Windows or Linux as a desktop?


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The topic title is a question which I intend to answer for myself. I am attempting to change completly from Windows XP to some kind of Linux distribution. Iam also going to get all the events and how I do so far here. If you are interested please keep reading it, because otherwise there would be no point in writing it lol ;) Also I would like to try and inspire people to move over to Linux themselves so I would like it if people could send this link to other people and get a large amount of people reading the site. I think a mass-migration over to Linux will help its devolpers to make the OS better and maybe evenually overtake MS.

So please, if you don't try and convert yourself, at least tell people about this.

Also one last thought. If anyone would like to attempt to convert themselves at this time, I can give you access to my blog and you can post at the same time about your progress of moving over to Linux. If you would like to do this email me - jether@jether.co.uk

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I just like windows, I grew up using it I don't feel a need to change, I'm sure linux is really nice (only used a few distro's) but it's not for me.

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Ditto.

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Thats exactly what I thought. I've been using windows since 95 came out, but I thought its time for a change. Lots of people are starting to use Linux and I think its the up-and-coming thing in the computer world. Thats why I want to get on it as soon as possible really.

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Linux isn't nearly as effective as a desktop operating system compared to their server counterparts. There are too many applications that will only run in Windows, and many applications important to one's field of study may only be available to those with Windows.

It's far easier to run Windows than it is Linux, everything is presentend in a friendly streamlined manor, i.e. errors. I had switched to Linux in the past, and then back to Windows since I was sick of having to use "alternatives" or dual boot for some Windows applications. And the interface isn't quite as smooth when compared to Windows.

Sure Linux is modular and you can customize the core, that's what makes it so great, I'd even use it on a Server computer, but it's not nearly as complete for a Client PC. Consumer PCs don't need to be modular, for the most part, they perform the same tasks.

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I am forced to use windows everywhere else I go, and although I onyl switched a litttle while ago. I love linux.

If you can go for a month without windows, you'll realise how lovely linux is :)

And the topic title 'as a desktop' I'm presuming your meaning not for gaming? Or on a desktop pc?

I plan on building another rig for gaming, but I havn't been able to play my games for nearly a month and to be honest, I don't miss them much either :)

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I am tinkering with Ubuntu, but I am locked in to Windows mostly (not by Microsoft's monopoly, but by third-party software developers whose specialised programs I need to use and which don't come in Linux).

What Linux needs is full Windows emulation so I can run these odd programs. I know it's got Wine and you can get Crossover Office, but there are just too many kinks still.

I remain hopeful, however. :rofl:

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Moved here...i think

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Er.. ok.

The main problem people seem to have is that Linux is 'hard'. Everything is 'hard'. This is simply NOT the case. The thing is, it's DIFFERENT. Many people who have years and years of experience with windows, and consider themselves advanced users come to Linux. Then something goes wrong and they simply freak out because they don't know what to do.

The Linux way is actually easier, I've been learning my mom to work on Linux for a bit now. She can do the most basic things now. And she has no idea how to do anything on windows.

It's just that you can't expect to have it working in the first day. Try to remember how long it took you to perfect your knowledge of windows and to burn it into your brain where what is and how to do what and what to do when something breaks.

Most people who stick with Linux for over a week, and DON'T switch to windows when something is not working stay at Linux. Those however who dualboot, get to a problem .. then say screw it and boot back to windows to do what they need will never learn it.

I've done that myself quite a few time, I've been trying to get onto Linux for the past few months and always went back to windows when things didn't work. However IRC and forums really help and now with a little help I've moved 90% of my things from windows to Linux.

All my e-mail stuff, music, videos, surfing is now done in Linux. The only 2 things left in windows are Gaming (which will also stay there, I have no intention of bothering with wine or cedega.. games simply work on windows better.. the only games I'll play on Linux are the ones with a native client) and some work for my firm. ;)

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As a former user of a variety of older OSes (CP/M, HPL, Ataris, then Windows 3.11 and up) who has switched 100% to Linux at home, I think you will find help here. However, you have not really mentioned why you are looking at Linux. Without a reason to switch there really is no... well... reason. :ermm:

It will be interesting to see what you run into, and how you perceive the experience of switching. There are lots of good people in the forums that will help (and will help you remove Linux and get your Windows back, if that is what you end up doing). Either way, this should be a good learning experience. (Y)

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When I was studying and still had my laptop I used Linux on it the majority of the time.

and I can only say one thing

Linux is nowhere near ready for the desktop.

no matter how good tools and all that even the best distros have there's frequently situations you come over where the tools can't to the job and you need to get under the hood. that should NOT ever be necessary, even if I could figure it out most of the time, despite the newbie hostile linux "camps" (not it's not a camp. Linux is divided into lots of camps, wich is probably it's biggest drawback).

Heck when I just a couple of weeks back set up my server with windows and linux dual boot. I ended up just deleting the linux partitions and sticking to windows. mostly because I didn't need the hassle of dualbooting the server, and I run some game sevrers on it, and Wine and th wineX thing whatever it's new name was, REALLY didn't do a good enough job for these.

if I was just rnning it as a webserver, router and firewall I'd probably have stuck to Linux, but that was more of a secondary role of it so...

First Linux needs to get .. not easy. but it needs to get a single coherent set of config tools, wich are plain and easy to understand. and for anythign basic, you should NEVER need to look at a config file, or other under the hood stuff. then it'll be ready for basic Desktop stuff.

Then everyone needs to get together again, and makecoherent install system, one that ALLWAYS makes sure there's a shortcut in the menu afterwards(wich doesn't happen all the time with default packages from the Distro CD's in FC, Mandriva Ubuntu and the rest either....).

That way MAYBE some more software developers might be interested in developing for linux as well. Do you really think anyone is interested in developing closed source apps and games for linux when they need to make custom installers and scripts for every distro. Look at Maya for one, they have a linux release, and that's only supported in one distro (was redhat, isn't sure right now).

Once the Linux Camps realise they need to stop fighting about making a better substandard solution than the other group, and get together and make a GOOD solution together that's incorporated across distros and they stop the stupid infighting, then, MAYBE they can get to a spot where linux is an acceptable desktop solution.

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:blink: Thank you for sharing that, HawkMan.

However, the original poster should not just abandon this project merely on your experiences. Plus, some of your facts are in error. "Closed source apps and games" do not need to "make custom installers and scripts for every distro". UT2004 works fine installing on any Distro that I know of, and they have the installer right on the CD. I don't own any other games. I am 38, with 4 kids and a full-time job, so my "gaming" is extremely minimal. (and, yes, I wholly agree that Windows is a great gaming OS)

Your point on Maya shows a bit of lack of understanding. Red Hat and Novell have paid to have their software certified for Maya. It isn't tied only to the certified flavors.

As for editing a config file, it is a matter of preference. Many distros include GUI tools (as you mentioned), but editing a text file is not difficult, just different.

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Have you tried installing Maya on Non Red Hat distro's ???

because I have, and it's not exactly a UT2k4/opera install kind of deal, wich are easy to install... Maya is WAY more complicated than those though.

it's not a unpack and start the app kind of deal.

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Red Hat and Novell have paid to have their software certified for Maya.

hmmm, maybe that's why he said that Red Hat and Novell are certified for Maya :blink:

If you need to use Maya, which is a very expensive application, I'm sure you would have no trouble getting a license to run Red Hat or a Novell Operating system. You'd still be using Linux.

Linux is good for a variety of reasons, gaming is becoming one of them with WineX and Cedega. It's a VERY nice desktop OS if you ask most people that use it full time. You can't go into using Linux expecting it to be anything like Windows, because it's really not, it's setup different (filesystem, etc)

It's just a matter of opinion though, what do I know, i'm just at stupid n00b :p

On Topic: Congrats on considering the switch, you will not regret it in the long run.

EDIT: Looks like Maya can be installed on Suse 9 too, according to their Web Site , and you can obtain Suse for free using the Eval version.

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and of course he should try it, BUT he shouldn't expect to replace windows as his Desktop anytime soon. and he should be aware of that.

the only people who can really run linux as a desktop yet, are peopel who only use their computer for browsing and office stuff, as well as some webdesgin and other things.

once you need more advanced apps, or want to play games, it doesn't cut it.

And the majority of people that that know enough to run a linux duistory and bother with all the troubles it brings with it, Also either play games, or use some more advanced apps that doesn't have a good enough Linux alternative(if you're even willing to accept the alternative in the first place).

he should knwo that no matter what many of the linux peopel claim that linux is so painless and you no longer need to mess with configs manually, this is not the case.

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Thanks all for the support. I am running SUSE 9.1 at the moment (but still very limited with what I can do). For instace, installing a program through Windows is simple. Download the .exe and run it. For SUSE it proves a little more difficult. See my first problem here:

https://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=386869

and please please answer it if you know how lol. I think at the moment Linux is looking that little bit better. It just looks nicer with the KDE and it seems to run very fast at the moment. I still have some large obsticals to cross before I can say that I properly used Linux though.

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I prefer the linux way of installing stuff to be honest. Instead of googling for an app, downloading it, double clicking an .exe, you just open up a package manager, search and click "install". SuSE has YaST, Debian based distros have apt-get (some distros with a nice GUI, like Ubuntu) etc. Plus updating software is a hell of a lot easier in linux. Just 1 tool to do the whole computer.

It does suck though that out of the box multimedia support is pretty poor for the free distros. Paid distros is slightly better, but still not perfect.

Game support is terrible. Although that is no fault of linux, it's game developers and driver support. The ATI drivers are utter ****e (excuse my french) I can't play Doom 3 on minimum settings at 20FPS in linux, whereas I can play it cranked up a bit @ 30-40FPS in windows. I don't know what the Nvidia drivers are like, apparently slightly better.

Wine and Cedega should be pointless. Software developers should make their software work on linux aswell, there should be no need for emulation IMO.

Security wise - yeah, it's getting pretty old now. But linux is more secure than windows. I'm sure average home users are concerned about computer security - but I'm also sure it's not the top of their priorities. I haven't had a problem security wise with windows for ages. It doesn't take a genius to figure out what websites look dodgy and not to open email attachments that you dont trust.

Office software - no problems for doing homework or work-work. OpenOffice is just as good, if not better than MS Office.

Something that really annoys me with most 'newbie' linux distros is the choice. They give the new user so much choice of applications it's unbelievable. The first time I opened the launch menu in SuSE it had about 10 media players installed. And none of them did what I wanted them too. None of them played .wma files out the box, none of them catalogued/shoved in a library, wma files once I managed to figure out how to get them to play them. So I ended up uninstalling loads of them. It also installed like 5 text editors. Seriously man, a text editor is a text editor. There really isn't much difference between them. Just 1 will do thank you very much. That, in my opinion, is an annoying downside to desktop linux. It just bogs down the user with too much choice. There should be a choice to have that much choice of pointless apps or not.

Someone said something about editing config files being morally wrong or something. Says who? It's not the "windows-way" of doing things sure, no check boxes. But really, what is wrong with fiddling with a line or 2 in a config file. It's pretty easy for a basic user to read through the comments and understand what is going on in the file, and once the user is more experienced they can start tinkering. It's much more flexible that way IMO.

Just my 0.02. Please don't eat me.

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I don't know what the Nvidia drivers are like, apparently slightly better.

MUCH MUCH better. I would say on-par with the windows versions. In my experience, many Opengl-friendly games such as UT2k4 and Doom run just as well, if not BETTER on Linux.

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It's far easier to run Windows than it is Linux, everything is presentend in a friendly streamlined manor, i.e. errors.  I had switched to Linux in the past, and then back to Windows since I was sick of having to use "alternatives" or dual boot for some Windows applications.  And the interface isn't quite as smooth when compared to Windows.

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So you prefer an error message in a pop-up with a random error code as opposed to some real de-bugging information when the program you're having a problem with is run from the command line?

I'm a gamer and can't live without Windows :(

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I love Linux as a server.  Its simply amazing software.  I just can't use it as a client.  Like above im a gamer :(

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I am forced to use windows everywhere else I go, and although I onyl switched a litttle while ago. I love linux.

If you can go for a month without windows, you'll realise how lovely linux is :)

And the topic title 'as a desktop' I'm presuming your meaning not for gaming? Or on a desktop pc?

I plan on building another rig for gaming, but I havn't been able to play my games for nearly a month and to be honest, I don't miss them much either :)

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The only 2 things left in windows are Gaming (which will also stay there, I have no intention of bothering with wine or cedega.. games simply work on windows better.. the only games I'll play on Linux are the ones with a native client) and some work for my firm. ;)

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One word, C E D E G A. I forked over the money for this package, and it was money well spent. Sure I wish it was open source, IMO their development would go faster if they had people in the community submitting patches for the little stuff so they could focus on directx, but hell, these guys have re-coded the directx libraries up to full dx8 support, with some dx9 for Linux, and theres speculation that 5.0 will bring full dx9 support. TransGaming has earned my respect, and will earn money from me every month as long as they keep up the great job they're doing. With that said, two recent games are getting the Linux treatment in the near future, Quake 4 (a given) and Serious Sam 2. Game developers are slowly coming around, and I personally think we'll start to see more developers making native clients as they start to realize that there really is an untapped market for it.

When I was studying and still had my laptop I used Linux on it the majority of the time.

and I can only say one thing

Linux is nowhere near ready for the desktop.

no matter how good tools and all that even the best distros have there's frequently situations you come over where the tools can't to the job and you need to get under the hood. that should NOT ever be necessary, even if I could figure it out most of the time, despite the newbie hostile linux "camps" (not it's not a camp. Linux is divided into lots of camps, wich is probably it's biggest drawback).

Heck when I just a couple of weeks back set up my server with windows and linux dual boot. I ended up just deleting the linux partitions and sticking to windows. mostly because I didn't need the hassle of dualbooting the server, and I run some game sevrers on it, and Wine and th wineX thing whatever it's new name was, REALLY didn't do a good enough job for these.

if I was just rnning it as a webserver, router and firewall I'd probably have stuck to Linux, but that was more of a secondary role of it so...

First Linux needs to get .. not easy. but it needs to get a single coherent set of config tools, wich are plain and easy to understand. and for anythign basic, you should NEVER need to look at a config file, or other under the hood stuff.  then it'll be ready for basic Desktop stuff.

Then everyone needs to get together again, and makecoherent install system, one that ALLWAYS makes sure there's a shortcut in the menu afterwards(wich doesn't happen all the time with default packages from the Distro CD's in FC, Mandriva Ubuntu and the rest either....).

That way MAYBE some more software developers might be interested in developing for linux as well. Do you really think anyone is interested in developing closed source apps and games for linux when they need to make custom installers and scripts for every distro. Look at Maya for one, they have a linux release, and that's only supported in one distro (was redhat, isn't sure right now).

Once the Linux Camps realise they need to stop fighting about making a better substandard solution than the other group, and get together and make a GOOD solution together that's incorporated across distros and they stop the stupid infighting, then, MAYBE they can get to a spot where linux is an acceptable desktop solution.

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I'm pretty certain this has been said before. Each distro is not a "camp." Linux is the kernel, the distro's are just that, distributions. Theres no war going on, I use Ubuntu but I don't hate the other distro's as they provide what the people who use them need.

Your point about config's is a good point, and I agree that for the major configs there does need to be a GUI, especially for xorg.conf. This will come with time, and until then theres a whole lot of people who know what they're doing, and how to fix it.

Your point about installers though, is just wrong. Debian based distro's can install .deb's through dpkg, apt-get, or the apt GUI Synaptic AND they can install .rpm's with Alien. I'm not sure about distro's that use rpm's, but I'm willing to bet theres something like that for them. As for shortcuts made by installers, I remember reading a month or so ago that KDE and Gnome are working together to make a standardized menu system, infact it could be in place now and I just don't know it.

Finally, as far as custom installers, hell we'll narrow it down, custom installers and games, as markjensen said, look at any of the UT games, they all have ONE installer, same with ID's games.

MUCH MUCH better.  I would say on-par with the windows versions.  In my experience, many Opengl-friendly games such as UT2k4 and Doom run just as well, if not BETTER on Linux.

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I totally agree, infact Doom 3 not only performs better, but it loads faster.

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Have you tried installing Maya on Non Red Hat distro's ???

because I have, and it's not exactly a UT2k4/opera install kind of deal, wich are easy to install... Maya is WAY more complicated than those though.

it's not a unpack and start the app kind of deal.

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Actually it is extremely easy to install. I have installed it on many distros including Debian and Slackware.

It works fine for me. Oh and RedHat / Fedora are the only distros they provide customer support for IIRC, it isn't about them only being able to properly run on these distros.

Oh also, yeah editing text files might seem wierd but then, compare it to adding keys etc.. to the registry. Heck its easier than Windows in that regard so you can hardly say setting up conf files are difficult.

Yep ATI drivers suck sadly at the moment, but the NVIDIA drivers are pretty damn good and perform nearly as well as Windows and in some cases better. :)

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Actually it is extremely easy to install. I have installed it on many distros including Debian and Slackware.

It works fine for me. Oh and RedHat / Fedora are the only distros they provide customer support for IIRC, it isn't about them only being able to properly run on these distros.

Oh also, yeah editing text files might seem wierd but then, compare it to adding keys etc.. to the registry. Heck its easier than Windows in that regard so you can hardly say setting up conf files are difficult.

Yep ATI drivers suck sadly at the moment, but the NVIDIA drivers are pretty damn good and perform nearly as well as Windows and in some cases better. :)

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Heh, for me, installing maya involved typing "emerge maya", all done.

Just a few hours ago, I stuck in my windows drive to try out Quake 4. Clean install of windows, patched, WHQL'd drivers. 30 minutes in, BSOD. All the temperatures & voltages were perfectly fine, hardware is fine, and yet the infamous random BSOD. Not only this, but windows so lovingly left me nothing in the event log. I'm now waiting for native linux binaries to play Q4. I just feel violated and dirty from touching windows now.

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