The Future of Linux ( How A Windows Zealot changed)

**graabein** · June 12th, 2006

Yes, nice article.

I myself got into GNU/Linux because of the philosophy of free and open software through a friend of mine. I saw it was becoming easier to install and maintain -- I don't like to fiddle too much with config-files and error logs, I'm too lazy I suppose -- and I knew it was safer for surfing the net and I was also like the huge amount of software and customising abilities plus it can run on dated hardware. I don't like paying huge amounts of money each year for the frigging os and word processor to run at normal speed and do its intended job!!

**nocturn** · June 12th, 2006

Originally Posted by iblastoff

someone threw in the fact that their friends xp comp took 5 whole minutes to boot into windows with all the anti-spyware etc programs loading up? come on now. even my mom's old pIII with xp and the regular slew of startup programs didnt take that long.

To be fair, I had a WinXP laptop at work. It booted up WinXP faster then Linux... in the beginning.

After one of the big patchsets, shutdown started taking > 2 minutes and when I turned it on in the morning, I could get coffee and go the the bathroom (for real).

On all my Linux boxes, boot speed has been constant, though longer than a fresh XP install.

the only real ways to get viruses on XP is if you're surfing through various porn/warez/questionable sites, or you're silly enough to open up random email attachments. i have never even gotten a virus on my XP box in my life! i honestly have no idea how other people manage to do so. just on this fact alone its clearly the users fault and not the operating system. of course i also use firefox.

We disagree here. I know you can keep your windows PC relatively clean of Viruses by not using IE and Outlook for starters. But the reasoning of not visiting unsafe sites makes no sense.
What is an unsafe site? How do you avoid them before you visit them?
The truth is that the use of ActiveX in IE and macro functionality in outlook is a horrible idea.
Combine that with Windows tendency to hide file types to create a disaster (text files *are* safe).

Secondly, Windows does get bad points for the unsafe behavior of both Outlooke Express and IE because most users get them by default and are 'gently' pushed to use them. (you cannot even remove them, so using FireFox means that IE stays on your system).

honestly though, why are you really booting into linux? personally like a few others, i just got 'bored' of windows and decided to try something new. but in the end, the only reason its even on my computer is because it just looks different. not because its any better than windows. i still go back into xp to actually get some real work done (i use photoshop/illustrator/macromedia suite. none of which even remotely have an equivalent on linux. and yes i've tried gimp, nvu, etc).

All my home systems have Linux and Linux alone on them (including my server), I get done whatever I need on them.
For years, my company workPC running various versions of Windows was little more but a mailreader and terminal display to admin remote Solaris and Linux boxes.

**nocturn** · June 12th, 2006

Originally Posted by iblastoff

of course not. just as a lot of new linux users wind up having to reinstall their linux distro multiple times cause they messed something up, the majority of virus/spyware infection is at the fault of the users themselves, and not the particular OS. i think this point is hardly arguable.

I can and will definately argue this. Just visiting a webpage should not cause virusses or malware to be installed. I cannot with a straight face go arround and tell people not to open some sites and that their PC will be owned if they do so. It makes us in the computer industry look ridiculous.

The same goes for E-mail, I can tell users not to click on attachments in mail they do not trust but in reality even that should not cause a system-level compromise. I cannot however tell anyone that text files are safe, but clicking readme.txt may kill your system because file extensions may be hidden.

Windows gets it wrong on security, very wrong. And the good features they do implement in this area are often turned of or recommended against.

i dont see how this would be too difficult at all? it would be pretty much the same process as a brand new linux installation, except most likely a little easier due to XP's better hardware support.

I think the outcome may surprise you. We are talking about giving them a Windows install CD, not one of those system restore things.
If they do not have the driver CD for each piece of hardware, most of their computer will not function, that includes a good number of wireless network cards (and no network, no download from manufacturer sites either).

I recently did a restore for a friend on her laptop, though I used a restore CD, the wireless card purchased seperately did not work. It required the restore CD to install, one CD per application (Office, CD writing software, ...) and even 2 seperate CD's to get the printer working.

All of her hardware was supported on a single Ubuntu LiveCD (including the wireless)

this is just a geniune inquiry..if you mostly just type up essays, do websites (which XP is GENERALLY much stronger environment to do so in.

That may be so for the type of work you are doing, others may disagree here.
Secondly, most software on windows is commercial, I do not wish to pay for an Adobe license... or for MS Office for that matter.

but for the majority of computer users who dont do much more than general email/surfing/homework/music/media, i honestly dont see much of a benefit in switching.

For most basic users, getting a Linux system would mean they can get all the above done on a *free* system that is also resistent to viruses and malware.
They can open mail attachments and click on arbitrary URL's without fear.
What would be the advantage of using windows XP for them?

**egon spengler** · June 12th, 2006

Originally Posted by iblastoff

i still go back into xp to actually get some real work done (i use photoshop/illustrator/macromedia suite. none of which even remotely have an equivalent on linux. and yes i've tried gimp, nvu, etc).

PS and Illustrator you got a point, Dreamweaver? I would disagree. If you using Dreamweaver then you probably doing very basic stuff. The same as bots can never be better than human competition in a game it's not possible for Dreamweaver to be better than doing stuff by hand, unless you only working on very simple things. I know this from using Dreamweaver at work every day.

Now I think about it, something else I would add is that while it is no doubt true that PS > Gimp I am highly sceptical that most PS users make use of the advanvanced capabilities that Gimp (or paintshop for that matter) cannot compete with. Ps seems to be one of the most highly pirated pieces of software, there is no chance though that there are as many advanced computer graphics artists as there are Photoshop users

**forrestcupp** · June 12th, 2006

I used GIMP, Openoffice.org and lots of other open source software on Windows before I came to Linux. There were two things that led me to Linux. 1. with Windows I was on a quest to find free or open source software alternatives for everything I used. I had tried Linux early on, but then about a year ago, I saw how much things had advanced. The thought of a complete open source OS and everything was attractive to me. 2. The thing that really pushed me over the edge is how Microsoft is starting to implement ways to control how you use your media, and other things. If you don't pay attention to what is going on, Media Player now searches through all your music files to see if they are licensed, and if they are not, it will automatically try to obtain a license for you. I paid for all of my music at Walmart.com, which is in the .wma format. Then I found out that Microsoft controls how I use the songs I paid for. My wife accidentally downloaded a paid for song to a USB stick, then when she realized it and put it on her computer, it didn't work. They control what computer you can listen to it on, and how many times you can record to a cd. So I converted all my songs to mp3 and installed Linux

**NewDisciple** · June 12th, 2006

After receiving my new Dell E1705 last fall, with windows XP I spent several hours on the setup. It seemed like I had numerous programs clamoring at the same time, to be registered, etc. Upon completion I was absolutely sick at how slow my new computer was. Since my new machine should have been fast I then thought it might be some of the new programs causing it. I began unistalling unwanted programs (those that windows would allow me to). As a result, my computer kept getting faster and faster. Following this, over several months, I spent hundreds of dollars on various program cd's, and licenses; only to find equivalent open source applications later. I then, over a period began replacing microsoft with open source. My next step was to Xandros, then Ubuntu. My install of Dapper Drake was by far faster and easier than setting up an operating system which was already on my computer. Is my story anecdotal? Certainly, none the less it is my true experience, and I bet I'm not the only one.

**DoctorMO** · June 12th, 2006

*sigh* what is it about windows users that makes them say silly things like:

i dont see how this would be too difficult at all? it would be pretty much the same process as a brand new linux installation, except most likely a little easier due to XP's better hardware support.

WindowsXP module for module, hardware for hardware has only the very basics of hardware support. no video card drivers, no networking drivers, nothing infact. Linux on the other hand has thousands of drivers all open source which means theres no chance Ubuntu Breezy would support something Dapper didn't. unlike the millions of people who suffer windows 98 because their scanner doesn't have drivers for windows xp.

So please don't say such large untruths, little ones like your little dig at gimp I'll accept as just what your used to and how you organise your work.

Back on thread, I started out on linux in 1999 with SuSE 6.4, never looked back. I was attracted by the freedom, hey it's free! no more stealing software for me I'm going squeaky clean! and so illerstrator is a few steps ahead of inkscape I'm far more willing to suffer it and be free than eat cake in chains.

**pchr** · June 13th, 2006

I came in through the Gimp route as well! I'd been using an old copy of Corel up till then and found the transition fairly easy.

I've mentioned this before I think but the OpenCD is excellent, I realised that almost all the apps I was running on windows were either native to Linux (Gimp, Inkscape, Gaim) or had versions available for Linux (Firefox, Thunderbird, OpenOffice) making the shunt over to Linux/Ubuntu seem like the next logical step.

I've got a couple of programs that I still use windows for, hence dual boot. I would do the whole Wine thing, but as I've paid for XP I'll live with it for now, when I next get a new pooter I'll hopefully find Open Source programs that I can use or get into Wine

**gerdez** · June 14th, 2006

i came through the "I want free software" & "got somewhat bored of windows and wanted adventure" route. You know, I live in this cheapshit country called Romania, where the minimal sallary is ~125 USD (and the average about 250 USD). Now, please do the math for Photoshop + Win + Illustrator / Draw (my work is DTP, hobby a great deal of interest in webdesign). So, this is the truth. I use(d) Windows, and I'm happy with it, never had any issues with, not now, not ever (to tell you the truth, I don't get it, when someone is b!tch!ng about it). I have a Win licence on my laptop, but that's not enough by far. So, as the romanian police started making a big deal out of software piracy nowadays - we are joining EU - wtf for?

... oh wait that's politics - and they are taking the WHOLE box with them while they do the search, I don't want to lose my precious computer, that I invested so much money and energy in.

So I did a websearch ... don't know where i heard about "ubuntu" but the name stuck in my brain. So i looked it up. The linux for human beings! Whooha they have a live CD!!! Downloaded it. Tried it. I was afraid of linux. Nobody that I know uses it. I tried knoppix a while back, but it didn't get to me (maybe because of KDE, but it sucked @ detecting my hardware too, as far as I remember). Not the same with ubuntu. This stuff is amazing. I just can't believe it (apt-get is da best installer i ever saw

). The only thing I didn't find and I need is a FlashEditor. So, I'm running Ubuntu for 5 days now, and I managed to smash it only one time, because I read a lot about how to get stuff to work, and i jumped on the first tip i got, of course without backing up xorg.conf.

) and while trying to install the nvidia driver, i cracked it somehow. But, NP, i reinstalled it, it's only 10 minutes anyway.

Of course, I don't want to make a habbit out of it. Then again, as amazed I am by what linux is capable of, i cannot stand to ask some questions:

1. Why is that in the modern era we still have to look @ a terminal and type in it like crazy?
2. Why is it so damn hard to install games on this OS? (i know, only openGL works but still...)
3. Why is that it can't properly identify my hardware? And what can I do, so it works properly? I have a Logitech Internet Navigator Keyboard, and i can't get the forward, backward, play, stop + some other buttons to work.
4. Why is that it is so hard to do a proper DropShadow in GiMP? Is it just me? (i'm coming from photoshop, i can preview the drop on it ... i didn't find that option in Gimp. - photoshop keyboard shortcuts don't work ... image resize is weird)
5. Why does it feel like the OS is a memory hog after a while (it's just me again???). it's not so bad that it would bother me and stuff, but i don't get that in windows (I installed it a year ago last time, and changed tons of hardware/driver/software on it).
6. Why is the clock applet taking up 12,5 MB of memo? Rhythmbox 22,5 MB (winamp 2 MB)? Gaim 20 MB?(Trillian 7-8 MB), TrashApplet 20MB!!!! what for? gnome-panel: 20 MB???
7. Where is WindowsCommander?

(joke)
8. How can you use Linux if you don't have broadband internet? you have to get all the packages on DVD???
9. The Home folder can span through different partitions/drives? if not, how can i use my 80+120 GB HDD's with linux?
10. Windows transparency in gnome? I can't find it? It can be done only through XGL?

All in all i like ubuntu very much. I was afraid of the console stuff, but as i read the material i found on the net ... it's not so hard to figure stuff out. I want my games and my Winamp, and my Ventura (for work). Winamp is STILL the best audio player out there, no matter what you say - 2 MB of memory while in status-bar / 7 while on focus with old skins / 15-20 with hyper-new skins, it plays absolutely anything in matter of audio, it's easy to comprehend and to use - I REALLY can't say this about Rhythmbox - and please don't point to XXM/bmp because those are not winamp BY FAR. And i miss my ExactAudioCopy (ALWAYS riping in lame mp3 --alt-preset extreme) too. I miss MPC, miss AACPlus. I miss my games. So no way i'm ditching windows for now (i won't upgrade to vista either, i'll just use XP till it's no longer supported, while keeping my Ubuntu partition and keeping an eye on - learning the linux world).

All that i stated here is my own opinion, i wasn't trying to start flame or something. Please, excuse my english and my questions too / i know i went a little offtopic with them.

Edit: I want to add two important opinions in favor of linux (I forgot earlier): 1 - with ubuntu it just feels like "this works" (no voodoo, no registry, no nothing); 2 - When using Linux software it always feel like ... it's from users to users not from money makers to suckers (i'm like "Oh, they thought of that too" all the time).

**bruce89** · June 14th, 2006