Date: Sun, 08 Dec 1996 04:19:29 +1100 From: Richard Jones <richard@deep-thought.org> To: proff@suburbia.net Subject: A satisfied linux customer (not ;) Message-ID: <199612071719.EAA05740@a42.deep-thought.org>
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------- Forwarded Message >From redhat-list-request@redhat.com Sun Dec 8 02:52:00 1996 Received: from mail2.redhat.com (mail2.redhat.com [199.183.24.247]) by a42.deep-thought.org (8.7.6/8.7.3) with SMTP id CAA05221 for <richard@deep-thought.org>; Sun, 8 Dec 1996 02:49:56 +1100 Received: (qmail 17124 invoked by uid 501); 7 Dec 1996 15:46:58 -0000 Resent-Date: 7 Dec 1996 15:46:57 -0000 Resent-Cc: recipient list not shown: ; MBOX-Line: From redhat-list-request@redhat.com Sat Dec 7 10:46:57 1996 Message-Id: <199612071546.AAA15380@mail.sphere.ad.jp> Comments: Authenticated sender is <lance@iac.co.jp> From: "Lance Cummings" <lance@iac.co.jp> To: redhat-list@redhat.com Date: Sun, 8 Dec 1996 00:46:02 +0900 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Subject: Why I'm probably headed back to Microsoft . . . Priority: normal X-mailer: Pegasus Mail for Win32 (v2.42a) Resent-Message-ID: <"oIZp31.0.OB4.n5Pgo"@mail2.redhat.com> Resent-From: redhat-list@redhat.com Reply-To: redhat-list@redhat.com X-Mailing-List: <redhat-list@redhat.com> archive/latest/2467 X-Loop: redhat-list@redhat.com Precedence: list Resent-Sender: redhat-list-request@redhat.com X-URL: http://www.redhat.com I know this isn't going to shake up the Linux world very much, but I pretty sure I'm headed back to Microsoft. I'm giving Linux until December 31 to reveal enough of its secrets to me to make it worth the trouble it is to try and figure it out. That'll give me slightly more than 2 months invested in learning an OS. Did I say "learning"? Sorry, I meant just getting the stupid thing to do anything useful besides play XTetris. Pretty poor ROI at this point, lemme tell ya. I don't know how to do anything, and most people point me in directions that seem to lead nowhere. Read a man page, they say. They're completely nuts. The man pages need to be *thrown away* and rewritten from top to bottom. I'll be happy to do it, but somebody is going to have to translate them into English first. Really, for a non programmer coming from a point and click environment, they're about as useful as a mug of warm spittle. Read a man page(!) <ROTFL> Might as well tell me to read Swahili, and right now. I bought Running Linux. Doesn't do much to help me set up a ppp connection with Colgate, I'm afraid. The HOWTO? Well, if someone would translate it into English -- non-programmer, non-Linux user English, that is -- it might be more helpful I suppose. I've read the thing a few times. Wow. Is this really supposed to help me with Colgate??? I bought Unix For Dummies. I feel kinda dumb for having bought it. I bought Linux Companion, too. Seems nice if you're logged into a multi-user system. Doesn't help me so much with Colgate. I mean I'm sure I'll need to know about STDIN, STDOUT, STDERR and Redirection one of these days, but first, I'd like to know how to stop almost every X window that opens from opening so the damn control buttons are behind the damn always-on-top, multiple-window control panel. May the hard drive of the person who came up with that one freeze up completely on the next boot. I bought Colgate -- with its promise of out-of-the-box functionality and customer support. I'm sure it functions pretty well for some people out of the box. I spent 2 weeks just figuring out how to get the mouse to work "properly." Who needs this kind of grief? Did anyone get a load of the PPP "instructions" that come with the "manual"? Are they kidding, or what? Half of Colgate seems broken. Every time I startx, I get a core dump. Hey, am I having fun yet? The errata list seems to grow like a virus. If Colgate was a car, it would have been recalled by now. So many menu items that show on my Metro-X menus don't do anything when I click on them that I'm convinced there really *are* no apps for Linux. <g> RedHat is no help whatsoever. I'm saving my first and second ticket numbers that I got from their support bot. They're dated Nov 1 and 2. They're still unanswered. Maybe I can blackmail RedHat in a couple of years into buying them back from me for 50 bucks. Has anyone pulled up the Help with FVWM file from the Metro-X main menu. Now there's a good joke if I ever saw one. Really, honestly, read the "Overview" and pretend you don't know anything about Linux. The only thing you learn from reading that document is that you either did or did not major in computer science, based on whether you can understand what the hell they're talking about. Finally, I may be just dreaming, but I don't think I'm too dull to get this. I don't think Columbia and Georgetown thought I was, either, when they handed me my diplomas. I can follow directions in the English, French and Japanese languages pretty well, although I will admit to being at my best in English. So what's wrong with Linux that I can't read a book for an hour or so and then hook up to my ISP and download my mail in Linux? I mean you guys can knock Microsoft all you want, and sometimes with good reason. But when I want to *do* something in Windows, the OS doesn't seem to fight me tooth and nail to stop me from learning how to do it. I've seen a lot of cleaver tags about Windows on the end of some of the messages on this list. I even thought of one myself. Windoze: Because Bill Gates obviously thinks it *should* take 4 or 5 minutes to format a floppy. But I've also thought of one for Linux. Linux: Because why the heck would anyone want to do *anything* with a computer the easy way? Okay, I'm donning my flame-retardant BVDs now, so adjust the nozzles of your flame throwers as you wish. I'd prefer to stick with this beast, but I'm gonna need more help than "Why don't you go read a man page or a HOWTO?" What the hell do I have to do to get my email in Linux? (I was getting some off-list help with this, but my helper seems to have given up -- I suspect because my machine didn't do what he said it should when I typed in the commands he advised.) Why does Ghostview give me an error message every time I try to open a file? (Yes, I've downloaded and installed *all* the errata fixes.) Why does the startx command result in a huge core file every time I issue it? Lastly, am I *really* gonna have to log out and log back in as root every time I just wanna shutdown? Blow me off or help me as you wish. Frustrated and ready to toss in the towel in Tokyo. Lance - -- PLEASE read the Red Hat FAQ, Tips, Errata and the MAILING LIST ARCHIVES! ________________________________________________________________________ http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-FAQ http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-Errata http://www.redhat.com/RedHat-Tips http://www.redhat.com/mailing-lists ------------------------------------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe: mail -s unsubscribe redhat-list-request@redhat.com < /dev/null ------- End of Forwarded Message
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