Re: Why are Linux Applications So Unstable?

From: ray (ray_at_zianet.com)
Date: 03/24/05 

Date: Thu, 24 Mar 2005 13:07:48 -0700

On Thu, 24 Mar 2005 11:58:37 -0800, Susie wrote:

> I have been using Linux for about one month now and one thing I have
> discovered is that Linux applications tend to be very unstable. For
> example kaffeine crashes all the time. Mplayer slows to a crawl and
> loses sync between video and sound when I open more than two copies at
> the same time. Amarok skips mp3's all the time. Knode just crashes and
> disappears from the screen at times for no reason.
> Mozilla firefox seems slugish compared to the Windows version.
> Konqueror crashes at times when I try to copy a large number of files,
> (mp3) from one drive to another.
> K3b refuses to burn an audio CD and locks up the entire computer when
> I try.
> Openoffice refuses to print certain documents properly even though
> they seem to display on the screen fine.
> My USB thumb drive will sometimes not mount yet other times works
> fine.
>
> Before you blame my hardware or the version of Linux I am using my
> computer runs Windows XP just fine with no problems and it is an Abit
> system with a P4 3 gig CPU in it and 1G memory. I have DMA turned on
> for all drives and the video card is Nvidia something or other I
> forget.
> I have tried suse, mandrake and ubuntu and experienced similar results
> but with different applications on each which leads me to believe that
> Linux applications are just buggy.
> Linux needs more CSS software that is professionally developed and
> tested because the programs that come with Linux distributions are
> obviously not being tested by anyone. And yes I know there are good
> applications for Linux like Apache and slrn and so forth but at the
> same time, the gui based applications seem to need a lot of work
> before I would use them in a production enviornment.
> Openoffice for example is nowhere near as good in quality as Microsoft
> Office is. Maybe in time Linux will improve but for now a solid
> operating system surrounded by buggy applications is not going to
> cause people to move from Windows to Linux.
> Susie

I have not had much trouble with linux apps - I think, generall, less than
with the MS equivalents e.g. tried to go to www.ordermypix.com to look at
some wedding pictures on my mother's MS machine - IE crashed as soon as I
clicked on the link to the picutres - tried three times - three crashes;
came home and tried it with Mozilla on Linux, no problem. I have
experienced difficulties importing some complex MS Word docs into
OpenOffice, so I generally use Abiword now, instead. Also use Gnumeric
vice OO spread*** - I've not had any difficulties. Use ogle to view
DVD's, - no problem. Using Mandrake 10.1 OE and Gentoo.