Giving up on Linux...

[WipeOut]

xyzzy at hotpop.com wrote:

>... for the foreseeable future on my home system.
>
>My home system is an ASUS PVP800-VM motherboard which has hi-speed USB, ACPI, 
>Pentium IV with hyperthread, S-ATA, Intel Extreme 2 graphics (865G chipset).
>
>I also have an antique Adaptec 2930 SCSI card for my LS-2000 scanner.
>
>Redhat 9 install disks won't even boot on this machine unless I disable the 
>Enhanced IDE (<-- totally bogus!!) ...  Fedora Core 1 is about the same.
>
>I decided on FC1 because it uses a later kernel (2.4.22 ... 24?) which seems 
>to support hyperthread and S-ATA better.  When I finally got FC1 installed (I 
>had to disable Enhanced IDE, install, compile a custom kernel and then 
>re-enable Enhanced IDE), it was horribly SLOOOOOOW... running a shell in X 
>and pasting a long command line took forever to complete.
>
>I figured that this might be due to the graphics driver, so I updated the 
>graphics driver from Intel and then X crashed with a segmentation fault in 
>the closed source part of the driver when attempting to start the X server.  
>Even changing back to the original driver in the XF86Config didn't fix the 
>segfault.  Gotta reinstall?  Who needs this? What a nightmare.
>
>The issue here is that Windows XP runs "out-of-the-box" on this system without 
>problems and it is FAST, once it boots.
>
>I could try the 2.6 kernel (and I have a LOT of experience with computers), 
>but what's the use?  The 2.6 kernel is not ready for prime-time, not by a 
>long shot, and neither, it seems, is Linux in general.
>
>I have seen too many bugs and posts on these topics about SMP/hyperthread/ACPI 
>and other issues that cause the system to lock up after a time of running or 
>not run at all and no fixes seem to be in sight - maybe because these 
>problems are intractable without inside information about ACPI and other 
>things that Intel will give to Microsoft but not to Open Source developers. 
>Maybe Redhat just doesn't care. Who knows?
>
>I pity the average user that tries to install and run Linux on their latest 
>hardware.  If I, as an experienced software engineer, throw up my hands, what 
>would a relative newbie who just needs the system to work do?
>
>I have real problems seeing how Linux is going to make it to the desktop by 
>2005 with these kinds of road-blocks.
>
>Sad.
>
>
>  
>
Obviously by the fact that you felt the need to post you message here 
you are looking for some kind of confirmation about you decision.. The 
people in this mailing list are all Linux users so I doubt you will get 
any..

As you said you "have a lot of computer experience" so all I will say is 
enjoy the viruses and worms, the BSOD's, the reinstalls when the 
registry get full of crap, the annual licencing, the having to register 
you products with MS and then having to call them up when you have to 
reinstall, the locking down you freedom to save the files you want 
without being hit by DRM systems and the freedom in general to have the 
ability to rebuild the system as you want it not to be forced into their 
meida player, web browser and MSN services..

Have fun..