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slackula

Normally it's a euphemism for "I couldn't be bothered to use google to search for a solution to my issue or learn how to ask a question".

I'm not saying that is the case for MtD - he may have some exotic hardware issue or rely on applications that have no Linux equivalent.

That said, the issues I had this week getting a Brother DCP-165C multifunction to scan when connected to a Kubuntu 9.10 box have been a bit of a hassle, I can imagine it would have been a pretty daunting task for a Linux newbie (although I am a newbie when it comes to using *buntus).

I found it a lot easier and more logical to set up network scanning to the Slackware box.

From my humble perspective I am still not convinced that the *buntus are all they are cracked up to be, especially if I am going to have to support them! I am still giving serious consideration to putting Slackware onto the other two machines.

My rationale for using *buntus was that the users have never even heard of Linux before and I thought it would be better for them when they are plugging in music players and stuff but looking back it would have been a better choice to use Slackware and take the few extra minutes required to ensure all the device permissions/user groups etc were correct.

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bibo ergo sum

Butterfly

yep, I see what you mean. Slack is very reliable. Best for servers also. Always laughing to those installing RedHat for servers. Fucking clueless clowns.

Butterfly

There has been a lot of progress in the last few years, really impressed with their new GNOME desktop. Simple, elegant, easy. Slack is too sophisticated for most users. I would recommend going for Ubuntu, at least for the support if they need to ask questions later and you are not there to answer them.

slackula

I hear what you are saying, and I also liked Gnome, in fact I was disappointed when Pat V. dropped it from Slackware but I understood his reasoning.

From a basic support point of view I think it is going to be easier to help them out in a KDE environment since we have an accountant who has been using it for a few months in another office nearby to the school and she has worked out how to do most stuff so they can call her, bear in mind that the full-time users of these boxes do not speak English much and have never seen anything except windows xp.

It is a bit of a mess at the moment to be honest (entirely my fault!) - I have the following now:
Machine A (used by sales girl) Kubuntu 9.10, also print and scanner server with direct USB connection to multifunction Brother printer shared over LAN
Machine B (used by office manager) Slackware 13, KDE
Machine C (used by everybody else) Ubuntu 9.10, Gnome

(all machines have a single user account except the Slack one obviously which has traditional root as well)

After a couple more hours of fiddling today everybody can print, scan and do email stuff etc but I am still not really comfortable with the *buntu way of using sudo and not having a root, it is only a matter of time until somebody works out that the sudo password is the same as the user one and starts installing & updating stuff I don't want them to and breaks something. I know I can fix the root issue but it just seems like another hassle I don't need. The biggest problems we had on this LAN before the crackdown was teachers coming in and using thumbdrives or IE and disabling the anti virus software I had put on the comps before

Also, it is a pain having to create sim links to get the Slack filesystem and Ubuntu filesystems to work the same way to find files when the *buntu package manager puts things into places that the Slackware one doesn't.

After today's efforts I am leaning even more to putting Slackware onto everything, at least that way they will only be able to wreck their /home partitions and the rest of the system will be resilient as long as I don't tell them the root password.

Apt(itude?) is a cool tool imho but for me that is about the only reason I can see for using a Debian derived distro and I can live without it as I have no problem managing dependencies manually.

Marmite the Dog

The installs failed if I remember correctly due an issue with the RAM chip.

Butterfly

I didn't realize that Ubuntu had only one user, and root was disabled

doing shit through sudo is very annoying, but again the top priority is to be idiot proof

Butterfly

You should consider Ubuntu Netbook Remix, it's an Appliance version of Ubuntu with a locked desktop, so no fucking around possible. I am testing it right now. A bit tricky though to customize the default menus. But could be very useful.

It's really hard to move away from Slack, since it's probably the most flexible of them all.