5 years of support..!!??

[James Cain]

On Sun, Mar 4, 2012 at 6:12 PM, Leslie Anne Chatterton
<lahc2007 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hi Bruce,
>
> Well I guess Kubuntu isn't for everyone and we need to hear
> experiences like yours to bring us back to reality. I think there are
> probably lots of Windows and Mac users who have had similarly
> frustrating experiences but don't want to speak up and appear like
> dummies. Linux will become mainstream only when it offers a
> "foolproof" edition that is unbreakable, as well as the tinkerer's
> versions that most of us now enjoy.
>


Good point in pointing out that we need brought back to reality now and
again :)
However, 3 key points here that we free software users occasionally need
reminded of:


   - Kubuntu is developed (99%) by volunteers. For those who rant and rave
   about how nothing works, if you can't donate to the KDE e.V., help the
   community, or at least report bugs (if not triage them), what gives you the
   right to complain at all?
   - Every version of Linux is expected to work on all hardware. As I read
   though this thread I sit here in amazement that Kubuntu does work on as
   much hardware as it does. Keep in mind we hear the negative on the Internet
   90 percent of the time. Most users are happy, I tend to believe, due to the
   fact that we don't hear from them. In this thread alone we have people
   running Kubuntu from the version 6.04 days all the way to 11.10. Wow!
   That's a long time. If you want to know if your hardware will work on a
   given distro, use some tools out there such as Ubuntu
Friendly<https://friendly.ubuntu.com/>.
   There are others as well.
   - Kubuntu, and Linux in general, are expected to work on all hardware
   (EVEN MACS!!). Microsoft has an OEM program whereby all hardware is tested
   and approved by MS. The drivers are written according to MS specs. Open
   Source drivers are afterthoughts for most companies, if they exist at all.
   Similarly, and even more stringent, Apple uses it's own hardware only. So
   of course it works out of the box. They designed it! If you really want a
   fair comparison OOTB, maybe support one of the many vendors out there who
   design and build Linux computers, such as System 76. There are many others
   as well.

What would happen if one were to try and install Win 7 or 8 on a laptop
that originally came with Win 2000 or XP? Would it work? Doubtful. Would it
give a good over-all computing experience? Most definitely not.
So again I iterate that it's amazing it works as well as it does. But we
all need to be somewhat realistic. And we all need pitch in and give back
in some way (conversing on this list counts! :) ). And knowledge of command
lines or programming isn't necessary.


>
> Probably for most people on this list the fun of Linux is in solving
> problems, which are the exact reason why "ordinary" users such as
> yourself want to scream with frustration! Use what works for you.
>
>
I agree 100 pct. No OS is right for everyone. Having said that, I've
installed Kubuntu 11.10 on about 25 PC's and 11 laptops. Outside of the
occasional Wireless light not working, I've had no issues. To be fair, I've
found some really cheap (read: around $10) USB wireless nics that I know
work OOTB, so I tend to just buy those to be safe.



> Leslie Anne
>
>
PS - as for the one legit rant on here, KMail, it's coming along nicely in
newer versions I'm told. The KDE PIM Team is admittedly under-staffed and
could use help, but the newest versions are quite usable, I'm told. But
again, the whole KMail argument is lame. Millions of Windows users prefer
Thunderbird over MS's free Outlook Express. Does that mean they should not
use an entire OS (Windows) because they do not like the built in EMail app
that comes with it? That's absurd. But here we have people willing to go
pay for an alternate OS because they do not like KMail. A quick Google
search found 5 alternatives in the 1st search, all of which are in the
wonderful Ubuntu Repositories...
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