E-Dribble

Before I begin, I would  like to admit two things:

#1 Some of my issues concerning linux reflect more poorly on me than it does on linux

#2 I tend to hold grudges

The last successful linux install I had(meaning one in which I could do everything I needed and wanted to do) happened in 2007.  I had used linux in the years prior as a desktop, but that was the last install I was able to use as my desktop.  The ocean of subsequent install attempts(of which there were many) were all failures of some degree.

Let me clarify.  For those who like to tinker with linux and try the new flavors as they find them, failures are part of the testing process and shouldn’t actually be called failures.   It’s just part of the taste test.  I no longer am the type of person that wants to taste any flavor of linux.  All of my installs were done with the intention of using it as my workstation.  With each install, I got angrier at the fact that out of the hundreds of distros out there, I couldn’t find a single one that worked.  They all shared bugs, but differered only in the bullshit bells and whistles that the developers threw at them.  Pulse Audio sucked, GRUB wouldn’t boot an operating system on my Neo mainboard, Gnome couldn’t properly initiate two X-sessions for dualhead, KDE 4.x looked pretty while losing all of it’s usable apps, ext4 had a tendency of zeroing your files…. All show stoppers and all were being pushed aside by the developers that wanted to tout the addition of a Mac-style taskbar or integration with Google applets.  I installed so many distros so many times that I still get a little pissed when I think about it.  We had a large number of nerds that couldn’t figure out why nobody was adopting linux while at the same time ignoring as a community the glaring problems that was making it impossible for the layman to adopt.

Understandably then, my tests were beginning to grow quite short in their duration.  Some distros spent less than an hour on my computer. I no longer trusted linux enough to install onto my main machine, instead relegating it to a spare box.  As soon as I saw one of those familiar and long ignored bugs pop up, I shut down the box and went back to waiting for a distro that didn’t suck.

It took me over two years to find it.

Ahh, but I have to clarify again.  What sucks for me probably doesn’t suck for you.  We all have different methods of determining the level of suck.  For me, it was very simple.  A yes or no check box beside the question “Can you do everything you need to do at work on this install?

In that regard, I’m much easier to please than most.  I’m flexible and my job doesn’t require much.  I need a text editor and an ftp application. I need to print to the network printer, I use a dualhead system and I absolutely have to listen to music.  Pretty simple, I’d say.  Years ago, I wrote a long-winded post concerning my inability to find a decent graphical FTP app, but have since relaxed my standards and adopted FireFTP as my graphical FTP app, so even that wasn’t really much of a show stopper.

In spite of my fairly simple requirements, I couldn’t seem to find a distro that could meet them.  For a few years, I stuck with Fedora like white on rice(since FC 3).  Why?  Well, it worked.  I spent a few weeks at the beginning of the install getting all the features working or tailored to my tastes and then I ran with it.  Once it was running, I quit screwing with it.  I didn’t post another thread looking for support until the next release or in the rare instance that something broke, instead using my free time to agitate the community in the gen channel.  I didn’t follow the 6 month cycle, but instead upgraded every other release.  The problem was with each release of Fedora, less things worked out of the box and required more fiddling to get it to work.  A machine that worked perfectly in FC5 required work to achieve the same level of usability in Fedora 7 and in Fedora 9 didn’t work at all.  This would be completely understandable if I was changing hardware, but I wasn’t.  Where Fedora 5 detected my audio, Fedora wouldn’t.  Where Fedora 7 detected my network adapter and automatically connected me to the internet, Fedora 9 let me know that I had no network adapter installed.

Those who have suffered through my posts in the past know that although I like linux, I give absolutely no bonus points for good intentions.  I wasn’t about to spend hours upon hours trying to get Fedora 9 to work because I liked using Fedora. I decided to wait for the next release.  When Fedora 10 performed even worse than 9, I decided I was no longer a Fedora user and began window shopping.

The problem was that while people were jumping over each other in an effort to build YADistro, they were all making sure that they shared the same bugs.  I couldn’t find a single distro that did what I needed to do.  I grew quite jaded and frankly, pissed.

Now, before any geek may think it, let me just say it for them.  Had I been a more savvy linux user, I could have fixed(or found a workaround) for every issue I encountered.  I know that.  My point is that I shouldn’t have had to.  I shouldn’t have had to persuade GRUB to work with my mainboard.  I shouldn’t have to hand edit files to get PulseAudio to stop popping and working at 1/8th volume.  I shouldn’t need to search forums to find out how to get Ubuntu to release the network mounts prior to dropping the network connection.  These are things that should already work.  I’m not the one that called it an operating system for the masses, the develpers did that.

They had lied to us.

In spite of my smoldering hostility towards the linux developing community in general, every once in a while, I would try another distro.  I can’t help it.  When it does work correctly, linux is the most enjoyable OS I have ever used.  I love the clean look, crisp fonts, muscular applications and the feeling of belonging to a group of elite users that had something over Joe Windowsuser(Every linux user feels that.  If they state otherwise, they are lying to you).  The only difference between myself and many of them, I didn’t actually do anything to get into the club.  Where others bend Vi to their whim, I read or asked on forums and let someone elses knowledge solve my issues for me.  I’m not ashamed of that fact, I embrace it; I’m an incompetent linux user. It’s what the linux developers are angling for.  They want mass adoption by people that know absolutely nothing about using linux as a desktop OS.  The problem was that they weren’t providing a product that incompetent people could use.  They gave you a product that required in-depth knowledge about the linux OS to get working.

Until now.  I can finally state that I am happily once again a linux desktop user, thanks to Dreamlinux.  Installing it and enabling every feature I needed took less than two days of fiddling, only dealing with it when I had a spare minute or two.  Network printing, various mounted Win shared drives, multimedia codecs, dualhead and more was one by one taken care of, usually with absolutely no fanfare and as God himself intended; automatedly and in a graphical setting.  I enjoyed the experience so much that I also installed it on my laptop.  Once I figured out the quirks of GParted and had wrapped my head around logical and extended partitions, that is.  It installed just as easily and automatically detected and enabled every aspect of the laptop, including wireless, which required my WEP key to connect.  I’m in linux-user’s heaven. And while basking in my newly rediscovered warm-fuzzy glow, I want to offer an apology to all of the linux DE developers out there.  I’m sorry for thinking such bad things about you guys.

Except for you Fedora devs. You guys are still assholes.