Tips on moving to Linux?

[ElPolloDiabl]

My reason to avoid Windows: $150 to have 15GB of my hard drive taken up by who knows what.
Linux: an OS that is not intrusive.

Half the Linux software you download is buggy unfinished etc. but there is plenty that works great.

[commodorejohn]

So you dont even want him to try it.  Just want him to give up.  Momma raised a quitter, huh?

You're such a charmer, you are. Of course I'm not telling him he can't, I just think that, as he's coming from a similar place as I was with similar goals, in my experience he'd be better off not bothering.

After those two posts, I can surmise you're just a troll doing trolly things.  Not trying to actually post any LOGIC and REAL reason as to the pros and cons of linux..just trolling thru AO because of your lack of abilities at learning new things.  No problem.  I was wrong and thought you had something constructive to say, but after wasting a few minutes of my time and reading your drivel, all you do is resort to cursing and crying when someone says Linux is great.

Not trying to post any real reasons like when I laid out the hows and whys of why Linux UI is terrible? Right.

When in doubt, whine "well you're just a troll!" That's the law of the Internet, boys and girls.

(And maybe throw in a cry of "also you're dumb for not wanting to learn how to live with badly-designed software!" while you're at it. Despite the fact that I spent some seven years trying to do exactly that.)

And once again, the "I have problems, therefore the problems that I experience must somehow be Linux fault!" argument...
^^^^ See what I did there?

Yes, you blamed the user because you're so protective of a piece of software that you want to protect it from any criticism at all, just like every other Linux zealot on the Internet.

[Iggy]

Actually, this is a pretty polarized discussion.
I don't think John is trolling.
I myself keep Windows around because its simply the easiest to use.
While I don't agree with John about the level of difficulty in using Linux, it IS a harder OS to maintain and when it crashes it gets ugly.

On the other hand, I've had Ubuntu around for the last several years and its really easy to install and works pretty well.
Sure, there's some lousy apps under Linux, but then again I've run into some real crap under Windows too.

[trekiej]

You might want to try Ubuntu Studio. It has a lot of audio applications.
http://ubuntustudio.org/
In Fedora it is called a spin
http://fedoraproject.org/
http://fedoraproject.org/en/get-fedora#spins
http://spins.fedoraproject.org/jam-kde/
Best wishes.

[Heinz]

I am using OpenSuSe for five years now. Very easy to use and the actual version (13.1) looks great.
I am not missing Windows.

http://www.opensuse.org

[cgutjahr]

I myself keep Windows around because its simply the easiest to use.

It isn't - it's simply the one you know better. How much Windows experience do you have, and how much Linux/Unix experience?

I often struggle with Windows, simply because I'm not used to it as much as I'm used to Linux.

it IS a harder OS to maintain and when it crashes it gets ugly.

How is Linux "hard to maintain"? Once you get it running, it mostly maintains itself.

But I agree that if you do run into problems, it gets a little hairy - but a bit of research on the net usually delivers a solution. And again: Windows problems often require changes in the registry and similar low-level interaction with the system. That fits my definition of "ugly" aswell ;-)

On the other hand, I've had Ubuntu around for the last several years and its really easy to install and works pretty well.

I think it comes down to:

1. do you have hardware that's not properly supported?
2. are you messing with the system without really knowing what you're doing?

Many Windows users trying out Linux seem to struggle with the second one. E.g. they're used to always having the latest version of Firefox and Thunderbird on their system, while their distribution stays with one major version for months and only delivers security and bugfix updates in the mean time.

The former Windows user wants to change that, so he starts googling for a solution, adding repositories to the package manager or downloading and installing packages without having a clue what he's doing and what problems that may cause.

If your hardware is supported and you stick with the package manager for installing software, you're in operating system heaven AFAIC.

[Ral-Clan]

Hi guys,

This discussion is very interesting and informative.

I'm posting this message from a Livd CD of Lubuntu right now.  At first brush - a very first brush as I've only had it going for five minutes - I'm impressed!

[Fats]

This is totally my experience, when everything is sailing along fine and working it's great, as soon as something breaks though, there you are in the depths of Bash and text editors editing all these obscure files and typing unintuitive Unix commands.

For Windows the way to fix things is by reinstalling the OS. For Linux I never had to reinstall the OS just boot into rescue CD to fix a configuration I borked myself.
I have here a Windows XP partition I can't boot any more, even in fail safe. All I did was play with some BIOS settings and juggling some hardware. An OS should be able to withstand such things IMO. Didn't bother to reinstall the OS and just kept Linux.

I find it interesting to note that the zealots now seem to be in the Windows camp. The Linux users just talking about their own positive experience and willing to answer questions but not pushy to try to convince people to use Linux. I agree times have been different but Linux seem to becoming mainstream.

[Oldsmobile_Mike]

I have here a Windows XP partition I can't boot any more, even in fail safe. All I did was play with some BIOS settings and juggling some hardware. An OS should be able to withstand such things IMO. Didn't bother to reinstall the OS and just kept Linux.

FYI I've seen this problem before. If the drive controller is set in IDE or ATA mode when the OS is installed, a reduced subset of drivers is loaded along with the OS. This affects Windows XP, 7, and probably 8 as well. If you then change the drive settings in the BIOS to AHCI (or RAID) the system will refuse to boot. Blue screen every time. Trick is to set it back to original, install the AHCI drivers, then flip the switch in the BIOS again.

Other than that there's not really much you can screw up in the BIOS that would only affect Windows. Good luck, or just forget the Windows partition, lol.

[stefcep2]

Oh, then in that case, it works.  Thought you were sending me a specific thread.  http://www.sevenforums.com ...you'll find plenty of Windows issues and thats just one forum.  Windows is riddled with problems.  Not all OS's are perfect, yet I have yet to have issues with Linux.

I could say the same about my XP installation.  Still running the original install. 10 years later.
 

"Man this truck is kinda loud on the road, I can hear the tires.  Its probably the tread.  Ok, the truck sucks.  Its the tires but I hate the truck.  I'm selling it.  No, not replacing tires.  I'm done with it."   Everyone deals with issues their own way.

Y'see that's the ATTITUDE I'm talking about.  

Linux *Users* are generally very helpful and polite.  

But the self-proclaimed gurus with 20 years plus experience or, worse, the maintainers of a distro.

User: "this is a fault".
Maintainer: "No, you're the fault.  If you don't like it, the source is there, fix it yourself".

What was that? 2007?  Oh ok.  I thought we were talking about something recent.  

Oh yes in 2007 Linux was up against Vista and was gonna take over the world.  PFFT.

Anyway, I stayed till 2011 or 2012, when In finally wiped my drive clean of it.  Around the time of the Unity fiasco.  Recent enough.

Strange because my dad, myself and people I know who use Linux have *never* had anything like that happen.  My dad has had completely different machines every 3 years or so because I just like buying better systems.  No issues.  Dunno why you had yours.  

Or more accurately the question should be why your dad *didn't* have issues like that.  Find that out, bottle it and distribute with a GNU license.

I agree.  But I disagree when people start bring back issues from 1990 or because of their own shortcomings or issues they created themselves which caused the problems in the first place.

Yes here we go again-blame the user.  Its always the user.

[Madshib]

I'm glad you got got Lubuntu downloaded and running!

I was trying to reply earlier with my 12 month on my lap (I should've known better) and say to look at some of the distributions on Distrowatch.com

Some are better than others at certain tasks. One person pointed out Ubuntu Studio. I think this is a good point to indicate that if you are looking for specific tasks like music production and video editing, Ubuntu Studio, or even better, AV Linux are good alternatives. They have optimized kernels for these tasks.

If you are looking for a business machine environment, Solaris or the latest Oracle with the security minded impenetrable kernel would be a good option.

So not only do different distributions use Linux as a kernel to a perticular user need/solution, the kernel itself can be modified to handle specific types of environments.

Distrowatch is where I was also exposed to Haiku which, at this rate, could be an OS contender if more  software is developed for it

Remember, Have Fun!!

[apa]

Great decision!
I don't know how your experience will be, but for me, I almost never looked back to Windows since starting using Ubuntu/Open Suse a couple of years ago. Tried Windows 8 and Mac, and for me, they don't work. To limited in many ways.
Still saved a dual boot of Win 7 for rare occasions though. Have fun, and hope you'll like the Linuxworld.

[TheMagicM]

Y'see that's the ATTITUDE I'm talking about.

Linux *Users* are generally very helpful and polite.

I merely gave you an example of the irrational thinking of some users, didnt see anything wrong with that.

But the self-proclaimed gurus with 20 years plus experience or, worse, the maintainers of a distro.

I'm not a guru, but I do know quite a bit about UNIX and Linux being that I am a Sys Admin and a Software Engineer for the company I work for and also I do the same on the side for my own company.  

As a matter of fact, right here in my home office I have a few 1U servers... I have 1 NAS running FreeBSD, 1 backup NAS running Solaris 10 x86-64bit, 2 servers running CentOS Linux 6.5 (one runs some sites I host for a handful of companies, even my personal site and the other for my security system), 1 sandbox server running Solaris 10 (I wipe it and install whatever I need to test), 2 dual-quad core CentOS 6.5 Servers running GunsNet.net, AK-47.net and a spare dual-quad core for when I am going to virtualize 2 servers in the next few weeks.

But the self-proclaimed gurus with 20 years plus experience or, worse, the maintainers of a distro.

I'm not trying to convert ex-users into current users.  Not my battle, not my problem.  People have their own choice.  I just want a level playing field for potential users.  Throwing FUD and seeing what sticks isnt exactly level, so I help tilt it back in the right direction.

Or more accurately the question should be why your dad *didn't* have issues like that. Find that out, bottle it and distribute with a GNU license.

Well, he went from openSuSE to Linux Mint, only because of my personal disdain for Gnome 3.  There's nothing to distribute and slap a GNU license on, its already freely available for all to enjoy.

Yes here we go again-blame the user. Its always the user.

I know, its always the OS.

[TheMagicM]

Hi guys,

This discussion is very interesting and informative.

I'm posting this message from a Livd CD of Lubuntu right now.  At first brush - a very first brush as I've only had it going for five minutes - I'm impressed!

dude..you did well.  Kudos.  Get used to running it, moving around in Linux.  After a while, you'll start narrowing down what you want out of it then you'll custom tailor it to what you'd like.  Its fun...I love it!

[stefcep2]

If half that was true, my parents (+60 years old), my girlfriend (who is a chemistry student without deep computing knowledge) and most of my friends wouldn't be using GNU/Linux on a daily basis. And they do, with no problems whatsoever.
They produce technical documents, watch videos on youtube, watch downloaded films and series in a perfect smooth way, surf the internet, etc... and they don't need my technical assistance at all once the system is installed.

What's more: they daily have a nice, responsive desktop computing experience, whereas their computers struggled to do anything back in 2009 when they where using Windows Vista instead, before I moved back to my small town and started installing Lubuntu/Debian everywhere.
You can't start to imagine how much quality their computing has earned through using a proper OS like a good GNU/Linux distro.

They were possibly using a Vista PC with tonnes of crapware, defrag on all the time, defender scanning all the time, system restore and the indexing always on.  It helps if they had 2 MB RAM.  

I have tweaked my dual XP/Vista install and i bet no-one would tell vista apart from Win 7 once it booted: most benchmark reviews I've seen put them neck and neck, even Vista ahead in some tests.

Other than boot time, I saw no performance gains in using Ubuntu on the same system.  And no Direct X10.

[TheMagicM]

They were possibly using a Vista PC with tonnes of crapware, defrag on all the time, defender scanning all the time, system restore and the indexing always on.  It helps if they had 2 MB RAM.  

OOOHHHH...so you're saying the UUUUSSERRRRR did that.  Wait..no its not the USER.. remember?  You just said that a few posts up when we were talking about LINUX.  Hold on.. let me quote it.

Yes here we go again-blame the user. Its always the user.

Isnt that  what you're implying in the first quote above?  You're saying its the users fault, yet you yourself are trying to deflect blame in Linux to the OS itself.

I have tweaked my dual XP/Vista install and i bet no-one would tell vista apart from Win 7 once it booted: most benchmark reviews I've seen put them neck and neck, even Vista ahead in some tests.

Other than boot time, I saw no performance gains in using Ubuntu on the same system.  And no Direct X10.

I dunno...my ultrabook boots up to full Debian in 12 seconds with no tuning done on my part.  I guess thats fast.