Linux hates me!

February 25, 2009 in Daily Life, I'm Bitching, Unix

I started using Linux back in 2004 with SuSE Linux 9.0 and I liked it. When I upgraded to 9.1 (or 10.0? don’t know…) I got a bit disappointed, which is why I switched the distro. I installed Debian Stable (Sarge at that time), but I found the KDE version coming with Debian Sarge to be pretty old (or older than the SuSE 9.0 ones…I have versionitis you know), which is why I upgraded to SID. I knew that SID isn’t meant to run on production systems, but I got tired of the dependency problems ‘n stuff pretty soon… I then installed Gentoo on my Desktop and kept Debian Stable on my server which worked very well for more than two years. I mean… first time installation of Gentoo was a pain in the ass on my AMD Athlon XP 1800+ and upgrades (especially KDE upgrades) were annoying, but the system ran well and the rolling-updates were cool. I also learned a lot about the Linux internals like the kernel itself, using command line and editing config files… all the basic stuff which helped me quite a lot with OpenBSD and MacOS later on.

Everything worked well until I got p*ssed off by the compiling times. So I upgraded the hardware to a Quad-Core CPU and 8Gb RAM and installed Gentoo AMD64. Maybe that was a mistake: Flash didn’t work without hacks, Java browser plugin didn’t work, KDE applications crashed more often than on the old installation, GUI applications felt sluggish and the compiling times were not as good as I expected them to be (never figured out why).

Stop reading now if you don’t want to hear me bitching!

After a few months (in 2007) I decided to switch to one of the beginner distros (though I wouldn’t call me a beginner) in the hope of a just stable and easy to use system. But things just got worse! I tried several distros like OpenSuSE, Fedora and Ubuntu. I choose Ubuntu because I already knew the package manager, but 2D performance was slow and the installation of the nVidia driver crashed my x-config (I knew how to fix it, but I don’t think the average Ubuntu user does), Mozilla based applications (Firefox and Thunderbird in my case) also reacted slooooooow… especially compared to the same apps on my Mac mini or my XPS M1530 running Windows Vista… and then there was this juddering live TV in Kaffeine which really p*ssed me off.

Then there came Intrepid. I upgraded in the hope of fixes for at least some of my problems, but everything just got worse. KDE was even more unusable (they shipped 4.0 or so with Intrepid…), live TV in Kaffeine was still juddering and my f*ucking sound didn’t work any longer. I have found maaaaaaany reports about the sound issues with Intrepid – but no solutions. I was so p*ssed off that I did a plain re-installation of Ubuntu Intrepid. The sound worked then, but the rest was still buggy. I also switched to Gnome because KDE (Kubuntu) was so unstable… It worked for Uhm.. well.. two weeks? Then my sound didn’t work again. There were some upgrades, don’t know if that’s the point. I just f*cking reinstalled again. Sound worked again. Still no solutions in Mailinglists/Newsgroups/Forums which isn’t a surprise without ANY ERROR MESSAGES! Grrrr!! A few days later sound stopped working again. But this time I didn’t install any updates. I tried a lot. Purging and re-installing all the sound stuff, though I haven’t changed any confs (the windows way, you know…) Videos in Kaffeine were also still juddering. I have even checked my hardware for failures. But the hardware was OK. Hell! I re-installed Ubuntu again to get sound working. Lasted for a month or so (Wuhuuu…!) and stopped working last week.

Ah by the way: even HDTV (1080p, x264) was CRAP under Linux on the Quad-Core with its 8600GT, but I think that is a problem with the propitary nVidia drivers. My Dell XPS M1530 running Windows Vista (Core2Duo, 8600GTM) runs 1080p just fine and the 2 years old Mac mini also does pretty well, but the Quad-Core computer with its 8600GT doesn’t play the same 1080p movie smoothly on Linux (worked fine on the same machine with a Windows XP installation)!

Bluetooth is another problem… I couldn’t f*cking ‘OBEX transfer’ from my old phone to the Intrepid machine (worked fine with hardy). Same works on Mac OS and Windows. Grrr!

I have just sold the Quad-Core machine. May the new owner be happy with it running Windows (hes a gamer u know ) I don’t need the performance of the quad-core. Encoding Videos for my iPhone is fast enough on the Mini or XPS for me and Photoshop CS/Lightroom doesn’t run on Linux so… wayne.

And since I am a lucky dude… my Mac mini died just two days after I sold the Quad-Core Hopefully the new Mac mini will be released soon.

O.K. don’t get me wrong. I still like the idea of Linux and I still run Linux (and some other unices) on my servers. But my opinion on Linux as a desktop operating system has changed from I love it in 2004 to I hate it in 2009.
Why do so many distros add ‘cool’ bleeding edge features too early, without really testing it? Just to impress new users?

But I don’t want to just blame the developers/distriputors. I don’t have any coding skills so I’ll shut the f*uck up now and will just run MacOS on my desktop and Vista on my laptop. Which doesn’t mean that this is the way that works for you… just give a Linux distro of your choice a try… maybe it runs well for you.

Tags: linux