Desktop Linux Where is it hiding Is this group a joke or something 4156

Martin

Posted from google, check.

Reasonable number of crossposts, check. Lose one mark for not including Windows, Mac or BSD groups.

General "Linux sucks" and incorrect facts, check.

4-5 marks, better luck next time. Moving right along ...

You misunderstand the differences between a kernel recompile and compilation of a module. You can, in many cases, compile a module without having to do a kernel recompile (or restart your computer, if you love your uptime). This is why you can install the NVidia kernel driver without having to recompile the kernel. Or, if you're using the stock kernel that came with your distro, you can probably download and install a precompiled binary module in the identical way that you'd download and install a driver for any other OS.

ATI, NVidia, and Intel provide Linux drivers for all of their latest cards. If you're in the very small fraction of people who have a recently-developed card not made by one of these three, then yes, you're out of luck until the manufacturer cooperates.

I don't have any USB devices except a USB thumbdrive, which works and is detected on plug-in fine, so I can't comment on this part.

Funnily enough, there isn't a distro of Windows that does that for me either. When I install XP anywhere, I need to install SP2 and lock it down with the built-in firewall so that I can safely connect to the net to get a proper firewall. Then install that firewall, download and install an antivirus, find my MSVS install disks and install them, download and install the latest video, chipset, LAN, and sound drivers (last three can be done though WindowsUpdate, the 1st one can't), get Firefox and Thunderbird and WinAmp, get WinCVS and buttociated software, and install Office (in no particular order).

When installing Debian (testing), I just select the Development and Desktop environment options in the install, and I get most of the stuff above. What doesn't get dragged down during the default install I then add with about 2 minutes work in apt, and I have a system with pretty much everything I need (including the accelerated ATI drivers which can be automagically installed). From then on it's just tweaking the system to my preferences, which I spend about the same amount of time (infinite) in both Windows and Linux.

Correction: most of these problems can be traced to using a very out-of-date distro (RH9). A recent distro will do pretty much everything you complained about except possibly for hot-plugging hardware (as I don't use hotplugging so don't know how well it works in recent distros).

-- Michael Brown