The Netbook Thread

[techno12]

Am I missing something with Linux?

I have an EeePC 4G and love it, but to try and install any kind of app is the biggest world of pain ever - it's all old-skool DOS-box "sudo apt get blah blah"?!

Surely that's not right in the 21st century? Windows apps are just a case of click and install. This Linux thing seems to be a convoluted text typing world of pain! (harking back to Unix, which I used back in 89 and wish to forget!)

[HGFB]

Yes you're missing something. I'm not telling you what because your negativity is killing my buzz.

[techno12]

Oh dear - well please tell me.

When I go to any website that has Windows/Linux versions of software, the Windows one are there, ready and waiting to be downloaded.

The Linux ones are there, ready and waiting to be COMPILED?!

wtf?!

PS I'm not being negative, I'm not being a Troll to antagonise the Linux geeks, I'm just amazed that in 2008 Linux requires you to type in convoluted DOS style commands to install software - NOT user friendly!

[defsdoor]

I click on Applications, Add/Remove... and choose from a lovely searchable list of what I want to install. Tick against the ones I want, enter my password and within a couple of seconds the programs are runnable from the Applications Menu.


Are you using a 1990's distribution ?

[techno12]

maybe.. I'm just going from the Wiki on the EeePC forums.. all the sections there say "bring up a terminal window and type 'sudo blah' to install"

Must investigate further (I'm looking for a new media player - ones that use something called "xv", which is hardware accelerated, ends up with corrupt playback on the EeePC)

[dom]

I installed xubuntu, which has a graphical package manager (synaptic) which works very well, as with ubuntu and debian.

My only gripe with xubuntu was the wifi "tray" icon, which has been updated since I installed the OS, and is now a whole lot frendlier.

Old-skool command-line windows are avoidable, if you install applications which are in the repositoried (i.e. pre-compiled ones you just download and install with synaptic), but if you want to be able to double-click everything to install it, you're going to have to install XP

It's a case of horses for courses - I agree there are things which linux doesn't do as well as Mac OS or Windows, but linux has come a long way in a short time, and is getting better all the time. If you want an OS you can open the bonnet of and examine the inner workings of the engine, use linux; if you want something that's the same as 90% of the desktops on the planet, use XP.

I grew-up with a BBC Micro, to me the commandline is where all the interesting stuff happens

Dom

[defsdoor]

First thing to do when you get an Eee PC is install ubuntu on it. Don't bother with the Asus bastardised Xandros.

[Dio]

maybe.. I'm just going from the Wiki on the EeePC forums.. all the sections there say "bring up a terminal window and type 'sudo blah' to install"

Must investigate further (I'm looking for a new media player - ones that use something called "xv", which is hardware accelerated, ends up with corrupt playback on the EeePC)

The version of Linux that Asus has chosen isn't very friendly if you want to go outside the sandbox they preinstall.

But even without that, Linux is regularly still about as much fun as dental work when it comes to installing software. A combination of obscurity, unfriendliness, inconsistency and overconfigurability blights the entire experience and it's unlikely to change in the near future. (From my admittedly external view - been a couple of years since I last tried it).

[defsdoor]

But even without that, Linux is regularly still about as much fun as dental work when it comes to installing software. A combination of obscurity, unfriendliness, inconsistency and overconfigurability blights the entire experience and it's unlikely to change in the near future. (From my admittedly external view - been a couple of years since I last tried it).

How easy should it be ? And also bear in mind that windows has nothing analogous to this. This is a central installer for all available programs - it gets them and installs them. No shell. No voodoo required.

[Dio]

I've seen those. I think the last one I used had something like six thousand programs in it. I was given the choice of 'all of them' 'none of them' or 'select each checkbox by hand'. To get gcc working with the particular stuff I wanted to compile took a day and some substantial rc file work.

I know Linux is getting better, but I still find it a total nightmare. About a month ago I read a fascinating discussion on how the Linux printer system was possibly the most disastrous piece of software work ever which summed it up a lot better than I could - basically, too many options, ask questions even experts find hard to answer, that sort of thing. It's inherent in the culture behind the system, that everything should be configurable, but that absolutely has to go away to produce genuinely useful software.

[dom]

I've seen those. I think the last one I used had something like six thousand programs in it. I was given the choice of 'all of them' 'none of them' or 'select each checkbox by hand'. To get gcc working with the particular stuff I wanted to compile took a day and some substantial rc file work.

I agree that the names can be a bit hard to find out, e.g. gimp, vlc, devilspie, xwinwrap etc. (although I prefer that to something that's a very common english word and impossible to google for), but installing the essentials for building an application is as easy as:

$ sudo aptitude install build-essential

You can also search for keywords in the description.

I anticipate a battle between .deb and .rpm for supremacy, but that's a topic for another thread.

Dom

[defsdoor]

Debian based package managers will install dependencies automatically and theres always been virtual packages that install a suite of tools for particular tasks. It's still a lot easier than installing a free compiler on Windows.

The vast array of installable programs is a good thing (imho). They are categorised nicely and theres also plenty of ways to search for the ones you want.

[defsdoor]

I know Linux is getting better, but I still find it a total nightmare. About a month ago I read a fascinating discussion on how the Linux printer system was possibly the most disastrous piece of software work ever which summed it up a lot better than I could - basically, too many options, ask questions even experts find hard to answer, that sort of thing. It's inherent in the culture behind the system, that everything should be configurable, but that absolutely has to go away to produce genuinely useful software.

That was Raymond's rant iirc. It's quite old and was mostly pedantry - a reminder to the OSS community to work harder on making it easier. Linux uses CUPS. The same system was adopted by Mac OS X. It's very straight forward, web configurable but Gnome and KDE both have GUI configure tools also.

[Dio]

Found the article - by Eric Raymond, no less. An Open Source Horror Story.

"the problem is that these simple things never occurred to developers who bring huge amounts of already-acquired knowledge to bear every time they look at their user interfaces."

I've not yet used a piece of open-source software which isn't at least a little bit like this (and he says pretty much exactly that as well in the article). And I learned from this myself too - I realised emulation is exactly the same and I've taken fixing that as part of the goals for my stuff. Zero documentation and zero questions asked has to be a key goal.

(edit) The Slashdot link I originally found it off last year sometime was saying that nothing much appeared to have changed, and that about all that this article engendered was the filling of esr's mailbox with flames.

[defsdoor]

Most of Raymond's article is made moot by the fact that cups will automatically look for advertised printers and let you print to them direct. You actually don't need to mess around adding queues, printers etc...

Why don't you just try an ubuntu live CD (all the install CDs are also live CDs) and see for yourself. A bit of first hand experience is always better than reading about other people's bad experiences.