Interesting Article - "Ubuntu made me quit college!!"

[Alfred]

-----Original Message-----
From: David Tremblay <david at ngowiki.net>
Reply-To: The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community
<ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
To: jtgoguen at gmail.com, The Canadian Ubuntu Users Community
<ubuntu-ca at lists.ubuntu.com>
Subject: Re: Interesting Article - "Ubuntu made me quit college!!"
Date: Mon, 19 Jan 2009 17:46:40 -0500

http://www.wkowtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=9667184

I read this story! There is some truth to it! Even though it is a bit
offencive to Linux. When you are a student, all your effort needs to be
learning what is being taught. None of your effort needs to be focused
on some side effort, like having to mess with an operating system. You
need something that works right out of the BOX! If I were having a
Laptop from some Company, and Ubuntu 8.10 on it with Dial-up, and no way
to connect to the Internet, without spending a ton of time, trying to
get it to work, I'd be leaving the college program too! I got Ubuntu
8.10 from Britain, Paid for it, and all of November 2008 I could not get
on the Internet! All of December 2008 I could not get on the Internet!
Just about all of January 2009 I could not get on the Internet! I'm
still not on the Internet with 8.10! If you are a Student taking on-line
courses, that makes you run so far behind in the course, that it becomes
impossible to catch up! 

I used to think Ubuntu was real great, I gave it to all kinds of people
around here to try out. Then 8.04 came along, all kinds of things that
worked well in 7.10 no longer worked in 8.04. Ebay Companion did not
work, in Firefox. Gnu Cash did not work! Then Synaptic Stopped working,
and the Modem stopped working with dial-up. I got rid of 8.04! I
wouldn't give that to anyone to try out!

So I bought from the Ubuntu Store in Britain 8.10. No problem getting it
on the Hard Drive, but the Internet did not work any more, with dial-up!
No easy way to get hooked up to the Internet. I'm not a Programmer!
Computer Code got just too confusing for me! I'm not about to set off to
learn all that again, after having learnt all kinds of code that is now
obsolete! So we seem to have all kinds of interfaces for Dial-up, but
which one should I use? This means I'd have to know about all of them!
Without being able to get on the Internet with Dial-up I can't get the
Information I need in order to setup what ever PPP Program I should be
using up, so 8.10 may just run it's course, and then Terminate before I
get to get it on the Internet!!! Your response to the Article was a bit
of Anger, but my response to Buying 8.10 and It does not work and buying
8.04 and the Repository on DVD and it does not work, is ANGER! 

Some people in the forum tried to help me in December 2008, but it
didn't work! My thoughts are that the model used to produce Ubuntu,
might have some Flaws in it! Many of the posts to the Forum, are dealing
with Sound not Working, and some new not to well documented Pulse Audio,
Internet Not Working!, Video not working. These are all things that an
Operating System needs, with even one of these things missing, ITS NOT
AN OPERATING SYSTEM!! All kinds of Complicated Work around's to get
these things working! 

What has happened to -Everything Works, when you Install it?- That used
to be the Case with me! 4.10 , 5.10, 6.06-1, 7.10 these all worked very
well without messing about all the time. 4.10 was a bit hard to install,
but without much messing around I got it to work! 5.04, 7.04, 8.04
didn't work for me - too many things not working! So I just abandoned
them! 

The Model is we will just publish a new one every 6 months. At first
it's Alpha, then the Mistrakes get filtered out and worked on, but this
could take longer or shorter time. Then we get Beta still some Mistrakes
but these get caught, and there are improvements perhaps, but if it
isn't completely perfect - Everything Works out of the Box, then all
kinds of People are not going to be able to give it all kinds of time to
try to get it to work, so you loose these people right away! Students
can't use it, if it's got problems, they need to use it as a tool, and
if it don't work, Dump it! They can't divide their time messing with it
and also getting high marks! So you loose them too, when it does not
work! I'm thinking the important thing is having it working, and not
having to mess with it to try to get it working, because this takes all
kinds of effort, and time that most non programmers DON'T HAVE! The
important thing is to have it as perfect as possible. So rather than
just publish something that can be fixed later perhaps, publish
something that Works, and then people will be using it in DROVES! If it
takes a bit longer to do this, then give them a bit more time! Perhaps
come out with one issue a year that works very well, and not 2 issues a
year, one that has all kinds of problems and one that is a bit better! 

If some Interface works very well, then don't get rid of it, use it to
build on, with something else that works very well, that way you are
doing something completely different from what everyone else is doing,
making a Linux that is Rock Solid, that works! That can be counted on
that can be used as a tool, to do all kinds of things, without having to
mess with it to change that Rabbit into a Parrot, all the time! Then
Linux gets it's Market Share, and it is well deserved.

Alfred!