My experience started with a 12 volume set of UNIX manuals that came with an offer card for PC world subsription which had 2 CD’s Redhat 5.1 and Caldera. I just opened the d:\doc folder on the CD’s and read the how-to’s and reviewed the images for different types of install.
But really, the point I want to make is, it is not always evident whether a person has studied, queried, or had experience or not.
> And how did you get around your M$ problem?
i bought and install IBM’s OS/2 in the early spring of 1995 and very soon transitions entirely to Warp…
Ah I see now you solved your problem with your visit to a friends house a few weeks ago where you had to work on a M$ p o c and couldn’t do anything by turning back the clock to 1995 so you could jump ship to OS2/Warp.
> Did you RTFM to learn?
yes. absolutely! and anyone who does not want to should expect to run into big problems, often…and then NOT come her to ***** about stuff not working the way they think it should.
See previous quote,
> Visit a M$ forum?
i did ask some questions about both Win3.1 and OS/2 v 3.0 on a BBS or twelve…but, mostly i used the reference books i purchased to understand how to operate successfully…
> or come here to post your displeasure?
as mentioned by oldcpu: neither openSUSE nor Linux developers come here to see what we think about the way anything orks…so, it remains a total waste of time coming here to *****…
ymmv…if you want to coddle Redmond/OSX/BeOS/Atari/Ubuntu/ETC Ship Jumpers who are too busy to read and try to understand the correct way to setup and maintain an industrial strength operating system, go ahead, be my guest…
but, please don’t expect me to not react when they pop in here to say openSUSE sucks because it is not just like what they are running away from.
True, developers don’t come here, but nobody is saying to coddle other OS/Distro people.
It seems to me that in the case of the OP, the problem wasn’t no knowledge, it was having a little dangerous knowledge. Knowing enough about installing Adobe Flashplayer packages, he then embarked on doing it the hard way. A newbie might have read the Wiki or asked around and someone would have told them to just install it from the repo and end of story.
Usually when I see a rant like the OP’s, I am seldom disappointed to read the final paragraphs where they detail X years of experience, etc. etc. It’s predictable.
Indeed “Maximum RPM” comments about a problem with symbolic links… but today,in openSUSE, that’s not true. Just test it.
But anyway, file lists and provides are two different things (even if a file path can match a requires). RPMs store the full file paths (and MD5s, and…) of ALL the files it contains.
The only problem you could have is searching for files in packages you don’t have installed. The repo metadata (extracted from RPMs, but are two different things) does not contain the paths of all the files. It’s because devs are bad people? No, it’s because if you go to Index of /repositories/KDE:/KDE4:/Factory:/Desktop/openSUSE_11.2/repodata you will see the primary metadata (the one you are downloading now) has a size of 669K while the full file list is 2.2M. You don’t want to download that filelist everytime you refresh the repo. And anyway, is not needed most of the time.
Download the filelist on demand when needed is something to improve. But with a low priority since it’s difficult to think of a user-case for that list. Note the primary metadata already has the list of files in /usr/bin and other important paths.
Artist here,a geek no. Linux is improving fast. The windows software is going nowhere, with small problems growing big, too many to list here. Not about money, linux is a system easy to use day to day. Design, art, photo work, yes linux is working. Believe it or not. From an apple and windows user for too many years.
That would explain why so many graphics artists are still using Windows and Mac Systems for Adobe/AutoDesk/etc. software, right?
Why aren’t they using The Gimp, Blender, Dia, etc.?
Half of them can’t even be sure their graphics driver isn’t going to break after a patch, much less get the software their livelyhook depends on to work.
If you had said you were a software developer or sysadmin, I’d have taken you a lot more seriously.
I know people who do modeling/graphics on UNIX systems, but certainly not using the software that comes packaged with a Desktop Distro. Those tools are wholly inadequate, and most people who do that kind of work won’t even use the same hardware as the average consumer (GeForce and Radeon are not for serious Modeling/Graphics, Quadro and FireGL are).
you so dislike what is here i wonder why you come…apparently just to
set all of us straight on how really good high priced proprietary
software really is!
we need that…because it sure is easy to get confused…not.
ROFL:
That is linux has a future with creative work. Adobe and Corel are not fixing old problems now grown into big problems. What secret software are your friends using? And no I will not bore anyone with my resume. To old for that
Your “acid” test of the non-technical Brother who does fine with Windows 7 may explain why people migrating from Windows to Linux has issues; because they have learned how to do things the Windows way. You can’t blame them, it was what was available.
I use my non-technical, artist wife for my “acid” test and now that she’s has been using Linux for a while, she’s more at home with Gnome than when she gets onto Windows 7 (and that doesn’t have Office 2007+ so we aren’t getting into the ribbon issue yet).
The key, I think, is that she has had time to learn and get used to Linux. She doesn’t have an interest in computers beyond “what can it do for me?”.
That has been changing lately, though. Not only has Linux grown and made available a different method people learn to use, but the Mac has likewise opened people’s minds to non-Windows ways of doing things. Smartphones, it can be argued, are broadening peoples perspective as well.
I have run across some applications that include a .deb or .rpm or .sh file to double-click and install the application (such as Opera and Skype). There are not many but if the repositories were not available then I would think these would be more plentiful out of necessity.
I think that everyone has really missed the point that was “Why Linux desktop will never make it out of GeekWorld.” Which is wrong. I think that oldcpu posted earlier in another thread “50 places where you wouldn’t expect linux.” It shows that Governments, Schools and other companies are using linux. Another point is that PC manufactoring companies like Dell and Acer are selling laptops/netbooks/desktops that come installed with linux.
As for linux being hard to use, well yeah it is just like M$ Windows is hard to use if you don’t know how or driving a car is hard if you don’t know how.
