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My usual euphoria at running Linux on any machine I can lay my hands on has been radically diminished. To start off, this is probably my own fault and the fault of those like me. Let me explain: as geeks and fanboys, we are constantly thriving to run the latest and greatest. If a new distribution is made available, we can’t wait to download the ISO, burn it to a disc and install. Then, we start fiddling to make things that worked properly before work yet again. I am constantly amazed at the support the community offers. I am constantly gobsmacked by the hard work developers put in to advance the software technology in the operating system and the features it provides. But, at the same time I am disappointed that very few things that matter run out of the box. Primarily, my disappointment is directed at the release of new kernels that have no support for existing graphics card drivers. If there were thousands to choose from, I could understand the problem developers would face. But there are really only three. Of those, Intel has open-sourced their driver. That leaves nVIDIA and ATI. Why then must an upgrade from Mandriva 2008.0 to 2008.1 break the dependency of the kernel to the driver for both ATI and nVIDIA? Surely someone has tested that the upgraded operating system will function? Surely it can’t be too much to ask that a bit of quality assurance is done?

Then, there’s the inclusion of software that has no chance of working because core components haven’t been finalized. I’m directing this one at the Fedora team. Why on earth would any project team choose to include an XServer for which no proper drivers exist yet? Why make something available that cannot work in the mode I am accustomed? Yes, I don’t need Compiz and its fancy effects. But I like them. They worked in Fedora 8. Why should Fedora 9 be a downgrade from a usability and eye candy perspective? An upgrade has me struggling with windows that have no main title bar and cannot be moved. Can I fix the issue? Probably. But I don’t want to spend hours fiddling to get things back to the way they were. I want the damned thing to work. I spent uncounted hours over the weekend to try to get the nVIDIA driver working in Mandriva 2008.1. It works with the power pack. I can’t get it to work by hand because there are kernel-dev dependencies, X11 dependencies and goodness knows what else. It’s just too much effort to regain the status quo.

Why ship Firefox in its beta release, Fedora and Ubuntu teams? It is the latest and greatest. But it’s not proven and not released. Why foist it on unsuspecting end users?

So the long and the short of this rant is the following: unless distros make an effort to get the basics to work easily and stop providing experimental software, there is no way Tux will find his way onto desktops the world over. There is no chance penguin will compete with commercial offerings unless the overall package is functional. That means shipping something no quite on the cutting edge, but in a working state. Provide bleeding edge software in special experimental packages and distros, clearly marked. I understand this stuff is free and it’s a question of choice. I consider myself technically savvy enough to make, yum, yast, urpmi,  gcc and rpm at will. Unfortunately, not many computer users have the interest in gaining those abilities. I cannot blame them.

Make sure the choice stays Linux and that there is no reason to veer away to the dark side!