Misc. Ramblings

Linux, as a Windows desktop replacement, gets closer everyday to what it needs to be. Having said that, it's still not there.

I installed the latest offering from Red Hat (version 9) on my PC at work last week (after I first deleted version 7.3. You can, if you want, do an upgrade install but I've found, over the years, it's best to do a clean install because doing it seems to reduce the number of problems).

But first, the configuration of the PC is an old Dell Optiplex GX1 with a Pentium-II 333MHz and 384MB of RAM. I chose a kitchen-sink install to try to reduce the number of dependencies later on down the road. Note that you apparently need to choose the "custom" installation first, and then later in the install, when you actually choose the packages to install, you can scroll down to the bottom of the list and choose "full."

Be aware a full install takes a long time and 4.849GB of space. For me, it took about an hour-and-a-half to complete. I realize the PII is hardly a speed demon, but 1.5 hours? This, in addition to the 15 or 20 minutes to configure the install and another five or 10 minutes after the install for more configuration.

Then, having spent all that time, I find that sound does not work. This is strange because the installer found the sound card, I went through the configuration, but upon rebooting, the module fails to install. While sound is not a high priority in our work environment, this has been a problem with Linux from as long as I've been installing various version (several years now). This bug has been evident for so long one wonders if anyone even cares about fixing it anymore.

The other perennial problems also still exist. Printing is still a hit or miss kind of thing. Once again, the installer correctly probed the HP 2200, but did nothing with the information. That is, I still had to manually install the driver by identifying the printer myself. Further, I can't find anyplace where I can modify the defaults for the driver. As such, it prints duplex all the time. While this certainly saves paper, sometimes I just want to print as fast as possible.

Then there's Internet access. Our network administrators set up a DHCP server that gives out IP addresses. But that's all. No DNS, no gateway, no mail, no news, no nothing. From what I've been told, they did this because they didn't want just anyone getting access to the Internet. So we still have people whose PCs are hooked up to the Internet, but don't know that all they need to do is set the DNS and they could be surfing.

So, you say, how is that a Linux problem? Well, let's call it an installer problem. The installer assumes that if you check DHCP, you don't need to set anything. Which, in our case, is incorrect. Hence, when you first boot into Linux, you don't have access until you manually input the addresses for the DNSs. Perhaps a small and relatively unique problem, but a problem none the less.

As an aside, after typing in the IP address, I tried to shutdown to get the change to go into effect, but I got a segfault as I was doing that. Needless to say, the vaunted reliability and robustness of Linux takes a hit when you make one change and the system blows up. But I digress.

And the final major problem - fonts. Yes, they are a lot better than they were in version 7.3. But they still suck, when compared to TrueType fonts. I really don't know when this will be solved, but you really have to wonder why it has taken so long to be corrected.

Not related to Linux, but Red Hat itself is their update service. It's so over saturated that it is unusable two out of three times I tried. I don't know if the situation will get any better, but if you are paying for access to updates, but the service is so overloaded that you can't download what you need, then you have to ask yourself why are you paying for this?

So, is there anything good about version 9? Sure, it looks prettier. I've already mentioned the improved fonts, but the default desktop really is pretty. It's not any easier to use, and you could make a case for it being actually harder, but it does look smooth. Otherwise, I haven't used the applications yet, so I can't comment on that.

The bottom line is, if you are using version 7.3, it probably would make sense to upgrade to 9. But if you are at version 8.0, I'm not so sure this is worth the time and money. In fact, in my opinion, they should have just called it version 8.1 and given it away for free. YMMV.