Ok the biggest question i have ever wanted to discuss about linux is why it is such a difficult thing to use. Hey you know what i love my 3hr sessions just to get fglrx going and xorg to realize that my mon can do 1152x864. Then after that 3hr session i get hit with another 2hr session trying to figure why my mon is out of sync. Cause you know why win xp ppl come to linux, cause it is fun to guess and check ones horiz and vert sync only to come to the conclusion that you will never get it right. Then you have to reformat mmm... so much fun, problem is though you cant really reformat gentoo.
So tell me why is linux such a difficult thing to use especially in the area of the wonderful thing we all call X11. Also who needs direct rendering playing D3 with no fps is fun, cause you Direct rendering infrastructure wont load.

I don't think linux stands out in its gui the way windows xp does but it stands out in many other ways.Look at all the software that comes with it.Sure windows has a few apps that don't run on linux .Linux is a real operating system.Windows doesn't even come with a compiler.I want to learn linux now because soon it will become even better and even more widely used.Comparing windows with linux is like apples and oranges.The online community really comes out to help too.Sorry about your luck with linux at least you have a sense of humor about it.

First off, welcome to linux.

Linux isn't really hard, it can be hard to use if you don't know how to use it.

One time I wanted to stop SSHd from starting up again, I thought I would have to edit some files, reboot, etc. Nope, all I did is have to change one permission on one file, done.

It was hard because I did not know how, once I learned how, it was simple.
That is why I use linux to learn, that is why I do so many projects with linux, so I can learn how to do those certain things.


You will learn with linux and once you learn how to do a certain task, it goes in your memory banks (not literally) to be used again. Then you move on and start doing more and more things, learning more and more things. It can be an uphill battle, but is entirely worth it.

As the previous poster said, the community really stands out with places like this for help and support.

One opinion is that I would not want to START with gentoo. If something happens and you screw up your refresh rate, you can still edit /etc/X11/xorg.conf and fix it. I don't use gentoo, but if it starts in graphical mode, that could be an issue, but a problem like that can be fixed.
I admit, when I was new to linux, my only way of fixing something was to reinstall.
You might want to start off with a 'less intense' distro, so if something happens you can just stick the CD back in, 30 mins later your back up and running.
Either way, use google, use this forum, IRC, and learn your way through linux.!


EDIT: Sorry, complete thoughts but not complete sentences.

Well said, you two.

It's not hard, you're just not used to thinking in the correct thought patterns. I've been using Linux since March, and following the correct logic has already started to become second nature. Hang in there, it gets LOTS easier!

Edit:
If you're wondering why it hasn't taken me as long as you, notice my distro of choice. Starting off with Slackware has been a challenge in many ways, but the harder you work, the faster you learn.

No i have done like 20 distros Slackware, Gentoo, Mandrake, Arch (couldnt get pacman to work) suse, yoper, blag, sme, Fc4. So i think i can stand to say i have some experience towards the end of using linux. Its just it pisses me off trying to get the xorg file right, cant someone make a prog that would be able to auto detect the correct horiz and vert sync. Even when it is right it still doesnt work for me, go to play D3 oh my horiz and vert are out of sync. Wtf it was just working, so either xorg is retarded or fglrx is killing me. Either way this problem is going to get me off linux.
Also i do work hard on linux, cause i usualy sit down and do several hour sessions trying to work out differ bugs.

You must be willing to learn. It is like learning a new language.

Charred has it right. You can start with a simple distro like Xandros, Linspire. And really learn nothing. Or you can get your hands dirty and pick a little harder distro like Ubuntu. Or really dig in and learn things with Slackware or Debian.

The more you read and the more mistakes you make the more you will actually learn. I have a Dell laptop I use for my testing/play system. I just spent a week getting OpenSuse working the way I wanted when I completely hosed the system, back to square one. The same laptop has run Xandros, Ubuntu, PCLinuxOS, Mandrake 10.1, Fedora Core 3, Kanotix, MEPIS and a couple others. Play around until you find a distro you like, that fits all of your needs.


Things like hardware drivers being hard to install are more the fault of the hardware manufacturers than of Linux. Not that they are that hard ATI's installer is graphical, and takes about 2 minutes to install.

Welcome to the world of Linux.

I was pretty willing to learn when i took up the job of doing a stage 3 install on gentoo 2005, and the ati installer is flawed it doesnt tun on dri you have to either emerge the drivers then tweak them for a good while.

I have no issues with Linux and usually get a fully working desktop or server, fully installed and configured in under an hour most days..

hi there,
this statement is valid with gentoo too ??
just a joke ... no flame war intended...
regards,
slackie1000

Well fglrx must not like me, cause i get a whole bunch of crap from it but i think i may go out and purchase me a copy of win xp. Actually i will go buy myself Red Hat yes, cause red hat is commercial supported haha i am going to have to look more into this.

From that point of view so are Xandros, Linspire, Suse. Any one of which would be preferable to RH on a desktop.

May I suggest you switch to an Nvidia card? I just swapped my ATi Rage 3D Pro for an Nvidia Diamond Viper. MUCH easier to configure and install, as long as you remember not to configure your kernel for nvidia framebuffers.

Well i just bought this radeon, i had a hunk of junk nvidia and this radeon was the best value while still maintaining performance so i dont know i could RMA and get an nvidia even though i would prob lose some performance.

Hear Hear!

I've never had any success whatsoever with anything from the Redhat stable - thats not to say that nobody else has. Fedora is very popular (just not with me).

Xandros, Linspire, SuSE, Mandriva as well. If you buy it from mandriva - and depending on how much you want to spend, depends on how much support you'll get.

The thread originator will find, if they do their searching correctly, that there is much better linux support from Nvidia, than there is ATI. Thats not to say that ATI graphics cards are crap, they're not - it's just a "horses for courses" thing.

I also would like lots of apps that made my life easier. I am "just a user", not a real enthusiast or anything like that. If I could get something that would allow me to just "use" linux, then I would. But what I want, is to have "up to date" and ease of management. Gentoo gives me both. I want to choose what I can and can't do with a system. Plus I have ethical issues with MS (but they aint all bad, if it wasn't for their parasitic marketing techniques, we'd all be paying a hell of a lot more for our hardware).

What it didn't give me was a nice easy graphic installer. I've tried various other distros. Installed, used, enjoyed, learned and finally got pissed off. It took me about 2 years to have enough confidence to have a go at Gentoo. I suspect that I'll stick with it. It has one line install commands (in CLI), the packages tend to be very up to date (can be "bleeding edge" if you really want to meddle) and the official documentation tends to be better than most.

any linux is fine, if it's on a network, and you have a sys admin to manage it for you. It's just that most systems will need a certain amount of meddling to get them config'd correctly for a home facility.

thats my worth

regards

John

Well im going to try the suse ftp install, see where that gets me. Cause i am not going to scale down the performance of my machine just to get a stable system, if i dont have to do it on windows i wont do it on linux. Cause on windows you never need to scale down the performance of your machine just to get it working so why do it on linux. Hopefully Yast on suse will aid some of my problems, but it still wont help all too much. Well i dont know, guess i will continue my three hour work sessions on xorg so that maybe one day most of my problems will be solved but thats doubtful. If anything next year i will go and purchase Vista when it rolls out onto the market