Hey,
Lets just start a Linux topic... Who here is running Linux on their machines, or even on all of their machines? I ran it for a while but found there were too many limitations, especially in the area of wireless which is necessary for me at this point. I enjoyed running Ubuntu, Mepis was pretty good, Linux Mint was another good one, but I found too many limitations, and now that I have a brand new computer that's 64bit and all that, I'm very skeptical that any distro would work without significant effort put into it, so I've left it alone.
Matt
I run linux on three of my servers at work, and I run it on my work laptop.
Wireless works pretty well on ubuntu, but it wasn't an out of the box working-ness.
The only other problem I have with Linux is that sometimes the GUI has no way to accomplish simple tasks (though this is getting better, at least).
And sometimes you have to screw with a config file instead of checking a box in a pretty gui. that would be nice too.
It has its place, and I think its getting better on the desktop for most things. Still not very good at gaming, but Wine has made significant process there as well.
See, its that "out of the box" working that I miss, I am used to things "just working" in Windows or Mac. Mac's and PC's have their problems too but you don't need to go to as much trouble to get simple things working as you do in Linux. At least that's what I found. The result can be better than Mac's and PC's, but it's getting to that point that bothers me. That's why I liked Linux Mint so much, that was the best "out of the box" distro that I found, but even that had significant problems and I had to spend a lot of time trying to get it to work. Linux is an interesting thing but it needs way more work before it's ready for "the masses" to adopt it.
Matt
Well, it all comes down to driver support. Too many hardware vendors don't write drivers for linux. So the tweaking and configuration you have to do is usually getting a windows driver working in linux, which linux handles fine, you just have to know how to do it. (and that's a different issue).
I suppose if people would buy hardware that supports Linux, their out of the box experience would be much better.
It's all in the eye of the beholder I guess. Windows XP doesn't work so well with brand new hardware, since drivers weren't written for it. Windows can't read linux or mac drivers at all. Everything has its weakness.
Whoa!...Now here's a topic sure to engender, shall we say, some differences of opinion!
I have tried out two Linux distros, Ubuntu and more recently Kubuntu, I found the latter a lot more to my liking but still not good enough to tempt me away from Windows.
For the initiated Linux is fine but it suffers with some real problems when attempting to lure new users away from the institutionalized Windows.
First is the sheer weight of numbers, there are just far to many distros to choose from...well over 200 at last count. First time users can find that confusing and the selection process difficult...the time involved in downloading (average, what, around 800mb), installing and testing each distro is just too much to go through.
Then there is the use of commands as opposed to GUI, often for even the simplest of operations. ( complete agreement with Zig there!). I don't mind too much using the commands method myself BUT it would have helped no end if I had access to a definitive list....search as I may, I could not locate any. That necessitated a visit to a forum each time. Ah, the Linux forums, now there is another issue.....Man, can there be some biased, crusty sorts encountered there and not too much in the help department. I generally found their forums to be full of questions and not too many successful solutions.
When I installed Ubuntu, I couldn't get a complete, working internet connection.....after many trips to the forum and applying all the fixes offered, unsuccessfully...finally a moderator replied and told me that...'the updates, when applied, would fix the problem'.....brilliant!! It was a catch 22 situation...I needed the updates to fix the internet connection problem but couldn't get the updates until the internet connection problem was fixed. Who would release an OS in that state, for public consumption! In the end I found my own solution and finally got Ubuntu working, well somewhat. I still had issues with the correct time and date setting, no sound and lack of a driver for my Canon MP800 multi-function.....after countless forum visits and applying any number of supposed fixes those issues remained.
I hasten to add that I found Kubuntu to be a much more pleasant experience; installed to external USB drive fine, much more intuitive GUI, hardware detection and installation of drivers spot on....all good!
The bottom line is, in my opinion, all the publishers of the mainstream distros need to get their heads together and eliminate all the fragmentation.....take the best from the best, get rid of the worst aspects from each and produce one really good OS, with possibly 3 add on/extra packages for specialist needs. Then take that OS to the major hardware manufacturers and 'sell' it to [i:29kmiiim]them[/i:29kmiiim] so they will [i:29kmiiim]'want[/i:29kmiiim]' to supply Linux software/driver packages with their products. Once that 'working out of the box' experience has been achieved only then can Linux look forward to any significant market penetration.
cheers.....JIM
Heh, I just moved to Ubuntu from Kubuntu, couldn't get my head around KDE. Much more used to Gnome.
Ubuntu was supposed to be the every-man's linux distro. I agree that there are too many, but as long as they have a following in geek-dom, then they will maintain their availability.
Linux is great, it really is, but I'm not sure it's for everybody. I like choices. I like that if I don't like what Linux does, I can change it. I can modify it. I can add modules to the kernel and recompile it and make it do exactly what I want.
But in a business, I want Windows. I want to be able to control what my users do. And Active Directory Group Policy is perfect for that.
And in design, I guess Macs are good for that. Though they are Linux based.
Give ubuntu another year, maybe two, and it will be as solid as OS X or ~chuckle~ Vista.
I fully agree. There are too many to choose from and each has it's own good things, but also has it's own horrible things that prevent mass adoption. One combo distro would be best and could convince users to get on board.
And in response to Zig, I would like Linux more if I was actually able to do some of the coding to change things. I can see why you like the customization and all that if you can actually do that, for someone like me who tinkers with programs only and doesn't venture into command line, I'm lost in Linux when something doesn't work.
Matt
I have used suse8-10 used it for files windoz was unsafe to handle in fight against malware on windows.
Found it very stable did all i needed it to do quite well.
Now useing linux Ubuntu. I am very impressed with how far linux has come.
I do not use wireless. I found the ubuntu forums very helpful. I always search them first for info.
As most know forum search engines suck big time. Google search will more likely find the answer in the same forums you need.The people at those forums do a very good job of running and helping at ubuntu forums.
I saw a networking catch-22 just like you described.Was over my head to be able to help.
I used to help out at CCSP forums and have seen more then one catch-22 on them and that was windows forums.
I was a MS-MVP till Apr 1st this year.Do o health i did not keep up helping in the community.
I do find linuxes haveing to use command line for simple tasks a big pain.
Simple thing i,m having to do is rename 5 hard drive partitions all given the name new volume by linux.
its a hell trying to remember by their position in the list of 5x new volumes which one i want.
And the methods to rename are as yet rather undaunting task!!!
I find Ubuntu to be as stable as xp,but with gui at win95-98 level. still quite useable.
I believe an average computer user with a bit of patience can run ubuntu .
i have dumped windoz from two machines. once i can run my graphics arts programs on linux its goodbye windoz!!!
If You have tried ubuntu and weren't impressed try it again, Ubuntu is constantly changing. I have XP, and Ubuntu 32 installed on one Centrino laptop and Vista 32 with Ubuntu 64, installed on a second AMD64 dual core laptop. Over the years every time XP system files became corrupted and I had to do a reinstall, I would also purchase a linux distro at Borders. At first it was a challenge to find a distro with my monitor drivers, then it was wi-fi drivers. Now the displays are supported and I use a USB wifi adapter. After going through about a dozen XP reinstalls, I found Ubuntu. Most of my time is spent in Ubuntu, it is incredable no anti virus or anti malware programs!.Each month I still waste time updating the windows OS's on patch tuesday, downloading the OS patches, updating the anti virus, and assorted anti malware programs, I feel like such a loser wasting all this time, I keep the windows programs to keep currant in my field. It is necessary to adher to a schedule useing the windows programs in order to keep currant and it sure is a pain waiting for them to load, and to waste the time maintaining windows, when compared to Ubuntu!
Ubuntu is what is call a web2 application, that is it is under continous development; an example of another web2 app is Gmail it has been in beta stage for years and will be in beta forever. Ubuntu has a LTS (Long Term Support) presently 8.04 Hardy Heron, there is a Beta 8.10 Intrepid good for six months befor the next beta release, and there is an alpha, the alpha will be updated every month ( alpha is what people refer to as a "pre-beta"). Within sixteen months Ubuntu has a goal of having an interface comparable to the MacX. If Ubuntu stays on track Windows 7 will be a dud. It is such a pleasure booting into Ubuntu, true I am more technically skilled than the average person, soon everyone will be able to use Ubuntu regardless of their technical limitations!
Because I make my living supporting Windows and writing about it, I have to stick with it as my main OS. However, I love Linux--yes, even the command line (I come from way back in the days before DOS, when you typed things like 11010110 to program computers)--and wish I could just switch over to it. As a systems engineer, I find that most of my best low-level system tools run on some version of Linux. Linux has native NTFS support that allows me to read and write NTFS partitions in a Linux environment. This is particularly handy when combating spyware and virii.
And, yes, Ubuntu rocks. Can't wait to see it a few months down the road.
I have been using Linux for a little over a year. Used Windows for over 20+ years and still use it at work and a little at home. I am self taught and don't understand a lot about the deeper things about computers and networking. I have managed to get three computers at work networked that run XP. I have two computers are home and can't even begin to network them. The older one is a HP that is several years old but runs fairly quick. It has XP Home and a HP printer. The other is a newer (about 14 months) and I multiboot it with XP Home and 5 different distros and another HP printer. Why 5, you might ask. I just want to see if I can get them installed and working. My workhorse is Mepis. First was 7.0 but now I have the last beta of Mepis 8.0 working good. My next favorite is Mint 5. It is basically a Kubuntu version but everything just works 'out of the box'. I am definitely partial to KDE. I have installed some Gnome distros but didn't like them as well.
The only thing that keeps me using Windows at home is Quickbooks. I am trying to learn Gnucash for some of my bookkeeping work but it will take some time to replace QB, if ever. I agree with the posts about too many distros but if you are willing to invest the time to learn and want to bad enough, you can begin the break from Windows. At least the price is right!
Thanks
Thanks,
Harold
What I do for the Windows apps I can't break away from and won't work with wine: I run a virtual machine of XP (though, in once case, Win98) that I fire up whenever I need the Windows only app.
Not purty, but it works.
Hey Harold - I agree 100% on your KDE v Gnome comment....give me KDE any day!
BTW: On the personal finance software front...have you had a look at the free Money Manager Ex? User comments are very favourable and it sounds as though it may be easier to come to grips with than Gnuash. (which [i:2vxnycik]is[/i:2vxnycik] also highly recommended):-
http://www.codelathe.com/mmex/
Cheers.....JIM
[quote="ozbloke":3tunvh8k]Hey Harold - I agree 100% on your KDE v Gnome comment....give me KDE any day!
BTW: On the personal finance software front...have you had a look at the free Money Manager Ex? User comments are very favourable and it sounds as though it may be easier to come to grips with than Gnuash. (which [i:3tunvh8k]is[/i:3tunvh8k] also highly recommended):-
http://www.codelathe.com/mmex/
Cheers.....JIM[/quote:3tunvh8k]
Thanks, ozbloke. It has been a while since I was here. I will check out your link. It seems that Mepis (my main distro) keeps messing with Gnucash with their updates.
Thanks,
Harold
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