Nope!

I haven't been using Linux long, and my first real experience was Gentoo. The docs are brilliant and I had no problems installing it, and it's VERY user friendly once it's up and running. I wont be going back to Windows, Linux does everything I want, and more, better than Windows ever could.

I notice a lot of people saying "Oh but the commands are hard" or "Hardware is SO hard to get working". It really isn't, I've had to get my TV card and Soundcard working and it was just a matter of editing a few lines in some files. It really couldn't have been any easier. There's the added bonus that there's plenty of resources should you get stuck, for example, any problem I've had so far has been fixed by a five minute search on the Gentoo forums.

I wanted to use MSN & AIM, so I just done "emerge gaim" - A few minutes later it was downloaded and compiled. I wanted to use Firefox and Thunderbird, after "emerge firefox" and "emerge thunderbird" they started downloading and compiling, all was well... Gentoo's Portage system rocks. Linux isn't nasty, it's not going to bite so long as you go through what you're doing slowly and make sure you understand what exactly it is you're doing.

Once you've got used to a distro you like and found the programs you like to use, you'll love it.

Definitely not!
Perhaps years from now when it has real driver support for ALL available devices and when the interface isn't so ugly and when you don thave to install many programs from the command prompt, and when you will not be forced to have to look for zillions of dependency files to be able to install something and make it actually work. Perhaps then, for now Definitely not!

The interface hasn't been ugly for a long time, there's plenty of window managers available now and for the most part, they're fully skinnable. I prefer my UI to Windows actually.

You don't need to install from a command prompt, or look for dependencies - There's plenty of managers that will do it all for you via a gui

As for real driver support, IMO it wont happen any time soon, but look how far its come without it

I've tried Red Hat, Mandrake and one more (don't remember the name now). But it's not for me, I play a lot of games and I prefer Windows for that.

I would switch if the Linux desktop enviroment was as fast and responsive as Windows is. And as userfriendly. And of course better hardware support.

the commands aren't really that hard.... oh.. hang on... what if my linux didn't automagically see my windows partitions? oh yeh! "mount /dev/hda1 -t ntfs /mnt/windows ".... now that's easy and intuitive.
and... "was just a matter of editing a few lines in some files. It really couldn't have been any easier." are you kidding me?! any respectable user-experience councelor would've screamed in despair to that! if you want users to be able to use the thing decently, at least give it a user interface for doing things! for god's sake! this is not the apple II anymore!! oh wait... the apple II HAD a user interface for doing that kinda thing.... and that was what? System 5? i'm not saying that linux doesn't have a user interface (it does have TONS, in fact)... but i'm trying to say that all of them are incomplete in the aspect that they only cover some of the day-by-day usage... if i want to add some new hardware... oh well... i might need to endeavor into conf files and terminal commands... it's a pain.
i still remember trying to make my Wacom work properly on my linux install (fedora core 3, btw)... the sheer amount of editing and "hacking" i had to do was amazing... my wacom still doesn't work... why? cause i simply got ticked off by the amaaaazing driver support in linux...

i'm trying as hard as i can not to be a fanboy here... but linux has a long way to go before becoming really a mainstream-able os... the impression that i get is that linux was made on this little one box and has, ever since been hacked around by other people to add hardware support.


this is just a personal opinion, but i prefer the old "just unzip it in the folder" approach that these very same programs take on windows

all in all... i'd love to see linux come back as a mainstream-able os. really. it has more developement potential than windows does. but i dont think it's quite there yet

Even Windows doesn't support ALL available devices.

Regarding the interface, I wouldn't say this is ugly, but then again that's a matter of tastes.

Dependencies and command line... use Synaptic and get rid of both problems.


Don't get me wrong, I don't have any problem with people not wanting to use linux, just with misconceptions.

Ok, I've ignored most of the Linux complaints until now, because individual experiences with hardware may vary... but ugly? Huh? You can have the darn thing looking near identical to XP setup with a hacked Msstyle and hacked Shell32.dll if you want it to be.


Click to enlarge. I have anti-aliased fonts enabled only for really large and really small font sizes but you can have them on all of them. This is KDE on Xandros.

Try SuSe, Linspire or Ubuntu ;-)
I can't promise it will work perfectly, but there's quite a good chance.



1. Not all hardware is supported on Windows. I hope you're not using it!
2. There are at least 20 different window managers (I wouldn't be surprised if there were over 50).
3. You can use a package manager. No dependencies you need to look for, no command prompt you need to use.

Welcome to Linux!

There is native WiFi support for some cards - most notably cards based on prism or orinoco or symbol chipsets, like a lot of the netgear 802.11g cards, but there are plenty of others too. And if there aren't native drivers, you can use the windows drivers through ndiswrapper.


I would Eterm is one of the ugliest terminals around! Nasty fonts and that absolutely horrible menu bar... ugh. I much prefer a nice minimal setup, but as you say, to each his own.

Definitely, if a few changes were made.
if Visual Studio .NET and some other application will avaiable.

What menu bar? I don't use any menu bar on E.

If you mean the bar at the top of the screen, that's the dragbar. It has nothing to do with menus.

A definite yes once companies start supporting linux. have a linux server box right now and i'm happy with it but won't be my main OS till it gets better support.

I support Linux and everything it's related to. I've noticed on the poll that quite a few of you would never use Linux. Well I have three strong words for you...

C'mon! C'mon!

PLEASE!

why ventrilo? why not skype?

I voted never. I have installed and played with it out of curiosity many years ago. I think BSD is better. I won't use any unix again (I left the unix world perminantly when I switched my PC to NT 3.5). The fact that it keeps kicking around show how backwards computing has become, and yes, MS is also backwards (but for MS it is more transparent as to why).

For today's practical purposes, I prefer OS X. I put up with XP tablet PC for now.

I'm already a linux user.

Tell me I am not the only one seeing the irony in that post...

Your not.

there is a great irony to it.

Unforunately, when computing is controled by boys from the 60's who want to keep their hold on it there is not much else to do!

As I said, for practicality I prefer OS X -> that does not mean I fully endorse it (it is just the better of the bunch available)

Definetely not - I don't trust open source

I meant the menu bar inside Eterm, but lets not dwell on it, eh?

Just curious here, but what don't you trust about Open Source. I mean, the code is all out there to be analyzed by anyone (even if you are not a programmer, if there were some awful, subversive code in there, word would get out quickly and there would be tons of evidence).

Already using Red Hat Enterprise AS , Redhat 8.0 and Windows , XP Pro, XP home, Win 2k , win 2k server and 2003 server. Soon to be learning more around solaris 10. I like the linux variants and what they have to offer but as for eas of use say for family to be able to use the system I have to stick with windows. Its just not there for my wife to be able to use and be friendly about it. So rahter than deal with a dual boot system or have multiple systems all the time.

Defintely not. I love Microsoft products.

My organization might -but it'd need excellent hardware support -we're not ditching all our printers-, Windows emulation -WINE doesn't cut it- and be as easy to administer from a GUI as Windows -no command prompt. -not easy to do when you're not around.

Also it'd be one more thing that manufacters and programmers would have to support. One platform for all.

I had Ubuntu running for a while, but it just didn't do it for me-- I think it was the mouse, to be honest. It felt... sticky, no matter how much I configured it.
Plus, when I tried switching to Gentoo, I had trouble installing Grub and the network drivers, so I was offline, stuck in a commandline with no way to boot back into windows. When I reconfigured grub, it screwed up NTLDR (NT Loader), so I couldn't get back into windows and had to format.

No, never...

then get OS9

I'd like to say I would, but I have no knowledge of how it works and quite frankly I don't really care Thumbs up to people who do use it though, I heard it's quite good

Yeah if I could play Warcraft 3 in Linux. Preferably steam too but that I could be happy without.

I tried to install Ubuntu about 2 weeks ago and when I did it erased by MBR and some of my hard drive. In conclusion I ended up having to take it into best buy and get a new hard drive put in, but it was on warranty. The bad part is I had to put everything back on my computer, and I didnt have a backup drive or cd.

No to Linux for me.

hell no! Linuxs sucks a**

Bad first post.

Please try to discuss, not start a flame war.

And, welcome to Neowin. I am sure your next post will be better.

I don't understand why some people don't trust open source, is there any truth to not trusting it or is it just all in their minds?

Dont forget, when you refresh the topic, the views go up by 1 each time, so it will almost always be off sided like that man

I'm already a linux user

you registered just to say that?

and why hasnt warcraft 3 been ported to linux. both war3 and steam work great in cedega, but war3 is available for osx, it should be available for linux as well.

i dont think its in their "minds."

i mean, with open source the source code is RIGHT THERE to look through if you dont trust it. personally, i dont trust propriety software. there is a reason all you windows users are running a software firewall as well as your hardware one.

I've used freebsd and linux for 8 years.. and i have never once used it for desktop. Xfree + wms suck ass.

meh, im not even gonna bother changing OS. XP does everything i want, and i dont care what other OS can do. i like Windows, and die hard fan. love live microsoft

plus: it is great to be able to optimize/customize the os to your needs.
I am all for open source (although my programming days are long behind me)

I just do not like linux. It is one of those great for geeks, great in the lab, but not ready for prime-time things. It is safer for non-technical people to run the dreaded windows than linux.

I don't run a software firewall and I'm a windows user.

The main problem with Linux is that it's not easy to use. Sure, KDE and Gnome make it easier, but what happens when you hit a roadblock. Ubuntu is a great example, it can make your Windows installation unaccessible. The AMD64 version doesn't even install on my computer (which is an AMD64), because there is no driver for my card (ATi Radeon X800XTPE, and the VGA driver doesn't work). The AMD64 version also didn't detect my Windows installation.

Now some of this isn't Ubuntu's fault, but when I was left at the command prompt of Linux, with little experience, no GUI (Gnome errored quite spectacularly due to no driver support for my card), and unable to get back into Windows, I was a little anoyed.

It's to much for the average windows user, and even though I eventually got it running, it was a major pain in the ass. A typical Windows user would have given up long ago. And don't even get me started on installing packages, you Linux guys need to settle on RPM or Debian and stick with it.

you just had a bad experience with a distro that isnt quite there yet.

new users shouldnt start with ubuntu. get fedora/mandrake/suse. they set everything up for you and quite frankly, easier to get working than windows is. the main problem with linux is that youve never used it before, and thereso nly one way to change that.

I am already a 100% Linux user. I maintain a winxp partition to play HL2, but it is exclusively for that -- it has a GPO that prevents me from doing anything besides play games

I am pretty satisfied with my operating system, it does everything I need, and even things I don't need. (And I can choose not to install these if I want. I love the choice).

I have used linux many times and try to install a new distro every once in a while, but being in college makes it tough (mostly networking difficulty with ResNet). Just this week I was working on a paper for my engineering class and the formatting was very important. My partner and I worked on his gentoo pc using open office and submitted out rough draft online. When we got the paper back from the graders, the formatting was completely raped. So that makes me not want to switch. The OS is great, but the big apps just aren't there yet (Office mostly, plus I don't want to have to try and replace AutoCAD, Inventor, and 3DStudioMAX)

So, I'll keep playing around in linux in my spare time and when its where I want it to be, I'll go from 99%windows 1%linux, to something more like linux>windows...just not yet

I've switched back and forth between Windows and Linux for about the last 4 1/2 years.

One of the biggest problems for me is there really isn't a standardized software installation system. In RedHat/Fedora and Mandrake you have RPM. In Ubuntu you have DEB. In source based distributions (Gentoo), you usually get to download the source code and compile it. Some package managers included in distributions such as Fedora or Ubuntu do make things alot easier and they are headed one step in the right direction.

Another big problem: Hardware support. Some distributions are better with hardware than others. In my case, Fedora configured power management for my laptop correctly, but yet my sound did not work (and yes I tried to get it to work and finally gave up). In Ubuntu, all of my hardware worked but power management was a dog. Sometimes the machine would suspend correctly, other times it would hang or not suspend at all.

GNOME needs some work as well. In Ubuntu, if I log in at the GDM, log out, and log back in again, sometimes I receive an error stating "I've already detected a panel running. gnome-panel will now exit." To remedy this I have to go to the console or open a terminal, run "killall gnome-panel", and then log out and back in again. In Gentoo it is a similar issue only instead of logging in at the GDM, I log in at the command line.

KDE is a bit better when it comes to stability, but in my experience it uses alot more RAM than it should need.

Linux is nice (Gentoo in this case) for servers, because remote administration is a breeze. Hell, you can remotely install the operating system, install packages, etc.

Another thing Linux needs to improve on is the UI. For instance, some windows have font smoothing enabled while other windows don't. Some fonts smooth, some look plain hideous because they do not antialias correctly. It's annoying as hell to go from a smooth looking font to a non-aliased font that looks jagged like a cliff.

Distribution providers all need to get together and decide on a default uniform interface that sets it apart from Windows so it does not look alot like the Windows UI, yet maintaining usability and good looks. Yes, I agree, choice is good. But by default, one UI set or another should be used by all distributions instead of all different looks. Instead of having GNOME as default on Fedora and Ubuntu and KDE as default on Mandrake, have GNOME on all of the distributions by default. Instead of Fedora using Bluecurve and Ubuntu using Industrial, lets by default all just use Bluecurve. Leave all of the other choices available though. If someone wants to use Blackbox instead of GNOME, all the power to them.

I also think that distribution providers shouldn't install a whole bunch of software by default. Yes, like I've said before, choice is good. But I don't need 3 GB of stuff I'm NEVER going to use. And to pick through every little package to narrow my installation down just isn't good enough. I really do like Gentoo because of their idea of just installing a base system and then you add what you want and need without ALL of the un-needed overhead. Yes, there's going to be some overhead due to dependancies and such. But 3GB of stuff installed by default is rediculous. Fedora has the options for installing less packages at installation time and for that I applaud them. Ubuntu also has this idea down quite well, their distribution installs the base packages to get yourself off the ground and get your basic tasks done, everything else that you need can be added with Repositories in Synaptic or by using the apt-get solution.

Overview of this rediculously long post:

Before I'd switch to Linux as a main OS, and before it is ready for the mainstream market, distribution providers will need to improve on the following items:

- Better Hardware Support
- Better Power Management Support
- Better User Interface Design
- Uniform Default UI for ALL distros
- Make package installation easier, less overhead involved

Until some of these changes are made, I'm going to remain a loyal Microsoft customer and Windows user.

kde does not use a lot of ram, it wastes a lot, but when the going gets tough, it can slim itself down a LOT and very rarely uses swap space.

right now on my 512mb pc, KDE is using 480mb and no swap space. however, if you look at the breakdown of the memory use, linux with kde and opera is only using about 130mb.

look. the blue is the application data and is the actual ram used by linux/apps. even though the yellow(cached) might seem to be taking up a lot of ram, watch how it compresses as more apps are opened up. the blue rises higher while the yellow stays level. no swap space is ever used. also, even with all this crap opened up, the system is still 100% responsive. try doing that with windows.



windows on the other hand has 300megs of ram empty and has 200megs of swap used for no reason at all.

I use Linux

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Anti-Micro$aft.

I'll switch to linux when GAIM has a better GUI and has more of the features of the offical MSN client and when openoffice is either more popular or has 100% compatibility with MS Office.

Gaim has a better gui than MSN to me, I like tabs. I end up using Gaim even on windows. File transfer now works flawlessly just like messenger 6 and over, Avatars are supported and that really is the only feature I need from the official client

As for OpenOffice, patience young grasshoper. Ooo 2.0 is right around the corner, and they claim it has better office compatibility.

Tried Linux, couldnt use it + theres little drivers for wireless network adapters!