Any non-Windows users around?

Just wondering if anybody around here uses Mac or Linux.

Personally, I started experimenting with Linux ages ago but only seriously started when we got a new computer and the old one was basically given up. I ran Gentoo on it and had masses of fun using it (with Gnome). It was slow on that age-old computer, but I liked it.

To list some things:

  1. Superb text editors for when I need to program PHP
  2. I suddenly began to like the prompt. I don’t know why, but it’s great.
  3. Having a panel filled with gunk like CPU usage graph and weather. Actually, the dictionary lookup and sticky notes were often quite useful…
  4. Not having loads of useless crap load up when I logged on. Having a simple system tray.
  5. Multiple workspaces so I don’t have to see all my windows (on the window list/Start bar) at the same time.
  6. Icons on every menu.
  7. Having everything I used look the same, unlike Windows (open browser + music player + CD burner + Photoshop, etc…)
  8. Installing stuff with one command, even though it took ages to actaully install
  9. Installing new versions while using old versions
  10. Submitting ebuilds and helping Gentoo become better
  11. “Always on top” for every window… this has annoyed me countless times on Windows.
  12. Simple Applications menu (equivalent of Start -> All Programs) with about 10 categories. My newer computer reached 3 columns on the Start menu. It’s just that everybody likes to have a menu for their vendor. I want Games/Heroes of Might And Magic, not Somecompanyname/Heroes…!

The old computer died. The processor fan stopped working.

Anybody else? I searched a bit and found a few people.

I use linux on all my computer, except for my old laptop…
I had to use windows on this old compaq armada 400mhz, due to that there were no fully functional drivers for the horrible gfx and audio card on this laptop.

I find linux much better than windows, but i still consider myself a newbie as i have only used linux as main OS for just over a year… But i find my way around most problems with the help of google :smile:

My favorite distro is debian.

Yay to you! Gnome? KDE? xfce? etc…

bash is a greater achevement than the fucking wheel

Have tried Linux (Mandrake) and it seems to be evolving into a good competitor for Windows, but unfortunately Photoshop CS and Macromedia Dreamweaver MX 2004 only work with Windows so I’m still using M$ :sad:

Johan S: a good alternative for Photoshop is GIMP I recommend you give it a try is almost as powerfull as Photoshop, its free, there is a version for windows also.
gimp.org/

I am also a linux fan but I still use windows, one day I will change!!!

I’ve been using linux for 6-7 years now but I’m still stuck with windows since there are a few programs that I have to use there. And there aren’t any good alternatives for linux.

I’m a fan of the “keep it simple” philosophy so I can’t say I like the big distros like Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSe. And when it comes to desktop environments/window managers… I hate KDE, so totally bloated, I use Openbox. Plain and simple :smile:

Yes, I agree, it should be more simple. I don’t need 25 text editors and 60 different terminal windows (yes, I’m exaggerating but you get my point :tongue: ). I also hope there will be some “survival of the fittest”-evolution concerning the huge amount of distros. I mean, what the hell should people choose if there are so many distros competing. And please let me install new applications with a few clicks, rather than forcing me to mess with command prompts, missing packages etc.

Concerning GIMP, I’ve heard it’s good, but not as good as Photoshop :tongue: I’ll stick with Photoshop, but if Windows Longhorn turns out to be the proprietary mess I expect it to be (XAML etc) I might turn to Linux/GIMP.

I almost agree on the text editors. Gnome has one text editor, and it’s extremely good - far better than notepad :wink: with line numbering, syntax highlighting, etc etc. It is extremely good.

Different distributions are for different users. I want to learn Linux: I use Slackware or Gentoo, as they require you to mess around with text configuration files. On a production system, I need to know exactly what there is on the computer and how it is set up. There should never be an “ultimate” distribution.

Obviously if your distribution is aimed at casual desktop users and you don’t have a graphical install… you suck. Exception: Knoppix and Gnoppix. They run off CDs :wink:

About GIMP: Try it! It runs on Windows. It has many windows though, unlike Photoshop, so you might want to close other stuff when using it. On Linux you use multiple workspaces for it. :smile:

I use Gnome. I find it “plain and simple”.

with plain and simple I wasn’t actually meaning “user friendly”

What I meant was that don’t overthrow me with 100 help-wizards program to help you do this and that… and don’t clutter my system with files and programs I wont use (cough KDE, GNOME :wink: )

And about text editors, learn Vi(m). It’s a standard on every unix system so you will always have it available. Tough at first but when you get better it’s a dream :content:

I use vim more often than gedit… heh.

I hope there aren’t any emacs fans around? hides

The license plate on my truck says ‘EMACS’ :tongue:

I used to use redhat 5.0 but it confused the hell out of me so I quit… now I am taking Redhat academy at school and learning how todo all this stuff…

I would prefer linux over windows because you get more control over what you are doing. And it doesnt run all that junk in the background like windows does :wink:

I’m probably asking for abuse by saying this, but in my experience, and for my purposes, Linux is simply not a viable alternative to Windows for a PC’s primary operating system. Plain and simple. But don’t get me wrong, I absolutely adore the concept of Linux. I think it’s great that a dedicated community has put so much time and effort into developing a FREE operating system which aims to give everyone’s favourite multi billion dollar corporation a run for their money. But as promising as the last ten years’ worth of progress have been, Linux still has a long way to go before I’d consider switching over.

One of the main points is hardware compatibility. Most recent distributions of Linux have a pretty decent range of drivers available for most integrated/peripheral hardware devices, but it’s far from comprehensive. Of course, this isn’t necessarily the distributor’s fault, as the device manufacturers themselves often neglect (or delay) providing Linux-compatible drivers for their hardware (prioritising the larger MS-based market instead, as they should). Now, having to download some of your drivers isn’t really a problem – or at least it wouldn’t be, if installing them afterwards was as straight-forward as it ought to be. It took me the better part of two full days to configure Linux on my computer at home, and while that may be in part due to my lack of understanding of the Unix environment, I still have to credit Windows here for simplicity of installation, and recognisability of modern hardware devices. I wasn’t particularly impressed when Mandrake 9 asked me what kind of mouse I had, and my only option that included a scroll-wheel was “Logitech 3-button”. On a side note, I gave up trying to get my mouse wheel to work in Linux (or more specifically, the X display system). It just lacks any sense of intuition, which made the experience frustrating to say the least.

Next, I quickly discovered what a nightmare it is to install new software under most distributions of Linux. The process is relatively simple in theory, but it almost never works first time. You download a tarball containing the application source, extract it into a folder somewhere, and follow the instructions to compile it on your system. Or so the theory goes – but it never works! “Error, can’t find package: xxx”. (Where “xxx” is a cryptic combination of seemingly random letters, numbers and dots). Ah, dependencies. Possibly the largest of all the daggers in the back of the inexperienced Linux user. Don’t even think about installing anything unless you have the time to gallop around the internet searching for various dependencies that, as a user, you should never be made aware of in the first place.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: Shared system libraries are an evil, evil thing. Every program should come with every single resource that it requires to run. Sure, downloads will be a little larger, but that’s a small price to pay. The internet is getting faster, and hard drives are getting larger. I’m fully aware that it was Microsoft who first developed the idea of shared and dynamically linked libraries (and subsequently, the global headache commonly referred to as “DLL Hell”), but I don’t see why Linux had to stumble blindly into the very same pit. I’m also aware that certain distributions of Linux (namely Debian) provide useful tools designed to take the pain out of installing new applications by searching for and downloading all required dependencies behind the scenes automatically, but the exception doesn’t change the rule. As soon as the majority of software vendors decide to start distributing pre-compiled binaries which include current versions of all required dependencies (in a single package), I’ll give it another shot.

The X-Windows system itself, I’ve found, is less stable, and less functional than the current version of MS Windows. The latest version of KDE sure looks impressive, and boasts a huge number of amazing features, but it still feels a little unresponsive to use. Often I’d attempt to run a program, and for a moment it wouldn’t give me any indication that something was happening. Finally the taskbar icon would appear, or the mouse cursor would change, but by that stage I’d already tried to run it again, just in case I missed the button or double-clicked too slowly. It just seems a little clumsy. But this is probably the least of all my concerns. I really do like the X interface, and I think it has a lot of advantages over Windows, but it’s just too damn hard to setup in the first place. Having to run a command-line utility and answer a bunch of questions about your computer isn’t something the average PC user wants to do when they install a new OS. And as Windows demonstrates, it’s not something they need to do. I guess Linux just needs to get with the times, and make a few more assumptions about the user. It needs to stop pretending that anyone might have a CPU that isn’t x86, and it needs to stop pretending anyone owns a monitor that can’t display standard SVGA.

Anyway, the final (and most significant) problem I have with Linux is software compatibility. Unfortunately it’s not something the Linux community can really do anything about, because it’s up to the developers themselves which platform they design their software for. Any commercial business knows that about 80% of the PC market run Windows, so it’s financially beneficial to target your application for that environment. It doesn’t really matter how much we (commercial developers) hate MS as a company, the fact is, we have to eat, and your product simply won’t sell as effectively if you don’t build it for the majority of users.

I won’t go into detail with the various other problems I encountered while configuring a popular distribution of Linux on what I’d consider to be a very standard computer in terms of hardware, but some of the “highlights” were as follows: No sound, despite my “Live!” card being reportedly found and configured without error. Major dramas involving internet connectivity. For such a simplified and efficient setup dialog, it’s amazing how difficult it can be to tell the system, “Look, I have a router at this IP, please use it!” Again, there’s way too much info here that the common PC user doesn’t want/need to see. When I select “LAN” as my internet connection, I want to only see three things: A list of network adapters in my machine, a list of IPs that have been assigned to said network adapters, and a little box labelled “Gateway”. Everything else, which absolutely nobody needs to see, should be hidden away under an “advanced” section somewhere. I hate to say it so bluntly, but I guess what I’m getting at is that Linux should (in a lot of ways) be more like Windows.

There’s a lot I don’t like about Windows, but my adventures with Linux make me appreciate just how great it is to use a system that actually works without a great deal of manual configuration. Fancy features like built-in links to dictionary.com and little eyes that follow the mouse around the screen don’t make up for a lack of functionality, or many wasted hours of painful setting up.

That’s just the impression I got from my experience, though. Each time I feel confident about going back and giving it another shot, I walk away disappointed. Maybe in another few months I’ll try again.

I agree with you Atheist, to most people Linux isn’t a viable alternative. But there are a few things in your posts I’d just like to point out…

In most distributions there are package systems that should solve most of the installation problems. And the package databases are probably covering most of your needs. But yes, installing new programs can be a difficult task for beginners…

The X Window System (a picky linux user would probably kick you for saying X Windows :wink: ) itself is very stable. It depends on what Window Manager or desktop environment you choose to use. As I’ve said before KDE is kind of bloated and not very fast.

I was going to say something more here but i forgot and I have to eat breakfast now :smile:

(paragraphs match in this post)

I wouldn’t think of shouting abuse. That only… doesn’t help. :smile:

Hardware compatability is indeed a problem (although personally my TWAIN scanner stopped working at XP, and would likely work on Linux) and it’s sadly the manufacterer’s fault. Also, I’m surprised Mandrake didn’t list a “Generic 3-button mouse”.

Gentoo has improved on this a lot, although 1) it takes aeons to install large things as it compiles from source, and 2) it only has a text install, which I imagine you wouldn’t appreciate. (You can keep using your computer with a [KG]noppix boot disk, but that’s irrelevant.) I’ve installed masses of software on it, often without even browsing the web. Besides: Debian is not the exception. Debian and Gentoo have free systems and Redhat and Mandrake have (I think) subscription systems. Lindows… let’s not talk about Lindows. :wink:

Come with everything they need? A little larger? A typical graphical program, for example, will require Qt or Gtk+ (widgets), XFree or XOrg (graphics), ALSA or OSS (sound), OpenGL (more graphics), and perhaps more. Also, some of these are interchangable, such as being able to use XFree or XOrg, which both use the X11 protocol.

X11 is “less functional”? What are you talking about? Almost every window manager (draws window borders, etc) allows you to have multiple workspaces and use Always On Top for every window. These are just two insanely useful features (lesser ones include “Shade”-ing a window so that only the titlebar shows up). People do have monitors which aren’t SVGA (although they wouldn’t use X11 with them…) and people do have CPUs which are not x86, for example new 64-bit CPUs, PowerPCs (Macs), and quite possibly other special computers, such as graphical calculators and mainframes. I’m not saying it’s important for the Linux kernel to support them, just that it’s nice that it does. (It supports by far the most architectures).

Your sound problem may have been solved somewhat by now, with ALSA and the 2.6 kernel used in most distributions. I don’t know about internet connectivity, since here we simply have a router which even provides DHCP. On the few programs which have “Advanced” buttons or tabs, I always examine them. Somebody else’s “advanced” function may become my timesaver or an essential option.

The eyes have probably been removed by now. Whatever. :razz:

Iuse Linux. :content:

great post Atheist!! I could not agree with you more! … except:

2 days?? You must be a linux guru!! I agree it seems to take a full day to have a bootable linux machine, but it takes me weeks! to configure my video resolution, soundcard(if I’m lucky), install IM programs and preferred Internet Browswers, etc. etc. I spend my first week just installing and configuring everyday programs. Maybe after a full week I might actually get to sit down and actually do something with my linux computer … other than configuring and modifying it to do things it should.

With Windows, I can have it fully installed and bootable in under an hour. A few more hours later I have all my programs installed, and my system is actually ready to enjoy … rather than work on.

:lol: the eyes, haha. … hmm, why does that seem to be in most installs by default? :bored:
Linux is fun to play around with, and I alway trying the newest distro after a few months. I’m keeping my “eyes” on it because it surely has some potential. … to save us from the evil M$. :devil: :wink:

A week? Was that, perhaps, your first time?

It’s dead simple. Install KDE and you have Konquerer browser, Kopete IM, etc, etc. Install Gnome and you have Epiphany browser (if you need more stuff go for Galeon or Firefox), and you need to install gaim seperately for IM. Why did it take so long? :razz:

Configuration really is a problem with KDE. There are always so many options, and getting in exactly as you like it takes aeons. Gnome is fine for me and I rarely find fault in its programs.

Video resolution takes really very little time. You know that X11 can now change resolution without a restart?

PS this page shows the eye thing is still in Gnome… I can only hope it’s taken out of KDE. :wink:

LOL Atheist, well said! I was quite frustrated when I installed Mandrake and noticed I couldn’t connect to the internet because Mandrake didn’t support my ADSL modem (which was one of the most popular modems in Belgium and France, and Mandrake is made in France isn’t it?). The only way to find a fix was to search on the internet, but connecting to the internet didn’t work in the first place! :tongue: Luckily I had installed Mandrake on a second partition, so I still had Windows installed. I booted Windows, and after long searching I found “unofficial” drivers for linux. It was a pain to install but after many hours I could finally connect to the internet. Installing new programs was also a painful experience (packages missing grrr). I eventually gave up. I’m still hopeful for the future, but at this moment for most desktop users linux is not a viable alternative.