[NTLUG:Discuss] Install Gripes

[Stephen Davidson]

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Hey Madhat.

Responses inlined;

MadHat Unspecific wrote:
|
|
| Thanks for signing your message, hate to think it was spoofed from
| someone else.
|
| This does not "constructively sum up" anything.  You sent a link to
| someone saying Windows is consistent and Linux is not.  This is BULL
| SHIT, plain and simple.  Anyone who believes this does not work on both
| systems on a regular basis.  Windows has a method of updating the system
| automagically.  This only covers the portions of the  OS and helper apps
| that are distributed with the OS.  Most major linux distributions do the
| same.  In the windows world there are some common installers, but not
| every 3rd party app uses them.   Not all apps install in the same place.
|   Not all apps are able to be easily uninstaled.  Not all apps
| automagically update themselves.
|
| Now looking at Linux.  If we look at a few major distros, like RedHat,
| Fedora, CentOS, Suse, Ubuntu, etc...  all of these have methods of
| installing via a simple GUI that installs the latest apps available for
| that version of the OS. They are all installed the same way (on each
| distro respectively) and maintained by the developers of the OS in
| centralized repositories.   They are uninstalled in all the same way
| (using the distro's package manager most of the time).  Now, we can look
| outside of the distro's repositories, we run into the same problem as we
| have with windows, inconsistent installers or packaging methods,
| uninstall routines, etc...  Hey Guess what, they are all in the same
| boat.  Windows, Linux distros, Mac, BSD distros....

Unfortunately, the blurb that was sent sums up my current experiences
with installing software on Linux.  For my laptop, I use SuSE, which
does a half decent job of handling these issues, most of the time.

But I routinely run into issues were, for various reasons, the installs
fail (if I can even get them to start).  My latest sets were on Fedora
Core 8 & 9, btw.  On Fedora Core 9, it was the Alternatives system(?),
which was symlinking to OS installed versions of software, NOT the
versino I had just installed via RPM.  (And yes, it WAS an RPM for
Redhat Linux -- don't remember what version, was a couple of weeks ago).
~ For Fedora 8, well, I sill have not solved THAT problem.  (Packages
such as Firefox installed, but I can not get them to come up via an SSH
link -- but I can when logging in via SSH to other machines).

So, the next thing, is "RTFM" -- which in one case did, but was not
enough.  In the Fedora case, I have not even been able to figure out
what question to ask about what its issue is -- and Google has not yet
turned up anything relevant or useful.  So, burning money and time on an
issue that is supposed to be a 'simple install'.  And this issue, I
don't even know if 'reading the source', a frequent answer (although not
normally from here -- thanks!) would be adequate, if I could even figure
out what source to read.

I will grant that most programs do not uninstall from MS properly, but
they DO install there properly far more frequently and easily than
anything comparable in Linux right now.

And that's been kind of the whole point of that article and this thread.
~ End users like me --- we need usability and sane defaults.  SuSE and
Ubuntu are two that have making good strides in the right direction --
although both still have a ways to go.

- -Steve

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