Linux is beginning to annoy me

[.Neo]

And there are some NAS devices that work fine out of the box, not all hardware manufacturers are linux friendly. Just like there are some hardware/software that works in windows, but not OSX. windows is pretty much the only os with "ubiquitous" hardware manufacturer support. Hardware compatibility issues with linux can be avoided by doing a little research beforehand.

Read what mclaren2 said:

they [Linux distributions] all work out of the box and you can do everything you can do with windows, most things even better/faster.

That's nonsense as clearly demonstrated by my two examples. There are literally thousands of threads on the internet showing that Linux doesn't in fact always work out of the box. Hell, just look around this forum alone.

[ViperAFK]

Read what mclaren2 said:

That's nonsense as clearly demonstrated by my two examples.

Yeah I skimmed past his quote when I read your post. I definitely agree that that is not true :D. Its important for anyone using linux to realize that not all hardware will work. If one expects all hardware/software/drivers to work then they are in for a bad time. A lot of things do work out of the box though, but sometimes do require a little bit of trickery.

[HawkMan]

I thought I had it with Linux too until I retried CrunchBang. I was just playing a youtube video a few seconds ago using 30% of my CPU and 512 megs of my ram. I'm really loving it! The only bad thing is you have to edit your menu every time you install something new and mess with config files. It's not "hard" it just gets to be a pain in the keester sometimes.

You have to remember flash isn't Linux's fault. Blame Adobe for that.

Why wouldn't you want your OS to make use of your memory ? do you fill up your box with 8+Gigs of memory for fun ?

[f0rk_b0mb]

Why wouldn't you want your OS to make use of your memory ? do you fill up your box with 8+Gigs of memory for fun ?

I have #! installed on my secondary machine, which has 4gb DDR2 ram. Everything is instantaneous--you should try it out sometime. The machine in my sig is my gaming machine, so no, it's not just for fun. I have 8gb in it because Skyrim and Crysis 3 love ram.

[Tuishimi]

I have #! on my netbook... it works. It seems like a nice distro but I don't use my netbook often enough to comment about its benefits or weaknesses... that being said I did do some research before installing it and it seemed like the way to go... small size, quick, and it was very highly rated by users.

[yakumo]

Right click the CMD titlebar, select properties, layout tab. Width

Adjust that and you can widen the CMD window with ease.

use conemu ! https://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/

I have tasks set up for cmd, cygwin, putty, mintty, you can even pull terminals or even regular windows into it's tabs o_O it's amazing.

[HawkMan]

I have #! installed on my secondary machine, which has 4gb DDR2 ram. Everything is instantaneous--you should try it out sometime. The machine in my sig is my gaming machine, so no, it's not just for fun. I have 8gb in it because Skyrim and Crysis 3 love ram.

so it's just 1/8th of your ram you're not using then ;p

[hid3y0shi]

I love Linux, it's highly customizable, almost no viruses, free and open source.

In my opinion Windows is perfect for gaming, I don't use it(actually at the moment I don't own even a copy) for other purposes.

[+Majesticmerc MVC]

I hear ya. Linux can be a pain sometimes, but then I've come across my share of problems in Windows too. I think it always seems like the grass is greener on the other side.

My personal gripes with Linux:

1. Default OOTB appearance for most DE's. You seem to either get a great default setup with an appearance that makes a blind man's eyes bleed (e.g. KDE, XFCE, LXDE), or you get a good looking default look, with glaring usability issues (e.g. Gnome 3, Unity). Thankfully the former issue is easily resolved through the abundance of themes available, the latter, not so much, but things are improving in Gnome 3 and Unity.
   
2. ATI. Seriously, **** those guys. Their drivers are bad and they should feel bad. Even since their "we support Valve and Linux" push this year, their drivers still suck if you have a setup even slightly out of the ordinary. It's a sad world we live in where the best graphics drivers are for Intel's built-in graphics chips.
   
3. Wireless networking (which sort of extends from your point about hardware), You're basically gambling on whether or not you're going to be returning that wireless dongle.
   
4. Sound. This is sort of relates to #2. Sound in Linux is much better than it used to be, Pulseaudio is a godsend, but sound always sounds attrocious compared to Windows, undoubtedly because of better 1st party driver support.
   

It seems to me that most of Linux's problems stem from two problems: (1) Lack of GUI skills, and (2) absence of decent 1st party hardware support. All that said, I still love using my Linux. On a personal level I love it because I installed Arch with nothing but a command line and a wiki page, and have got a fully functioning, stable, and fast desktop OS. I take pride in that. I find that (for the mostpart) I'm much more comfortable navigating Linux than I am Windows these days. There are niggles of inconsistency, but mostly I find everything a breeze. Linux does make much more use of the terminal, but I don't really see that as a negative. The learning curve is pretty steep, but it's an immensely powerful tool in the right hands (a weapon for a more civilised age, if you will). Anyway, a couple of points that I think are worth addressing about your original post (my comments/opinion in red).

Topic title could cover a broad scope but here goes

Certain things are bothering me that makes me consider leaving the 100% linux and going back partly if not completely to windows

Cons for Linux

• Flash is atrocious on linux and maxes out my CPU (Yeah I agree, flash isn't as good in Linux as in Windows, but then everything that Adobe writes for Linux is trash)
  
• Checking hardware will work before buying (Aside from Wireless dongles, which are notoriously hit and miss (although ndiswrapper helps), I find that most hardware works with Linux OOTB in my experience. Some of it lacks proper 1st party drivers, but in many cases the community drivers are more than sufficient)
  
• Finding other hardware that will work when your first choice wont or is not know if it will (See above)
  
• stupid little niggles like when i plug my ethernet cable in it disables my wireless and i have to reboot to get it back (Are you using the standard network daemon by any chance? I use NetworkManager, which I find works pretty well (arguably better than Windows when things like VPN support are considered, but the default network daemon that comes with the Likes of Arch is pretty much dead at this point IMO)
  

Pros for linux

• Very little malware/viruses (I discount this as a "pro" for Linux, it leads to too many "security through obscurity" arguments. Linux is mostly just as vulnerable to malware as Windows these days, insofar that both are pretty damn secure, but all it takes is an idiot too eager to see Jessica Alba naked and *BAM* virus city)
  
• Can be altered and changed to suit
  
• all the crap can be removed
  

Cons for Windows

• Honestly i cant think of any (maybe you could help me) (I'll add a few, although bear in mind that this is my opinion only, and your own mileage may vary)
  
• Lack of package management. Windows 8 store goes some way to alleviating this, but it's still nowhere near Linux levels of decency. Package managers are one of the few Features that Linux has that beats all other competitors consistently.
  
• Printer drivers. Printer drivers for Windows are god-awful in my experience. So bloated, so much to install and so unnecessary. CUPS is all anyone should ever need (+ hplip if you've got an HP printer diagnostics and stuff).
  
• Our-way-or-the-highway. Don't like Metro? I think you need it a bit more IN YOUR FACE.
  
• Windows CLI. Windows doesn't need a CLI for much, but when it does you're gonna have a bad time. Cygwin and Powershell alleviate that somewhat, but they're still not as good as a decent, native, bash terminal.
  
• Storage mechanism. I know this one is highly controversial, but I much prefer the Unix-y way of storing files and settings to the Windows-y way. There's a previous discussion about this here. In the interests of fairness, Joshie also made some very good points as to why Windows is better than Unix in this regard, but we parted ways agreeing to disagree.
  

Pro for Windows

• Everything works out the box
  
• there's drivers for everything
  
• vast support all over the place (books,web,neighbour)
  

It starting to annoy me that if something goes wrong i have to go searching online to find what the problem is, then **** about in a CLI to fix it

In Windows usually there will be a fix or someone has created a program to fix it for me

Maybe i am just in a bit of a rut here

At the end of the day, I'll continue to dual-boot for the forseeable. I use Linux for all my day to day stuff and development and whatnot, but for stuff like Games, I'll continue to use Windows simply because that's where the games are. I do have a lot of games installed in Linux, but the inconsistent levels of support and bugginess are still there, even if things are improving.

[ViperAFK]

1. Wireless networking (which sort of extends from your point about hardware), You're basically gambling on whether or not you're going to be returning that wireless dongle
   

When it comes to getting wireless hardware known to work in linux, its all about the chipset. You want to think in terms of the chipset it uses instead of the brand. For example pretty much any wireless hardware that has an atheros or intel chipset will work fine out of the box.

[ichi]

Not sure what's the point of this thread, just use whatever works best for you.

Regarding hardware support it can be a hit or miss, although not just on Linux. I've found that Sony's PS3 bluetooth headset was annoying to get working on Windows7. It got installed and you could pair it but it didn't work, I had to hunt for a driver in some obscure web (it was supposed to be available through Windows Update, but it wasn't) and try several different versions that seemed to work for some people and not for others until I finally found one that worked.

On the other hand I got it working on Linux straight away (which comes really handy as I no longer have to boot the laptop to chat in our coop game sesions).

Then of course you can find a lot of hardware that either doesn't work on Linux or is not fully supported *shrugs* fortunately all my hardware is supported nicely, and I didn't bother to do any kind of research before buying. The only piece that doesn't work is the PodX3, but I have a laptop for that so I don't see any point in also running Windows on the desktop.

[n_K]

On the plus side.. Linux supports my old (OLD) BT878 cable TV tuner board under x64... never had a driver made for Windows x64, x86 only, haven't used it in a few years.

Oh there is a driver out there for that board ;). I had the same problem trying to find one, there's no OFFICIAL drivers but there's some site with generic BT878 drivers with x64 support, you might need to add your PID and VID to the INF but they do work (kinda) :p

[Growled Member]

Certain things are bothering me that makes me consider leaving the 100% linux and going back partly if not completely to windows

I love Linux but I haven't ran it in months. It's more hassle than I want to fool with right now. I'm not sure I will ever go back either.

[Kreuger]

Nah, don't know Haggis personally but seen him around here long enough to know he's not a first timer with Linux.

Really? I've been around here 10 years and have never seen either of you, unless you've had other names. Not that this is on topic, mind you..

Sound. This is sort of relates to #2. Sound in Linux is much better than it used to be, Pulseaudio is a godsend, but sound always sounds attrocious compared to Windows, undoubtedly because of better 1st party driver support.

Um what? Sound quality is no different on any distro Ive ever used, compared with Windows.

[Karl L.]

Really? I've been around here 10 years and have never seen either of you, unless you've had other names. Not that this is on topic, mind you..

Um what? Sound quality is no different on any distro Ive ever used, compared with Windows.

I'm going to have to disagree with you on both points. Both Max Norris and Haggis have been active in the Linux section here for at least the last year - possibly longer, but I have a short memory. As for sound the sound quality issues, I have had problems with sound distortion and relatively low maximum volume before. I don't think that it's a distro-specific problem though - it's an issue with the support of certain sound cards. (Actually, the only computer that I have ever had Linux audio issues with was my PowerBook G4 running Debian Squeeze.)

[simonlang]

Two real world simple examples where your claim wasn't true:

Friend of mine bought a new NAS last week. It was literally plug and play on both OS X and Windows. With Ubuntu 12.10 on the other hand we couldn't get it to work no matter what we did. Everything online pointed us to Terminal to fix the issue. In the end we got it to work, but it took a while and it was in no way straightforward.

With native office software available to Linux there's absolutely no possibility to recreate the presentations I make with Apple Keynote. Not because I don't know how the software works, simply because the necessary functionality isn't there. With PowerPoint I can at least get very close.

and despite there IS a cross-platform piece of software called libreoffice / openoffice available for ALL three OS to prevent such things you continue to use different software and blame the fact of incompatibility to linux. (hint: it's not the expensive ms products nor the apple products offering their software for all 3 plattforms.....)

it's so funny how people continue to bashing and trashing linux with specialised examples. i won't deny - as i wrote earlier - if you are a console hating hardcore gamer freak then you won't be happy with linux or mac osX.

same way, if you are specialized to photoshop/layout/magazine type of work, you go only with mac osX.

if you like to write your own code and programs you'd go with linux.

these are 3 specialized examples and i bet now and here that 90% of the pc users don't need any of the 3. all they wanna do is the most common tasks like office/cd burning/some pdf reading/skype/some low level video/graphic editing.

can i now at least finally saving a .doc/.xls or whatever file as .pdf in windows or do i still need to pay for a plugin or use a only half working free plugin?!

the fact that you don't have to worry about viruses or trojans is another plus esp. for beginners. and if they want to run their beloved windows program, it's very easy thanks to wine. can i run linux proggies with windows? of course not. because windows is lame.

[HawkMan]

and despite there IS a cross-platform piece of software called libreoffice / openoffice available for ALL three OS to prevent such things you continue to use different software and blame the fact of incompatibility to linux. (hint: it's not the expensive ms products nor the apple products offering their software for all 3 plattforms.....)

Well his point was that the libreoffice package simply was not capable of doing what he wanted. Those are good basic office apps, but they are no replacement for MS office or even Apple's office package. There's a reason Crossover exists, because even hardcore linux users know that there's no replacement for MS office.

Also Office can save to PDF. The reason it wasn't possible before wasn't because of MS, they wanted to be able to do it in 2007. But Adobe blocked them.

same way, if you are specialized to photoshop/layout/magazine type of work, you go only with mac osX.

if you like to write your own code and programs you'd go with linux.

The first one was true 10 years ago, when Apple still used PowerPC, and when PowerPC thanks to it's specialized instruction set for color table conversions made it more effective than x86 at photoshop work. but then PowerPC hit the wall and x86 zoomed past it on pure brute force. but graphics artists and layout editors had already started to switch to Wintel before this. Nowadays, while Apple is still popular in this segment, the majority is on wintel.

As for your second statement. Sorry but that's just pure fantasy BS. I think you'll find there are about 90 of those people on windows for every one on linux. and there's no advantage to being on linux when doing this over windows. in fact, Visual Studio says it's better to be on Windows.

the fact that you don't have to worry about viruses or trojans is another plus esp. for beginners. and if they want to run their beloved windows program, it's very easy thanks to wine. can i run linux proggies with windows? of course not. because windows is lame.

And that's also of course not true. also Wine is not "easy" for beginners. you're somewhat disconnected from the average joe here.

[]SK[]

the fact that you don't have to worry about viruses or trojans is another plus esp. for beginners. and if they want to run their beloved windows program, it's very easy thanks to wine. can i run linux proggies with windows? of course not. because windows is lame.

I have Windows and I don't worry about viruses?

I wanted to run GuildWars 2 in Ubuntu. It ran but with crap FPS and graphical glitches so no Wine doesn't do what I need it to do.

Maybe running the need to run Linux programs in Windows is just very uncommon. I certainly have no requirement. For the despirate some items have been written to work with cygwin.

Why can't people put together a decent argument rather than just saying the competition is 'lame'?

I use Windows all day long at work. I use it at the weekend. I use Linux 24/7 365 to host my websites. Other than a weekly update check my Arch Linux installs tick along fine and are very rapid due to their minimal install. Fantastic for hosting websites on. In my experience though Linux is just not ready for the desktop. The main issue is support for it. Can I buy a PC game off the shelf and just install it in Linux? No. Then there is poor driver support from the hardware vendors so even if the games are pushed though Wine they run with less performance you would get from Windows. Tux Kart... is this the best I can get from Linux gaming? It's great to see Valve bringing Steam to Linux. A very welcomed move and one that could poke hardware manufactures to produce decent drivers.It's still very early though so the games are all old or not mainstream.

I try Linux from time to time. Ubuntu mainly as that's the one OS that's currently most user friendly. Sure its bloat but I want something that works out the box which for Linux can be hard to find. I always end up with some issues though that resort the need to pull the CLI out. I give up and go back to Windows.

[Haggis Veteran]

Looks like another baseless flamewar thread. I recommend a mod closes this.

How can this possibly be a Flame thread about Linux when i stated in the first post i have used it 100% for the last year and a bit

I just wanted to have a bit of a rant about the things in Linux that annoy me

Anyway back to the real topic

Thank you for all your replies guys

I have tried different distros from ubuntu right through to gentoo, I stuck with Fedora for its split of being easy to use and fast enough for my liking :)

I found another example last night on the difference between windows and Linux

I bought a wireless N Dongle as my laptop is just Wireless B/G

I downloaded the drivers from the Dlink website and installed them it then said plug the dongle in, which i did and it was not recognised tried this a few times with reboots in between but to no avail

I then went searching online and found that the Ralink 2870 chip is in the dongle so i downlaoded the driver for this and away it went working like a charm giving me 144mbps wireless speed

I then booted into Fedora

Plugged the dongle in and it was recognised instantly, i clicked on my wireless network put in the key and it connected first time, so in this instance the drivers etc actually installed easier and better in Linux rather than windows

Then i found a problem

When connected in windows i get 144mbps, if i then reboot and boot into linux, (not moving the laptop or the dongle) i only get 57.8mbps

No matter what i tried i could not get any higher so it seems to just be using G speeds lol

[]SK[]

I think he's talking about the general comments from others. I too read it the same way which is why I posted above.

Obviously some have come to defend Linux but decided to just attack Windows in protest.

[Haggis Veteran]

SK[' timestamp=1364977051' post='595613848]

I think he's talking about the general comments from others. I too read it the same way which is why I posted above.

Obviously some have come to defend Linux but decided to just attack Windows in protest.

Yeah i understand that

easiest thing to do is just report the posts and let a Mod deal with them

[Nick H. Supervisor]

<Thread Cleaned>

Let's not ruin it now, guys. This has been a good debate so far, don't drag it down.

[simonlang]

Well his point was that the libreoffice package simply was not capable of doing what he wanted. Those are good basic office apps, but they are no replacement for MS office or even Apple's office package. There's a reason Crossover exists, because even hardcore linux users know that there's no replacement for MS office.

so we are talking then about a special case. can u go any cheaper because i havent got a proper discount yet.....

i can find special cases for every OS to show how much its better than the other 2....

but even you seem to acknowledge that good basic office apps are possible on all 3 OS and there is no need to waste money to make ballmers belly even fatter.

Also Office can save to PDF. The reason it wasn't possible before wasn't because of MS, they wanted to be able to do it in 2007. But Adobe blocked them.

probably the same way microsoft blocked netscape and others. there you see. as soon as money is involved it makes things much much more complex.

The first one was true 10 years ago, when Apple still used PowerPC, and when PowerPC thanks to it's specialized instruction set for color table conversions made it more effective than x86 at photoshop work. but then PowerPC hit the wall and x86 zoomed past it on pure brute force. but graphics artists and layout editors had already started to switch to Wintel before this. Nowadays, while Apple is still popular in this segment, the majority is on wintel.

nah. i still havent found a normal pc monitor (size doesnt matter) which has this color saturation and clearness and sharpness the iMac screen offers. and dont throw in notebooks they dont count.

As for your second statement. Sorry but that's just pure fantasy BS. I think you'll find there are about 90 of those people on windows for every one on linux. and there's no advantage to being on linux when doing this over windows. in fact, Visual Studio says it's better to be on Windows.

i don't give a ****, what microsofts visual studio says because its biased. money involved and so on you know....

with linux u usually program open source apps, means less mistakes, faster bug fixes, etc. it's just the same with the os itself. windows is full of bugs and just because they throw a nice surface over a trashy os, it's still a trashy os....

And that's also of course not true. also Wine is not "easy" for beginners. you're somewhat disconnected from the average joe here.

nope im not. installed/maintenanced many linux (mostly ubuntu 10.x) for beginners, and the easiest part was for me to tell them go to the ubuntu market (or how its called now) and search for wine, press the install button, then chose your windows proggy and double click on the setup.exe and install the way you always do. it also did automatic start menu entries. can't be made easier. and again: is there a way to run linux apps in windows? nope it isn't.

[REM2000]

The key thing i learnt years ago that everything in life comes down to a simple balance, Money vs Time. If you have the money you get more time, if you haven't got the money then you have to spend the time.

Linux falls into this category, it mostly works out the box but there will be a point where you have to fiddle. When you're young you have more time, so linux etc.. can be really good, however as you get older other commitments come up and you end up having to divide your time up more effectively. This is not a slight against Linux, i love it, i use it on servers, it's incredible, it's lean and very modular, it's a server don't need the UI, don't install it, it's really good. I love the appliance nature of linux. I have this problem i want to server i will install the base linux and just the software to solve the task (NAS, Firewall etc..)

Windows is a more all rounder, it's great. Windows i think has finally come into it's own and Windows 2008R2/2012 & Windows 7/8 make previous versions look prehistoric, like a distant computing memory. I remember when uptime used to be something you bragged about, however easily all three OS's Mac OSX, Windows and Linux can easily be left on for very long periods of time with only updates causing uptime to drop. I love Windows server, Windows 2012 is one of the best all rounder servers ive used, it can do pretty much anything you throw at it. (for me the only thing missing is the storage pools having checksum data integrity and multiple copies on the same array to combat bitrot a la ZFS and it would be perfect).

In today's modern world it's all about personal choice, all three os's have reached the same level of maturity, i personally use MacOSX as my primary machines, with Windows 8 as a gaming machine and a Windows 8 as my work Desktop and Laptop. We use Windows and Linux servers and they all work well together.

You've given Linux a good go for a year, it's good experience and that knowledge can be applied to anything you do in the future (think of the great talk from Steve Jobs of connecting the dots). Perhaps it's time to give Windows a try for a year and see how you get on. Personally i would recommend Windows 8. The UI is a bit of a shock, however i say to get used to it, don't use metro at all. Simply use it as Windows, once you have eased into it then start using metro. I think a lot of people rush in a use metro and it gives a disjointed experience. Experience Windows first before metro. I did and i love it, it's incredibly fast, the performance is amazing and the start menu actually becomes quite easy to use, it's especially easy on laptops with touch pads as they are not the most accurate so having the icons larger actually makes it easy to use, something which makes a lot of sense on netbooks.

I run a netbook with an Atom N277 with 2GB RAM and a 64GB SSD and the system absolutely flies with Windows 8, boot up's, sleep etc.. battery lasts easily an extra hour when compared to Windows 7 and the bit icons on the start menu make it easy to use on such a small screen with an even smaller touchpad.

[Haggis Veteran]

Good points :)

I have used windows for years lol use it at work (windows XP :( ) lol

Only windows i have never used is Windows 8,

I think i will dual boot for a while but if the wireless adapter thing cannot be fixed i can see me using windows a lot more as downloading files with a 30mbps line against a 18mbps line makes a huge difference lol