Well, Windows is back on the disk.

[Yuki Cuss]

Michael Richter wrote:

>>>- Ubuntu, however, got confused by my system having two sound cards in
>>>it.  It would randomly switch between them when doing sound-based
>>>things.  Or some programs would ONLY go to the undesired sound card
>>>(because it was card 0) or simply fail to produce sound at all.  If I
>>>removed one sound card, however, and sadly the desired card, all such
>>>confusion vanished.
>>>      
>>>
>>Someone gave the solution very recently for fixing the confusion among
>>two cards.
>>    
>>
>
>That would be my reference to Mystic Incantations and half-solved
>problems.  Implementing that solution now means that some programs
>don't make sound at all.  So there's no more confusing switches. 
>There's just some programs not working with sound at all.  It's a step
>up -- at least when I do get sound it's OK quality -- but it's not
>solved.
>
>  
>
>>>- Nastiest of all: GNOME just locked up tight when it tried to play
>>>the startup sound and couldn't.
>>>      
>>>
>
>  
>
>>You can use planty GUI's different from Gnome.
>>    
>>
>
>I can.  But that puts me even further and further away from Ubuntu,
>now, doesn't it?  And it adds more confusion to the end-user
>experience to just suddenly change the environment.  Wouldn't it be
>better to just not have the sound system kill the GUI?
>
>  
>
>>Now, let's see what is in this link. Too bad, is in french, but maybe
>>you do read french, or friends of yours do ?
>>http://www.hns-info.net/article.php3?id_article=4201
>>    
>>
>
>I'm English native, German near-native, French semi-competent and
>Chinese embarrassing.  ;-)
>
>  
>
>>To say what's interesting to notice, when you buy a computer, almost
>>always Windows is in it. Then when you need more applications you pay
>>lots of money for them. When you need help the hotline costs bags of
>>money and they are not in a hurry to answer. Here in France a comic
>>woman did a sketch 'allllooooo the hotliiiiine ???' -'Yes, stay tuned,
>>we'll answer within the three next days!'
>>    
>>
>
>Oh, Hell yes!  I've never had a satisfying call into a help line for
>software (or hardware, for that matter).  Even some that my employer
>paid millions for.  (Literally.)  The thing is, though, that I've
>rarely had problems this profound under Windows for basic
>functionality.  Indeed only once did I have such problems and the
>problems turned out to be a motherboard slowly flaking out.
>
>With Ubuntu it has been mostly an OK-to-good experience.  Except for
>sound.  (And I've heard nasty things about printing, but my printer is
>currently toast so thankfully I'm not experiencing that particular
>nightmare.)  Sound is, quite literally, a show-stopper now.  The times
>that I actually want sound are for relaxation and entertainment.  I
>just don't appear to be wired correctly to find entertainment and
>relaxation through Mystic Incantations.  Perhaps I need to adopt the
>Sufi attitude of basically laughing at the absurdity of the world to
>catch on.
>
>  
>
>>Can you share your windows and your applications with your friends ? no
>>you can't, if you want to copy the OS to several machines of yours and
>>don't have the right license, you can't, if you want to get rid or the
>>firewell they installed to put an opensource firewall, you can't get rid
>>of it unless you use a big iron bar to kick it out, do you know why ?
>>because the software you paid for does not belong to you, but to the
>>softwares company. And worse of all, after a few times re-installing,
>>the keycode does not work anymore. 'allloooo the hotline ????'  :((
>>    
>>
>
>And yet, using Windows XP the past (about) three years on this laptop,
>I've never had problems with any of that.  My firewall is external
>(because I don't trust self-hosted firewalling at all, MS or no).  I
>don't share my Windows disks.  And I've never needed to do anything
>with keycodes.
>
>  
>
>>(How much did you offer for the development of Ubuntu btw ?)
>>    
>>
>
>Well, once I get my bearings -- if ever I do -- I will likely start
>writing software for it.  Now?  None, of course.  This is the part of
>the cycle called "evaluation".
>
>  
>
>>If a company that develops a non free software crashes, and the format
>>of your documents is not known by open applications, your work is lost.
>>    
>>
>
>And yet I can count the number of lost documents I've had since about
>1985 on one hand.
>
>  
>
>>And also, during the time I'm learning to look forward and see the
>>moment I'll learn to compile a kernel, you'll know all the types of
>>firewalls and anti-virii/anti-all_malwares, while I'm running 3
>>different distributions to learn how to make them function, as well as a
>>bunch of applications... now my harware does not fail anymore, it's more
>>cool...
>>    
>>
>
>My hardware has failed more often in the past three weeks than it has
>in the three years previous.  Don't be trying to talk about hardware
>not failing to me here....
>
>  
>
>> Solution: install with  a dual boot, and
>>forget the hard life ?
>>    
>>
>
>That is, in fact, the solution I adopted.  I just don't like the fact
>I had to.  Sound is a very basic piece of functionality that has been
>SOLVED in Windows, BeOS, MacOS (various versions, no less!) and a
>whole host of other systems for a long time.  Only here in Linux-land
>does it appear to be a nightmare of Mystic Incantations.
>
>--
>Michael T. Richter
>ttmrichter at gmail.com
>Jabber: mtr1966 at jabber.cn
>  
>

You're quite right about Mystic Incantations being a thing of UNIX. I 
suppose, be lucky you're in this era, because there's a whole lot more 
in the past!

Seriously, though; Linux certainly hasn't fixed all hardware, whereas 
other vendors managed it. It's just something we have to work at. It 
looks like you're a lucky one with the right combination to send it 
down, so until then, it's a matter of bug reports, or using another 
operating system.

Of course, there are people on this list who will not accept that 
alternative, but I suppose they're for the killfile. :)

 - Yuki.