Trouble in Linux paradise using Ubuntu 8.04.1 and openSUSE 11.0
Oh boy, this week the ‘quality’ of the biggest Linux distributions almost depressed me. Here are a couple fine examples of issues that one will never experience in the commercial software world. You see, after more than one and a half years of testing distributions, except for the times I was happily using PCLOS 2008, I wanted to try something in the long run. I got the idea that I should install a distro and usefor a longer period of time. My particular point of interest was how well do distributions backport the key applications to their aging releases. This story involves Ubuntu and openSUSE, but it actually starts with PCLinuxOS and a demonstration of what kind of problems may arise with distros that are a one man show.
So there I was, happily using PCLinusOS 2008 MiniMe edition. It is a one damn fine distribution, that is stable, has rolling update strategy and light weight. It happened however that the instant messaging network ICQ started blocking my version of Pidgin with a message that the client should be updated to regain access to their network. In the world of Windows this would have been a no-brainer, simply a matter of visiting Pidgin website, but for some reason or another PCLOS had not received an update for some time. This was problematic as I often work on Linux, but I have some key contacts in ICQ, which I was not able to reach using Pidgin. Of course I could have recompiled my own packages, or used another IM client, but those alternatives were not my piece of cake. I want to use Pidgin and I like that things “just work”. What ever the reason was, there was a slight pause in releasing updates for PCLOS and it was hurting my work.
From that I got the idea that I should give Ubuntu’s rather new Hardy Heron 8.04.1 a whirl. It was supposed to be stable, even stable enough for corporate usage and as a Long Term Support version it would receive patches for years to come. So I went on installing Hardy and using it for some days, and I was actually quite happy about it - it is a rather simplistic desktop environment and most things just work…until I started having issues with the WLAN of my IBM Thinkpad T41. After couple days of usage I noticed that WLAN was very unreliable. I would have to tinker with Network Manager a number of times, or perform several reboots in order to get a network connection up.
I started Googling around and discovered that Ubuntu had switched from Intel originated Pro Wireless drivers to a 100% FOSS alternative, and the new drivers were buggy as hell. There was some flaky workaround in Network Manager in attempt in order to “fix” the issue, but the fact is that a lot of people are now having WLAN issues with their Ubuntu setups - issues that were not present in previous releases. The Intel Pro Wireless series of chipsets can be found in IBM/Lenovo, Dell and many other major label laptops, and the user base of such laptops must be counted in millions. What kind of an idiot includes buggy drivers to a most common PC component in a LTS release, which many Ubuntu fans have been waiting for to install? And all this after successfully shipping the Intel’s “ipw” driver for several releases. As a software industry professional, I just can’t understand who would make such a choice, just to get a pure FOSS driver to the release. I wandered to Ubuntu’s IRC channel to talk about it, but only got an arrogant moderator on my face, so it was time to dump Ubuntu again and look for better alternatives. What a shame.
My next pick was openSUSE 11.0, which I already was somewhat familiar with. It is a very nicely productized desktop environment and has some nice repositories available for backports. After installing and fine-tuning everything in place, I went on to watch a video in YouTube that a friend has sent me - Firefox crashed. Restarted it and tried a couple more videos, and got just as many crashes. YouTube is roughly the 3rd most popular website in the world, and openSUSE has managed break that in their production release (at least after some updates pulled from the repos). How on earth can that happen? Does anyone actually perform any testing on these things? Another example of an issue that would never occur in the commercial software world - no one in their right mind would ship a browser product that would crash on YouTube if they were doing it for business. And believe I know what I am talking about, as I work in the field of software development involving web browsers.
So now my hope is on the Mandriva 2008.1. I am bit sceptic about their short release life cycles, and how well will there be any backport updates available to the key applications. After all, I can never know when some IM network decides to block some Pidgin version again. I have to give Mandriva some credit though on their 2008.x releases, as they are very well productized and user friendly. Let’s just wait and see what is software component going to fall apart next time….
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Oh, come on now; OSS driver support (or lack thereof) is not *Ubuntu’s* fault, but the hardware manufacturer’s.
That said, I also had wifi issues with Ubuntu. I switched to Kubuntu, and haven’t had one bit of problem since. You might give it a try.
Why would you blow away your whole OS because of one app that was not updated to the version another site expects? You must have alot of free time on your hands… Why didn’t you either use another app for icq until the problem was resolved or build Pidgeon from source? Very strange. There is a new car tire available but it doesn’t come in my rim size, hmm I guess I’ll go get another car and see if that fixes my problem.
Oy
Your comments on openSUSE are completely off-base. Yes people do test, and test rather vigorously in the suse community. That flash problem you are having in unique to YOUR system. Do not assume that because you are having a problem, that every other user of a distro is also having this issue. I personally have been using openSUSE since 10.1, and have not had the issues that you have.
And as far as commercial software is concerned…you act as though Microsoft and Apple dont ship out defective browsers….What about IE 6 and all of its activeX issues and giving millions of people viruses and spyware? Or what about Safari for Windows downloading hundreds of hidden files to a users desktop?
All software has its issues and if you think that commercial products are an exception, then you’re more ignorant than you originally sounded in your post. Go to the Apple Support forums or the Vista User Forums and see how many people are having problems with flash in IE and Safari.
I’ve tried a bunch of distros on my T41 and Mandriva 2008.0 is the best all around. Everything just works,except Java isn’t the greatest on all sites. Haven’t tried anything to tweak it.
Loaded 2009 Beta earlier and the week. I really like the look and feel but will wait until October for it. In the meantime, I’m sticking with the PowerPack version of 2008.0 until 2009 is out of the cooker.
Even in the commercial world there is a lot to improve. What about vista ? Blue screens ?
I bought vista and windows home server both had bugs that bad that I couldn’t work with it. I contacted microsoft and for support I had to pay extra.
I do agree about those issues on linux. But if you are a commercial worker you should try the enterprise editions. It’s not fair to compare free (devel) editions with commercial ones.
I found out that the ubuntu lts versions work great for most of the work.
I agree about firefox.
It crashes on ubuntu for me too. Instead of switching to another distro you could have used FF2 or ephphany or … or ….
I do agree that crashing FF within a LTS seems very weird.
Initially, using Network Manager, I also experienced a certain unreliability about my wireless connections. After uninstalling NM and switching to wicd, wireless connections are stable as the Tower Bridge.
not to rain on your parade but openSUSE 11.0 has not been released yet and is an unstable testing distrubution that it not scheduled for release untill latter this year. OpenSUSE 10.3 is the current stable one for end users