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Terry Hill wrote: >>> I've been using xp for years now, and apart from it's increasing >>> flakiness and susceptibility to viruses, and of course that it's >>> distributed by a megalomaniac corporate entity with the moral fibre of >>> a cuckoo, I know how to make it work. Generally by plugging things in >>> and turning it on, occasionally sticking a driver disk into a drive. >>> >> Do you *really* know how to make it work? I don't know your background >> so I cannot comment on you personally, but I do know that Windows is >> actually a helluva lot more complex than many people give it credit for >> (frequently unnecessarily complex, but complex none the less) and there >> are a helluva lot of people who think they know how to make it work. >> > > I grew up on 8 bit machine code, cut my industry teeth on AS400's and > have about 23 years in IT altogether now. I'm still no expert on the > inner mechanisms of windows systems having spent a lot of my time in > front end design for media, but I'm not often beaten when people say > "my windows is insane". A rootkit beat me hands down a few years back > though, and even examining hive data, editing the registry (via > back|track on a usb key) and deleting the virus manually didn't get > rid of it. It was back within a minute of booting. > > >>> Case in point: I just gave Fedora a shot. Live CD works fine, >>> installed and the mouse doesn't work. Rebooted to the live CD, mouse >>> works fine, went back to install, now it doesn't. Doesn't exactly >>> instill confidence does it? Still things get better all the time and >>> Linux goes from strength to strength. Perhaps it's the little touches >>> like not having to arse around to get a bog standard usb mouse working >>> that will make the difference rather than the next killer filesystem >>> though. >>> >> The question is: do you lay the blame for this at Linux's feet, at >> Fedora/RedHat's feet or at the manufacturer of the hardware. I can't >> tell you how much it cheeses me off to hear people claiming that >> Windows supports more hardware because 'it just works' when frequently >> it doesn't bloody work unless you install the drivers that the >> manufacturer supplied. >> > > You're quite right, manufacturers are the key to success in Linux. > Unfortunately they don't seem that interested in providing drivers for > 'nix systems. We need more users to convince them it's a worthwhile > investment, and it's the politics of open source perhaps that will > attract more. > > >> Fair enough, a 'standard' USB mouse should most >> likely not cause problems for most recent systems. >> > > Indeed. > > >> Do not be under the misguided impression that it is just Linux that >> suffers from "it just stopped working" problems, and it is not always >> evident what has caused the issue. Case point - at a previous >> employment, on of my bosses had a MacBook Air. Now this, he claimed, >> should work with any and all wireless network because "it was designed >> for wireless... it's really thin and light" (I know... I know). It >> would seem, however, that the version of Mac OS X that was running on >> his MacBook had a known issue... if the name of the computer is too >> long, it will sporadically disconnect from both WEP and WPA secured >> wireless networks. Now this guy's name was fairly long, and OS X (by >> default) names your computer along the lines of "XXXX's MacBook Air". >> > > Of course I'm not, I've seen my fair share of weirdness and found > solutions (or people that can) for them - again I was talking about > *my* ability to make a difference to the problem I was having, and as > I didn't have a clue where to even start looking, I thought I'd better > find another solution (reaching for the cd burner). I did try poking > about with a stick in the ndiswrapper area, but it all looked like it > was doing the right thing to my inexperienced eye. > > I'm guilty of making a frustrated and flippant comment about distro > fatigue I guess, which has resulted in a swift (and deserved) telling > off which I accept. > > Thin and light.... :D > > if you cut all the flippant comments out of lists like these, it would be a lot less fun to follow them, so less people would, making them less useful. You have put a great deal of work in to this and i hope you get it all sorted soon, as you say the more linux users there are the better for all of us. There seems to be a growing tension between ubuntu for the computer illiterate and the hard core linux hands. like a western, where when the railroad arrives all the pioneers move on. We want the drivers etc which will only come from a mass takeup, but resent our place on the edge becomming more mainstream maybe. -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG http://mailman.dclug.org.uk/listinfo/list FAQ: http://www.dcglug.org.uk/linux_adm/list-faq.html