Re: [ossig] What do users really want?

[Colin Charles <byte@aeon.com.my>]

On Mon, 2003-11-17 at 09:42, Charles wrote:

> 1.    Version 9 does not recognise my Sound Blaster Vibra 16
> integrated sound card when version 7.2 does

The installer might have been "buggy" in the sense that the Vibra 16
didn't get detected. Running "sndconfig" or redhat-config-sound (? its
something similar) will solve the problem I think. 

Please give Fedora Core 1 a try.

Your sound issues are because of the problems with OSS and ALSA
drivers...
 
> 2.    I can set up the printer drive for my Panasonic KX-P1121 dot
> matrix printer which is in Epson emulation mode and during the test
> print it started throwing paper and any other software like Open
> Office can't print and just feeds paper.

Hmm. I've not had experience with a dot matrix printer in a long time (I
remember using one on my 386 box, but that was ages ago...).

The test print "started throwing paper"? Was there anything printed out?

OpenOffice.org uses the "Generic Printer" option, so whatever is default
via lpd/cups, is what OpenOffice.org will print with. So if the printer
isn't configured properly, there is no way OOo will print it - this is
similar to what happens on Windows.

> 3.    It does not recognise my ArtNet USB modem.

USB modems are interesting in the sense that they're *not* usually
hardware modems - they're soft modems. Soft modems make use of CPU
cyles, and generally rely on Windows system calls. However, there have
been plenty of attempts at LinModems (www.linmodems.org iirc) to get
USB-styled modems working.

I'm sure you'd be able to do a search and hopefully get on the Net. Of
course you're now asking that you can't get on the Net, and this is
something that has to be worked out, but at the moment, if you buy
crappy hardware (run-off-the-mill cheap stuff), expect to get crappy
support.

> So in as much as I'd love to use my Linux machine to go on the
> Internet I however can't, so it's like a car without wheels.

You need to get the mechanic to use a tow truck, bring it into the
workshop, and add the wheels.

That is, get on the Net, find the driver(s), use Google a bit, and bring
it over to your Linux box.

> As an end-user, what I want is an operating system which works with my
> PC and equipment and Red Hat 9 does not satisfy that need.

>From this, it seems you are unwilling to do any work. Give Mandrake 9.2
a try - though the hardware requirements may be higher, it is generally
easier to use.

> However, Windows 95, 98 and XP work fine with all the above
> peripherals, letting me get down to work, rather than crack my head
> for hours trying to solving the problem.

That's because your sound card came with a driver CD from creative, the
printer probably driver disks, and the USB modem, a driver CD (or disk).
Not many hardware manufacturers include Linux drivers on their media, do
they?

(unrelated, but I noticed that D-Link had Linux drivers for their NIC,
that they released about 3 years ago, on the floppy disk they gave to
consumers! Impressive stuff, though Linux's kernel 2.4.x detected it
fine)

> Now if my bank or mobile telephone company gave me so much trouble,
> I'd switch to one which served me well so can anyone expect end users
> to tolerate the deficiencies of Linux when there are functionally
> better alternatives.

Not to add fuel to the fire, but many banks give us great hassles (think
two hour queues, just to get to the counter) and we still stick with
them.

Linux doesn't claim ease-of-use at the moment. We're working on
improving that. But it does claim to be free. Windows costs a lot of
moolah, unless you count the RM15 versions that most people end up
using...

-- 
Colin Charles, byte@aeon.com.my
http://www.bytebot.net/


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