I'm becoming convinced that there are mystical connections
between Linux distros and some users - some (usually one)
distro Just Works and the rest either stubbornly refuse or
add new meaning to the term 'grudging acquiescence.'

It may have something to do with the local quantum flux,
phase of the Moon or the Astrological Sign of the user.
Hmm. I never thought that "What's your sign," would be
a criterion for selecting software.

"What's your sign?"
"Leo."
"Then you're probably compatible with Mandriva
or Debian. Stay away from Slackware."

--
-- Marten Kemp
(Fix name and ISP to reply)
-=-=-
.... Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving
safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to skid in
broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly
proclaiming "WOW! What a Ride!"
-Author unknown
* TagZilla 0.059 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org

Marten Kemp wrote:


It's really just a specific case of the more general - some
hardware/software just doesn't work for some people, but the next one
along does. Quite well known, but seldom talked about, because there is
no way to tell in advance which is the right one.

Cheers,
Gary B-)

--
__________________________________________________ ____________________________
Armful of chairs: Something some people would not know
whether you were up them with or not
- Barry Humphries

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 08:39:26 +1000, Gary R. Schmidt wrote:

It's like "right living".

Things go well when you live right.

How do you know when you're living right?

Things go well.

This is called "circular reasoning" in academic climes.

But it does seem to be true.

My test for a distro is how fast I can set up my DSL connection. If it
takes me half an hour or more than one try, the distro goes. Red Hat
Fedora has consistently failed in this regard. Mandriva was easier, so it
stayed. Linspire was a disaster, and I complained to Robertson about it
for that very reason.

Knoppix on the other hand would be my preference if it was more suited to
a hard drive install, as it has hands down the fastest easiest DSL setup
I've ever seen. Why EVERY other distro doesn't copy it is a mystery to me.
You just let it search your NICs for a "PPPoE Concentrator" (read: DSL
modem), answer a few technical questions (they say if you don't know the
answers - and you won't - take the defaults) and in a minute you're on the
Net. Brilliant. Every other distro needs you to configure the network
cards, then run some arcane PPPoE tool that invariably fails to work
properly. Mandriva was the exception, which is why I use it today,
although I'm being tempted by SUSE's new Desktop Linux.

The only really stupid crap I've seen with Mandriva is their Menu Editor
and recently some nonsense with the file associations. Everything else
pretty much "just works."

Another test is how easy is it to set up the software repositories and
download and install new software. Here again, Red Hat has NEVER had it
right, except back in 7.3 when they had a KDE program that did a half
decent job. Fedora Core 5 has TWO package management systems and neither
one gets it right. Mandriva again does a pretty good job. You want a
package manager GUI that shows you categories of software, shows you ALL
the software available in those categories, shows you WHAT they are, and
shows you where the files go, how big it is, what they depend on, etc. The
only place where Mandriva needs to improve is setting up the repositories
- you have to go to a Web site, select the repositories, cut and paste the
command line the Web page generates into your command terminal, then wait
for it to build the repository database. Not too hard, but should be more
automated to avoid the need to deal with the command line at all.

Richard Steven Hack <rhack@gmail.com> wrote in
<newsan.2006.09.01.22.21.20.378827@gmail.com>:

Heh, Ubuntu not only automagically detected and enabled my wireless
card, it went on to connect -- without telling me -- to a neighbor's
unsecured LinkSys router.

--
»Q«

I must be living right ....

I use an ActionTech GT701 router/modem
supplied by the phone company and an
el-chepo Realtek 8139 NIC ....

Plug the phone line into the modem,
plug the modem into a 5-port switch,
plut the nic into the switch ....

My aDSL connection and LAN works out-of-the-box,
no configs or setup required at all using ....

Damn Small Linux
Debian
Knoppix
Kubuntu

Debian Sarge is the system I use daily
and the others only occassionally as
Live CDs ....


| Another test is how easy is it to set up the software repositories
| and download and install new software

The package managers under Debian-based distributions
are very easy to setup and use ....


--
Stanley C. Kitching
Human Being
Phoenix, Arizona


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On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 01:21:23 GMT, Richard Steven Hack
<rhack@gmail.com> wrote:

Maybe because "some hardware/software just doesn't work for some
people". Knoppix has consistently failed to detect any eth device in
my laptop, although the eth device seems to be installed and working
fine (I'm using it now, under Windows). So I guess you could say that
it takes an infinite amount of time for it to set up *my* internet
connection.

That it works for you doesn't make any difference to someone it
doesn't work for.

Al Klein wrote:
I was just trying to explore Linux with a live cd. I only have a P3
600, 256megs, Win98SE, cable ultra lite internet. For me the easiest,
quickest, the most reliable live distro is Puppy Linux. At only 60
megs, it loads into my computer's ram, so it runs almost as quick as my
Win98SE. Also, I can continually save any changes to my Puppy
configuration to a couple of files (500meg, 70meg) that Puppy creates
on my "c" drive. This means no re-configuration every time I run Puppy.
Also Puppy now loads in 30 sec. I am not of the computer generation so
learning new computer concepts is always a challenge. I can cope quite
easily with Puppy.

On Sat, 02 Sep 2006 14:56:55 -0400, Al Klein wrote:

Probably an issue with the laptop NIC used. It's probably some proprietary
onboard NIC that Linux supports poorly or the Knoppix installer can't
detect easily. Laptops are still frequently challenging for Linux,
although the latest distros do pretty well with the main brands.

Exactly. The problem with the IT industry is Woody Allen's classic quote
that sums up the human condition: "Nothing works and nobody cares."