[CLUE-Tech] Enthusiasm for Linux

[Jed S. Baer]

On Fri, 24 Oct 2003 14:09:05 -0600
"Joe 'Zonker' Brockmeier" <jzb at dissociatedpress.net> wrote:

> On Fri, 2003-10-24 at 13:37, Chuck Downing wrote:
> 
> *snip*
> 
> > Now for the need for somebody to work up some enthusiasm.  In the last
> > couple of years, I have tried to migrate from Windows to Linux.  I
> > have had two distros of RedHat, Mandrake 8.1 and Libranet 2.8.  I have
> > even tried Cygwin, UWIN and msys/mingw.  My major problems are as
> > follows:
> > 
> > 1.  While I realize that manufacturer cooperation is required, I have
> > been unable to get any of those distros to recognize a winmodem. 
> > Several driver-makers make wild promises, but none of them work
> > because of dependancy issues.
> 
> As you say... manufacturer cooperation required. Sorry to say, but you
> probably need to consider purchasing a different modem. The good news is
> that you can probably purchase a decent external serial modem fairly
> cheaply... in fact, there are probably CLUEbies that have unused
> external modems they'd be willing to part with. 

Let's also add that hardware compatibility can be a bitch in Windoze as
well. I recall reading reports of "device supported under Win2K but not
XP". IIRC, this was primarily a problem with older hardware.

Yes, there will be some hardware issues when using Linux, but this will
change. It's sort of a "critical mass" problem. Hardware mfrs. don't need
to cater to Linux users to sell product, for the most part. As more users
adopt Linux, expect this to change.

You might well need to get a different modem. Check
http://www.linmodems.org/ for help on selecting a model, or, as Zonker
suggested, get a "real" hardware modem. They're appx. $60, IIRC, at
MicroCenter -- hey, that's cheaper than a Windoze license, isn't it?

> > 2.  I would like to be able to have a "demand dial" approach to my
> 
> Can you do this in Windows? 
> 
> I'm on a cable modem, so I'll let someone with more dial-up experience
> handle this... 

While I don't know the exact method for doing this, the ppp daemon
program, pppd, can be configured for on-demand dialing, and also
auto-reconnect of dropped connections. What happens is that pppd
recognizes a request for IP traffic, and invokes the dialer of your
choice. Bug me again, after the weekend, and I could be pursuaded to
investigate further.

> > 5.  I have no idea whether the fault lies with Wine or with Libranet,
> > however, I can't get the out of the box Wine to work even with
> > notepad.exe from Windows XP.  This is a step backward because Wine
> 
> If not, there are plenty of great text editors for Linux. Is there any
> reason why you *need* to use Notepad.exe or other non-native apps? 

I suspect the example of notepad is just to illustrate that Wine is having
trouble with even the simplest of Windoze programs, i.e. how can it be
expected to work with something more complex, such as PhotoShop, if it
can't even run notepad. IIRC, notepad is the app. which Wine recommends
loading as a "smoke test".

But Zonker makes a valid point. Linux has text editors of many flavors. I
agree that part of the path to a successful migration is to use the native
apps which fit your needs.

I guess I snipped that section out, but Bruce Perens mentioned that the #1
issue for OpenOffice is the number of glyphs mapped into the available
fonts.

> > 6.  USB connections to PDAs seem to be impossible to make work.  I
> > have been unable to find a HOW-TO that is actually understandable.  It
> > worked for the author, but not for me.  Even the Sharp Zaurus, which
> > is a Linux box, cannot be syncronized using Linux.  Sharp refuses to
> > acknowledge that PC-Linux exists!
> 
> Again, this is not a Linux issue, it's a manufacturer issue. It does
> suck, but this isn't "Linux's" fault. 

To some extent yes, but not completely. I admit that I haven't flogged
this issue through to a final determination, but I can report that I can
synch my PalmPilot using Jpilot over a plain serial line, but when I use a
USB-serial interface (Belkin, for the curious), it just plain won't
communicate. Odd, because I can use my external serial modem just fine
over the USB-Serial port. Nonetheless, it's frustrating.

I've heard mixed reports on USB in the 2.4 kernel. Some people have no
trouble at all, others have bizarre problems. I wish I could elaborate,
but I haven't dug that deeply into it.

And I think that is part of what can sometimes make Linux frustrating for
new users, particularly if they're non-technical, but even for techies.
Sometimes, rather than something "just plain working", you have to beat on
it a bit.

> > So, somebody please tell me how Linux is the greatest thing since
> > sliced bread and how it's the wave of the future and will be in every
> > home during my lifetime.

Linux will never be on every home during any of our lifetimes. There are,
after all, the hardcore Mac faithful to be considered. ;-)

I'll give you a short rendition of my own story. I started on the IBM 360
-- punched-card COBOL. We got to use actual terminals for later programs
(this was voc. school), and I wrote RPG and BAL. Went on to a job using a
4341, and later, through Vaxen, PDPs, and various flavors of Unix. I been
a developer, admin, and DBA.

What finally got me to switch to Linux was that I got sick and tired of a
computer that did things I didn't want it to, and often wouldn't do things
I wanted. The culprit wasn't necessarily always in the programs
themselves, but that the capability to make adjustments wasn't exposed in
a useful way. I spent hours haking the registry, to turn of useless
things, and change settings which had no GUI control panel representation.
I can tell from the few times I relent and try to help with other people's
Windoze problems, that it's only getting worse. With Linux, I control my
machine, not the other way 'round. With Linux, if there's a problem, you
can fix it.

Let me ask you this. If your Windoze dialer program didn't work, what
would you do? Back when I started using Linux, the supplied GUI dial-up
thingie on RH 5.1 just didn't work. But I was able to write my own
chat/pppd procedure which worked just fine -- in fact, I'm still using it,
four/five years later. And this is the flip side of the "just plain
working" argument above, and it's one of the reasons for people's
enthusiasm for Linux. Let me give one example. A friend of mine was having
trouble with something in Emacs. He fired of an e-mail to the appopriate
place, wound up exchanging e-mails with Richard Stallman, and had the
problem fixed in 2 days. I've gone through a similar process with a
gentleman in Germany (who corresponded with me in English) about a problem
I was having with a USB scanner. I wonder how many Windoze end-users are
able to correspond directly with the program's authors when there are
problems.

> Chuck, one of the problems you're having is expecting Linux to be a free
> Windows... almost all of the problems, save the Java issue, are related
> to trying to get Linux to *be* Windows. Use a winmodem, use Windowe
> executables, etc. 

Ditto. I hope Zonker is actually mischaracterizing your frustration, but
he still makes a good point. The only reason I keep an old PC with a
Windoze install on it is so that I can update my resume for the dweeb
recruiters who insist on getting it only as a word document.

> I can attest to the fact that the switch can be a bit
> disorienting/painful, I did it years ago... but if you make the effort
> to switch to Linux, and Linux apps, I think you'll have fewer problems. 

I didn't find the switch to be disorienting or painful. It was liberating.
Yeah, there have been bumps on the road, but I won't be going back. Sure,
there some programs that have problems, but I can say that about many
Windoze programs I've used over time.

I have to add that part of the enthusiasm people have for Linux is
precisely the freedom issue. Not just "free as in beer". There's a
definite sense, at least for me, of being part of a larger community. With
Windoze, I was just another user. And part of that community sense is the
freedom to really participate, and share ideas and code. I was a beta
tester for Pan for a while. It was actually a lot of fun. The developers
are really good people. There was a debate on the user mailing list about
how to mark messages old/read/unread or something like that. I wrote up
some proposed logic using Perlish pseudo-code and posted it on the list.
It was implemented in the next update. And it feels good to be a part of
that.

Speaking of which, I can't address your issue with Pan and offline
reading, because I never used it that way, but if you get on the Pan-users
mailing list, I guarantee you'll get help. Similarly, I've been on both
the Sane and USB mailing lists, and again, I know they'll help out as much
as possible.

jed
-- 
... it is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday
facilitate a police state. -- Bruce Schneier