Apologies for this vent but I just have to let off steam after a new foray into the Linux world sends me packing back to the Windows world, bruised and disappointed...
Once every six months I get the notion that I want to fill my unused partition Linus with some bootable content – Linux. But to this day my attempts to join the Linux revolution has been thwarted.
My demands are simple: give me a good Linux that I can learn, but don’t expect me to abandon Windows until I have a healthy grasp of Linux. Don’t expect me to start compiling the core, and hooking up additions to the core before I can even make heads or tails of how the OS names its harddisks!
Point and click, that’s what I want at this stage. Later, I would be able to both compile the core, and then dabble with the code of it. Eventually I could maybe write a great add on or two – but I still need to learn Linux. So, point and click right now.
Many Linux distros promise pointing and clicking, as does both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Insert disk, boot, point and click, and voila – Linux is on the box… Things never turn out that way, at least not for me. I do not know if there’s a great hand in the sky that wants to keep me on the MS side of the computing world for ever. Something always go wrong when I try to install Linux. Either it's a driver that's acting up that forces me to wipe Linux from the box, or it's like now -- the boot.
Linus is always wiped again, and soon I’ll make it into a NTFS-disk rather than an ext 3… And this time both Ubuntu and Kubuntu was wiped from the disk. I have no need for an OS that I can’t boot into. Don’t get me wrong, every file was copied from the ISO to Linus. Every I was dotted, and every T was crossed in the installation.
Cheerio, good job, a quick installation and all that. But still no use, since I wasn’t able to boot either Ubuntu or Kubuntu from anything else than the Live CD. To be specific, I have no intention of pouring hours of frustration into learning the ins and out of GRUB to get it to work.
That’s not my job to begin with. My job is to install Ubuntu or Kubuntu and then ogle at how nice it/they are. At this stage. My job is not to, at this point, to want Linux so bad that I'm willing to pour a huge amount of sweat into the problem. My job is to learn Linux, and the ubuntu/kubuntu development team's job is still to sell the system to me by the quality of its design and the ease of its use.
Yes, it is a matter of GRUB the pernicious boot loader that should allow me to boot into Linux. I’ve read the questions here on the forum about the problems with GRUB to try to find the answer to my problems. They all speak of HD0, HDD and so on. Since I can’t boot Linux with anything but the live CD, I can’t even get any answer from fdisk –lu. Fdisk doesn’t tell me anything about the file system.
I’m supposed to be able to use the TAB character in the KDESU/SUDO GRUB in the console for code completion, but when I press tab – all I get is a movement of the cursor x number of blank spaces to the right, and error messages like 'the device doesn't exist'.
Given that I’m running Ubuntu/Kubuntu from a LIVE-CD I don’t know whether an install of LILO will matter a whit, or if it would just be temporarily installed for the pseudo file system of the current CD-boot. I’m not even going to try that, actually.
Don’t get this venting wrong, I still want to learn Linux. As a computer git who likes the slackware live distros I use, I still want to learn Linux just for rounding out my computer knowledge that is very Windows-based right now.
However, I don’t have to learn Linux, and if the developers of the Linux platsforms aren’t going to make it easy for me to get a toe into the Linux world by supplying a good boot loader that I don’t have to tear my hair out over, I’m not likely to ever learn it. Since Microsoft with Vista launched that new Windows boot loader that doesn't show anything else than MS-OS:es, that task does fall to the Linux development community.
And, I don’t really see why the new users should learn the ins and outs of setting up a booter, given that the linux distro developers doesn't seem to want to solve the booting problems with GRUB. I could, of course, learn all that given enough time and effort, but I don't see the point if the linux development community isn't going to make the transition from Windows the Linux as easy as possible for users that aren't computer gits like me.
[Edited for spelling and grammar]
Once every six months I get the notion that I want to fill my unused partition Linus with some bootable content – Linux. But to this day my attempts to join the Linux revolution has been thwarted.
My demands are simple: give me a good Linux that I can learn, but don’t expect me to abandon Windows until I have a healthy grasp of Linux. Don’t expect me to start compiling the core, and hooking up additions to the core before I can even make heads or tails of how the OS names its harddisks!
Point and click, that’s what I want at this stage. Later, I would be able to both compile the core, and then dabble with the code of it. Eventually I could maybe write a great add on or two – but I still need to learn Linux. So, point and click right now.
Many Linux distros promise pointing and clicking, as does both Ubuntu and Kubuntu. Insert disk, boot, point and click, and voila – Linux is on the box… Things never turn out that way, at least not for me. I do not know if there’s a great hand in the sky that wants to keep me on the MS side of the computing world for ever. Something always go wrong when I try to install Linux. Either it's a driver that's acting up that forces me to wipe Linux from the box, or it's like now -- the boot.
Linus is always wiped again, and soon I’ll make it into a NTFS-disk rather than an ext 3… And this time both Ubuntu and Kubuntu was wiped from the disk. I have no need for an OS that I can’t boot into. Don’t get me wrong, every file was copied from the ISO to Linus. Every I was dotted, and every T was crossed in the installation.
Cheerio, good job, a quick installation and all that. But still no use, since I wasn’t able to boot either Ubuntu or Kubuntu from anything else than the Live CD. To be specific, I have no intention of pouring hours of frustration into learning the ins and out of GRUB to get it to work.
That’s not my job to begin with. My job is to install Ubuntu or Kubuntu and then ogle at how nice it/they are. At this stage. My job is not to, at this point, to want Linux so bad that I'm willing to pour a huge amount of sweat into the problem. My job is to learn Linux, and the ubuntu/kubuntu development team's job is still to sell the system to me by the quality of its design and the ease of its use.
Yes, it is a matter of GRUB the pernicious boot loader that should allow me to boot into Linux. I’ve read the questions here on the forum about the problems with GRUB to try to find the answer to my problems. They all speak of HD0, HDD and so on. Since I can’t boot Linux with anything but the live CD, I can’t even get any answer from fdisk –lu. Fdisk doesn’t tell me anything about the file system.
I’m supposed to be able to use the TAB character in the KDESU/SUDO GRUB in the console for code completion, but when I press tab – all I get is a movement of the cursor x number of blank spaces to the right, and error messages like 'the device doesn't exist'.
Given that I’m running Ubuntu/Kubuntu from a LIVE-CD I don’t know whether an install of LILO will matter a whit, or if it would just be temporarily installed for the pseudo file system of the current CD-boot. I’m not even going to try that, actually.
Don’t get this venting wrong, I still want to learn Linux. As a computer git who likes the slackware live distros I use, I still want to learn Linux just for rounding out my computer knowledge that is very Windows-based right now.
However, I don’t have to learn Linux, and if the developers of the Linux platsforms aren’t going to make it easy for me to get a toe into the Linux world by supplying a good boot loader that I don’t have to tear my hair out over, I’m not likely to ever learn it. Since Microsoft with Vista launched that new Windows boot loader that doesn't show anything else than MS-OS:es, that task does fall to the Linux development community.
And, I don’t really see why the new users should learn the ins and outs of setting up a booter, given that the linux distro developers doesn't seem to want to solve the booting problems with GRUB. I could, of course, learn all that given enough time and effort, but I don't see the point if the linux development community isn't going to make the transition from Windows the Linux as easy as possible for users that aren't computer gits like me.
[Edited for spelling and grammar]
Really, you do, 'cause he is 100% correct. Windows users have, almost universally, been lead down the garden path of 'it's simply user friendly' and 'anyone can do it' thinking. But I'm sure that you know, that mind set isn't completely true (or honest). Yes, in most situations, M$ installations and program installs don't present the user with problems. But that is not always the case. It is true that a user doesn't have to know the underlying foundations of what 'makes it work.' But when it doesn't, that lack of knowledge, let alone the ability to do something about it even if you do, is what makes M$ OSs 'crippled' by design. M$ doesn't want the user to have full control. That is where Linux differs - A LOT.
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