well, I have a few responses to below... read on. On Sunday 09 November 2003 12:18 am, Craig Brooksby wrote: > > Face it - most people just want to use a computer > > that works - they aren't interested in the economics, > > politics unless/until they are forced to. thats funny, mine was a more basic need, to have my machine work the way I want to. > > 1) Can't back up my files -- image creation chokes on symbolic links. try tar cvvf works for me very well. > 2) Unable to get my palm pilot to sync since moving to Linux. never had one, so I can't comment > 3) (Forget my digital camera) I have that problem. hopefully, vivitar will resolve this within 6 months (so they say). > 4) Installing a new font takes two pages of instructions. huh? I followed 1 single page of instructions in MDK and had working fonts all over the place. :) > 5) Samba is opaque to me. The Win boxes were networked up in 10 minutes. I never had a problem. 10 minutes of typing, 4 commands to place users in the smbpass file and boom! samba working nicely and working with windows boxen in the house. > > 6) Rpms: dependency hell. Solution: "ignore warnings." more sources, need more sources! I use a minimum of 9 online sources (urpmi) and can install without too many problems anymore. > 7) Mozilla arbitrarily stops communicating with the web. go use netscape from netscape.com instead. > 8) I keep System Monitor running so I can kill Nautilus when it hangs. I don't bother running nautilus unless its required, and it ain't. > 9) I need deep knowledge of the filesystem in order to install anything. not really! I started with almost ZERO knowledge about ext2. the only filesystem close to it was BSD filesystem. once I got past the minor differences, there was nothing to it. > 10) If I upgrade GNOME to the latest release, would my system get more > stable or less? Any bets? I usually stay with what works. if upgrading enhances stability, why not? > > 11) Open Office is cheaper -- I'll say that for it. cheaper, better, faster and less problematic than MS variants. > 12) Formulas in Calc sometimes just refuse to calculate. Unlike their > more compliant neighbor cells, these prefer staying text. Deal with it. huh? musta been using an old version. > 13) Python IDEs are better on Windows. again: huh? > 14) How many variations on "cut and paste" do I need to learn? Answer: 1 > (until I moved to Linux). I use only 2. > > "Most people aren't interested...until they are forced to be" could > easily be interpreted as imputing laziness to people like me. I think > that is too simple an interpretation. Why blame anyone for picking up > the tools they need to get their work done? I don't. I am self taught. I found the state less than cooperative when it came to my needs as a visually impaired person. same for such things as an OS. if no one wants to help, I help myself. :) Mage