sad day on PLUG

[Craig White]

On Fri, 2007-11-09 at 22:25 -0700, Kurt Granroth wrote:
> Craig White wrote:
> > As for OS's, I have gotten to appreciate Linux. I like the fact that the
> > repositories of packages is very deep on Fedora and that for minimal
> > effort, I seem to get just about everything that I want with yum
> > install...and don't have to scout around for development packages/build
> > requirements, etc.
> 
> Indeed.  I see tutorials online all the time that describe in far too
> much detail how to download this-and-that tar.gz and configure && make
> && make install and so on... and I wonder who they are aiming those at.
>  The three main desktop Linux distros (Ubuntu, Fedora, openSUSE) and the
> two dominant server Distros (RHEL/Centos and SLES) all have nearly every
> package you could want already packaged up.  I love it.
> 
> Which reminds me, in an earlier post, you (mildly) knocked CentOS saying
> that it's good only until your users want the latest Firefox, etc.
> Nah... you just need the right repos.  You can get anything you want on
> CentOS.
----
the EPEL repository is likely to change ***some*** of this.

the rpmforge (dag) has made some of these things possible but others
well...

Running ruby on rails on RHELv4.x or CentOS-4.x has been an
issue...mongrel needs Apache 2.2.x not Apache 2.0.x  Granted you don't
have to use mongrel to serve ruby on rails but not to do so is stupid.

The Enterprise software simply refuse to update the core software for
obvious reasons and eventually, that becomes a liability as well as a
virtue.
----
> 
> > Every time I get on a Mac, it's work...and I still
> > haven't figured out how to enable sshd server at startup (perhaps that
> > got easier with the new 'service pack'  ;-)
> 
> Heh.. Macs are fantastic for what they are intended for.  As is Linux.
> I'm going to give some examples.
> 
> Example One: Desktop-style
> Recently, I bought a stereo bluetooth headset (Sony DR-BT50) for use
> both as a (wireless) headset for listening to music and for possibly
> doing some VOIP (skype, ekiga, etc).  Here's my steps under Linux
> 
> 1. First start doing some searches online.  Gak!  There are wildly
> conflicting articles all over the place.  I am not making head's nor
> tails out of it.  Maybe openSUSE has something built-in?
> 2. Sure enough, YaST -> Hardware -> Bluetooth.  Click click click and
> there you have it.  That was easy.  Wish I had done that for Step 1
> 3. How to pair my specific headset?  I see a bluetooth icon in my system
> tray.  I click on it... and play around for awhile 'cause it's not
> exactly intuitive but eventually I get it to pair.  We're in business!
> 4. Now what?  Is it working?  How do I select the headset as my
> microphone and speaker.  There's nothing in YaST.  Nothing in the
> KBlueTooth module.  Back to searching online
> 5-20. Beat my head against the wall trying to get this to work.  Compile
> a few packages.  Go through some low-level stuff (from the Gentoo
> forums, only they get deep enough).  Absolutely nothing works.  Linux
> can see my headset, but it can't actually *use* it.  I finally give up
> for the moment, after hours (stretched over a couple of days) of trying.
> 
> What about getting this working under OS X?  I go over to my trusty G4
> PowerBook
> 
> 1. System Preferences -> Bluetooth.  Enable everything.
> 2. A wizard finds my headset.  I pair it
> 3. System Preferences -> Sound.  I select the DR-BT50 as my microphone
> and speaker.  Tadah!
> 
> Really, I'm being charitable giving it 3 steps vs the Linux steps.  It
> took me all of 2 minutes to get up and working perfectly on OS X.  It
> took me hours on Linux and I never did get it to work.
> 
> Example Two: Courier IMAP
> I tried to install Courier IMAP on OS X a couple years ago.  This was
> for Panther, I think, so it might be better now.
> 
> 1. Try to find a DMG.  Nope.  Does fink have it?  Nope.  Download the source
> 2. configure fails.  Fix configure to get around something that's
> expecting but is in an odd place on OS X.  It fails again.  Search
> online and finally find a package I need.
> 3. Compile and install needed package
> 4. configure still fails.  Needs some more packages.  At least these are
> on fink.  Thankfully I already had the base fink installed.  Install
> those new packages
> 5. Oops.. one of those packages wasn't available in binary format so I
> need to switch to unstable.  A bunch of dependencies are hosed.  I beat
> on that for awhile and finally get it to work
> 6. configure finally succeeds.  I start building... building fails.
> 7. I end up patching 4 files, I think.  I am very thankful that I know
> how to program in C or I would be pretty much SOL at this point since
> there is nothing online about this.
> 8. I finally get it to work.  Total time... some 12 hours from beginning
> to end.
> 
> On Linux, SuSE 9.3 (I think).  I was using apt-get with the gwdg.de repo
> at the time:
> 
> 1. apt-get install courier-imap
> 2. /etc/init.d/courier-imap start
> 
> Lesson Learned:
> Both OS X and Linux can be successfully used in areas that they weren't
> originally designed for... but they are far better when you stick to
> their intended markets.
----
really?

The lesson that I have learned about these things is that when I make
the efforts and bugzilla/feedback/participate that the changes often get
incorporated upstream so that more of the plethora of devices are
automatically recognized and used.

With Linux, you can participate, get involved, etc.

With a Macintosh, you can stand on your head because if it doesn't work,
try finding someone who cares, can do something about it or actually
wants you to be involved.

With Linux, once the device details are worked through, they are worked
through for i386/x86_64/ppc or whatever hardware platform you use.

If you want something that will most likely work out of the box, it's
probably Windows based since they have the most drivers, and are
seemingly incapable of making the move to 64 bit. Macintosh has far
fewer drivers than Windows but enough to seduce some people to believe
that Macintosh is a valid option. You will suck wind if the device
drivers don't exist.

Craig