Suse 9.1 Experience so far
I stated recently that I do some contract work in Linux from time to time, and that I had recently purchased Suse 9.1. The installation of Suse 9.1 went very well. The installation program (YaST) found my hardware, installed the appropriate drivers, found my internet connection, and had me up and running inside two hours. Once the basic installation was complete, I installed the development tools. Again, everything seemed fine.
Unfortunately, I have to use the vi editor to develop in Linux. It's not my choice, but basically a requirement of the project that I contribute to. It took awhile, but rooting around on the web led me to figure out how to edit vi's settings to have syntax highlighting for source code files. The default syntax highlighting was rather garish, so I just had to change it :).
One of the things I like to do is develop from my laptop. I recently installed a wireless LAN, so I'd like to develop via a telnet session. I have a favorite telnet program called Token that I use. This is when the problems began.
I found that I could telnet into my Linux station. No problem, I thought--I'll just install or start the service. I started the administration tools, found network services, found the telnet service, installed and started it. I found the ftp service as well, and knowing that I'd need that too, I went ahead and installed/started it. Click finish, and watch the magic of YaST create a new configuration file. While in the configuration utility, I found the place to install updates from the web. I figured “Now's as good a time as any,“ and let the auto-update run. I was liking this distribution more and more.
My internet connection had disappeared. Further, my samba client could no longer find my windows network. In fact, when I ran ifconfig (the Linux equivalent of IPConfig in Windows), I no longer had any ethernet service at all other than the local one. I restarted the network services, but still nothing.
I should say at this point that I wasn't too concerned. I didn't have a lot invested in this machine yet, so if I had to re-install and start over, it wasn't going to be a big deal. I tried searching the Suse support database, but first of all they don't have their support articles sorted by product. I couldn't find very much on 9.1--granted it's new, but I shouldn't be finding articles on Suse 7.1 while looking for articles on 9.1.
Before I did something as drastic as re-install my system, I wanted to check the users groups and see if I could find some help. I checked my newreader, and found alt.os.linux.suse . For those that are interested, this is my post to that group.
Let me say at the outset that I am not criticizing anyone that tried to help me. I don't think that anyone has a duty or obligation to help me solve my system problems, and I am grateful for any help that could be offered. That being said, the quality of the help that was offered was generally not that good. The first post in response to mine was someone else saying that they had had a similar problem. In fact, I found numerous threads in this newsgroup claiming problems with Suse 9.1 networking after running new services or upgrades from the web. At first the people that tried to help asked me to post the results of various Linux commands. I understood this approach--it's what I call “testing by the numbers.” After spending a lot of time on the phone with users of my own software, I know how important it is to establish a clear context from which to begin an investigation of a problem. So, even though I had already run through the obvious steps myself, I didn't mind recreating them for the other users that were trying to help me. Also, I am admittedly no Linux guru. I've never been impressed enough with the system to try to learn all of its ins and outs. So where I didn't understand what they were getting at, I deliberately showed my ignorance and/or asked questions. Otherwise, I answered their questions with as much detail as I possibly could. Once I'd gone that far, the help dried up completely. I checked the other threads that were similar to mine, and the same sort of thing happened. Apparently, even though I provided voluminous information about my system, setup, and steps I had taken, no one had any ideas. Again let me say that I am grateful for the help that was offered, and I don't think anyone had a duty to fix my system. It's just that all I've ever heard about Linux is “just get on the newsgroups and you'll find somebody that can help you.” Wrong.
After a week of searching for help, and finding only failure, I re-installed.
This isn't a criticism of the people in the newsgroups--it's just a statement that when something hairy goes wrong in a Linux system, you have little or no hope of finding good support for it. It may be different for individual software packages, but this is system level stuff we're talking about. When Microsoft is constantly criticized by Linux adherents for being buggy and unusable, I would expect better from a Linux software package. Not really of course: I've used several Linux distributions before this and have generally found them to be playing catch-up to Microsoft Windows; but if I, as a .NET developer, were to hold Linux to the same standards the Linux Community applies to Microsoft, then I would expect better.
As I said, I have side work to do in Linux. Suse 9.1 is supposed to be the latest and greatest. It is the greatest Linux that I've seen so far. Still, I'd rather be stuck in Windows 98 than be forced to use 9.1 as a primary PC.
On a personal note, I was never a huge Microsoft Windows fan until my job requirements led me to develop in Linux. It was after I started trying to write code in the system and encountering the anti-Microsoft bigots that I became a fan of Microsoft's. I can write code in C or C++ as well as the next guy. I can use pointers, create linked lists and trees, etc.. It's because I can do those things that I appreciate so fully what Microsoft has done with the .NET Framework. I can do those things, but it's a real PITA to do them!
I'm not against trying other operating systems and office applications. I personally do not like Mac's, but I have several friends that just love them. Their love of Mac's seems to be motivated by a genuine love of the computing experience, and less so by a blind hatred of Microsoft. I've used other office applications. The shared database aspect of Lotus Notes is quite impressive, but I find it severely lacking as an email client.
I'm starting a new chapter in my relationship with Suse 9.1 now. There's a chance that what happened was just some kind of fluke. I'll let you know if my impression gets better.
To all of you that work at Microsoft making the software that I love, especially those of you working on the .NET Framework and associated development tools, thank you.