APCMag has a lenghty article on switching from Windows to Ubuntu. “When I was first given this task I had to sit and blink a few times, if for nothing else than dramatic pause. I’m a self-confessed Linux nut, as some of you may know, but even I’m cautious to do away with Windows completely. There’s a reason I have a dual-boot Windows and Linux machine. Several of them, in fact. But have I just been conditioned into using Windows because of past experience, or applications, or file formats, or the myriad other reasons that make Windows a comfort zone because it’s all so familiar?”
How can you be a linux-nut if you dual boot? Sure, I have XP on my machine, but if I can help it, I never boot it. Basically, if I need something from Windows (which is relatively rare) I can use VirtualBox instead.. Dual booting takes way too much time…
And frankly, after 2,5 years of KDE, I find the Windows GUI just inefficient and limiting.
Edited 2007-10-22 09:33
“I find the Windows GUI just inefficient and limiting”
Please explain.
To me, the advantage of Linux is that there is a good GUI and an equally good CLI, so you can choose CLI or GUI depending on the situation. In windows the CLI sucks major, just compare things like command line completion in cmd.exe and bash or zsh.
Then, if you use KDE there are KIO-slaves they make you feel like you sit in front of the internet, instead of in front of your computer. Having all programs internet enabled makes life a lot easier especially if you manage things like web contents on remote web servers.
I’m required to use Windows at my place of employment, so for the benefit of anyone in the same position let me tell you what I do:
windows console replacement:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/
Has tabs and you can resize the window (OMG!)
Bash for Win32. You can find this in a number of places. Get it with a full set of Unix tools.
The combination of these two pretty well simulates the minimal Linux terminal. Works great, I’ve been using it for at least a year with no significant problems. I found cygwin to be problematic, I didn’t need a Linux layer, I just needed a non-crappy console and shell.
here is my list:
* Windows does not have any decent virtual desktop manager
* No borderless full screen
* Not able to move windows with Alt + leftclick
* not able to resize windows with Alt + Middle click
* does not have taskbar applets
* Windows explorer has no previews
* no support for protocols like sftp in explorer
* no themes
And thats only about the windowing system, I have not even talked about the command line or other applications.
Edited 2007-10-22 12:57
The Nvidia Windows drivers do contain this functionality, so it’s not entirely impossible; though why it’s not enabled by default is beyond me.
Incorrect. Explorer can do thumbnail views for most multimedia formats that have proper codecs installed. Select “View” then “Thumbnails” (or “Filmstrip,” as applicable) from the main menu.
As with the virtual desktop stuff, it’s not inherent to Windows but it is possible. Things like Windows Blinds or other apps will allow you to fully theme your Windows install as you see fit.
What are those codecs you speak of? Windows is too hard for average user!
Alright, I see you’re a power user. I never heard of all these features. I do know about the virtual desktop stuff but I never use it because my computer is low on RAM and so I use at most 2-3 applications. Most of the time I use only one application at a time, or my computer gets too slow. I don’t use taskbar applets, not to pollute my desktop. Windows Explorer does have previews, both as thumbnails and in the left bar. You also have themes in Windows Explorer (I remember seeing Vista themes in Windows XP). SFTP support in Windows Explorer would be cool. In the meantime I use WinSCP.
Well, I am not the parent poster, but the Windows Desktop is limiting in this point: Virtual desktops (and I am NOT talking about the 3D effect “cube” there).
I know, there are virtual desktop addons for Windows too, but they either are unstable themselves, or make other programs unstable, or don’t integrate into the taskbar (or combinations thereof).
With the linux virtual desktops you get everything you need, and then some: Stable, well-integrated and fast.
In Windows, if you have 60 applications open, things get royally messy. In Linux, I still find the application I want to switch to quite fast.
That is, because I only let the taskbar show the applications which are on the currently active Desktop, and I can keep in my mind “desktop 1 for project A and desktop 2 for project B and desktop 4 for Office stuff” easier than remembering that “explorer number 3,6,7,12 and 15 are open for project A and numbers 1,2,5 and 10 are open for project B, and the rest is for office stuff”.
That is the main reason why the Linux desktop is so much better. I simply cannot understand why Windows does not have virtual desktops, one can still configure them so that only one desktop is available if one does not like several desktops.
The second thing: I am a hardcore Konqueror – addict. I use several split views in several tabs and have different stuff running in each of them (ftp, man-pages, file-browsing, pdf-viewing and console). You know, Konqueror is so far ahead of Windows Explorer you would not believe it possible. Konqueror can be everything (including a kitchen-sink
), WITHOUT being bloated, and that is the amazing thing about it. Konqueror, despite being so powerful, never shows more than 15 Buttons on it’s whole interface, probably 10 of them in the button-bar. There is no such thing in Windows. I hope KDE4 is stable unter Windows, so that I can use Konqui at my workplace.
It is like stated in the article: GNOME and KDE take the good stuff from Apple and MS (in fact Xerox
), and improve on them.
And frankly, after 2,5 years of KDE, I find the Windows GUI just inefficient and limiting.
And frankly, after 1,5 year of OSX, I find Linux GUI just ugly and inconsistent.
I’ve used OS X for a week or so, but I dislike the GUI. Actually, not just the GUI, the overall system. I don’t remember a thing I liked better than other systems. I like Windows XP and Linux (Gnome).
Joe I’m with you. I’ll take Windows and Linux (Gnome) anyday over OS-X.
I had to help a client prepair a property valuation report where he was using a digital camera with audio snipits to log the various buildings are different sites. He was using OS-X and it was horrible for drag and drop of the images into a WP and listening to corresponding audio snipits to help ID the images.
Windows was much easier and led him to hiring a windows laptop to get the basics done.
I also use OS-X in a I.T. support/Digital Print role and find myself annoyed at how limiting the UI is.
STill, use what you’re happy with but for me, it ain’t OS-X and After testing Gutsy I have to say Gnome is great..
Funny how the initial post got scored up by saying exactly what scored you down …
I don’t see why Linux desktop should make you never look back at any other OS.
I switch from OS X this summer to linux, _completely like in the title, initially to 7.04 and update to 7.10. One major reason it’s speed. I needed to run virtualized Windows for my development and business needs (accounting) and OS X was simply unresponsive on heavy load. At the same load on exactly the same computer (mac mini) Linux handle the job far more efficiently.
But what annoyed me with this -completely- exageration, is that the author use limited users needs, normally HIS.
Synchronisation in Linux, Ubuntu for me, doesn’t provide something close as what you can find in windows or OSX. Palm work OK, better in Gusty, but it’s still doesn’t support multiple group, notes sync, crash on sync exception. Grouping is mandatory. Even if opensync is a really promissing, open source, multiplugins etc., it does not offer a viable alternative right now.
Bluetooth headset are not plug’n’play, but they are under windows and OSX. Just look the Ubuntu forum for “bluetooth headset”. It’s a mess to make it working.
Since this weekend I’m back in OSX, I don’t need to use vmware that much. I prefer OSX for a lot of other reason. But I think Linux in general is ready for the desktop, but not “completely and never look back”.
I can’t believe the blatant bias of Linux zealots. Someone says: “And frankly, after 2,5 years of KDE, I find the Windows GUI just inefficient and limiting” and gets a plus 7. Someone else says something very similar but replaces Linux and Windows with OSX and Linux and gets marked down to 0. Both arguments are not backed up with anything but we get two opposite reactions. Please explain.
They’re called “Linux weenies”. When people discover that there’s an alternative to Windows after all, for some reason, a good percentage of them have to go through this stage as part of their maturing process. In my experience one of 4 things occurs:
1. They go back to Windows.
2. They get stuck in this phase (like some people do after graduating high school) and annoy the community forever.
3. They realize that while there are differences in OSes, they all have their place, and even if some are better overall, your choice of OS isn’t a direct indication of phallus size.
4. They discover *BSD.
4. should be “They decide something *else* is the awesome and become weenies about that” and then repeat the process you outlined. Getting a clue is a separate operation from switching to BSD. You can do it in either order.
How about the fact that the pro-Linux poster talked about functionality (which is true: the KDE desktop has more functionalities than the Windows one, if only with kio-slaves), while the pro-OSX poster talked about looks (which is highly debatable: you can have a Linux desktop that is just as nice-looking *and* consistent as an OSX one).
Also, the first post wasn’t limited to that only argument. For all you know, it could have been modded up for its first portion, and not the second one. The other post, meanwhile, was *only* about provocation, and a blatant attempt to ignite a flame war.
There, glad I could be of help for you – and guess what, I managed to do it without insulting anyone! You should try it sometime.
Well, I’m a Linux-nut and I have Vista on sda1. I paid for it (laptop tax), and I don’t want to wipe it off just yet. I’m getting the Orange box in a few days and my hardware won’t be able to take the extra hit that Wine will ask of it.
I also boot into it every now and then to remind myself why I use Linux
But seriously, say I need to do something quickly, and it requires Windows. Then I can boot in, get it done, get out. Sometimes I don’t want to have to fight with Wine.
Just because you dual boot doesn’t mean you’re less of a fan!
*EDIT* Let me just say that if Dell offered Ubuntu laptops in South Africa, however, I wouldn’t have chosen to get one with Windows on it. It would be Ubuntu only.
Edited 2007-10-22 11:59
> Well, I’m a Linux-nut and I have Vista on sda1.
> I paid for it (laptop tax), and I don’t want to
> wipe it off just yet.
Assuming you’re using an OEM pre-activated version of Vista and you *do* eventually choose to wipe it I found a cool program that can backup and restore Vista’s activated state.
http://directedge.us/node/24
It’s at the very bottom of the page, “ABRbeta3.zip”, and it works perfectly: if you ever want to reinstall Vista just do so with any Vista DVD, choosing the correct edition and leaving the CD key blank field blank, when it’s installed, just run the restore program and reboot and you’re laughing.
It’s perfectly legit and also *very* handy for fresh Vista reinstallation to strip away OEM bundleware.
Just to absolutely clarify it is _not_ a crack. the restore procedure will only work on the machine on which you backup the activation, since it’s tied to the BIOS. You may be able to do 32bit -> 64bit upgrades with it though (Since 32 bit licenses are valid for 64bit use)
I agree completely, the only reason I ever boot into windows is for HL2.
Why bother? Works quite well under Cedega. Sure it’s evil commercial software and all, but so is Windows and $15 is not too much next to a Windows license.
I tried cedega (granted it was a few years ago) and overall it performed very well but there were some problems with certain character models it seemed.
i so agree.
i blame it on the fact that the linux world has developers with different rules. everyone want their gui to look the way they want it so you end up having one app in gnome look completely different than app2 with huge ugly fonts not flowing correctly with the rest of the Desktop. In windows and the mac you dont have that issue.
“OMG you Linux zealots will never succeed on the desktop”-flames in 5.. 4.. 3..
ZOMG.. 2.. 1.. /dev/null
Replace windows on my main desktop?
Been there,done that,and if want to look back, virtualbox is the kick.Ubuntu is the best quick and dirty solution to get going bar none.I am a technical user as well with Arch Linux on my workstation and Mandriva on my server long before.
Ubuntu is that solution to get completely away from Windows with the least hassle.
Kudos Canonical and keep up the good work.
Edited 2007-10-22 11:03
IMHO, PCLinuxOS gets you going with FAR less of a hassle. You get a fully functional desktop, with all the codecs you may need, in some 15 minutes. You can choose to use ndiswrapper with just a couple of clicks, you get the awesome control center (from Mandriva, I know) and Synaptic with VERY rare dependency issues, which I’ve had in Ubuntu. You can even install programs in RAM (I installed and used Partimage this way) and they get installed on disk. The repos are a bit smaller, but most used apps are very up-to-date, and it’s a rolling release, so you don’t need to dist-upgrade or reinstall to get recent packages.
Sure, Ubuntu has its advantages (for instance, bigger repos, better language support and a 64-bit version) but I get mad at those articles saying “switch from Windows to Ubuntu” instead of “switch from Windows to Linux” as if no other distro were worth mentioning.
“Sure, Ubuntu has its advantages (for instance, bigger repos, better language support and a 64-bit version) but I get mad at those articles saying “switch from Windows to Ubuntu” instead of “switch from Windows to Linux” as if no other distro were worth mentioning.”
+ you up one but still the biggest factor as to why I said Ubuntu has the least hassle is the one thing you left out,unintentionally I hope and that is the community.
I have seen and even used to a minor extent distros that were easier to set up than Ubuntu, but when I hit a snag I was left cold in the dark to figure out stuff for myself which left me frustrated and headed back to Windows with a sour taste in my mouth.
I have encouraged someone to use Ubuntu and I know they are medium level Windows user and I just hooked them onto http://www.ubuntuguide.org and now they are as happy as a lark.I have never consulted them with a problem ever since.
Telling users to switch to Linux at this point is like telling someone who is asking for directions just to take a bus and never say which one to take.
All things considered including Ubuntu’s technical merits or lack thereof Linux needs a face to be marketed.Ubuntu has that face.That is the major difference from the technically proficient super duper distro X,Y,or Z.
Plus I know how some human beings are and for whatever reason when Ubuntu isn’t the novel cool thing to do, it would have opened their minds and given them confidence in their technical prowess to try more distros or even something like BSD.So in the end other Linux distros do get the nod.
All this hype about “community” – well I once bought it back in my Ubuntu days but now I use PCLinux..
P
Many of the posts in Ubuntu give the impression
of activity and help..the fact is that many of the posts
are of the nature of “the blind leading the blind”.
By the way, i found this of gentoo as well..just
because forums have 1000 users/posts per day doesn’t
mean they will be helpful if there is no
knowledge base.
The help forums in PCLinux have, in my opinion,
much better answers and the fact that there are
less questions just shows that PClinux has less problems.
Fair enough
Fair enough
The reason why I didn’t mention Ubuntu’s community as an “advantage over PCLOS” is simply that my personal experience with PCLOS community has been very possitive, so it wouldn’t be fair to say it’s “not as good as Ubuntu’s”. But sure, Ubuntu does have a great community, as far as I know
As long it works for you
I remember using PCLOS a couple years back and it was great.Everything worked out the box but I was distro hopping back then.
Cheers.
I can understand the need for long support, but since 6.06 LTS support ends at the exact same time* as the support for the _very_ recently released 7.10 I cannot understand why they opted to test 6.06 over 7.10.
Seriously, a ton of issues have been sorted out since the 6.06 release.
* This is the desktop version we’re talking about. I myself run 6.06 LTS Server Edition on servers due to the long support.
The article is from the “September 2007” issue of APC Magazine, which means it was probably written sometime in July at the latest – well before 7.10 was released.
Even so, 7.04 would probably have been a better option.
Edited 2007-10-22 11:34
nice story about windows-to-linux switching two users (one old lady and one young blondie)
http://blog.fuxoft.cz/2007/10/two-bizarre-linux-experiences.html
I went 100 percent Microsoft free at home in October of 2003 and never looked back. I only run XP in a virtual instance at work for the few remaining Microsoft only apps running in legacy. Actually one specifically.
There is no reason to apologize to Microsoft zealots which haunt the halls of OS News looking for people to scare and haze. Ignore them.
Even my wife, a die-hard Windows user, likes Ubuntu and can do all the stuff she normally does in Windows.
Great article. Sent it to friends and potential switchers. One step closer to total world domination with Nix.
“There is no reason to apologize to Microsoft zealots which haunt the halls of OS News looking for people to scare and haze. Ignore them.”
Uhm, OSNews has it’s share of zealots of all stripes, OS X, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD. You yourself are showing quite a bit of zealotry.
It’s good to see Ubuntu getting all this good press, it certainly helps the cause, but don’t believe that your choices will work for everyone, every one needs to be able decide what works best for them.
No he’s not – well, apart from that “world domination” comment at the end, which is meant in jest. The rest of his comment is simply how he and his wife get along great without Windows. That’s a statement of fact, and there’s nothing zealotous about it.
I think people throw the “zealot” and “fanboy” epithets around much too casually here…
The statement I was addressing was quoted at the beginning of my post, and that’s all I was addressing. I found the statement rather hypocritical. I was not addressing any other part of his post. Dealing with just the statement:
“There is no reason to apologize to Microsoft zealots which haunt the halls of OS News looking for people to scare and haze. Ignore them.”
It sounds like a statement a zealot might make. That’s my opinion. I agree that “zealot” and “fanboy” are tossed around way to much, and wanted to point out the fact that by making that statement, he sounded just like the zealots he was complaining about.
Fair enough. 🙂
“Uhm, OSNews has it’s share of zealots of all stripes, OS X, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD. You yourself are showing quite a bit of zealotry.”
Yes. You bet. I don’t deny it. Unlike most, I was a Windows-only systems administrator for six-years. I must still manage them for some of the Oracle servers I maintain and manage.
I’ve had some really interesting e-mails from Windows zealots off list. Generally I grab some pop corn, sit back, read and chuckle at the `Monkey Boy` Balmer-like words they write.
There is no reason to apologize to Microsoft zealots which haunt the halls of OS News looking for people to scare and haze. Ignore them.
Actually I think the reverse is true more often. I think Windows users are more on the defense here than the alternatives, nevermind the fact that they may actually need to use Windows for their employment or hobbies.
I run an Dell Latitude D820 with an nVidia Quadro NVS 120M video card. When running with the nVidia drivers the flat panel display connected to my docking station does not display anything, it just goes dark right after X starts. Additionally the laptop will not suspend to either disk or ram (well, actually, it suspends but will not recover).
This is despite trying numerous “fixes” posted around the internet. The docking station problem with nVidia has existed since at least 6.10 (no problem before then).
I have also tried to run SuSE 10.3, Mepis 7 Beta 5, Fedora 7, CentOS 5 (which I run on my servers) and Linux Mint. Same problems. I have not tried PCBSD because my wireless card is not supported.
PDA support is really bad. Only Palm is supported and not very well at that. My Treo 680 is my memory. Notes do not import well under either Evolution or Kontact. The calendar messes up many times as well. Unfortunately nothing works as well consistently as Outlook.
Consumer device support is non-existent. Want to run things like Slingbox (don’t know how I lived without it)? Ubuntu won’t work.
Some might say the cause of my problems with the docking station and suspend are nVidia’s problem not Ubuntu’s, or that it’s not Ubuntu’s fault the makers of PDA’s choose not to provide mechanisms to sync to Ubuntu. They may be correct, but in the end it does not matter who is not providing what. If it won’t do what I want it to its not useful to me.
I’m going to leave Linux on the server and thin clients (LTSP is great in my call center) for now and see what happens on the desktop.
While I think most people here appreciate your frustration, in the end driver and kernel authors are the source of it and you have to accept that the name Ubuntu or Canonical does not carry with it the same level of “buck stops here” responsibility that Apple or Microsoft does. And this is coming from someone who badgered kernel authors over the multimedia problems 2.6.15 created for owners of tuner cards with the BTTV chipset (a large chunk of the Myth userbase).
A distribution is just that. You yourself noted that no distribution you tried resolved the nVidia docking problems. If you’re not comfortable with how a Linux ecosystem works differently than a centralized, corporate, commercial OS, your solution is simple. Stay with what you’re comfortable with.
And again, you’re absolutely right that this should ‘just work.’ My Latitude C610 has ATI graphics and video works fine in the dock. You should have the same experience even if the graphics card vendor is different.
You do realise, don’t you, that Ubuntu 7.10 will install and run fully and correctly on far, far more machines than either Vista or OSX?
Ubuntu 7.10 will not only run on most machines, unlike Vista, it will run far better as well:
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10006214o-2000331758…
http://community.zdnet.co.uk/blog/0,1000000567,10006217o-2000331777…
So are you prepared to use the same argument applied to Vista? It doesn’t matter if Vista is hyped to the heavens and advertised on all the TV channels, it still doesn’t work well on most hardware, it is compatible with less existing software than Ubuntu is, and it is miles and miles behind in functionality and cost compared to Ubuntu 7.10.
Install Vista … where is the Office suite? For that matter, where is anything at all beyond Notepad & Paint?
Install Ubuntu … is there anything missing at all? OK, then just install it for free using the package manager, it takes all of 10 seconds to search for whatever you wanted.
Whatever. Just don’t expect anyone to believe you when they can see for themselves the true story. They will be using their free, fully functional and working Ubuntu desktop (without having to shell out for new hardware or extra memory) while you are still having to sweat through your next BSA audit.
Looks like the usual thing in any Linux distro: It’s great when it recognizes all your hardware, and it royally sucks if it doesn’t.
The only thing that I find disturbing are regressions. But on the other hand, if you don’t test the development versions on your hardware when they are still beta, you are not entitled to a working system.
Mot much of a compensation, I know, but that’s what free software is about: Scratch your own itch, if you don’t scratch, don’t complain about the itch.
I have been testing Linux as a secondary system for about three years. SUSE, Linspire, Mepis, PSLinuxOS, Mandriva and Ubuntu.
I wrote my first program as a simple shell script to give me an audible alert when my ISP came back online. I found it easy, fun, and the possibilities exciting. I’m now learning several programming languages.
Despite turning me on to programming, the problems with Windows that drove me to Linux were not solved in Linux however. A quick and easy setup, low support for others who might use the system (e.g. setting up a family box), and a few bugs that were persistent deal-killers. That has since changed.
Ubuntu 7.10 officially replaced Windows on my primary laptop forever. I even removed the “Made for Windows sticker” and replaced it with “Powered By Ubuntu”. My license sticker on the bottom supplies the key for my Virtual Boxed Windows (for development).
I helped a friend get Ubuntu 7.10. Took about 40 minutes to get it installed and well set up. It was easy, something I could never say for getting Windows completely properly set up for a novice computer user. He is a gamer, has been very happy with it, and has forgone the bleeding edge games for the other benefits.
I am deleting a large portion of media on my main desktop so that I may install Ubuntu on it, and have enough room to move data around and get all the drives Linux-native.
I will also be replacing my mother’s winrotted XP with Ubuntu. She liked playing with Ubuntu before, but I held off deploying it because it just wasn’t ready yet. Now it is.
The year of the Linux desktop is the year Linux works best for you.
As to a what many call The Year, I would refer to as critical mass. I envision it will be much like it is now, many millions, growing in number slowly and uncounted. We’ll look back and be surprised at how quickly it snuck past us.
XP is long in the tooth, and despite SP3, many will be looking for a real OS upgrade long before Windows 7. Vista, OSX Leopard, or Linux. Looking ahead one year, XP will still be XP, while Linux will continue its rapid development and major leaps in novice usability.
Dell is selling Ubuntu, various other OEM’s are following. Intel open sourced its drivers, ATI released its specs, and others are following. It is easy to see the change, the slow and steady shift. As Linux continues to grow in market share, it will see more and more direct support from hardware and software vendors alike, and sooner rather than latter perhaps, direct ports of major games.
Now what I see a lot of in defense of Windows is the bashing of a single cut and paste command into the CLI to get something to work, often something advanced that Joe/Jane would not normally use. While I agree that in all but the most extreme cases such things should not be necessary, such arguments in Windows defense conveniently ignores many of the long-standing issues with Windows for which many of us have simply come to accept as normal. Editing the registry for example – more people do it than you might expect. Many fixes, and even many preferences that people want to change, they find a helpful instruction on the Internet that explains that they just need to change this 0 to a 1. Defragging the hard drives, virus scans, spyware scans, and endless updates.
Updates. Adobe updates, antivirus updates, Firefox updates, Quciktime, Java, and endless other applications updating. Still not up to date. Windows update, Office update, and still not updated. Begin the search for updated drivers. Your driver for your Ethernet or maybe your graphics card has a security hole. Better update them all. Are you up to date now? No. Despite a dozen annoying applications updating themselves is worse – those that don’t. Your system is *still* not updated or secure.
Second I hear the argument “You won’t get viruses if you know what you are doing.” While that is technically true in most cases, it doesn’t fix that most people can not be expected to learn as much about computers as you. Additionally, it isn’t true in cases of well designed malware. Some computers and devices have shipped from the factory with viruses. Malware may propagate through any of your networked applications, and in recent history – through images on web pages, some of those web pages being large, trusted sites.
Third I hear is “I haven’t had a virus in years.” My question is how do you know? Because your antivirus did not detect any? That is not comforting to someone who pays their bills, banks, emails and shops online.
Linux has a learning curve. But with all the time that I’m not updating, restarting, scanning or defragging, I have the time to cut and paste a one-time-only command to get that one thing to work. Then I get to use and enjoy my computer instead of working to maintain it. I can customize and settle in knowing it won’t eventually die of Winrot.
Linux still has problems, but in examining it, I’ve found Linux to be easier to set up and maintain than Windows, that is, as you can see, pretty important to me.
My point is one should not forget or forgive all the problems with Windows that we have come to apathetically accept as The Computing Experience. Set your standards high and always demand better, regardless of preference or bias.
Edited 2007-10-22 13:38
At the moment Ubuntu is able to make an internet connection via Bluetooth DUN (Palm Treo 680) and I can upload my Garmin Forerunner 305 data I will leave MS Windows XP. Bluetooth was a disaster on Ubuntu 7.04.
Browser: Palm680/RC1 Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows 98; PalmSource/Palm-D053; Blazer/4.5) 16;320×320
REST are dreamers, speculators, anti-userfriendly, anti-consumer, anti-community, anti-grandmas, anti-schoolkids, anti-businesses, and so on….
For last 20 years only Windows have SAVED 90% people from 10% hard nut programmers….
This past week I did try to completely replace Windows with Linux. I failed big time. My monitor and soundcard just wouldn’t work properly no matter how many forums I browsed through for help.
And I, like other curious folk wanting so bad to get away from Windows, just didn’t have the patients or time to edit config files all day. Not to mention the awful headache from running at 60hz.
It’s my opinion as a average desktop user, that Linux really needs to work on hardware support. The bottom line is that Linux isn’t ready yet. But I personally do hope that one day it will be.
What version of Linux did you try? What monitor and soundcare are you using?
Before installing, it’s best to try loading the LiveCD (with Ubuntu). That would have told you if your monitor and soundcard were supported.
It would rather seem that it’s not ready
(or, more precisely, that your computer isn’t ready for it). Don’t make generalizations based on a single experience. The fact is that Ubuntu/Linux is ready for the majority of PCs out there.
The *majority* of PCs still have IDE drives in them. Drives which Feisty did not detect on the LiveCD, requiring users to enter modprobe parameters into the LiveCD’s ‘options’ commandline and more at the busybox prompt.
Many PPC Mac owners had to hack the kernel to get IDE support or use the alternate install CD just to partition the disk. Gutsy right now will not recognize some IDE drives even if the kernel is patched and rebooted. Those same PPC Macs won’t recognize wired DHCP connections at startup and have to be manually reconnected every time.
The majority of PCs out there still have PS/2 mice because that’s what came in their box. XFCE under Ubuntu breaks PS/2 mouse recognition at the boot screen.
Change a video card on a desktop box, reboot and see what happens the first time the OS tries to create an X server. It isn’t pretty.
I use Ubuntu extensively. I have to; it drives the MBE/SBE Mythbox network in my house. But don’t delude yourself that the OS is as slick as commercial OSes when it comes to managing hardware. Capable, yes, but distinctly unpleasant when it fails.
“Many PPC Mac owners had to hack the kernel to get IDE support or use the alternate install CD just to partition the disk. Gutsy right now will not recognize some IDE drives even if the kernel is patched and rebooted. Those same PPC Macs won’t recognize wired DHCP connections at startup and have to be manually reconnected every time.”
Ahem, PPC is not, I can only repeat it, is not an officially supported architecture under ubuntu. And I should know, I use gutsy on a ppc computer.
My point is that with each 6 month release, Ubuntu (all platforms) ends up breaking compatibility with hardware previously supported — when the reason is nothing more than a developer forgetting to set a flag or test the same hardware they tested twenty-six weeks before.
Microsoft’s holy grail is that damned compatibility shim which guarantees everything that worked in the previous release works now. Linux doesn’t have to go this route, but it should be accountable to consistently testing the same hardware or openly obsoleting it.
The IDE drive issue for x86 platforms was inexcusable for a glass-mastered, silkscreened release disc like Feisty. A Dell GX260 isn’t a niche platform; it’s a corporate desktop used all over our University’s campus.
When users repeatedly post solutions for known kernel problems during the tribe RC season and they’re consistently ignored all the way to final release (examples exist for both x86/PPC), it’s a distro issue as much as a kernel issue. Gnash and ffmpeg libraries depend on liboil, and multimedia playback depends on Gnash/ffmpeg. During Edgy, liboil was compiled with a fallback for CPUs without vector acceleration (e.g. G3s). With Feisty/Gutsy, it was unnecessarily compiled to assume AltiVec. In contrast, Fedora decided to compile liboil to assume no vector unit for PPC whatsoever.
A six month release is a good thing, but Ubuntu’s commitment to QC isn’t the same as Debian’s.
Edited 2007-10-22 20:27 UTC
I do get your point, but even when it was supported last version there were various crippling bugs like these. So its not like the demotion to community supported was the reason for this. Ubuntu just didn’t work right for a lot of people.
I just went through the ide_core bug installing Gutsy to my G3 iMac. Found a forum post that told exactly how to fix it, but that’s more than anybody using it as a Windows (or Mac) replacement is going to be capable of.
As a side note I was all ready to blame myself for not trying out a beta or release candidate first and then just reporting it, but it looks like the bug in question already had a report filed in July.
Maybe in the US..in Korea and Japan IDE drives
are found in junk yards and all computers
sold in the last 5 years use SATA.
But ..never mind Ubuntu..PCLinux is the easier
choice. Trust me.
Um…don’t know where you got the idea that IDE drives were not detected by Feisty, but that’s certainly not the case on my six year-old Athlon 900, which happens to have an IDE drive. I had no problems installing Feisty on it, nor did I have any problems installing Gutsy on it today.
As others have commented, PPC is not officially supported by Ubuntu. If you’re going to use this as a measure of the “slickness” of an OS when managing hardware, then I guess all flavours of Windows fail miserably, since Windows doesn’t run on PPC *at all*!
Isn’t this what Bulletproof X is supposed to be for? Things *are* getting better, you know. That’s the whole point of a new release.
A Xubuntu bug doesn’t mean that Ubuntu isn’t ready for most PCs. XFCE isn’t part of a default Ubuntu install. You’re really nitpicking here, as PS/2 mice otherwise work flawlessly on stock Ubuntu.
First, I am not deluded: Ubuntu does indeed support the *majority* of PC hardware out there, if not all of it. Of course it’s unpleasant when it fails – that’s true for any OS.
Is it perfect? No, but it’s still very good in its default, supported configuration.
Edited 2007-10-23 04:24
Vista is considerably more hardware-incompatible than Ubuntu.
http://www.winmatrix.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=10334
It even has its own “incompatible” site:
http://vistaincompatible.com/forums/YaBB.pl?catselect=incompatibile
http://vistaincompatible.com/forums/YaBB.pl?board=hardware
Slick? Vista? In what alternate universe is this?
Clearly you have never actually tried to get Windows (Vista or XP) to recognise new hardware. You get a “new hardware found, please reboot” about a dozen times or so. God forbid if you put in a wrong driver CD, you’ll never get out of the reboot loop. If your harwadre was out of production before the Windows OS was released … more than likely you will never get a driver for it. Have you ever come across any Windows drivers that were actually “certified”? That is refreshing, because I haven’t.
Edited 2007-10-23 06:00
What do you think about this, then?
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/18812/Driver-Updates-Causing-Vista-…
it’s old hardware archiesteel, there’s no reason why Linux can’t properly support an M-Audio card and a 19′ CRT Monitor when a Mac and Windows have been able to for years.
Well, as far as the CRT monitor is concerned, if it’s an old one and does not have EDID and it’s not on the Xorg list then you do in fact have to enter HorizSync and VertRefresh by hand in xorg.conf. It’s not that hard, however – it certainly won’t take you “all day” like you claim.
M-Audio cards are usually well-supported in Linux, so it should work. What model is it? Did you try it with Feisty or Gutsy?
Note that “old hardware” doesn’t always work with newer operating systems. Not all old hardware is supported by OSX or Vista, for example, and as such it seems unfair to specifically fault Linux for that.
I teach at a university and use Ubuntu as my primary OS, but I must keep Windows XP on my laptop for publishing research journal articles for two reasons:
1. Openoffice.org’s bibliography capabilities are not usable. There is no Linux alternative to a program like EndNote.
2. Data plotting an analysis software is severely lacking. There is no good, easy to use Linux alternative to a program like Kaleidagraph, Origin, or SigmaPlot.
If the above two items were eliminated, I’d ditch Windows on all the PC’s in my research group. I use Codeweavers Crossover products, but that doesn’t work perfectly either.
I feel if the above two things were addressed, Ubuntu could make significant progress in taking market share in education. Making it work in education will pay off later as people want to continue using what they were trained on in school.
1. You shouldn’t be using OpenOffice or Microsoft Office. You should be using LaTeX. If you’re a *real* scientist that is
2. I have run Origin in Wine *flawlessly*. Otherwise, use Gnumeric, bundled with R it has fantastic statistical analysis tools. Otherwise there is Matlab, gnuplot. Take your pick.
Problems solved.
Zotero for Firefox. Integrates with Word and OO.o.
http://www.zotero.org/blog/making-the-switch-to-zotero/
Why should I, use a system without slocate, grep, highlighting text with cursor copy, and paste with middle mouse button. Why should I use an OS that you need to rely on third party applications to customize its theme, this way making it slower and bloated. Why use a system without a decent package manager like pacman, apt-get, portage, and more importantly without a repository with more than 18,000 free applications available for one click download and install without bugging wizards. Why should I be binded to only one vendor, who only brings me a high price alpha quality OS, with which I have to wait until several service packs to feel is in final product quality. An OS with such a bad file system like NTFS which gets fragmented with every simple file movement/erase. An OS that is plagued with virus yet unknown that you have on your system, waiting to deploy.
I mean, thinking about this things make me realize I don’t like Windows, and I don’t need it, I don’t even dual boot, I just have one Arch Linux installation, and thats all I ever need. Is sad how sometimes people want to be binded themselves.
If you have the cash, use MacOS, Linux and Windows. They all have strengths and weaknesses.
I alternate between the three without any hastle at all, identifying the areas where each shines.
I see no point in doing a “complete replacement”, it’s counter-productive.
After all, choice is good…
I’ll take a moment to defend Ubuntu here, based on that article. It can be summed up very easily…
Most people have windows pre-installed on thier PC, if you ask them to re-install from scratch and get all thier devices working – including cameras, scanners, bluetooth etc. the vast majority of people will fail at the task.
Where Ubuntu shines here, is the live CD, enabling Joe Average (“I just want it to work”) to at least try, risk free, the Linux experience. Of course, installing it without hosing thier data is another matter
Edited 2007-10-22 18:28
Why would I want a Windows partition on my system. I have to use XP every workday. It’s just about usable and a bit irritating and limited. I come home to a much better and more usable Ubuntu Linux system at home, that does everything I want. I just don’t need Windows. I haven’t dual booted for about five years and I didn’t need or want to install a Windows partition on my new system
OK I am not a gamer – for that, all I need is chess and go (both of which have lots of Linux and cross-platform implementations) and even these I don’t play much.
1. While I’m aware of GnuCash and its ilk, I haven’t once heard on a forum someone post that they run their business’ or personal finances on Linux. Not once. OO.o succeeds because it carries 90% of a switcher’s needs from the equivalent commercial app. So far as I know nearly every OS financial app for Linux is double-entry which is daunting for personal finances. QuickBooks is a complete system which appears to have no equal.
Understand this: visit Intuit’s forums and you will see a userbase’s venom towards a software company unmatched by any other, Microsoft included. If there were an open source alternative to Intuit’s core products as fully featured as theirs, Intuit would be bankrupt overnight. Ubuntu forums asking “what keeps you dual-booting” routinely answer 1. finances 2. games. And a quick check of the WINE website shows that Intuit’s products do not generally run well under WINE. Neither will Microsoft Money.
2. Professional graphics
Adobe has its foot squarely on the throats of Linux here.
Dreamweaver is without equal in any market, no matter how good smart text editors or simple web development platforms get.
The GIMP is useless for work that requires color separations. It still can’t create dynamic effects like drop shadows for a layer that don’t require recreating them every time the parent layer changes shape. The bucket tool can’t constrain itself to a selection because, and I quote the maintainer, “the algorithm is too optimized” (read: unreadable, undocumented code). The native file format’s only documentation is inside the source code.
There is no application for competently generating Flash even though Flash 7 has been blackboxed by Gnash, and SVG hasn’t come close to unseating it yet.
Inkscape cannot read PostScript files. (FreeHand did, back in the 1990s before it was even an Adobe product.)
Take your kid to PBSkids.org (where a multitude of plugin technologies are used) and try your hand at getting roughly half the pages there to work. No Linux support for Shockwave? Sucks to be you. Hell, try any Linux distribution for a non-x86 platform and try to get plugin support without having to install an x86 version of a browser (assuming your CPU handles x86 instructions).
While there are prosumer and pro audio/video Linux apps out there, they’re usually aimed at non-Debian distros of the Red Hat variety.
The open source development community’s priorities right now are divided between server administrators and casual desktop users whose usage is limited to playing entertainment media, word processing, and web browsing. This is a good market, but Apple learned a long time back that killer apps sell OSes. Linux sorely lacks a unique killer app for the desktop market.
Regarding GIMP, ever heard of Pixel image editor? You can check it out here: http://www.pixelimageeditor.com
THere is really no substitute for Photoshop when your a professional photographer, except maybe elements if you don’t need it professionally. Adobe is the image edit company hands down second to none
Very well put. I very much like using my UBUNTU system. However it’s not a cure all. My children also have the same problem with the lack of support with some plugins on sites. I cannot use my Nike+ system with Linux, my Polar Heart rate monitor does not work linux. and anybody who truly thinks that the GIMP is an equal to Photoshop is clueless, I’m not sayiong that the GIMP is bad but it is in no way equal. I use UBUNTU and have been using Linux distros for 6 years now, but in order for me to be truly productive on a computer I need to keep windows around. I’ mot interested in the which is better debate, I’m interested in getting my work done. Some things I use Ubuntu for others XP. Why cant we all just get along.
Well if you are going the WIne route you can run
windows applications more completely
in VMWare or VirtualBox.
Yes, they are free .
Somewhat more work to set up than Wine, granted but
a possible solution.
Quicken runs on WINE, I used to use it a lot.
Simple: don’t support sites that use Shockwave in the first place. In any case, it’s a dying platform, which Adobe has just about given up in favor of Flash.
They why are they such a distant second to Windows?
Look, I’m all for more, better applications on Linux, but you seem to be focusing solely on the negatives. The fact is that Linux is ready for a *lot* of desktops, if not all of them. Few people need to do color separation, for example, nor do they need pro audio/video tools.
If someone needs an app that’s not available for an OS, then that person shouldn’t use that OS. I think we can all agree on that. People who need Quickbooks shouldn’t run OSX or Linux, for example. However I don’t think it’s constructive to say that, because *some* people can’t use Linux, then it’s not ready for *most* desktops.
I would probably get modded down for what I am thinking. Something about trolls who open their butt cheeks to speak before putting brain into motion.
I’ve noticed some professional software companies, for example Maya, comes with three install CDs. One for OS X, one for Linux and, oh yeah, one for Windows.
I have replaced Windows completely using Fedora and
RHEL5 Client in the office.
I can understand someone saying they like a distro
however other options are on the market.
WE do not need a MS Ubuntu to crush the market in
saying this is it lets go home now. This is what
happened with MS Windows the only one now the
majority is stuck with it.
The advantages of using Red Hat include Certification,
something Ubuntu does not offer and Red Hat is
now offering the Global Desktop coming up very soon.
Not only that Fedora Core is an awesome distro!
I would rather use Widows XP Pro over Ubunut.
“””
“””
Look, you foul-mouthed little miscreant…
Just kidding. But seriously, I use a mix. I use CentOS on my clients’ servers where it seems appropriate. I use Fedora on their XDMCP servers. I use Fedora on my own desktop. I use Ubuntu on my own laptop. And I recommend Ubuntu to newbies. I use Windows nowhere. (Though some of my customers still run it in places.)
And I come away feeling that I’m using the right distro for the job in all those places.
Ubuntu is a *far* better distro than Fedora for the home or casual user. I’d be mortified by the rude responses they would get on the Fedora list if I recommended it to newbies. The Ubuntu forums are a whole different world from Fedora’s channels of communication. *Much* more helpful for this kind of user. *Much* more friendly.
Plus the distro itself is so much better. As an example, my laptop, like so *very* many other laptops out there, has a broadcom wireless chipset which has a Free driver, but which requires firmware which is not distributable.
On Fedora, you have to Google around and find out about the firmware and the fact that you need something called fwcutter to use it. You install fwcutter, and then you have to go out and find a copy of the Windows driver and put it on the disk. Then you can run fwcutter with the right options and specifying the right locations and it will cut the firmware and put it the right place. Reboot and you are, hopefully done.
Compare this with Ubuntu, where for the last few releases, after you find out about fwcutter, you just bring up the software manager and install it. During the installation, it asks if you want to retrieve the firmware. Say yes and it will find it, download it, cut it, and put it in the right place. Reboot and you are done.
Of course, in Gutsy, it is supported by the restricted drivers manager. So the first time the machine comes up after the install, it pops up a window saying you need to use proprietary firware to make your wireless card work. It asks if you really want to load proprietary stuff on your machine. Click to tell it you want to, and it will install fwcutter, get the firmware, cut it, install it, and put an icon in the panel allowing you to reboot at your convenience.
So basically, 2 clicks and a reboot (plus a warning about proprietary software). It is the difference between an average user being completely dead in the water with a “broken” machine, and having a working machine in a couple of clicks.
It’s all these little brain dead obvious show stoppers that we geeks just poo poo as not important that sets Ubuntu apart from otherwise excellent distros like Fedora.
But for a business desktop with a knowledgeable admin, you really can’t beat Fedora or CentOS.
Maybe Suse. But Suse’s just never been my cup of tea. Personal preference, there.
Edited 2007-10-23 00:55
I tried Ubuntu and I know it is Debian based but I was unfamiliar with it because of my background in Red Hat since 6.0. I am a Linux admin and I found that the current releases of Fedora the user sites or sites with the multi-media setup I found to be extremely helpful since it is a piece by piece install to get everything working.
Call me crazy but I found Ubuntu more difficult or maybe it is because of the different locations of .conf files or settings or something. Heck my Mama is 65 and she uses Fedora Core 6 I believe and she has no problems with it. She is totally computer illiterate I have to say I am impressed.
I just don’t want it to get to where someone associates the distro with one like desktop systems aka – Windows…
I have never tried PCLinux and I don’t even know what it is based off of. I started out with a box set $60 Red Hat Professional and I had no clue what so ever about the file structure or pretty much anything.
There is room in the market for more than one easy to use desktop distro and that is what will keep users minds open and not think I wonder if I can install and configure this OS or not?
I know what you mean. I’ve been RedHat-centric since 4.2. Debian based distros are different. Apt-get is well done. Network config is crap. It’s a mixed bag. I support lots of nontechnical people on Fedora and Centos. It works very well *after you get it set up for them*. The thing that Ubuntu does so well is let the nontechnical user get their own machine going without a Linux guru to do it for them. The example I gave regarding my laptop nic is just one example. It’s also just a click or two to get 3D going on my radeon chipset which is not supported by OSS drivers. The conexant modem also. (Plus a warning about how the drivers are proprietary.)
If I try to play a video for which a codec is not installed, it just pops up a dialog asking if I want it to find the codec. It I say yes, it puts up a list with a “star” rating system and I can pick the one I want to use. If it is proprietary, it tells me and proceeds to install it. Without having to click on the video file again, the movie just starts to play. I think that Fedora can do something like this now, but Ubuntu was ahead of it by at least 6 months.
Fedora’s forums can be helpful to people like you and me. But newbies still seem to get the RTFM treatment, which is shameful, IMO.
Some people say that Ubuntu’s popularity is all about marketing. Those people are kidding themselves. Marketing is only one of *many* things that Canonical and the Ubuntu community have gotten right.
In addition to marketing, I’d put “community” and attention to details that are important to newbies, but which we seasoned Linux users hardly even notice, at the top of that list.
Edited 2007-10-23 02:43
Almost anyone who can use a computer can install a modern Linux Live-CD-based distribution.
(1) You put the OS install CD in the drive, and get it to boot from CDROM. This is exactly the same step as required for Windows.
(2) It boots. It gives you a functional desktop, and lets you confirm that it works with all your hardware, without committing to hard disk. (This is not like Windows, where most of the drivers come four of five CDs later).
(3) There is an “Install” icon on the desktop. You click it. It installs, asking you a few questions such as “what users are going to use this system?” as it goes.
(4) Less than 15 minutes later, you are all done. OS installed, all drivers installed, most applications that you would ever want already installed.
The distributions that I have tried for which this process works:
(1) Ubuntu (any flavour)
(2) PCLinuxOS
(3) Sabayon
(4) MEPIS
(5) Kanotix/Siddux (for debian lovers)
(6) Mandriva LiveCD
(7) Mint
(8) Zenwalk
Pick one. For largest support community, start at (1) above. For easiest to use for newbies or converts from Windows, start at (2). For tech-heads who like to live on the cutting edge, start at (3).
Edited 2007-10-23 05:32
I thing the article was perhaps too lengthy, uninformed, and dated.
Could have been summarized as follows:
1) put Linux cd/dvd of your choice in drive.
2) restart computer.
3) Answer a couple of simple questions.
4) to the prompt of “Alert: do you want to purge the evil mishmash of insecure Microsoft contamination completely from this hard drive for ever?” answer: YES. (…I may have embellished this somewhat).
5) Wait a bit (threatening machine with a crucifix or other religious icon while chanting “STALL-MAN, TORVALDS! By these names I Cast ye out, foul ballmer-gates and all of ye minions!” is optional in this stage…at least try to do this quietly if any clients are watching).
6) Reboot and enjoy your new computer.
Works (nearly) every time.
Can’t be done in reverse.
RAID Support.
I have windows server 2003 as my file server at home because it can recognize my Promise/Intel/JMicron/other cheap RAID chipsets that comes with common mobos.
I have never seen any ubuntu based drivers for these chipsets. But still I have seen some sort of out dated drivers for Redhat linux.
I wish if ubuntu team improves support for these chipsets in order to help us work more protected on our cheap systems without the over use of resources that comes from backup technologies.
This topic must come up every month, if not more often. I stopped responding with my same canned answer awhile ago, but every now and then it’s worth repeating – only because people seem to keep the topic alive.
Linux doesn’t matter.
On the flipside, “Windows” doesn’t matter either, but Linux does matter less.
Most major applications (at least that I use) are only available in Windows with no decent (or any) alternative in GNU/Linux. Until that paradigm shifts where developers make better apps for Linux, or better hardware support, it really won’t matter how good Linux becomes. I can’t do what I do on Linux, period. Not only for my personal life, but for the company I work for.
I honestly believe less work should be done on Linux (excepting hardware support) and more work should be done on applications.
DOS has the distinction in history of being one of the worst *and* most important operating systems of all time. How did it get this honor? — application Support. DOS was made irrevelant when better applications became available for Windows 3.1, excepting games. DOS/Windows 3.1 became irrelevant shortly after Windows 95 came out, better hardware support and DirectX. At that time, game developers moved over. OS/2 was a great OS but didn’t die with Windows 9x or NT. It died when
1) Windows developers stopped making 16-bit Win3.1 compatible programs.
and
2) Developers stopped making native 32-bit OS/2 apps.
It didn’t matter one iota how good OS/2 was. Same with Linux. The nail in the coffin for OS/2 was Win2000 and XP, because of the developers writing 32-bit Windows apps.
All that being said, it’s quite possible the nail in the coffin for Microsoft Windows will be Vista, but whether Linux takes it’s place has little to do with Linux itself. It has to do with all the corporate software houses deciding to make a change. With Microsoft’s dominance in this area, it will be hard, if not impossible in the near future.
2007 will *not* be the year of the Linux desktop. Neither will 2008, 2009 or 2010 in my estimation. Until they get a double-digit penetration in the *combined* marketplace of the home and business, not much will change.