Linux distributions

Linux distributions

[Frank Roberts - SOTL]

This is a message I posted on our local Linux bb earler today.

Frank

> Hi All:
>
> The title of this message was Linux distributions. Based on that and my
> current feelings I could not resist in responding.
>
> Last Wednesday at the Tampa meeting one of the strong grues help me with
> installing linux on my laptop. I did not want to loose the Windows setup
> and wanted this as a dual boot machine.  my fear of  the then current set
> up. More on this latter. As I am  poor with names and very good with
> electrical drawings I can not name the person but I do wish to express my
> sincere thanks for the help I received in learning to split a hard drive.
>
> Anyway back to the Linux techie evaluation.
> But! Before I continue there are a number of people who are going to
> violently disagree this  of this evaluation of RH, SuSE, and Mandrake.
> Sorry folks this is my evaluation and my opinion. If you have a different
> one that is your right but this is my evaluation.
>
> The first distribution that was installed was Mandrake 8.2. Now, Mandrake
> Professional is very fine distribution. I had tried it on my desktop test
> CD and found it to be advanced version to the older RH 7.3 but as you
> should have guessed by now there were a few problems. One of which is the
> disk installs and runs fine but it sure messes up the Windows boot loader.
> Well maybe it does; not sure here as I only installed it 5 times. The
> results were I could get Windows to boot or Mandrake to boot but not both.
> There could be a way to make this work; not sure but if there is it is not
> immediate obvious.
>
> Anyway I had a copy of SuSE 8.1 Personal. Now SuSE always install perfectly
> and almost everything always does seem to work. It is the parts that does
> not work that bother me. First, I have no idea of how to make a win modem
> work in SuSE. Yes, I know there are several organizations devoted to
> winmodems and drivers are which readely available but SuSE for all its
> other glories and leading edge programs apparently does not include those
> with the
> distribution. I find this strange as they have the IBM drivers for laptops.
> The computer I am installing this on is a laptop. Nor does SuSE provide a
> means to configure a scanner. I have a small scanner catridge that fits
> into a Cannon portable BJC-85 printer. To me though the major problem with
> SuSE is that I just don't trust them and this goes back to the 5.3 days
> when I spent 6 months trying to install a modem under SuSE finally
> switching to RH and accomplishing the configuration in 15 minutes. Every
> time I would configure SuSe they had some program that would immediately
> change my configuration back to their settings which brings me back to Win
> modems..
>
> Then there is the RH 8.0 distribution that I originally purchased to
> installed on the laptop which has some sort of weird new interface known
> only to RH. I won't express any more of my negative feelings toward this
> distribution on this list. I have pretty well been drained on that score on
> sever other lists but suffice it to say my best comment on this was that
> "RH did a hatchet job on Gnome combined with complete distruction of KDE".
> Major point here is that I feel violated for purchasing such trash.
>
> There are several points to this rambling with all three of these
> distributions playing a far distant second fiddle to RH 7.2 and Mandrake of
> the same ventage. I recall I tried one of Paul's free Mandrake
> distributions and liked it as well as RH 7.2 but not having a full box set
> I stayed with RH. Some are going to question the RH 7.2 over RH 7.3 but
> realize here that I am not speaking of the individual programs but the
> distribution and its stability. The programs can  be upgraded by download.
> RH 7.3 is far too unstable for me. For one thing modem connections freeze
> up for no apparent reason. Kppp was stable in RH 7.2 but it is not in RH
> 7.3. This should have been a tip off to the problems with RH 8.0 and KDE
> since I use Kppp for the modem.
>
> As for attempting to install linux on the laptop. I  quite well. I have
> color visual screen which to most people would look quite acceptable but
> here another problem enters I am  color blind - nothing severe - I just can
> not tell the difference in paster brown, pastel green, and pastel gray.
> Well you can imagine what colors the screen of all three of the latest (RH,
> SuSE, and Mandrake) screen appears in. To me it looks like shit when I am
> being polite. I can not speak for SuSE but this problem did not exist in
> the older RH or Mandrake.
>
> If the screen was all of my discust with these three then the problem would
> be one thing but that in reality only masks the real problems. I can not
> find Kppp. nor usermount, not midnight commander just to name a few minor
> things that have been left out. The distributions have been gutted of many
> highly relevant programs. Folks they just are not there.
>
> As far as I am concerned the only folks that would appreciate RH 8.0, SuSE
> 8.1, and Mandrake 8.2 are folks who think that MS Windows XP is the
> greatest thing since man has invented. These distributions have been dumbed
> down, stupified, and ioditic to such an extent that I sincerely hope that
> there is no one on this list with the exception of the newest of newbies
> who would appreciate them.
>
> The problem is that I find this sad as I know that I am not currently up to
> Debian but that is beginning to look like the only distribution that has
> not been complified idiotified.
>
> As far as my current laptop the situation is exactly what one of my old
> professor friends at USF ask me when I was demonstrating my dual boot
> Windows / Linus laptop to him. What does Linux here (on the laptop) bring
> to the picture besides a lot of un-necessary problems?
>
> Frankly I have no answer to this question as I am highly considering taking
> that trash off my laptop.
>
> Boy, if only I could figure out how to put RH 7.2 on it.
>
> Frank

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Re: Linux distributions

[dashielljt]

Okay, when you buy an operating system in Linux, you buy an operating
system.  Other software is available for download and perhaps more
winmodem stuff ought to have been put on the distributions.  Nonetheless,
linux works lots better with ethernet cards and cable modems than the
older slower modems.  I use slackware 8.0 myself and like it.  For one
thing, when you tell slackware 8.0 to install everything, itdoes exactly
that.  Redhat does not.  You'll find on the redhat CD's packages available
for installation that the distribution doesn't install.  Also, I use
console ext mode only and a speech synthesizer since I'm totally blind and
don't have the colors problem and also don't care what Redhat did with kde
and gnome.  Both of those window managers can probaly be downloaded and
installed but it'll be a matter for disabling the Redhat interface and I
don't know how to do that.  I gave up on Redhat at 7.2 when my computer
got knocked over by a hacker and it was only on a dial up modem too.
Redhat has on a security front closed everything down and what you open
you do at your own risk and hopefully with knowledge of consequences and
precautions needed.  I don't ever expect I'll be using any gui under
linux, it's a work requirement for me to use windows 2000 but this
computer is at home and I don't choose to use any gui stuff on it.

Jude <dashielljt@gmpexpress.net>


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Re: Linux distributions

[Joshua Lee]

On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 07:38:09AM -0500, dashielljt wrote:
> linux works lots better with ethernet cards and cable modems than the
> older slower modems.  I use slackware 8.0 myself and like it.  For one

What do you mean "works lots better"? My system works fine with a
dial-up modem, I just had to make sure not to get one of those winmodems
to work with it. I use a US Robotics "Performance Pro" modem, it was
autodetected by SuSE (which has special braille-screen features on install
from what I understand) and worked fine after a "/dev/MAKEDEV ttyS4" for
Debian 3.0 (The one thing that's tricky about it is that it wants COM5:)
Almost any standard external modem will work as well. (And not require
any ttyS4 port shenanighans.)
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Re: Linux distributions

[dashielljt]

I'm going to talk in terms of redhat since that's what I had used
previously and also in terms of slackware since that's what I use now.
redhat had wvdial included along with a support package for finding dial
up modems.  Slackware has minicom but no additional package built in for
this purpose.  It's true one can download and install ezsetup but again
that's another download.  wvdial requires at least one other package be
installed and set up before it will work and again both are downloads in
the case of slackware but are not in the case of redhat.  I don't know
that wvdial will work on slackware if properly installed since I didn't
get that done.  On the other hand, ethernet is set up by the same program
on slackware and redhat and I suspect other linux versions; ifconfig.
That's because ifconfig has become a standard of sorts.  Standards get
there when things get built into the genes of operating systems.  When
standards don't exist it's because the underlying operating system is
being tried out with different software to see what will work best.

Jude <dashielljt@gmpexpress.net>

On Sun, 17 Nov 2002, Joshua Lee wrote:

> On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 07:38:09AM -0500, dashielljt wrote:
> > linux works lots better with ethernet cards and cable modems than the
> > older slower modems.  I use slackware 8.0 myself and like it.  For one
>
> What do you mean "works lots better"? My system works fine with a
> dial-up modem, I just had to make sure not to get one of those winmodems
> to work with it. I use a US Robotics "Performance Pro" modem, it was
> autodetected by SuSE (which has special braille-screen features on install
> from what I understand) and worked fine after a "/dev/MAKEDEV ttyS4" for
> Debian 3.0 (The one thing that's tricky about it is that it wants COM5:)
> Almost any standard external modem will work as well. (And not require
> any ttyS4 port shenanighans.)
>

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Re: Linux distributions

[Joshua Lee]

On Sun, Nov 17, 2002 at 06:50:35PM -0500, dashielljt wrote:
> I'm going to talk in terms of redhat since that's what I had used
> previously and also in terms of slackware since that's what I use now.
> redhat had wvdial included along with a support package for finding dial
> up modems.  Slackware has minicom but no additional package built in for
> this purpose.  It's true one can download and install ezsetup but again

wvdial is a nice program, but all it does behind the scenes is replace
chat with a better redialing system, and call pppd just like any other
ppp connection.

> that wvdial will work on slackware if properly installed since I didn't
> get that done.  On the other hand, ethernet is set up by the same program
> on slackware and redhat and I suspect other linux versions; ifconfig.
> That's because ifconfig has become a standard of sorts.  Standards get
> there when things get built into the genes of operating systems.  When

This is apples and oranges, wvdial is just a user-friendly dialer. pppd
is what goes on behind the scenes and that is not only standardized,
it's built-in to the Linux kernel.
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