What "using Linux" problems have people encountered?

[Dave88]

I thought you wanted setup problems, its late where I am.

My using problems are :

1, Music player quits unexpectedly sometimes (not too often though)
2. Sound goes crazy after a reboot(sometimes)
3. ipod sometimes won't mount

Nothing that bad goes wrong

[polo_step]

I appreciate all the problems people are volunteering, but these are mostly setup ones, not functioning ones. I don't think the distinction is artificial at all. A setup problem is one you do once. Once it happens properly, it's done--hardware detection, printer setup, anaconda installer. I guess people just didn't get the point of my thread. If people just want to gripe, that's fine, too... but wasn't the point.

It's a distinction that's only clear in your head, then.

All it means as you describe it is whether or not you can fix the problem or not - change something, tweak something or whatever and make the hassle go away.

I don't know if all the problems I've encountered are like that or if they're just plain old fatal bugs or incompatibilities. There's no way for me to tell, so it's an utterly false distinction.

Here's an example: I can't get audio and video to stay synchronized in the various playback programs. Some people here say that that is a permanent problem due to bad drivers with no available solution and some say it's only a synchronization setup problem.

Which is it? I don't know.

Every problem is a "use problem" until someone comes up with a fix for it and then it retroactively becomes a "setup" problem.

[papangul]

This is my list:
1.I don't get hardware acceleration with my i810.
2.I have problems searching for installed files eg I need to delete the gxine plugin for firefox and I have to consult doc. to find out where it is actually. Also I need to find the the realplay.bin file and I don't know where it is . I face this kind of situation all the time. This is the most annoying thing for me in linux.
3.Multimedia websites-eg- http://raaga.com/channels/hindi/ , IFILM etc.
4.Some html e-books, eg-try opening any book from this list- http://oshoworld.com/*******ooks/index.asp
5. Openoffice takes along time to start compared to MS-office under windows. And perhaps you haven't tried Openoffice-2 yet.
Thats all. Still i am using only linux. Haven't booted into windows for quite some time now.

[super]

i agree that most of the problems here seem like bug that could be fixed

i also agree with polo step that once someone comes up with a fix then the problem becomes a setup problem.

the biggest problems with linux is not specific to ubuntu only. here is my list of probs with linux.

1) driver support - but this can only be fixed by the OEMs

2) eye candy - this is a problem that ubuntu can fix, why can't our desktops look like this out of the box http://www.clan-hash.com/~guli/fvwm/...X_Milky-02.jpg (yes that is a linux box, not a mac)

3) web plugins - we should have these intalled out of the box

this is not to say we are not making progress, we are, but there is still a long way to go.

just my opinion.

[egon spengler]

3. When talking to msn users with gaim, some messages I send does not arrive to the msn users.

4. Even with codecs and firefox extensions there is still problems with some rare media files. For example I can't rent a movie online cause that requires both internet explorer active X and some kind of windows media player encryption.

those aren't really linux problems, most likely the same things or very similar would occur using miranda or opera on windows

5. Openoffice takes along time to start compared to MS-office under windows. And perhaps you haven't tried Openoffice-2 yet..

more than likely if you check in your windows startup folder you'll find a shortcut to microsoft office. office loads so quickly by preloading some of it's files on bootup. i think a similar option is available for open office (it def was there on the windows version i installed but never used about 2 years ago) and so that might speed things up a little. of course it will most likely also slow booting

3) web plugins - we should have these intalled out of the box

i'm pretty sure that the lack of those is because most linux distributions stick to the open software philosophy and so don't include proprietary stuff. on top of that i'm also fairly sure that firefox (which i believe most linux distros use) on windows doesn't come with plugins either. it's a design philosophy i guess. it IS a hassle to have to install them but it's not really a bug per se that linux doesn't include them

[poofyhairguy]

more than likely if you check in your windows startup folder you'll find a shortcut to microsoft office. office loads so quickly by preloading some of it's files on bootup. i think a similar option is available for open office (it def was there on the windows version i installed but never used about 2 years ago) and so that might speed things up a little. of course it will most likely also slow booting

sudo apt-get install ooqstart

[aysiu]

It's a distinction that's only clear in your head, then.
...
I don't know if all the problems I've encountered are like that or if they're just plain old fatal bugs or incompatibilities. There's no way for me to tell, so it's an utterly false distinction.

No, you're totally right. It is clear in my head, but I see your point. If the same person who set up the computer is the one using it, it may be hard for her to tell the difference between what's just a "user" problem and what's a "set up" problem. Maybe that's why the responses I got back were so mixed up.

For me, it's pretty clear to me that the Thunderbird error I get has nothing to do with how I set up my computer, but it is clear to me that the monitor resolution is something I do set up because when I fix it, it's fixed forever.

No, you're right. I thought this was a good idea at the time, but it may actually be a stupid thread...

[Knight Palatine]

Coming back to Linux after a couple of years away, here's what I've found:

1) Out of the box, Totem does nothing. WMP and Real "just work."

2) Rhythmbox worked OK until I switched from GNOME to Ion. My wrist and shoulder already are thanking me for less mousing around, but Rhythmbox no longer recognizes any file format.

3) Large file downloads, either direct or BitTorrent, slow web browsing to an unusable crawl. Didn't have this problem on WinXP.

4) Where, after lo these many years, is the Linux financial management app? GnuCash has a scary number of dependencies. I used MoneyDance a few years back, but it was slow (I have a faster box now).

No others noted at this time. I'll troubleshoot as time permits. To be truly "desktop-ready" though, Linux apps need to mature past having to spend hours on FAQs, forums, and IRC to get them running.

[johnmc]

I thought you wanted setup problems, its late where I am.

My using problems are :

1, Music player quits unexpectedly sometimes (not too often though)

strange, does this happen when listening to mp3's via XMMS?
that's what's happening to me sometimes.... and it kinda sucks!
any ideas about this?

the only problem i had till now

1) no hardware acceleration for my ati mobility radeon 7500 - which also means no s-vhs support so i'm unable to watch videos on my TV

[musicman2059]

Do note that I am running Linux on a crap comp here.

1. Keyboard and mouse seem to be "auto-set" to insanely high repeat rates and delay intervals randomly with xserver. Sometimes it only happens once every few starts, sometimes it happens 4-5 times in a row.

2. As mentioned, OpenOffice takes forever to start up.

3. With some programs, (mainly Bluefish) trying to edit large files becomes a major hassle because it starts to lag horribly. In Bluefish's case, if I were to edit a file of the same size on a similar HTML editor for Windows (1st page would be the closest match), I have no problems.

4. Linux seem to do a really bad job at multitasking with a 366MHz processor.

5. Linux also seems to a a really bad job at managing memory with only 192MB. After startup, I find that 80-85% of my RAM is taken up, almost half of that being cached stuff, (That isn't neccesarily a problem though, seeing it's just a cache) whereas Win98 was only taking around half with no cache.

6. BMP really seems to slow down the rest of my system. (Not too surprised, though.)

7. It would be hella better for people without internet connections if some extra multimedia stuff, such as either an MP3 plugin or player, were available right on the CD.

8. I still have yet to find quite a few programs such as:
- A standalone GIF animator, because GIMP-GAP gets really complicated
- A decent MIDI player or easy-to-install MIDI plugin for BMP or MPlayer
- A MIDI sequencer