[mythtv-users] Re: Avoid Suse for mythtv (database issues)

[Justin Gombos]

* Andy Long <andymyth at gmail.com> [2005-03-06 21:40]:
>
> Just curious... but what's with all the distro hating lately?

I don't think there's enough emotion involved to call it "hating."
Some distros are just better than others for this application.

> Someone started a thread earlier hating on FC3, and now this one on
> SuSe.  Wouldn't it just be more appropriate to help people deal with
> problems on certain distros as they come across them, instead of
> just writing off a given distro a "unusable"?

Someone was asking what distro is "the best" for mythtv.  It's not
that any distros are unusable, but before you help them deal with
distro specific problems, you ought to help a new user who just wants
to see mythtv run by recommending a distro that will work out of the
box, and recommend against a distro that will eventually cause them to
recompile the kernel or some unplanned extra work (unless of course
they want that kind of project).

> Seems to me that someone out there has gotten linux running on about
> every flavor I can think of off hand.

Sure, any distro will work, but they are not created equal.  Some
probably work as advertised simply by following the docs, while other
distributions (like Suse) send the user on a bug hunt.  If the user
wants a bug hunt, sure, recommend Suse.  Most first time mythtv users
want a distro that will be easy to set up.  

Your experienced mythtv users who are ready to get serious are going
to care more about performance than ease of install.  Regardless,
picking one arbitrarily is not the most efficient.

> I understand it's frustrating when someone has troubles with a given
> distro, but let's let people decide for themselves and stop the
> whining.

The folks asking for advice on which distribution to use obviously are
not looking to learn the hard way.  The way I see it, if you point
them down the right path to begin with, you won't have to hear as much
"whining" later.