Why Linux Will Never Make It to the Mainstream
To get ready for a Linux class I am taking, I have to put Linux back on the old Dell I have abandoned ever since moving Grace to the Mac. I decided to try the latest flavors out there — Ubuntu 5.10 and Fedora Core 4.
Linux has been great as a server environment for me. But I have been frustrated with it since the Redhat 8.0 days (precursor to the current Fedora project). Nothing has been intuitive in almost every aspect of the Linux wold. Everything from application naming convention (WTF is “Gimp” if you don’t Google it?), install, setup to the simplest things such as application upgrades. I have picked up quite a bit of Linux just from Googling and learning everything myself with occassional Q&A sessions with Kyung. But it never seems to get any easier.
Ubuntu
Start with Ubuntu, the latest and the greatest and the most recent “king of ease of use”. Sure enough, the entire installation and setup process was seamlessly fast — took less than 3 hours with everything installed and done. It was as easy to install as the Windows installation process, I thought. And all it took was one 700MB disc. Easy! I liked the experience so far.
But it sucked when it came to upgrading Firefox from the default 1.07 to the latest 1.5.0.1. I had to download Firefox, extract the file to some other directory, make symbolic links in one directory while changing other files and variables to make everything happy. Screw that. I tried using apt-get to update the software automatically, but then I was too lazy to figure out where to fix the repository list so that it’d get the latest Firefox, so I ditched Ubuntu.
Fedora Core 4
On with Fedora. I have used it quite a bit before. But that didn’t make the experience any easier. Upgrading Firefox was a bit simpler. But I still had to go through similar hoops. The main stumbling block on Fedora was trying to get VNC server to work properly (so that I can free up the monitor for my laptop). To demonstrate how much crap I had to do to make it work, here’s what I did…
1. Install VNC server by issuing this command
yum -y install vncserver
2. Check to see if vnc server has the right runlevel:/sbin/chkconfig --list | grep vnc;
but I got this:
vncserver 0: off 1: off 2: off 3: off 4: off 5: off 6: off
(hint: runlevel 5 should beon)
3. Change runlevel:/sbin/chkconfig --level 5 vncserver
4. In~/.vnc/xstartupfile, uncomment these two lines:
unset SESSION_MANAGER
exec /etc/X11/xinit/xinitrc
5. From the menu, go to “Applications > Preferences > Remote Desktop” and change options to allow remote users to control the workstation
6. Change rules in the iptables file (Linux version of a firewall) in/etc/sysconfig/iptablesby adding a new rule:
-A INPUT -p tcp -m tcp --dport 5900 -j ACCEPT(5900 being the port I need to open to allow VNC to accept communications through that port)
7. Restart iptables:sudo /etc/init.d/iptables restart
8. Start VNC server:sudo /etc/init.d/vncserver start
Yeah sure, I have everything in one place now. It sure took me some work and digging to put all the pieces together. Can an average Joe get VNC to work not knowing all this? The answer is obviouly a NO. And I rest my case… Unless things drastically change in simplifying the environment, it will never be in the mainstream.
UPDATE 06/14/2006: More info on how to set screen resolutions for vncviewer.
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February 14th, 2006 at 6:17 am
I left the Linux world a few years ago – it was almost impossible back then to get a decent printout of anything else than text.
It has come a long way since then, but I couldn’t imagine to really work with it like I do on my Mac.
Why don’t you use the PPC versions of the distributions by the way? I’m not sure about Fedora, but I had Ubuntu running smoothly on my PowerBook.
February 14th, 2006 at 10:34 am
I would put them on PPC, except both of my PPC boxes are in use. And there’s no way I am replacing my Mac OSX with Ubuntu. I like Ubuntu and all (superficially speaking), but everything’s setup just right in the OSX for me. Personally,
I think Linux still has a long way to go for me to be able to use it full time like I do OSX (at least not as a desktop/laptop environment). I can’t afford to waste time fussing around upgrading something on Linux when I can just drag/drop in OSX…
February 15th, 2006 at 7:59 am
I totally agree.
By the way: It seems to be possible to run OS X within Linux – with MacOnLinux. Weird, but good, maybe.
February 22nd, 2006 at 1:35 am
What yum repository did you use to install the vncserver?
I’ve got Fedora Core 4 running and it doesn’t seem to be available anywhere.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:03 am
One of the first things you should do is to update the repo:
yum updateIt downloads the latest repo as well as packages available for
yumto fetch when you run youryum installscripts.As far as my repo, I just used the standard repo that came with Fedora 4. Here’s what’s in my
/etc/yum.repos.d/fedora.repofile:
[base]name=Fedora Core $releasever - $basearch - Base
#baseurl=http://download.fedora.redhat.com/pub ->
/fedora/linux/core/$releasever/$basearch/os/
mirrorlist=http://fedora.redhat.com/download/ ->
mirrors/fedora-core-$releasever
enabled=1
gpgcheck=1
gpgkey=file:///etc/pki/rpm-gpg/RPM-GPG-KEY-fedora
(NOTE: ” -> ” stands for “manually wrapping to the next line” due to cosmetic reasons for this website. In other words, when you copy and paste the line immediately follwed by “->” should be on the same line)
Issuing
yum vncservershould do the trick. (I usesudo yum vncserverout of good practice.)