uberconcept.com

I have in the past complained about issues with Windows, so it is only fair that I point out problems in other operating systems. I like Linux a lot, particularly Debian (all my servers run Debian), however there are issues.

I’m looking at setting up a multimedia box for the lounge room. Ubuntu is supposed to be one of the more user friendly Linux OSes. Given it is Debian based to I like it already. The box I was installing it onto is a P3 933, 256Mb RAM, 20 Gb HD, onboard gfx. Not the greatest of boxes, but reasonably capable. Certainly capable running Windows XP reasonably well. However…

Timezone woes

Installation was a breeze. Well it was until I decided that I might like to set the timezone to Sydney, Australia. The pop up window to select the timezone appears just fine, but when you go to close the window everything locks up. This is made somewhat more annoying by the fact that you have to reboot the machine (~5 minutes) to try again. So I assumed I could change this later and moved on.

Rhythmbox just breaks

Rhythmbox broke for me in more ways than I can count. Trying to get it to scan my library of files off my fileserver, crashes and locks up all of gnome. Trying to set the share on the fileserver as the library, ditto. General use, crashes. In all of these cases it brings down gnome. Hitting ctrl-alt-backspace does nothing because x restarts in the same locked up state, so I can’t just bring it down to a command line and kill gnome. So we I decided to move onto another player.

XMMS usability?

XMMS works better, however like many linux apps there are usability issues. A key usability consideration is what called discoverability. This means that a user does not need to read the help file to start using the app, merely by clicking around they can find out how to use it.

Want to guess how to access the permissions for xmms? A button on the player window? A menu option? No, you right click on the logo in the bottom right corner. It doesn’t look like a button so there is no reason you would click it. In addition right clicking on an application window is not a common action as it is.

WPA WTF?

I wanted the box to connect to my AP wirelessly. My AP runs WPA so I wanted to enable WPA. Well under ubuntu, the user friendly distro, the only way you can enable WPA is to mess around with some command line apps (wpasupplicant), copying and pasting text into config file.

Now I could understand this being the case 2 years ago when WPA was new. I could understand this being the case if WPA was an insecure or obscure protocol. However WPA is the most secure option that can be easily configured by home users. Radius is more secure, but harder to set up. WEP is fundamentally broken and can be cracked in under 5 minutes. Not broadcasting the SSID doesn’t help much as it can be sniffed from an active connection. Ditto for locking down by MAC address.

I understand the issues relating to drivers for wireless cards, however this is not a driver issue.