Justin recently moved from the city he lived in to Boston, to work for the Free Software Foundation. I was going to post this while he was busy moving and thus unable to respond properly, just to annoy him, but other things got in the way.
The FSF, of course, advocates the use of open source software - which means Linux. After you mention Linux you keep the thought floating around for a few minutes, and later talk about Mozilla. Few more minutes and you can bring up StarOffice and MySQL. From that point on half the audience will stop having any idea what you are talking about - but at least it is free and open source.
Last year I bought a used computer from a friend. AMD K6-2 450MHz, 64Mb RAM, 6Gb HD. Old and rather useless, but it was cheap. I planned to use it as gateway firewall proxy router in the little LAN here, because I am tired of having to keep Asgaard running so Olympus has access, and having to limit and balance download and upload rates on both machines manually depending on the bandwidth usage of each one during each period. So the K6-2 would become Bifrost and do all this stuff for me.
A low-end machine for that purpose could not possibly have Windows running in it, so naturally I went for free systems. An odissey.
First, Conectiva Linux, a Brazilian distribution based on Red Hat, because I had the original discs here. It installed okay, and came with KDE. That was all. It was extremely outdated, and everything was hard to configure. The manual that came with it showed very well how to use KDE, but mysteriously skipped the part where the user configures it. After much toiling to get KDE running I realized there was nothing else I could do there without getting to the core of Linux functionality and updating the kernel, the ports, the packages, and everything else - which the manual does not say how is done, and would probably not be worth it anyway. I abandoned Conectiva.
My next option was FreeBSD, because Justin was always talking about it, used it on his computers, said it was great and had a better community than Linux, et cetera. Version 5.1-release at the time, installed with minimal problems with a lot of help from him. Ports updated, some things compiled, some obscure settings changed (everything with his help, still), it could get online using Opera - but that was all. Compiling anything else was impossible, returned errors (Firefox and Mozilla Suite included); X was running, but barely. Eventually he said this version was outdated and I would need to recompile the kernel. "But this is what I got from their site, you mean there is one that is not there?" Apparently, yes, if you are willing to take some risks you can use more advanced "-stable" (not "-release") versions, which are not as visible. After looking at the instructions (one place said "do this"; the other place said "although they say 'do this' you should actually do this, this, this and then this, but be very sure to backup first) I politely set it aside.
One day I heard of IPCop, a minimal Linux distribution meant to be exactly what I wanted: a router firewall bandwidth-manager proxy port-forwarder. With very simple and intuitive installation, helpful tips, very easy to configure and maintain. It installed flawlessly, it ran without a problem, it did everything it had to - except find the Ethernet boards in Bifrost. I tried automatic, manual, editing the setup files themselves. No deal, IPCop refuses to acknowledge those two cards (which I am seeing and FreeBSD agreed to exist) are there. A look at their forums showed that problem was not unheard of - but a solution was. Another CD-R forgotten in the drawer.
Months passed with Bifrost forgotten, and forgotten with it was my little private Ragnarok Online server, until I heard about Coyote Linux. I took a look at it, and noticed it could well run in one of those very old boxes I have (Pentium MMX, but with more memory than the K6-2 - I might switch some things around sometime). So Bifrost would be a PMMX, and the K6-2 would become Midgaard, and run the Ragnarok server - because running it on Asgaard is quite troublesome, and on Midgaard I could keep it running non-stop.
For that purpose, then, I would need a light system capable of running MySQL and the server, nothing else. MySQL because I want to abandon the .txt server and its records that can be read in notepad but not edited easily by a php script running on Eris. Time to go back to Linux in the K6-2, now Midgaard, to see where it took me.
"Justin! Give me a Linux distribution that is very easy to install and configure and run and connect to WinXP machines on a LAN but is also light enough to run off an old low-end computer!", I said.
"Ubuntu!", he replied.
"Okay, now give me a Linux distribution that is easy to use and has a decent name!"
He chuckled, which probably meant he thought what I said was a joke. Left only with a Linux distribution that is easy to use but has a silly name, I had to go with that. I downloaded Ubuntu and installed it.
Installation did not complete, but it booted okay to a command prompt. "But it is supposed to have Gnome or X-windows or KDE or whatever else by default, no?", I thought to myself as I tried to start up something that used the old mouse. No deal, needed configuring. An evening figuring out how to configure an X server manually. When it finally started, the mouse would not move. Another two evenings to make the mouse move - with the added bonus of Gnome locking up every time I left it unattended for more than three minutes (which was hard to avoid, as the usual "touch the mouse" feature used to avoid screensavers could not be used and I kept forgetting it). Eventually I made the mouse work! And Gnome could never start up again. "Theme corrupted", I believe.
I reinstalled Ubuntu with minimal settings - no need for all that stuff anyway, I just want MySQL and some compilers to deal with the Ragnarok server. Installation did not complete on any of the five attempts or the three copies of the CD, made from two different downloads of the ISO image.
Full installation, then, and this time it actually finished, and I fixed the mouse before even going into Gnome, and it did not lock up, and I could see Olympus from it! (I could not see Asgaard because Asgaard is weird and shy and no one sees it in the network - not even itself.) I copied a wallpaper from Olympus just for fun, "Behold!, a Linux system actually displaying a big .jpg file!". Then I shut it down and went to sleep as the sun was rising, and it never booted up properly again. The next six attempts at reinstallation failed, too.
Slackware. Downloaded, installed. No problems up to that point - they were being saved for later, of course. Login as root, no password asked. Add password, add user account, login to user account. Try to run something: fail. X server, compilers, fetch, wget, nothing. Perhaps it was all misconfigured. Perhaps there was a problem during installation after all. Bah.
FreeBSD again, maybe this outdated version is enough to run MySQL and compile the server. Installed okay, tried to install MySQL and failed. Did a general upgrade of all ports, took a whole day. Tried to compile MySQL and failed. "Okay, I give up on SQL, I will keep using the TXT server.", which I downloaded and could not use because it was in a .rar file; I tried to install the rar port and it said it was not compatible with that version of FreeBSD. "I can live with that", and made a zip, got it there again, unzipped, tried to compile. "gmake: Command not found." Common "make" gave lots of errors. Installed all ports remotely connected to gmake, and still it could not be found. Enough.
I downloaded the new version of FreeBSD and installed it. Went alright, but X will not start at all and not even give me an error message - it just gives me the prompt back. "Screw it", and tried to install MySQL. "Segmentation fault" on a dozen different places even after updating everything twice. "Screw it again" and went for the TXT server. It found gmake this time - but did not compile. I looked for information on it. "Running the server on BSD", thread in the server's site's forum, many source modifications to compile in BSD, because "BSD is not Linux, so not all things work the same". Modifications for an older version of the server, not functional anymore. "Damn."
Now Justin is back on tracks and his latest post says he is using Ubuntu somewhere, instead of his old friend FreeBSD. I suppose I should give it another try - a third download, a fourth CD, a seventeenth installation attempt. But until I build up the courage again (and finish other things that got in the way - school keeps messing up with my education), I have this most unkind BSD prompt staring at me from Midgaard - which is, therefore, kept turned off most of the time.
From all this there is only one conclusion I can reach: Windows XP, for installing on the first attempt, running flawlessly since then, identifying my mouse and my Ethernet boards, managing my network and holding MySQL and the Ragnarok server without a complaint, is better than Ubuntu, Slackware, Conectiva, IPCop and FreeBSD.
Free, open source software is a beautiful goal and I do support the idea of not needing to pay exorbitant prices for a system that can be exploited so easily. But, as it stands, free, open source software is not usable enough for anyone without a degree in Computer Science (or not married to someone who is, of course). It requires initiation, but gives no indication of where one can learn about it. "Which kernel do you want to use?" is the worst possible first question a system installation could ever ask, and Slackware asked me that - I had a far better time with OS/2 Warp, by the gods!
Where are autoexec.bat and config.sys? How do I make a .bat file? Why does this editor want me to type :q! to quit? How much disk space and memory do I have free? Why is the universal Ctrl+Alt+Del not working? Why do they always think I am on a network with a dozen other users and a network administrator and multiple terminals?
The Free Software Foundation will only reach its goal when makers of free software realize people might just want to install a free operating system on their computer, have it recognize their hardware, give them a graphical interface and tell them what each thing does, and why, and how. "What kernel do you want to install?" is nowhere near that.
I will keep on trying, because I want Midgaard and Bifrost working, but the frustration builds up. The only respite I get is the fact that my expenses in all these attempts, other than wasted time, were only a few CD-R. But I honestly expected free software to have more advantages than just being free.
(By the way, if anyone has some comment space they do not want, I may take it, because Justin will surely use up everything I have here and not stop at that. ;) )