Tired of Operating Systems

[Matt]

I installed Mandrake Linux 8.1 with XFS about 2 weeks ago. Everything was going fine (wonderfully actually). I installed Ximian Gnome, was getting ready to set up Evolution (Outlook Express clone), and had been using a VMWare 3.0 demo with outstanding success to run my Windows apps on Linux. I haven't quite gotten Samba figured out, but I'm getting close. Then I made a terrible mistake. I used the Mandrake software update feature to update the kernel w/ a security fix. After it had completed, I shut down the computer and went to sleep. Next day, Lilo won't boot Linux. Luckily I found a boot disk lying around and started successfully into Linux. Unfortunately, Mandrake doesn't appear to offer me the option of "downgrading" the kernel. Now, I'm relatively computer savvy, but I would be fooling myself if I honestly believed I could compile a new kernel. Nope, this is too big a problem to fix w/ my relatively novice Linux skill set. Hopefully I'll be able to back up the VMWare virtual machines I created :mad:

So, do I reinstall ML8.1 and hope it doesn't happen again? Surprisingly (or perhaps not) this is a question I find myself asking over and over again (with MANY different operating systems).

Take your pick of Windows:
Windows 98 seems to corrupt itself over time. I always caution people not to install too many apps on Windows 98... not to mention the inherent stability issues. Windows 2000... one day my CD-ROM drive disappeared. I'm much more savvy w/ Windows than I am Linux. Never could track the problem down though (Do I reinstall and hope it doesn't happen again?). Windows XP... may be good, but I doubt it (and refuse to install it on matter of principle-- I'm getting pretty sick of Microsoft).

With Linux, I don't have enough time to try to tackle the overwhelming number of distros targeted toward the Linux savvy. This leaves me with what seems to be 3 choices-- Red hat, Mandrake, and Suse.
Let's start w/ Redhat. The newer distros have integrated a customized compiler... so some source code requires manual tweaking. I've read that Red Hat includes the standard compiler as well... you just have to know how to get at it. I don't have time for this.
Mandrake Linux 8.0 or 8.1... In comparison to any other distro I've tried, it seems the most "desktop-ready." It's quite impressive and doesn't seem to have the same compiler issues as Red hat. However, I'm not sure that it's more stable than Windows NT or 2000. I've tried it several times and always encountered some problem that stopped me from proceeding (this latest is only one of many). I get the feeling that the newer versions are rushed and don't go through as thorough a testing process as they should (sounds like another company I know of).
Finally, there's Suse. I've been reading very good things about the 7.3 release, but it doesn't support XFS like ML8.1. The next revision is supposed to support XFS if I can wait ~6 weeks. Features such as local encrypted e-mail storage and integrated firewall in the professional version sound very appealling. Will problems happen any less frequently than with Mandrake? Will it be as (relatively) easy to use? I guess I'll know after spending $50-$80 for either 7.3 or the next release.

I haven't mentioned BeOS (can't run all the apps I need, although very stable and user friendly), BSDs (I've used FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD... never got X configured properly), and MacOS (8.1 was the end of the line for my 68k processor... I'd have to mention the computer w/ the OS for a full evaluation of later operating systems). I wish I could try out MacOS X on my x86, but Apple doesn't like that idea.

Luckily, I have two desktop computers. One is being used to evaluate my next operating system. The other (the one I get real work done on)
is a dual proc PII-350 BX board running NT w/ relatively few problems. Looking to the future, though, I realize NT isn't going to cut it (mainly for security and reliability reasons).

What is your favorite OS (or least despised)?

[dank]

I also had lots of problems installing Linux (RedHat, 5.1 I believe) properly, albeit on an old P133 computer. I use Windows 2000 on my main computer, which was super stable for quite some time. It no longer is... :( It crashes rather frequently now, and I'm not sure what application(s) is causing it. At one point, I installed a Sony CD-RW drive and lost my regular CD drive like you. DOS recognized it being there on boot up, Windows didn't, so I couldn't even uninstall the driver and try again... I don't remember how exactly I got around it, but I ended up reinstalling Windows and it was ok after that. I fear I may have to once again reinstall Windows, remove all my programs, and start from scratch if I want this thing to ever be stable again...

Dan

[sheila]

Originally posted by dank:
I use Windows 2000 on my main computer, which was super stable for quite some time. It no longer is... :( It crashes rather frequently now, and I'm not sure what application(s) is causing it.
...

...I fear I may have to once again reinstall Windows, remove all my programs, and start from scratch if I want this thing to ever be stable again...
That's very discouraging. I'm SOOOO fed up with my Win98. I was going to (in about three weeks) upgrade to Win2k. Not exactly upgrade, but get a new HD and do a clean install, and install all my apps fresh and then copy all my data over from the old drive. (Then, possibly install some Linux variant on the old HD.)

My main quest: stability.
(I'd been considering Mandrake for my choice of Linux, too. This whole thread is quite discouraging! :( )

[Rich]

just my 2 cents but...

Linux is an excellent OS but if your're going to run it you need to be prepared to "roll up your sleeves" and get your hands dirty. It's a lot like buying a vintage car--you need to be your own mechanic.

Although no OS is completely trouble-free, win2k/xp is one of the most stable OS' written to-date.

Rich

[JWM]

I deleted Win98 and installed Win2K around 9 months ago and was very, very happy with the stability of Win2k, up until a couple of days ago.

I used to literally leave my Win2K setup on for weeks at a time. I'd reboot every now and then just for the heck of it.

Then, while doing a Windows update, I followed MS's suggestion and updated my video driver. My PC has been hanging periodically (couple times a day) ever since.

I don't have time to track it down right now, but now I remember my former golden rule: "don't update drivers unless something is broke" :(

jim

[Dunx]

Matt:

I'm a SuSE Linux user (v7.1 currently), although I am also someone who thinks he knows a lot about getting Linux working and doesn't necessarily shrink from compiling a new kernel. I'm playing with 2.4.17 at the moment.

Unfortunately, your experience with Mandrake is not particularly isolated; SuSE and Red Hat have have both had upgrade and kernel patch issues. All I can really suggest is to only perform an upgrade when you've heard it's reliable from other people - check the newsgroups, that kind of thing.

Good idea on keeping the test environment separate, though.

Personally, the next distribution I'm likely to play with is one of the "from source" ones like Gentoo or Sorcery. But that's just me.

[PaulKroll]

I hate all the OS's I deal with. That said, W2K is a vast improvement on W98SE, and I may put W2K in at home... maybe. But for now, it's Windows for gaming and video, and Linux for most everything else. For various reasons, I don't think I'll ever run WinXP, and if that means my Windows days end with W2K, that'll be alright.

I've run RedHat 5.2, 6, and 7-7.2 on various machines from tiny (486!) to this 1.4 Ghz 100 Gig storage monster I've got sitting next to me. Its a mix. The compiler issue is a big annoyance for the RedHat 7 series. No matter how many times they explain it or how rational the explanation is, it's still a pain.

Linux is a strange mix. Capturing video in Linux is one of the dark arts, yet MPlayer actually handles the playing of several Windows codecs BETTER than Windows does. (Huffyuv in particular is just nasty when resized and player in Windows, but stretches smoothly in MPlayer.)

I've never seen a point in running Mandrake or Suse, despite knowing a couple fans of those, because I can't argue for them at work. RedHat has all the corporate mindshare there is, and if I told my boss that I was running some other distribution, the question would be "why?" "Experimenting!" wouldn't be a good enough answer: the Linux machine is supposed to do work and keep quiet, and it's done that really well for the last couple of years.

Given your initial message, Matt, I can tell you that you certainly ARE ready to compile a kernel... it's not THAT hard, really.

[dank]

Jim, I used to only have to reboot W2K about once every other month on average, and that was mostly only for software/hardware installs that thought they needed it. Now, it just abrubtly reboots when it feels like it, often from something as trivial as activating an open window in the task bar.

I've also had a problem with Windows Update for some time now not recognizing that I already performed the update, so I get the constant nagging reminders saying I need to update still. On the bright side, with nagging like that, who needs to waste thousands of dollars on a wedding? :)

Dan

[skolnick]

At home I have two Win98 desktop boxes (not SE). One (a 400 MHz PII) has started to be a little flaky. The other is okay, probably because it is awfully close to its out of the box configuration. At work, our Windows boxes are NT4 and much more stable. We haven't had good luck with W2K in production, and have pretty much decided to stick with NT until a planned transition to XP Pro sometime late in the year. I will upgrade (?) my machines at home to XP Pro (ou$h) and Office XP (ou$$h!!) at the same time.

For infrastructure (and most of my development, using an X-Windows client on the Windows machines), I run RedHat 6.2 on two servers at home, and RedHat 7.2 on my laptop. RedHat 5.2 (slightly breathed on) has been running on the 20MHz 386 (8 MB RAM!) I use for a firewall for several years. Uptime on the 386 is currently 68 days--nowhere near my record; the last reboot was to move all my infrastructure to a server closet in the basement, and the one before that was when a power failure outlasted my UPS. No real problems with any of the platforms that have not been self induced (perldoc and pod2man didn't recompile properly when I upgraded Perl from 5.005 to 5.6.1 on one of the 6.2 boxes.

At work, we use OpenVMS, Dec Unix, Solaris, and Linux for infrastructure, target platforms, and some desktops. Linux is mostly RedHat, migrating from 6.2 to 7.2, but there are a number of SuSE machines (7.3?). Some of the memory handling routines that SuSE has picked up have a fan base here. Exotic, high-end, signal processing that is a bit beyond me.

hth, dave

[BenV]

Sheila:

Install Windows2000, install the service packs and DO NOT, I repeat, DO NOT EVER do Windows Updates. Only install SW you trust. Never open emails from strangers and don't use anti-virus software except to do manual scans when YOU want to (i.e. don't run it in the tray).

I reboot maybe once every 2-3 months when I install software that requires it (which I try not to install or I find out why it needs to reboot, precisely).

That's my recipe....my PC has never BSOD'ed (under Windows2000) and I have never gotten a virus (ever, period).

Other people's opinions may differ and that's fine.
----
BenV

[ryount]

I use Windows Update in Win2K, I really don't have any problems with it except for one exception. Don't ever upgrade a driver from there. I learned the hard way and let it update my SCSI driver and the system wouldn't boot. Fortunately I had a recent backup using Ghost.

[Tom]

Ditto on Windows Update and drivers....don't do it.

I don't know what makes Microsoft decide you need a driver update. I got bit with an ESS audio driver for my Dell (Win 2000), but was able to fix it by uninstalling audio, downloading the actual driver off ESS's site (noting that there wasn't a new one out after all) and installing the proper driver to replace the bad one MSFT put there.

All the other Windows Updates have been fine, and there's been a steady flow of security patches.

[sheila]

All the other Windows Updates have been fine, and there's been a steady flow of security patches.
Are these security patches for the Pro version? The server version? Both?

Why do they need to issue so many updates? (I think I know the answer to that one. ;) )

Seriously, MS makes me crazy sometimes. Recently, someone was trying to install my Python form mailer (free script I distribute) on a Win2K machine running IIS. After many emails back and forth, and my adding some debugging code to the script to help track down the problem, I narrowed it down to the fact that the info being passed to the script in the environment variable PATH_INFO being not what I expected. (Kind of hard debugging stuff you don't have access to, either. I've only ever run the script under Apache, myself.)

Anyhow, I was getting all set to rewrite portions of the script so it would work for this guy, when a day or two later he sent me an email, that he had figured out the problem and that it was a configuration issue with IIS.

Here's the report about this "security feature" in IIS:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q184320

Crazy MS dingleberries. %)

[PaulKroll]

I can't stand it any longer.

Sheila?

What's the signature all about?

Please explain it, or I'll change mine to "When introducing your zombie to your vampire, restrain the zombie, not the vampire: -- Aleister Crowley, Necronomicon: How to Raise the Dead Without Showing Yourself to an Early Grave" :)

[sheila]

Originally posted by PaulKroll:
I can't stand it any longer.

Sheila?

What's the signature all about?

Apparently it is something that only my husband and I think is funny. I've been thinking about turning it off.

Maybe you have to have owned a cat who is deathly afraid of everything (including itself) to find it funny.

Have you ever seen any of those joke emails, about how to give your cat a pill and so on...???

Anyhow, we have a cat. The cat still hasn't met the dog. It's probably safer that way. I just found it incredibly funny that the author of the book I'm quoting from felt it necessary to actually TELL people not to hold on to the cat (unless they had paramedics standing nearby) when introducing it to the dog for the first time. I thought something like that was common sense.

OK, I'll turn it off now.

[PaulKroll]

Ah. I >DO< own cats (two of them), or more precisely am owned by two cats. But they're declawed, front and rear. This wasn't an option: the landlord would only allow cats that were declawed, so when we went looking, we asked, "do you have any declawed cats?" and the shelter said "why... yes we do!"

Now, I've never owned a cat and a dog at the same time, and while my cats are skittish, they're fairly outgoing. (And incidentally, nothing is quite as funny as clawless cats trying to scare each other. "...I'm gonna strike you with my soft paws! I'm gonna soft paw ya! Back off!" It's like seeing Gladiator done with Nerf swords, or Worf in a pillow fight.)

Didn't mean to ruin your signature. :(

And, um, as to the topic, uh, both my cats prefer windows. (Wow, that was bad, I'm really proud of that one...)

[Matt]

Well I used to have a 20lb. Siamese cat (fully clawed) that scared many dogs (and other animals) away. Another cat I had killed snakes and brought them to show off (like mice). My new 15lb. Russian blue (named "Rocky") hasn't encountered a dog and is quite friendly, but my Manx kitten is fearless.:devil:

[sheila]

Our cat has had only its front claws removed. (We had it done when she was a kitten. She was destroying our draperies, etc...) Anyhow, she is an indoor cat and doesn't ever go outside and has no real need for claws.

But I respect her rear claws. And her teeth. And if she gets really scared of something, she will do WHATEVER it takes to get away. My arms hurt, just thinking about it.

We now keep the cat upstairs and the dog stays downstairs. Actually, we don't keep the cat anywhere. She chooses to stay upstairs. The dog we keep downstairs. Put a gate across the bottom of the stairs to keep him down there.

I can't think of any reasonable way to tie this into a post on operating systems. (Don't feel bad about my sig, Paul. I don't. I think it was about done with any kind of reasonable life span it might've had.)

[Dunx]

Originally posted by sheila:

I can't think of any reasonable way to tie this into a post on operating systems.
We could talk about mouse drivers...

[sheila]

My dog ate my operating system?

(Actually, it seems he is willing to eat just about anything else, so why not that? Sometimes I think he is part goat!)

[tjlid]

My dog ate my operating system? This has to be the reason for my OS problems! Does M$ have a patch?

Tom

[!!freebsddude]

Originally posted by Matt:
What is your favorite OS (or least despised)?

It depends on the time of the day and day of the week and .... :D you get the picture. After installing some/all of them, I would say to each his/her own.

This is such a personal thing, people use it, feel comfortable, it becomes their favorite. I was reading an article about a guy's parents falling in love with OSX/FreeBSD and having a hard time getting used to Windows!

I think every OS comes with its baggage/share of joys and disappointments. Honestly, it is also an issue of compatibility and job security for many folks. I would say, pick one flavor of Windows and one flavor of Unix.

Personally, I would say Windows 2000 and FreeBSD or RH Linux.

When you find the correct answer, don't forget to share with us ! ;)

[Matt]

FreeBSD looks very promising, particularly v5, with SMP support. FreeBSD stability is supposed to be phenomenal and the ports system is quite nice. I haven't attempted to use it seriously as a server OS yet, but am considering it soon. The shortcomings of FreeBSD as a desktop OS are primarily driver support issues. I can get Linux drivers for my Nvidia graphics card straight from Nvidia. No luck w/ FreeBSD. Audio seems to be another shortcoming w/ FreeBSD. SMP is another issue, but the 5.x series should address this (perhaps more efficiently than Linux).

I gave up on Mandrake and tried out Redhat 7.2 w/ the SGI XFS installation CD. Red hat has really made progress in terms of user friendliness. In some aspects it is even better than Mandrake 8.1 (can do administrative tasks within Gnome w/o having to login as root). In combination w/ Ximian's Red Carpet, it is quite nice. Anyone seen Webmin lately? It has a very polished interface now.

Having only 1-2 days of experience w/ RH 7.2 I can't accurately judge how stable it is. Audio is a bit problematic w/ at least one program. Running Chromium (a game) w/ audio froze the machine hard. I'm not sure how indicative this is of overall stability. Maybe I'll be okay if I never play Chromium w/ audio enabled?

In response to PaulKroll's message, I did try updating the kernel w/o success. During installation, the step of creating the boot floppy complains that the floppy isn't formatted. How am I supposed to do that before I install Linux? RH7.2 doesn't properly set the /etc/fstab file. So attempting to make a boot floppy from command line results in an error message like "root isn't defined in /etc/fstab." It is defined, but not as /dev/hdax. So I fixed that. It seemed to work, but the disk filled up before it had finished creating the boot floppy.

I decided to proceed w/o a boot floppy (knowing that I would reformat and reinstall a default installation in order to troubleshoot the audio problem). I downloaded a Redhat 2.4.9-23RH kernel from SGI (playing it safe). The dependency errors indicated that I needed to update two other RPMs. I updated 1 of the 2, but a later version of Tux that would meet the requirements wasn't available at www.tux.org. I guess I could have forced the dependencies to be ignored, but I didn't feel like it. I don't think I'll be attempting a kernel update on the freshly installed system (Workstation class install, same audio and boot floppy problems).

I'd appreciate any suggestions for creating a boot floppy, as I'm currently running w/o one.

As far as mass adoption of Linux on the desktop is concerned, I don't think that "dumbing" down Linux (making it look more like Windows) is the real solution. I much prefer Gnome over KDE (although the latter is being used in the Windows look-alike distros soon to be released). The solution is to make a distro that works straight out of the box and sets up a stable journaling filesystem. The average user shouldn't be having problems with desktop issues as basic as creating a boot floppy, hearing sound (have to run esound from command line in RH7.2), playing games (refer to above mentioned system freezing w/ Chromium), and installing 3D support (why can't the distributor include the Nvidia-released drivers instead of forcing the user to install and modify configuration files?).

IMHO- Matt

[sheila]

Matt: I'm curious...
What was your reason for giving up on Mandrake?

[!!freebsddude]

Greetings:

I am assuming you mean the boot floppy for Redhat 7. It is called boot.img and
you can use rawrite (DOS) or dd (Linux) to create the image.

You can also find the instructions from Redhat (http://www.redhat.com/docs/manuals/linux/RHL-7.2-Manual/install-guide/s1-steps-install-cdrom.html) site.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
C:\> d:
D:\> cd \dosutils
D:\dosutils> rawrite
Enter disk image source file name: ..\images\boot.img
Enter target diskette drive: a:
Please insert a formatted diskette into drive A: and
press --ENTER-- : [Enter]
D:\dosutils>
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
# dd if=boot.img of=/dev/fd0 bs=1440k
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
good luck!

[0degree]

I'm about to get a new laptop as my current Sony Viao has already been infected by the AOL client :P Seriously, since I started working in 3D, the Viao started to cough. Therefore, I'm going to go back to Old Faithful and get a Dell laptop. The only problem is that it only comes with WinXP. This is really worrying me since XP monitors the system's hardware peripherals and limits the amount of new hardware that can be installed. Another problem is security holes. I know that all operating systems have bugs and glithes but the ones in XP are scary. My Vaio came with Win2K and although MS annoys me, I really like this OS. Very stable (not a single BSOD) and compatible with most win98 third party software.

When it comes to the choice of operating systems, a "mid level" one is needed. Something a little more automatic than linux and less annoying than XP. That would be perfect.

I really miss DOS, it was a nightmare installing games and relatively new hardware but it was usable.

Tony.
- C:\>Attrib -r -h cat*.*

[Matt]

0degree: I think I'd recommend Windows 2000 Pro. I had it pre-installed on my notebook and have not had a single problem with it (disclaimer being that I do most of my work on my desktop computer). My feeling is that Windows 2000 is pretty good as long as the underlying hardware stays consistent (i.e. you don't swap out components).

!!freebsddude: No, actually I am referring to the post-install emergency boot disk. The one that should be created before upgrading your kernel:\ Such a boot disk would contain information specific to the particular machine that Linux was installed on and is therefore more complicated than simply installing from a disk image.


sheila: I'm not sure that I've "given up" on Mandrake. Mandrake 8.0 and 8.1 were the only distros that I felt were ready for desktop use at one time. I may have never changed distros, except for the originally mentioned kernel upgrade problems. At this point it is simply easier to re-install Linux than try to fix the problem. Why didn't I re-install Mandrake 8.1?

1. Overall impression that Redhat is more stable. I've gotten this impression from several sources, ranging from novice to professional
2. Impression that Redhat has a better idea of what is required to run on Athlon architecture (although they kind of keep it a secret)-- imformation gathered from postings on the www.gentoo.org site (specifically, addressing a kernel issue when running on Athlon-based machines)
3. Impression that Mandrake focuses more on features than on stability. The major focus of RH seems to be on server/ business market, which demands stability over features. Contrast this w/ Mandrake. I agree with a post on OSNews, that Mandrake is trying to serve two markets (server & desktop) and can't adequately meet either market's needs because of it.
4. Recurring problem w/ improper shutdowns (i.e. system freezes during halt). The result being that X windows wouldn't start properly (I figured out how to fix this).
5. Couldn't run Basilisk II (a Mac emulator) for some reason that seems to be specific to Mandrake

Additionally, Red Hat has a few nice features not present in Mandrake:
1. Automount works
2. Can run the graphical administration tools as a non-privileged X Windows user (with the root password of course)
3. Seems to be a little snappier. This is counter-intuitive, knowing that Redhat is compiled for 386 and Mandrake for 586, but startup/ shutdown happens quicker and UI seems to be more responsive.

With that said, Mandrake 8.2 was just released. If the sound issue that I mentioned earlier turns out to be a bigger problem than simply not allowing Chromium to run w/ sound, maybe I'll check out Mandrake 8.2:)

-Matt

Update
After using Redhat 7.2 long enough to start making it usable, I'm beginning to conclude that there is a serious latency issue with the sound. Specifically, when copying files from CD to hard drive, the whole computer slows down to a crawl. This is while playing MP3s from the hard drive using XMMS and the default esound installation. This is running on a very close to pristine default Workstation class install. Other than this "minor" problem of not being able to play Chromium and listen to audio while copying files, Redhat 7.2 works great. I think that I'll be avoiding Mandrake 8.2 judging from the posts in MandrakeForum.

I miss BeOS:waa:

[Matt]

Update

After considerable frustrations outlined in this thread, I'd just about given up on Linux as a desktop solution. "Give it a few more years to mature" I thought and just about wrote it off. However, I'm happy to say there is at least one distribution I can now vouch for... Libranet v2.7, based on Debian! This is a commercial distro, but the license allows you to install it on all your home PCs plus your work computer. Yes, there's a free version (2.0), which has enough similarities to v2.7 that is should give you a good feel for Libranet. v2.8 is out now. It's undergone considerably more usability testing than v2.7, but I have read a few complaints about font rendering. Therefore, this testimonial is strictly applicable to v2.7.

The killer feature for Libranet is a program called "adminmenu/ Xadminmenu." Let's say you just installed a new graphics card and Xfree86 won't start anymore. In my experience, this meant a trip to the console and manual configuration using an editor like vi. With adminmenu, you can probe your video from the command line and have it automatically make the config changes for you. Let's say you want to create a custom compiled kernel. You make a trip to adminmenu, and can choose kernel features you would like to enable and disable... or just choose a new kernel altogether. Adminmenu makes kernel re-compilation easy. And when your system won't start because of a kernel problem... Libranet restores the previous kernel!

There are other great features in adminmenu, like automatically downloading and installing the standard set of Truetype fonts, Flash, and the RealPlayer. Updating your system with the newest security updates, setting up a firewall-- all can be done from adminmenu. This makes remote administration easy!

With Libranet, I understand how "it's all supposed to work." Most distributions today have succeeded in putting a pretty face on Linux, but Libranet is the first I've encountered where that beauty is more than simply skin deep. With many distributions, several installed applications don't work properly because some portion of the OS isn't configured properly. With RPMs, multiple broken dependencies often ruin what looks like a promising application. With .DEBs, dependencies are normally automatically resolved. Even when an additional application is required, it doesn't come close to a worst-case RPM scenario.

However, the defining point for me is what happens when things go wrong. In the past, if things went wrong with Linux it was simply easier to reinstall than to try and fix the problem. With Libranet, it's entirely reasonable to solve some problem with minimal frustration and nothing nearly as extreme as reinstalling. If you don't know the answer, you can visit the Libranet forums, where you will find helpful answers relevant to your distribution. The forum members are actually pretty nice! Contrast this to the common "RTFM" refrain that's all-to-common on many Linux forums.

Lastly, I'm regularly reminded how spoiled I am with Libranet. A recent attempt to install Suse 8.2 on a new machine failed during the graphical install. An attempt to install a newer version of Mandrake on the machine failed repeatedly as well. Redhat 8 has failed on multiple machines, some which I know to be rock-solid stable. Libranet 2.7 is text-based, but actually very easy to install. You aren't presented with thousands of packages to choose from. And when you boot up for the first time, you can count on Libranet to work.

So if you've tried out Linux hoping that it would work for you, but were unsatisfied with the results, I'd definitely recommend buying Libranet. They have a 30 day money back guarantee just in case you aren't happy with Libranet. It is very much worth the $40 - $100 price tag.

-Matt

[Randall]

I want to give Libranet a try one of these days. It's on my list along with Xandros, another Debian-based distro. But so far there's no free version of that one, unless you count Corel Linux 2.0.

Randall