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I'M A FRIGGIN NEWB SO if you can't tolerate ideas of making things easier, don't read this. THANKS Otherwise, especially if you're a developer, please hear me out
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I'm using FC3, since Mandrake is always asking for money which is something I don't have, and SuSE's site is irritating to navigate. Out of the three "easy to use" distros recommended to me, I chose Fedora Core 3 based on it's solid base, affiliation with redhat, and it's clean website and non-asking-for-money-i-dont-have.
The installation was painless. Partitioning was pretty easy as well. I'm not dual booting on that PC, but it did install the GRUB bootloader which is something good to have anyway. This felt like an upgrade from the F8 prompt / cheap boot.ini selection Windows has.
Configuring it was also easy. Granted, I'm on a home network with a DHCP server so this should be pretty easy. I do remember it asking me what my domain was, or something of that sort [which Windows never asked for during install, and has about 6 different meanings for the term], so I just threw in what I figured would work [sd.cox.net]. Seeing no ill-effects from that, even on that wild guess part, the configuration was overall as easy as Windows XP.
The FIRST thing I did was go and update. Knowing from my Windows expertice that having an up-to-date operating system is the #1 cause for happy in the world, I double clicked on the flashing red (!) on the bar at the top, near the clock. This loaded a Red Hat Network notification thing. I then clicked on Launch up2date, FC3's update program. It said something about installing the GPG key- this message could be more newb friendly, but I understood it and yet yes. I clicked next through the dialogues, everything looked to be in order. Then I saw packages flagged to be skipped, two kernel updates. I did not check these, as there was no indication as to what they'd do and why on earth they were skipped at all [I later read that these shouldn't be skipped, and that the reason they were skipped is because installing them after updating everything else sometimes alliviates problems... However, at this point, a total newbie would have just left them skipped and opened their OS to compatibility problems and security holes, because FC3 failed to mention clearly what they did by upgrading them, and why they were flagged to be skipped in the first place.] Anyway, continuing with updating: I let up2date run for a while, seeing as it was doing something to the effect of resolving dependancies or some sort of witchcraft, in which the progress bar didn't exist. Came back two hours later: *GASP*! Nothing had happened, and up2date was frozen. I know this is an FC3 problem, but when a newbie hears "Linux", they don't care if it's Slackware, SuSE, Mandrake, FC3, or whatever. Therefore, when they see a core part of the OS, the GUI updater which would help newbies update the OS, fail... well... certainly shows them how great linux is. I ended up hitting up the Fedora forum, something a total newb would NOT do... which is what this thread is directed to- the general populus. Found out that up2date is crap, and that I should use yum. Then I saw about 4 different posts, saying to use yum upgrade, yum update, yum -y update, and yum -y upgrade. Not knowing wtf to do, I chose yum update. Seemed to work, since that's the amount of updates I'm running on now, and the RHN icon is a checkmark. Since yum is a commandline tool, the general population will never use it. Bad marks on this one. [Also, bad marks since I remember trying Mandrake 9.2 or 10, cant remember, and it told me to subscribe for updates- without providing an update solution for those without cash].
The preferences in FC3 are pretty full-featured and easy to use- although I wish they were consolidated into one area, something link the control panel in windows [Check out CCux Linux- buggy as the alpha ver may be, they've got a clear-cut easy to use control panel interface for changing all the settings- makes it a lot easier when they are all in one place, organized, and with good descriptions].
Adding software, as in my past experiances with Linux, is usually a time consuming process, encountering tons of hurdles and problems along the way. There is no easy way to see what packages you get get from the repositories, without installing Synaptic- which isn't installed by default, and without adding other 3rd party RPM databases to the list, like freshrpms [where I ended up getting my VLC player to play my stuff.] Adding software from the CD doesn't work after you update, as it fails to recognize updated components as simply newer versions of older required depndancies- it simply doesn't think they exist. This problem is as well, mostly isolated to FC3 from what I know. Installing java was particularily annoying, as everything was done via the terminal and I had to look up a guide. Took me over 15min, and this is typing time, not the-computer-is-doing-stuff-please-wait time. Installing Planeshift was the easiest thing I ever installed on linux- nice graphical installer. Great job to the team inventing that mmorph. Azureus was also easy to 'install', and so was Cube [which doesn't work, please see my post on the cube forums if you'd like to assist].
I decided to try out the main features that the general population would use- media playing, imaging. instant messengeremail, web, office, and the cheesy games of course! I was overall very impressed by the default array of software installed by FC3. GIMP, Gaim, Firefox, and OpenOffice I already use at home and find them to be absolutely awesome and easy to use. Evolution is a stunningly powerful and easy to use email client. Most of the games are simple yet very addicting and fun, especially nibbles Helix player, the media player included with FC3, refuses to play an OGM file with DivX video and OGG audio. No solution for this as far as I could see. It told me to go to a page where I was told I had the latest version- go figure? Also, it refuses to play MKV videos or WMV videos, although the latter is understandable. Although small compared to other distros, FC3's default software selection for the Desktop installation is perfectly suitable for most of the general population's needs- EXCEPT 3d gaming and video playing.
Bringing me to my next point, I found that tuxracer was slow as fook and I don't have that bad of a computer. Doing research, I found that I needed to install the nVidia driver. Seeing no GUI/easy way to do it, I downloaded it from their site and followed a guide from the FC3 forum to install it [the guide's still on page 1 I believe, keeps getting bumped- major sign that something needs to be done in the OS to get this installed easilier]. The general population would not have seen that guide, noticed the crap performance in 3d apps, and immidiately installed windows again via the [system manufacturer(tm)] Recovery Disks. I, however, decided to go into the prompt. If the guide were vague, such as not telling me how to save with vim, I would have gotten stuck. Thankfully yet another portion of the community has managed to help me. Got the driver installed, through the VERY non-friendly way of the command prompt and typing cryptic commands. Tuxracer ran awesomely. I was astounded, 100% amazed. Nothing in windows ran that fast, ever.
I then decided: What if I ran WoW on *nix! Thus begins a whole new adventure for me, something that could also be made much easier [in FC3-next for sure] to do. Looked up a few guides and the best one I saw was on a Gentoo forum. OK said I, from what I've read Gentoo is to-the-core uber-leet-haxxor linux, therefore since everything there is so basic it is probably in FC3 already [and I was mostly right]. WINE, however, was nowhere to be found! After going to their website, winehq.org, I noticed that the latest FC3 binary was still from Feb, despite it being four days since the last release [march 10]. That Vincent dude could have made my life a lot easier had he gotten those compilied binaries for the Redhad section up by now. I decided to install the Feb one anyway. Mistake 1. Loaded wine wow.exe -opengl, and yay, it worked! Login to 1/2 my characters inside a building, and crash went wine. Damn, if only that February build were after the 22nd, I could have gotten WoW working flawlessly in no-time! Characters inside a building triggered something in the minimap code in WoW that caused WINE to crash. The bug was fixed in WINE, and WoW no longer crashes... provided you have the new build! ARRGGHHHHH, said I! So I went to compile WINE from source. Mistake 2. Little did I know that I should have removed the Mesa-libGL package BEFORE attempting installation of the nVidia drivers. For some reason, OpenGL.DLL kept not compiling. After hours of sifting through the compile logs for WINE, more hours of waiting for someone in #winehq to not be AFK, a man by the name of Daniel Widyono came online and helped me pinpoint the problem revolving around the libGL issue. My Windows instincts told me there must have been a conflict when I installed the nVidia drivers, preventing it's own libGL from installing. So I reinstalled the nVidia drivers, and sure enough WINE compiled without a hitch and my WoW runs at a stellar speed. Props to this guy, I can't thank him enough. Helpful people like him make my world spin Anyway, running many games on linux is very complex, near impossible for a total newb, but is possible. And with not bad performance! Admittedly, this could be easier [although I somehow doubt the installation process would be easy] if more games were native to *nix. When *nix is easier to use, more people will adopt it, When that happens, more games will be ported to it. Simple as that.
This is as far as I've gotten with FC3, and so far the experiance has been a refreshing challenge, but very frustrating at times. Linux can be easier, I just don't think the developers take much time to talk with newbies about what could be improved for ease of use, and if they find Linux too hard to use, why? It's kinda a shame if you think about it, because if things don't change, Linux will be limited to the small percent of the population that understands what the difference between "ls" and "pwd" is, or what it means to export a variable or to 'make' something. Making Linux easier to use doesn't mean that developers would have to get rid of the commands used in the terminal- there is no reason to remove those and I don't see why some linux gurus want linux to stay hard to use [sounds selfish to me]. What it means is that there needs to be more social interaction between the general population and the teams of people that develop what ends up getting installed onto peoples' PCs.
That was a general summary. Here's my ratings with my linux experience with FC3 and in general:
Community: 7/10 - Many, many people, such as the nice gentleman in #winehq or the person who wrote the guide on installing nvidia drivers are willing to help. However, a fraction of the community would rather spit on newbies for not knowing better than to ask 'stupid' questions, and some don't want linux to get easier!
Installation: 9/10 - Very easy. Everything was simple except when it asked for what my domain was... in Windows, this could be the workgroup, or whatever your ISP assigns you in ipconfig /all, or any number of things! I think it said optional... but it could have been more clear on what this was. [BTW- if something gets less than a 10, I want to let them know what to improve on!!] Most of the installation did a great job in hand-holding however, and there aren't too many ways to improve the process, except to maybe go into more explanation/detail when it comes to foreign terms to 'newbies' ('grub', 'rpm', 'domain' for some example). Most of it is easy to follow though.
Software Selection for Desktop: 8/10 - Everything was great great great except for the face that I had to go through hell to get nVidia drivers installed to play the 3d game(s) FC3 included, and that Helix player supports almost no formats that I use out-of-the-box and there is no way I know of to make it play my OGM/MKV files. That's why I managed to install VLC. Otherwise, the included software is great and the only thing I'd do to make it better is include a bit more software in the default Desktop installation.
Hardware: 6/10 - This might be a bit higher if my memories of trying to get a Lexmark x1150 to work in Debian [yah, no opensource drivers, but someone had a work around for this printer to work for Debian a while back, and I don't believe that has EVER been added to the Debian install so it automatically installs this printer..]. Anyway, installing the nVidia driver was a pretty lame experiance for me, considering in windows I can just goto device manager, click on an unknown device, goto install driver, and follow the easy-to-follow steps instead of having to figure out how to install gcc so the nvidia driver installer can make some magical custom kernel thing for me and install. The reason this is so high despite my driver-installing-hell is because Linux actually, for the first time in history, decided it would detect my video card AND monitor AND! soundcard correctly! Last time I installed *nix, I had to manually input horiz/vert rates into the config file for X [Samtron 76v monitor]. Since then, I have changed my monitor to a Dell 771p I believe. But it detected that, my GeForce4 card, and my CMI8738 cheapo onboard sound. Yay!!!
3D performance after correct drivers and stuff are installed: 10/10 - WoW runs faster on Linux than on Windows, and it was developed for Windows... now how does that work? Awesome- just awesome... Linux has great performance and that's one of the best things going for it.
Stability: 8/10 - Cube freezes my mouse and changes my X resolution when it crashes, and CTRL-ALT-BACKSPACE yields a black screen with nothing... Had to power on and off for that one. Similar problems when I had a conflict with nVidia and Mesa over libGL, X would magically restart on me when chosing a certain character in WoW. Other than those problems, linux has lived up to its promise of rock-solid stability.
Ease of Use: 7.5/10 - Great GUI systems for configuring and using the system, but how am I supposed to know what the linux equivilant of ipconfig/winipcfg is? How do I know what IP my router gave that PC?? Didn't find this anywhere... Also, could use a controlpanel-like interface, and more description on what stuff does.
Ease if installing most things: 3/10 - Installing things on linux just can not compare to windows... Windows: Double click, next, next, next, finish- it's installed. On Linux, most software requires you issue at the least a few commands in the terminal, usually the entire installation from the terminal... often without clear direction, and almost always with no GUI. C'mon, this can't be too hard to make easier... I know RPM's are supposed to be double click, but those are distro specific and that creates a problem since not everything has an FC3 RPM. In addition, I find that unlike Debian, RPMs in FC3 will tell me what I don't have as far as dependancies, but not get them. Probably because they don't exist in the repository, of which Debian's is much larger.
Look and Feel: 9/10 - The gnome desktop is great looking. It's got a nice feel to it, running apps are listed on the bottom and the menu, quick lauch, and time/tray are at the top. If the sound server didn't cause so many problems when you want to use another app with sound soon after, it would be even more great.
Updating: 6/10 - Fedora really needs to fix up2date. Something this crucial to the system should never freeze. Also, they need to not skip kernels... that's just silly. Yum works, but only for people that are comfortable with a commandline!
Easier than Debian 2 years ago: You betcha
Overall, about 7/10. Linux has made great strides in some areas, but in certain areas of newb friendliness, it's lacking.
Feel free to post comments, suggest alternate [free, im poor] distros, or help me with problems mentioned Remember, I did this with FC3 since that is popular, recommended as one of the most easy to use, and built off a solid base. Because this is one of the distros that looks like it is trying to be geared toward the general population, but is lacking in areas just like most other distros that try to be newb friendly. This is here because if a developer wants to make linux better suited for the home, they'll look at where most users new to linux are hitting roadblocks [In otherwords, this Linux Newbie Forum].
I see you want Linux to be MS Windows. The power of *nix has been always the CLI. There it works. These fancy frontends have too many bugs to be relied on. I do not know what you mean with 'general population'. Do you mean Windows users with their 'point and click' skills?
I honestly do not think there is going to be a 'point and click only' Linux distro which actually works 100% in next 10 years. I may be wrong of course...
You don't have to spend a dime for Mandrake, if you don't want to . If you download the free 3-CD set, and then use EasyURPMI (in my sig) to set up your repositories, you have the equivalent of the full $70 PowerPack set, minus the proprietary/commercial pre-packaged apps.
And updating/installing software on Mandrake is as easy as (if not easier than) Redhat/Fedora. Once your urpmi repositories are set up, you have access to a huge library of apps. Just go to the Mandrake Control Center/Software Management screen, select the packages you want to install/upgrade, click the "Install" button, and wait for it to finish.
The only reason any major distro these days is hard to install software on is the inexperience of the user. All the major "newbie-friendly" distros have easy-to-use package management systems. New users only run into trouble when they start downloading apps from the wild, and try to install them directly. *Most* apps I have installed are either available directly in my Mandrake repositories, or have a Mandrake RPM that I can double-click to install. And I have enough experience that I have no problem installing the very occasional app that needs more complex installing.
Originally posted by Emerson I see you want Linux to be MS Windows. The power of *nix has been always the CLI. There it works. These fancy frontends have too many bugs to be relied on. I do not know what you mean with 'general population'. Do you mean Windows users with their 'point and click' skills?
I honestly do not think there is going to be a 'point and click only' Linux distro which actually works 100% in next 10 years. I may be wrong of course...
I'm talking about the users in the world who want to be able to easily use a computer. I don't want linux to be MS windows, BUT- if they don't want to borrow some general ideas Windows uses to make computing easier, then they could invent their own. The fancy frontends are buggy. I don't think there will be a point and click distro in the near future, but someone should be working on the flaws that make linux too complicated for the general user. Linux users are almost always not the general computer user, and there's a reason: it's simply too complex most of the time.
What needs to be done is more work on the 'frontends' that interface with the CLI. Bugfixes, ease of use adjustments, and the like. The last thing I want, however, is a Linux that looks, runs, and crashes like Windows. Linux != Windows as long as the kernel stays Linux.
Padma: The last time I installed Mandrake, the update manager wanted me to subscribe for something, and I couldn't find a way around it. Does it still do that? If not, I'll give it a shot.
Originally posted by Tsumeone Padma: The last time I installed Mandrake, the update manager wanted me to subscribe for something, and I couldn't find a way around it. Does it still do that? If not, I'll give it a shot.
I've *never* had the package manager ask me that.
Just do the install, and do NOT have it update right away. Instead, log in and go to EasyURPMI right away, and set up your repositories. Then, still from the command line as root, type "urpmi --auto-select", and wait for all the updates to be applied.
(I usually use the rpmdrake gui for installs/updates, but the initial batch of updates can run several hundred packages....)
Edit: I just had a thought: are you talking about the auto-update thingy? That might require "subscribing". I just run rpmdrake about once a week and check for updates.
I think the auto-update thing is an option that you can choose. IIRC, I just turned it off the first time it popped up. I can't even find it right now, so I'm not sure just where it resides. I can guarantee you don't need it, and it can be safely turned off.
If you have used *any* Mandrake update tool, you have "used" urpmi. The rpmdrake gui is just a front-end to it. And yes, you will want to configure your repositories. By default, just your installation CDs are configured. To do this, just go to the EasyUrpmi link in my sig, and follow the instructions there. Make sure you include sources for "main", "updates", "contrib", and "plf". After you have entered the command it gives you on your command line (cut & paste is your friend ) you will have the entire Mandrake repository available to you (minus the proprietary/commercial stuff).
I truly fail to understand these lists of improvments Linux needs "before it can become popular".
There are distributions that do very well with most of the "problems" stated and other distributions that make no pretense of doing so. This is great.
There is the ever present "but Windows does this with no effort", which is just not so. Sometimes Windows completes tasks well and sometimes it is utterly miserable.
There are tons of speciality software programs for Windows that can be great when they work but are sometimes clumsy,hard to learn, or buggy.
I have heard people new to their Windows computer talk just like this. Telling their long story with a mixture of typical learning experiences, odd problems, common problems, opinions on things that are the way they are, misunderstandings, and lack of experience.
More narrative and less preaching would have made for a better post.
You'd would still have gotten the same responses though.
Quote:
I'M A FRIGGIN NEWB SO if you can't tolerate ideas of making things easier, don't read this.
It is always a good idea to suggest that most of the people that may see you post will not be interested in it.
So who is it addressed to?
Hmmmmm...
P.S. Do not read this if you cannot tolerate the fact that everyone else may not hold your opinion.
Warning: I make grammatical and spelling errors. Don't read this if you can't tolerate that
Here's something I learned today from members of a company that use redhat products religously.
1) fedora is much less stable than enterprise (it's an "experimental" release)
2) tao linux is the stable redhat enterprise edition but totally free
3) tao linux installs very easily.
Here's something else I heard a long time ago that still seems to hold true today.
Linux and it's various flavors (and the nature of open source programs in general) has been primarily by techies for techies and just recently the efforts have been made to make things more user friendly.
I'm not sure if tao has the update reminder or not though. I haven't finished configuring the systems they gave us today to work on.
Originally posted by 2damncommon I truly fail to understand these lists of improvments Linux needs "before it can become popular".
There are distributions that do very well with most of the "problems" stated and other distributions that make no pretense of doing so. This is great.
There is the ever present "but Windows does this with no effort", which is just not so. Sometimes Windows completes tasks well and sometimes it is utterly miserable.
There are tons of speciality software programs for Windows that can be great when they work but are sometimes clumsy,hard to learn, or buggy.
I have heard people new to their Windows computer talk just like this. Telling their long story with a mixture of typical learning experiences, odd problems, common problems, opinions on things that are the way they are, misunderstandings, and lack of experience.
More narrative and less preaching would have made for a better post.
You'd would still have gotten the same responses though.
It is always a good idea to suggest that most of the people that may see you post will not be interested in it.
So who is it addressed to?
Hmmmmm...
P.S. Do not read this if you cannot tolerate the fact that everyone else may not hold your opinion.
I can tolerate other's opinions. The question remains whether other's can tolerate my own.
I compare Linux to Windows in some examples because most people new to computers will have an easier time learning how to use Windows than Linux. Installing Linux, for example, is generally easier than installing Windows in my experiance. I felt I would address what I myself think could be improved in Linux so that more people will take it up [which, from what I've seen, is one of the goals of Linux].
In this whole post, when I refer to Linux, I refer to distributions that try to be geared toward general computer users.
Addressing the "windows does this with no effort"- when I use Windows as a comparison point, it is usually because GENERALLY, in that specific area which I would be describing at the time, it DOES make things a lot easier. There is just no way of comparing typing commands such as vim /etc/inittab and sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run to double clicking an executable, and following the installation guide. Sometimes Windows will fail at this [eg, crash]. The same could be said for Linux. However, Linux does not presently have a nice GUI mode of installing the nVidia driver, necessary to run any type of 3d application with acceptable performance. This is just one example.
I recognize that people will wish to use Linux the way it is, without it being easier. That's fine, but one of the goals of the Linux project is to gain a user base- which is why more and more distributions are coming out with ways for the OS to be easier to use. That's why I made my post, it is sortof a large blob of disorganized suggestions.
Quote:
and just recently the efforts have been made to make things more user friendly.
That's partly why I made my post- so if a developer chances upon it, or someone involved with the development of linux, they'd have some ideas on what to build on
Also, I agree Knoppix is great. A pain to install to the hard drive, but great when running it from CD.
Originally posted by Tsumeone Is it any easier to get the nVidia driver installed, as well as WINE 20050310? Like, from the urpmi database thing?
If that's easy, I'm 110% sold
I haven't checked which version of wine is in the repository, probably a 2004 release. But when you think about it, that is probably sufficient for 95% of the users. If you absolutely *must have* the latest bleeding edge versions of things, then you will have to learn to use the "configure, make, make install" system.
As for video card drivers, since they are proprietary, they can't go into the free repositories. However, if you *buy* the Powerpack Edition of Mandrake, it will install a kernel with the driver approrpiate for your system pre-built.
I agree it would be fantastic if video card manufacturers could/would supply drivers ina form as easy to install as they are on Windows. Right now I'm just happy that they are supplying drivers at all.
Originally posted by Tsumeone ... when I use Windows as a comparison point, it is usually because GENERALLY, in that specific area which I would be describing at the time, it DOES make things a lot easier. There is just no way of comparing typing commands such as vim /etc/inittab and sh NVIDIA-Linux-x86-1.0-6629-pkg1.run to double clicking an executable, and following the installation guide.
I am not advocating that everything in Linux is easier than in Windows, but the examples you used are not good ones.
If you are in X you can open a text editor and open a file using only the mouse. If you are on a command line you can still edit a file using only the mouse. Except you do have to type "mc" to open midnight commander, but thats no biggie, surely?
As for NVidia drivers, I have Gentoo, and using a gui for emerge, e.g. Porthole, you can click your way to a driver install. And with my brothers SuSE you can install it through Yast without touching the keyboard.
Originally posted by 2damncommon I prefer "pico /etc/inittab" which is easy to use. Should I add compared to edting the registry?
The problem with that is you don't need to edit the registry to install the driver.
Reason I need the 20050310 release is because anything prior to around 22nd Feb. in CVS crashes World of Warcraft if you enter a building. I think they already have RPMs or something from the WINE site, for Mandrake. I've got a spare computer to try this on when I get home.
ahh: The examples I used could be better, but my whole point is that in Windows [yes, I'm comparing it to Windows because I myself find installing the driver easier in Windows], you don't need to edit any text files to install the driver. I'll have to try mc sometime though, didn't know that existed [im a newb].
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