Xkcd - Linux, a cautionary tale | Hacker News Reader

Xkcd - Linux, a cautionary tale

xkcd.com

89 pointsnickb62 comments

Ubuntu surprised the heck out of me. I was fiddling with the Wifi to try to get it to work when I decided I needed to download something. I connected the machine to the router using CAT5, and Ubuntu connected to the internet and figured out what to do for me. All I had to do was to tell it to proceed. Of course, in reality, it just probed the hardware configuration and downloaded a script someone else had figured out, but still, that was way impressive!

Nice to know it does that for somebody. I'm using the x64 version of Ubuntu on a desktop with a USB wireless peripheral. Since I installed in March I've spent months without a functioning wireless connection and several weeks without a functioning wired connection. Currently I have a length of cat5 cable strung out under my door, across a hallway, and into my roommate's bedroom where the router is kept.

My Ubuntu laptop also no longer has a working wireless connection. It's slightly older hardware (3 to 4 years) and I've given it up for dead.

I love using Ubuntu, but unless you luck out in the hardware compatibility lottery, it is a second job to get a system up and running. I actually did not have a functioning Ubuntu system until I quit my job and had the hours to devote to configuring everything over a period of 3 to 4 days, and then another 3 to 4 days when I updated to 8.04.

I've accepted that you have to plan your hardware if you want to use linux. I purchased a USB wifi dongle for my laptop that I knew worked, because I knew the internal chipset would not.

I bought a new USB wireless adapter with an eye on compatibility. Unfortunately, no USB wireless adapter is well-supported. There are a few that work out of the box for an unencrypted network or that work with old versions of the distro, but will not work with the most recent version and WPA encryption.

Your mistake is using the x64 version.

Is the hardware support worse on the 64s than the 32s?

> unless you luck out in the hardware compatibility lottery

Try this site: http://www.leenooks.com

It'll show you what to avoid, with the idea being that pissed off people have more incentive to go say "the damn thing doesn't work with Linux!" than happy people have to go fill in some information about how everything works smoothly.

And incidentally, if anyone wants to help hack on the Rails-based wiki that runs it, or otherwise give me a hand with the site, I'd love the help:-)

I suppose the website you link to isn't entirely useless. If I were contemplating buying a new computer (and I am), I could check every component of a potential computer against the list. If one component were red-listed, then I would know that Linux would not run on that computer. I could then go to my next choice and check every component again.

However, while lists such as these might help me weed out potential computers that won't work, it cannot help me find one that will work. I cannot avoid the compatibility lottery for two reasons: 1) the list is incomplete and 2) hardware compatibility varies from distro to distro and release to release.

I suppose you could make a similar website for the last two versions of every popular distro. Then, I could take each potential computer I was considering purchasing and check each component's compatibility in each distro I want to use (if one system won't work in Ubuntu 8.04, then maybe it will work in 7.10). Please note that this consumer nirvana would only work if the lists were reasonably complete.

What I would love is a website that links to computers from major manufacturers where the current version of a given distro works 100% after install. Perhaps Ubuntu could link to a set of major brand desktops and laptops that work with 7.10 and 8.04. That would be much more useful than a list such as this: http://tuxmobil.org/ibm.html which isn't exactly an easy-to-use Linux shopping guide.

I bought one of these and it works quite well:

http://www.dell.com/content/topics/segtopic.aspx/linux_3x?c=...

A coworker of mine bought one and has high praise for it. I believe he has the 1420N.

If you're having hardware compatability issues, try using regular x86 Linux. It tends to have better driver support, and in my experience Flash and Wine also work better.

My progression was thusly:

Day One: "Oh boy, Mandrake Linux sure is easy to install!" Day Two: "What the hell is this 'make' bullshit?" Day Three: "I think I'll try another distro..." Day Four: "Fuck it, I'm getting a Mac."

It's ironic this post is downmodded but the comic itself is upmodded.

Goes to show a valuable lesson for all aspects of life: Presentation matters.

The comic is sort of funny, but a comment about someone being scared off by make and Linux on a site for hackers is like someone on a cooking site saying "what's this blender bullshit, ah fuck it, I'm going out to eat".

Not all of us are developers/programmers. I'm just a fan :)

Wait, I thought all real hackers use Macs.

(-1, flamebait)

Goes to show there are downarrows on comments but not front page links.

I'm unable to downvote anything on this site as my karma score is too low, so I just vote everything up instead, even if I disagree, I upvote. Everyone who reads this comment will downvote it though. Weird.

Ubuntu was the first Linux I ever tried, on my previous computer.

It installed smoothly and I was pleasantly surprised. Apt-get was working its magic and it seemed like I could escape from Microsoft's clutches!

But then I made the mistake of getting a new computer which could handle modern games, and suddenly things weren't so simple anymore..

Long story short:

I've got a 8800GTS which required proprietary drivers etc, and for some reason the picture seemed somehow fuzzy.

The whole computer didn't boot up without adding "irqpoll" to the boot options, and Ubuntu refused to recognize my fairly standard Samsung 226BW monitor, or use its native resolution at the normal refresh rate, etc.

After "enough" googling and getting Ubuntu to refuse booting up by fiddling with my xorg.conf etc, I decided I'd wait for Hardy, hoping there would be fewer or no problems.

Along comes Hardy, and now the install-CD doesn't want to boot up even despite casting the "irqpoll" spell!

After installing maybe four different flavors of Linux (over a period of maybe less than a year), two flavours of BSD, I just couldn't get things to work, and finally gave up.

I'm writing this on a MacBook, and happy to be using one.

The thing is, I really wanted to use Linux, but as someone who just wants to use things and not investigate and fix them, Mac OS X seems to be a much better fit.

Besides, it's really pretty and offers a coherent, consistent user-experience! :)

Mine was like this:

2003: I haven't been able to get X working under Debian Woody for a month or so. This terminal is actually pretty nice though once you get used to it.

december-2003: Holy shit I got X working. Oh my god. Well, at least I have a good understanding of just about everything else on my system now.

2004: What's this Ubuntu thing, hmm. Oh, X worked without a hitch. I think I'll use this for a while.

2008: LORDY! I CAN DO ANYTHING I WANT WITH MY OS!

I love the extra commentary when hovering over the image. It's quite often the funniest/most intriguing part of the comic.

Awesome. Thanks for pointing that out. I hadn't noticed it before your comment.

It seems to be a convention with several webcomics. I know Dinosaur Comics (http://chewbac.ca) and Achewood (http://achewood.com) do it, too.

Back in late '99 early '00 I was given a retail boxed copy of SuSE Linux 6.2. Between that and Slashdot (believe it or not) I ended up on a path that took me to working with Unix professionally and programming on Free Software stacks. I learned C and compilation and kept going on up the chain.

The personal growth and achievement which was spurred by my introduction to Linux has just been phenomenal.

Hm... I look at this as a history lesson. I jumped on Linux wagon fairly late, in 2006. Since then I had to install it on 4 laptops and 3 desktops, with minor hiccups related to wireless and video: nothing that Google couldn't solve.

And I never had to recompile the kernel. In fact, the only software I ever had to compile on Linux was mine (I did compile my own builds of a few apps, but only because I wanted to enable some "experimental" features not available in standard repositories).

An isomorphic Windows comic would be about computer virus eating your cat or a pop-ups window bumping your grandma in the forehead.

Reminds me of http://xkcd.com/349/

That one is just way too close to reality for comfort.

I am beginning to think the creation of xkcd cartoons could be automated. Just place some random stick figures, and use any one of the million computer poetry generators to fill the bubbles.

http://www.dougshaw.com/garfield.html

Closer still: http://www.joshmillard.com/garkov/

one more for this thread:

http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/

I'd love to see an algorithm that takes a Garfield comic and makes it into GMG.

The concept is even funnier than the actual result: Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.

Getting a high karma score is an addictive game. We might need to commit nickb in a rehabilitation program some day.

I've upvoted your comment, good luck!

I don't even care what my score is, biohacker42. I add few links each day and stuff accumulates.

He's just jealous 'cuz his name's Nick B too, only you beat him to it. Something like that.

But you do have an edge. Weren't you basically here when the site first was founded?

I don't really care to get a high Tetris score, I just play it some times, occasionally I play for way too long. But it's not a subtle obsession or anything. I can quit any time.

OK then http://www.isxkcdshittytoday.com/

From my own experience as a GNU/Linux NOOB, I believe that if you research the hardware and the distro you want to run in relation to that hardware BEFORE you purchase, you will be fine. Sticking to the Intel chipsets (as I believe Linus himself recommended) will go a long way toward a smooth experience. And that's coming from a noob. I am on my first Ubuntu install on my soon to be old machine. I just built a new machine, and Hardy installed without a problem. Ran my 24 hour burn in test, no problems. So a diligent noob can indeed have a smooth experience provided he/she does his/her homework.

No problem with AMD here. (But that does not mean it's save.)

Oh absolutely, the machine I am on now (soon to be old machine) runs an AMD CPU, with an SIS chipset (not the greatest for GNU/Linux) yet I was diligent, and . . . it works! Have been running Feisty Fawn for almost a year, no major problems. I suppose there was a "luck" factor there, as I bought this hardware without researching into whether or not it was suitable for GNU/Linux.

The new machine however I carefully researched the hardware for and, no problems there either.

Now, I am not like evangelizing for Intel products, as you can indeed run GNU/Linux on hardware from other manufacturers yet I do find that Linus' statement regarding their chipsets is accurate, based on my own rather smooth experience with the 945GC Express.

story of my life.

that's fine, but does xkcd really belong here?

please not this again

Agreed. Although there has been a considerable amount of "unsuitable" material make it to the front page of HN, there has also been a lot of pointless citation of this unsuitable material - to the degree that it dominates constructive dialog taking place.

HN is changing, no doubt, but as has been pointed out time and time again on HN, if it is of interest to the community at large, it belongs. The community is changing (undeniable) but, maybe it is that sometimes posts other than an amazing O(N) bubble sort are also of interest...

I, for one, enjoy chuckling at XKCD - typically I just go there myself (without the aid of a social bookmark site!), but perhaps this one is just relevant enough to make it on HN... Or maybe I am wrong.

It seems to me though that posting something like XKCD is simply for getting Karma. It's not like the people who read it don't already check every monday,wednesday and friday morning... or is that just me?

Either that or people have felt pain when installing Linux before.

Not just you, but I belong in the camp that never checks xkcd on my own. Not a fan, probably never will be, but if the community thinks its interesting, might as well. This one was indeed interesting.

Anything updated periodically probably works better with RSS (subscription model), while sites like Hacker News seem better at aggregating interesting scattered content (and hosting the resulting discussion). There's certainly room for overlap (e.g. "look at the interesting post on this blog, subscribe if you like it"), but people submitting every single update as they occur will probably detract from the signal here.

Except that nickb posted it, and doesn't he have like infinite karma by now anyway?

Careful analysis of this post's score will answer your question for you.

The HN aim used to be set above "popular".

How so? The HN front page is designed to only show the most recent, most popular articles.

The fact that XKCD comics, when submitted, reach front page status almost every time indicates that they belong right where they are.

Actually, xkcd has been off the front page (or at least not high up it) for a while.

Which is why I said "when submitted". Unless I am missing a bunch of XKCD submissions which aren't getting front paged...

I've seen a few on the "New" page with 2 or 3 votes and no comments.

Besides, if they're only occasionally submitted, then isn't that a good quality filter?

Yes it is, which is why the ones that are submitted and front paged have been filtered for quality.

Unfortunately that's the attitude that got Digg and Reddit where they are today: lots of quick/simple/amusing links that are easy to digest and upvote, but not a whole lot of substance.

Thinking more about this, it might be even more true than I realized at first. A lot of times after reading a long interesting article I totally forget to return to news.yc to upvote the article. One solution could be to display the article in a frame with easy access to voting.

reddit has a toolbar, exactly as you describe. If you're logged in, you can see the option here: http://www.reddit.com/prefs (immediately below the languages)

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