to like it. Windows has this too. Look at the completely braindead and unneeded changes from 2000, the perfect desktop, to XP, to Vista to 7. (Mac OS X Snow Leopard -> Lion also has hints of this. One of the reasons why I didn't upgrade the wifes machine. The UI changes would confuse her)

        I know that people will just

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by pnutjam ( 523990 )
          Have you managed to enable file extension views? I workaround with explorere++, but it's gotta be possible!
          • Yes, it's in the same dialog it has always been. It's just another way to access it. I have not got 7, so I can't tell you. The rare times I work on 7 is when I support family or friends. If you've got a Windows Explorer open, it's under the first menu item. Sorry, I'm sure Google will tell you: Yup... [microsoft.com]

        • Fortunately, I don't have to move to 7. For all the joking about Vista, it's pretty usable now that it's had several years of patching. Maybe it's because I don't actually use it, and once I *do* start to use it, it'll cruftify, but there will never be a decent linux desktop, but it was okay last year when I spent a week doing flash stuff ... just had to install the uniform server [uniformserver.com] to have a decent web server to test with.

          • From what I gather Vista has exactly the same annoyances as 7. So, really, no big argument.
            • I'm finding that it's not nearly as bad as when I bought my laptop. Everything I have "just works", unlike in Linux. I can even plug in and unplug secondary screens on the go, and it will not only auto-configure, but remember that when I have a secondary screen, make it the primary display device.

              Linux? No such luck - I have to use a script to copy the dual configuration or the single configuration over the xorg.conf file, then ctrl-alt-bksp to restart the server. Considering that even Windows9x was a

        • ...there is a hotkey to show them temporary...

          Just make a doskey macro inside a command window shortcut on your desktop. It'll make you feel all nostalgic and stuff...

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