“Microsoft has reached an enormous success with its Windows product during the last decade and practically monopolized the market for home computer operating systems. But, does it mean Windows is still the best OS around, especially for power users? I’m going to cumulate my Windows XP frustrations and tell you about the top 10 reasons why I decided to dump Windows and use GNU/Linux as my primary desktop OS.”
I have nothing against Linux, in fact I use Linux as my primary OS and I like it. But posting a “I have switched from Windows to Linux” article on OSNews or Slashdot is just suicide. I predict you: within 5 hours, there will be tons of “Linux sucks!” and “the author is a moron” posts here.
I sort of agree, and it’s not just reasons to dump Windows, it should actually be “Reasons to use Linux”… But nobody would fight over this article then, right?
And… “focus follows mouse” – so people DO use it after all? I wouldn’t consider it Linux’ strong point.
I won’t post a linux sucks/author is a moron comment, specifically because you asked, regardless of my opinions.
I will, however, post to say I am tired of “Why I (a nobody) decided to do X (insert random act) thing and do Y (insert another random act) to replace it.”
Ok, so we’ve seen a thousand people decided they want to use Linux. We’ve read, we’ve laughed, we’ve cried. I’m about ready to start burning anything with the word “Linux” printed on it, because it’s gotten annoying. Figure it out people, posting your decision to “switch” has no effect, you’re not starting some campaign, and frankly you’re not going to make much money from ads on your blog/website from posting it all over digg, slashdot, and osnews. It was cool to read the first few times, but now it’s all old hat, and it’s all been said before.
Be creative and figure out something new to do, there’s enough of these types of commentaries already, all saying the exact same thing.
Aye, I would like to see some articles on things people have actually _made_ with Linux. For as far as OSNews has educated me, Linux users seem to forever maintain and upgrade their OS, switching distros every now and again for ‘fun’. :/
I am a regular user and a sometimes hobby programmer (so the things I do as a user are like most people do).
I started with Linux 1998, and it basically lacked every application I was used to: No decent file manager, a almost unusable graphics program, no WYSIWYG office application … . I also knew nothing about the wonders (and horrors) of LaTeX.
The only “good” program was netscape. Therefore I used Linux for my email and browsing stuff (no viruses) and Windows for everything else.
I had a HP Deskjet 640 printer, which would not work for at least a year under Linux, I installed every new Redhat version (3-6 Month upgrade cycle). There were some regressions some time (automatic mouse detection did not work in every upgrade), so your impression of Linux masochists doing more system management than actual work would have been right in that time.
Although sometimes some hardware, which already was detected and configured correctly in the last version, faild in the new version, generally things in autoconfiguration land became better. I switched to Mandrake (now Mandriva) which had a better KDE integration, one application after the other I needed became available (KOffice, StarOffice, OpenOffice.Org, Mozilla, Evolution), and Gimp became better understandable
.
2002 My sister wrote her diplomal thesis on Linux with StarOffice, and she had exactly zero application crashes. When I did that 1998 on Windows with MS Office, I had a crash every 2 hours or so. She wrot a second thesis 2003 in OpenOffice.org, and still had no application crashes.
The situation as it is now:
I am doing almost every task I have to do (except playing some games) in Linux, and there are many of them:
The obvious ones:
– Office tasks: OpenOffice.org, KOffice, for large things LaTeX.
– Email&Organization: KMail, Kaddressbook, Kalendar.
– Browsing: Konqueror (no Java and Flash activated), Firefox (for everything which insists on Java or Flash).
– File Manger: Konqueror
Games:
– Battle for Wesnoth
, Kmines.
Multimedia:
– Watching DVDs: Xine with libdecss (might be illegal in USA).
– Watching TV: KDETV.
– Audio editing my chorus recordings: Audacity.
– drawing musical scores: Lilypond (similar to LaTeX).
– Modifying my digital photos: Gimp, Showphoto, Gqview, Hugin, Kuickshow.
– Internet radio: Ark (it works well, but I admit I hate it because it is bloated for what I use it).
I am a mechanical engineer and need a CAD program:
– Qcad (it is approximately as good as ACAD 11 (1999))
Programming:
– Python, C++
– KDevelop
Delivering some Photos to friends:
– I set up a FTP server (ProFTP) for them, so they can download all the photos directly from my PC.
There may be some tasks on the list I might have forgotten, but essentially that is what I do.
I am now installing a new version once a year which takes me one afternoon. I also managed to reduce my administration time on my mothers PC to installing a new Linux once every two years, and some occasional application help sometimes (she recently learnd how to draw with QCAD!). I just got a request from my sisters husband who also wants to get a Linux install from me.
So thats it. If you want to know how Linux really is FOR YOU, just give it a try. Be prepared for some hardware not working out of the box (especially at new notebooks), but still give it a try. It is worth a day’s work.
I tried dumping windows XP for good and just cannot do it, too many kick@ss programs on windows are not available on Linux.
Primarily media related applications
* DVDDecryptor
* DVDShrink
* WinAvi
* plenty more I don’t have time to list!
I use both platforms now, Linux primarily for surfing/email etc etc and I use remote desktop to control my Windows XP system in the back room for media conversion, dvd ripping, burning etc.
I found a way to make both Linux and XP work for me to accomplish the best of both worlds (or what I percieve to be the best of both worlds)
I could not see myself totally dumping windows though, not at this stage.
You can make a list of 20 reasons to dump one OS for another and it won’t matter because as someone once said “its the applications stupid!”
– K9Copy
– DVDAuthor (well… yeah)
– dvd9to5
– Live
– K3B
Sounds like you’re a broadband movie thief.
– K9Copy
– DVDAuthor (well… yeah)
– dvd9to5
– Live
– K3B
Sounds like you’re a broadband movie thief.
Sounds like you are jumping to conclusions.
besides, in some countries, downloading is not illegal at all.
calling someone a thief is therefore not always correct.
Edited 2006-08-08 20:32
Calling someone a thief because he/she/it downloaded something is always wrong. Downloading something is never stealing. That is independent of the law that is upheld on the downloader’s country.
The concept of stealing demands that something is subtracted from the victim, which never happens when something is downloaded. What may happen is copyright infringement but that depends on the legislation. For example, in my country every citizen has teh right to use copyrighted works without the author’s permission, as long as it is only for personal use.
And what else would you use those applications for? For collating your limited edition ‘home movies’ onto convienent cd’s? Pulease; its as bad as the excuse, “I use Peer to peer to swap legimate music!” and “Oh, I’m a stripper, paying my way through college!”.
Im pretty sure DVDshrink is available for linux…
Anyway… Why cant people use both? I like them both and use them both.. One is no better than the other in my opinion… These all or nothing types of articles are bad from both perspectives, windows and linux.. And even OSX.
Im pretty sure DVDshrink is available for linux…
There is not a native port that I am aware of. You can apparently get it to work under Wine, but I have not tried this myself. I’ve gotten IE working quite well under wine but I spent a good chunk of time to do it.
Maybe one of these weekends I’ll take a stab at getting some of my other windows apps running on linux.
Anyway… Why cant people use both? I like them both and use them both.. One is no better than the other in my opinion… These all or nothing types of articles are bad from both perspectives, windows and linux.. And even OSX.
Agreed. I think they both have strengths and weaknesses and I’ve found using them both where they are strong is a great solution.
I’m very happy to be a dual OS user at this point. If I need XP its available and my laptop runs excellent with Ubuntu.
“You can make a list of 20 reasons to dump one OS for another and it won’t matter because as someone once said “its the applications stupid!””
It’s the applications, the security, the stability, the openness, the price, the easy of use, the freedom, and there’s a lot more. But most important is the user’s decision. If you are sick of Windows, you will eventually change, even if you will miss some application. That’s why Wine is *so* important, more than most people want to realize.
But anyway, who cares? I use Linux because I like it and because I cannot stand Windows for a second. I don’t care about others. If they like Windows, it’s up to them. I don’t believe in world domination. That probably would be terrible. But it would be nice to achive enough market share so to be respected as a viable option. I mean, next time I send someone an OpenOffice sheet, I would like the other guy to accept it like now people take for granted the XLS.
I really don’t get tired of repeating that what matters are the standards, not the applications.
You can make a list of 20 reasons to dump one OS for another and it won’t matter because as someone once said “its the applications stupid!”
Which is exactly why I use BSD and Linux. Windows does not have the applications I want, nor the environment I need to get my work done.
Both DVDDecrypter and DVDSchrink run perfectly under wine on my Ubuntu box.
For Dapper just add:
deb http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/apt dapper main
to /etc/apt/sources.list
an “apt-get install wine” installs wine. //without the quotes:-)
run winecfg and change the default win2000 emulation in nt4.
Press detect devices and automagically some (device) files are added
I have a screenshot of my desktop running dvddecrypter just in case.
Edited 2006-08-09 07:03
You do realise that if you open up the said dvd with Videolan, its then just a matter of choosing to output to a file on you hard disk, then it is just a matter of encoding it into a file format you want using an encoder of your choice; Mplayer would do the trick quite nicely.
Mplayer would do the trick quite nicely.
Ofcourse,with or without tovid (tovid.org).
tovid -pal -vcd foo.avi -out foo_encoded
or
tovid -pal in foo.avi -out encoded ..
Mplayer example of ripping a *.wav file from a *.avi:
mplayer *.avi -v0 null -a0 pcm:file= *.wav
or with mencoder:
mencoder *.wmv -ovc lavc -ovc -o *.avi
Needless to say this isnt very userfriendly.
Programs like dvdrip,dvddecrypter,dvdcopy9 and dvdshrink fit in better if you want to reach a broader user base.
Needless to say this isnt very userfriendly.
Programs like dvdrip,dvddecrypter,dvdcopy9 and dvdshrink fit in better if you want to reach a broader user base.
But people who decrypt, rip and encode are hardly ‘mainstream users’ – those who do that kinda stuff obviously have some time up their sleeve to learn some new skills; they learned how to do the above in Windows, once you’ve learned the syntax and repeataed it a few times, you remember it off by heart.
Hell, right now, I remember how to fully setup FreeBSD with Xorg, KDE, usermount permissions, setting up Kamarok plus others all of by heart, without needing to use references.
About the *only* thing he might have problems with is encoding and getting his videos onto a iPod video enabled machine, but then again for me, I bought one, but after a while, the novelty wears off, and I’m back to just using it as a music player.
Maybe so.Sometimes a good GUI is nice to have.It’s not a necessity,still.
once you’ve learned the syntax and repeataed it a few times, you remember it off by heart.
Right,than its even more boring to enter the same commands over and over again.In my opinion the more boring stuff that can be automated the better it is.
You do realise that if you open up the said dvd with Videolan, its then just a matter of choosing to output to a file on you hard disk, then it is just a matter of encoding it into a file format you want using an encoder of your choice; Mplayer would do the trick quite nicely.
I’ll give it a shot and see how it goes. I recently installed mplayer and have been very impressed with it.
In time I think it will reach the point where I do not need windows at all, but right now there are still quite a few things that just seem ‘easier’ with windows, or maybe its just that I’m more familiar with them on XP.
That’s not much of a reason to stick with Windows. Not only do all of those applications run on Linux, but there are also open-source equivalents (some of which perform much better, I might add, and support more codecs).
If this is your only reason for sticking with Windows, it would be better to qualify your rationale as “I haven’t really looked into it yet”.
Using Debian as an example of an secure OS is kind of dumb. They’re own servers got hacked.
In XP SP2 the Firewall is installed by default, and if you buy a retail or OEM copy since the release of the SP2, you get SP2.
“Easy installation of complex security patches”
Pretty easy with Microsoft Update.
I gave up at that point.
Lying is a bad way to start an article.
Well, comparing the security aspect of a public server and a desktop OS is also kind of dumb. One has nothign to do with the other.
Installed by default is not the same as activated for the interface by deafult.
Who uses microsoft update – I would give up at that point.
Microsoft.com Hacked and Defaced
http://arstechnica.com/wankerdesk/03q2/ms-hack-image.html
<blockquote>Using Debian as an example of an secure OS is kind of dumb. They’re own servers got hacked. </blockquote>
Are you stupid or just plain ignorant?
For your information, what happened in Debian was not caused by software vulnerabilities or unsecure systems. What happened was that people with access to the Debian servers used weak passwords, which the crackers figured out and used it to gain access to them. Debian’s problems wasn’t caused by software but by poor user decisions. That problem is independent of any type of software.
Please at least try to educate yourself a bit before launching accusations like that.
“What happened was that people with access to the Debian servers used weak passwords, which the crackers figured out and used it to gain access to them. ”
Debian was hacked because of a security hole in the Linux Kernel. (Of which there are over 100 so far in the 2.6 kernel).
And is there any way to verify your statement? Curious minds would like to know!
“And is there any way to verify your statement? Curious minds would like to know!”
It was easy to Google.
http://www.zone-h.org/content/view/13869/31/
“Within one week we have witnessed what are now two critical vulnerabilities in the 2.6 version of the Linux kernel, with available exploits. Earlier this week one of Debian.org’s development machines was hacked by a the PRCTL vulnerability.
Today another exploit against the 2.6 kernel was released that takes advantage of a kernel race condition, giving the attacker local root access. Named after the author “h00lyshit” was posted to the Full Disclosure mailing list by “Joanna R”, a 0day kernel 2.6 local root exploit.
The author stated in the posting “This is a new genuine bug, unpatched in 2.6.17.4 – don’t get confused by prctl inside – it is only used to change process status…
The code exploits a root race in /proc have a nice day.”…what does this all mean? For some time there has been debate over the stability of the 2.6 kernel and these recent exploits could be a bad blow for many [ who rely on linux servers for critical sites and services ]. ”
———-
http://www.debian.org/News/2006/20060713
“The kernel vulnerability that has been used for this compromise is referenced as CVE-2006-2451. It only exists in the Linux kernel 2.6.13 up to versions before 2.6.17.4, and 2.6.16 before 2.6.16.24. The bug allows a local user to gain root privileges via the PR_SET_DUMPABLE argument of the prctl function and a program that causes a core dump file to be created in a directory for which the user does not have permissions.”
giving the attacker local root access
How many are remote?
Here: http://news.com.com/Debian+locks+out+developers+after+server+hack/2…
Debian was hacked because of a security hole in the Linux Kernel.
Wrong. Debian was hacked because someone hijacked a user’s account, which was only made possible because that user adopted a weak password. Google it if you don’t want to believe me, for christ’s sake. At least try to get your story straight before trolling.
For a lots of business, the data files are locked to a particular software, some are DOS/Netware 3.1x based.
So for users, there isn’t always this freedom to dump Windows on a whim
First thing: it’s about Gnome, KDE, etc. vs Windows XP default Explorer (some people don’t know that there is alternative for Explorer, like LiteStep). Many people are talking about Gnome and KDE and think they are talking about Linux. Linux is just a kernel, you can install KDE and Gnome on Solaris and *BSD. Virtual desktop is feature of WM (not Linux) and can be installed in Windows. Applets can be also installed in Windows, as separated apps, so you don’t have to choose between KDE and Gnome, which one has better applets.
And next thing: ‘Avoid all so called “security patches”’, don’t install SP2, yeah
. Try Linux distro from 2001 and count all bugs which where fixed during 2001 and 2006. This article is lame.
I hate Windows but that article is not a very good argument for Linux – it’s full of specific (sometimes minor) problems that can easily be argued against.
Personally I would go with broader crticisms and specific flaws backed by statistics.
Well written, and straight up front article. If anyone has complaints then write the opposite side of it instead of bashing this one please.
Come on, the article is really biased.
For example:
– the security part – all you have to do is install ZoneAlarm free edition before pluging in the network cable. Your computer won’t be twice as slow as the author states. You don’t need antivirus software if you know a few basic rules – like not opening *.jpg.exe attachements, and running software from supermegahyperwarez.com
– about the Start menu – I could argue exactly the opposite – I like having a long list of the installed software instead of KDE’s crazy menus, and how many applications can one have installed if you cannot find them in an alfabetically ordered list?
– I see no use for the onmouseover focus thingie, I don’t see the use for a software repository, I like clicking Next,Next,…,Finish to install my applications and not typing make,./configure and some other crap, I like running windows as admin, because I don’t have to constantly type the admin password, and yet I’ve never had viruses, adware, spyware and WTFware.
– my Windows installation is 3 years old and I have yet to experience a crash or a BSOD
– I have a working onboard network adapter, 3D acceleration, 100hz refresh rate for my monitor without editing *.conf files, sound support, PPPoE internet connection, I can play MP3s, I can run Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash, I can play the latest games and I can do so much more … with just a few clicks
You see, it’s just as easy to go to the other extreme. I don’t think such an article should be on the first page – it’s just the opinion of a pissed off user (as he states in the begining), not news material. I’m really sick of seeing this kind of articles about user switching from Windows to Linux and about Linux gurus switching to Windows or Mac.
Edited 2006-08-09 08:56
Come on, your response is really biased.
// the security part – all you have to do is install ZoneAlarm free edition before pluging in the network cable. //
Nope. For a start, ZoneAlarm doesn’t come on the Windows disk. One would have to download it from the net first … oops!!! 3 minutes these days or thereabouts for an out-of-the-box install of Windows to be owned. Not enough time for most single users to be able download Zonealarm. It is getting so that only a company or a computer store can install Windows “uncorrupted” these days.
//about the Start menu – I could argue exactly the opposite – I like having a long list of the installed software instead of KDE’s crazy menus, and how many applications can one have installed if you cannot find them in an alfabetically ordered list? //
Nope.
For Windows, to fire up a PDF viewer application, I have to use: Start -> Programs -> Adobe -> Acrobat. How am I supposed to know that if I was new to the game?
For a friendly version of KDE it is:
KDE Menu -> Office -> Publishing -> PDF viewer (KPDF).
Far easier to find.
// I don’t see the use for a software repository … not typing make,./configure and some other crap//
The use of a software repository is, of course to allow one to search amongst ~20,000 packages in one place for whatever one wants, then click “Select for Installation” and “Apply” to install software, and not what one has to do for Windows … search all over the net for hours for what one wants, try to figure out if it is time-limited, adware or worse spyware, hope like hell it isn’t a Trojan, keylogger or virus, download it somewhere, try to find out where it was saved, then click Next, Next …. Registration Key, agree to give away your first born, re-enter registration key, call support, wait through hours of elevator music … etc, etc, etc.
//my Windows installation is 3 years old and I have yet to experience a crash or a BSOD//
So? Likewise for Linux installs, likewise for OSX. The telling thing here is that you seem to see the need to even say that.
//- I have a working onboard network adapter, 3D acceleration, 100hz refresh rate for my monitor without editing *.conf files, sound support, PPPoE internet connection, I can play MP3s, I can run Photoshop, Illustrator and Flash, I can play the latest games and I can do so much more … with just a few clicks//
And so do I, with Linux. I have the equivalent of all that ***out of the box** in under an hour from a new pristine hard disk and a Linux install DVD, instead of paying $$$$$ for all the additional applications and taking over a week to get it all set up.
//You see, it’s just as easy to go to the other extreme.//
Indeed, it is perfectly easy to go the other extreme if you lie about what Linux is like.
Edited 2006-08-09 11:45
It is getting so that only a company or a computer store can install Windows “uncorrupted” these days.
Well, they should be installing an OS anyway, or at least someone who knows what he/she’s doing. Do you see grandma firing up the partitioner and whiping up partitions?
The use of a software repository is, of course to allow one to search amongst ~20,000 packages in one place for whatever one wants, then click “Select for Installation” and “Apply” to install software, and not what one has to do for Windows … search all over the net for hours for what one wants, try to figure out if it is time-limited, adware or worse spyware, hope like hell it isn’t a Trojan, keylogger or virus, download it somewhere, try to find out where it was saved, then click Next, Next …. Registration Key, agree to give away your first born, re-enter registration key, call support, wait through hours of elevator music … etc, etc, etc.
Really? You could download your applications from a website like Softpedia.com, or you could search for a couple of reviews. I bet you would be finished before, grandma figured how to install the latest version of gcc needed to compile that elusive application she didn’t find in the repository. But what if, God forbid, there isn’t such an application for Linux and she has to use it via Wine? … the horror, the horror.
download it somewhere, try to find out where it was saved
That is really lame … how is downloading different in Linux?
So? Likewise for Linux installs, likewise for OSX. The telling thing here is that you seem to see the need to even say that.
I said that because the author said Windows crashed every few weeks. RTA
And so do I, with Linux. I have the equivalent of all that ***out of the box** in under an hour from a new pristine hard disk and a Linux install DVD, instead of paying $$$$$ for all the additional applications and taking over a week to get it all set up.
You are really living in a little fantasy world of your own. Maybe not all of us are Linux experts, but I sure do know a lot of people who are not Windows experts that can install all those in an hour.
What about Photoshop? What are you running? Photoshop 7? Be sure not to breathe, cause it might crash.
Indeed, it is perfectly easy to go the other extreme if you lie about what Linux is like.
Yes Linux is almighty, a paradigm of user-friendliness and functionality.
I rest my case.
//I bet you would be finished before, grandma figured how to install the latest version of gcc needed to compile that elusive application she didn’t find in the repository. But what if, God forbid, there isn’t such an application for Linux and she has to use it via Wine? … the horror, the horror. //
You are sooooooooooooo out of date it isn’t funny.
You don’t need gcc to install Linux applications and you don’t have to compile them. They are all in repositories for you. Approximately 20,000 of them, for the distribution that I am using right now (Ubuntu-based).
//You are really living in a little fantasy world of your own. Maybe not all of us are Linux experts, but I sure do know a lot of people who are not Windows experts that can install all those in an hour. //
Since when has Photoshop ever been found in a Windows software box? You have to take hours to install Windows from the Windows disk, then feed in three or four other CDROMs for your hardware drivers because most hardware drivers don’t come on the Windows disk, you have to reboot about three times for the Windows install than at least once more for every driver from CDROM, there are CD keys to enter all over the place, then you risk getting owned while you shore it up with Zonealarm & antivirus & whatnot, then spend a few hours downloading & installing security patches from the Windows update site, then when finally you try to run a real application (such as Photoshop), you find that none are installed.
So then it is the huge search on the Web, or more likely to a Computer shop to shell out extra $$$, for your Photoshop, DVD player software, Office Suite, this, that, the other bit that Microsoft doesn’t have … once you have shelled out twice what you paid for the actual machine you get it all home and spend another few days getting it all up & running.
You are the one living in a fantasy world if you think you can get from a clean hard disk and just one optical media to anything like a workable useable Windows system in an hour. Clearly you have never done this yourself.
Take a SLED 10.1 DVD and a new PC with a blank HD and you can have a 100% secure fully working system with OS and literally hundreds of applications all going in less than one hour. No joke. No cost, either, for that matter.
If you don’t like SuSe, then any of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, MEPIS, PCLinuxOS, KANOTIX or Knoppix will have you up with a secure working OS and literally hundreds of applications installed in under an hour, and with about 20 thousand more avalable on-line and all searchable and installable in the one place.
//That is really lame … how is downloading different in Linux? //
You really don’t understand what a package manager on Linux does, do you? I can tell since you asked that question. Clearly you have never used one.
Have a look for yourself:
http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/action.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synaptic
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/SynapticHowto
http://www.pclinuxonline.com/wiki/QuickStartSynaptic
A typical modern GUI package manager is like a browser for the Linux distribution repositories. It shows you the 20,000 or so packages that are available, lets you search for what you want, gives you good (also searchable) descriptions of the packages, organises packages by sections of functionality, and lets you select packages to install.
Once you click “Apply” (having selected what packages you want) the package manager compares your installation with what the selected packages require, works out what it needs to download, downloads it all, installs it all, puts entries on the menus for you, sets up configuration files … and you are good to go. Just three steps (clicks): search for what you want, select what you want, apply … bingo you are done.
Windows has absolutely nothing like it. GUI package managers on Linux have anything on Windows beat hands down.
//Yes Linux is almighty, a paradigm of user-friendliness and functionality.//
Well at least you got that right.
Edited 2006-08-09 14:16
For anyone who might actually be interested (rather than trying on the age-old and utterly wrong FUD about it being hard to install software on Linux) … here is some info on package management systems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Package_management_system
Windows has nothing even remotely like this for ease of installing software from one easy-to-use interface.
No wonder those with Windows blinkers on get so confused over this topic.
I must say I liked the article but this one is just plain silly.
I NEVER ever had to look for an app longer than, say 5 minutes on Windows (including the time to check if I could trust it – forums, homepage of authors, sometimes wiki and the like).
I mean how do you know you want to install a programm when you don’t know it? If you know it finding the homepage is a matter of seconds.
Installing is a completely different piece of cake, cause I really hate clicking “Ok” over and over again. Plus you sometimes don’t even know what you are saying ok to because it just becomes second nature – and that’s dangerous!
This is one case where I like the linux way better although I already managed to screw my system using apt – don’t ask me how, all I know is I tried to apt-get some random app and when I came back all my apps were gone
> I NEVER ever had to look for an app longer than, say 5 minutes on Windows:
Ok let’s test that. Find me a Windows application freeware (not shareware with limited function) to edit an iso image of a DVD …
Unless you know such software ahead of time, good luck on that one… the first 10 hits I found are demo version or so call free-version until you tried it and it tells you it cannot edit larger than 100Mb image, or other such limitation… I gave up after 3 or 4 install/uninstall (was back in the day where I was using Windows)
Ok let’s test that. Find me a Windows application freeware (not shareware with limited function) to edit an iso image of a DVD …
Why surely my friend
http://www.avsmedia.com/DiscCreator/index.aspx
*NOTE I did this from google, have never even used this application myself. Time to find = 2 minutes, 30 seconds.
Unless you know such software ahead of time, good luck on that one… the first 10 hits I found are demo version or so call free-version until you tried it and it tells you it cannot edit larger than 100Mb image, or other such limitation… I gave up after 3 or 4 install/uninstall (was back in the day where I was using Windows)
Its about the same with Linux, unless someone can point you in the direction of a good application you’ll end up just installing/removing applications using apt-get or synaptic trying to find something that works.
I’ve found in a few cases the stuff I want isn’t even in my repositories and then I have to hunt around and find a repository that contains it or go to the website for the app, which in some cases gives nothing but source code (what a f’ing joke).
It can take longer to find an app in linux in most cases for me then on windows but I’m getting to a point in linux where there probably isn’t much I need to install, its doing pretty much everything I need at this point.
Edited 2006-08-08 20:04
Hmm, you’re right about this…
Maybe I just needed apps that were available on Windows by chance? Please don’t get me wrong, I’m absolutely not saying that it is impossible to find a case where it’s hard to find a freeware Windows programm for a certain task (there’s tons of adware/shareware mostly).
But what I’m saying is that for the stuff _I_ do it was always easier to find a Win app than one for Linux.
Btw. I didn’t desperately try to find the programm all the time, I was just reading a book – before you laugh your a** off
My main point is that I simply don’t feel the need to use apps that I don’t even know of. If an app is somehow relevant to me I have usually seen it on a couple of websites… and I’m really pissed if all I see is for Win Xp/2000/ since I don’t run Windows anymore…
For most things (except visual FPGA programming) I found programs nevertheless but it took me considerably longer…
Why don’t people just use what they most feel comfortable with and leave it at that. I get so annoyed at the constant “Why I moved to Linux” articles. What is simply amazing is that these authors always fail to state that their move was contigent on the fact that they usually are:
1.) Computer geeks that love to play with their systems
2.) Linux is all they need in the first place
If it works, great, just leave it at that. If Apple works for you great, if Windows works great.
Quite frankly the Linux community needs to get over itself and their insecurities and truly develop an OS that can compete with Windows or just shut up.
p.s. What a coincidence that I just spend half an hour dealing with buggy repos trying to get the system updated and install a minor program, which I ended up just searching for a binary anyways. Funny, do not have to do that with Windows to get SNMP support. Linux has come along way, but it is still now where desktop ready, and for that matter they should just focus on a server role.
The problem has always been that when people in the real world, non-computer geeks, do take a look at desktop Linux, they usually get turned off pretty quick because of too many issues. What they want is something simple, easy to use, and just plain works. How many times we have tried to save client’s money by putting in a Linux OS with OpenOffice for entry level employees only to be asked later to upgrade to Windows. Yet never once have we been asked to replace a Linux or Solaris server with Windows…
Here my main reasons (I switched totally two months ago)
* 64 bits. My computer is a X64-2 but it had installed XP 32bits. My license was not upgreadable to xp64 and since I needed to allocate huge matrices, FC4 for Amd64 has been a benediction (and for free). When I received my copy of Matlab for Linux Amd64, I never went back to windows.
* LAM/MPI. Even if there are several flavors of MPI running on Windows, on Linux was easy cake to set up my cluster with LAM/MPI, which is not available Windows.
The rest of apps and libraries that I use are GNU/free (most of them available/installable on Cygwin), but anyways, I don’t find any reason now to come back, with the exception of a developper IDE comparable to VS… but well, KDevelopper does the job.
Btw, about the battle Gnome vs KDE vs Explorer, well, I use konqueror or nautilus depending on what I want to do… in other words, the choice is always welcome.
I believe at a point you could get XP64 for free if you have a valid XP key… on the other hand Win64 won’t be wonderfully supported by drivers until a while after Vista is out.
Yeah, you’re right, when XP64 went out you could upgrade your license, but that upgrade program ended august last year. But anyways, my transition to Linux 64 bits was quite smooth since my code was wrote mostly on standard C/C++, and I’m quite happy about he impact on the size of problems that now I can solve.
Some of them are technical, some ideological.
Linux isn’t the only solution, however. It’s a good one, but don’t forget that other alternative platforms exist, and that some of them are quite capable of handling basic desktop tasks. Sometimes even advanced ones. 🙂
Just another Windows VS Unix article, nothing new
Don’t like it, don’t use it.
I don’t use linux, because i prefer to use what i like, instead of telling me what Open Source crapy programs i should use.
Actualy i don’t care if i have to crack or hack any kind of program, if they work and do what i really want, i’m fine with it…
I will do this before using linux as the desktop or workstation on my x86 system:
1. Buy windows server 2003 standard edition. (2x more stable than XP at least) and run it, I was able to play some games on it with no problems, whereas in WXP it was crashing (Doom3, sniper elite, arcade games,…)
2. Buy iMac and emulate windows for some applications you miss in windows
3. Install a stable release of linux (like RHEL 4.3AS) on your machine if new, or one of the fast linuxes if your hardware is slow (vector linux, puppy linux,…)
When Borys talks about virtual desktops he refers to third-party implementations, and either doesn’t know it exists or chose not to use Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop Manager. You can get it from the XP PowerToys page at Microsoft. In the time I have used it, the only two annoyances is that (1) some applications (iTunes) show up in all desktops and (2) if you use multiple backgrounds sometimes the Desktop Manager “forgets” which images you have used.
I have no idea when the last time Borys visited the Power Toys page at Microsoft, but I feel if he was to actually take the time to look some of the features he is looking for have been addressed by Microsoft developers in additional PowerToys.
When Borys talks about virtual desktops he refers to third-party implementations, and either doesn’t know it exists or chose not to use Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop Manager.
I did some intensive research about a year ago and found Microsoft’s Virtual Desktop Manager an unusable app (no thumbnails of desktops, some apps used to ignore the desktops totally, etc). Has it changed since that time?
Lately I have done the research again and finally chose Virtual Dimension (after testing some 10 different alternatives) as the best of the poor. You can read what I think about it in the article.
The problem with VD for Windows is that it’s a hack. And it would have to be a very good hack to make it a usable app. In GNU/Linux, VDs are a standard X feature, and probably that’s why it’s much more reliable.
Edited 2006-08-08 21:43
So if you did intensive research, why aren’t we reading it? And I don’t know which version of MSVDM you used, but the one I have provides the very functionality you seek (desktop thumbnails). Just click on the circle icon with the windows and you get a window that shows all four desktops. Just double click on the desktop you want and there you go!
So if you did intensive research, why aren’t we reading it?
Just because I wasn’t going to write an article called “Windows virtaul desktop apps compared”.
And I don’t know which version of MSVDM you used, but the one I have provides the very functionality you seek (desktop thumbnails). Just click on the circle icon with the windows and you get a window that shows all four desktops. Just double click on the desktop you want and there you go!
I just installed the latest version of this MSVDM tool and it seems it hasn’t changed since the last time I tried.
I need live thumbnails on the VD applet, not some fancy but useless preview (which takes more time to load the preview than to simply go through all the VDs searching for my app). Instead I’m getting 4 buttons named “1”, “2”, “3” and “4” and I have no idea what is running on each desktop.
I also need 6 desktops, not 4 (I see no way to add extra ones in MSVDM).
To sum up, perhaps MSVDM is okay for a person who never used Gnome or KDE (or even FVWM) before. For me the Microsoft “powertoy” Virtual Desktop Manager is just as unsuable as it used to be last time I tried it.
In response to my question about where’s your research:
“Just because I wasn’t going to write an article called “Windows virtaul desktop apps compared”.”
No, but if I did that much research and was going to write an article critical of one operating system and extoll another, I would have included a significant amount of that research.
So in other words this is an issue of semantics, it provides what you want, but not exactly what you want. The only part of this argument that is based on an actual requirement is that you require six desktops.
If you use the previously described icon not only do you get the four desktops, you get a nice view of what is running in each one (which for me is superior to either Gnome, KDE, or CDE (yes I also use Solaris and Linux). And MSVDM does not provide a continuous display of the various desktops.
When I use JDS on Solaris, yes I have a view of what is running in each desktop, but I still have to select each desktop to find out specifically what is running in that desktop. So what is the difference between clicking on each desktop to see its contents and clicking on an icon to see all four desktops in an enlarged view of each desktop and from there select the desktop you need?
If you use the previously described icon not only do you get the four desktops, you get a nice view of what is running in each one (which for me is superior to either Gnome, KDE, or CDE (yes I also use Solaris and Linux).
It’s just a matter of your personal way of work. I usually know what’s on my desktops but it’s useful to have a live thumbnail view of them (just for quick recall if I forgot). Going to another window just to switch to the desired desktop makes no sense to me – it’s clumsy. But if you like this way, take a look at 3ddesktop (http://desk3d.sourceforge.net/screenshots.php) for Gnome in Linux/Solaris.
I think there is no need to argue about our own habits – it doesn’t lead to anywhere and I’m very happy you like the MSVDM approach. Otherwise, the developers’ work would have been wasted
.
My argument was mainly – Windows virtual desktop solutions are either too unstable or lacking features (or both). And I’ll stick to this unless I find a solution which can compete with Gnome’s desktops in both stability and features.
Edited 2006-08-09 11:24
Cool, thanks for the link. My problem is at work I have three machines connected to a KVM, my Windows box, a Sun Ray and a Sun Blade 100. And unforutnately I do forget what I have running, especially if I haven’t used the Blade for a few days (a test machine running Solaris 10 6/06 with multiple Zones and ZFS). So the idea of having a snapshot of what exactly is running in each desktop to me would be really cool.
The author of the article is half-right. It’s true that Linux is really secure by default (Ubuntu, Fedora) and it’s true that it’s easy to get most useful applications installed easily. However, when things don’t work as expected you better be a power user.
For the record, I use both OS. I started using Linux in 1997 (old school slacker!). I installed Linux on my gf comp. I like it. But let me show you potential problems.
For example, when I installed Linux on my gf comp, she told me she hated the fonts. I hate them too. I simply can’t stand Bitstream Vera, the font used in most distributions. So what did I do back then? I spent a full day reading docs. Learned how of write fontconfig config files, recompiled freetype, ripped ms fonts from my Windows installation, spent alot of time making sure that only ms fonts will be used on the future, etc. At the end of the day, I had it work perfectly. I removed all useless font modules from xorg.conf, removed all non ms fonts from my box (kept some core x fonts for old x apps), etc etc. (By the way, remember me to write the greatest font howto of all time because I never found a good one
all the howtos I’ve seen cause problem with Firefox etc because they try to make open source fonts working side by side with ms fonts, which is really hard and require a huge fontconfig config file. I suceeded to make it works exactly like Windows: http://img75.imageshack.us/img75/8625/screenshot1vz4.png http://img53.imageshack.us/img53/3630/screenshot2td7.png
http://img77.imageshack.us/img77/3034/screenshot3za1.png ) But the problem remains: I spent a full day making fonts look nice. And I believe that making fonts look nice should be transparent on every modern OS. I know that Apple owns rights for freetype etc. But the problem remains.
I could go on and tell you stories like this one for an hour or two. But you get the idea: when something doesnt work as expected, you’re in heavy trouble. Getting mp3 to play on some very popular distributions can be tricky. Getting Flash, etc can be too. Graphic card drivers as well. WiFi? You can spend a week playing with this. Many problems require recompiling kernel. And what if soft X isnt in a repo yet? (beta version, etc). Yes it’s easy to install software from repos, but when they are not in a repo it’s just painful… tracking deps by hand, etc. omg
And what if apt/yum get broken? conflics? It does happen. Cyclic deps nightmare? My bad 
And one must not forget how “hard” is to keep a Linux box clean. Removing the primary packages is quite easy. But what about no longer used deps? Orphan packages… If you dont get rid of them, after a year or two your system will be full of useless pieces of code that can cause problems if you have to compile stuff by hand. Etc etc etc 
Yeah Windows got downsides, by so does Linux (not the kernel but that whole thing people call GNU/Linux for those who still try to look smart saying “Linux is just a kernel!”
) And yeah, I find it easier to fix things on Windows. Everything can be by found in the Documents and Settings folder and in the registry. Experienced users can fix a Windows box easily, trust me 
Anyway, both OS are great.
Edited 2006-08-08 22:04
You can fix a broken Windows box easily? Don’t say that too often or in a loud voice because otherwise you will have a lot of “friends” needing help
btw. dvd-shrink exists on linux if I remember correctly it was even in one of Ubuntus reps or at least easily apt-getable…
One thing annoys me (well, really more than one thing but this is the most important):
Somehow it seems that the answer to all sorts of criticism is
a) shut up and use a different OS
b) go, get the source and fix it yourself
I mean wtf!? If I speak my mind about how an OS could get _even_better_ one can only conclude that I feel nothing but burning hatred for this OS, right?
Some people seriously need to get a clue…
when i used OpenSUSE it was quite easy, I own a legal copy of tablet edition, installed on the same tablet, so, all i needed to do was copy the fonts to the suse install, change the.. some setting, enable font anti-aliasing, configure firefox to use the new fonts, configure the window manager to use the news fonts and that was it.
problem is, didn’t work quite as well as windows, with gnome it looked better, but kde had a few issues with anti-aliasing.
humm, now that i’m at it, i didn’t stick with linux because of the media support, non-existant adobe flash/etc, old flash player, lack of pocket pc sync(forget about multisync and friends), weak bluetooth support, weak dial up GUI support(who would have guessed), yast was sucky at the moment, and i didn’t like ubuntu distros, i spent many time dealing with rpms/debs, software installed via apt-get was like in another dimension that aptitude or .. humm what was its name, synaptic.
and the permission hell, i checked out a project from an svn, a rails project(i was trying to use linux as ruby/mysql/lighty performance is better), and guess what, could start the server, incorrect flags, set as non executable, the server didn’t had access to the log dir, etc etc lol quite funny as i didn’t have the time to set the right permissions and having in mind that i was working almost 19 hours a day i couldn’t even remember of checking log files and other basic stuff.
so, i rebooted to windows and finished the job, no permission hell no nothing, not as good server performance but i finished it and was happy for not having to deal with problems, you know, programmer happines first, type a few lines and see the results a few seconds later when on a tight deadline lol.
another anoying thing, external monitors under linux, more the lack of shell extensions to ease the use of external monitors, with the intel drivers for example you can set profiles, “home” “office” “presentation”, bleh doesn’t matter.
this is cleartype:
http://img234.imageshack.us/my.php?image=cleartypenl0.png“ <img src=”http://img234.imageshack.us/img234/3654/cleartypenl0.th.png“ border=”0″ alt=”Free Image Hosting at http://www.ImageShack.us” />
Well it would be good if he stated 10 real reasons and not 10 of the worst reasons he could have thought of.
Not having windows install patches for you because you don’t want to do it because it should not have to be done is not a good reason.
Mission Failed
The one reason to keep windows would be applications, or rather the lack of some of them on Linux.
Sure, every Linux distro comes with thousands of applications for all kinds of things. The problem is that they doesn’t look and feel like the ones windows users are used to. They sometimes can’t open and save in file formats that is common in the windows world.
E.g. if I was a graphics artist, I could probably do a lot of stuff with gimp, the problem is that I would have to relearn perhaps years of experience with Adobe photoshop, and where is the vector graphichs program that interoperates as well with gimp as Illustrater does with photoshop. The cost of retraining is simply too high to motivate a switch.
What if I was an engineer in the need of CAD software. Again, Yes, there are good CAD packages for Linux, but what should I do with all my autocad documents that I had collected over the last 15 years?
What about MS-Outlook? Sure there are mail/calendaring programs for Linux that are much better than Outlook, but they only run on Linux/Unix. No sane sysadmin would run more than one PIM application in their organization.
As long as some parts of the organization needs windows for some reason, all of the organization will stay on windows because the lack of a good cross platform PIM app.
To make people switch, the new Linux application needs to:
1) read and save previously used file formats.
2) be cross platform so that the move to Linux can take place gradually as e.g. in house developed software gets replaced.
3) be better than existing windows apps, or there will be no incentive to switch as training, testing and validation still costs money even if the new Linux app is free.
The more Linux apps that meets these 3 points, the more people will migrate to Linux. Just look how OpenOffice.org more or less got the Linux desktop for the average user started.
I think its rare for an article to go into so much depth, especially on the little things. I liked most of it.
What would be nice to see though is a proper rebuttal of these features.
What I found interesting was the concept of *choice*. It stuck me straight away when reading the article.
I remember starting seriously with Linux, and the one thing I *hated* more than anything else was choice. I can choose from many distributions, Windows managers, even File Managers, Multitudes of settings, Customize my look and feel at will, even work with the command line or WIMP.
I love that choice now. I couldn’t live without it, but its taken a *long* time and the *Microsoft Way* is actually pretty good. Its comforting, safe, easy to have no choice. I’m not actually sure why anyone would want to stop using Windows. I could only change because I’m technical enough; have been around when there was choice in computers; Cheap; Fed up with marginal windows 95 improvements.
http://www.netpython.zoomshare.com/1.shtml
running dvddecrypter,dvdshrink on Ubuntu.
Edited 2006-08-09 08:15
Back when I finally abandoned my BeOS 5/Windows 98SE (I paid full retail for that, WTF), I tried really hard to use Linux as my desktop OS. I even had my wife using it, since she mostly needs email and web surfing.
I couldn’t do it. For six months it fought me at every step… printing to my USB printer worked during OS install, and then never again. Mandrake’s KDE desktop/window manager had ridiculously obnoxious default behaviour, and Konquerer was awful… it rendered pages fine, but popping open new windows was ridiculously slow and they’d show up in really stupid locations/sizes. This was pre-Firefox, unfortunately. Getting software updates was hit and miss… every kernel update (which I installed religiously for security updates) broke my system and required various LILO hackery. As is traditional on X11, cut and paste had completely random behaviour between applications.
Cygwin and XP were mostly usable, and I didn’t have to reboot to play my precious video games.
These days, I almost exclusively use my iBook, which is less than half as fast as my XP box. It is, for me, the perfect UNIX desktop system. Most Linux desktop environments are still busy copying Windows 95 and XP, they can’t touch OS X. Things just work, and it’s a pleasure to use.
– chrish
Mandrake became Mandirva a long time ago. Linux has come a *long* way since then. Even Firefox was quite popular as phonix and thats been out about 4 years.
You had the choice of using Gnome or XFCE and your choice was KDE, you wasn’t happy but you kept with it. You used Konquerer as your browser, and you could have at least used Netscape at the time. You could have even changed your Boot Loader to Grub and yet you stuck with Lilo, you even chose to stick with a distribution which you were unhappy with how you got updates with and stuck with for 6 months even though you had the choice of many more.
You suffer from I tried it once, It didn’t do this.
Well that was then and this is now. Linux is far from being perfect, does lots of things badly, or not at all, but you are simply not in a position to judge.
//Back when I finally abandoned my BeOS 5/Windows 98SE (I paid full retail for that, WTF), I tried really hard to use Linux as my desktop OS.//
You tried Linux in 1998?
Boy have you missed out on a hell of a lot of development since then.
Windows 98 compared with XP and Vista … the difference pales in comparison to how far Linux has come.
Linux runs on more machines and architectures, is more customisable, has more variety so you are more likely to find something that suits you, it is more secure, it has infinitely less malware “in the wild”, it has many thousands of applications available, and an equivalent for almost anything you can think of for Mac OSX or Windows … you really should invetigate it again.
Chalk and cheese compared to what it was in 98 … just like XP is cheese compared to MSDOS chalk.
To those tired of articles like this, you don’t have to visit osnews.com, you don’t have to read “Windows vs. Linux” articles, and you don’t have to react to them.
This type of articles are for some reason very popular. People hate Windows, well they asked for it didn’t they. Some are dreaming of Redmond’s demise and they hope Linux will accomplish that. Let them dream, or better, attribute something to opensource. Those that dislike this, ignore the subject.
What does strike me is that there is a continuous confusion of things all the time. People talking about “Linux” being hard or easy to use for the average user, being ready or not for the desktop, pff.. have to admit that does tire me. There are an abracadabrazillion distros out there, and most are not for me as a non-geek. Others are already almost on a par with MacOSX (I don’t know about Windows, I guess they are). We all know who they are, Freespire, Mepis, Xandros, Suse, Ubuntu. Ask any question on some forum and you’ll be helped.
The simple fact that things work a little differently so that you have to get used to things is apparently a reason to condemn it as non-user friendly. I had to get my driver’s license to be able to drive, and I had to get used to the MacOSX GUI on my gf’s iBook because it was different from Gnome, which I still find easier personally.
For the record, I have rarely ever used Windows and I can get along very fine in everything I think I need, on my Fedora Core 5/Gnome pc.
The only thing that will stop these terrible stories is marketing.
The truth is if you want to ursurp anything, you have to present something demonstrably better. Obviously better.
You want to haul something, a chevette is demonstrably less able than a ford f350.
As to this article without going into the horrible details this author starts by arguing that two key features that are enabled during the installation (Auto update, Firewall) are a problem. Dude, its in the installation!. The truth is with windows machines if you do very little on them, you don’t read mail locally (I have been using web mail for years and years now, and they are independently scanned) anti virus is not a requirement. Its the level of risk your into that determines your level of protection.
Anyways back to the main point. Although I have seen linux in more places lately (the last was at a vacation resort in florida, I thought that was clever, probably cd-based but I didn’t look at the tower) they will never, ever advance without marketing.
Then again, I’m not sure I really get the whole open source market. I understand that if you want to promote yourself as a programmer its a great way to get yourself known (IE) Filezilla.
But I also understand that many “big” supporters of linux, like “IBM”, are only interested in one thing: Hardware sales.
The fact linux is “free” is gravy to them.
AHh, now I’m rambling.. sorry.
cheers
Itunes and some games.
For other serious stuff I use Linux but do keep a few windows hanging around.
Another reason why I’m leaning away from Vista is that it’s too long in coming and I fear that it will not live up to its hype when it comes out.
Don’t get me wrong, I have the computer power to handle it but….
My top reason was money. I am in grad school and have a small budget. I couldn’t afford to upgrade to XP and the demands of the hardware. I bought a book on Fedora that came with an install DVD and I have been using it since. It has saved me hundreds of dollars and works great on my four year old system. I miss the ease of installing new games but that is it. I love the way you can kill zombie apps in linux and you know they are gone. Being able to switch to the CLI screens when something messes up is excellent. I have no plans to go back to Windows.
I remember being a die hard amiga fan. There was nothing else that was better than the amiga, according to me. That was quite some time ago, but the one thing I remember from back then isn’t really the computer wars (Atari sucks!!) but rather than that computers was much more *fun* back then. Windows just isn’t much fun, and Linux, well, for me Linux is just one endless list of troubles, man pages, text files to edit to get something to work, updates, and not much fun.
If I would switch, or rather if I could afford to, it would be to the Mac. OS X is more fun (for me). I’ve tried it (my GF has an iBook), I like it, it is fun. Add a Mr Steve Jobs to that, he makes computing fun. It doesn’t matter how much he bends the truth, how much of a reality distortion field he projects, because what he makes Apple churn out is *fun*.
//” (…) and Linux, well, for me Linux is just one endless list of troubles, man pages, text files to edit to get something to work, updates, and not much fun.”//
Have you actually *tried* an existing distro? And how many text files did you have to edit, one? Copy-paste from some FAQ I guess? That must have been one major PITA.
//” (…) OS X is more fun (for me) (…) I like it, it is fun. Add a Mr Steve Jobs to that, he makes computing fun. It doesn’t matter how much he bends the truth, how much of a reality distortion field he projects, because what he makes Apple churn out is *fun*.”//
?? I can’t stop wondering what all the Steve Jobs glorification is all about. He’s just a human being. Well, I guess so was Jesus. But what does working with a Mac have to do with Jobs’ RDF and how does it make anything “fun”?
Your idea of *fun* would be my idea of *rip-off*. I admit, I do like the OS and I did buy a heavily discounted iBook G4 (viva Mactel!
) for my girlfriend, but that sure ain’t because of His Steveness. It was mainly because I didn’t want to pay any Windows-tax to His Other Steveness up north in Redmond, on the 64bit laptop that I wanted to put Fedora on.