Netbooks: the TrekBBS Opinion
- Thread starter RevdKathy
- Start date
Speaking Linux on Netbooks, Slashdot had a related article the other day.
It seems that the return rate for Netbooks with Linux is much higher than that of the Windows based units. Seems people want to the cheaper price but get them home and well Linux ain't Windows, they don't want to learn something different and return them.
Guess it's customer relations but I'd be tempted to tell them sorry no refund. PEBCAK isn't grounds for a return and if you bought it fully knowing it was the cheaper unit and didn't have Windows tough.
And it sounds like a least one mobile broadband carrier in the U.K is a step a head of the Australian ones because their is ZILCH Linux support for their devices.
OK, I've been using my Aspire One for a couple of days now. It's a decent enough piece of hardware, but I don't like the OS. I suppose it's good enough if all you want to use is what's already installed. But it's kinda annoying if you want to do much else, It seems to be too fiddly to get new stuff on if you don't know much about linux.
Even installing off the repository is giving me grief. Updating Firefox is far too complicated and adding new things to the desktop groups isn't easy either.
So I'd recommend it if you know linux well, or aren't interested in doing anything other than what's preinstalled, and don't mind the rubbish media player.
Even installing off the repository is giving me grief. Updating Firefox is far too complicated and adding new things to the desktop groups isn't easy either.
So I'd recommend it if you know linux well, or aren't interested in doing anything other than what's preinstalled, and don't mind the rubbish media player.
Good point - what is it with Linux Distros and shitty default media players?
The best media player I have ever used is freely available for Linux, so why can we not have a (non-crippled) version of VLC in linux distros?
You can't even seem to get VLC to work without a lot of fiddling on the built in Linpus OS. You can download the RPM, and it acts like it's installing, but then it's not there and the logs say no files were copied.
Yeah, I've wondered this myself. I don't use a default desktop configuration (I just select the packages I need), so I simply install VLC and forget all the other players. My only guess as to why it's not the default is because it doesn't have a pretty interface with big fancy buttons for everything.
I can help you here - you need to read t5he instructions on the VLC site for how to run the installer - the RPM just installs the installer, you need a few commands at the prompt to install properly - its runs a script and puts everything on.
Yeah, a friend with more linux experience than me did it. I bookmarked a walk through for when I need to do it again.
I've been seriously thinking about just whacking windows, or another linux with a proper desktop on there.
Worse still you get a silly visualiser in most of them (I thought people went to linux because of the MS fancy crap) and they all come crippled out of the box because of the silly licensing laws for the MP3 format.
One thing is certain is that Linux is not there yet, even on Netbooks I'm surprised so many people find it so easy.
I think the one thing that holds linux back is the lack of a unified installer. Sure there's the repositories and RPMs, but it's not as easy as downloading a file off a website and clicking it, like windows, and OS X.
Please suggest a netbook for me. It needs to ave at least two USB ports, a PCMIA slot, and able to run google earth.
I haven't heard of any netbooks with PCMCIA slots.
Linux has that, actually. No one uses it because installing software with a packages manager is much faster and easier, as is keeping software up-to-date.
Does it? Well the package manager on the aspire one doesn't seem to know that. It keeps giving me shit about dependencies on almost everything I try to install.
Well this is part of the problem - Microsoft have managed to largely solve the old "DLL hell" problem now, and with .NET have made things even easier for developers, but Linux manages to effectively transfer most of the assage that should be reserved for the developer to the user with regards to libraries.
How about a linux package installer that automatically downloads and installs any dependent libraries? Or even better just distributing Linux softare with all the necessary libraries in the package, so the installer becomes as simple as Windows?
The technology has be depreciated in favour of USB, at least in part because it gives laptop designers another 2.5" of real estate for other connectors.
You have to remember that these netbooks are only about six times the size of a PCM CIA card, there simply is not room for the slot.
You can still get them on laptops (my Dell Latitude D830 I use at work has one) but I find I mostly just use them to fiddle with when I'm bored these days!
That's what I meant by a unified installer, one that'll work with almost any version of Linux, and do all the work for you at the click of a button. If that happened I think linux could easily become popular for every day users,
I agree. I think Linux's biggest problem is what some people consider it's strength, the variety of distros.
What would be much better is a unified distro targetting the home desktop, one to target the web server market, and a business distro that provides a genuine alternative to MS SBS for the small business. With the strength of free tools out there now the latter is finally becoming possible.
The package manager doesn't know what? What system does it use for package management?
How are you trying to install software? I could be wrong, but I feel like your problem is not with the package manager itself but simply that you're not used to it. It definitely took me a while to get used to when I switched to Linux.
Modern package managers do automatically resolve dependencies; they've been doing it for almost a decade. By "modern" I mean Debian's APT, Red Hat's yum, Gentoo's portage, and others; all have flaws, but usually they have no trouble with dependencies. Slackware and some of the niche distributions are a little rougher, but they shouldn't be giving you that much trouble.
I used to think that. Then I realised that unified package management is one of Linux's greatest strengths. Windows-style installers are great for proprietary software; if it's all open, though, then having it all routed through a package manager is much easier. (Here's an example: When you do a fresh install of Windows, how long does it take you to install the two dozen or so programs that you need? In Linux I can do that in about ten minutes by entering one command and then going to get a cup of tea.)
Doesn't know that it's easier.
I think it's Yum, but I'm not sure, it just said software update and package manager on the menu.
Either searching, and clicking on the programs I want, or clicking on the type of program, audio for example, then clicking on the program I want.
It says resolving dependencies, and then errors saying some of unresolvable.
I think the package manager and repositories are a good idea. I just don't like that if there's a program not in the package manager, I can't just go to the website, and download an installer.