After trying for the last two days to configure a very simple web server on Linux (SuSe 8.2) I am throwing in the towel and going back to my Mac or XP boxes that I know work. This has been the most frustrating experience I have had with computers and it is now clear to me that the open source effort is doomed to be in the single digit market share category for the forseeable future.

I have submitted my problem to five different Linux forums and I still am not close to solving the issue. I have spent hours looking thorugh the SuSe and other Linux help web sites to no avail. SuSe will not give support for the web server (actually a port issue) problem and I need to get a server up and running now. When I tried to call them again today they are off for "training" until Friday. This represents a non-serious and unhelpful level of support.

Despite all the bad press about Microsoft and Apple from the Linux/opensource community at least when one calls there is someone to answer the telephone. This experience has indicated to me that the open source effort is disorganized, without a unified point, or points, of contact that drive a systematic way on how to get help.

If Linux is to succeed then this problem needs to be solved. Computers, for 95% of the world, are tools that need to operate. Spending hour after hour scrounging around for information on how to do something is infuriating and costs money.

The so called "low cost" aspect of Linux is really a bogus argument as the necessary support seems to be neither available nor timely. When Apple finally ports to the Intel platform and Microsoft comes out with an OS based on new code (Longhorn?) the last nail will be driven into the open source effort's coffin.

Damn, dude. All sympathy to your problems but when I can't make stuff work on my box, me and my box are having issues. Doesn't mean the whole world's going to explode and that the efforts of thousands of contributors around the world are for nothing. Try a different dstro, maybe. So Suse sucks. 1 down, 139 to go. And I noticed people here were trying to help you out. Give LQ some time. I agree that it can be frustrating as hell but, the way you state the post, you're probably going to get flamed pretty good.

I dunno - maybe I'm being too nice and this is just flamebait, based on that last sentence, especially. And this belongs in General, anyway, as you're no longer asking for any help.

I knew I would be on the receiving end of things a bit but I am trying to make a point here. Most of the world does not have the time to try a "different" distribution. That's Linux's fatal flaw. As a hobbyist's OS or perhaps at the enterprise level then it may be OK.

I am not trying to inject a lot of invective into the discussion. As someone from the "outside" good support is a BIG issue.

I am appreciative of the attempts to help me out but I need to get up and running now (for my wife's very small business) and I know that this problem is simple (for someone). Again, in the Linux world, "how does one get timely help?"

I apologize for putting my comments in the wrong category.

If you need things made easy for you, then yes, you should stick with Mac or Windows. Although some Linux distros try to cater to non-Unix users, there is still a great deal of complexity.

The way I look at it is, that I'm into OpenSource OSes because I like the power of having made all the decisions for my systems and even the mistakes are mine. I don't like feeling powerless and having to rely on some money-grubbing software company to make a feature available.....or for expensive tech support (yes, you didn't mention the fact that when you call Microsoft someone is "always" there to answer your question AFTER they get your credit card number and open up a new instance $$$$). For that power I am willing to spend a lot of time learning things that are not intuitive to me. I think in the long run all that I've learned will benefit me somehow. But maybe that's just a hare-brained way of looking at it.

Enjoy your IIS server...it's your life. If you don't want to learn another way of doing things, you shouldn't bother. Just pay Microsoft to make it easy for you.

Good luck.

Your points are well taken but I will make a few corrections. Depending on whether one is calling Apple or Microsoft, support during the first year or several incidents is FREE and covers almost any issue except macros and programming. Paid support at Apple is a bargain at $49 and even microsoft XP Professional paid support is less that some Linux "paid" support.

Both have helped me out on web server issues.

Okay. That doesn't sound so much like flamebait. But you should be emailing Suse more than yelling here. (Maybe you have though.) Because I agree - it's free software - what Suse *ought* to be selling is support. And if you're not getting that support, you should be pissed. But this isn't something fatal to Linux. Might be fatal to Suse, eventually. Like I say, myself excepted, there's a lot of knowledgeable people here who will try to help you voluntarily. Your odds of getting quality help from the Linux community are probably higher than from the Windows... uh... 'community'. And dkaplowitz is right - MS doesn't help you for free. And they don't let you do anything you want with your system. Say your business grows and you want to create a larger network. Copy the OS over to your new hardware. *shrug* It's illegal to do that with MS. Got an app not doing *exactly* what you need for your business? Reconfigure it. Maybe hack it altogether. But you can't do anything with proprietary software. Maybe you wouldn't hack it - I couldn't - but it's that kind of principle of flexibility, choice, and power. Like I say, flood Suse with irate emails.

I bought a retail version from SuSe, it's not the "free" one you can download so I am doubly irritated. Countless phone calls with "we don't support that" as a response and several unanswered emails have added to the frustration. I also tried this with Mandrake last year and it was worse.

Hm. Maybe try a smaller up-and-coming distro that wants to win customer approval. Maybe Mandrake and Suse and RH are getting big and complacent (and overly enterprise-oriented in RH and Suse's case, maybe) and you'd get better results from a smaller distro. I know you said you didn't want to go distro-hopping but maybe researching some - maybe post up here and ask 'Who's given you the best professional support?' - will give you something to go on.

Call me. I've gotten phone calls from board members before, if it's concerning something I know, I don't have a problem with one. What's the topic? I'm no 1-800 guy, but I don't charge As for timely responses, check IRC or stick around here, questions sometimes get answered in less than 5 minutes if asked at the right time. Occasionally a few slip through un-noticed or un-answered for whatever reason, but for the most part, this board is (for lack of a better term) "bompin!".

Thousands of pages online for documentation might also cover what you are looking for, but for a newbie, I know it's hard to read through THOUSANDS of pages, so we can sometimes narrow that down to maybe 3 or 4 sites specifically, again though, what's the topic?

You are free to come and go as you please, so, if down the road, you decide to give another whirl, I'll still be here

Cool

Quick question...did you buy the Suse professional with support. If not, you got the personal, then, unfortunatly, you got what you paid for. All the software is there, but you need to know how to do it yourself. I think we all feel for your problems, but to state that it is stuck in single digit is plain wrong. What is it, 27% of the worlds web servers are running on Linux? First link I found, can find others. It varies from 20%-38% depending on who you talk to.

http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/11177.html

Seems to me that the port 80 problem you are having is a simple firewall problem. From a REMOTE machine, if you try to connect, does it simply timeout. If yes, then the packet requests are beign dropped on the floor, or it is being redirected to a port that doesn't have a valid process. Either way, you could easily use IPtables to redirect port 80 to 8080 automatically and be done with it. Does yast provide for firewall config? Sue docs are available only when you register.

RO

I can feel your pain. I too started off buying a copy of Suse 7.1
a couple years ago. It's not your typical beginners software and it turned out I was either to stupid or to lazy to learn it. I on the other hand didn't decide to roast the entire open source community because of it. You could very easily download Mandrake or Redhat and have a Apache server up and running in no time, and for free.
Windows has only the bad press it deserves and needs to not ignore it's own problems. I happen to have quite a few Windows boxes and they will stay that way even dispite thier flaws.
As far as Apple goes they have switched to Unix so what is wrong with that? Not to mention I have a considerable amount of stock in the company that is making me money.
Sorry you feel the way you do and you are definetly not alone, there are many other paths you could choose to take but only you know what is best for yourself.
Remember there will never be just one OS.

linux inherenlty has a large learning curve. but once you learn the curve you have that much more knowledge of what you are using. and as others have said, i'd try a different distro. i went through 4 distros before i settled on mandrake. and even then i had some issues but the nice people here at LQ helped me solve them. even though it took me 3 weeks to solve it, but hey, it works now and its aweasome

Just took a look at your other post(s)

And, not that it really matters at this point obviously, but...

You double posted your question. Did really get you very far is it usually doesn't, in the future, if you do post again, please do not double post. If you post your question once and it doesn't get the replies you are looking for, feel free to **bump** your post.

Have you thought about using a different server? Apache is well documented, and although I don't know your situation, is used on both small networks and large corporations, so I would **think** it should work in your situation?

Cool

Moved: Giving up or sob stories of unsuccessful installs or uses with Linux are more suitable in the General forum, where discussions and not questions belong.

Regards and good luck.

Ok dude I can understand your frustration but lets put all your points in context:

First - obviously linux is new to you. For a novice on any OS how easy would it be to setup a webserver for them? And as for support from MS, you dont get support from MS without paying huge sums of cash. The support you get is from your computer manufacturer.

Second - linux or any *nix is ceratinly not a hobbiests OS. Remember that 75% of the worlds webservers are on open source.

Third - under all that frustration, I bet you learned more than you ever would have clicking a few GUI buttons.

Truely I do understand your frustration, but to knock an entire "genre" is silly. Using your tactic does that mean I get to rant about how because MS wrote bad OS code, my coworkers had to spend 48hours straight patching servers whereas the UNIX team got to sleep in?

I would offer this challenge to you, the same I offered a coworker. We went about seeing who could setup a simple webserver the fastest. I used freebsd and he was MS2k server. It was no contest, i was sippin a latte at least an hour before he was done.

check out the threadhere if you wish

You being a MAC user, me never touching one, I am sure you could run circles around me.