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Author Topic: Why Linux is Not for You!  (Read 6714 times)

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Offline KennyR

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #14 on: April 18, 2003, 04:46:03 PM »
XP may be stable, but it's also slowest and most memory hungry OS in existence.
 

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #15 on: April 18, 2003, 04:48:03 PM »
Quote
XP may be stable, but it's also slowest and most memory hungry OS in existence.


Forgotten about TOS??? ;-)
 

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #16 on: April 18, 2003, 04:49:19 PM »
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i blame the programs people install, not the OS.


No decent OS should crash because of a badly written program.

Any OS that falls over due to bad programs is crap.  That includes our beloved AOS.
 

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #17 on: April 18, 2003, 05:15:19 PM »
@Waccoon

>Yup. People need to stop thinking that an "OS" is a fully >integrated product like WIndows or MacOS. Linux is a >kernel, which is only just a small part of the whole >system. Linux, by itself, doesn't even use graphics. You >need an X server to do that. To me, there's no point >trying to go up against MS Windows if you have to use X >Windows.

>Besides, think about the origins of Linux. It was designed >to be a low-cost version of UNIX for programming >students. Linux is not UNIX, but it sure does work like it. >Until someone finds a way to ditch X Windows and write >up a whole new GUI system and environment from >scratch, I don't think Linux will be getting much action on >the desktop any time soon.

Spoken like a person who has never owned or booted a Linux distro.  X is certainly as responsive as Windows, is free, and is increasingly easy to use.  You'll have to be specific about what you find disgusting about it.

As for Linux being for students... there's a new take on things.  Frankly, I don't care if you use Windows of MacOS or any other OS, but you will have a great deal of trouble pointing to capabilities of any of them that is not currently available in Linux.  As for my contribution to the anecdotal evidence, I have been running SUSE Linux for more than five years-- through many peripheral and two mother board changes-- and I have never had to reload from scratch.  Just a little thought to balance this foolishness.

RLFrost
 

Offline Paul_Gadd

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #18 on: April 18, 2003, 05:57:50 PM »
@mdma

Quote
No decent OS should crash because of a badly written program.


Exactly,  i hope AOS4 & MorphOS do something about it, ie a program crashes but does not force the user to visit guru central and reboot heaven  :-P
 

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #19 on: April 18, 2003, 06:03:07 PM »
Doesn't MorphOS use a microkernel with AOS style programs running in a sandbox with memory protection?
 

Offline alx

Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #20 on: April 18, 2003, 06:21:13 PM »
AFAIK AmigaOS has some memory protection, but it can be disabled and not all apps will support it.  I don't know about MOS - I didn't think apps inside the A-Box were memory protected, but I could be wrong.  Both systems will eventually only have apps with memory protection (under ExecSG in AOS and in the Q-Box in MOS)

Offline GreggBz

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #21 on: April 18, 2003, 08:32:14 PM »
I have to agree with rlfrost here. Most people that speak of why they don't use linux, have never used linux. Qute a few are to frightened to try it. Where is the exploration that took place in the early days of computing?

Besideds, I have been using linux for about 6 years. After the first 6 months or so of learning and frustration, I've never looked back. It just works better.  The learning curve these days is hardly six months. My first install of Caldera Linux 1.2 or whatever it was looks nightmarish compaired to modern distros and their slick instalation programs. You don't even have to know bash anymore, just use all these fantastic configuration programs.

The cold truth here is that most people are lazy and don't want to persue something that might make them think to hard. The've been trained to use one kind of GUI and have this fobia of anything else. Why do you think standardizarion and backwards compatability are numbers one and two in the microsoft design methodology? Because that's what people WANT. Make it easiy. Well that methodology has some limitations. It restricts new and better ideas and hinders real breaktrhoughs. How long have we had x86 and 8.3 filenames? How long have we had C:\ ?  

They don't wont to learn new things. That's fine. Computers are supposed to be getting easier right?
But linux is a good thing. Trust me. It's important, meaningfull and it's use should be encouraged.
 

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #22 on: April 19, 2003, 01:21:52 AM »
Anyone who can't use any Linux distro has no right to comment on it's usability.

They are all stupid!!!!!!
 

Offline iamaboringpersonTopic starter

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #23 on: April 19, 2003, 01:30:24 AM »
TBH: linux is certainly not for beginers, but its not imposible to learn

overall i do like linux, but for beginers and people who dont care to learn too much about computers its not perfect.
 

Offline jeffimix

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #24 on: April 19, 2003, 02:39:36 AM »
Anyone here want to help me get  a small Linux distro running on my IBM 300GL. right now it has DR DOS 7.03 on it. I've used Redhat on it (5.0) and it was too slow. which is why I want a small version of linux, but itm ust at the same time be X11 capable (or thereabouts) and not to hard to use, quirks are alright, but not major ones. But seriously, the 300GL is all heck to put Linux on, theres no proper support for that pc.
\\"The only benchmarks that matter is my impression of the system while using the apps I use. Everything else is opinion.\\" - FooGoo
 

Offline iamaboringpersonTopic starter

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #25 on: April 19, 2003, 02:44:23 AM »
Quote

jeffimix wrote:
Anyone here want to help me get  a small Linux distro running on my IBM 300GL. right now it has DR DOS 7.03 on it. I've used Redhat on it (5.0) and it was too slow. which is why I want a small version of linux, but itm ust at the same time be X11 capable (or thereabouts) and not to hard to use, quirks are alright, but not major ones. But seriously, the 300GL is all heck to put Linux on, theres no proper support for that pc.

which cpu?
 

Offline jeffimix

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #26 on: April 19, 2003, 02:51:45 AM »
A Pentium at 167 Mhz. It has an ethernet card that most things have trouble picking up. It has 32 megabytes of RAM.  It has about 2.5 Gb of HD space, only 2.1 is being used (too lazy to put second partition in for DOS using Fdisk, no need). It has a CD-ROM drive, but will only boot off of its 3.5" floppy drive. It was built by IBM. It also has 2 USB ports, that, yet again, most OSes have trouble picking up. Unless someone can get Linux running on it well. This may be the only PC where windows was the best choice ever.

EDIT
oh yeah, its got a Creative Labs Sound Blaster 16/Pro??? in it. 16 I believe.
\\"The only benchmarks that matter is my impression of the system while using the apps I use. Everything else is opinion.\\" - FooGoo
 

Offline Waccoon

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #27 on: April 19, 2003, 03:14:42 AM »
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Blue Eyed OS

Ah, I'll look into that.  :-D

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rlfrost:  Spoken like a person who has never owned or booted a Linux distro.

Ah... Spoken like a person who thinks if you think Linux is too complicated, it's because you're lazy.

I've tried 8 of them, on four different hardware platforms.  Some installed in ten minutes, others took days of digging through online documentation.

Five of them had dedicated hardware acceleration for my graphics card, and all five were slow as dirt (or roughly about the same speed as Mac GUI graphics on the same hardware).  People who think X Windows is speedy probably don't have much experience with Windows graphics.  Windows does a crap job with multimedia-in-window graphics, but window refreshes are insanely fast.  I haven't tried XWindows with multimedia either because I couldn't get it to work, or because Linux couldn't hold my interest long enough.  I have, however, given EACH distribution of Linux I've tried at least two weeks to make an impression.  None of them lasted longer than that, though.

It's possible that threre's problems with how Linux distros support my hardware, but like I said, I've had four computers that ran Linux with XWindows, and all of them were unacceptably slow.

And don't get me started about switching graphics drivers with Linux.  I tried that before, and gave up after a couple hours.  RedHat 7 allowed me to use a partially installed driver, and left me with a system that was unusable so I had to re-install using the rescue disk.  Even Windows95 OSR1 never put me in that situation!  It's easy to revert to a vanilla VGA driver in Windows, even without going into safe mode.

Oh, and if XWindows supports a "safe mode" equivalent, I have yet to find any documentation that says how to use it.  Free distros are notorious for not giving you enough documentation.

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Paul_Gadd:  Windows 2000 pro is the best version of Windows imo, rockstable, if a program does crash the whole thing does not come tumbling down like a stack of cards, i blame the programs people install, not the OS.

True to a point.  I use Win2000 and I think it's the best Windows ever.  I've gotten one Blue Screen of Death in two years.  (Well, two, if you consider the time I swapped my motherboard).

The problem is that it's very easy to bypass the security and memory protection of Windows.  I can name a few apps that will reduce a Win2000 system to rubble, without requiring any special drivers or hacks on bootup.  They just waltz right into the core system as soon as you run them.  NT4 was even worse.  The OS is very stable, but allows programmers to do all sorts of nasty things.  Through normal usage, an NT4 system I have at work can run for weeks withougt issue.  But, when I run a few certain applications, I get 10 BSOD's a day.  Win32 is very stable, but it allows programs to take serious shortcuts that affect stability, which is the equivalent of diabling memory protection altogether.  No OS should allow that.

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GreggBZ:  Most people that speak of why they don't use linux, have never used linux.

I get the same from Mac users and UNIX freaks.  They slam Windows like crazy, but they have never used it.  I never used Win3.1, but I have used Windows ever since Win95 came out.  A *LOT* of people cannot make fair comparrisons between Windows and Linux and Macs.  I've used all three.

I might be misguided and jump to conclusions now and then, but everyone has to speak from their experiences.  At least I have SOME experience.  You should log onto a Mac forum and ask people why their Macs are better than PCs.  The responses they give will leaver you utterly shocked at how few people have even bothered to look at a Windows system.

My stance is, I *HATE* Macintoshes.  I don't hate Linux, but it doesn't do anything I need (or does it very badly).  I've never tried BeOS (although I've been meaning to), but I'd prefer an OS with an actual corporate backing, and BeOS doesn't have that, anymore.

8 distros of Linux all left a foul taste in my mouth, and it's obvious that Linux developers are aiming for non-Windows people.  Thus, Linux doesn't offer me anything I need.  Macs, of course, are really designed for people who need Windows functionality, but don't want a PC.  I've used five models of Macs over the years, and was even a Mac sysadmin years ago, and I hate them.  Period.

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Iamaboringperson:  TBH: linux is certainly not for beginers, but its not imposible to learn

It depends how much they have to learn, and how available the correct information is.  If you think "megabyte" is a scary word, you shouldn't own ANY computer.  Buy an electronic typewriter!

Linux distros have been getting better over the years.  Installing most of them is as easy as tapping the Enter key, and it installs in ten minutes!  Isn't that easy?!  Wow!  Yeah, but wait until you have to upgrade or start switching drivers and stuff.  Boy, it gets pretty messy very quickly!

Windows developers are [usually] courteous enough to have stuff like install directions with their software, and provide installers with names like "Setup.exe".  I don't know why Linux developers don't do more of that.  "Oh, this is the binary release for RedHat 7 x86", they say, so they have already pre-compiled everything specifically for your machine.  But, when you want to insall it, you have to unzip the files into all the correct places using gunzip.  Why not make an auto-installer, if it's designed to be installed only on one type of distro for one type of hardware?  RPM's are an improvement, but not really a solution.  Linux needs a good installer standard, like Install Sheild on the PC.  (Hopefully, though, it would be better than Install Sheild.  Install Sheild and Windows Installer are certainly not without plenty of flaws).

Also, when Windows runs into an installer problem, it gives you an error.  When I had to install stuff on my Linux distros, often the files would install with no errors, and then when I tried to use it, I'd get all sorts of problems.

Windows developers (to a point) are more interested in decoding gibberish.  So, you've just changed your config with XConfigurator, and everything went OK.  Now XWindows is giving you Signal 11 when you try to start it.  What the hell is a signal 11?!  I dug through Linux documentation for two hours and never saw anything related to Signal 11.  I was none too pleased about that.  Well, if you go on the Internet and search for it, you'll find out it basicly means, "a general problem occured".  Ah, thanks for the info!

Nowadays, of course, the trend is to withhold information, so Windows apps are now giving error messages that are too vague.  Linux distros are following that trend, unfortunately.  "Sorry, an error occured.  Please reboot."  (God, do I hate that Mac error!!!)

I'd prefer not to have to search the Internet for five hours to figure out how to install something, when I can just run "Setup.exe" on a Windows machine, instead.  My time is valuable.  It's not that I don't WANT to learn, it's that I don't have time to bother with niggling details.

And that's why free software will never topple commercial software.  It's kind of hard to RTFM, when your "manual" is essentially Internet forums, and the documentation that comes on your CD is essentially a collection of license agreements.

Installing Red Hat 7 was very easy for me.  But, when I started running into problems later on, getting the information I needed involved hours and hours of web browsing.  Sorry, but I have better things to do with my time!  Besides, when you're looking for info online, you have to worry about the trustworthiness of the information.  There's a lot of people out there who don't have any more of a clue than you do, but for some reason they have a help page.  Who ever knew that in the information age, it would be so hard to get information?  At least the RIGHT information...

Linux people need a good lesson in interface design.  Then, more people will use it, and fewer Windows people will laugh at it.  I criticise Linux because I've used EIGHT versions of it, and they all drove me crazy.
 

Offline jeffimix

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #28 on: April 19, 2003, 04:38:18 AM »
First I agree wholeheartedly about windows system being slow, but Knoppix looks fine. Looks are not a Linux problem. I really love the idea of Guru Errors, perfectly concise and explicit, give me a reference book and I'm in hog heaven for errors. Linux is slow, so is Mac, windows is slow in some ways, frankly, my Xp version is slow, but windows refresh is fast, thats just priorities.
\\"The only benchmarks that matter is my impression of the system while using the apps I use. Everything else is opinion.\\" - FooGoo
 

Offline csirac_

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Re: Why Linux is Not for You!
« Reply #29 from previous page: April 19, 2003, 04:49:37 AM »
I use linux only, and have done so for about 12 months. I've built up my "server" (also linux) to provide services including jabber, xoops portal on apache, email, ftp, shell accounts, quake 2, and most imortantly remote X sessions with all the nice C/perl/python/mysql tools my windows-using friends who need to do their Uni assignments.

Linux takes a lot of time to get it running nicely. You have to want to make it do things for you, because it sure 'aint going to do it for you. The reward: it's user friendly for my users, because they don't have to be their own sysadmin. They say "I want to be able to do this", or "I want my account to do this" (thank goodness for usermin!) and I can show them how to do it in 30 seconds (I've done it before) or I go away and install/configure some package for them (thank goodness for apt-get and webmin ;)

Bottom line: I don't have any windows installation on either of my two machines, because I don't play games and I find Windows to be FAR LESS "developer friendly" than Linux. And as far as user friendly goes... as long as the user doesn't have to be their own sysadmin, it's pretty much the same as windows, plus they have, in my opinion, far superior developer tools at their disposal.

My 2 cents..
- Paul