Tips on moving to Linux?

[commodorejohn]

LOL! Poor old CJ. Smerf roast.

I'm not going to worry too much about smerf's opinion, he always posts from some parallel universe or other, like this one where I apparently hate PCs despite being fond of Windows XP.

[commodorejohn]

What does that difference have to do with anything?

Oh, if you're a hip, trendy young Internet techie of the type that blindly worships the new, it's crucial!

[commodorejohn]

Being a grumpy old man who hates change is no better. The world changes. Don't let yourself get old!

Old Amiga users are becoming what we hated! The grumpy old guys who ran their IBM PCs hated the Amiga and the change it represented. Now grump old guys still using their Amigas are the ones spewing hate for anything different. Go figure!

I don't hate change unequivocally; I hate bad change. Similarly, I don't like things for being new; I like them if they're good - I was never part of the PC-Amiga turf war, I just like the Amiga because it's good.

[commodorejohn]

Can I have some examples?  
 
 You're saying that Windows 8.1 is not better than Windows XP?

I'm saying that every version of Windows after XP has bolted progressively stupider interfaces onto progressively better internals (Vista excepted on that second count,) and thus they wind up being worse despite having every other reason to be better.

"Metro" is designed for tablet use, and should  stay there.  That being said 8.1 all but hides it from you, it will only  pop up when you click the "Start" button and can be configured to shown  in a list-type view rather than tiles. With 8.1 the only real  difference is that your program list takes up the whole screen rather  than having to drill into folders like you do with the XP/7 "Start"  button.

And that's exactly what everybody hated about Windows 8 and they didn't actually give you any means to fix that. The fact that they don't immediately throw it up in your face now does nothing to change that.

All that being said if you're clicking that "Start" button often you're  doing it wrong.

According to who? I use the Start menu all the time for quick access to programs, i.e. exactly what it was intended for - why is that "wrong?" Why should I have to put up with somebody's dumbshít tablet interface in order to use my computer the way I've always used my computer?

And THAT being said if you're still so stubborn you don't want to see it  at all you can install a free or $5 add-in to bring the old  functionality back to almost exactly how 7 looks and acts.

And that's no thanks at all to Microsoft, who had it within their power all along to provide that option and chose to try and shove Metro down everybody's throats and only made the most passive-aggressive concession possible to all the people who were screaming at them to stop.

[commodorejohn]

But why use "Metro" if you don't like it?  With 8.1 you don't have to at all (with a couple of very minor exceptions).

Because, once again, they are not "minor" exceptions. They are very major exceptions, coming down to every single time you want to launch a program from what ought to be the Start menu.

- Far superior support for multiple displays.
 - Multiple taskbar support.
 - More efficient use of taskbar area (combining quick launch, combining multiple instances of apps, etc.)
 - Enhanced search.
 - Better use of "Start" button (right-click for quick tasks).
 - Image previews in Explorer.

And none of those are actually important to me. I don't need multiple-display support because I don't use multiple displays, the taskbar "improvements" are dubious (combining instances of apps was irritating when XP introduced it, and I've had it turned off on every install,) I don't need search because I can maintain a sensible directory structure for files on my hard drive so that I always know where to find things, I don't need "quick tasks," and image previews in Explorer are another thing I've kept off in XP because they take up hard-disk space and aren't that useful. Any of those (and any of the under-the-hood improvements) may be fine for you, and I wouldn't complain about their presence in an OS (as long as I could turn off the ones that annoy me,) but they're nothing worth putting up with the ever-increasing bullshít quotient of newer Windows versions for.

Once you set "Metro" to Apps view it's way better than XP.  Click the "Start" button and type a couple characters of the program you're trying to open and there it is.  Computer amateurs find it FAR easier to find something that's not in their taskbar or on their desktop using this method - I know because I deal with normal (and less than normal) users all the time.

With a sensibly-maintained Start menu (and simple Start-menu maintenance really should be one of the first things a Windows user learns,) I need at most three or four keystrokes or a couple mouse clicks to get to the program I'm looking for - no more involved than your method, no waiting time for the search result, and no need to consume the entire screen just to launch one program.

I don't give a shít about computer amateurs; I care about my use of my computer. Insisting on forcing everybody to use dumbed-down access methods designed to coddle amateurs so that they never have to put in the smallest basic effort to learn not to be amateurs is just obscene.

And really, you shouldn't be using the "Start" button for anything other than very infrequently used programs.  Everything else should be pinned to the taskbbar which is a HUGE improvement over XP.

Who died and made you king? I'll use whatever God-damned methods I please.

Can I ask you something?  Just a guess here, but I assume you also don't see anything worthwhile about smartphones and tablets - correct?

No, I don't. I don't care if other people find them useful, but there's nothing I need them for that isn't already better served by my laptop and my dumb-phone.

[commodorejohn]

I did a bigish post to reply to you. But then I realised why bother. Your posts basically come down to "This %&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@!%&$#?@! isn't for me!" and varying interpretations on this theme. So that's fine, go XP it up as much as you like. But stop with constant derailment already. You're like one of these old ladies I see on public transport that complain about anything and everything.

Do you have the appropriate class license to backseat-mod, Crit?

[commodorejohn]

Question still remains - has John even tried Windows 8 yet, or is the incessant badmouthing still based on "facts" garnered from "credible" blogs and stories passed down from the ancients?   You might not see value in something, but that doesn't make it crap out of the box when there's no facts and actual usage case presented.

As I repeatedly said in prior discussions, I simply didn't have an opportunity to try it. Now I have (I'm having to put up with 8.1 on my work machine at the moment.) Funnily enough, it turns out that all those things that looked like terrible design decisions were actually terrible design decisions. There wasn't some kind of cloud of magical illusion muddling my perceptions of the thing from learning about it secondhand that could only be pierced to see the True Miracle of Windows 8 through firsthand experience, believe it or not! So for the record, everybody: Windows 8/8.1 looks like crap because it is, actually, crap.

Having finally tried it and put an end to the "well, you only hate it because you haven't tried it!" snipes, I now yield the floor to the inevitable chorus of "well, you only hate it because you already decided to hate it!"

When configured in Apps view, I don't consider clicking the "Start" button "using the Metro interface".  It's simply a full screen view of all the programs installed on your PC, searchable and easy to find.  There are no touch friendly UI elements involved.

It's still a massively space-wasting thing that destroys the advantages of hierarchical organization the Start menu offered. And since it's not even tablet-friendly in that mode, it ditches the advantages of the Start menu for absolutely no good reason whatsoever.

When I say "minor" exceptions I mean things like using the Control Panel to add a user, which requires using the "Metro" interface.

So you only see minor exceptions because you're discounting the major exceptions altogether? Sure, that makes sense.

You may think you're making your point, but you're not - you're making mine.  That you are grumpy and too comfortable with how things are and are unwilling or unable to accept change - even if things are better or there are better ways.  Please don't take me the wrong way - not trying to be insulting.  If that's how you feel then that's fine, but it's not correct to say that things are not improved or better when they clearly are.

I'm still not clear on why I should feel any obligation to "accept change" to begin with, other than that there seems to be a huge contingent of Internet nerds who believe that the Evil Dissidents who Hate Change are Impeding Progress and must be stamped out. But in any case, I'm not blanketly unwilling to adjust to new things; I simply am not willing to put up with stupid bullshít for the sake of improvements to things that were already good enough for my purposes. And you can stamp your foot and say "well, you're just wrong to think that it's stupid!" all you like, and it won't prove a damn thing. Calling my opinions "not correct" doesn't actually make it so, nor does calling me "grumpy" and "unwilling to accept change" change the fact that I arrived at my opinions honestly, first via observation and deduction, and now through direct experience.

But, you know, you just keep insisting that I'm some kind of noophobic Internet Amish. Maybe if you believe hard enough, it'll come true!

(Spoiler: it won't.)

So, you spend all this time organizing and maintaining your Start Menu hierarchy but are unwilling to get use to a few new UI elements that will make your life much easier?

No, I don't spend "all this time." I spend about fifteen seconds when I install a new program, which happens once a week at most. And by doing that, I don't have to wade through a scrolling wasteland of every program on my PC or type in anything to find exactly what I want.

:eek: Really? Multiple displays are so cool that I use an old CRT SVGA monitor as my second display. Anything better than going back to a single monitor. You should try it sometime

I'm not saying multiple displays don't have their uses for some, they just don't fit my workflow.

If you're fighting to stay modern, then what I wonder is: Why bother? Is there anything wrong with being old fashioned if you're not like a grumpy person about it?

He's "fighting to stay modern" because Modernity is a Moral Obligation in the Church of Techno-Futurism. Simple as that.

[commodorejohn]

I have used them - and I don't need them. If you like 'em, that's great; I just have no use for them.

[commodorejohn]

God Forbid you just click the one radio box in Windows 8 that lets you avoid 99% of the "Metro" features to begin with, John.  

Irony is, I'd be willing to wager fair money you wouldn't know the difference between a desktop-only W8 setup (again, ONE CLICK REQUIRED! for boot to desktop mode, avoiding your Pure Evil aversion to Metro) vs. a Windows 7 box if you plunked yourself in front of each of 'em.

Right, I totally wouldn't know the difference if one option was selected, until any time I wanted to pull up the Start menu, which is often. Sure could fool me for all of about fifteen seconds! Geez. I suppose it's only to be expected that with your standard dismissal gone you'd fall back on this kind of weaksauce response...

But I digress, this is a Linux thread (another super OS in itself) - don't let me put throw a wrench in your alternate reality field

I wasn't the one who brought up Windows 8 in this thread - direct your bítching about that at Kremlar.