Windows may win after all
So if you've been following my experiences with Ubuntu, you know that I am certainly not one to give up easily, and that I was completely and totally committed to making the switch work. You also know I've enjoyed it immensly. I've now lived with it for two months, for the most part happily; when it works, it works smoother, faster and nicer than Windows, by all accounts.
Problem is, I've hit on three or four showstoppers that I cannot fix. And because I cannot fix them, it seems like I will be switching back to Windows XP.
Talk about a major disappointment.
I am going to list all of these showstoppers, but I want to say a few things before I do so. First of all, I test the "edges" of a system a lot more than a normal user does. I am a great example of "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing". My showstoppers would (except for one) never hit a typical user's radar. I ran into major issues installing and running Kismet, for example, not exactly a typical application for most users.
Second, Linux support is both awesome and terrible at the same time. Yes, information is abundantly available. But there is too much of it, most of it is disorganized (severely), and worse, the folks posting tips make so many assumptions that it's very, very difficult to implement the tips without some major headaches. All of the more difficult problems I've encountered - except the showstoppers below - I ended up being able to solve using online information, but it was after I had to delve into dozens of forums, piece together disjointed information, and deal with a lot of hostility from folks who have the knowledge but for some reason seem to think it's simply beneath them to share it with "dumb noobs". In the Linux world, it really does seem like RTFM is the operative phrase.
Thing is, the learning curve is steep enough as it is without having to deal with all these unhelpful egos. Countless times I have seen a Linux newbie asking a question in a forum and receiving many cryptic responses along the lines of "reinstall package Z with option Y", which is great if you understand what that means. And if they dare to ask for clarification, they get links to lengthy - amazingly lengthy - bug discussions on Linux dev forums that are highly technical. And if they dare to say "wait, this is too much info, can you explain how to solve this or what the problem is?" they get the figurative finger flipped at them. It is the exception rather than the rule to have someone say "oh, yeah, here is a step-by-step tutorial to solving the issue", without an accompanying lecture aimed, it seems, at shaming the idiot who asked the question for their lack of knowledge of the obvious.
This is difficult to explain to folks who have been in the OSS world, but it really is extremely frustrating for someone coming from the Windows world. When I post a question, I want somebody to tell me what to do, not how to figure it out myself. Added information about what's going on would be nice. But bug discussions?
Anyhow, the following issues I have not been able to solve. Every single one is a major headache for me, on a daily basis. Put together, they are making it very, very difficult to not switch back. I love Ubuntu for all that it does. But I hate it even more for these things.
1) freezes. Ubuntu regularly freezes on me in one of two circumstances: when I try to put it to sleep (at which point it drops me into a text console, and I can go into a TTY from there and login, but I have no idea how to restore the GUI so I have to reboot), and sometimes when the screensaver is running (those are worse, they are "hard" freezes, Alt-SysRQ-REISUB doesn't even work). I think it's all somehow related to system heat (see point 2), but I don't know, I can't figure out how to debug it, and help is not easily available.
2) heat. My laptop (x61s) is hot, much hotter than it ever was under XP. This is annoying. I think it's causing my freezes. My battery doesn't last as long, either. The battery optimization tools in Ubuntu are not as good as in XP, or maybe I can't find the right information.
3) Dexcom. I still haven't been able to solve my problem with downloading my medical device data into the virtual machine. This is a big problem for me.
4) Netdisk. I am running into issues that are scaring me. For example, I transfer files from my Netdisk to my virtual Windows machine, and while they appear to transfer fine, when I try to open them in Excel (this is specific to Excel) they are supposedly corrupted. Since these particular files have many VB macros in them I can't open them in OpenOffice. I am beginning to be worried that files are somehow being corrupted at the source (my Netdisk).
Ideally, I'd like to pay someone to come and solve these problems for me while explaining (nicely) what they are doing, but I don't even know how to go about finding that someone. How do you find a Linux geek who would be interested, who would charge reasonably, and who would also be kind enough to educate?
Thus, in the end, I may switch back to Windows; I am almost decided, the only thing holding me back being the instinctive sense of dread I feel from thinking about going back. I really have grown used to all the nice, streamlined aspects of Ubuntu. I love being able to run tons of stuff on virtual desktops without dealing with performance hits, not having to run tons of programs in the background just to protect me from system weaknesses or because manufacturers decide I need to, being able to exit a crashed program with impunity without impacting anything else, being able to remove stuff simply by deleting it (shades of Mac here), not having system performance deteriorate over time, having applications fire up so much faster, and so on and so forth. They are all really hard to give up.
But I can't live with these problems anymore!
Problem is, I've hit on three or four showstoppers that I cannot fix. And because I cannot fix them, it seems like I will be switching back to Windows XP.
Talk about a major disappointment.
I am going to list all of these showstoppers, but I want to say a few things before I do so. First of all, I test the "edges" of a system a lot more than a normal user does. I am a great example of "a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing". My showstoppers would (except for one) never hit a typical user's radar. I ran into major issues installing and running Kismet, for example, not exactly a typical application for most users.
Second, Linux support is both awesome and terrible at the same time. Yes, information is abundantly available. But there is too much of it, most of it is disorganized (severely), and worse, the folks posting tips make so many assumptions that it's very, very difficult to implement the tips without some major headaches. All of the more difficult problems I've encountered - except the showstoppers below - I ended up being able to solve using online information, but it was after I had to delve into dozens of forums, piece together disjointed information, and deal with a lot of hostility from folks who have the knowledge but for some reason seem to think it's simply beneath them to share it with "dumb noobs". In the Linux world, it really does seem like RTFM is the operative phrase.
Thing is, the learning curve is steep enough as it is without having to deal with all these unhelpful egos. Countless times I have seen a Linux newbie asking a question in a forum and receiving many cryptic responses along the lines of "reinstall package Z with option Y", which is great if you understand what that means. And if they dare to ask for clarification, they get links to lengthy - amazingly lengthy - bug discussions on Linux dev forums that are highly technical. And if they dare to say "wait, this is too much info, can you explain how to solve this or what the problem is?" they get the figurative finger flipped at them. It is the exception rather than the rule to have someone say "oh, yeah, here is a step-by-step tutorial to solving the issue", without an accompanying lecture aimed, it seems, at shaming the idiot who asked the question for their lack of knowledge of the obvious.
This is difficult to explain to folks who have been in the OSS world, but it really is extremely frustrating for someone coming from the Windows world. When I post a question, I want somebody to tell me what to do, not how to figure it out myself. Added information about what's going on would be nice. But bug discussions?
Anyhow, the following issues I have not been able to solve. Every single one is a major headache for me, on a daily basis. Put together, they are making it very, very difficult to not switch back. I love Ubuntu for all that it does. But I hate it even more for these things.
1) freezes. Ubuntu regularly freezes on me in one of two circumstances: when I try to put it to sleep (at which point it drops me into a text console, and I can go into a TTY from there and login, but I have no idea how to restore the GUI so I have to reboot), and sometimes when the screensaver is running (those are worse, they are "hard" freezes, Alt-SysRQ-REISUB doesn't even work). I think it's all somehow related to system heat (see point 2), but I don't know, I can't figure out how to debug it, and help is not easily available.
2) heat. My laptop (x61s) is hot, much hotter than it ever was under XP. This is annoying. I think it's causing my freezes. My battery doesn't last as long, either. The battery optimization tools in Ubuntu are not as good as in XP, or maybe I can't find the right information.
3) Dexcom. I still haven't been able to solve my problem with downloading my medical device data into the virtual machine. This is a big problem for me.
4) Netdisk. I am running into issues that are scaring me. For example, I transfer files from my Netdisk to my virtual Windows machine, and while they appear to transfer fine, when I try to open them in Excel (this is specific to Excel) they are supposedly corrupted. Since these particular files have many VB macros in them I can't open them in OpenOffice. I am beginning to be worried that files are somehow being corrupted at the source (my Netdisk).
Ideally, I'd like to pay someone to come and solve these problems for me while explaining (nicely) what they are doing, but I don't even know how to go about finding that someone. How do you find a Linux geek who would be interested, who would charge reasonably, and who would also be kind enough to educate?
Thus, in the end, I may switch back to Windows; I am almost decided, the only thing holding me back being the instinctive sense of dread I feel from thinking about going back. I really have grown used to all the nice, streamlined aspects of Ubuntu. I love being able to run tons of stuff on virtual desktops without dealing with performance hits, not having to run tons of programs in the background just to protect me from system weaknesses or because manufacturers decide I need to, being able to exit a crashed program with impunity without impacting anything else, being able to remove stuff simply by deleting it (shades of Mac here), not having system performance deteriorate over time, having applications fire up so much faster, and so on and so forth. They are all really hard to give up.
But I can't live with these problems anymore!
posted by Blinkered at 5:34 PM
2 Comments:
Tried the Tapuz Linux forum?
Several times, when presenting my self as NB, I got pretty good responses.
As for (1) - not "clean", but have you tried "sudo /etc/init.d/gdm restart"?
As for (2) - I got an X61S - I can fry eggs on that thing, and it's Win XP...
Will try there.
I now think the screensaver issue is tied to 3D drivers; I've switched my screensaver to a 2D one and it seems stable. That eliminates one problem if it sticks.
And next time the thing crashes on a suspend, I will take a digital pic of the screen so I can post it for help. It does a sort of log dump but I can never find that dump in the log files later on; it is starting to seem like the problem is caused by a lack of ability to write to disk (which will explain this odd log behavior).
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