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Normally I like hardware (mostly) but my hard drives have been driving me
insane. (Don't worry, I'll get to the software hate.) I'm preparing to
pull a fourth drive from desktop; this one because it's making a
high-pitched whining noise that's about to drive me insane.
The point of this email, contrary to how it may appear, is not that BeOS
is great: It's that linux really does just suck an amazingly large
amount.
This machine runs two operating systems: Linux and BeOS. In more detail,
it's running the absolutely most up-to-date, Debian "unstable" version of
Linux, and it's running a version of BeOS that hasn't been upgraded in,
oh, 2 or 3 years.
Now, there are some problems with BeOS. I can't use spatial keys
(Control-Left, Control-Right) to switch workspaces, the terminal really
just sucks, the network stack is a travesty, and missing
plenty-o-features. But compared to linux....
I turn my stupid computer off and connect a bunch of drives so I can stage
my data to them. I boot into linux thinking "i'll just repartition one of
them and copy this data over first". Oh yeah, except that, well, linux
can't see the damn things. Even though essentially every ide driver that
exists is loaded in my kernel, and most definitely the autodetect driver
is loaded. Even though at least one of these drives worked last week.
Sure.
So okay, I'll start with Be. I boot into Be (which takes about 15 seconds
and involves almost no disk grinding), and hey! I can see all the drives.
Quick partition. Ooooh, a _graphical_ partitioning tool. Simple,
straightforward. Wow! I don't have to enter in the number of freaking
cylinders I want?! It's almost like I've died and left the 1980s!
Amazing! If Linux is innovative, what the hell is this? Cheating?
So, I go into partitioning. I may have to boot off this drive. You know
what that means? I have to throw away some space at the beginning.
Because, you know, lilo might or might not be able to read past the 1024st
cylinder. Oh yeah, of course, it's _possible_ to make lilo do it.
Usually. In theory.
So I partition it all up, and backup my OS. What does the backup consist
of? I grap all of the folders and drag them onto the new drive. Wow,
that was tough. I wait a bit (again, with graphical feedback, including a
progress bar--wow, progress bars!), and it's all done.
Oh, and just to reiterate my last hate: BeOS can (of course) power off my
monitor even if it's connected via DVI, and it's mp3 player works just
dandy, even though it hasn't been updated in 3 years. Oh yeah, open
source is all about innovation, and it _naturally_ results in better
software. The software's just better than it's competitors were 20 years
ago, rather than right now. Thanks.
So I'm reduced to trawling the fricking 'net looking for how to force
devfs (you know, the thing that's supposed to autodetect all of my
devices?) to autodetect (see, I have to force it to autodetect; got that?)
my stupid IDE drive. Right.
And then, once I get the stupid drive working, I'll have the pleasure of
doing the following to make a bootable drive:
run 'cd <fs>; sudo tar cf - . | (cd <newspot>; sudo tar xf -) for each of
my stupid filesystems
Change lilo so that it points to the new drive and installs the new stupid
bootloader thing (yeah, BeOS has a simple, easy bootloader, but I decided,
heck, I'll try lilo. And plus, BeOS has been deprecated; it didn't seem
wise to requier it. Big-ass mistake, obviously, especially considering
that Be has no freaking problem with 1024 or more cylinders.
Change my stupid SCSI card so it boots off a different drive.
Pray that it all freaking works.
Reboot twenty times trying it.
Yes friends, linux sucks a lot. It's not an atrocious server OS, but
anyone who thingks this crap is acceptable is smoking crack. And not the
good kind either.
How's that for some software hate? And I'm not even done with the night
yet.
Luke
--
Today at work an ethernet switch decided to take the 'N' out of NVRAM
-- Richard Letts
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