334 replies to this topic 2 votes

[Mindovermaster]

Hey guys, it's very odd to me. I've been 100% on Ubuntu (12.10 x64) for 2 months straight and never looked back to Windows 7. Well, except to help my Mom on her computer.

Everything just... works. While I had a few problems along the way, I broke through them. Help is there, all you need to do is look for it.

Oddly enough, my Dad was intrigued by it as well. I put it on his laptop a few months ago, and he loves it. He wants it on his desktop, too.

Yeah, you get the people who say, "Why switch?", "Linux isn't compatible", "It looks ugly". With a little know how, you can do anything in Linux, in some cases more, than you can do in Windows.

Linux, as a whole, has grown 10 folds since I started venturing it in ~2005. More support, drivers, open source software, and more power to the kernel.

I have to say, I learned more in the last 2 months than I learned the last ~7 years. This proves that even the noobish, with help, can overcome anything.

Anyone who is iffy about using Linux, and wants the full experience, not just in a VM, put it on a flash drive. You can install it straight off there, and not have to wait for the Live-CD to boot up. That's how I started.

[Detection]

Linux is fun for geeking about in, but its a royal PITA to use full time, Windows is easy and works fine without having to trail through endless forums looking for a way to make it do the simplest of tasks

I like Linux, but not for a main OS on my main PC, I have it dual booted on my laptop and have never booted into it more than twice since I installed it

[firey]

I agree fully. Though I haven't 100% switched over to linux (as I do like my gaming), I have Arch setup on 2 Different VMs, and technically 3 native installs.

1 VM and 1 Native install at work
1 VM and 2 Native installs at home (Old PC and Raspberry Pi = Natives)

Aside from running the games I play natively (aka 0 issues/side effects) I can do everything on Linux I can do on windows, right down to Coding in .NET. Once I can play games (aka: GW2, D3, Dishonored) without the need of 3rd party tools I don't see why I wouldn't switch.

[+Majesticmerc]

Detection, on 21 December 2012 - 16:16, said:

Linux is fun for geeking about in, but its a royal PITA to use full time, Windows is easy and works fine without having to trail through endless forums looking for a way to make it do the simplest of tasks

I like Linux, but not for a main OS on my main PC, I have it dual booted on my laptop and have never booted into it more than twice since I installed it

I disagree. I use Linux as my main OS. It was a pain to set up (Arch is a pain to set up by definition), but once I set it up, I rarely, if ever, have issues. I really only keep Windows for the games now.

[Detection]

Majesticmerc, on 21 December 2012 - 16:33, said:

I disagree. I use Linux as my main OS. It was a pain to set up (Arch is a pain to set up by definition), but once I set it up, I rarely, if ever, have issues. I really only keep Windows for the games now.

That's the thing though, if you need to keep a 2nd OS for anything, your main OS is not good enough

I have Win 7 installed and never need to boot into Linux for anything other than messing about, Windows does everything I need it to

I'm not slagging Linux off, like I say I like it, and can 100% see the appeal of having it as your main OS

[Nothing Here]

Majesticmerc, on 21 December 2012 - 16:33, said:

I disagree. I use Linux as my main OS. It was a pain to set up (Arch is a pain to set up by definition), but once I set it up, I rarely, if ever, have issues. I really only keep Windows for the games now.

Arch is a pain anyways. But once you do get it going. It stays going. Unless you bork it up yourself. Fedora is great. Easy to set up. But it is easy to bork it up. All it takes is one bad app install and there it goes. But it is always an easy fix.

[LogicalApex]

Detection, on 21 December 2012 - 16:38, said:

That's the thing though, if you need to keep a 2nd OS for anything, your main OS is not good enough

I have Win 7 installed and never need to boot into Linux for anything other than messing about, Windows does everything I need it to

I'm not slagging Linux off, like I say I like it, and can 100% see the appeal of having it as your main OS

Having to use a second OS isn't all that unusual depending on your needs. If you want to write iOS apps you need to run OS X. That doesn't stop the fact that if you want to game you still will want a Windows PC on hand. In any case, Windows is inadequate at letting you write iOS apps and Mac OS X is inadequate at letting you game. That is the nature of technology. Nothing is 100% adequate.

[Mindovermaster]

Detection, on 21 December 2012 - 16:38, said:

That's the thing though, if you need to keep a 2nd OS for anything, your main OS is not good enough

I have Win 7 installed and never need to boot into Linux for anything other than messing about, Windows does everything I need it to

I'm not slagging Linux off, like I say I like it, and can 100% see the appeal of having it as your main OS

Soon, Steam will come to Linux. The need for gaming will slightly diminish. And for those games that won't work in Linux, can be had with Wine, or PlayonLinux.

And yet, Linux does everything I need, and more. Sounds like you haven't put your head into it. You are just looking at it.

Arch is very hard to set up, I agree. But once you do get it set up, you won't look back.

[Tyler R.]

Ha! Was about to comment but power went out here! Scared the hell out of me--really thought it was the end of the world there for a second.

Anyway, I agree with Detection 100%. Linux over complicates simple task for no reason and has really weird strange bugs. Out of out all the distros I've tried, Kubuntu is probably the best, most polished one yet. I enjoy using it, and have it installed as my only OS on my secondary machine, but I'm mainly on my main Windows 7 machine unless I'm feeling geeky that day. Love Linux, tho.

[redvamp128]

Mindovermaster, on 21 December 2012 - 16:48, said:

Soon, Steam will come to Linux. The need for gaming will slightly diminish. And for those games that won't work in Linux, can be had with Wine, or PlayonLinux.

And yet, Linux does everything I need, and more. Sounds like you haven't put your head into it. You are just looking at it.

Arch is very hard to set up, I agree. But once you do get it set up, you won't look back.

People seem to forget there was a time when games were produced both in Direct X and Open GL (which Linux fully supports the later) Then by the same token also creating a Windows port of the game would be easy because Windows also supports Open GL.

It is just lately developers have been so main stream on Direct X and have let the Open GL side slide.

If it was not the fact that my school requires Windows for one of my classes then I would be using Linux More.. Right now it is a 70% Linux 30% Windows.

[+Majesticmerc]

Detection, on 21 December 2012 - 16:38, said:

That's the thing though, if you need to keep a 2nd OS for anything, your main OS is not good enough

I have Win 7 installed and never need to boot into Linux for anything other than messing about, Windows does everything I need it to

I'm not slagging Linux off, like I say I like it, and can 100% see the appeal of having it as your main OS

I don't use Windows because Linux is inferior or impossible to play games on, simply because the games I want to play are only available on Windows. If the games I want to play were available natively in Linux, I'd uninstall Windows.

Tyler R., on 21 December 2012 - 17:02, said:

Ha! Was about to comment but power went out here! Scared the hell out of me--really thought it was the end of the world there for a second.

Anyway, I agree with Detection 100%. Linux over complicates simple task for no reason and has really weird strange bugs. Out of out all the distros I've tried, Kubuntu is probably the best, most polished one yet. I enjoy using it, and have it installed as my only OS on my secondary machine, but I'm mainly on my main Windows 7 machine unless I'm feeling geeky that day. Love Linux, tho.

Out of curiousity (any answer is valid, I'm not looking for a reason to flame), what is it about Linux you find too complicated?

[Aergan]

My only real gripe with Linux is X11/Xorg + vendor support and how combined they often leave an after taste of blood with each new *buntu release.

[Axel]

I run it on my server (command line only) and it's fantastic. Lots of fun to tinker around with but for the most part "it just works" and does what it's supposed to.

That said, I still couldn't see myself running it on my desktop. I'm pretty comfortable with Windows 8.

[+Majesticmerc]

I assume you mean Graphics card vendor support? Yeah ATI and Nvidia suck at Linux drivers, I'm still running an outdated version of X because ATI won't update their Catalyst drivers until Canonical do for Ubuntu.

[ZakO]

I've been using Linux on and off for the last 12 years (since Mandrake 7.0) I feel several distributions are now indeed 'desktop ready' for the average person but unfortunately it's still let down by the available software.

I've tried to run it as my primary OS many times, usually a few days later I find myself needing to perform task(s) where the software to perform said task(s) simply doesn't exist for Linux. Initially I started writing apps/utilities to fill the gaps but in the end it felt like a waste of time.