>On Sat, 2007-06-02 at 17:18 -0700, Knute Johnson wrote: > >Go with me here a bit... > >> I'm not opposed to learning new skills but I don't have unlimited >> time to fool with this. > >Lack of time! Imperative must install now! Should I wait for F8? Is it going to install better if I age the CDs, sorry there are no CDs, the DVD? >> My mail server is still at FC5 > >I've waited a year and passed up an entire revision level and I'm gonna >upgrade 2 revisions at once. On a mail server no less. The mail server has an identical twin that I test software on and I couldn't get FC6 to install on it. I figured that it might not be a good idea to try to upgrade it then. Stupid me I had the crazy idea that F7 might just be a better product and less likely to blow up on install. >> because I didn't want to risk blowing it up when I upgraded it. > >Tell me another one. Chances are it'll blow sky high with an upgrade, on >a good day. I know. That is the biggest reason a lot of people don't use Linux as their primary OS. It blows up on install, it won't work with a lot of laptops and wireless really is voodoo. >> I think maybe I'll just change my mail server computer to ubuntu >> server. They just upgrade from the net. No disks. > >You're gonna use a chicken foot? Wave hands hovery hovery over the >desktop and it'll happen?? One CD minimum, as you must have SOMETHING to >give the machine instructions to install from. The ubuntu crowd will be >slobbering like a wide-mouth mule with a narrow mouth bit, anticipating >your arrival. Chicken foot. I hadn't heard that one before. I don't care how many CDs it has. I would be happy to upload as many as it takes. In fact I'm downloading the F7 DVD right now. That is a several day process that has gotten much better with bittorrent. I don't really like ubuntu (the brown screen is depressing) but it is easier to install and has what appears to be a reliable upgrade process. >I bet Rahul is drinking by now... <cackles> Ric A toast to Rahul then. As much as I dislike using Windows and would like to convert to Linux, I can't because so many things don't work. I spent 8 hours yesterday trying to get two of my three wireless cards to work. I got one working which is a great success. I hadn't had wireless working since FC4. And I had to use Windows drivers to do that. I've bought two cards and spent 40 or 50 hours screwing with wireless in the last year. With Windows you plug it in and it works. I develop software in Java. When I upgraded to version 6 this winter I couldn't get the Java plugin to work on Linux. That took about 4 months to find out that there is an obscure library required to make version 6 work. No error messages, just didn't work. A lot of nice folks have offered alternatives to the DVD install here but none of them are documented anywhere in enough detail that the novice user could make them work. My knowledge of Linux, while limited, is probably as detailed as my knowledge of Windows. Windows is a lot simpler to use. Linux requires much more knowledge to use and considerably more to use effectively. I set up my mail server for two reasons, firstly I needed to have my own mail server so I could get an IMAP mailbox for my wife's Blackberry and secondly so I could learn more about how to run a Linux box. I've learned a lot, most by searching the internet and asking questions here but almost as much by trial and error. I'd like to spend 8 hours everyday playing with Linux but I have to write Java code sometime and I have to do it on Windows because of all the things that Linux won't do yet. I've had Fedora on my last two desktops (3 or 4 years) and this last desktop I bought specifically with Linux in mind (extra hard drive). But Linux is still a toy that you can't upgrade easily and now has no CDs. I don't do any serious work with it because I know that if I want to see the latest updates I'm going to have to format the drive. Maybe I won't convert to chicken foot, maybe I'll just reinstall XP on my mail server computer and forget Linux. That'll save me a lot of time that I could be writing Java code or sleeping or something. -- Knute Johnson Molon Labe...
