Fedora and the System Administrator -- Linux developers can't solve political issues ...
Bryan J. Smith
b.j.smith at ieee.org
Fri Oct 3 12:56:38 UTC 2003
On Fri, 2003-10-03 at 07:20, Edward Croft wrote:
> Yes, I knew BlueCurve was a theme, but there was also writeups that they
> did stuff to kde and gnome that ended up breaking some things in kde. I
> probably didn't explain it properly. As I said to Brian, I think it was,
> I was tired and frustrated when I wrote that and frankly ranting. Let me
> clarify, when I first installed RH8 with BlueCurve, I was a bit put off.
> But then again, RH always defaulted to Gnome. I was always able to
> switch to kde and it would look like kde. With the advent of the
> thhhheeeemmmmmeeee BlueCurve, when I switched to kde it still looked the
> same. It apppppeeeeeaaaarrrrreeeed, that you were stuck with BlueCurve
> look and feel.
I don't fault Ed on anything here, there was a lot of complaining on
BlueCurve, and that's just what he heard. I chaulk it all up to "you
can't please everyone," because Red Hat was targeting the "non-Linux
user" who often heard the bigotry of "Linux needs a single interface."
Here's the basic bullet points on why people said what they did:
1) Red Hat is _clearly_ a GNOME-centric company. Unintentionally this
causes Red Hat to make GNOME-oriented choices.
2) One Red Hat staffer who supported a lot of the KDE stuff resigned
over various details (not related to BlueCurve). Many people then
proliferated that he resigned over BlueCurve. I don't know the details
myself, but this is what was relayed to me 2nd hand.
3) Many of the default applications for _both_ platforms were GNOME.
E.g., the default web browser for KDE was Mozilla, not Konqueror. I
could see why KDE would get a little "disturbed at that."
4) You _could_easily_ reset everything "back to defaults." But many
people found it even easier just to "bitch" instead of doing that.
;-ppp
In a nutshell Ed, Red Hat gets a lot of flak it doesn't deserve. Yes,
they make choices that make some people upset. And they _are_ clearly
"GNOME-biased," but it's unintentional.
You always have other choices though.
> I had also heard that people had problems if they
> attempted to load kde 3 on RH 8, so I didn't bother and learned to adapt
> to the look and feel with BlueCurve.
People have problems upgrading to the latest versions of GNOME, KDE,
etc... all the time.
> but I was going through a divorce, lost my home, then lost my job, and
> a multitude of other things that left futzing with a desktop manager a
> very low priority.
Yeah, the last thing you wanted was "more change." Understand totally.
;-ppp
> would like it if installing software was as easy and as supported as
> on Windows.
Try to install _two_ different versions of MS Office on the same Windows
system.
Where people see "hard to install" with regard to Linux, I see "DLL
hell" with regards to Windows.
So what is it? Easy installing or DLL hell because the platform does
_not_ have dependency checking?
There's no win-win situation, although apt-rpm is getting pretty damn
easy.
> but I still have trouble when I go to a music site and can't get
> realplayer to work right.
Whoa! Time out. That is _not_ a Linux issue! That's a site/vendor
issue! Linux developers can do _little_ about that.
Next you'll be blaming Linux for unsupported hardware.
If you start blaming Linux developers for clearly 100% site/vendor
issues, then there is no way to please you.
You have to ask Linux developers for things they _can_ do.
> I even tried Crossover Plugin, and that didn't work just right.
Emulation never truly "works right."
> On Windows, you download and run and it works.
And that's because of vendor alliances and other business dealings.
Yep, sure, that's the fault of Linux developers. Yep.
> Okay, so the operating system has major problems, but
> most things work out of the box. I don't have to go looking up how to
> install drivers for webcams, scanners, et al.
Damn I'm good! [ I knew you would come here ]
> Okay, so I have an oddball scanner that was only supported under 98,
Exactomundo. Now put it together ...
- I can only view something on one OS
- Hardware is tied to only one OS
Hmmm, that means that I have to get my OS and hardware from select
vendors! And I have to upgrade my hardware _every_ time I upgrade my
OS. And my OS vendor forces me to upgrade my OS!
Wow! Maybe there's some things going on that _force_ you into this
situation???
Let's blame it on the Linux developers for not "giving me a way out" of
my vendor lock-in.
> but hey. I figure, if I am an RHCE, it all should be easy for me,
> but it isn't.
Because Linux developers can do _nothing_ about the problems you have
above.
> I just about aced that test, but still can't get music to play at a
> website. If I want to play a DVD on my PC then I have to go and get
> plugins for the software because the system doesn't come with it
> because of licensing.
Exactomundo. [ At least you get that part ;-]
> Anyway, don't get me wrong, I am a supporter of RHL. I use it both at
> work and at home. It just gets frustrating sometimes when things aren't
> the way you expect them to be.
> Okay, still tired, still running my mouth. Getting a cup of joe and
> shutting up now.
Well, I see your points. I hope you see mine in return. ;-ppp
> Ed (under the gun all the time) Croft, RHCE
--
Bryan J. Smith, E.I. mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org http://thebs.org
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