Penguin Toss

Linux rant follows. coherence... level unknown. proofreading... none.

I've been spending most of the past week trying to get Fedora Core 4 then 3 to install on two hard drives with a few software packages. Most of it is pretty straightforward, and works without difficulty. But when Linux decides not to work, it really doesn't want to work. Some examples of the difficulties I've had.

Sound:
I installed FC4 on a computer without problem. I installed FC4 on the other computer... no sound. They have different sound cards. The former an SB Live! and the latter and SB Audigy.
I installed FC3 on the the latter computer, and sound works! I installed FC3 on the former computer. No sound. The audio device seems to be constantly under someone's use.

Software Packaging:
Fedora Core comes pre-installed with GStreamer, which I'm trying to use to create a really simple MPEG-4 Player. Fedora Core 4 does not come with the C libraries pre-installed, and after trying yum several times, I finally figure they didn't have it either. The sample code in the documentation did no work, and it took an additional download in order to get a sample code in download to work. I just installed FC3, and similarly, the documentation's sample code didn't work, which maybe be a version difference, until the sample code in the documentation on the computer also didn't work.

These problems don't really occur in Windows or Macintosh. Windows is the dominant powerhouse, and most of the time, people have built binaries for it already or easy setup files not revolving around dependency hell, and the same with the hardware. No consumer PC hardware would survive without being able to work on Windows fairly easily. Maybe a new driver install. Mac, of course, controls most of it's own hardware, so drivers are less of an issue. And the software mostly comes prepackaged and ready to install with a simple drag.

This concludes this Linux rant. If you read any of the content since the first sentence, I pity you and would give you a cookie, but I suggest you not as for one, as I might lace it with something (maybe accidentally).