debian rant

[robinsonb5]

(B) everybody who might've been able to help telling me I was wrong for wanting it back

Amen! This "You're wrong for wanting that" attitude is *really* annoying. It goes back further than gnome 3, too - there are examples of it in Gnome 2 as well.

Even something as simple as modifying raise-on-click behaviour - as an old Amigan, I still prefer the Amiga-esque window behaviour of windows that pop to the front unless I specifically ask them to.

Metacity has the code in place to support that option, but it was deliberately hobbled to work only in focus-follows-mouse mode. Here's part of the help text from the relevant gconf key:
"If you are an application developer and have a user complaining that your application does not work with this setting disabled, tell them it is _their_ fault for breaking their window manager and that they need to change this option back to true or live with the "bug" they requested."

That charming little message has been there years.

Oh, and with all the changes Gnome 3 makes, they *still* haven't fixed the "raise-on-click-is-immediate-making-drag-and-drop-next-to-useless" problem.

 

[Hell_Labs]

GNOME 3 changes a lot of things around on the assumption that having a unified interface for desktop PCs and tablets must be a good idea because Apple is doing it.

That's the thing though, apple aren't. iOS and OSX user interface are totally different.

Seems everyone's ignored apple when they said "touch screen on desktops is bad, mouse on tablet is bad, we're only bringing a few iOS features to the desktop". You can't blame rubbish like gnome3/unity/windows8 on apple. Not really their fault that the people getting "inspired" by them miss the point.

 

[commodorejohn]

That's the thing though, apple aren't. iOS and OSX user interface are totally different.

Seems everyone's ignored apple when they said "touch screen on desktops is bad, mouse on tablet is bad, we're only bringing a few iOS features to the desktop". You can't blame rubbish like gnome3/unity/windows8 on apple. Not really their fault that the people getting "inspired" by them miss the point.

I didn't mean Apple was doing that (that's what I hear about Lion, but I don't use it so I dunno,) just that that's obviously the line of thinking behind GNOME 3.

 

[Hell_Labs]

Yeah, that's what I mean. They're playing follow the leader (apple) except they missed.

 

[Powerpie5000]

I personally can't be bothered with Linux (i was using Ubuntu 11.10 on my netbook and thought it was crap!)... Too much messing around trying to find working drivers and a pain compiling and installing them using command lines (it's not the 80's or early 90's anymore :roll.

Linux is good for a freebie and is only for people who have the time and patience to properly use it, but these days i prefer a simpler and more user friendly approach to installing drivers and running various software... Lots of exposure to Windows does this to a person (GUI's can make people lazy ).

 

[cosmicfrog]

hummm what I don`t understand is trying to use the latestest version of somerthing when u know an old version works, sure u need to test new versions n see wot they are like

 

[Hewitson]

It is not exactly difficult to recompile the kernel with the drivers you need... I agree that Debian is a poor distribution but I feel you are being unfair with your comments. Why not learn how to fix the problem instead of complaining about it?

 

[Witcher1979]

It is not exactly difficult to recompile the kernel with the drivers you need... I agree that Debian is a poor distribution but I feel you are being unfair with your comments. Why not learn how to fix the problem instead of complaining about it?

This to me is what linux is all about, it is fun learning how to use and fix it. People have a right to moan though as they are advertised as complete working desktops. They are not that out of the box at all, the user needs to do a lot of work to make it as advertised.

 

[robinsonb5]

This to me is what linux is all about, it is fun learning how to use and fix it. People have a right to moan though as they are advertised as complete working desktops. They are not that out of the box at all, the user needs to do a lot of work to make it as advertised.

The thing is, a lot of us have watched over the last five years or so as each released version gets closer and closer to being that fabled complete working desktop - and suddenly, just as we thought it was nearly there, it's gone scampering off into the distance again, distracted by pointless shiny.

The zealotry is a big part of the problem, too - sure it would be *nice* if all the drivers were open-source - but don't deliberately put obstacles in my way, if a closed-source driver fits my needs better!

 

[Wolfy]

Ubuntu was starting to look awsome IMO, I liked the whole "social desktop" idea, then yeah, *POOF* it all dissapears

 

[commodorejohn]

It is not exactly difficult to recompile the kernel with the drivers you need... I agree that Debian is a poor distribution but I feel you are being unfair with your comments. Why not learn how to fix the problem instead of complaining about it?

It's not difficult for you or me, who already have some of the skills necessary, to recompile the kernel - but good God, you can't just have that be the one true solution to everything! The user shouldn't be expected to be a programmer, or you'll wind up restricting the userbase to programmers (as is basically the case now.) And even some of us savvier people don't really want to spend hours recompiling! I'd just like the damn thing to work, you know?

 

[jvdbossc]

It is not exactly difficult to recompile the kernel with the drivers you need... I agree that Debian is a poor distribution but I feel you are being unfair with your comments. Why not learn how to fix the problem instead of complaining about it?

It's not difficult for you or me, who already have some of the skills necessary, to recompile the kernel - but good God, you can't just have that be the one true solution to everything! The user shouldn't be expected to be a programmer, or you'll wind up restricting the userbase to programmers (as is basically the case now.) And even some of us savvier people don't really want to spend hours recompiling! I'd just like the damn thing to work, you know?

Plan the hardware for the software.. I honestly do not figure this:

Using an amiga with restricted hardware is a + but selecting some cheap hardware on a chipset selection criteria is a problem... As usual you need to do some work to get good results.. But if you select it you do not need to be a programmer trust me! Be sure what chipsets you have, buy more expensive epson models (scanners, printers) etc.. It will ALL WORK WITHOUT PROBLEMS FOR YEARS TO COME.

 

[commodorejohn]

Plan the hardware for the software.. I honestly do not figure this:

Using an amiga with restricted hardware is a + but selecting some cheap hardware on a chipset selection criteria is a problem... As usual you need to do some work to get good results.. But if you select it you do not need to be a programmer trust me! Be sure what chipsets you have, buy more expensive epson models (scanners, printers) etc.. It will ALL WORK WITHOUT PROBLEMS FOR YEARS TO COME.

But that's the thing - I don't want to have to arrange everything in my computing ecosystem around the question of what Linux is or isn't happy with. I buy hardware on the basis of what the best price/build quality is on a machine that meets my needs specs-wise, not on the basis of whether a distro maintainer felt the need to compile support for it into the kernel in the default distribution or not, and I use a machine until it reaches the end of its natural life; buying a new machine for the purpose of getting into a different operating system is not something I'm going to do.

I understand that sometimes there's restrictions from some external cause (i.e. nVidia won't give out the necessary information to construct good open-source drivers,) but overall I just should not have to hassle with this sort of thing, at all. It's just another form of the "well you're wrong for wanting that" argument. The operating system is supposed to serve the needs of the user, not the other way around, and a lot of times it feels like Linux people really just don't get that.

 

[cardboardboxer]

EDIT

 

[Zamza]

Debian's reputation alone has kept me from ever going it. Which is their loss because I'm totally awesome you know!

Ubuntu is enough for me, mostly because the size of the install base means many common problems are already identified and addressed with older hardware/distros.

All operating systems are just necessary evils and means-to-an-end to me. I love what they ultimately enable me to do, but along the way I find myself asking "Is someone taking the ****?" far too often.

 

[ratfink]

Have any of you tried Linux Mint?

http://www.linuxmint.com/index.php

It seems to come in a few flavours (KDE, Debian and Mint 12) and although I haven't tried it yet, I know a few people who have and they haven't ranted about it being pants, so it may be worth a punt.

It's Unbuntu underneath.

Actually Mint is not based on Ubuntu anymore sir, hence why it is probs good now

Just installed mintppc on my iMac G3 slot-load. Apart from the fact that version 11 showed nothing on screen [to be fair, not based on a stable Debian] so I had to go back to 9.3 [which is the stable release], it's been really good. At least, it works and there are no driver issues (yet ) and it seems really fast though I've only done some web-browsing.

 

[woodycool]

What's everybody's beef with Ubuntu? I use Ubuntu and really like it ..... well, I do have one complaint, and that's the new default shell, I cannot stand that Unity shell, much prefer the Gnome 2 shell. For this reason, I've stuck with Ubuntu 10.04 LTS as I don't like KDE at all, XFCE and LXDE both seem a bit too basic for me, although when I eventually go to 12.04 LTS (the latest) I will probably go either XFCE or LXDE (Xubuntu or Lubuntu).

 

[ptyerman]

Have been using Bodhi Linux since September last year. It uses the Ubuntu base with the E17 desktop. I hate Ubuntu with a passion but Bodhi does a good job of it. I also use BeOS Max on old hardware, it's a joy to use and it really flies even on a original Pentium. Be great when Haiku hits its final release, who needs Linux and all its zealots?

 

[moijk]

I'll stick with RedHat Fedora. I cannot stand Ubuntu or Debian. Absolutely loathe the both of 'em.

:nuts: I can't stand RedHat / Fedora. I prefer Ubunutu or Debian (I wonder if this boils down to personal perferences)

I've only run debian and later ubuntu for twelve years, so I might not be as experienced. and it has become my second os of choice now (primary is os x) but still. I can't stand any other distro because they doesn't feel familiar.

 

[imaga_050]

All this talk of Linux distros, and i can't believe noone has mentioned Slackware, been using it since the dawn of linux, and i can't stand any other distro, and i've tried lots of them.
It's just that it feels like "pure" Linux to me. All the other distros have their special way of going about things and won't let you get under the surface like slacky does.
Well the dependendacies that's another story but i like to keep my installation light and minimal so it really doesn't bother me.