Surprised and Disappointed

[Charles Curley]

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On Mon, May 05, 2003 at 11:05:11AM -0600, Chuck Allison wrote:
> Hello pluglist,
>=20
>   I did a custom install of RedHat 8.0 last week and things went very
>   well, I thought. (I've posted some queries about Samba and Sound
>   Cards, issues I expected to have problems with). Last night when
>   trying to use Mozilla I got all kinds of strange graphics garbage
>   and had to reboot (shades of Windows here). This morning I came to
>   my Linux box and saw a frozen screen saver - I had to cold boot! As
>   a Windows guy, this is just deja vu all over again. Isn't Linux
>   supposed to be more stable than Windows? I usually don't have such
>   problems with Windows installations this early in their life cycle!
>   Should I turn off the screen saver (and how is that done)?

It sounds like you are applying a Windows solution to a Linux
problem. With Windows, the standard response to almost any problem is
to reboot. Both the screen saver and font problem could be X problems,
so try restarting X or shutting it down (C-ALT-backspace). X is a
large program and can lock up. But the underlying OS often keeps right
on chugging along.

You simply don't have to reboot as often with Linux as you do with
Windows. To upgrade or install a compiler on Linux, you reboot zero
times. The last time I installed VC++, I had to reboot three
times. That's just plain offensive.

>=20
>   So far, I don't see the great appeal of Linux, unless one is the
>   type of person who lives for tweaking systems. I use systems as
>   development, teaching, and productivity tools, and would be happy if
>   they would just "work". As a data point, I have a Windows XP box
>   that's been running for 18 months now without a problem (I have
>   never had to reboot because of any error - just to install system
>   updates on occasion), and of course when I add other Windows boxes
>   to my LAN workgroup, they're immediately visible and usable. I'm
>   getting the feeling that the appeal of Linux is mainly just as a
>   server, and not as a development machine or office workstation.
>   These past few days of trying to setup Linux have been mostly
>   frustration. I had a much easier time setting up Solaris networks
>   last time I did UNIX (just a few years ago).

A lot of these sound like typical teething problems, the sort of thing
you know how to handle in Windows (because you are accustomed to it)
but not in Linux (because you aren't accustomed to it).

>=20
>   So why do you like Linux? Just because it's not a Microsoft product?
>   I still can't print to my Windows printer correctly with all the
>   advice I've received from this list and the online Samba guide, and
>   also by reading the RedHat 8.0 Bible.

I use it because I know my way around it, have better access to the
innards than almost any other OS, and because I can get it to do
things Windows simply will not do.

>=20
>   Please don't be offended. I'm really just curious about all this.
>   I'm thinking that since I'm not in the business of maintaining
>   servers, then Linux is probably not worth my time. Productivity is
>   very important to me and I don't want to spend so much time battling
>   against a hard-to-configure system. Does that make sense?

Yes.

>=20
>   If on the other hand there is some great benefit on the other side
>   of all this complexity (other than stability, which my XP box already
>   has), please take a moment and convince me. Thanks.

The typical Linux distribution is a much more powerful environment out
of the box than Windows. E.g. with Windows you have to pay extra for
an office suite or an integrated development environment. Red Hat has
both as part of the package.

Also, Linux gives you standards. E.g.: Microsoft makes no effort to be
ANSI C compliant. gcc is ANSI compliant, or at least tries to be, and
its extensions are supersets of ANSI.

Speaking of not having to reboot for 18 months except for upgrades: I
don't think that figure will impress many folks on this list. I have a
486 here that has been running continuously, except for upgrades, my
vacations (I shut down computers because of concerns about lightening
strikes), and maintenance (I run fsck on the file systems and clean
out /tmp every year or so) for more than four years.

--=20

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