Misc. Ramblings

Some constructive comments came in regarding SuSE Pro 9.3. One of them is below. I am always pleased by such comments when I compare them to some of the really negative things others seem to get. I am hopeful that such good comments will continue. Thank you to David, Buddy, Sjon, and everyone else who has helped to move the conversation forward.

I think perhaps most of your dependency problems come from the distro you've chosen to use.

I've been a devoted Kanotix user for over a year now, and every package I've installed via apt-get / Synaptic has been successful. Even updates happen flawlessly for me, including KDE related updates.

This wasn't always the case (when I used distros like Mepis, Mandriva, Red Hat). The thing that makes Kanotix different is that it's pure Debian SID and strives to remain so. This seems to give it unequalled stability, at least from what I've experienced. However, I'm not a "hacker." I just use my PC for the "regular" every-day stuff. Learning how everything works is interesting, but much of it is beyond my understanding.

I used to have to worry about libraries with Mandriva... hence why I didn't keep it around for very long. It was something I just couldn't get my head around on how to manage that stuff.

I've even purchased boxed games for Linux and simply had to execute the install.sh script. Five minutes later, I'm playing my games.

I don't install anything from source. If there's an obscure application not in the Kanotix repository, or requires me to manually find libraries and such I avoid it. But, again, I consider myself a pretty run of the mill sort of computer user (as my wife) so it's rare for me not to find what I'm looking for in Synaptic.

Another nice thing about Kanotix is it's support of Klik (http://klik.atekon.de/). I'll admit, it's not a 100% bullet proof system yet, but it's getting there.

Basically, one click on an icon or application link and Kanotix installs the package directly to your desktop. This even works in LiveCD mode. Very innovative and will be something to watch.

I feel just like you about just making it work. I use MS-Windows XP at the office, and I really think that not even XP is there. But between working at home and at the office, I find my Linux box is just so much easier to use, maintain, and to make it do what I want it to do.

I've learnt so much. And not out of desperation to get the system to work. But learning what all I can do with it. I remember hours upon hours of troubleshooting with MS-Windows. It frustrated me when the only suggestion I could get to fix a problem was to do a re-install.

Anyway, it was great conversing with you. I hope your experiences with Linux turn out to be as liberating as mine.

Check out Kanotix, though. For a system that "just works", it's the closest I've found so far.

If you do try it, let me know, or post on your blog. I'd be glad to read about your findings.

Keep in mind, if you do decide to install it from the Live CD to your hard drive, you will have to type one command in the command line window. But, at least it's only one. We (the Kanotix user group) have been trying to get Kano (the developer) to make it a link on the desktop... maybe next release. :)

David.

Aloha!