Knock Knock Ubuntu...
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| helios Jun 28, 2008 6:44 AM EDT |
The folks at the top need to not only take a hard, objective look at this article, they need to pay particular attention to the comments. Aside from teh obligatory "I didn't experience any of this so Ubuntu ROX and yur and idiot" comments and the ever-present "well if you used MyDistroOfChoice you wouldn't have these problems", there are some astute and timely observations in this piece. Look, as much as some would brand me an Ubuntu Hater, this piece validates what many of us have been saying for years now. And this did not come from a Linux Pro or even a Tech Pro...the guys a comedy writer for the sake of sin...a friggin' comedy writer. Again, if you are going to be number one, you better assume the immense responsibility of that position. If not, you are just another major software vendor that takes the money and tells you they aren't responsible for their ineptitude via the Eula. Of course, no names mentioned.. h |
| azerthoth Jun 28, 2008 9:16 AM EDT |
Some very telling points indeed, and not restricted to *buntu/deriv. Many of the distro's I have tried include many of the same issues in one form or another. For me however, as I travel alot and spend entirely too much time living out of a suitcase is the IPv6 issue. At home I have no issues with it, on the road however I have ran into some real interesting problems, the first time I ran across the issue it took me a week to realize that *I* was the bottleneck and not just that the hotel had ran the cat5 just a little further than they should have. This was one the the discovered weakpoints of my D.o.C., blacklisting IPv6 is possible but time consuming and not for the inexperianced. I would point out that if one goes looking for weak points in any OS you are sure to find them. However out of all the OS's linux is without a doubt the easiest to correct the weak points in once identified. The fact that these weak points exist says we still have room to grow but perhaps "mainstream" distros are not where the solutions will come from. It's the upstart who feels they can take "chances" are where the innovations come from. *buntu was one of these innovators at a time, but now like others, they are becoming staid and complacent. |
| cabreh Jun 28, 2008 11:20 AM EDT |
I must agree with azerthoth. It was Fedora or even back in my RedHat days where I learned of the dreaded IPv6 being active. Since then the first thing I do on an install is disable it. At least until it becomes the "norm". Yes, I think whatever distribution the author used he/she would come up with pretty much the same list of prickly points. I think I've been pretty lucky (or maybe studied) in the equipment I have been buying lately and haven't hit the graphics and most other issues this person did using Ubuntu. But, I have had problems while trying out other distributions. So, the problems are pretty much universal. I believe that most of the problems with hardware would be eliminated if/when we get to the point that the hardware manufacturers start providing the drivers like they do for Windows. Or at least the information needed for the Linux developers to do so. The other issues should be and need to be taken care of by the Linux community. I'm a happy Ubuntu user, but everything needs improvement. If I see a perfect OS I'll know I'm dead. |
| helios Jun 28, 2008 12:44 PM EDT |
"The other issues should be and need to be taken care of by the Linux community." Allow me a subtle correction in semantics...and it's a common mistake made mostly out of the lack of any suitable replacement phrase. "The other issues should be and need to be taken care of by Linux Developers." The "Linux Community" dwells in the same realm as Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy and a Kindler, Gentler IRS. We may have pockets of individuals who sincerely care but for the most part, the "Linux Community can be divided into two camps. The first being distro-specific groups who rather war with each other than work together. If you think I'm wrong, wander into xxx distro forums and make a statement to the effect "I tried xxx distro today and you know what? It could really stand some improvement in the ABC department...my distro doesn't have these problems." The second grouping is people that just think it's cool to get all this neat stuff free. Most haven't the slightest inclination to be a part of what we do or to give any measure of time or resource back. These are the digital welfare recipients I talk about. And from my experience, they tend to be just as self-centered and selfish in other aspects of their lives. Did you see the news clip of the man in Chicago getting run over on a busy street and hundreds of people not only saw it...they walked right by him without anyone stepping into the street to see if he was alive and/or needed help? A review of the streetlight camera that caught the entire thing counted 118 people who were within 50 feet of the accident. Call logs from the 911 center reported only 2 calls coming in for that specific incident. The first was 6 minutes after impact. Nope...no problems in our society. No, the problems astutely brought forward here will be fixed by us. The trick is not to get too distracted by the thought that any improvements you make will be enjoyed by a majority of people who wouldn't spit at your feet if your shoes were on fire. h |
| tracyanne Jun 28, 2008 3:42 PM EDT |
Intersting comment Ken, especially in light of a comment made to me by the new bloke at work. He's been playing with Ubuntu on an older laptop and hasn't been able to get the graphics working, his claim is that this is a problem related to X - as in someone broke X some time ago and the video card in his laptop no longer works properly with Linux because of that, and no one has bothered to fix it. I suggested that he either get copy of the code and fix it himself, if it was that important to him, or pay someone to do it. To which he replied if Bill (as in Bill G) can supply a free fix for a Windows problem surely it's not too much to expect the same of Linux. |
| gus3 Jun 28, 2008 4:16 PM EDT |
I see a maintenance matrix here: [P|F]P,[P|F]F Paid or Free Product, Paid or Free Fixes PP,PF: Windows (Buy an XP license, then buy the "fixes" in Vista.) FP,PF: Linux with a support contract (or fixed by your own efforts) PP,FF: Linux from a retail store FP,FF: Linux from a free site, with fixes when someone gets around to it One can probably substitute "*BSD" without breaking the model. From this perspective, it's amazing that Microsoft would limit itself to 1/4 of the matrix space. |
| dinotrac Jun 28, 2008 4:26 PM EDT |
And lest we forget -- While they're not busy polishing away their rough edges, they're also not busy fixing bugs in current releases. Grrrr. |
| helios Jun 29, 2008 7:20 AM EDT |
@TA -having been able to actually get an old PNY video card to work with Ubuntu, I will have to give Ubuntu credit where credit is due. Although PNY uses Nvidia almost to exclusivity, they do something to the darned blob/binary that hoses the heck out of X...at least it used to. I used to just walk away from machines with PNY cards until I discovered the Ubunt-nites had somehow stirred the pot and made this monster work. Mint I think was the ones that actually solved the problem though and Ubuntu incorporated the "fix". Usually they are slow to incorporate anything Mint does in way of improvements. A solid case of ego getting in the way of progress. Kudo's where Kudo's are deserved. It's not always the Distro that messes up but as Dino has pointed out, the Buntus have some housecleaning to do before they can chunk any rocks at anyone else. Now...here's where things get messy. I took a support ticket from Zareason for phone support on a machine that was being problematic for the owner. It was a cloudbook of the first edition with of course the first goS. The customer emailed me a laundry list of complaints/issues he was having and they would have filled 1/3rd of a single-spaced page. I calculated the time for research and phone contact, emailed him the quote and mentally checkmarked him off my list. It was going to cost him way more than he wanted to spend. Less than 10 minutes later he had made his payment online and called me to start "the fix". Let me boil this down...but in doing so I remove some of the stuff that makes for great blog entries. Look for it in a blog of helios close to you soon. 11 hours in three phone sessions. All the issues were dealt with and this customer and I learned quickly how civility and patience can wear paper-thin in these circumstances. One problem remained and it persisted throughout the course of our sessions. Of course it was wireless. cloudbooks with goS are a nightmare for some and this one was of epic nightmare proportions. When I wasn't on the phone with him trying to fix it, I was deep in the guts of google, trying even the most obscure leads...I was beginning to think that there just wasn't a way to get wireless working on this machine. He would not consider using a proper ubuntu system and By God if they sold it to him, it WAS going to work as advertised. Never try to persuade a retired upstate New York Lawyer of his options...he won't listen. I got a call from his son about two hours before we were supposed to start our fourth (and in my mind-final) session. I was to the point of giving his money back to him and just refusing to take any more support tickets on Cloudbooks w/goS. The man was in his early fifties and sounded almost identical to his Dad. He had been helping him and I always sent a transcript of our sessions to him via email as soon as they were transcribed to human-readable. His son had taken an interest in the whole process and in going over the transcripts had identified the problem. Prepare to be amused. My customer it seems, was mistaking the difference between the "delete" key and the "control" key. In the process of doing the magic ritual that is supposed to get this nightmare of a laptop's wireless working, one of the steps is to hit the delete key. In the dozens of times we retraced the process, he was hitting the control key instead of the delete key and of course, nothing happened. I lost count of the hours I spent researching this thing...the panic-inducing frustration of not being able to solve a problem that everyone else was solving with this "fix". It all came down to the customer hitting the wrong key. All of that to say...when a new Linux User tells you they tried Linux and Linux sux...there are myriad reasons why it probably ain't so. I am wondering how much abuse is being heaped upon Linux (or Windows for that matter) because the problem in essence resides BCAKB. h |
| jdixon Jun 29, 2008 7:53 AM EDT |
> My customer it seems, was mistaking the difference between the "delete" key and the "control" key. One of many examples why onsite support is often better than phone/email support. If you had been onsite, you would have spotted this problem in 10 minutes or less. :( Of course, the bill for driving from Texas to New York and spending a couple of days may have been more than he was willing to pay. :) Did you try remote controlling his machine and walking through the set up for him, Helios? Sometimes that works better than having the user do it themselves. Of course, you have to have some way of remote controlling the machine, and the GOS machines may not include that. |
| dinotrac Jun 29, 2008 8:00 AM EDT |
jdixon -- I got the impression that network connectivity is what they were trying to fix. No network, no remote control. |
| helios Jun 29, 2008 8:31 AM EDT |
@jdixson - one of the first things that came to my mind. When we install Linux on any of our customer's machines, I without fail, install a little hack I've created...kind of a cross between rdesktop and an nx client. I may release it to sourceforge if I can get it to the point of suitable public consumption. It's mostly a gui problem right now...I know how to use it on my end but it's not exactly intuitive for someone who doesn't know the app. That being said, we always inform the customer that this option is active on their computer and they have the option of keeping it and being shown the magic icon that instigates the connection (I made sure the customer controls the connection, not me) or they can watch me remove the app from their computer. goS is absolutely the worst operating system I've ever had to fix...and fix...and fix. Supposedly this second one is improved to the point where some might consider it a beta release...I am wondering if they got their release strategy from kde? Besides...he is an attorney although retired, and many of his sensitive files reside on that machine. He was absolutely adamant about no remote support. It would have almost been worth the cash to drive there. I am permanently scarred from this experience although the intermittent trembling does subside with medication. |
| jdixon Jun 29, 2008 12:20 PM EDT |
> ...goS is absolutely the worst operating system I've ever had to fix...and fix...and fix. It could be worse, Ken. You could be supporting Windows. :) And yes, that's what I do for a living, so I know whereof I speak. > ...he is an attorney although retired, and many of his sensitive files reside on that machine. He was absolutely adamant about no remote support. Well, he's an attorney. To him the term professional ethics probably means "don't get caught". I guess that's better than folks offering their root password to complete strangers to get help with their problems though (yes, that happened a couple of times when I was one of the folks helping at free linux support, unfortunately defunct now). > ...although the intermittent trembling does subside with medication. Well, the best stuff for that is probably illegal, so hopefully you're using something > 80 proof as the medication of choice. :) |
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