3 ms·

Linux and Reliability

19 points by dman 16y ago

RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
As another issue, my mother-in-law's SuSE 9.1 machine has stopped playing videos, and she can no longer provide feedback on eBay. The latter is important, so I started the process up upgrading the installation of Flash. Enter Dependency Hell. It's still not working, and now several other things are broken. It looks like I'll have to provide a complete re-install, but it's unclear that I can find a version of Linux that still works on the hardware. I hate system administration, and more and more I'm forced to tinker with machines. Rhetorical Question: Why can't they "Just Work" ? I'm seriously considering moving to a Mac and trying to get everything I want working there. Joy. Another month of tinkering instead of producing.
- dman 16y ago
  Totally agree with you. I also believe that operating systems should embrace the chrome way of just updating silently by default. Power users can disable this.
  - Palomides 16y ago
    ubuntu can do automatic updates
  - arianb 16y ago
    The unfortunate thing with this design is that it's quite often possible to break things by updating silently, too. My Cr-48 became almost unusably slow after the most recent update, and I seem to remember a bunch of Windows Phone 7 devices getting bricked in the same manner. You have to have extraordinary quality control and testing on silent updates like that, and quite frankly, if OSes with a very limited number of variations on hardware can't get it right, how can we expect PC distributions to?
  - roadnottaken 16y ago
    This is only OK when it comes from a wise and benevolent company (e.g. Google). I would not want to encourage this sort of behavior in all software (think Skype, Acrobat, etc... ugh!)
    - arianb 16y ago
      Wise and benevolent? I wouldn't encourage this behaviour from any company. It's risky and has a high chance of completely alienating your users if you don't get it exactly right, and and something breaks.
- jshen 16y ago
  Every couple of years I try linux for a week, then promptly switch back to the mac. I had a G5 imac that I used for over 5 years without every having to reinstall the OS. I finally had to go through the pain of a fresh install when I bought a new imac this past year, but once every 5 or 6 years is fine. I'm still using my first gen macbook pro. I really want to use linux, but I value my time enormously now that I have 2 kids, this means I use macs.
- rjbond3rd 16y ago
  Just install a different browser. Chrome has Flash built-in, so no dependencies there. If you want Chromium, it's just a question of finding the right repository hosting pre-built packages. Also, it sounds like there is a discrepancy between how you initially installed Flash, vs. how you're trying to do it now. If you have the Flash repository, it should be a simple update. "Should be," but since it's not, it sounds like you're using a different method now. If you keep /home on its own partition, re-installing the distro should be trivial (although definitely overkill). In terms of why the browser can't leave feedback anymore, nor play videos, those are bizarre breakages which makes me think you can't be sure it's not the hardware (perhaps run "dmesg" just to see if there's anything interesting, always do Memtest86+ to make sure you have good RAM).
  - RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
    With regards the install, it said "Click here to upgrade" and I did that. Nothing happened. With regards a different browser, that may yet be what I do. With regards a reinstall, it's older hardware, so there's every chance a newer version won't run - I've had that happen before. And I have tested the hardware quite thoroughly - it's fine. Flash breaking is something I'm seeing on several platforms, including my Windows laptop, where Chrome regularly says "Oh look! Flash Crash!" (or something). I love programming, I just hate computers. I wish I could go back to embedded work. I enjoyed fitting TCP stacks onto new chips with 100 bytes of RAM.
    - rjbond3rd 16y ago
      Bummer. A distro should never break on update. I wish I was more familiar with Suse. Oh well, I blame Flash :)
- ZeroGravitas 16y ago
  Is your mother-in-law really using a 7 year old version of Linux? I would assume that's a typo, but then again your description of updating doesn't sound like any recent Linux experience I've had. And you do mention the hardware is too old for a modern distro. If she was using that version, and the only thing that broke after all this time is Flash then that's pretty good going.
jshen 16y ago
This seems to be what the IPad and Chrome OS are doing. Here's where linux fails on this front. Often it doesn't just work out of the box. I have to figure out how to install proprietary drivers, then I had to figure out how to configure it to get basic visual features like the drop shadow around the top most window. There is still an obnoxious flicker when I use desktop switching, the sound stops working after I do an update, etc. This all happened to me on the last two versions of ubuntu on a dell optiplex. So I went back to my mac.
- dman 16y ago
  Looks like redhat/novell/ubuntu should invest in multimedia codecs, sound architecture, wireless drivers and graphics driver support over all else.
  - arianb 16y ago
    A lot of it comes from hardware manufacturers and other providers. MP3 support on Linux was terrible for a long time because of all the patent mess. Talk to companies like Broadcom or AMD / NVIDIA about making their components work much better with Linux, first. A lot of the issue is on their end, with not providing interfaces and drivers for distros to include. Canonical, Novell, and everyone else try their best to include what they can for their distros but it's hard when the companies making these computers don't help much.
    - dman 16y ago
      The part I dont understand is what prevents Redhat, Ubuntu etc to license multimedia codecs just like any other closed source company? Most significant streaming devices like the boxee, google tv etc run on top of a linux kernel, with netflix support and all other bells and whistles. Why dont linux companies push to license the same and make them available on the desktop?
      - jshen 16y ago
        Most linux companies aren't interested in the desktop. Redhat is focused on servers. Canonical is the only major linux distro/company that has the desktop as a primary focus.
kijinbear 16y ago
This guy has a point. Ubuntu's constant meddling with the Desktop and adoption of immature software as default is why I left it for Linux Mint. LM 10 has "just worked" for me so far, and LM Debian Edition also look spromising. By contrast, Ubuntu breaks a few important things every time they release a new version. I don't plan to consider returning until Ubuntu Desktop Edition "stabilizes" a bit. But that doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon, what with the impending switch to Unity, and the rumored switch to Wayland, and ever tighter integration with Canonical's proprietary offerings... GNU/Linux is already rock solid at the base system level, but some distros just ruin the Desktop experience.
- jshen 16y ago
  They have an interesting problem on their hands. Their current user base is nerds who have a bunch of power user use cases, but they want to attract non-nerds. How do they do the latter while keeping the former happy? It's like republicans trying to sound reasonable while also making their base happy. It's like tight rope walking on a strand of floss.
- moondowner 16y ago
  Linux Mint is awesome, though I use the KDE version instead of GNOME, it's a very polished distro.
- mdisraeli 16y ago
  Ubuntu is unstable precisely because it's a close fork from Debian unstable ;) If you want an environment with long term stability, you might want to move to Debian Stable, which exists for this very purpose, and these days is typically as easy to install as Ubuntu.
- cas 16y ago
  I have used Ubuntu Desktop (Lucid & Maverick) everyday for years now and certainly don't have any stability issues, I don't see how changing to Mint (based heavily on Ubuntu) would affect stability. I also have to ask what is this immature software as default you talk about?
  - 16y ago
hapless 16y ago
Unlike the kernel, desktop development for Linux is done almost wholly by volunteers in their spare time. There aren't many paid developer seats for KDE, Gnome, et al. Bold new interfaces, new APIs, and complete reinventions of the desktop metaphor are really exciting hobby projects for these brave volunteers. Perfecting backwards compatibility, re-implementing buggy behaviour from prior versions, and ensuring ABI stability do not make exciting projects. These are the torturously painful, labor-intensive foundations of Microsoft's success.
SecurityMatters 16y ago
There is very little reason to dread this move. I am not sure I like Unity yet, but I applaud Ubuntu for thinking outside the box. If you install Ubuntu 11.04 and want the old user interface, you can pretty much get it. Just install and then at the login screen, choose the classic desktop. Then, run the command metacity --replace. On one Narwhal test machine, I created a startup application to run this command on each boot. This gives you a desktop almost exactly like the old desktop. So, you can have the old or the new. Choice is nice and everyone is served.

19 points by dman 16y ago

As another issue, my mother-in-law's SuSE 9.1 machine has stopped playing videos, and she can no longer provide feedback on eBay. The latter is important, so I started the process up upgrading the installation of Flash. Enter Dependency Hell. It's still not working, and now several other things are broken. It looks like I'll have to provide a complete re-install, but it's unclear that I can find a version of Linux that still works on the hardware. I hate system administration, and more and more I'm forced to tinker with machines. Rhetorical Question: Why can't they "Just Work" ? I'm seriously considering moving to a Mac and trying to get everything I want working there. Joy. Another month of tinkering instead of producing.

dman 16y ago
Totally agree with you. I also believe that operating systems should embrace the chrome way of just updating silently by default. Power users can disable this.
- Palomides 16y ago
  ubuntu can do automatic updates
- arianb 16y ago
  The unfortunate thing with this design is that it's quite often possible to break things by updating silently, too. My Cr-48 became almost unusably slow after the most recent update, and I seem to remember a bunch of Windows Phone 7 devices getting bricked in the same manner. You have to have extraordinary quality control and testing on silent updates like that, and quite frankly, if OSes with a very limited number of variations on hardware can't get it right, how can we expect PC distributions to?
- roadnottaken 16y ago
  This is only OK when it comes from a wise and benevolent company (e.g. Google). I would not want to encourage this sort of behavior in all software (think Skype, Acrobat, etc... ugh!)
  - arianb 16y ago
    Wise and benevolent? I wouldn't encourage this behaviour from any company. It's risky and has a high chance of completely alienating your users if you don't get it exactly right, and and something breaks.
jshen 16y ago
Every couple of years I try linux for a week, then promptly switch back to the mac. I had a G5 imac that I used for over 5 years without every having to reinstall the OS. I finally had to go through the pain of a fresh install when I bought a new imac this past year, but once every 5 or 6 years is fine. I'm still using my first gen macbook pro. I really want to use linux, but I value my time enormously now that I have 2 kids, this means I use macs.
rjbond3rd 16y ago
Just install a different browser. Chrome has Flash built-in, so no dependencies there. If you want Chromium, it's just a question of finding the right repository hosting pre-built packages. Also, it sounds like there is a discrepancy between how you initially installed Flash, vs. how you're trying to do it now. If you have the Flash repository, it should be a simple update. "Should be," but since it's not, it sounds like you're using a different method now. If you keep /home on its own partition, re-installing the distro should be trivial (although definitely overkill). In terms of why the browser can't leave feedback anymore, nor play videos, those are bizarre breakages which makes me think you can't be sure it's not the hardware (perhaps run "dmesg" just to see if there's anything interesting, always do Memtest86+ to make sure you have good RAM).
- RiderOfGiraffes 16y ago
  With regards the install, it said "Click here to upgrade" and I did that. Nothing happened. With regards a different browser, that may yet be what I do. With regards a reinstall, it's older hardware, so there's every chance a newer version won't run - I've had that happen before. And I have tested the hardware quite thoroughly - it's fine. Flash breaking is something I'm seeing on several platforms, including my Windows laptop, where Chrome regularly says "Oh look! Flash Crash!" (or something). I love programming, I just hate computers. I wish I could go back to embedded work. I enjoyed fitting TCP stacks onto new chips with 100 bytes of RAM.
  - rjbond3rd 16y ago
    Bummer. A distro should never break on update. I wish I was more familiar with Suse. Oh well, I blame Flash :)
ZeroGravitas 16y ago
Is your mother-in-law really using a 7 year old version of Linux? I would assume that's a typo, but then again your description of updating doesn't sound like any recent Linux experience I've had. And you do mention the hardware is too old for a modern distro. If she was using that version, and the only thing that broke after all this time is Flash then that's pretty good going.

jshen 16y ago

This seems to be what the IPad and Chrome OS are doing. Here's where linux fails on this front. Often it doesn't just work out of the box. I have to figure out how to install proprietary drivers, then I had to figure out how to configure it to get basic visual features like the drop shadow around the top most window. There is still an obnoxious flicker when I use desktop switching, the sound stops working after I do an update, etc. This all happened to me on the last two versions of ubuntu on a dell optiplex. So I went back to my mac.

dman 16y ago
Looks like redhat/novell/ubuntu should invest in multimedia codecs, sound architecture, wireless drivers and graphics driver support over all else.
- arianb 16y ago
  A lot of it comes from hardware manufacturers and other providers. MP3 support on Linux was terrible for a long time because of all the patent mess. Talk to companies like Broadcom or AMD / NVIDIA about making their components work much better with Linux, first. A lot of the issue is on their end, with not providing interfaces and drivers for distros to include. Canonical, Novell, and everyone else try their best to include what they can for their distros but it's hard when the companies making these computers don't help much.
  - dman 16y ago
    The part I dont understand is what prevents Redhat, Ubuntu etc to license multimedia codecs just like any other closed source company? Most significant streaming devices like the boxee, google tv etc run on top of a linux kernel, with netflix support and all other bells and whistles. Why dont linux companies push to license the same and make them available on the desktop?
    - jshen 16y ago
      Most linux companies aren't interested in the desktop. Redhat is focused on servers. Canonical is the only major linux distro/company that has the desktop as a primary focus.

kijinbear 16y ago

This guy has a point. Ubuntu's constant meddling with the Desktop and adoption of immature software as default is why I left it for Linux Mint. LM 10 has "just worked" for me so far, and LM Debian Edition also look spromising. By contrast, Ubuntu breaks a few important things every time they release a new version. I don't plan to consider returning until Ubuntu Desktop Edition "stabilizes" a bit. But that doesn't seem likely to happen any time soon, what with the impending switch to Unity, and the rumored switch to Wayland, and ever tighter integration with Canonical's proprietary offerings... GNU/Linux is already rock solid at the base system level, but some distros just ruin the Desktop experience.

jshen 16y ago
They have an interesting problem on their hands. Their current user base is nerds who have a bunch of power user use cases, but they want to attract non-nerds. How do they do the latter while keeping the former happy? It's like republicans trying to sound reasonable while also making their base happy. It's like tight rope walking on a strand of floss.
moondowner 16y ago
Linux Mint is awesome, though I use the KDE version instead of GNOME, it's a very polished distro.
mdisraeli 16y ago
Ubuntu is unstable precisely because it's a close fork from Debian unstable ;) If you want an environment with long term stability, you might want to move to Debian Stable, which exists for this very purpose, and these days is typically as easy to install as Ubuntu.
cas 16y ago
I have used Ubuntu Desktop (Lucid & Maverick) everyday for years now and certainly don't have any stability issues, I don't see how changing to Mint (based heavily on Ubuntu) would affect stability. I also have to ask what is this immature software as default you talk about?
- 16y ago

hapless 16y ago

Unlike the kernel, desktop development for Linux is done almost wholly by volunteers in their spare time. There aren't many paid developer seats for KDE, Gnome, et al. Bold new interfaces, new APIs, and complete reinventions of the desktop metaphor are really exciting hobby projects for these brave volunteers. Perfecting backwards compatibility, re-implementing buggy behaviour from prior versions, and ensuring ABI stability do not make exciting projects. These are the torturously painful, labor-intensive foundations of Microsoft's success.

SecurityMatters 16y ago

There is very little reason to dread this move. I am not sure I like Unity yet, but I applaud Ubuntu for thinking outside the box. If you install Ubuntu 11.04 and want the old user interface, you can pretty much get it. Just install and then at the login screen, choose the classic desktop. Then, run the command metacity --replace. On one Narwhal test machine, I created a startup application to run this command on each boot. This gives you a desktop almost exactly like the old desktop. So, you can have the old or the new. Choice is nice and everyone is served.