Dedoimodo and PcLinuxos

[shankle]

Don't take my word for it but go on his site and read
what he has to say about PcLinux.
What I want to know is why he says such things and
if they are true.

[ghostbunny]

here the link to the article for everyone who don't want to google this

http://www.dedoimedo.com/computers/pclinuxos-2012-08.html

mh i think this is a bit headless. don't know where i would stay now when i had given up everything which doesn't work after the first try.

and he surely doesn't know anything about the current situation, the small team, .... my opinion is this is a further guy which want to have this and that oh yeah and this... and if he doesn't find it all is bad. Sure i don't know how the kde version of 2009 worked because i also used lxde like now. but this installation is updated regular and is running and running...

and the philosophy was always it's ready when it's ready so i can't understand the statement about the 64bit version.

it's always the users decision to try a os, sure you can read such reviews before and trust a person you have never seen or known before but you could also do you own experiences.
 

[DeBaas]

He's also complaining it's PCLinuxOS's fault of not booting with a wrong stanza in **unt* bootmenu. I think he forgot to read all those forum HowTo posts about Grub Legacy and Grub 2 integration.

[Steve161]

While I disagree with him, I know him from the Wilders forum.  He is a smart, funny linux guy.  He is one of the forum members who convinced me to go linux.  I'll give him a pass.

[sling-shot]

There are 2 ways to look at this situation:
1. Emotional - Get fired up that people are criticizing our beloved distro in whatever way that may be.
2. Practical - Think of ways to rectify the situation.

Now this depends on what our goal is:
1. Attract new users / developers - Then we need to look into the 2nd way mentioned above. (I believe this is good for the long term health of our distribution)
2. Be happy with things as they are - Why worry about what others say?

So nothing to worry.

PERSONALLY, I would rather that we go the 2nd way, listening to people rather than being angry at them.
Whatever you do, please DO NOT feed the trolls

[shankle]

Thanks guys,
I feel a whole lot better now. This guy sometimes gives good
advice. But like anything else not always.
He made me think PcLinux was dead. Glad to hear it's not so.

[jmorly883]

I have been using it for about 2 months now.  It installed better than Ubuntu 12.10 did and it runs better than Ubuntu 12.10.  It boots faster that Ubuntu 12.10 and most importantly the desktop is not locked with samba as my install of Ubuntu 12.10 was.

I would give it a 9.0 all the way around.

As for installing , all the distros as of late have become a little harder to figure out the partitoning arrangement.  I always saw a lag on loading of programs and accessing NTFS partitions on Ubuntu 12.10.  Getting the Nvidia drivers loaded and installed were a problem for me , they never installed properly the first try always had to screw around to get them to work.

And on the install of Ubuntu 12.10 it always tried to put the boot loader on Sdb instead of Sda .  Pclinuxos 12 put it on Sda where i wanted it with out me changing it.

[Just17]

While I disagree with him, I know him from the Wilders forum.  He is a smart, funny linux guy.  He is one of the forum members who convinced me to go linux.  I'll give him a pass.

Yet obviously not smart enough to know that Grub 2 has a problem when it automatically generates a boot option to launch Grub Legacy. 

Neither does he apparently know that "partition/s" means either one or more partition - depending on the users selection/s  ...... or indeed is he apparently able to understand the word "selected" in the text

Next, you will be warned that your partitions will be wiped. Ignore the slash character that has sneaked its way into the text. Now, selected partitions will be formatted, again? Does this mean all of them, or just those marked with the checkbox? Most common users would be seriously troubled at this stage.

IMO, he needs to read properly before making such statements.

In fact, everything he tried in the OS worked, and except for his faulty reading and his lack of knowledge about using Grub 2 for distros using Grub Legacy, there was nothing to complain about.

There's a steady decline, or at least, a very distinct lack of progress and improvement in the distro. The looks remains unchanged, many of the old problems, bugs and logical flaws in its components, most notably the installer, remain as they were half a year, a year ago. Now, it won't even boot.

All this apparently based on his own failings ......

[Crow]

He describes what it happened when tried PCLinuxOS and why he didn't like it, I don't see a problem.

He refers to a "common user" whatever is that and than says that user fails to know that Grub Legacy and Grub2 are different. Why a "common user" who doesn't know about Grub problems may have 4 distros installed?

The other thing:  back in ____ (I don't know when) partitions used to be in colors, one day, after an update all was grey, some protested but they wasn't heard. To this day I think all of them (the writer included) had/have a point.

For me the review is a little nostalgic, from a person who liked PCLinuxOS.

I like PCLOS, is my distro of choice, I use it everyday, my kids use it too, I have installed edu versions in schools but I'm a regular in the forums and know the little things to make it work, maybe we need to talk with the new users and review their experience, probably they have a lot to say.

[sling-shot]

Next, you will be warned that your partitions will be wiped. Ignore the slash character that has sneaked its way into the text. Now, selected partitions will be formatted, again? Does this mean all of them, or just those marked with the checkbox? Most common users would be seriously troubled at this stage.

There are always things that confound some one who is not used to them, however simple it may be.
There is a point here in that while there may be a lot of partitions on disk, we have selected only a few for /, /home, swap etc. And out of these some have selected checkbox eg. /. Now, does selected mean those with checkboxes or all 3? This was confusing for me too in the beginning.
Also at one point of installation in the beginning, the installer shows a screen with only "Resizing..." written even before any partition selection has been done. This has caused me a few heart stopping moments thinking that it has already started messing with my partitions without my consent.
 
To sum it all up, we could just agree that there are things that may confound somebody somewhere. We just have to think is it important / dangerous enough to warrant changing and ignore anything else. Trying to cover things up will do no one any good.

[Just17]

The other thing:  back in ____ (I don't know when) partitions used to be in colors, one day, after an update all was grey, some protested but they wasn't heard. To this day I think all of them (the writer included) had/have a point.

I seem to recall that this is theme dependent ...

To sum it all up, we could just agree that there are things that may confound somebody somewhere

.

Most certainly, installing a distro is something that both terrifies and confounds a lot of people.

I don't expect it to do so to someone who claims familiarity with the process.

There is a point here in that while there may be a lot of partitions on disk, we have selected only a few for /, /home, swap etc. And out of these some have selected checkbox eg. /. Now, does selected mean those with checkboxes or all 3? This was confusing for me too in the beginning.

As the writer shows
a)  A pic of the window where partitions are SELECTED for formatting - one in his case

immediately followed by

b) a pic telling the user that the selected partition/s will be formatted and the data wiped

I see no ambiguity there.
The one is immediately followed by the other.

For the 'hesitant' it would be useful to have a 'Back' button on this page, so that the choices could be checked and/or changed again before proceeding.

Also at one point of installation in the beginning, the installer shows a screen with only "Resizing.

Yes this should be changed as it does not describe anything useful to the user, and only lends to confusion.
.....  but the writer did not raise this point.

Probably the most disappointing aspect of the piece was that having identified what the writer thought were problems, there was no attempt to suggest a better way of doing things.

Trying to cover things up will do no one any good.

I don't believe there is any attempt to 'cover things up'.
In fact the majority of the 'complaints' from the writer were not accurate.

If something needs to be changed then accurate reasons need to be given so that the reader can make an assessment. Some indication from the writers point of view to what might fix their problem would also be expected.

IMO, the article/blog/whatever was neither accurate nor helpful with suggestions.

We all know everything is not perfect.
If you feel strongly enough about it, then make suggestions to how some parts might be fixed.
The writer didn't 

[menotu]

Not knowing the date of when the test was actually carried out (updated blog post is dated December 13, 2012) so I'm wondering if he was unaware that pclinuxos-kde-2012.12 is the latest KDE release, and if his views would be different if he tested that release instead.

[Crow]

Also at one point of installation in the beginning, the installer shows a screen with only "Resizing..." written even before any partition selection has been done. This has caused me a few heart stopping moments thinking that it has already started messing with my partitions without my consent.

+1         

Happened to me too... several times 

[The Chief]

Neither does he apparently know that "partition/s" means either one or more partition - depending on the users selection/s  ...... or indeed is he apparently able to understand the word "selected" in the text

Well, to be fair, the more typical usage (in the US, at least) would be partition(s).   I will admit that even I thought it was a typo, but it didn't seem to matter, so I just ignored it.

[mr-roboto]

I've read the review twice and I also (in a previous incarnation) did software reviews for pay.  I wouldn't point-for-point refute all of his claims, but it isn't a great review about real-world Linux:

Wireless worked just fine, but it needs to be setup by using the Network Center, and not by clicking on any icon in the system area. This is less intuitive for most people, I guess. There were no problems, and it worked well. Likewise, Samba sharing was fine.

As this is Linux, there is no std icon to look for, so he probably missed the Network Center !  That's simply the nature of the beast.  One of the big improvements of the past couple/three years (depending on the distro) is that there's way better WiFi support, usu obviating the need for manual fiddling with wpa_supplicant.  In this way, Linux is much more like Windows in a positive way.

Next, you will be warned that your partitions will be wiped. Ignore the slash character that has sneaked its way into the text. Now, selected partitions will be formatted, again? Does this mean all of them, or just those marked with the checkbox? Most common users would be seriously troubled at this stage.

Again, I've seen more polished utils for this task under Linux, but as mentioned above, a few rough edges are part of the nature of beast (ie. Linux.)  However in all fairness, all but the most inexperienced Linux newbies will get along just fine setting up a new hard drive-based PCLinuxOS installation.

He doesn't even mention the monthly magazine and doubt he's aware that there are easily a dozen or more patient knowledgeable experts "prowling" the forum most of the time.  And regarding the "Conclusion", nothing but pretentious gobbledygook.  I would ignore the review altogether.

I've spent just over a year familiarizing myself with PCLinuxOS and its "ecosystem", after a shootout between three other similar live Linux CD distros, in a real-life commercial environment.  I'm typing this message with the highly-customized PCLOS LiveUSB remaster [that I really enjoy !]  Don't get me wrong, I can be a real stickler for detail and have only realized 85-90% of my objectives (I really expected 98%.)

PCLOS is much more than just software.  PCLOS is also people, tech people who aren't assholes like Neal, just17, Bald Brick, parnote, and a bunch others I haven't had an opportunity to intaract with yet....