Changing Windows

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Originally Posted by vnx205

I don't want to start a "my operating system is better than your operating system" debate. I am interested in people's experiences with Linux.

If I can learn about something that either prevented someone using Linux or simply dissuaded them from using it, then that might be useful for me to know if I am recommending Linux to a friend. If I know what stops other people, it might help me work out whether suggesting trying Linux is advisable for a particular person.

Dougal, when you say that Linux has a lot of hardware limitations, especially with older hardware, that surprises me. All of my hardware is fairly old and all of it was actually someone's cast off equipment. That has been the case for the last 15 years or so. My graphics card is very ordinary. I have a Brother HL-2040 laser printer and a Canon MP450 multi function printer and every Linux distro I have played with has recognised them immediately. I didn't need to download anything to get then to work.

I suppose that it only takes one bit of incompatible hardware to create a problem and I suppose if my particular hardware works then naturally I don't see that there is a problem. If I do have a problem, then it doesn't help much to know that someone else had no problems Do you know of some specific examples of hardware that creates a problem?

I often hear people say that they tried Linux and didn't like the way it did things so they went back to Windows. Is that just because Linux is different? Anything different is likely to seem worse at first, but when you become accustomed to it, then it might actually be just as good or better. Remember the recent thread about indicator stalks on the left on European cars and on the right on Japanese cars? :D

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to make linux the way you want it, most of the time you need to use the command line.
the command line is a big and steep learning curve. pretty sure this turns off most people

linux drivers arnt as good as windows drivers.

most games dont run on linux

if i could get past hrough hardware virtualization to work, and run windows in a VM with zero overhead/performance hit, chances are i would adopt linux fulltime.
{Guide} Create a Gaming Virtual Machine

unfortunately i dont hve that hardware

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Originally Posted by Eevo

to make linux the way you want it, most of the time you need to use the command line.
the command line is a big and steep learning curve. pretty sure this turns off most people
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I suppose it depends on what you need Linux to do for you, but I haven't seen this as a big stumbling block.

I have used the command line, but in just about every case, it was so that I could do something that I really didn't need to do. It was just something that I wanted to experiment with. I find I am using it less now than I did previously. That might be because there are now many more tasks that can be done with a GUI than there used to be or it might be because I have stopped fooling around and changing things that I really didn't need to change.

My expectation and based on my quite limited experience is that a lot of the people who are likely to need to use the command line are the sort of people who are happy to learn about such things. The vast majority of users could survive quite well without ever knowing that the command line existed

It appears to me that generally the sort of people who would be frightened off by the command line are the sort of people who are never going to need to use it anyway. I know it only takes one task for which there is no GUI method to blow my theory out of the water, but I still think that it would generally be true.

Eevo, I know from our earlier communication that this comment doesn't apply to you, but I have frequently found that some people are not aware of just how far Linux has come since they last looked at it a couple of years ago or sometimes even a decade ago.

Ron, I don't have recent version of Xubuntu handy, but there should be something in the menu called 'System Tools" or maybe "System Settings". Selecting that should then give you an option called something like "System Information" or "System Profiler". That should offer all the information you need about the computer and the operating system.

I'm not afraid of the command line. I used it for years in the days of DOS but I'd have learn the very different syntax - something I no longer wish to do.

As far as I am concerned, Windows is much more user friendly than Linux.

Generally speaking, I don't use my laptop very much, say once or twice a month and that's almost exclusively when I need to run a Win XP program. I don't have enough interest in Linux to use it in Linux mode.

I have been using Linux exclusively for about four years, having been using dual boot for perhaps the same length of time before that - then realised I had not used windows for over a year, so scrapped it.

Currently using Mint 17 KDE - and I have had zero hardware issues, and I don't think I have used the command line this year.

Whether it works for you will depend on what you want to use your computer for, and what hardware you have. I find that the slight restrictions in use I face with Linux are worth it just to have freedom from all the hassles that seem to go with Windows.

John

Well, UBUNTU will not install on my EEEPC. It just goes into a loop.
I have reformatte dthe USB and redownloaded and tried to reinstall but no go.
It works fine from the USB.
Maybe some hardware problem although I have a big virtual disc, with 200Gig and have doubled ram to 2gb.

So now I am trying LUBUNTU downloading at the moment.
Regards Philip A .

I Fiddled with linux for a couple of years, found it did everything I needed at that time.
I dop not like the look and desktop of ubuntu. I did use the KDE version Kubuntu.
The last distro I used and liked was PclinuxOS, which I really liked. It doesn't use .DEB

I bought a Mac in the end as a desktop mainly for space, the imac doesn't need a big brain box like windows so less clutter. (every thing is in the monitor)
But I still need to run VMware fusion for my accounting/inventory software for the business, which is a pain.
But I still have a soft spot for Linux

Philip, at what point does it go into a loop? It isn't at the point where it asks for a password is it?

Recently I thought I would be very clever and leave the password blank. It just sat there spinning its wheels and going nowhere. It insisted on a password. It had run OK from the USB.

I think it was either Lubuntu or LXLE that I was installing at the time.

No. It doesn't get that far. The screen that asks about language doesn't seem to complete and when you press continue it stalls at 3dots at the bottom. If you press continue again after waiting with no action on hd for several minutes it shuts down and reboots from the USB . I haven't tried to have as the only operating system, as I wanted to keep the windows7 and trend micro i paid for.lol
Philip A

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Originally Posted by vnx205

Dougal, when you say that Linux has a lot of hardware limitations, especially with older hardware, that surprises me. All of my hardware is fairly old and all of it was actually someone's cast off equipment. That has been the case for the last 15 years or so. My graphics card is very ordinary. I have a Brother HL-2040 laser printer and a Canon MP450 multi function printer and every Linux distro I have played with has recognised them immediately. I didn't need to download anything to get then to work.

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It's an on-going project. Some of the issues I've struck are in this thread: http://www.aulro.com/afvb/computers/...ux-choice.html

If you've got any solutions, I'm happy to give them a shot.
This is for a 32 bit laptop (I have several of them) which supports PAE but doesn't have a hardware flag to show it. So the linux distrubution needs forced or faked to run properly. That in itself severely limits linux options.

I have zero luck so far getting CUPS to work with the network printer. It detects the printer and says it's printing fine, but nothing prints.

I'm not "going back to windows", I'm still using windows until I can get the time to make linux work. Long term it's where my peripheral work computers need to be.

I've been using Ubuntu for some years and the improvement in usability has been amazing. I have never used the command prompt although I came up with CPM and DOS because it has never been necessary. It offered all the software I needed and all for free! Admittedly many software companies don't support Linux but there is usually a workaround available. Anyone with any doubts should give the new release a try, it's a lot easier than Windows 8, that's for sure.