I don't want more choice... I just want nicer things

I mean... here I am, two weeks into a 'I am a Red Hat 9 boy' conversion. Religious conviction is high. Fervour is ardourous.

And then Mandrake 9.1 pops up. It detects wireless cards that RH9 just spits at. It looks good. It doesn't complain about my French classical CD collection (mmmm... maybe it should've). It works... OK, I'm converted. Call me a Mandrake-boy!!

But bugger me if Oracle 9.2 won't install on it at all, as I've finally persuaded it to do on RH9. So I scour the web, and seek guidance from the Linux untouchables... but sod-all is there to be seen.

I mean: what is it with this operating system? Flavour after flavour, and never a straight plumb-line to be relied upon in existence!

Then I have to seek psychiatric counselling, because I like gnome, and Mandrake prefers KDE. If I go KDE, am I missing out on something? If I go gnome, I *know* I'm missing out on something. Call me paranoid, but I know whatever side I'm on, the other side are watching. Do I go mozilla, konqueror, opera, galeon, or what? Stuff me if I can't actually install Crossover Office and have, cough, Internet Explorer! But that's clearly a sin, and I seek forgiveness, Father. Oh for the days of 'thou shalt have IE and have done with it, or we'll break your operating system!'. At least you knew where you came in relation to God and Bill. Thou shalt have no other choices but Me. OK... slightly Leninistic, but at least one knew where you stood, even if it was only at the foot of Mount Sinaii.

Do I use pan, knode, mozilla news, or what?

I don't want choices!!!!!!!!! I just want an application that will do what I want when I want it, and looking pretty sexy whilst it's doing it. And running Oracle would be nice, too. And I don't want to have to choose! I just want nice things. (And a workable replacement for Frontpage would be nice: I have a new website to construct, after all!).

Look at me, Linux. Look at moi: Give Me An Operating System with Applications that Work, and looks noice (that's 'nice' for the non-Kath & Kim fans out there or for those that haven't a clue). It's no good claiming "if an app crashes the O/S will survive" if your apps crash every 3 seconds. I'd rather go for the apps which work for hours on end and trash everything in site when they finally decide to make a dramatic exit. And I'd *really* like not to have to worry about which version of glibc is installed before I fall in love with the interface.

Can someone please advise me: what distro, and what apps? Because I'm fed up making the choices for myself.

Regards
HJR Received on Fri Sep 19 2003 - 23:44:34 CDT