YMMV, but MY Linux desktop stinks

Victor Odhner said:
> Can't reach my HP Deskjet 5550 printer.
> Prints go nowhere, quietly. I downloaded
> a PostScript file and used it to configure
> OpenOffice ... the instructions I found
> told me to do that as root. So I can run
> OpenOffice Writer as root and find my printer,
> but the print button just makes the dialog
> go away, nothing prints. If I run OpenOffice
> Writer as myself, I still don't see my HP printer.

Have you tried CUPS? After I switched to CUPS I about died. Setting up a
printer takes about 30 seconds and often is detected. It is MUCH simpler
than network printing in windows.

> Sound? Windows 98 says I have a "C-Media AC97
> Audio Device" and plays it just fine. RedHat 8
> says it's SiS PCI Audio Accelerator and has the
> driver i810_audio. The "Detect Sound Card" tool
> detects the SiS device and the "Play Sound" button
> does nothing - no apology, no complaint.

Sound detection isnt all that great, but if you know your card under
Debian at least its about a 3 minute config. I am starting to think maybe
your distribution is more of a hinderance than anything.

> I do great with "Unix stuff" in Linux, but
> any attempt at desktop operation is hopeless.

No offense, but 99% of the people I know. Don't setup sound cards or
printers on their "windows" desktops and if asked to do so they couldn't.
So just because it's harder to "install" something doesn't mean that its a
less viable desktop choice. imho. Especially in enterprise environments
where users are not "allowed" to install things anyhow.

> OpenOffice Writer fails to display any of my
> Word documents decently. I have a three-column
> .rtf document that displays *nothing* except
> three empty columns and *one* line that is in
> Courier font. I tried "Select All" and then
> changed font to Courier, but still nothing
> appears. Another document has a logo at the
> top, but I can't see it in OO Writer.

You have some old version then. 1.1 has been displaying word documents
from Office 97 better than Office 2000 does here for me.

> There's no way I could sell any of this stuff
> in my workplace in lieu of *any* of their
> desktop operations. They are a heavy tech
> shop with lots of Solaris, FreeBSD and some
> Linux, but they need their desktop stuff to
> work. I need that at home too. Redmond
> still is the place to go for that, it seems.

Well at work I use GNU/Linux desktop and Windows Desktop. I have to
"reboot" my Windows Desktop every few days, usually at critical points and
end up losing data. I rarely if ever have to do that to my GNU/Linux
desktop. So to me the small initial pain of setting up a GNU/Linux
desktop is nothing compared to it "just working" after I have it
configured.

> This is not rhetoric intended to stir some
> discussion. This really is my consistent
> experience with Linux on the desktop.
> I don't have time for a serious learning
> curve, and you apparently have to be in on
> some pretty heavy cultural acclimation to
> have any success with this.

I say it all the time. Windows is easy to learn, but hard to use. *Nix
is hard to learn, but easy to use. If you are in something for the long
haul, learning curve is much less important than efficiency of the thing
long term.

> Maybe next year?

There are only a small number of instances where I would say GNU/Linux is
not a good choice at this point. From practical experience. It pains me
to say there are any, but there are some.

-Derek