Politics versus Pragmatism
I consider myself a pretty easy going guy, but my recent adventures in Linux would lead me to pull my hair out... had not male pattern balding already handled that chore.
It all started Sunday afternoon, when I decided that I would upgrade my laptop from Dapper Drake to Edgy Eft. I had the bandwidth and the time, so I choose to simply edit my sources.list and apt-get the whole thing while watch my football team handily defeat a much weaker defensive team.
That was the plan. But right away things started going wrong.
The repositories weren't recognized--not just the non-free ones I have lying around to download certain packages to watch movies (while visiting other nations, of course)--but most of them. And yes, I had run apt-get update already.
This would be the second time in a few months that doing an upgrade on Ubuntu would bite me on the butt. The last time, the corrupted X server update in Dapper bit me and I had no patience to find out why. Instead, I chose to roll over to openSUSE 10.1.
This time, I would have none of it. I ran apt-get update one more time and then apt-get dist-upgrade. Things seemed to go better, and let the laptop happily churn away while watching my team proceed to stomp on the opposition. Life, it seemed, was good.
The upgrade finished, and I rebooted the machine... only to find it stuck in chaos.
A boot loop was created, that seemed to hang up on ndiswrapper of all things, then go back to the beginning. X was no where to be found. Neither was a command line. Am I cursed on Ubuntu?
Disgruntled, and again impatient, I decided to lay my hands on the Fedora Core 6 CDs I'd burned for a friend when the release came out and haven't yet gotten to him. I still had those openSUSE CDs, mind you, but I wanted to try Fedora out because I thought a little variety would be good and, to be honest, I am a bit wary of Novell right now.
By now it's the end of the first half, and the opposition has pulled to within 4 points. But I knew my solution, and my team, would prevail.
The Fedora install went, well, okay. I was curious to note Anaconda shifted into text-install mode, claiming I didn't have enough RAM. Excuse me? 192 MB of RAM isn't enough for a Linux graphical install? I'd handled text-mode installs before, of course, and this one didn't seem to bad, though the package selection mode was ponderous at best and the default partitioning was really complex.
Eventually, I let 'er rip, and set the CD drive to spinning. But then, in the middle of Disc 2, the installation up and froze. I waited to make sure, but it was dead. And I'd checked the media before the installation, too. Persistent, I started over, this time settling on the default package settings in hopes the errant package would be skipped. It was, and for a brief second I thought I was done.
On reboot, however, I noticed my Grub didn't point to the right Windows partition... it was pointing at the silly little default Windows restoration partition I keep meaning to kill off. So, effectively, my Windows partition was out of reach. The Linux side ran in the wrong initmode, and so I only got a command line. Somehow or other, and I am still trying to figure out how, I never created a regular user name for myself, so I had to initially log in as root.
I went in, and the GNOME interface came up, and I started to fix things up. Init level, new user, etc. But the more I kept going the more frustrated I become. Not at my inability to perform these fixes--they were easy, just time-consuming. No, I was frustrated at why I had to do them in the first place. I mean, I had just installed Fedora, not Jimmy-Bob Linux, on a platform that I know is very Linux friendly. The only hardware hiccup I ever have on this machine is the Broadcom wi-fi card, which ndiswrapper has no trouble handling.
I resented the fact that I had to even bother with all of this stuff on a top-of-the-line distro on a solid machine.
So, while my football team found itself now battling for the lead in the game, I pulled out more CDs from the boxes in my temporary office and started the installation. Graphical install. Plain and simple partitioning. Easy to follow package management (though a tad slow).
And, as the opposing team kicked a field goal with 11 seconds to go, thus securing their win, I found myself watching my laptop get installed with openSUSE 10.1.
So, politics aside, I have to concede that for what I need, on the platform of my choice, openSUSE seems to be the better operating system. I could have gone any other way, of course. I am not sure my sources.list was configured correctly on that initial Eft install. And who knows what I blundered into while rushing the text-mode installation of FC6?
While one man's computer does not a trend make, it did make me wonder how community support for or animosity against Novell will shake out. Because there will always be people who will just want things to work. If openSUSE happens to do better on certain things than the other distros, will users be cheating themselves out of a solid distribution on the basis of politics alone?
A hard question that I think will soon face anyone interested in Novell's product line.
I also had non supported repositories on my amd 64 bit installation of Dapper.
According to the Ubuntu Documentation site:
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/EdgyUpgrades
Upgrading using apt-get -- NOT RECOMMENDED
I upgraded from Dapper to Edgy without a hitch using:
gksu "update-manager -c"
Although, I must say that I had a very similiar experience to yours when going from Breezy to Dapper. I had to end up installing Dapper from scratch to fix after trying apt-get and failing.
Rodney.
apt-get -f install
will fix broken things
It is incorrect logic to even suppose about future political and economic viability of Novell Suse Linux support simply because you got it to install successfully as compared to failed efforts with Ubuntu and Fedora Core distros. One has absolutely nothing to do with the other, since you first of all did not attempt to install other solid GNU/Linux distros, and Novell's business agreement with Microsoft could eventually endanger your Suse update status if for example Samba, GNU C libraries, etc. are licensed under GPL3, which Eben Moglen
clearly indicates will cripple Novell Suse compatibility with main GNU/Linux components and most other distros.
Don't compare technology oranges to apples in a public forum
I think the author is confused.
For many of us it's a matter of principle. I really liked SuSE and used it for over 6 years until Nov. 2nd. On Nov. 3rd I wiped all of my SuSE installs and installed Debian Etch. In a way I think I should thank Novell for their horrid mistake. If not for that mistake I may have not found out how great Debian is.
A very impressed Debian user.
I can live with all the troubles of GNU/Linux for I am 'free' as in 'freedom'. I don't have problems such as I can't do what I want with what I pay for. Like I want to drive to Bangalore from Madras on any road that gets me there. But the manufacturer of my car has a clause in my purchase agreement that says I should only take this particular route and if I take any other route (they have 'ways' of finding out) my car (which I have paid for in full) will stop functioning and I will get stranded in the middle of nowhere.
I am happy with troublesome GNU/Linux to take me where I want to go in the software world by the means I choose. And if it gives me trouble I have the choice to fix the problem or choose from the myriad other GNU/Linux' s available.
I like it in the Brave GNU world.
I'm sorry, I don't normally like to make complaining comments, but...
You don't bother to read the very clearly post instructions on how to update from dapper to edgy. You do what the instructions clearly state not to do. Your update doesn't work and it's the Ubuntu distribution at fault.
Is that some kind of programmer's logic? Because such logic is totally beyond my comprehension.
I upgraded from dapper to edgy using the posted instruction on both desktop and laptop systems and had exactly zero problems.
Why do so many posters these days blame their mistakes on others?
I run FC6 on a 2 year old Acer TravelMate 4000FLCi laptop. I've run Fedora from FC1 (FC3 on this laptop, replacing the original RH9 that came on it).
I was a solid SuSE supporter before Novell took over (which is what prompted me to go for FC1 in the first place.
I've never looked back. I'm very happy with FC. Every laptop in my family runs it. Every PC in my family runs it.
As others have mentioned here, you are indeed comparing apples with oranges. The real issue is freedom. Novell's recent decisions are no comfort to people who value their freedom.
For people who value freedom, the little extra work that comes with using a really free distribution is well worth the effort.
If you want to be able to reliably do 'apt-get dist-upgrade's, you shoud try the sweet distro that Ubuntu is based on. It is a little distribution called 'debian.' If you are familiar with Ubuntu, it's not too big of a jump to go to Debian, and much more reliable, imho.
Linux is old enough that installations and upgrades should be solved problems. Ubuntu is a big fat pain the rear- yeah, I know it's the darling of all Linux, but it has way too many dumb problems. New Fedora releases are always full of lumps and bumps, but Fedora never claims to be polished and perfect and full of happy shining people holding hands like Ubuntu does.
There are other distributions that are good-quality and not full of lame problems; SUSE isn't the only game in town. But it's a fair question- if the Pure Distros suck technically, why bother with them?
"Am I cursed on Ubuntu?"
Looks like you probably are. I installed Ubuntu Hoary (5.04) a while ago. It was the first Linux on my laptop (not the last one, mind you - I have a multiboot machine, with three working Linux systems on it). Upgrading Ubuntu to Breezy was a breeze. Having installed kubuntu-desktop over regular Ubuntu installation made my upgrade to Dapper somewhat complicated. But nothing too serious, which couldn't be solved with the help of old friend, aptitude. Upgrade to Edgy was effortless.
So, it must be something in your setup. Something that even the Ubuntu's creators may have not been able to predict. I can feel your pain and frustration, but I think this blog is a wrong place to describe your problems.
Just one question: have you asked for help on Ubuntu Forums? Looks like it's "no". So, being opportunistic, you chose instead to quickly try another installation disc. Are you 100% sure you're not trying to apply your Windows experience to Linux? (facing a problem -> reinstall)
Just curious.
I'm terribly sorry for my harsh language, but the current state of affairs is that no OS is fully automatic and sometimes some hiccup occurs. Even though Ubuntu is pledged for Ordinary Users, it's not perfect. Do you consider yourself an Ordinary User? Because your post just proves you're a bit clueless and resist from learning. Learning how to deal with Ubuntu - both OS and community (!) - "properly". :-/
My 0.02 euro.
And just one more thing. It may sound obvious, but if you had your backups done, you'd sleep a lot more safely. Not to mention that the "dist-upgrade" harm could be easily undone and eventually resolved. Even a separate /home partition can save your *back* in case of reinstall.
But no, "Only one system in a one, big partition for my machine" mentality takes over and you people reinstall the whole thing from scratch. And then you bitch. But the best thing is, most of the time Linux could be fixed (deep, arcane knowledge pays off sometimes).
Heck, if you want assistance with setting up a multiboot machine or creating separate /home partition in multiboot environment, just drop me an e-mail.
Regards,
Wiktor Wandachowicz
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siryes(at)NOSPAM.gmail.com