First, a little background. I am a Windows user who has been using Windows since 3.1. I am not a programmer or a developer, I am a user. I process photos, use the internet, e-mail, write letters, play the ever important games and even use it to develop my comic strips. I am not computer illiterate and I use my computer with confidence and skill. Now with that said. I hate Windows.
Windows is what has always been around and I have always used it. I have seen the “Blue Screen of Death”. I have lost countless documents and information I have so carefully assembled. I have had a complete corruption of my hard drive by Windows. I have updated to new Windows products and found out that vital software programs that I use will not work. I have had to update my hardware to keep up with the ever-hungry latest version of Windows.
So what are my options? BeOS was great and easy to use, but sadly short lived and lacked applications. That leaves me with Mac or Linux. I like Macs but I hate the restrictions on hardware and the price. I have PC based computers already, so I checked out Linux.
The first dillemma that I faced is what company should I go with? As a Windows user I really never heard of the many different companies that produce Linux. I have heard of Red Hat and Mandrake (I saw it at Borders). I have read about them sort of on web pages, but since I never wanted to use Linux before I did not pay much attention. I wanted to find a version that was easy to install, I have heard the nightmares of having to configure all the hardware yourself. I read the web pages and decided to go with Mandrake. I really could not make heads or tails of the different distros.even in the reviews. I picked Mandrake because it seemed like an easy install. Why did I have to pick? Why no just go to store and buy what ever and it is the right one?
The install process was long but fairly easy (Thank God) but I was still confused a bit by the File System option. Which was is the best one? Which one is the most stable? Which one is fastest? I don’t want to make that choice. I had to stop and do some research online to find out which one I wanted to use. I never had to do that with Windows. What if I picked the wrong one? Would it taint my experience? What are KDE and Gnome? Which is better? Damn another stall; back to the Net to find out which is better. It seems most people are using KDE so I choose it. Argggg.. why do I need a root password?
OK now it was installed. I powered it up and booted Linux for the first time. I selected my cute use icon and put in my password and KDE booted up. It was nice.easy enough to use. Mount? I have used Mount when I used BeOS so I knew what that was, but my girlfriend did not. Why can’t the drives just show up like they do in Windows? I poked around and found out it was hard to do some things. I figured I would just have to get use to the difference and then all would be right as rain. I figured I would change some settings to make it more to my liking. Then I realized what the root password was for and I forgot it, damn!
Well, now I am up and I know my root password. It was time to get down and dirty. I wanted a good Word processing program. I loaded up Star Office and that was more than sufficient (It was the only one I knew about) but KDE office suite was OK too. It was nice to choose what office I wanted to use. I configured Mozilla because of what I read online. It too was very nice. GIMP was nice, everything was nice. Even though Linux did not have the selection that Windows did, I was satisfied with what was available to me. Then I realized that I really did not know what software was available to me. If I was not doing the research that I was on Linux in general I would be lost to what are good programs. I know nothing about Linux.
I did not see much about Lycoris. I think I represent the standard user out there. I see things in the store and I have the impression that that is the best version out there (Red Hat, Mandrake and what was on the shelf). I looked up Red Hat and Mandrake and choose between those two so I could buy it at the store. All the other reviews on other distros (am I using the word right) seem all to be the same… I looked for the easist for me at the time. There is too many versions out there with wierd names. BeOS was so easy to use it loaded right up and was beautiful…sigh.
I have Windows 95 on one computer and I have never ran an update on it (It is not on the internet) and it still runs as fine as it normally does. But it seemed to me that Linux is always evolving and updates are very common. This scared me away. I want the system to run fine with out me doing anything (maybe a security patch now and then.ack Windows). With Windows updates come once and a while (95, 98, 2000) but It seems that Linux is updating all the time and I got tired of keeping up. I just wanted it to work, no hassles, I am just a user.I do not know if the latest update is going to benefit me. What if I miss an important one? What if it fouled up the system. I guess I do not have the confidence with Linux that I do with Windows.at least I know what to expect. I am afraid of Linux. It requires stuff from me that I do not have, I guess. I just want to install it. It works but I do not have to do anything with it again for quite some time. I am not brave enough to explore it.
About the Author:
“I am a 32 year old Project Manager from Portland, Oregon and was a BeOS user (even tried my hand at program and failed). My hobby is catooning (“The Any Key“).”
I like Macs but I hate the restrictions on hardware
The restriction is what makes the mac the “working” platform without hassles. You can’t have the cow, the milk and the dairy ….
—
http://islande.hirlimann.net
I even agree with you, even though I am software developer myself, I also just want things to work right out of the box.
Every Linux distro on the planet has this problem, they are all loaded with an incredible amount of programs and choices.
Lets face it: For the general consumers choices are a BAD thing. Good defaults that are consistent across all distros. No more Gnome or KDE, just a “Linux Desktop Environment”…
Red Hat are taking steps in the right direction with their new NULL beta.
Lycoris are also trying hard to make it easier to deal with Linux, wether they succeed is another story, I hope they do.
But you are not alone. I feel your pain
Michael
[i]Every Linux distro on the planet has this problem, they are all loaded with an incredible amount of programs and choices.[i]
I thought that Lycoris only included one office suite, one browser and one text editor.
That doesn’t sound like [too] many choices to me.
regex
You really did not have to leave BeOS, just because Be Inc. is gone, the OS lives on and new applications come out every day.
Ok, you are right, Lycoris only includes that what is nessecary, and they are on the right track.
Lycoris is about doing something simple and in a standard way.
Michael
Quote: “I am a 32 year old Project Manager from Portland, Oregon and was a BeOS user (even tried my hand at program and failed). My hobby is catooning”
Addendum: “…I cannot write like someone who graduated from a high school or, for that matter, spell-check my documents before submitting them for hundreds to read. I pose problems that I encountered not as a ’32 year old Project Manager’ and ‘BeOS user’, but like a spoiled 14 year old. I also cannot read or think creatively.”
> You really did not have to leave BeOS, just because Be Inc.
Personally, I left BeOS because it does not have a good modern browser. BeZilla does not work well or fast. I need SSL and it is as flaky as it goes. And net_server bombs daily. So, please.
Without a company behind a product, to ensure that bugs will be fixed and new features and support will come, using BeOS is a dead end. No matter how cool BeOS would have been.
Americans can’t spell…
why did you have to mount anything?
i have HAD to mount anything like cd’s floppy’s or even my windows and backup partitions for a LONG time (using mandrake)
and why did you have to go to the net to try to discover what desktop environment to use before you even log in?
i would never go online for something like this…mostly because its so opinionated (Gnome people will always hype Gnome, KDE people will always hype KDE, Fluxbox…)
the best way to see which to use is to USE BOTH…test them out, try it for a little while, don’t rely on other peoples opinions…make YOUR own!
software updates for mandrake are fairly easy…just use there software manager and update from a local mirror…and it will only install updates for packages you already have installed…not so hard
i meant…
i have NOT had to mount….
I’m not sure if there is a good answer for you if you are scared away by product updates. Although I’m a techno weenie and can deal with patching, etc. I know that most people are not and just want something that works. I think XP works well but still isn’t there for the common Joe. I don’t think anything is there yet. Every platform has its faults. Computers are still computers and require a decent amount of maintenance, especially in this Internet age.
One thing to consider in your search is to look at VMWare… you can run multiple virtual PCs within your own. You can use it to test the waters with Linux or whatever, and also use it to run the legacy apps you mentioned on a box with a newer OS like XP.
You have tried XP, right?
Robert, I have to commend you for at least trying Linux. I too wanted Linux to work right out of the box when I first started using it four years ago. Back then, it was as “easy” as reading all of the manuals for your hardware and editing several config files with all of the specs. Since then, Linux has come a long way and the install process is MUCH easier, however, it’s still not as easy to use as Windows. But at least you gave it an effort unlike many other people who posts on sites like this and complain about Windows 24/7 but never have the courage to try an alternative.
Regarding the frequent updates, if you set up Mandrake to run as a desktop computer and not a server, you should not need to update your system very often. Many of the patches that are released pertain to server software, although Mozilla updates are quite common right now since many people are finding security holes as it becomes more popular.
It’s a shame Linux didn’t meet all of your requirements to replace Windows (it still hasn’t met all of mine yet, either), but I commend you for your effort to give it a try. As you noted, it is constantly changing, so don’t be afraid to give it a shot again in a year or so and maybe by then it will be more accomodating for end users.
Reading and writing for OS News should be fun. Most would agree that we are not here because it makes business sense. We are here because of hobbies, passions and interests. It is not your calling in life to be an open critic of everything you read. You may think so, but we will not accept your self-appointment
Lighten Up
When I started out with Linux it was with Mandrake 8.0.
No automount, and it was slow on my computer.
I was scared away at that point. But after losing more important files to an un-expected virus auto-downloaded by IE while doing the Windows update, I decided to try Linux again. This time I decided to buy SuSE 7.3, having heard good thigns about it. I installed it on my machine(which had gotten more ram a few weeks before), and foud the install process to be a tad more involved than Mandrake, but all the defaults were fine except one, I only wanted a swap partition and a /, so I had to change that manually(I stayed with the defualt FS selection). After install I was pleased to see icons on the desktop to auto-mount my CD drives, my floppy drive and my FAT32 partition, as it turned out the HD was all mounted on boot up much to my pleasure(but the icon gave me quick access to it). I used this for awhile, and found it adequate except for a couple of games I like to play.
After a while of dual booting and casually updating Linux packages, Mandrake 8.2 came out. I debated with myself wether I should switch to it or not, I had tried Lycoris(great for beginners, but not what I was looking for, see I like gnome) on a seperate partition, so perhaps I should do the same with Mandrake 8.2. After reading some reveiws and doing the research, and having grown tired of SuSE’s handling of TTF fonts, I decided to switch to Mandrake 8.2(even after 8.0 had been a bad experience for me).
OK I back up my data with Gcombust and go to installing Mandrake 8.2. Install was almost identical to 8.0’s. When done(I simply formatted the partitions used for SuSE), I was pleased to find that this too included those handy CD icons, but I was dissapointed not to find the HD icon, so I made a link to the /mnt/win_c folder. I still use Mandrake today and ever since I found Transgaming’s WineX I haven’t needed to boot into Windows very often at all.
Anyhow, after my interesting experience(oh and the root password is a security feature), I would recomend that new users have at least 96 megs of ram(not much when some games require it), and try one of the following ditros:
Lycoris Desktop LX
Xandros(when it is out)
ELX Linux
Mandrake 8.2 or 9.0(when it’s out)
Red Hat 8.0(null is looking good, so when it is out)
Use Mozilla or Opera as a web browser since Konqueror has some massive rendering issues. And I’d highly recomend that you install available Linux plugins and then buy Crossover Plugin and install the Windows plugins through that.
You’ve been using Windows and developing software for it all these years since Windows 3.1, and now you hate it? Why? It doesn’t sound right. You must have been enjoyed using it. You wait until Microsoft comes out with Windows XP, which is known to be the most stable version of Windows and BeOS died then you cry out loud that Windows gives you blue screen of death and you lost documents? Come on kid. I’m a developer myself and I’ve only seen Windows XP Pro crashed once during debugging a device driver. Why did you lose documents? Use a backup utility to back your files. Turn on auto save to occasionally save your active files. Or simply hit control-S once you made too many changes.
I use Linux and Windows for different purposes. But I still think that Windows is pretty damn good. I’m not going to quit using Windows until there’s another OS that is better than Windows and there equivalent number of applications available for it.
I found it interesting how the author’s perceptions of the choices being offered him changed from negative to positive. He was intimidated by the choice of distribution, or the choice of filesystem to use, but then he was very pleased at having a choice of word processors available. I think the principle we see here is that we like to have choices when we feel we have the information and experience to choose wisely, but we do not want to have to make choices when we don’t have any information on which to base our choice.
On the other hand, as our base of knowledge grows, the areas in which we feel able to make choices grow, and we are frustrated when we are not allowed to apply our newfound knowledge. Many of us who run Linux were attracted by the greater choice we were offered.
I think the key here is to work on making interfaces that are layered. The trick (and I’m not sure what might be the right approach) would be to provide the novice user with sensible defaults in such a way that they do not feel like they are being forced to make a choice, but giving the experienced user a hint that more configurability is available. It clearly does not work to bombard the novice user with lots of questions, even if the defaults are sensible ones, as it leaves them feeling bewildered and intimidated. Yet it is also important that the Linux family of operating systems retain their central virtue of operator choice and control, or nothing substantial will have been gained by the user community.
P.S. Writing well is skill like any other. Just because the author is not the most skilled of writers doesn’t mean that his observations are not meaningful.
>I’m a developer myself and I’ve only seen Windows XP Pro crashed once during debugging a device driver.
> But I still think that Windows is pretty damn good
Agreed. WinXP is incredibly stable over here and a good OS overall. Previous Win9x/Me OSes have problems though.
Get a Mac, they just work
And don’t give me that hardware crap, go buy any other processor besides an Intel or AMD and you can’t run windows, so what if mac only has 1 cpu option and 1 motherboard option, you get the best of the best from Apple. You can run Linux on a Mac, I don’t really see how a PC is better just because you can buy “more” hardware (I do see the software issue though). You can buy video, audio, network, ATA/SCSI cards for a mac, you just can’t buy motherboards but who cares, you get the best that is out there for a mac. You can even buy upgrade processors!
Did this guy just get windows 3.1 and start installing it? I doubt that. if you “bought” linux it came with this “installation manual” thing and this other “user guide” thing that explains difficult topics such as root password. And why do you never have file system problems during installation with windows? cause you KNOW what NTFS and Fat32 are. It asks you that too in windows just like linux does with ext2, ext3.
My point is, this guy/girl seems to have forgotten what it was like the first time running windows. Its new at first but then you get the idea. I am not one of the RTFM guys but if you’re installing an OS you barly heard of please read the installation manual first its only common sence.
Linus Torvalds once said something to the effect of “The East Germans were afraid of choice when the wall came down as well.”
Think about it. Choice is a good thing. Microsoft has conditioned people into believing that having only one option is best for the consumer. It is not.
It’s capability of removing the focus of the current task just to atend to a “new” alert, window, and so on…
Why should i be bothered by all those error alerts that some background application generated when i’m not with the focus on it?
This is most annoying in windows, but i see the trend to be copyed to others…
Why is it that bad UI elements get copied that way?
Cheers…
I could have understood him if the author really explained why he hated Windows, but instead he gave some examples of his problems with the windows.
There are thousands of applications for windows. Almost anybody can write an application for windows. It is pretty strange that, when someone has a problem with windows, they blame windows for it, though it could be a virus, it could be a program which doesn’t call the API functions with the right parameters, or it could be even the user himself/herself.
The fact is that people hate Windows, because it became a very popular trend. Linux guys hate it, because they hate Microsoft. Mac guys hate it, because they hate Microsoft. Many other people hate it, because they think that this is right thing to do. Afterall, Microsoft is a giant and if you blame them or bash them you will not feel guilty, because they are making lots of money.
The fact is that, Windows is a nice OS. It is not perfect, but still it is better in productivity increase for many of the people.
The only reason I like Linux is because I can change it, I can play with it, I can write my programs easily, test them, do whatever I want. I can’t do that in Windows.
But when it comes to enjoying the computer and the internet, doing things like taking pictures, videos, video conference, games, preparing presentations, writing reports, windows is the number one for me. Sure I can do some of these things in linux too, but it is a pain in the ass, and can’t compare the experience with windows experience. Take Internet Explorer as an example. I didn’t see any browser which gave me a better experience yet. Opera came close to it, but it doesn’t support some of the things yet fully. Mozilla started to look good, but there are such things like full Javascript, DHTML support which is still not there yet.
Overall I believe. Windows is the best so far, even when I compare it with Mac Os X.
I like Linux a lot, and I wish one day it will catch up with Windows on many issues, but until then I had to tell the truth, Windows is better than anything else out there.
I built hundreds of computers, people just turn them on and they work. Kudos for trying to install an OS and the first place.
And He’s to Poor to Aford a Mac (like most OS News Readers)
😛
Couple of comments here.
1) You have to choose between Windows distros too (Windows ME or 2000 or XP Home or Pro, etc.) Which is the right one? (The answer is NOT ME!)
2) Mandrake is the absolute hardest Linux distro to work with. They like to claim to be easy to use but I have used them, Red Hat, Suse, Caldera, Storm and others and find them to be by far the hardest to get working.
3) Windows makes you choose a root password. If you don’t choose, it sets to NULL. Many Linux distros will do the same thing. It is dumb on Linux just like it is on Windows. But you can do it – at your own risk.
4a) Windows makes you choose the filesystem as well. FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS are your choices. The differences, most Linux options are pretty good choices. Different, but not that important for the home user. On Windows – only NTFS is any good.
4b) Windows, by default, does a pretty crappy job of setting up your drive (one big dumb partition – good way to loose data and performance.) Most Linux distros (all the ones we are talking about) do a much better job of using your hard drive efficiently by default.
5) Microsoft brings out updates for its current OSs (NOT Win95) every couple of days – just like your distro does. The difference is that you just never updated your Windows. The updating process is much easier in Linux (SuSE at least) and updates much more than just your base OS like Windows does. SuSE updates all of the installed packages (which can be as many as 2000 seperate applications – like GIMP, KDE, etc.)
6) Without updating, Linux will run great forever without being online as well. Start putting any old system online and you are going to be vulnerable (moreso than usual) to all the dangerous things out there. I guarantee your Linux box will last longer at better performance than any Win95 box.
Many of the problems that you found here are from a very unriendly installation (Mandrake) and I urge you to try a popular and more friendly one like Red Hat or SuSE where they take their customers seriously. Mandrake is a black eye to the open source industry. Also, you should compare Linux as a serious network operating system against other competitive products like Windows 2000 Pro and XP Pro (at $300 each) which have almost all of the same “problems” that you found here.
What does make Windows easier (sometimes) is that all decisions are made for you. That is good for the one hour of installation time. But this is your computer. Don’t you want it to do what is best for YOU? Not just for the average web surfer. Take the time to set up Linux correctly and the system is customized for you. Take a long time with Windows and it pretty much all ends of the same.
– Scott Alan Miller, Linux User since 1998, MCSE+I
I agree with the Mr. Gering. For the average user, the Linux OS just doesn’t cut it. I hate MS as much as the next computer geek. It is mostly because of their business practices, than it is their unreliable technology.
I have tried installing Mandrake on 2 different computers, a desktop and laptop. Something always came up, my modem didn’t work, my cd drives didn’t work, sound card, etc. etc. I even managed to crash Mandrake 3 times in one day. Then I tried Lycoris, first it couldn’t detect my video card, and when I figured that out, it couldn’t partition my hard drive.
I’ve built my own computers, I understand the concepts of partioning hard drives, dual booting and stuff that an above average computer user should know. Yet I couldn’t figure Linux out.
In short, if you’re a novice that doesn’t want to deal with Microsoft, your best bet is to go with Apple. Then you’re stuck with outrageous hardware prices and a very limited software selection.
So to the average computer user that wants a change, I say you’re screwed.
Good article! I think that even if we disagree with some of his points, they’re still what a Linux newbie would think. These “false” opinions are nevertheless what is important to focus on, if we want useful computers for normal people.
This guy is a cow — he just wants someone to put him in a field, so that he can eat the grass, poop wherever he wants to and not have to worry about anything.
Until Microsoft “the butcher” comes calling…
You’ve been using Windows and developing software for it all these years since Windows 3.1, and now you hate it? Why? It doesn’t sound right.
Actually, I had a very similar experience. I started using Windows prior to 3.1. I was also one of the people that went to Computer City at 12:01am the day Windows 95 was released so I could be one of the first to buy it (mainly because I was hoping for something better than Windows 3.1). I even remember making fun of my wife’s friend for liking UNIX. In spite of my Microsoft loyalty, I never did like my first OS, DOS, and there were a lot of things about Windows that I hated too.
Once I overcame my initial fear of Linux, and actually installed it, I learned quickly to love UNIX and my distaste for Windows grew exponentially. Today, I always feel crippled by Windows whenever I have to use it. Now I don’t use it at all; except for at work. All of my home machines are Linux or BSD.
I can totally understand the authors feelings towards Windows.
I’ve tried SuSE, RedHat, Caldera, Lycoris, Mandrake…all within the last year or so…
In my opinion, on the deskop, they BLOW CHUNKS compared with Windows XP…which I purchased for an *OUTLANDISH* sum of $99, and which installed flawlessly, and which has crashed once since November, 2001, trying to install a four-year-old game.
I don’t have time nor the typing speed regurgitate the litanny of reasons why MS OS’s put Linux to shame on the desktop. Besides, such things are clearly evident to anybody who doesn’t still live in their parent’s basement, and actually has to interact with the world of business.
On the server, it’s a different story altogether. But this article isn’t about that.
Begone!
The fact of the matter is that there is no truly amazingly perfect OS out there.
Like the author of the original post, I too was very frustrated with Windows9X, mainly with the poor stability and command-line interface (DOS mangling long windows9X filenames). Adding to my frustration, Win98SE was much more unstable than Win95b, but brought with it increasingly necessary USB capability; the unfortunate Windows Me users I’ve met say that Win Me was even more flaky than Win98SE. WinXP might solve the stability problem, but it brings with it draconian registration issues due to Microsoft’s hardware ID scheme, yet more expense, and, I believe, no more command line at all.
I tried BeOS and loved everything about it – until I found a browser unable to deal with JavaScript and other advances in Web design, no major apps except Gobe Productive, and very limited hardware support, all of which issues were worsening by the month due to Be Inc having switched their interest to BeIA.
I tried Linux several times over the last two and a half years. My experience with most of the distro’s I tried early in that period was that while the Linux kernel itself was rock solid, everything else could and did crash, lock up, misbehave, or plain not work. Just like Win9x, only harder to configure, uglier GUI’s and widgets, and less software choice. (sometimes seemingly trivial things crashed some Linux distros – I crashed TurboLinux 4 by changing the background color of my desktop; I crashed Caldera 2.3 by replacing the mouse when my old one died.
When Mandrake 8.1 arrived, I finally found a Linux distribution, that IMHO “sucks less” than Win9x. It’s still riddled with lots of unstable or buggy or just unuseable software (has anyone ever really used some of those hideously garish Gnome themes included with LM 8.x??). I have broken LM 8.1 and LM 8.2 installs simply by adding a printer after the install and running PrinterDrake; I have broken the XFree configuration simply by trying to change the screen resolution. And Mandrake’s Internet Connection Wizard created my dial-up internet connection, then promptly crashed, leaving me struggling to create a manual configuration. I own a number of Linux books, each of which has a section on manually setting up a modem – unfortunately none of them worked, as the Mandrake wizard had corrupted something when it crashed. (I finally did get a working config, using an article in Linux Journal magazine).
But among this ugly mess, there were good things beginnng to show. There was Galeon, Evolution, OpenOffice, Mozilla, cdrecord – good apps that work, every time, and some of them finally look as good and are as easy to configure and use as their WinXX counterparts.
So that’s why I use Linux – because, though it sucks, it sucks less than Windows, and because it is rapidly becoming better and better. In the next couple of years I expect Linux will become clearly better than Windows in almost every aspect, though guessing the future is always error-prone.
My suggestion? Find what “sucks less” for you, and use it.
-Jules Verne
In case I gave the wrong impression with my title…
I am NOT a fan of Windows (NT 4 SP6a is still my favorite.)
But I think that Windows NT, 2000 and XP do have their place and may be the right choice for some people – many even – for now.
I think that MacOS X is coming along but still not a good choice. It’s silly cluttered and impossible to understand interface are out of control. It is pretty rare to find someone who switches from anything TO Mac but common to find them switching away (even with the Mac Switch campaign now.) Sure it happens. But not often. At least MacOS X has a good OS underneath and just ridiculous graphics on top. Probably the worst thing is the expensive and poor hardware. People always rave about Mac hardware but what does it have? The processor architecture is dated and expensive. The memory architecture is expensive. The drives are no longer SCSI. So what does it have except higher cost and less options. (I have a friend who bought a new Mac recently and couldn’t get it to work at all. And since it was a Mac – no one could figure out how to work on the problems. They were so burried that he was just screwed.)
I do believe that Linux is the best choice of these three right now for the average user. Sure, it takes some switching to get used to it after using something else for years – but that is just the adjustment curve. Some things are a million times easier than they are on either Windows or MacOS and somethings are a million times harder. But with choice and power comes advantage to the educated user. And using system like this push the consumer to become educated. MacOS actually encourages their users to lose their abilities to use a computer and understand what is happening under the hood. Computers are like your car or your health. If you don’t take the time to be involved, you are going to pay too much to have your car serviced or have a doctor prescribing unrelated treatments. Because it is your computer, you have the most experience with it and know it best. Get to know it. It can be your best friend. Treat it that way!
Every system has problems eventually. Ever try to fix a serious problem in any of these OSes? Wait until you do. That will make a Linux believer out of you. Most Mac and Windows users just throw out their computers instead of dealing with it. I see this happen all of the time.
P.S. You hear how hard it is getting patches and everything for Linux. Whatever. Anyone familiar with the Windows NT service packs? Remember how every piece of software needed a different SP and you had to reinstall the packs after some components were added to the computer. That was out of control.
Wilhelm,
“P.S. Writing well is skill like any other. Just because the author is not the most skilled of writers doesn’t mean that his observations are not meaningful”
This is true, and I feel I should clarify my earlier remark. Correct: the quality of one’s writing is not in and of itself a sign that the observation itself is good or bad. However, anyone who’s had to look through CV’s will tell you: it’s one hell of a barometer.
Come on, he didn’t even spell his side-interest properly (catooning?). I didn’t mean to suggest he was incapable of spelling, however I am suggesting that such bold carelessness only detracts from what he’s saying. The fact that what he’s saying is poorly explained and could use a lot more detail/qualification is another issue.
I have a 98SE machine that i use for my main machine, and have mandrake 8.2 runniong on my other machine as a web and ftp server.
The big issue in this argument is the desire for an OS to be able to handle everything, and it isn’t an unreasonable request, IMO. Windows is easy to use, software is available, and it is easy to configure. It also happens to be a gigantic bloated memory hog that is just barely this side of usable. For networking, forget it. When i visit FTP sites, i can tell which ones are running on windows because my connections stall, get dropped or just come down the pipe at a glacial pace.
*nix is better for servers, but the basic skeleton of the thing is not really designed for desktop use as the modern computing public has come to know it. It is difficult to use. If you are into actually learning something about how computers work, setting up a *nix machine and getting it to do what you want to do is a wonderful experrience.
Each has their place, and can perform its function reasonably well. If *nix were to get more unified in the distribution, support, etc, it would be clearly superior in a very short time.
Keep plugging away open source folks.
I also used BeOS to escape from Windows. Nothing I ever used has been simpler (and we have both Macs and Linux boxes at college).
I don’t like the implementation of X on Linux, and neither the BSD/NeXT hybrid in OS X, so I guess I will have to wait until OpenBeOS R1 until I can break free from Windows again.
I also commend you for trying Linux. It is the way it is because it is open source software. When you use almost any distribution of Linux, these frequent updates are part of the whole experience. If you have not updated since Windows 95, it sounds like you really don’t like updating – in fact, you said you just want a nice stable system you can count on. You can get that with Linux, but it is a different way of going about it. It sounds like you don’t want the operating system to get in the way or, at least, that you don’t want to have to fool around with it.
Having said that, depending on the age of your hardware and how much RAM you have, I can recommend Windows XP – even XP Home Edition, but Pro is best. It is very stable and is fun to use.
I can also recommend Macintosh. If you think of getting a Mac, the eMac is Apple’s best deal – it hits the price point closer than anything else. It is a good, solid computer.
As for Linux, I think Lycoris is the best of the “easy” distributions. It is very inexpensive and offers a good user experience. They are expanding their online software download site and have a very friendly community website. One thing about Linux – there is all this updating that people like us here do, but you do not *have* to do that if you have a system set up the way you want it. You would have to watch out down the road – you might have to update because programs you want to install require a newer version of certain parts of Linux. But, that is also true of Windows and Mac in some cases. So, as things stand now, if you want something off the shelf that is the definitive version of an operating system, I would go with Windows XP or Mac (and get an eMac). From what you said, I don’t think Linux may be for you t this point.
Ok, Mandrake, Redhat, Suse, Lycoris are easy to use and to set up, just like Windows.
Yet, if you have 6 years of experience dealing with all the different flavors of Windows, and absolutely none dealing with Linux, you will offcourse have less trouble with Windows.
Set your mind to it. Say to yourself that you are going to use Linux for atleast 6 months, and erase windows from your disk.
You want that new feature? You need the new updated software.
Is your PC slowing down? Upgrade the hardware.
Until you switch to a new OS. And the new OS is not compatible with your old hardware. You probably got it together with you new hardware.
Then the other software you ran for years without a problem now doesn’t work anymore.
So you have to upgrade that too. Which is not compatible with the old versions, so everybody you interact with is forced to go through software updates…
That require hardware updates….
So what are your options:
> If you step out of the circle and stick to what you got. Well, I can still surf the internet with IE4. But wouldn it be nice to do some internet banking? Then my bank requires that I use IE5.5, how well does that do on a PII? And when the security from IE5.5 falls apart, my bank will switch to something else again.
> switch to another OS? Well, you can get away from MS, but can you get away from the continuous cycle of software and hardware upgrades?
It a vicious circle. Microsoft just knows how to use it.
I believe you have accurately captured the sentiments of a lot of people. There is definitely a need for improvement in order to make Linux more mainstream.
But all the same, I can’t resist:
> Which was is the best one? Which one is the most
> stable? Which one is fastest? I don’t want to make
> that choice. I had to stop and do some research online
> to find out which one I wanted to use. I never had to
> do that with Windows. What if I picked the wrong one?
I don’t remember when Bell Telephone first came out with beige telephones or Ford came out with colored cars, but I’m sure consumers felt the same anguish.
I completely agree with all of your comments about Linux. I’ve been a developer for over 12 years and still find that Windows (for all of its problems) does things beter than Linux. What are those “things” ?
o Program installation – I love installing RPM’s but not
all programs come with an RPM. What’s more, AFTER the
program is installed, where does a “link” to it go? You
have to search through your hard drive for the program
(if you know its name) and then create a link for it.
Any “good” Windows installation would do this for you.
o Network neighborhood – If you’re all alone then this
isn’t a problem, but have you tried to get Samba to work
with many and various networks in a company without any
PRIOR knowledge of those networks? The browsing in
Network Neighborhood is WONDERFUL. I have used
LinNeighborhood before, and it’s good, but you, again,
have to have prior knowledge of where you’re going in
order to get there.
o Complicated programs are easier to install. I know that
not everyone installs Oracle, but the Windows version of
the installer does practically everything for you. If
you install it on Linux you must set environment
variables, create users with certain privileges, make
sure you have the “groups” set up right. All of this
must be done BEFORE you can install Oracle. With
the Windows installation NONE of this needs to be done.
o Provides more program options. I’m not talking about the
setup of a program, but rather that there are many more
competitive programs out for Windows than there is for
Linux. I know that problem is rapidly changing, but
just look on SourceForge at how many different program
types there are. Most are aimed at “server” type
programs or “web” type programs (run in a browser).
There are just not A LOT of good “user” programs out
there.
I will try different distros of Linux to see how they
differ, but I again and again come back to Windows. It’s
the only alternative that REALLY works for me.
>>1) You have to choose between Windows distros too (Windows ME or 2000 or XP Home or Pro, etc.) Which is the right one? (The answer is NOT ME!)<<
Really your only choice is between XP home and Pro, thats the current versions far as home use. Those who compair choosing between win 95 98 ME 2k XP… and choosing between Mandrake , suses, slackware, bubbassuperlinux, whatever are missing the point. There is only the 2 current versions of windows those pre XP are outdated, (yes 2k is still in use for sever reasons but it’s still a outdate version) People’s windows choice is only between home and pro and if they don’t know the differance they will just buy home. Differant distros of the same kernel is a much differant choice and everyone has a differant opionion and will result in the person just picking one and hoping for the best.
Fat16 hasn’t been a file system option in a long time. Also in XP yes you have to choose, unless you have a 30gig plus partion and it defaults to NTFS. But the installer gives you insight on what each is, most people would just pick on or the sugested one and go with it.
Windows sets up drives better than linux. One nice partion you can keap track of. Linux has to much of a habit of doing it’s own thing with partioning and nuking your other partions. Most smart people or people who have ever had windows crap out learned to make two partions, one for the OS and apps and another for Data, thus eliminating most all worries.
The big thing that windows excels at on the install is it’s asking very few things, just things like the time and date, time zone, name, password if you like and now maybe setting up network. But thats optional. A new user can sit back and do nothing. Then when it’s installed that have a working system and can go in and get things changed or working if it didn’t happen in the install. During the install people don’t want to be making all sorts of configuration choices. They want to get it up and working then mess with stuff. Choosing Gnome vs KDE on the install is nuts, a user doesn’t know anything about them. The just want to get it working. People don’t want to configure anything. Onces the computer is up and they can go online and look at what they can do they might get playing around with the system. If your one with two computers online and can be looking up stuff about the options infront of them thats great but most people don’t have this. They find them selves having to make a choice right there with no background. This is were people panic , kill the install. Reboot windows look at more info , then try installing again. Get through that option then have the same problem on the next option. There shouldn’t be options on the install!!! Just info to fill in like times and passwords. Let the person know they can even get linux working on their machine first. Then go into messing with it. Let them default to KDE and start to think it sucks and look for other options and find gnome, or any other kind of thing. When I install an OS i don’t care about getting online or what options i choice or anything. Priority is getting it installed and running.
What if I picked the wrong one?
I bought an iMac back in March. I got my answer to the above question rather harshly. I also learned that it’s only the “wrong one” if I don’t make myself compatible with it. By the time I realized the Mac just wasn’t for me, I had already wasted too many pay checks on it.
I think it’s easier to recover from a bad Linux experience, you’re not buying anything new, no money is wasted, but some people would value their time more than money.
Where I work, I had a chioce of HPUX, Linux, or NT with a terminal connected to an HPUX box. I chose Linux, and I have to say that I love it – the freedom that I get to change every aspect of my box to my liking and the amazing set of tools.
That being said, desktop Linux still has a ways to go before it beats out any desktop Windows or Mac. In order for Linux to be firmly seated on the desktop it has to better – much better – than what is currently offered. Most home users are not going to drop their Windows desktops and a good deal of their current Windows applications to go over to something that is just as good.
I have tried Redhat NULL and in many ways it is much better than Windows in that it is simple and does not offer too many options up front (the Windows Control Center is a mess compared to the Redhat Control Center). Redhat NULL is still not, at least for the desktop user, a huge improvement over what is currently out there. I could see it becoming the defacto in places that want a strong set of tools packaged with a nice interface – Dreamworks, Disney, etc.
Give it a few more months, though. The last 6 months have seen amazing improvements in the overall interface of the free desktop projects. I could see it really catching on when more serious eye-candy is introduced (for example – real transparency).
I am always amazed with the stereotypes that many wintel users (me included) have for Apple. We often use the “cost of computers”, the “limited hardware”, or “lack of software” and the “Apple will be going out of business…” that’s my favorite.
I am a current wintel user, I know what you have been dealing with. I enjoyed, over the years, telling the same above stereotype stories. However one day I was forced to use a Mac (another story another day) and found that having more control on the hardware and software has its advantages.
I also found that many of the stereotypes are not as big as we make them.
– I spend more for a wintel than a Mac (not by much).
– Upgrading becomes more of a hassle for my wintels and when you get in the “upgrading game” where do you stop and at what cost (not just dollars but software and firmware conflicts). Many of the upgrading experiences cost half if not more than what a new computer will cost.
– Out side of a solid CAD application, most of my computer needs are now being handle by Macs. In fact Macs handle them a lot better then my wintels. By the way, you can get solid CAD application for the Mac.
Maybe you should try a Mac with the same intensity as you tried Linux. I did, and boy what a difference my “end user” computer experiences as been.
Should I charge Apple for this switcher story? Well I am not a switcher…
W
http://www.apple.com/switch/
Scott Alan Miller: MacOS X is coming along but still not a good choice. Its silly cluttered and impossible to understand interface are out of control . . . I do believe that Linux is the best choice of these three right now for the average user.
And black is white and night is day. I know some people don’t like Aqua, but I’ve never heard anyone say it’s “impossible to understand” before. If that’s your experience of OS X, I respectfully submit that you are not representative of the average user.
As for Linux for the average user . . . most Linux advocates will admit that Linux is not as easy as Windows, which itself doesn’t win any prizes for usability.
More from Mr. Miller: Ever try to fix a serious problem in any of these OSes? Wait until you do. That will make a Linux believer out of you. Most Mac and Windows users just throw out their computers instead of dealing with it.
Really? Who does this?
Gering brings up some important issues about ease of use that the Linux advocates here are too quick to dismiss, but I think he shouldn’t have written off Macintosh before considering it further. If you want stability and usability, Mac OS X is an obvious choice.
As for the FUD about Mac hardware, the most polite thing I can say about it is that it is grossly exaggerated.
I’ve used 95 – crashed too often
I’ve used 98 – crashed even more often
I’ve used 98se – a bit more stable, but still crashed and still virus prone without a number of third party utilities at a premium price.
I’ve used 2000 pro – ACPI is buggy as hell and half my scsi equipment no longer worked correctly with it.
I’ve used XP Home – and it would not allow me to install my office suite without first drawing files off the XP disk which was not provided due to Microsofts and Compaqs attempt to curtail pirating.
I’ve used Caldera OpenLinux 2.4 – wouldn’t recognize my sound card or my nVidia card
I’ve used Mandrake 8.0 – wouldn’t recognize my nVidia card, no automount, and the update feature hosed my install after updating all available packages.
I’ve used Mandrake 8.1 – again no automount and it still hosed my install after updating all available packages.
I still use Mandrake 8.2 – automounts, recognizes my sound card, my video card, my network card, etc. I just don’t try to update the available packages and just wait until the next version comes out (usually about 6 months or so) before upgrading.
As you can see, there are no perfect OSes out there. Sure there are a few Linux and Mac freaks out there that try to convince you that there are perfect distros out there, but it’s all relative. Use what you’re comfortable with and take a chance every once in a while. All you’ve got to loose is a few minutes of your time, but the rewards can be limitless.
I’m not sure what you mean by “outrageous hardware prices” for the Mac. When you buy a mac, you aren’t just buying hardware. You’re getting a lot of software. So I think you need to say that the price of the hardware, OS and included software is outrageous, if you can establish that.
Also, used Macs are a very viable option for people sick of windows and MS. Buy a Blue & White G3 (a few hundred at best) and add a G4 card, load it up with a gig of PC100 RAM (literally 100 bucks these days) and a new fast hard drive (maybe an IDE card). Through in a Radeon 7000 and you can even run Quartz Extreme (with a hack)
That’s what I have and it runs OS X beautifully, including stuff like iPhoto. In fact, it ran great before the G4 and full gig of RAM (except maybe iPhoto when looking at the thumbnails of all photos in the library).
Someone early on asked what distribution he was asking what distribution he could be using that made him mount cdrom, floppy and windows hard drives. The truth is some, even “newbie” ones required it as little as a year ago. I used to use mandrake 8.1, and it required me to mount everything manually, when I got tired of that I dug around a little and set up desktop shortcuts myself.
Of course this is an example of how mandrake, a newbie distro, can be hard to use. Which is a point someone else made. It also didn’t integrate wine or the zip program properly. Meaning I had to open the zip program then open the file. And no windows applications ran. Which is why I’m looking to try a new distro (most likely suse, ’cause I’ve tried debian and the install was a little tougher then it should be).
Win98SE was much more unstable than Win95b
Don’t think so, anyway a lot of people still prefer 98se over xp or even 2000, many hardcore gamers still tolerate the blue screen of death simply because they can get 5 extra frames per sec. on their 3d game, It also uses less ram and cpu than xp.
I understand Robert’s point.
Your desires and expectations are largely consistent with most users. That is, for the PC to behave and need maintenance in a manner similar to any appliance. My desktop PC primarily a tool used for work and occasional entertainment. It isn’t based on social commentary. Most people are familiar and comfortable with Windows. Whether the like it or hate it, they can use it to get work done.
I began working with Linux on Red Hat 5.1 as a server. Linux has proven itself as that. I still find using Linux on the desktop an experience akin to doing my own taxes (updates, choices, etc). While I may make it work successfully, was it worth the aggravation.
Too many choices?
Having choices available to us is the best thing going in the computer industry today. Just hope that no one company ever rules the entire computer world. We’d be at their mercy, and it’s not likely that the outcome of such a monopoly would be good for computer users.
Experiment heavily with all the various platforms available to you then decide which one(s) to stick with. After having played around for years with various Windows systems, I dumped WinXP, and spent lots of time in BeOS, Redhat, SuSE, Mandrake, and now Slackware.
Computer users that understand and stick to only OS could find themselves somewhat handicapped, and at a severe disadvantage in the future. It’s good to keep some options open, and it can’t hurt any of us to expand on our technical knowledge a bit.
Do it, and you’ll be glad you did.
Besides, such things are clearly evident to anybody who doesn’t still live in their parent’s basement, and actually has to interact with the world of business.
I disagree with you. I am a working professional who interacts daily with software developers, business contacts, potential employees, and a slew of other business titles and customer types. What do I use when I want to get something done? Linux. Also, perhaps of some interest to you, I’ve owned my own place for eleven years and my parents don’t live anywhere in sight.
While my typing speed and patience are sufficient to provide an incantatory recital of the myriad technologies and abilities which make Linux a superior platform (desktop or otherwise) for me, I franlky doubt that it is within most users knowledge or experience to comprehend; therefore I will refrain from doing so.
I liked the article and agree with the frustration and hatred the author feels towards Windows; as I have experienced it myself. If it were me, I would dump Windows in a heartbeat and use only Linux; which I have done. I, on the other hand, have no idea what the rest of you would do.
I’ve used MS products since DOS 5, and am now running Windows XP. I use a mac with OSX at work and I realized how flawed my judgement about Macs & PCs have been all along. I just never tried any options, now I realize how truly atrocious Microsoft products are. From now on its only OSX and Redhat for me. (as soon as I can afford one of those darn macs…)
Eugenia, what haven’t you moderated the halfwitt who calls himself desktop_dope? I’ve see smaller drips coming out of the most drippy tap in my house.
The only people who complaint are those who have close minds and unwilling to learn. I guess desktop_dope is one of those so-called “movers and shakers”, yeah, more likely in his parents basement, the same ones who can’t run companies to save themselves, yet, get the job because they’re some wet behind the ear MCSE/BSA wizz kid with no real life eXPerience.
SuSE is IMO the best distribution for Linux, especially 8.1 which will ship on October 7th. It is much ebtter than Redhat 7.3 and a lot better than Mandrake 9.0 RC 2 which is the latest I’v etried. I ahven’t tried Redhat Nussance. Or null wahtever it’s called.
matthew gardiner writes:
//Eugenia, what haven’t you moderated the halfwitt who calls himself desktop_dope? I’ve see smaller drips coming out of the most drippy tap in my house.//
Maybe because he:
1. Knows how to spell “halfwit,” because he can properly read/write/speak the King’s english, unlike you convicts in Australia (unless you’re surfing proxy).
2. Actually speaks truth, unlike you lamers who can’t contribute to the topic at hand.
3. Doesn’t live in his parent’s basement, because it’s 485 miles away…and his wife, twin daughters, and two dogs would find it a bit confining, unlike your lonely self.
4. Likes OSNews to help blow off steam between his working full time as a web services administrator for a mixed environment of Solaris/Linux/W2K webservers, and his half-ownership in an email marketing firm specializing in Lyris listserv management for Division I schools.
5. Never has had an MCSA/MCSE/BSA/CCNA/A+ or any other kind of worthless paper…but knows his shi*%..
6. Properly feels that Linux on the desktop is pointless drivel. Much like the water from the faucets you obviously are too stupid to learn how to fix. (hint: monkey wrench, plumber’s tape, rubber gasket, screwdriver. You take it from there, or RTFM).
Begone!
I did not get it right…
you where so happy with BeOS, but dropped it, becouse of bezilla? so simply install the latest mozilla port and be happy again!
It always depends on your personal needs: what is an OS good for? what aplications do I need?
the answer to this question will bring you to the right OS.
(and I dont think it will be linux in your case..)
PS: for me its AmigaOS or MorphOS
)
Looks like this is a hot topic. I should write an article about how much I HATE LINUX, even it’s one of my favorite OSes and see how people react. 😉
“you where so happy with BeOS, but dropped it, becouse of bezilla? so simply install the latest mozilla port and be happy again! ”
Have you actually ever “tried” Mozilla, Bezilla or Stripzilla? The word “suck” doesn’t beging to describe them. Stability isn’t just an issue. It’s simply non-existant.
Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE BeOS. I wish that Be had been able to make BeOS a successful OS, get hardware and software developers on board etc…. But there is not ONE feature rich browser available for BeOS that is anywhere near as stable as the best on Linux or Windows. A shame but true.
Satori.
Comments involving having the cow, as in the case of MacOS, does not exist in the BeOS vocubalary. Obos project is proving and has proven the contuniation of the BeOS ideals is very possible. It also proves the technology is very viable, the engineering is solid.
To put it in the best way: BeOS(and invariably OBOS), possesses the ability to have the Networking of UNIX, the 3d graphics of IRIX, The superior audio of the Amiga Operating System, The ease and familiarity thought only to be found in windows, and mac OS, a liscensing similar to the MIT/BSD lisceses, the commercial packaging appeal of 300 dollar OS suites with the bundling of either non- beos community centered efforts like OpenOffice, or with more BeOS community efforts like the GoBe Productive 3 dual liscense schedule.
Additionally, I think it’s tougher and cooler anyhow. I didn’t used to use it— I’ve been a user since 1998. There is a bright future in all environments and markets. I still use it.
Well, to put my experience with Win2k and OS2 out there…
Using the latest flat panel iMac in the Apple store, I could NOT stand it. Using Photoshop on their latest hardware was like scratching my eyes out with very little in the way of performance. To say load times were pathetic would be FAR too kind.
My home machine, a dual PIII 500 running on a motherboard dating back to 1997 ( as printed on the board ) was considerably faster. It just seems to move out of its own way. That isn’t to say it’s a speed demon, but it is definitely faster in every way to what I dealt with in the store.
On a whim, I checked software titles. Having recently upgraded to Photoshop 7 for 150$ I was stunned to see the same product for Mac in the store, at 250$. In general, MOST, if not all, the software titles were more expensive for the Mac. Warcraft III was ~60$ which seemed to be the going rate ( overpriced, but the going rate ).
So the question becomes, do I spend MORE money to buy a brand new Mac, with more expensive software, and less performance? I don’t see why.
I could try any number of Linux distros, and keep bouncing around because I can’t find any I like. I inevitably find things that annoy me to no end.
So, I run FreeBSD. It does most of what I want to do. What little it won’t do, it can either emulate or I boot into Win2k to do so. More importantly, to ME, I find things to be more sane and organized. This may not be as much of an issue as the different distros start to become more and more standardized.
It is all subjective. Some things “feel” better than others. I don’t much care for Windows. I would prefer to do without it. However, Adobe does not support Linux. Newtek also does not support Linux. Although both support Windows and Mac. So, what’s the bottom line? I can either run Windows, or Mac ( with all the brutal lack of speed ), or I can do without Photoshop and Lightwave.
Your mileage will obviously vary as my hardware is in no way typical. We’re talking P2 era board running almost a Gb of RAM and server class discs. However, to me, NEW hardware should be able to match the speed of 5 year old hardware. I make no excuses for that requirement. But I will admit it IS entirely a subjective issue.
Lots of lost points for sloppy writing. VERY sloppy.
Anyway… I still use BeOS 90% of the time (for anything other than Audio/Graphics work).
OS X, not 2. I tried that one a while ago too!
One of those nights I guess….
BeOS was nice but was only a desktop single-user O.S. Linux is a server O.S. that can be used also as a desktop O.S. Complexity is natural. Try to use a Windows 2000 Server on your home PC and you will be asked for things like http server, telnet server, terminal server, etc.
But linux is fascinating because you can learn networks, Unix, C, Perl, PHP, etc by free.
My contention is that if you use Win2k or WinXP and have frequent (or even infrequent for that matter) system crashes, you either:
1) Have shitty hardware
2) Have shitty drivers
3) Have some sort of virus/spyware that is reaking havoc on your system.
I have been on the 2k kernel for over 2 years and I have have had NO stability problems … zero … NONE.
I mean, even if you hate Windows, you have to admit that the latter versions have become pretty stable, and to say things like “Windows crashes all the time” is about as factual as saying “Modern Linux distros are still hard to install.”
//Eugenia, what haven’t you moderated the halfwitt who calls himself desktop_dope? I’ve see smaller drips coming out of the most drippy tap in my house.//
Maybe because he:
1. Knows how to spell “halfwit,” because he can properly read/write/speak the King’s english, unlike you convicts in Australia (unless you’re surfing proxy).
— I’m not Australian. You know, unlike Americans, people do actually move overseas. You should try it, or are you part of the 93% of yanks without a passport? As for the comment regarding “Kings English”, that has nothing to do with spelling, it is the execution of pronounciation.
2. Actually speaks truth, unlike you lamers who can’t contribute to the topic at hand.
— Or you who jumps onto osnews.com to whindge and cry like a sheilla because you can’t follow basic instructions.
3. Doesn’t live in his parent’s basement, because it’s 485 miles away…and his wife, twin daughters, and two dogs would find it a bit confining, unlike your lonely self.
— 5 Bedroom house + 1 study, pool room etc etc, as you can see, it is a fairly large house.
4. Likes OSNews to help blow off steam between his working full time as a web services administrator for a mixed environment of Solaris/Linux/W2K webservers, and his half-ownership in an email marketing firm specializing in Lyris listserv management for Division I schools.
— Thats humourous. Honestly, do yourself a favour and stick with Windows, otherwise you may find a function for that extra brain cell that is not already dead due to lack of use when trying to write a response to my original post.
5. Never has had an MCSA/MCSE/BSA/CCNA/A+ or any other kind of worthless paper…but knows his shi*%..
— Like “lets squeeze more performance by over clocking” and other wives tails. When you have a BSc, then come back and we’ll have a discussion.
6. Properly feels that Linux on the desktop is pointless drivel. Much like the water from the faucets you obviously are too stupid to learn how to fix. (hint: monkey wrench, plumber’s tape, rubber gasket, screwdriver. You take it from there, or RTFM).
— Already fixed it, and unlike you, I didn’t feel need to boast about it, unlike you who thinks you are the only person on earth who uses a computer.
Warcraft III was ~60$ which seemed to be the going rate ( overpriced, but the going rate ).
Funny you would use this as an example of overpriced Mac software. You can install and play Warcraft 3 on a PC or Mac using the very same CD-ROM 🙂
I run Windows 2K 24/7 running the SETI client, so CPU is always in full load. It stays on weeks on end, even with me jumping in every day to use it for web surfing, gaming, 3D modeling. Seriously, with the right hardware and drivers combo, and stay away from potentially malicious software Windows can be really stable and usable. Problem is not many people know how to reach that golden mark. That’s why some of us design and build our own PC’s and we have sites like Tom’s Hardware Guide to tell us what sucks and what’s good.
Life is work, get used to it. You make the decision once, and you never have to do it again. A day spent choosing good software earns you dozens in gained productivity. You people represent everything that is wrong with this world. Software is important. People interact with it for hours a day. If you’re willing to give you choice for something like that, what next?
1. Knows how to spell “halfwit,” because he can properly read/write/speak the King’s english…
Well then, perhaps the Desktop_Dope should be moderated down because he CAN’T spell “litany” and doesn’t realize that his use of the word “litany” is redundant with his simultaneous use of the word “regurgitate”.
3. Doesn’t live in his parent’s basement, because it’s 485 miles away…and his wife, twin daughters, and two dogs would find it a bit confining, unlike your lonely self.
And maybe we should leave the Desktop_Dope’s comments here because he can obviously read minds and using stink vision can actually see into our parent’s basements (get that out of your hand!)
I am a happy linux user for 6 years, and I think it is advanced and scalable operating system. However, I use ( and used ) Microsoft operating systems since I bought my first PC. Windows is an excellent operating system, as well as other microsoft products. I have tried BeOS, QNX, and other operating systems and I discovered that they are waste of time. Don’t forget that the latest greatest hardware and software will run on Windows, and if you spend a descent amount of money for a good hardware Windows will run fine (specially 2000/XP). In other words you buy a crap PC you will get crap performance.
–Georgios
Some sort of quinkydink happened to my name. Ouch.
BeOS doesn’t run very well on my latest hardware, but I loved it when I used it — except for the lack of apps.
E-smith Linux has been running my servers for ages, without failure and without complexity.
MacOS (9 and X) won’t enter my house because, while they’re at least as good as Windows, the hardware is significantly more expensive — not a good value.
Windows 98…um, forget I mentioned it.
Windows 2000 is running on my wife’s laptop, and she likes it — except for the spyware cleanups, antivirus updates, and popup windows (I haven’t convinced her to use Mozilla yet).
This brings us to my personal computer. It has three hard drives, and every week or two, I flip between the following:
Windows 2000
Lycoris Desktop/LX
BeOS 5 Pro
RedHat 7.x
That’s why I love choice. When I’m bulk-ripping CDs, I use BeOS. When I’m editing video, I use Windows 2000. When I’m feeling curious, I use the latest RedHat. When I’m doing day-to-day activity (like surfing or administrating servers) I use Lycoris.
That said, I turned away from Mac due to the low value/expense ratio. As Windows gets more expensive, and the license terms get less friendly, and the 3rd party software (antivirus, spyware removal) gets more expensive, the value/expense ratio for windows will drop…and meanwhile, the value/expense ratio for Linux will rise (it’s already better than Mac OSX for me personally).
Remember, folks, it’s not about love or hate — it’s about having the ability to choose the tool that works for you, and the ability to grab another tool when it stops working. The economically rational action is to keep your mind open to all comers, evaluate them on a regular basis, and jump ship when you can get added value elsewhere.
When Apple fights to make their value/expense ratio higher than Microsoft, and Linux tries to beat both, and new projects like OBOS plan for future attacks, we as consumers all win.
If the file formats are all compatible, at least.
My contention is that if you use Win2k or WinXP and have frequent (or even infrequent for that matter) system crashes, you either:
1) Have shitty hardware
2) Have shitty drivers
3) Have some sort of virus/spyware that is reaking havoc on your system.
My contention is that if you don’t have Windows crash on you, you’re obviously not USING your system.
I think Windows is great for games and I have made a lot of money because the Windows market exists. However, to claim that it is stable and never crashes, except for when you’re having issues with your bowel movements, is an absolute joke and razes the credibility of your opinion.
I have been on the 2k kernel for over 2 years and I have have had NO stability problems … zero … NONE.
I mean, even if you hate Windows, you have to admit that the latter versions have become pretty stable,
2000 was pretty good, but it still is not as able as Linux is for my needs. Also, security is still a big issue with Windows and many of its products.
and to say things like “Windows crashes all the time” is about as factual as saying “Modern Linux distros are still hard to install.”
I don’t have too many problems with Windows 2000 crashing (I can’t say the same about XP), but I do have problems with it gradually slowing down until it is absolutely worthless and I have to reboot. Also, when I have uptimes on my Linux machine of more that 3 years and the longest I have been able to keep Windows running is about 6 months, I’d say Windows has some catching up to do.
All I can say is 97% and increasing…..
I used Dos until I had to replace a HD that worked fine for years. It was cheeper to buy a new computer than replace my MFM 20mb HD. Boom, Windows 95 … Love and hate at the same time, I loved the UI, I hated the crashes. I was used to just using my computer without worying about it locking up. If it did, I just trashed the program that was killing the OS. With this new GUI thing, I could not figure out what software it was that was messing up. I got caught in the upgrade path that MS set in motion. Win 98 — to fix Win95, Win 98SE to fix Win98 … Than I found BeOS.
BeOS just works. Stable, Easy, and more conmfigurable than Windows. I use Win2k and WinXP at work and every time I use one of these, I miss the responsiveness of BeOS. BeOS on a Pentium 200mhz flies compared to WinXP on a P4 1GHZ! Windows is just a dog when it comes to the UI. Linux is even more of a dog. I will stay with BeOS and move to OpenBeOS, Blue Eyed OS, Cosmoe, or Zeta, Whitch ever Distro becomes the best Open version of BeOS when it is completed. MS can keep Windows. and the Geeks can keep Linux.
Oh baby, you’ve been gone so long …
-nt
No offense to the original poster… trying a new operating system that requires a reformat takes guts and a desire to explore. But the windows users trying Linux seem to find the same problems.
1. Too many unexplained choices. You and I know that ext2 is fine for basically anything a desktop user might want to do, but most people who don’t do this as a hobby will probably ask why not ext1 or ext3?
And quite frankly, I don’t know. Installers for desktop linux really need an “auto-install” option, one that chooses *everything* for you (including *gulp* root password).
2. Drivers not working. My ethernet card requires a 1935too driver (or something silly like that), which is actually the third driver that is supposed to support that card. I know that the state of volunteer-developed drivers on windows is nothing compared to volunteer-developed drivers on Linux, but is perhaps a little pruning in order?
3. Multiple desktop managers. It’s not like Miguel is working on something as different as Afterstep or anything… let’s merge the two major ones, shall we?
4. Mounting drives is essential for permanent-running servers, and useful if you want to swap compact flash cards, but to most desktop users (myself included) it is just an annoying step. Can some desktop fund the development of an auto-mount that is a little more… probing than the current list-based options?
5. Linux feels different than windows. This one I don’t think we should change, but sadly see the most movement on this front. We need to concentrate on making Linux’s existing environment less unnecessarily complicated (why wordprocessors->KDE but wordprocessors->Debian->OpenOffice? Simplify all of the stupid bits!), which doesn’t necessarily mean more windows like. If we force the quirks of Linux to behave like the quirks of Windows, we have something that is more difficult to use than both while adequately representing neither.
I hope there are developers reading these threads. The same issues come up over and over. And while the windows resorts may not be the best way to address them, surely a linux solution can be found.
Up is no longer the only way from here.
Take a look at (The interface hall of shame):
http://www.iarchitect.com/mshame.htm
You’ll quickly see that Windows applications vastly outnumber all other OS examples on what not
to do with a GUI. This is either because there are so many (BAD) Windows programs out there or
that there are so few bad GUIs in other OS’s. I can only applaud the Amiga OS3.9 & Linux (which is disturbingly getting more like Windows everyday). At least the MAC OS enforces more discipline on the GUI programmer.
Its ironic you do not like restrictions in MAC while scared of options in Linux. Well you see life is like this only. Why you are sacred of trying. If you do it wrong first time you can always reinstall. I messed up while I was intalling windows for the first time without any one’s help. My internal modem did not worked properly. i had to reinstall.
Any way if you are not online you do not have to think much of patches. Probably you can join some LUG to get all the help, any time. don’t you think that’s a small price to pay for something that give you peace of mind.
All I can say is 97% and increasing…..
All I can say is a fool and their money…
I’ve been using Windows since win95. I now am using XP Pro. Over the last several years I’ve listened to the vast number of people who complain about stability. I often asked myself, what the hell are you people doing to your systems?
Of course, there is the often-brought-up point of “if your computer doesn’t crash then you aren’t really USING it!” Puh-lease!
To the author:
Have you tried Windows XP? I haven’t seen it crash one time before in my life. Windows 2000 is just as stable, and the crashes I had with it was driver/hardware related.
Plus, what version of Mandrake did you tried? I’m assuming Mandrake 8.2. Automount works fine for me. Besides, when Red Hat 8.0 comes out, try it. It automounts the drive to the desktop, so the icon would only be there when it is mounted. I like that feature… (You can try Null, found it a thousand times more stable than Mandrake 8.2).
Besides, an suggestion for you to follow, and hopefully everyone else to follow, in choosing the right distro: Treat each distribution as its own OS, not a version of Linux. Pick the best after that.
—
Ludovic Hirlimann: The restriction is what makes the mac the “working” platform without hassles. You can’t have the cow, the milk and the dairy ….
The nice integration ever Mac fan talks about can be gotten from some OEMs. Sure, you won’t have the nice integrated feel from the machine you built at home… but haven’t any Mac users tried out products from companies like IBM, Sony, Compaq, Gateway etc. while making these claims?
Cloveious: You really did not have to leave BeOS, just because Be Inc. is gone, the OS lives on and new applications come out every day.
From the article we learnt that he left BeOS due to the lack of applications…..
Heru: Use Mozilla or Opera as a web browser since Konqueror has some massive rendering issues.
Konqueror 3.x is better at rendering than Opera. (It renders more stuff).
DF: And don’t give me that hardware crap, go buy any other processor besides an Intel or AMD and you can’t run windows […]
I wonder how they manage to get Windows to run on Crusoe and C3…..
Yeah, that’s right. Come up with a really great idea, use the x86 architecture, make your processors, and if they are good and rightly priced and properly marketed, Microsoft can’t, won’t and shouldn’t do anything about it.
DF: You can run Linux on a Mac, I don’t really see how a PC is better just because you can buy “more” hardware (I do see the software issue though). You can buy video, audio, network, ATA/SCSI cards for a mac, you just can’t buy motherboards but who cares, you get the best that is out there for a mac.
Can you buy Quaddro4 and ATI Fire which is practically an requirement for high end CAD/3D graphics designing, for the Mac? Just an example, don’t get worked up.
I think the biggest issue is that Macs is priced much much higher than an equilevent, and in many cases, a better PC.
I am not one of the RTFM guys but if you’re installing an OS you barly heard of please read the installation manual first its only common sence.
He was using Mandrake, and if the manual is anything like Mandrake 8.0’s, I can relate with him.. (see http://www.linux-mandrake.com/en/doc/82/en/user.html/ )
Anonymous: Think about it. Choice is a good thing. Microsoft has conditioned people into believing that having only one option is best for the consumer. It is not.
Choice is really good if the user knows what he is choosing. Choice is bad when the user don’t know what the heck the options are. (Which is true in the case).
Luis Ferro: It’s capability of removing the focus of the current task just to atend to a “new” alert, window, and so on…
Microsoft made it strict in the HI Guidelines that a new alert must be important to a user. Like when your firewale prompts up an message saying that somebody is scanning your ports, that’s important. But unfortunately people abbuse them a lot 🙁
Scott Alan Miller: 1) You have to choose between Windows distros too (Windows ME or 2000 or XP Home or Pro, etc.) Which is the right one? (The answer is NOT ME!)
The difference is these are made by the same company. These two products are marketed at two different target audience. But the problem with Linux is many ditributions are targeting *one* target audience, which makes it hard to choose.
Plus, the label on the version (XP Home and XP Pro) is self explanary. If I’m a home user, don’t consider myself as a pro user, I choose Home. I would choose Pro if I’m a power user. Simple as that.
Scott Alan Miller: 2) Mandrake is the absolute hardest Linux distro to work with. They like to claim to be easy to use but I have used them, Red Hat, Suse, Caldera, Storm and others and find them to be by far the hardest to get working.
They may be harder than RH 8.0 (not yet release), but much more easier to use than Red Hat 7.3. I have tried SuSE 8.0 FTP version, not an easy thing to use… but then, this isn’t the version they are advertising.
Scott Alan Miller: 4a) Windows makes you choose the filesystem as well. FAT16, FAT32 and NTFS are your choices.
Windows XP only gives you two choices, FAT32 and NTFS. It would push NTFS if you are doing a clean install and an upgrade from Windows NT/2000, and would use FAT32 by default if you are doing an upgrade from Windows 9x. Only power users choose their partition types, because the way to choose is much more difficult than choosing between file systems in Mandrake.
Scott Alan Miller: 4b) Windows, by default, does a pretty crappy job of setting up your drive (one big dumb partition – good way to loose data and performance.) Most Linux distros (all the ones we are talking about) do a much better job of using your hard drive efficiently by default.
ALL the LINUX distributions take their space and divide it into two, one same, another mounted as /…. BY DEFAULT. What distro that does otherwise by default?
Scott Alan Miller: 5) Microsoft brings out updates for its current OSs (NOT Win95) every couple of days – just like your distro does. The difference is that you just never updated your Windows.
Microsoft doesn’t release an update every two days. But read the article, his problem is how fast a *major* version is release, which is like veery 6 months for Mandrake.
Camel: […]I can totally understand the authors feelings towards Windows.
From the posts you made in other forums is how Windows doesn’t suite your geekish, enterprise server needs. (No offence). What I see in the article is that the author wants Windows that doesn’t crash nor doesn’t eat up his documents….. (Windows XP suites his needs, IMHO).
W: – I spend more for a wintel than a Mac (not by much).
And why is that?
W: – Upgrading becomes more of a hassle for my wintels and when you get in the “upgrading game” where do you stop and at what cost (not just dollars but software and firmware conflicts). Many of the upgrading experiences cost half if not more than what a new computer will cost.
Wait wait wait. Being a PC user doesn’t mean you always have to upgrade. Most PC users I know don’t have anything faster than a 300MHz processor. You only upgrade and spend money when you want/need it. And if you do it without wanting nor needing it, you are a pure idiot that can be controled by any company’s marketing campaigns.
W: – Out side of a solid CAD application, most of my computer needs are now being handle by Macs. In fact Macs handle them a lot better then my wintels. By the way, you can get solid CAD application for the Mac.
I can say DOS handle my tasks better than any other OS, and would be an fact as much as your statement. You give NO reason behind the statment. Whether it is cause by a better UI or better hardware etc.
And BTW, I would like to know what kind of PC are you comparing with your Mac? How much older is it to your Mac? What version of Windows does it run? 4 years ago the Mac may have been a better choice that PCs – it was faster, better, more better price/performance ratio etc….. but now things have CHANGED.
Besides, AutoCAD, which helds a near monopoly of the CAD business, plus having the best CAD package out there, 100 times better than its closest altenative I heard, is not available on the Mac.
http://www.autodesk.com.my/adsk/section/0,,1950242-1172274,00.html
Joe User: As for Linux for the average user . . . most Linux advocates will admit that Linux is not as easy as Windows, which itself doesn’t win any prizes for usability.
Neither those Mac OS X :-). Yeah, the *UI* on Mac OS X is better than Windows XP, but the UI isn’t everything about an OS (though it is important). Stuff like speed, responsiveness, error handling etc. makes a large part of judging an OS.
Hunter/A3: I’ve used XP Home – and it would not allow me to install my office suite without first drawing files off the XP disk which was not provided due to Microsofts and Compaqs attempt to curtail pirating.
Compaq bundles along the Recovery Disk, which contains Windows XP but it is an version that can only be installed on that particular Compaq machine.
appleforever: Also, used Macs are a very viable option for people sick of windows and MS. Buy a Blue & White G3 (a few hundred at best) and add a G4 card, load it up with a gig of PC100 RAM (literally 100 bucks these days) and a new fast hard drive (maybe an IDE card).
Ahhh, what compeling reason is there NOT to buy an cheaper 2nd hand PC? Besides, if you are talking about US dollars, a gig of RAM isn’t a hundred bucks. (The prices I present to you is small OEM prices) 4x256MB Apacer RAM is close to $200. 2x512MB is around $200. (It is cheaper buying PC133 RAM, BTW).
genaldar: The truth is some, even “newbie” ones required it as little as a year ago. I used to use mandrake 8.1, and it required me to mount everything manually, when I got tired of that I dug around a little and set up desktop shortcuts myself.
Mandrake 8.1 is the only distribution from Mandrakesoft after Mandrake 7.0 that requires you to mount and unmount. This is because automount broke before the release, and they prefer following he release schedule than releasing a good problem without any known major problems.
Chris Canfield: 3. Multiple desktop managers. It’s not like Miguel is working on something as different as Afterstep or anything… let’s merge the two major ones, shall we?
Too technically and philosophically different. (Besides, deault GNOME looks notice like KDE…)
Jim Steichen, Author of AmigaTalk: You’ll quickly see that Windows applications vastly outnumber all other OS examples on what not
to do with a GUI.
Windows have a vast amount of applications. Notice the major ones, which actually follow good UI principles. There is Mac apps that could be easily placed in that list, but the only thing is that Windows apps outnumber the Mac apps.
Well, I’ve just read this entire thread. Where do I start…
I’ve been a Windows user ever since the days of 3.0. Along the way I tried OS/2 2.1, 2.2, and then Warp, but in the end that went nowhere (please, no discussion of why OS/2 failed without reading Linux and Main’s article about it first). I am now using Windows 2000 Pro and I am 100% positive this will be the last version of Windows I ever use on my home desktop. For me, Windows no longer fulfills my needs as an operating system. There are many reasons, but one of the major ones is: not enough transparency. All too often Windows is off doing some grinding away at the hard drive, being slow or just plain freezes up. What the hell is going on? How can you find out? In 75% of the cases there’s no real way to tell, even if you know what you’re doing. With other operating systems, particularly Unix-based ones, the logs and console at least display an error message which you can do a search for on Google, if not figure out why things are going wrong just by looking at it. Case in point: last week we swapped some of our hardware between Windows 2000 Citrix-based applications servers at the place where I work. One of the machines started up fine and is currently serving apps perfectly. The other one starts booting, gets to 100% of the “Starting Windows” progress bar and then halts. No error, no nothing, just freezes up. Searches on Google and the Microsoft knowledge base failed to turn anything up, though it’s hard to come up with search terms. Where do you start with such a problem? I have not had any problem with Linux that I couldn’t eventually solve by checking logs, searching the web etc. all on my own without needing to ask anyone. Granted, you should minimise problems in the first place, but I believe it’s a major flaw of Windows.
This is all without going into Microsoft’s business practices, their licencing, prices, hardware requirements etc.
I run a RH 6.2 gateway/server at home which works very well, and I barely if ever have to touch it. I also have Red Hat 7.3 installed on my main machine, but I haven’t made the full switch for anything except apps development. This is what I think is wrong with Linux these days (and I speak here from the point of view of a user, developer and part-time systems admin, in all three cases on both Windows and Linux):
– Things don’t work out of the box. If the user has to screw around to get things to work, they will only get frustrated and give up.
– Far too many Linux apps developers have the attitude of “I’m just working on this for myself, if you don’t like it then go elsewhere”. You just have to drop this stupid attitude, it helps nobody. Be nice, and people will like you for it. If they’re Linux developers they may even help you out, or (better still) be encouraged by your attitude to learn to become Linux developers. I believe Linus Torvalds was 100% on track when he said that the major kernel work is done, and now it’s time to concentrate on making Linux for users (and that was last year).
– Documentation is outdated and patchy. Just take a look at the howtos on http://www.tldp.org if you don’t believe me. Somebody needs to really take charge and sort these out, because they could be a real help to newbies.
– Too much choice is a big issue, but not merely because of too much choice. Too much unaided, undocumented, uninformed choice, is more to the point. What I mean is, how is a newbie supposed to decide whether GNOME is better than KDE for their needs? I have not see one unbiased article describing the differences in detail between the two. The list goes on: ext2 vs ext3 vs reiserfs, OpenOffice vs StarOffice vs KOffice, etc. Just a simple set of complete, unbiased comparison articles would help. To the people who suggest KDE and GNOME should merge – I know you mean well, but you must understand that GNOME was born more out of personal differences with KDE than anything else, and the two camps are quite disparate; interoperability is improving but at a slow pace. I’m not sure how this problem could be ultimately solved.
– Configuration tools need work. When installing a Linux server at work I decided to have a go with the RH 7.3 GNOME GUI config tools just to see if it was easier than editing the files by hand. I found that they are appallingly bad – some things don’t get saved, some major things aren’t configurable from the GUI at all, you can’t edit the files directly and then re-edit them in the GUI, etc. These problems are so elementary – I can only imagine that nobody uses these tools or they would have been fixed and improved beyond their current sorry state. There just is no excuse. This is made worse by the fact that linuxconf was removed in 7.3 (which for all its faults was still a very helpful tool for newbies).
Anyway, I think this rant of mine has gone on for long enough. I hope it does some good.
> BeOS was great and easy to use, but sadly short lived and lacked applications.
I used windows, then I used Linux (and still use it on servers), and I switched to BeOS for daily use last year, and let me tell you as a Desktop it beats them all.
I do all I need as a standard desktop user and as a developper in BeOS, I watch DiVX (with my K6-2 350 :p), listen to mp3, burn CDs (while the NERO given with the burner crashes in windows
)…
BeOS is more alive than ever, despite what others tell you, it will soon get rebirth, and just check BeBits to see the growing application list.
BeOS can do all you need, for sure, it even has XEmacs:
http://clapcrest.free.fr/revol/beos/shot_xemacs_beos_x11_02.png
:-))) (ok, maybe that’s not a good news for some ppl :p)
Check all this at:
http://openbeos.org
http://beunited.org
http://yellowtab.com
> Marcelo: But linux is fascinating because you can learn networks, Unix, C, Perl, PHP, etc by free.
You can do all this in BeOS too.
> owenville: BeOS doesn’t run very well on my latest hardware
Which is ?
Check at http://bedrivers.com , get onto the list, ask for drivers…
If you don’t tell what doesn’t work nobody can help you have it work.
P.S.1. Eugenia, please stop pasting the same sentence each time saying BeOS is dead, looks like you are a bot :p
P.S.2. hmm I wish I could use BeOS on a PS2
One point nobody raised here (well I didn’t read all the 88 comments fully), is FREEDOM. Not the freedom to use the OS you want, but the freedom to do whatever you WANT and ARE ALLOWED TO (by the law).
XP, with all its “technologies” (overused word only meaning software), like DRM, WMA, its “embrace-and-extend”ed protocols only M$ products understand (well even this isn’t always the case), have only one goal: bind you to M$ products more and more, make you M$-addicted, and take away your freedom.
With all the stupid laws being voted now and then (DMCA, …), M$ has even more incentives to do this.
Try to open a word document in Linux ? Ok, it will work in StarOffice, but do you know they had to reverse-engineer the format to let it happen ?
Try to access a SMB share from Linux ? Ok, it will work with Samba, but here again they had to RE the thing.
One will argue M$ is not “openning” their protocols. That’s entirely FALSE. They are disclosing under an agressive and unfree agreement some documents that should always have been public anyway.
the DRM things (and more to come with TCPA-Paladium), will take away the freedom you have to listen and fairly use the music you even paied for !
All those things make XP BAD(tm). And arguing it’s stable (after how many years ? :^) isn’t balancing it for me.
Personnally, I left windows at 98, and will never get beyond it.
If you really need something more stable use W2k, but PLEASE, TRASH XP NOW.
People who don’t know are excusable, but since you read OSNews and other software-related news sites, you are aware of those issues, and you can’t be forgiven to use XP.
I’ve used many Linux flavours(Suse, Mandrake,Knoppix) in the last years and I’m sure that the average user, if not willing to learn a lot, will get frustrated.
The installation process today is not the problem.
I think one of the biggest problems is the dealing with software installation.
Like someone before said it’s very unpleasant to look for installed programms.
The average user, who put all his documents on the desktop(like a lot of wintel users do), doesn’t get frustrated but run away in fear.
The os should treat users according to their level of knowledge.
Like Larry Wall said: Make easy things easy and hard things doable.
This is where Mac OSX jumps ins.
Last year I’ve bought my first mac(only because I was amazed about the beautifull look of the Desktop).
For a windows user(especially XP or NT) it should take no longer than a couple of hours to work with the system(sure becoming an expert will take longer).
I’m sure that a novice user get much easier adopted to work with computers than in any Windows flavour.
Let’s take an example: installation.
Most OSX programms gets installed by dragging an icon in the Application folder.
A wonderfull abstraction.
Every windows user i showed this was impressed.
Deinstallation goes the same. Just dragging in the trash can.
The professional user which wants to change his system on a lower and more linux like way, you can start the terminal and edit the configuration of the unix tools.
BUT you don’t have to.
You can live happily while working in Microsoft Word and Photoshop without getting bothered with that stuff.
All the configuration(network, resolution etc.) is easier than in Windows XP(and I use it the whole day at work).
The biggest complaint about the macs are prices and speed.
First the prices: Whom of you is thinking that a Honda should have the same price as a Mercedes(me as a german not).
And are you insulting Mercedes therefore.
No you don’t.
Apple is Mercedes.
If you look at the design(which other PC Company is employing designers?Not Gateway or dell if you look at the products. Perhaps SGI) and the finish, you will realize the differences.
Someone who spends 10000$ for his car is not willing to spend 1500$ for his computer and prefers to stay with a beige, noisy tower?!
About that look at Ebay for used G4 or Powerbooks.
In the long run you spend the same amount on a super-cheap Gateway(After three years you loser 80% of the money you spend )
The speed is a serious issue.
On my Ibook tasks are slower than on older PC Hardware.
BUT I remember that new Windows Verions used to be also slow on older hardware and so you can only sit and wait and someday purchase a new G4.
That’s my only issue.
In all the other isuses I can honestly advice to buy a Mac(the Imacs are very nice home user machines).
Eugenia, I don’t know what you did to OSNews recently, but Opera in BeOS doesn’t really like it doday, it just doesn’t stop crashing, at least 5 times !
And it takes years to load pages, whereas they load up instantly in Mozilla…
Please do something !
(and keep up providing good and various news
I’m proud to read so many people standing up for BeOS and giving it the credit it deserves. When Be Inc. went under, I got nervous and upset about lack of support and apps, and tried several distros of Linux, BSD, etc. I’ve also used Windows 98, 2k, and XP, and at work I use video editing software in OS X. So I’ve seen what’s out there.
Now having used these various systems BeOS is by far the most usable to me. As far as user interface goes, BeOS on my dual 433MHZ Celeron system is like lightning compared to the others. I can manage windows between multiple workspaces with 10 times the ease as in Gnome or any other Linux D.E. I’ve used. When I click on a folder or drive icon, my file manager window pops up in less than a second, whereas in linux or windows I hear the drive chug away for a few seconds and then finally a bloated unesthetic graphics intensive file manager pops up. Same as for terminal. I can fire up a terminal in BeOS in a second flat, whereas in OS X on a reasonably new G4 system at work, it takes at least 3 seconds.
As far as application availability, the only thing I’m really missing in BeOS is lots of games; and I have an XBOX for that anyway. Mozilla for BeOS is respectable, and the programs I use for web serving, email, chat, file sharing, word processing, and audio file playing are vastly more responsive, intuitive and fun to use than anything I’ve yet seen in windows, *nix, or Mac.
Linux is great for serving and doing the things it’s meant to do. And when I want to use Kazaa or play Jedi Outcast, I occasionally boot into Win2k. But upon coming back to BeOS I’m much more satisfied, and it’s immensely enjoyable to use. Getting around in other UI’s is like swimming in mud. BeOS is the fastest most responsive thing out there, and OpenBeOS is on it’s way.
I’m french ingenier, i am working under Windows (Delphi), but at home i try : windows, Linux ( 5 distri), QNX, BeOS.
So my conclusion is simple : BeOS is the more speedy, more usable, more easy API for programmer, more beautifull.
Yes, today the hardware’s support is not very good for news hardwars, but BeOS don’t need the lastest powerfull processor, so with a simple hardware you have a big power.
And with the futur of OBOS, BleuEyesOS and else, we might have some wonderfull OS.
>These problems are so elementary – I can only imagine that
>nobody uses these tools or they would have been fixed and
>improved beyond their current sorry state.
Because in the linux technical community there is the attitude that just because something has a GUI front-end it is immediately usable and easy to understand for newbies. That a GUI interface can be confusing, ambiguous or misleading seems to be an alien concept.
In regards to your RH 7.3 experience, I tend to see a lot of this attitude in many of the RH employees I’ve met over the last 2 years (RH is now headquartered at my college, incidentally), and most likely you can find it at any of the big distros like Mandrake, Suse, etc.
The thing I find really troublesome about the sudden scramblings towards desktop linux by RedHat, Sun, and others is that there really hasn’t been any kind of change in this attitude. The way things are currently going, I don’t think that much of the linux technical community really gives a damn about the user experiece, just as long as the crappy user experience runs on top of a linux kernel.
Free Software is about programmer freedom, not end user freedom. For most people on the desktop, the freedom to get lots of important stuff done with a minimum of fuss is the freedom that really matters. Software that robs them of this freedom is anything but free.
now even mozilla crashes on reloading OSNews ! What the ? :^)
It’s a conspiracy to force us to use IE ???
Francois, try Net+ =)
/Konrad
.. at least to try it out.
just boot the lastest version of knoppix from the cd and you’ve got a fully running linux distro. worked on every hardwareconfiguration i tried so far.
http://www.knoppix.org
(yes, its debian)
What makes something easy or hard to use?
If you’ve been using Windows as your primary OS, then Linux is harder to use, because it’s different to what you are used to use.
Mounting CDs is difficult? Yes if you’ve been using Windows all of your life, but NO if you’ve been using UNIX.
Deleting files “newer than another one, whose name starts with a vobel and whose size is less than 100k” is difficult? For me in Linux NO, but for me in Windows YES. I’m sure there are people who thinks the other way, no problem.
I’m tired about “easy to use”, “hard to install”, and bla, bla, bla …
I drive a car, I know how to do it, but if you put me in a hellicopter cabin be sure the trip will be not very long.
I speak spanish, I know how to do it, but if I express my oppinions in english… well… it happens things like this comment 😀
mmu_man: with all its “technologies” (overused word only meaning software), like DRM, WMA, its “embrace-and-extend”ed protocols only M$ products understand (well even this isn’t always the case)
Digital Right Management is an optional feature. You don’t have to see it if you avoid DRM-controled media. Ironically, you won’t be able to play DRM stuff on Linux if you want anyway.
WMA is a really good audio codec (unfortunately the ripping is slower than Ogg, and the audio quality isn’t that good). If you don’t want it, buy an third party codec for MP3, or download an Ogg codec for Windows Media Player.
You can avoid this so call freedom-stealing technologies if you want.
mmu_man: With all the stupid laws being voted now and then (DMCA, …), M$ has even more incentives to do this.
There is only one stupid law that backs something like this, the DMCA. I think you should blame the MPAA, RIAA and the Clinton and Monica scandal for DMCA, not Microsoft solely. (Yeah, I know you don’t blame MS, but you implied it that way).
mmu_man: Try to open a word document in Linux ? Ok, it will work in StarOffice, but do you know they had to reverse-engineer the format to let it happen ?
The last I check to use Windows you don’t have to save EVERY document you made with .doc. You are making less and less sense….. (Besides, StarOffice works on Windows, use that if you want to share documents with Linux guys).
mmu_man: Try to access a SMB share from Linux ? Ok, it will work with Samba, but here again they had to RE the thing.
Until very recently, the Samba team use Microsoft’s documentation to make Samba. If they were forced to use reverse engineering, trust me, Smaba wouldn’t be close to where it is now.
Right now, Microsoft is only restricting implementation of its protocol under an copyleft license, and it uses Windows-specific patents to do so.
mmu_man: the DRM things (and more to come with TCPA-Paladium), will take away the freedom you have to listen and fairly use the music you even paied for !
The DRM things would only limit how you practice fair use on legal downloads of music (something you can’t, BTW, do on Linux). Rip your CD, DRM doesn’t restricts that. (Plus, there aren’t any plans for mass-produced copyright protected CDs).
Panna: First the prices: Whom of you is thinking that a Honda should have the same price as a Mercedes(me as a german not).
Nice car analogy. But the Mercedes isn’t more easier to drive as a current model of Honda. The Mercedes is priced premiumly for features not available with cheap Hondas. And the Mercedes is priced premiumly because of its brand recogniction. In all these cases, Mac couldn’t possibly be an Mercedes.
Now, the reason why Macs are so expensive: They are a niche player. Wow, that is a short and direct answer :-). Being a niche player means there is an higher chance of getting a profit. Apple is one of the little computer makers making money.
Panna: BUT I remember that new Windows Verions used to be also slow on older hardware and so you can only sit and wait and someday purchase a new G4.
Your point? Nothing. Eugenia is a prime example of a XP user on old hardware.
Ilan Volow: The thing I find really troublesome about the sudden scramblings towards desktop linux by RedHat, Sun, and others is that there really hasn’t been any kind of change in this attitude.
Windows proved you DON’T to have a good product, technically, to win in the market. You just have to give people what they want. And currently, they aren’t complaining about how slow Windows or Linux is (only BeOS users are :-).
Besides, have you tried Null? (Sun’s plans is montrosity, RH would be the victor).
mmu_man: now even mozilla crashes on reloading OSNews ! What the ? :^)
It’s a conspiracy to force us to use IE ???
Hmmmm, thank goodness my Opera is identify as IE. (Besides, i think you should email Eugenia personally).
But then again, from my experience, Bezilla always crashes anyway 🙂
Ilan Volow wrote:
> The way things are currently going, I don’t think that
> much of the linux technical community really gives a damn
> about the user experiece, just as long as the crappy user > experience runs on top of a linux kernel.
I hear you. I think we (as in those who believe in Linux but see what needs sorting out) need to bring this point home with Linux developers, as a group. I wonder what the best way of going about this is?
Compare the general attitudes of the two major Linux video players: Xine and MPlayer. The Xine team listen to and help their users calmly and politely, creating a friendly community atmosphere around the software. The MPlayer team on the other hand (well, let’s be fair, the lead developer) have the “I develop this for me alone” attitude. This results in them getting flames from dissatisfied/annoyed users, which in turn results in them getting more disgruntled and caring even less about what users say, etc… It’s a self-destroying way of going about open development. But the MPlayer developers will not be told.