This is embarassing!

***glennzo*** · #1 16th September 2009, 02:45 PM

I'm always telling people how wonderful Linux is. I actually believe this myself and almost never use Windows, however, it is extremely embarrassing when you try to do something as simple as retrieve some photos off of the camera's little card and the system either refuses to mount the card or it mounts and then it disappears. Why oh why can't we seem to do some of the simplest things with the computers we have today? This is a basic function of modern multimedia computers. Audio. Video. Photos. Graphics in general. I've actually had to boot to Windows to get photos on more than one occasion. So frustrating.

JN4OldSchool · #2 16th September 2009, 02:54 PM

Well Glenn, part of your frustration is that the distro you use is in constant flux and things are always changing. This reboot problem is an embarrassment also, but we need to remember that Fedora charges forward and sometimes it will stumble in a pothole.

Of course the answer is to use a more static distro. You can bet things like you describe do not happen on my son's computer (once it is set up and debugged anyway). I turn off updates on his and we simplyu do not update anything at all, security fixes be darned. I feel the odds of an upatched 6 month old distro being compromised are slim to none. No, he is not running the latest components, but so what? It works.

Anyway, just a thought. Those of us who run up front tend to forget just how stable and solid Linux can be. The price paid is it is also boring.

***bob*** · #3 16th September 2009, 02:56 PM

Well, it can be as simple as the card reader not being able to read the card. For instance, I have a 4 yr. old card reader that handles my old 128 meg SD card perfectly, however the new 4 gig SD card is ignored. It's the reader, not Fedora at fault. I use a USB link to the camera and Fedora grabs the photos just fine.

Edit: Sean makes a good point. For Joe Average with zero background in linux, I simply get a machine working perfectly for him, install what he's likely to ever use and then bury yumex or synaptic so deep he'll never stumble across it. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

JEO · #4 16th September 2009, 03:21 PM

Also the implementation of the device of a virtual filesystem that can be mounted may be incorrect. So it mounts using windows drivers but not in linux.

***Firewing1*** · #5 16th September 2009, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by glennzo

I'm always telling people how wonderful Linux is. I actually believe this myself and almost never use Windows, however, it is extremely embarrassing when you try to do something as simple as retrieve some photos off of the camera's little card and the system either refuses to mount the card or it mounts and then it disappears. Why oh why can't we seem to do some of the simplest things with the computers we have today? This is a basic function of modern multimedia computers. Audio. Video. Photos. Graphics in general. I've actually had to boot to Windows to get photos on more than one occasion. So frustrating.

That type of problem is actually what made me move to OS X... Although I love Linux and still use it for development purposes, all my day-to-day work is done in OS X. It "just works" and doesn't suffer from frequest crashes/problems/malware infestation that I typically experienced while using Windows, so I'm pretty happy with it.

It's worth mentioning though that the Fedora 11 and the F12 snapshots have made improvements with regards to usability though. I think the fit and finish days have really made a big difference

***bob*** · #6 16th September 2009, 04:05 PM

(*sob* .... first Ewdi, now Firewing1. Steve Jobs, have you NO mercy? )

Trann · #7 16th September 2009, 04:17 PM

I have a hard time imagining someone wanting to go to OSX after Linux. I went the other direction, finding OSX too GUI oriented and I hated using fink and macports for the software I wanted to use.

***Firewing1*** · #8 16th September 2009, 04:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trann

I hated using fink and macports for the software I wanted to use.

I agree on that one, I've never and don't plan on using MacPorts or fink... I try to use pkgs as much as possible since the file list and scriptlets are stored, so the changes can be easily reversed. The only thing I've compiled manually is a GTK+ installation, which I keep self-contained in ~/gtk.

I found moving between OS X to Linux, in either direction, is pretty painless though. Apple's Developer Tools extension package GCC, CVS and the autotools and from there git, svn, cmake and more common tools can easily be installed. I think it's great to be able to write code and target both platforms easily with the same group of tools.