Desktops

[Asher]

Maybe.

Here's the latest Gentoo in all its glory.

[Q Classic]

well, i'll just say gentoo 2004 has yet to have a kernel panic on me. ymmv. i don't know what went wrong with the installation, as i assume you read the manual, but...

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as far as the ati drivers: it may be trouble for you, but:
1. ati uses closed-source drivers to take full advantage of their chip. the onus is on them to provide good working drivers.
2. the open-source movement, when it writes drivers for closed-source hardware, often has to go by a guess-and-check method to write drivers. which is why a) ati's cards need to wait for ati's drivers for full effect; b) why samba/cifs is such a ***** to set up; c) why ntfs write support can only really be used with the 'captive' drivers. this is again, not the fault of the open-source movement. it certainly sounds like you're blaming them for failing to write drivers that work for hardware that they frankly don't know the deep details about.

as far as other hardware, linux drivers are again reliant on people who have that hardware; which is why you might not be able to find drivers for, say, a gigabit lom made by, say, linksys, if no developer has that hardware. i personally have no hardware that fails to work with linux; alsa/kernel 2.6 works with my santa cruz card as well as windows does; that was the last sticking point, as the kernel in 2.4 did, but in single channel low quality.

the drivers i've been using have never had trouble.

and asher, linux drivers are not the only ones that are craptastic. wasn't it microsoft and its whql that revealed that over half of all system crashes were as a result of non-microsoft written, closed-source, windows drivers?

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finally, what do you need the drivers for anyway? i can guarantee you that most people in linux don't use it for gaming (one thing which i believe is holding linux back, actually); if they're rendering stuff, they're probably using server farms, and so they probably don't care about those.

i mean, i'm sorry that linux doesn't have the drivers availible for you, but it's not the oss movement's fault, but rather ati's for being so asstasstic about their delivery. yes, it is a hassle, but as long as you can see the screen and have graphics working on a basic level, you can do most of the stuff you need to.

no, linux is not ready for every tom, dick, and harry, and definitely not ready for grandma sue. the system install process for most is rather onerous (redhat's anaconda is one of the better ones), and the package management process isn't stellar either (rpm, apt, and tgz, for instance, aren't great. portage has great potential, but it's still a work in progress). but as far as a desktop system for someone who's willing to learn it, it's come a long way and is hardly a 'joke'.

[Nubclear]

Danger! Danger! Kernel panic! Danger!

[Asher]

Personally I consider any desktop that refuses to run at any hardware-accelerated fashion and at a maximum of 1024x768 to be a joke.

You may think differently, but you don't have the hardware I do.

To be a serious contender, the OS must be able to support new hardware decently, if not as well as Windows.

I'm not "blaming" Linux, it's just a MAJOR problem with using Linux, and I don't see it getting any better.

[Asher]

The video card I'm using isn't even "new", the Radeon 9500/9600/9700/9800 family has been out for about 1.5 years. That's a lot of time in the computer world...

BTW: I manually built the kernel and got Gentoo to boot. I'm playing with emerging xfree and kde right now.

[Q Classic]

i'll agree that the desktop you mention is less than stellar, however: that's a limitation of the x windowing system, not linux. the linux kernel itself really doesn't do much outside of provide the environment that xwindows plays in, and it's xwindows which isn't running the way that it should. wait for xouvert or ywindows, but those are a good ways off. ticks me off too, because xfree86 really has just fallen apart and seems to be filled with ****heads.

as far as the hardware concerned: i stand by everything i said. i've had plenty of issues with hardware in the past; the sound card lasted until alsa was integrated into 2.6; before then, it was things like the firewire card, the tv card... it's not oss's fault; they don't have the resources to write drivers for everything--particularly things they don't have or use--especially when the manufacturer refuses to make details public. tough beans, but that's the way it is. it's a problem, yes, but it's often because those companies are being *****es rather than the oss movement.

you're right in other respects though: plug-and-play is nowhere near as good as it could be. again, much of it is because of what i said above.

i see desktop linux as a valid option arriving in the next few years. why? most common hardware has decent support, and if you're looking for a system that can do wordprocessing and other basic, office tasks, linux can do that. hell, that's what most people use their windows and mac computers for. if you need it for games, well, you'll have to wait longer.

[Q Classic]

The video card I'm using isn't even "new", the Radeon 9500/9600/9700/9800 family has been out for about 1.5 years. That's a lot of time in the computer world.

again, ati just released the radeon drivers for xfree 3.3 in the last two months. xfree 3.3 has been out for a year. xfree 3.4 has just been released--less than a month after ati's driver release. all the changes in driver reqs for 3.4 have been published for at least six months. people who don't know anything about the innards of a particular card who want to write drivers for it, probably from scratch, or even drivers for the 8000 series, when they have real jobs elsewhere... well, it probably would take longer than a year.

so who's fault is it for not making their hardware work with linux? not the oss developers, but ati. the oss movement at least met it halfway by publishing all requirements and creating a basic driver that could work with it; not very different from what microsoft does with its windows.

BTW: I manually built the kernel and got Gentoo to boot. I'm playing with emerging xfree and kde right now.

did you use the genkernel script? no wonder. genkernel, frankly, is ****. it's a long way from being actually useful.

[Asher]

Q^3, again let me say I'm not trying to state blame.

All I'm saying is, no matter whose at fault, it's a terrible situation and a pain in the ass.

[Q Classic]

it is a pain in the ass. and i'm saying that there are just some things it can't do yet through no fault of their own.

note that i didn't disagree with you in saying that desktop linux isn't quite there yet; i merely disagree with you on calling it a 'joke'.

[joncha]

Wow. Apolyton already has a really high geek factor. No need kick it up a notch, guys.

[Q Classic]

OMFG OMFG OSX HAS A FREEBSD CORE WITH MACH OMFG OMFG THAT'S SO FSCKING KEWL OMFG OMFG MACH'S A MICROKERNEL WHICH IS KEWL AND THAT MAKES IT BETTER THAN WINDOZE FROM MICRO$OFT EXCEPT IF ITS NT BECAUSE NT IS A MICROKERNEL TOO AND THAT'S WHY FREEBSD IS BETTER THAN LINUX BECAUSE FREEBSD USES A MICROKERNEL AND LINUX HAS A MONOLITHIC KERNEL OMFG OMFG OMFG

[joncha]

Well, gosh, you sure set me straight.

[Agathon]

I miss kernel panics. I only ever had one, and that was over 3 years ago.

[Agathon]

What kind of idiot uses the term "FSCKING". That's so lame it deserves a website mocking it.

fscking -y I say.

[Asher]

Own goal?

fsck is a *nix command.