On Wednesday, January 07, 2004 12:31 AM, Victor Odhner wrote:
> I can't believe I am getting NO advice on this list.
> 
> I'll say it:  Linux is NOT ready for the desktop.
> Not mine, for sure.

Matthew Szulik, chief executive of RedHat, agrees with you:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/linuxunix/0,39020390,39117575,00.htm.  In
November 2003, more than a year after RedHat 8 was released (and 7 months
after the release of RH 9), he said, "I would say that for the consumer
market place, Windows probably continues to be the right product line," he
said. "I would argue that from the device-driver standpoint and perhaps some
of the other traditional functionality, for that classic consumer purchaser,
it is my view that (Linux) technology needs to mature a little bit more." 

> Some people manage to hack their way through to
> a functional system, but I'm getting nowhere.
> And I'm a pretty intrepid hacker.
> 
> Can't reach my HP Deskjet 5550 printer.
> Prints go nowhere, quietly.  I downloaded
> a PostScript file and used it to configure
> OpenOffice ... the instructions I found
> told me to do that as root.  So I can run
> OpenOffice Writer as root and find my printer,
> but the print button just makes the dialog
> go away, nothing prints.  If I run OpenOffice
> Writer as myself, I still don't see my HP printer.

I agree that getting a printer to work properly can be a bear.  I have a
Canon S900, and my conclusion after several hours of trying to get Linux to
print something to it other than plain text is that it's not possible
without a proprietary $25 driver.  Phooey on that!

However, a cursory Google search leads me to believe that it might be
possible to get your printer working in one of 2 ways:

1) Upgrade to RedHat 9.  This fellow writes in his weblog that his HP
Deskjet 5550 was automagically detected and set up by RedHat 9:
http://www.mightymouse.net/log/jul2003.php (scroll down to 4th July 2003).
Perhaps you will have the same luck if you upgrade to RH 9.

2) Try installing TurboPrint (http://www.turboprint.de/english.html).  I
used this utility when I was trying to set up my printer.  It's a pretty
easy-to-use GUI that has support for tons of printers, including
HP_DeskJet555x.

> Sound?  Windows 98 says I have a "C-Media AC97
> Audio Device" and plays it just fine.  RedHat 8
> says it's SiS PCI Audio Accelerator and has the
> driver i810_audio.  The "Detect Sound Card" tool
> detects the SiS device and the "Play Sound" button
> does nothing - no apology, no complaint.
> The hardware browser agrees about device type,
> and guesses that I have a permission problem
> with /dev/mixer, or that sound support may not
> be compiled into my kernel (which is whatever
> the RedHat 8 install gave me).

I think that permissions/kernel message is a generic, distro-independent
message.  I saw the same message being reported on a Debian list.  From
stuff I read while following some Google links, it sounds to me like you
might want to upgrade your kernel.  I found some messages on several mailing
lists where people were having problems getting the i810_audio driver
working with older kernels and upgrading fixed that.

So, perhaps you could try either upgrading your kernel or upgrading to
RedHat 9 (which includes a newer version of the kernel).  To upgrade your
kernel, note your machine architecture (uname -m) and install the
appropriate kernel from the RedHat 8.0 update ftp server (e.g. for an i686
machine, you could do rpm -ivh
ftp://ftp.redhat.com/pub/redhat/linux/updates/8.0/en/os/i686/kernel/kernel-2
.4.20-28.8.i686.rpm, which will download and install the kernel alongside
your existing kernel(s); reboot your machine and test the new kernel).

If that doesn't make the problem go away, see what dmesg has to say when you
try to play a test sound.

> These tools don't go and *look* to find out
> whether I have support in the kernel.  They don't
> *check* the permissions on /dev/mixer, which
> happens to be totally open to my userID at the
> moment.

That's true, and it can be annoying.  That's part of the reason RedHat's CEO
made his statement.  

> Since they disagree with Windows on
> what type of sound system my motherboard has,
> I'm guessing that they aren't even looking at
> the hardware but grabbing some clue from a
> file somewhere.

I'm no hardware expert (far from it) and I may be 100% wrong here, but I
don't think Windows and RedHat are necessarily disagreeing on what hardware
you have.  "AC97 Audio Device" (as reported by Windows) is a generic name
for a soundcard that supports Intel's Audio Codec 97 protocol
(http://www.intel.com/labs/media/audio/), among them Silicon Integrated
Systems' SiS PCI Audio Accelerators, which are embedded into many
motherboards.

> I do great with "Unix stuff" in Linux, but
> any attempt at desktop operation is hopeless.

"Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people
who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all."  --Dale
Carnegie

> This is not rhetoric intended to stir some
> discussion.  

But it sure did, didn't it?  ;-)

> This really is my consistent
> experience with Linux on the desktop.
> I don't have time for a serious learning
> curve, and you apparently have to be in on
> some pretty heavy cultural acclimation to
> have any success with this.

Yep, some things can be difficult to get working under Linux.  I tried for a
good hour or two to get Real Player to work on Fedora Core 1 so I could
check out some video on mlb.com.  I struggled to get it working, and I've
been using RedHat since version 4.2.  I got to the point where I could
manually launch rplayer as root, paste in the URL of the video I wanted to
see and it would play.  Attempts to get the video to play by clicking on a
link in Mozilla proved futile.

I guess I've just come to accept the fact that some things are easier to get
working under Windows than under Linux, and sometimes vice versa.  If I feel
like looking into the problem and I have time to mess around with it, I'll
do some research and try to get it working.  If I'm just trying to
accomplish a task in the shortest time possible, I'll use whichever OS works
better *for me.*

Good luck, and HTH.

~Jeff