Linux sucks

[andyofne]

I'm so tired of struggling to get Linux running. It's my own fault but you know, it's too frustrating.

I read a story last week about the 'death' of desktop linux and I think it's true. Linux on the desktop is a pipe dream.

I've long been a fan of RedHat Linux and the Fedora desktop suite. But some time ago they started screwing it up with virtually every release. I guess starting about the time they went from Fedora Core to just Fedora. Maybe even Fedora Core 6 was fucked up, I dunno.

I have a Dell GX280 which is a hypertheaded Pentium IV 3.2ghz system (socket 775). The motherboard uses DDR2 RAM and has onboard video and audio. Everything worked fine with Fedora 9 and Fedora 10 but neither Fedora 11 or 12 would install properly. It just failed with error after error.

Posts on fedora specific forums didn't get any help so I gave up and stayed with 10.

Then I wanted to add more storage and when I was prompted with warning about my software being out-of-date I tried to upgrade to Fedora 13. It actually worked fine, well, I mean it installed fine but it wouldn't boot because it didn't like my add in PCI SATA card.

Nothing I did would make it work. So, I did the next best thing. I replaced the motherboard with a more modern board that had 6 onboard SATA controllers. Fine.

Only now the install process hangs because suddenly it doesn't like the PCIe card I am using. It worked fine in the Dell but not on the new board.

There are alternate install options so I chose to use a more compatible video setting. That seemed to help but it hung a little further into the install process.

Fine, I looked for a fix for that but I couldn't find one. I saw bug reports that mentioned the problem but no fix.

Fuck it. I've got another copy of Win7 Pro so I'm just going to use that. Why not? It installed fine in about 20 minutes and it's already up and working fine.

All hardware detected and working perfectly (so far).

Everyone talks shit about Windows (well, not everyone) and talks up how great Linux is, but every time I've tried to install it in the last 4 years I've struggled with it and fought with it and had to come up with some compromise to make it work.

I know, I could try some other flavor of Linux like Mint or FreeBSD or the ubiquitous Ubuntu. Well, I HAVE tried some of them and they didn't solve my problems.

Sorry to raise such a stink here. It ain't like anyone will read it. I just needed to vent.

Farking Fedora. WTF.

[hoser]

I gave up on the hat and moved to ubuntu, it's been flawless. But admittedly, Win7 is no slouch.

[andyofne]

All I wanted was a samba share. A place to store mp3s and vids that everyone in the house can access.

Things that Windows doesn't care about just bring Linux to a screeching halt.

[Tempus]

I would have gotten a third of the way through that process before giving up. I applaud your tenacity.

[andyofne]

You know, I do it to myself. Every year or so I try to upgrade and i end up getting pissed off after working on it for 2 weeks.

[Skillz]

I stopped using Linux as a desktop operating system a few years ago. Just too much hassle to get things to work. I mean, installing software should just work, I shouldn't have to install multiple packages just to get something to work.

With that being said, I do still use linux as a server environment. Have you ever tried FreeNAS? It's extremely easy to use, I have it setup to run samba shares on my network. Pretty easy setup and runs forever sitting in my garage. Along with my dedicated backup server I have in there.

[andyofne]

I downloaded and made an ISO of FreeNAS but I can't recall ever using it.

[Skillz]

Originally Posted by andyofne

I downloaded and made an ISO of FreeNAS but I can't recall ever using it.

It's pretty cool for sure, has a lot of features straight out of the box but I only use SAMBA. It also has backup utilities to do automatic backups on Windows boxes. Haven't used it, but it seems pretty legit.

You could download the LiveCD version and run a trail run on your desktop, just to see if it's something you'd be interested in.