Anybody here use Linux?

[Anon]

In other words, pay a hundred bucks for a sixty buck drive, mail in the

What is this whole rebate thing? I live in the UK, I'm guessing its a US
thing right?

Steve

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____ "after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away for
the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is that
you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming rebates.
These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

hardware setup and knowing what hardware will work with what distro is
still a big problem for an avg. user.

I think that putting Linux on proprietary systems like HP, Sony, Dell,
Gateway, Systemax, etc. can be a headache in some cases. Sometimes, there
are some proprietary twists to particular hardware. Take for instance the
Soundblaster Live! Value card. My Dell system has one that's compatible
with my Linux distro. Many, however have reported that later ones Dell
shipped had something slightly different about them (cost cutting?) and
it's not compatible with Soundblaster drivers for Linux. There's a thread
about this somewhere in alt.os.linux.suse.

Chances are, if you have mainstream components that there aren't any twists
like that, it'll run with Linux. Now, certain distros support some hardware
better and others support other hardware better. There is a distro out
there that will work on your system, be it Red Hat 9, Fedora Core 1, SuSE
9, Mandrake 9.2, Xandros 2.0, Gentoo, or whatever. There is a distro for
you.

I will, however, qualify all of this by saying that many of the
state-of-the-art hardware available isn't compatible with Linux, currently.
The problem is the lack of OEM support for Linux and Open Source developers
need time to often reverse engineer the product. You can't possibly blame
this on Linux (god knows they try!), just as you can't blame Microsoft for
a Macintosh product not working in Windows.

However, with that said, most consumers just want the product to work. They
could care less about the underlying philosophy behind Open Source, nor do
they care about what a spectacular job the developers have done. It just
has to install easy, and work. However, I've witness Window installs that
also didn't go well. Many have installed drivers for hardware, only to find
it still doesn't work. After Windows is installed, the Device Manager just
has a lot of unknown devices, and you can't even tell what they are and
have do some investigating to work it all out. It's no different than some
of the more difficult Linux installations.

My installation, on an older Dell, goes perfectly smooth. As a matter of
fact, SuSE's installation and setup went more smoothly than any other
distro I've tried.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
8:09pm up 49 days 3:47, 2 users, load average: 0.19, 0.10, 0.02

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

"I started to go back to Red Hat possibly due to the whole deal with
the French/German/Russian thing"

....err better forget SuSE then because its a German distribution.

That was my point. I have been a SuSE user, but I've considered going to Red
Hat/Fedora because of the whole debacle. However, Fedora Core 1 is in its
infancy, and I do like SuSE a lot.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
8:25pm up 49 days 4:03, 2 users, load average: 0.28, 0.90, 0.89

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

hmmm nvidia does have the advantage, as one driver nearly fits all...but
not the 'latest' cards from the major suppliers have a xinux' compatible
driver that I have seen....

From nVidia's site (http://www.nvidia.com/object
linux_display_ia32_1.0-5328):

"Linux Display Driver - IA32


Version: 1.0-5328
Operating System: Linux IA32
Release Date: December 22, 2003



Release Highlights


Supports latest GeForce FX and Quadro FX GPUs
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Added support for UBB and FSAA Stereo.

Improved GLXPixamp support.

Added support for Red Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0.

Added support for GLX_SGI_swap_control.

Reduced CPU usage when OpenGL applications are syncing to vblank."


--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
8:27pm up 49 days 4:06, 2 users, load average: 0.20, 0.60, 0.78

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____
"after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away
for the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC
CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have
to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is
that you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will
claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming
rebates. These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery
tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

I recently bought a WD 120 GB drive with 8MB cache with a $60 rebate and the
rebate was in my mail in a couple of weeks!



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
8:32pm up 49 days 4:11, 2 users, load average: 0.32, 0.47, 0.67

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[JAD]

interesting as I was looking at the latest offerings of Nvid off the self at BB....no mention of xinux on the box...I'll re-examine
that and grab some model numbers....also would like to see/or hear from someone on a working system incorporating this driver.
Everything looks good on paper, and many xinux 'drivers', have been less than perfect, with many features lost/lamed.

 

[Anon]

I recently bought a WD 120 GB drive with 8MB cache with a $60 rebate and the
rebate was in my mail in a couple of weeks!

Quick, buy a powerball ticket before your luck runs out. -Dave

 

[Donald]

I've never been rejected for a rebate claim. Only shop enough to make
sure the price after rebate is worth the trouble.

 

[jamotto]

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____ "after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away for
the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is that
you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming rebates.
These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

And here all this time I should have been buying Lotto tickets cause I
must be very lucky with all 10 out of 10 of my rebates honored

 

[Ed Medlin]

Quick, buy a powerball ticket before your luck runs out. -Dave

I dunno...... I recently purchased a big-screen HDTV, Dolby receiver,
subwoofer, new Hitachi LCD monitor and a video card. All with mail-in
rebates. Got checks totaling over $400 US in the mail the last two weeks. If
they were that bad, someone would be on their collective asses for offering
these. Large, well established companies are NOT going to use false
advertising to sell their products. Granted, there are probably a very few
unscrupulous companies out there, but they are in the minority.

Ed

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

interesting as I was looking at the latest offerings of Nvid off the self
at BB....no mention of xinux on the box...I'll re-examine that and grab
some model numbers....also would like to see/or hear from someone on a
working system incorporating this driver.
Everything looks good on paper, and many xinux 'drivers', have been less
than perfect, with many features lost/lamed.

No box has Linux support on it as hardware OEM's consider Linux too small a
market to make that big a deal over.

Features "lost/lamed"? Give evidence...



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
6:02am up 49 days 13:40, 2 users, load average: 0.89, 0.35, 0.12

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[JAD]

Features "lost/lamed"? Give evidence...

your kidding right? your knowledgeable in nux, why are you asking for evidence...that's a common "give' when using full featured
hardware with nux, something's don't work. What? you want a list of all hardware that doesn't have all its features available? You
can work on that yourself.

 

[Sally]

That was my point. I have been a SuSE user, but I've considered going to Red
Hat/Fedora because of the whole debacle. However, Fedora Core 1 is in its
infancy, and I do like SuSE a lot.

What French/German/Russian deal thing?

 

[Matt]

It's a marketing scam. Many consumer items in the U.S. (especially
electronics and computer components) are advertised as costing $____ "after
rebate". Let's say a DVD player is $30 US after rebate. So you pay sixty
bucks for it, and then you have to mail in for the rebate. To send away for
the rebate, you need an ORIGINAL sales receipt, and an ORIGINAL UPC CODE
(cut off the box). Plus, you need to fill in a form of course. You have to
send all this information away by mail. It's a scam, as most rebates are
rejected, even if they are claimed correctly. The most common scam is that
you did everything right, but the rebate processing company will claim
(incorrectly) that you didn't send in the UPC code. Thus the rebate is
rejected.

What it boils down to is that it is a way to trick U.S. consumers into
paying more for certain items by promising to give them a discount AFTER
THEY BUY something, and then deliberately failing to honor that promise.

You'll see lots of people claim that they have no problem claiming rebates.
These are the same people who SHOULD be purchasing lottery tickets on a
regular basis. When more than 50% of rebates are automatically rejected,
someone who's never had a problem claiming a rebate obviously has luck on
their side. -Dave

You know not whereof you write.

Please list some of your vast experience with rebates. Of particular
interest would be experience with rebates on computer hardware from say
Office Max, Best Buy, etc.

 

[Matt]

In other words, pay a hundred bucks for a sixty buck drive, mail in the
rebate, do EVERYTHING RIGHT, get the rebate rejected, end up paying forty
bucks more than you should. No thanks. -Dave

Where can you buy that drive for $60? You can't.

Yesterday I paid $80 plus sales tax for a WD800JBRTL (retail box, 1 year
warranty) at OM. You send in forms for two $30 rebates. If they don't
come through (although they WILL come through with no problems), I will
have lost maybe $15 over the newegg price.

I got a drive that I know hasn't been banged around. The retail
packaging is very protective and will show damage if the drive is
damaged. You don't know whether the mailorder packer has dropped your
bulk-packaged drive or rapped it on the countertop for fun.

If the drive is DOA there is no RMA'ing or repackaging or reshipping
required.

Office Max has an department that handles rebate problems, and I know
from experience that they do not let the manufacturer defraud the customer.

Actually I am slightly ticked at OM because they advertised the Special
Edition (3 year warranty) but actually had only drives with 1 year
warranties.

Newegg wants around $70 for the bulk drive shipped with 3-year warranty.

To me the retail packaging outweighs the longer warranty.

After rebate I will get the drive for about $26 including tax and stamps.

I don't mind the little bit of work to save about $45.

 

[Matt]

WTF are you talking about? Linux is only hard if you think running windows
is hard. In fact, a lot of hard-core linux advocates are really pissed that
linux is so much like windoze now. Some of them are afraid that (gasp!)
computer newbies might start choosing linux as a primary OS.

Linux is harder to run if you want to customize things. But most major
distros need no tweaking to run just fine at the default settings. That is,
unless your hardware is a bit iffy. -Dave

Here is WTF I am talking about, friend:

It's often hard to set up, mainly when you run it on hardware that is
less than a year old.

Eg it took more than a year for the DMA code for the Intel 845 chipsets
to find its way into kernels in standard distros. I shouldn't have to
'tweak' or 'customize' my OS to get disk I/O better than 3 MB/sec, and I
have trouble with the idea that the 845 chipset is or was some kind of
oddball hardware.

Eg there were no drivers for the 845's audio, so I had to install a
separate card to get sound.

Eg as far as I know there is no driver to use the on-chip ethernet of
the NForce2. It was easier to spend $10 on a PCI NIC that I shouldn't
need. That is not pretty. Do I conclude that the NForce2 chipset is
"iffy"?

Eg you have to do considerable research to find a reasonably-priced
printer to work with Linux.

Eg good luck getting your scanner or digital camera to work with linux
before the device is obsolete.

Most people do not want to make a career of tracking down immature buggy
drivers or writing drivers themselves.

Now do you understand WTF I am talking about? Or are things like this
some kind of surprise to you?

The kernel and most of the surrounding free software are outstanding,
and they are eventually going to take Windows down. The problem is
drivers.

DRIVERS.

Using an OS includes setting it up.

Now please cut the crap about Linux being as easy to use as Windows.

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

Features "lost/lamed"? Give evidence...

your kidding right? your knowledgeable in nux, why are you asking for
evidence...that's a common "give' when using full featured
hardware with nux, something's don't work. What? you want a list of all
hardware that doesn't have all its features available? You can work on
that yourself.

No, I'm not kidding. Believe this or not, some hardware actually has more
options available to the user in Linux. My printer preferences dialog
yields far more control over the printer than the factory drivers in
Windows 98 ever did. Many open source hardware drivers actually do a better
job than OEM ones, yet many are crippled.

Secondly, OpenGL is not DirectX. Some things that exist in Windows exist
because of DirectX libraries. That doesn't mean the the OpenGL standard has
those same features because gaming is a big deal in Windows and not a big
deal in *nix. It's not that GL is inferior, but just different.

Nothing is a common 'give', as you say. While some hardware like
Soundblaster Audigy Platinum boxes may suffer from feature deprivation,
other hardware thrives in Linux.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
5:13pm up 7:49, 2 users, load average: 0.10, 0.05, 0.01

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

Where can you buy that drive for $60? You can't.

At Best Buy, just before Christmas, I purchased a WD 120GB 7200rpm 8MB cache
ATA100 drive for $59 after rebates. I use it for backup in my Windows
system. There were lots of crazy sales like that this Christmas shopping
season. As a matter of fact, my brother and best friend both built new
systems by shopping smart and getting a lot of items like these. They both
got a genuine Ati Radeon 9600 video card for $50, hard drives similar in
size and everything, except Maxtor, for the same price, LiteOn 52X CD
burners for $20, and more. Hell, they even bought eMachines computers with
a monitor, 2.6GHz Celerons, 80GB HDD, CD burner, DVD and everything for
$299 after rebates and gave them as gifts. You just have to get out of bed
early to get to those "6 hour" sales and get them.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
5:19pm up 7:55, 2 users, load average: 0.17, 0.13, 0.05

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

Here is WTF I am talking about, friend:

It's often hard to set up, mainly when you run it on hardware that is
less than a year old.

Eg it took more than a year for the DMA code for the Intel 845 chipsets
to find its way into kernels in standard distros. I shouldn't have to
'tweak' or 'customize' my OS to get disk I/O better than 3 MB/sec, and I
have trouble with the idea that the 845 chipset is or was some kind of
oddball hardware.

Eg there were no drivers for the 845's audio, so I had to install a
separate card to get sound.

Eg as far as I know there is no driver to use the on-chip ethernet of
the NForce2. It was easier to spend $10 on a PCI NIC that I shouldn't
need. That is not pretty. Do I conclude that the NForce2 chipset is
"iffy"?

Eg you have to do considerable research to find a reasonably-priced
printer to work with Linux.

Eg good luck getting your scanner or digital camera to work with linux
before the device is obsolete.

Most people do not want to make a career of tracking down immature buggy
drivers or writing drivers themselves.

Now do you understand WTF I am talking about? Or are things like this
some kind of surprise to you?

The kernel and most of the surrounding free software are outstanding,
and they are eventually going to take Windows down. The problem is
drivers.

DRIVERS.

Using an OS includes setting it up.

Now please cut the crap about Linux being as easy to use as Windows.

First of all, this isn't the fault of Linux. This is the OEM's fault. Bitch
to them.

Secondly, are you saying you've _never_ had setup problems with Windows? If
you do, you're either very lucky or lying. I just put a system together for
a friend and we had a hell of a time trying to get an onboard Promise SATA
controller to work on his MSI Neo FIS2R board. Then, the whole system came
to a crawl and we had to start all over again with the Windows install.
Finally, it worked. It took 3 evenings to get it all sorted out. This,
despite there being an OEM Promise driver that came with the system.

Lastly, I do agree that for Linux to really hit the mainstream it needs to
solve the latest/greatest hardware problem. OEM's need to step up to the
plate. I think the corporate desktop boom that'll probably happen the next
2 to 3 years will certainly help, but I think mainstream Linux is at least
5 years away in getting really good OEM driver support for hardware.



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
5:27pm up 8:03, 2 users, load average: 0.30, 0.25, 0.13

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...

 

[Ruel Smith (Big Daddy)]

What French/German/Russian deal thing?

Did you miss that whole Iraq/UN/France-Germany-Russia thing that happened
last year? You must live in a cave...



--
Big Daddy Ruel Smith

My SuSE Linux machine uptime:
5:33pm up 8:08, 2 users, load average: 0.17, 0.23, 0.15

My Windows XP machine uptime:
Something less...