Re: Given Up on Linux1

From: Mike Bothwell (mbothwel_at_swbell.net)
Date: 04/14/04 

Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 04:34:07 GMT

Jubei wrote:
(my suggestions you appeared to
> completely ignore and not respond to, did you even try them?).

Yes I did answer your question, I did not ignore it, I bookmarked your
recommended pages and told you I would attempt it again in the future.
Once I had done enough work and investigated the existing bug reports on
this 440 MB, I might be positive enough to report another bug that could
be fixed.

>
> The second you have a lover's tiff with one or two in the group you
> start tarring us all with the same brush. Things seem to quieten down
> then you go and post a pointless thread like this one.

Because it was not pointless. It was an opinion, my opinion, and NO ONE
here is capable of accepting another person's opinion when it offends you.

>and try to goad people into flamewars. Why? If you are so mature
> and have better things to do with your time, how come you persist in
> trying to engage arguments here?

Because it's easy.

>
> I've encountered lots of people like you throughout my career. You're
> the type I used to get on the phone years ago when I worked helpdesk.
> When trying to explain something simple to you, you feel belittled and
> feel the need to state "I've been in computing for fifteen years,
> dealt with thousands of computers, you should be lucky I'm even
> lowering myself to speak to you, blah blah" to find out the person on
> the phone can't even tell the difference between the left and right
> mouse buttons.

I haven't called a helpdesk since 1996 because they could never help in
the level of questions I was asking. And no, you are incorrect, in my
original post which you seem to have missed, I clearly stated I was a
newbie to Linux. But there had not been a windows problem in 12 years I
could not fix. And believe it or not, I have dealt with that many
computers. I was building batch and ASCII files so people could use dos
in 1991 and macros so people could use Excel in 1993. If I talked to
you on the help desk phone prior to you in 1996, I probaly asked for the
second level of help.

>
> Yes people react out of frustration, I've done it myself. I have
> always kept the level headedness though that I am but one person and
> am incapable of knowing everything, therefore if something doesn't
> work with a well written, well bug tested, well supported operating
> system, there might, JUST MIGHT, be something that -I- missed and what
> do you know? Usually there is something -I- missed.

I learn something new every time I fix someone's computer or network for
them. You shouldn't stop learning until the day you die.

> Software has bugs. Its in the nature of software to have bugs.
> Whether the software is written by one person, a team of people or
> hundreds/thousands of contributors, it is going to have bugs. There
> are two things you can do about this. One: Report the bug and wait
> for a fix. Two: Rant and rave and give up. I tell you what though,
> next time you encounter a bug in Windows, try and report it, and see
> how long before it gets fixed, see how long it is before you even get
> a response sent to you personally from Microsoft, without spending a
> penny of your money. You'll be waiting a long time.

I chose option two, I ranted, raved and gave up on the 440 box, took
another box out and installed Fedora without a hitch (this box). I have
never called microsoft. I can't stand microsoft's effort at technical
support and loathe the philosophy they have adopted for charging for
support, just like every other computer manufacturer. But I can resolve
EVERY problem in Windows by either working around it, or using their
knowledge base, and it's a pretty good knowledge base. My workaround
for this problem in Linux Fedora was to give up on the 440 and use
another box. I am a newbie and am not yet qualified to report bugs.

> Linux is community driven. Its roots are based upon free software and
> the people who use it pulling together to make it better, regardless
> of the distribution. Linux encourages competition, even within
> itself, that's obvious from the number of distributions that there are
> available. It is a matter of pride for a distro to have a lot of
> users, more users than another distro, and have that user base happy.
> Reported bugs get fixed.

Then people should be interested in why Fedora made someone rant and rav
so they could understand what the problem was and fix it for the matter
of pride and success. And that might even include asking questions
instead of smarting off with remarks like sybrens which actually started
this whole thing, regardless of what people believe. Follow the threads
all the way back to my first which was not under this thread. There
were three threads. Two were unanswered.

>
> So what if Windows booted fine on the hardware that you had problems
> with under Fedora Core 1? Its well documented that Fedora is very new
> and highly experimental. If you were half the IT expert you claim to
> be, you should know that research goes into the decision of which
> software to use on your hardware platform. Assumption is the mother
> of all *** ups. I've seen and experienced many more annoying
> limitations of Windows that simply don't exist in Linux. At least
> with Linux limitations I know that if they're not already being worked
> on, they will be soon.

And that is exactly why I chose to give up on the 440 and go to another
box, without the help or advice from any expert on this group.

>
> This newsgroup and others like it is run and responded to by people in
> their spare time out of the goodness of their hearts. You're not the
> first person they've seen make assumptions,

No assumptions were made.

> You came with no revelations that Linux has bugs.

wrong

>It was not news
> that you came from a Windows background and find that Windows works on
> more obtuse hardware. (Before you argue that an L440GX based
> motherboard is not obtuse, compare the number of those in circulation
> to the number of 440BX, 850, VIAKT266/333/400, nforce or AMD based
> motherboards in circulation).

I think you should do that research. The L440GX was the box most used
by VA LINUX (whom I know went out of business, my brother in law worked
for them). It's hard to believe a corporation decided to use an obtuse
MB and sold so many that are still in use today running Linux servers
all over the country.

> assumptions/make false accusations/shout pro Windows in these pro
> Linux newsgroups are treated.

Never shouted pro-windows. I have cussed at windows far more than
Linux. When people tell me it sucks, I agree. Why? Because it does.

> Yes people like Dan C can get a bit heated, I've picked him up for it
> myself. He still tries to help, he just has a little less patience
> than some. So? This is a newsgroup he provides his free time and
> expertise to.

You shold provide guidance to your "experts" that you are trying to
promote and "SELL" Linux to the world, because you are. The objective
here shold be to not piss everyone off who gets frustrated with it
because your "experts" are too sensitive to deal with it.

>There is no such
> thing as bug free software and there is no such thing as a free lunch.
> Linux is free to use, so it costs you a bit of time in trying to use
> it. Windows has bugs, Linux has bugs. Lets see which OS's bugs get
> fixed quicker.

I workded for an engineering software company. I know very well about
bugs and that there is no bug free software. Every piece of software is
under current development.

>While you go and grapple with your internet worms and
> viruses on Windows, I'll worry about shock horror how many MS worm
> packets my iptables firewall is dropping, and how long a batch of
> updates is going to take to download and compile, for free, that I
> don't have to download using a specific web browser.

Never once had a virus on almost 20 Windows computers on my network.
Why would you ask? Smart computing. Although your point is correct. I
have had to repair and recover data from many virus infected computers
from friends and companies I have done work for.