What is Digg?238 Comments
- Farik, on 10/12/2007, -34/+148I like ice cream.
- inactive, on 02/25/2009, -12/+79I have been using Ubuntu (actually (K)Ubuntu is what I'm after) 6.10 for nearly 5 months and ever since the day I first had the opportunity to taste it, I seriously didn't feel like switching to Windows again (not that I hate windows). MS is a great company if you just stop caring about how they do monopoly with competitors to stay ahead of business (which is somewhat illegal) and also how they spread their propaganda, but Linux is Linux, not windows and it can never fill the void that I had to suffer during my years of using Windows. It's largely because the first computer that I bought in 2001 had windows 98se preinstalled, I had no idea what a computer is and thus I was a victim of monopoly.
Right now XP is residing in the first 10 GB of my 160 GB SATA HDD and the rest of the space has been dedicated to Ubuntu, the OS for which I don't call myself a pirate anymore. I personally don't afford to pay 50-80 dollars for an OS and then figure out that I can't install it in my mom's computer and if I have to make my mom's computer usable, I will have to go cough out some more 50-80 dollars (and did you know that in Vista there is an EULA as always that states something like "this software isn't sold, but its license is"? Now given my financial ability I really can't afford to pay my hard-earned money to a company that will treat me like a bitch!)
Again I would say if anyone paid for any product made by MS and felt good, then it's good. But Linux can create (it has already) revolution in third world countries and bridge the digital divide that commercial and proprietary software companies have created. I fully support the 'one-laptop-per-child' project. We are just a few years away from seeing geniuses getting born every single week because those little kids now would be able to afford access to the internet and computers without requring to sell their homes. Thanks to all who ever contributed to GNU/Linux and thanks to Richard Stallman, without whom none of these wouldn't have been possible.
I have recently upgraded to Feisty and the only problem I faced was that whenever I clicked on the 'log off' button, it gave me only the option to log off. Later I found out that I was using GDM, not KDM. So, I reconfigured it all and now everything's back to normal.
P.S. Yeah switch right away. However there is an old saying "don't fix it if it aint broke". But again you have to keep in your consideration that in my humble opinion Feisty is much more faster than Edgy and Dapper to a huge extent and several bugs have been fixed. The decision is yours to make! - jasmin888, on 10/12/2007, -6/+50@schestowitz
Content of the pdf:
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Sunday, January 24, |999 8:41 AM
TO: Jeff Westorinon; Ben Fathi
Cc: Carl Stork (Exchange); Nathan Myhrvofd; Eric Rudder
Subject: ACPI extensions
One thing I find myself wondering about is whether we shouldn’t try and make the "ACPI" extensions somehow Windows
specific.
If seems unfortunate if we do this work and get our partners to do the work and the result is that Linux works great without
having to do the work.
Maybe there is no way Io avoid this problem but it does bother me.
Maybe we couid define the APIs so that they work well with NT and not the others even if they are open.
Or maybe we could patent something relaled to this. - TheLoneWolf071, on 10/12/2007, -10/+50I dual-boot. I love linux, but in my professional opinion, windows works. Simple as that. IT is not because windows is safe, secure, or easy to use, but it is rather that 80% of products made today work for windows mainly because windows is that everyone has, in one form or another. If companies started developing their mainstream products strictly for linux or Mac, sure many people would switch, but they still would not gain as much money as if they released it for windows.
Also, this guy is talking about a laptop. I have ubuntu on my laptop, and yes, it is a little troubled, but you have to remember that laptops v. Desktops is a whole nother story. Don't bitch about laptops not working, because again, 80% of the laptop developers write their software for windows. - betacmag4u, on 10/12/2007, -17/+54I for one welcome our new Ubuntu overlords.
- Icecream, on 10/12/2007, -8/+34For some systems Linux just doesnt work as well without a little bit of effort. But I think the effort makes the result o' so sweet
- Leomarth, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27I put Ubuntu 7.04 on my desktop yesterday alongside Vista. Ubuntu took a bit of tweaking to get up and running properly. I went through it because I have a good amount of general computer knowledge and felt confident in my ability to get it running. I'm using it to make this post, so I was able to get it running right. It only took two hours. The two main issues were getting my network adapter working, and my video. Network adapter took about five minutes. Video took several hours because I kept getting apt-based errors on video install - including the restricted drivers. It didn't matter if I used Synaptic, or Automatix... the same issue.
Your average computer user, and Linux needs to address this market segment if it ever expects to make good market desktop share, won't go through this process. The first step will be to make sure that you have 3d enabled video from the start every time. That's what took most of my time in getting it running. I eventually had to download a piece of software called 'Envy' that was recommended by another Digg user. It got my video up and running in about five minutes.
Still Ubuntu is a significant step up towards ease of use. I'd recommend it to anyone who wanted a free OS and didn't mind having to adapt to new programs. - leobaby, on 10/12/2007, -2/+27I love the ability to add programs to the system without installers.
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -29/+53There is Linux-hostile hardware and components with nasty firmware. Since the 90s, a certain company encouraged the use of certain components that made it hard to trsnaform software. This has been proven. With another new release of a not-so-good-OS, there's even effort to ensure that drivers are not available for an older version of the same OS. It's a form of lockin and BIOS is sometimes involved as well.
Lastly, of course, there is technical sabotage, to use the term Conlin stuck with in the Iowa trial.
http://antitrust.slated.org/www.iowaconsumercase.org/011607/3000/PX03020.pdf - dougbarrett, on 10/12/2007, -1/+22Sounds like you have an ATI video card. It is so unfortunate that the support for their graphics cards are so shoddy. I was sure that when I got my notebook, it had an NVIDIA GPU in it.
On my hand, it took about 5 minutes to install the NVIDIA drivers through the "Restricted Packages" software, and about 5 minutes to do wireless (I am very familiar with ndiswrapper.) So in total, it took maybe a half an hour to get Feisty completely set up from booting into the LiveCD to having all of my hardware detected and properly working.
I'll never go back to Windows on this laptop again, Feisty has converted me completely to Linux. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+24Mine's the other way round. And how'd you get 7.04 two years ago? :P
- DigitalDud, on 10/12/2007, -8/+28Booted a verified Ubuntu CD on what I thought was a run-of-the-mill laptop with ATI x1400 video, X seg faults in a font loading function, I go back to Windows. Good luck with the next release.
- cdmarcus, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16@wazzledoozle2: First of all, you can download all the packages available in the Ubuntu repositories from packages.ubuntu.com. Secondly, the package files for anything you install are cached in /var/cache/apt/archives.
- jftitan, on 10/12/2007, -2/+18And honestly this is how most hopeful linux-converts start out.
Don't digg user down, because he the typical computer user. Linux is just not ready for him.
Now as many posters said before... Some people have a excellent experience, and many don't with Linux. I used to be that same type until I started hacking around with my old Inspiron 8100. I replaced the majority of the parts with 8200 parts, and even have a 1450 wifi a/b/g mini-pci card installed meant for a 8600 series notebook. Because of this, I've had to hack together fixes to get Linux to work for my laptop. My main reason to even change to Linux was the fact that I was finally fed up with Windows, I'm already experienced enough with my hardware that giving that extra bit of effort to install Linux, and configure it to work was like another day another dollar.
End-Users: expects it to work right out of the box. No manual... no instructions... just work on install. - selectodude, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16I've had Windows in a VM for two years.
: P - gharding, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15You can't fork over $5 until after you get paid? Maybe you should pick up a second shift instead of playing with Linux.
- KibibyteBrain, on 10/12/2007, -2/+17@phatvolvo If you have an nvidia card, install the restricted driver and then nvidia-settings. It can generate an xorg.conf for you that works with xinerama automagically. If you have ati...sorry, can't help.
- selectodude, on 10/12/2007, -6/+20Windows is now in a VM in Ubuntu 7.04.
Been that way for two years, and I haven't looked back. - jasmin888, on 10/12/2007, -7/+20You can, of course, upgrade to Ubuntu 7.04 - I did
BUT BEWARE: LOTS OF COMMON SCANNERS DON'T WORK:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/sane-backends/
And apparently it's not going to be solved anytime soon. From various threads it appears that the developers do not consider this bug a priority. So check carefully if your scanner will work.
BTW this appears to be an ubuntu specific problem. - trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+12You can install from a thumb drive ( or hell if you really wanted to floppies also )
- Heilige, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12There is a mass exodus to Ubuntu Linux and I am one of them! Ubuntu 7.04 is awesome!
- trogdoor, on 10/12/2007, -0/+11I second the notion of using knoppix as it is a great liveCD which ( I believe ) has ntfs-3g by default.
If you want to get ntfs read write in Feisty just install ntfs-config from synaptic or sudo apt-get install ntfs-config ( this can even be done in the liveCD environment and it will simply be installed to RAM )
You can then go to Applications -> System Tools -> NTFS Configuration Tool to turn on write access - coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10"Sorry Ubuntu. "Free" only goes so far. We still love you though."
They have this covered already. The service is called ShipIt and they send people free CD's stamped with the Ubuntu logo to people who cannot burn CD's themselves, or cannot download the CD iso (eg dial-up users).
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/ - andywebb95, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10I installed Feisty on my desktop yesterday (replacing XP) and I am pretty happy with it.
An article that helped me with post installation tweaks was http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,130923-page,1-c,linux/article.html (installing Beryl, etc).
The next step is to get XP Pro running in a VM for the few pieces of development/productivity software that I can't find open source equivalents for. - Heilige, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Ubuntu 7.04 is much better with WiFi
- priegog, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9@xageroth & melat0nin:
Yes the windows in a vm has a 100% compatibility (at least in my experience) so long as linux recognizes the hardware in the first place (that's the theory but really, is there much hardware that the current linux kernel CAN'T recognize?).
Wine is a great way to have windows apps, and a much better option, performance-wise (in the vm you have to actually boot-up windows vs. just running the program in wine, also if you use the vm your ram is split between the 2 os'es) But as expected, wine is not perfect and cannot run every single window app.
I personally never liked to dual boot, so for me, the jump to ubuntu was kind of an everything or nothing (I just don't like to have my HDD split).
But what's the big deal with not wanting to give up windows apps? except for games, almost everything you could ever need or more is available for linux, and sometimes even better than their windows counterparts. To be honest, I only use win xp in vmplayer to use a web service called gizmocall, which doesn't have a plugin for linux.
So I say... heh, make the jump. Even dual boot for a few weeks if you like, and then you'll be able to choose from your own experience. - zoid, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8Made the switch this weekend. Kid tested and mother approved. My wife's hard drive on her Thinkpad T22 crashed last week. Bought a new hard drive but couldn't find my XP disc. I decided to throw Ubuntu on it for grins and wow... everything just works.... Wife decided she likes it better than XP.
- Phil246, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8the windows vm could have been there for years, and ubuntu just dist-upgraded for each release since dapper drake or something
- troymcdavis, on 10/12/2007, -10/+17 April 21st, 2007
Ubuntu 7.04 - Time to switch?
Category: Tech and Seriously.
Ubuntu logo
Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) arrived just a few days ago with promises of better hardware compatibility, included proprietary software and drivers, and more user friendliness. Was it wort the wait? And more importantly - Is it finally time to “Make the Switch”? Read my review of Ubuntu 7.04 to find out!
Each time there’s a new version of the Linux distribution Ubuntu I ask myself - is THIS the version which will make we want to switch. With both Dapper and Edgy the answer was clear to me: Yes, Ubuntu is great but NO - it’s not yet complete. Edgy, the previous version of Ubuntu (6.10) was in fact so broken I couldn’t even install it on my mainstream Fujitsu-Siemens laptop. Like - at all! The installer wouldn’t even run. Dapper (the older version) worked better, but support for graphics card, wireless LAN, Flash and even simple video and sound playback was horrific. I got some of the components to work after some serious fiddling around but it was very agonizing.
When I read that hardware and 3rd party proprietary software support would be in focus of version 7.04 (Feisty Fawn) I thought that maybe this could finally be it. Stuff like flashplayer for example, is proprietary software and is often greeted with great suspicion from the open source community. The Ubuntu team has, however, finally understood that allowing proprietary software ‘in’, like flash and ATI graphics driver, is a crucial part of making people want to “make the switch”.
***** new Boots
Well Feisty is now finally here, and I tried it out. First off I had (and still have) some issues with dualbooting Vista and Feisty. I can only blame myself however - since I didn’t follow the instruction book. The result was that Vista cannot boot anymore. I can however access files stored on the Vista partition - so all hope is not lost. If one were to do it the right way and follow the instructions one would not have problems with this. Ubuntu (and Vista) is designed to be able to dualboot with other OS:es. So no one should think that dualbooting is impossible, or even difficult with Ubuntu and Vista because it isn’t - It’s in fact very easy if you just follow the instructions.
Hardware issues almost resolved
The WLAN was a bit of a problem at first. My WLAN adapter was recognized by Ubuntu right away but wouldn’t initialize it properly and thus it wouldn’t find any networks to connect to. This was easily fixed by downloading a small app using the fenomenal repository system Synaptics. Once I did that WLAN was up and running and I think it works even better than in Vista. The signal is strong and, more importantly, countinuously strong. In vista I have some serious problems with the connection speed constantly dropping to zero for a moment before rising again - which makes for a very unsmooth internet usage.
Next issue was the graphics card. I have an ATI Mobility X700 and Ubuntu is supposed to install drivers automatically for it. It didn’t and I had to use a piece of software called Envy which made it work by pressing a few buttons. It also works for nVidia cards and is a great tool!
Sound and Video is also improved. Although Ubuntu is supposed to be able to find codecs for movies automatically, it didn’t really seem to work for my Futurama or Battlestar Galactica episodes. But a quick search for VLC using Synaptics set things straight. No issues whatsoever with video quality (like there was in both previos versions of Ubuntu) nor with sound. The sound worked out of the box with no problem at all.
Flash - savior of the universe!
Ubuntu has always been known for it’s great software bundles. They are plentiful and useful. And thanks to Synaptics it’s easier to get much much more of them. Ubuntu now comes with Firefox 2.0 (unlike previous versions of Ubuntu) which is great. What’s even greater is that installing Flash is as easy as it could ever be! It’s done using Firefox’ own plugin installation wizard! I know it’s simple and stupid to put so much weight on this but I think it’s a testimony to how much better Ubuntu really has become! I was able to do my daily YouTubing in a matter of seconds! Wonderful, wonderful stuff!
Ubuntu also comes with the entire OpenOffice2 suit as well as preinstalled with GIMP. Neither admittedly as good as their Windows counterparts MS Office and Photoshop but on the other hand not bad at all. Maybe using GIMP just takes some time getting used to. There are also plugins that make GIMP look more like Photoshop so that old farts like myself will have an easier time using it. By the way - the Ubuntu-logo on the top of this page was manipulated using GIMP :P
Do it - do it now!
So is it time to make the switch? Well, taking into account that Vista doesn’t boot anymore - I don’t really seem to have a choice. Not at the moment at least, since my Vista DVD is at my other apartment which I wont be going to until next week. Until them I’m stuck with Ubuntu and you know what? It doesn’t feel half bad. In fact it feels kinda good. I’m using my laptop and doing all the stuff I’d normally do in Windows - for free! It’s amazing actually! There’s nothing I’d have in Windows that I miss right now. Ok, Photoshop and InDesign are issues, but I can use those apps on my desktop if I need to.
With the great advancements that’s been made in the user friendliness in Ubuntu 7.04 - I believe it’s now finally, after all these years, to at least make a partial switch to Linux. I don’t think I’ll install Vista on this laptop ever again. My hat is off to the Ubuntu team! Switch now and never regret it ;)
So say we all! - phatvolvo, on 10/12/2007, -3/+10if you have two screens, it's tricky to get them going. Anybody know a good way?
- Theli, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7"Don't tell me not to bitch about my laptop not being completely supported in Feisty Fawn because the software's being written for Windows, if you want to create switchers it needs to just work."
Who or what are you complaining about here?
I mean, it's a different operating system. If the applications you want to use only exist for one OS, then you use that OS. There's not much the engineers of another operating system, or fellow digg-users can do about that. - Fartag, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8@nick0909
"Open source is only free if your time is worthless, which for the highschoolers on digg is true."
Wow, great generalizations there! (?) First, it's all a bit ironical that you're on digg taking the time to read and post in an open source related topic regarding software you clearly don't have time for. And what do you mean by "tweaking" it to make it awesome, my Debian and Ubuntu were awesome from the beginning! A car analogue, "I don't know why you automobile inventors are building those things. My horse and buggy work just fine and they're easier to use, they just work!", etc.
I don't want to deal with the limitations of Windows. I use it for 5% of the things I do on a computer, I might use it more though if they continue embracing, extending and extinguishing, further reduce interoperability and continue using their monopoly to control the market, and plying more restrictive EULAs, and DRM, etc. Maybe the artificial limitations on DirectX 10 and Vista will get me to upgrade to Vista for the OS locked games? I don't know, but I'd have to ignore that part of my brain that hates supporting something hellbent on taking my and others' freedoms away first - DiggCommando, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7He means his allowance.
- radu79, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Mandriva 2007 detected my Ati 9600 Mobility just fine (both the native resolution for my laptop, and the hardware accelerated OpenGL drivers).
- Tawni, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10I switched yesterday to Ubuntu from Vista and I love it. I had absolutely no issues. It was so easy to find the programs I needed to replace all the work I did in windows. I will never ever go back to windows again. I can not recommend ubuntu enough
- tehkain, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6I dumped windows a few years ago and I have to say "linux works". Sadly people seem to think because you have to install driver and other things that they didn't have to do such things for their windows install. The bottom line for the whole issue comes down to two things. The first being having supported hardware and the second is realizing that the base Ubuntu install works great and you should expect many things not included in the repos not to work well.. Where people get all pissy is when they overstep their ability and install things from outside the repositories and wonder why they do not work. There is a reason binary blobs just arnt easy to install and work 100% with x. They are proprietary and since every linux machine is not a clone the software just doesn't setup well all the time. Laptops are notorious for using obscure hardware and providing little or no support for linux and rarley issue hardware specs for driver writers.
To the article:
Edgy came with firefox 2.0.. As for driver support for your graphics card, you could install a driver with much ease in the last 3 ubuntus (including restricted drivers). - coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7"The first step will be to make sure that you have 3d enabled video from the start every time."
Unfortunately, This cannot happen until the graphics card companies release open-source drivers which can be included by default in distros. I was pretty amazed to see my friend's laptop (with an Intel integrated graphics card) using full 3D acceleration straight off the Feisty live/install CD. At least Nvidia makes good binary blobs that are mostly easy to set up and most things work, but ATi .......Lets not even talk about ATi. *shudders* - mercurysquad, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7System > Preferences > Desktop Effects.
- jetpig, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6i downloaded the feisty beta when it first came out, installed a week ago or so. people said that they had problems with the 8800s. I've got an 8800 GTS and the driver went straight to vesa. switching to a virtual terminal caused a hard lock, but that all got fixed when i got drivers. my wireless also didn't work. took a little digging, but i was eventually able to find out about the open source rt2x00 project and got their nightly rt73 driver (i guess i got lucky in that roulette game, it's been perfectly stable in my uses). after that i went and got beryl and aiglx running. All in all i was fully up and running in 2 days. but that's cause a lot of it was new to me. if i knew both how to do a windows install and Linux install equally well. this ubuntu install would have won hands down.
with windows i need to get both my onboard nics as well as my wireless installed, sound card, video card, then required apps like anti-virus, browsers (FF and Opera, i use em both in different situations) games, and bit torrent.
Linux i need to get my wireless and my video card, the rest of everything else works. Automatix even did the video card for me as well as all my required apps (opera, ff, swiftfox, plug-ins, etc.)
so as long as I'm able to get a hardwired connection for a day, then a ubuntu install on my box is MUCH faster.
specs for reference:
8800 GTS
athlon 64 3800+ (socket 939)
gigabyte k8nxp-sli mobo
gig of ram
200 gig sata maxtor hdd
creative audigy 2 zs
edit: one note. the drivers in the repos don't seem to work too well for the 8800s. i don't think they reconfigure xorg properly, or perhaps i just screwed something up. automatix got it all fixed anyhow. - coredump0x01, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@wazzledoozle2
More annoying then searching the web, downloading the installer, clicking 'next, next, next, i agree, next next.......uncheck "show readme", finish' as opposed to typing 'sudo apt-get install some-program' and being done with it, or by searching in Synaptic or Adept, checking off what you want installed (you can install as many programs as you like in one shot) and clicking 'Apply' Sorry to say, but the Windows way is far more annoying (at least IMO). - rebopper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Use knoppix for that instead. its a crazy small download too.
- majorbabu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7http://duggmirror.com/linux_unix/Ubuntu_7_04_Time_to_switch/
- Surkow, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7[Quote]
Booted a verified Ubuntu CD on what I thought was a run-of-the-mill laptop with ATI x1400 video, X seg faults in a font loading function, I go back to Windows. Good luck with the next release.
[/Quote]
ATI does not offer proper Linux drivers. This is not just a problem for Ubuntu, but for all operating systems other than Windows/MacOSX.
[Quote]
Well really the only way to get Ubuntu up and running on this system (according to Google searches) would be to install in text mode, grabbing the alternative Ubuntu ISO, and then follow a billion steps. That's asking way too much, especially since I'm just interested in trying this thing out since its supposed to be the latest and greatest in Linux usability. I used to run a Slackware machine as an Internet gateway with IP masquerading, yet this Ubuntu manages to confuse the hell out of me, I'm basically bound to Google when I need to get things working.
[/quote]
What do you mean by following a billion steps? You can install Windows and Slackware? Compared to that installing Ubuntu should be a breeze (even with the alternate CD). Since you have to knowledge to run Slackware I don't understand why you are complaining. - priegog, on 10/12/2007, -2/+73 hours? . How long does a Windows install take by the way? (JUST the install, let alone setting it up for your needs with your programs, settings, etc).how about 25 minutes with feisty?
And once it's up, it's preloaded with (almost) everything you need to get along with your life.
It all comes down to if your particular hardware works out of the box, because if it doesn't then you'll need to dive into the forums, which seems to be what you are complaining about.
Plus, about that "wanting something that works and doesn't waste my time", you have to be kidding about windows. When I was using XP, I had to do a clean reformat and install every 6 months or so, or the thing became so sluggish it became unusable. Not to mention setting up and mantaining the antivirus, antispywares, defragmenters, system tweakers, and a long list of etceteras JUST so it would run nicely. Not the case with ubuntu (or linux for that matter)...
So maybe it IS worth giving a shot. It all comes down, as I said, to if your hardware will work out of the box. - mcmlxxii, on 10/12/2007, -1/+6Ubuntu put the fun back into my computer.
- Spo8, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5One thing is that you'll be downloading a lot of proprietary drivers for the first part. Download the EasyUbuntu pack, which helps get that all in one place. Since it's open source, they don't include support for non-open formats, but you'll be up and running pretty soon on whatever you want to watch. VLC is great for this.
And an awesome part is how really anything you could want to do on your computer has a free linux program that's going to let you do it. The community support is just awesome. IRC chatters are extremely helpful if you run into any errors. Also definitely download Beryl, it can even be done without messy command line stuff now. Just download and install it through Synaptic (the programs manager). It allows for tons of cool window/desktop animations.
Oh and one other thing. Using the terminal is still something that you're going to run into eventually. It's daunting at first but just check out some tutorials and you'll be used to it soon. - furiouslettuce, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7One thing I don't get is when people say 'it should be able to directly render without having to install drivers'. People seem to have double standards - even with Vista, if you're remotely interested in having a decent setup, the first thing you do (after installing all the firewalls / AV / anti-spyware) is download the video drivers. Feisty now includes a program on your desktop that downloads and installs them for you - you don't even need to know the website address, what kind of card you've got, or any details about your setup, it just works. You wouldn't expect that from windows, people just find it hard because it's different, not because it is hard.
Another major gripe is wireless - why do I have to run through hoops to get my wireless card working? Well, it depends on the model. For instance, the card in my HP nc4200 was automatically installed under Edgy, never mind Feisty. Again, that's something you wouldn't expect from Windows. Usually, you have to put the CD in, making sure you don't plug the device in first, otherwise it's a world of pain for any inexperienced users, then follow the detailed and strict instructions to get it working. People put up with it because it's the what they're used to, but it's no easier than ndiswrapper, which now can install most wireless cards simply with a GUI (select the driver, click install and voila!). The fact that it's more hassle with some than others is down to the manufacturers policy on open sourcing drivers, and I think that the work the open source community has done in reverse-engineering drivers to get proprietry hardware to work is amazing. If manufacturers released their drivers to open source, it would simply be a case of popping the disc in, Linux detecting your hardware and loading the right drivers, and everything working. I know people say that, whilst this is true, it still stops them using their computer properly (they just want it to work), but if you like the idea of not being dependent on MS, then you owe it to yourself to at least try it - it might be more painless than you think!
I'm sure that people are expecting mixed things when people hear about Linux - some say it's amazing, some unuseable. I reckon it's in between the extremes. I run Ubuntu on my laptop, and Vista on my desktop, since there are some applications I can't do without. However, my laptop goes everywhere with me, and for general useage / what most people use it for (e.g., internet browsing, music etc), it's perfect, as well as giving you much more power over your experience than the main OS's (OSX, Windows). - inactive, on 02/25/2009, -0/+5sorry I dugged you although I really didn't want to. But well who's stopping you from using windows if you really think Windows is working for you? For example, I have a PSP and I regularly write homebrew applications for it to extend its capabilities and one of the major requirements for writing programs for PSP is to have a unix/linux system installed because it's nearly impossible (although not entirely impossible) to write system-level programs in closed-source proprietary windows. That's one of the many reasons why I have switched to Ubuntu and also since I'm a noob I believe Ubuntu lets me use an user-friendly system while still providing me with almost anything and everything a Unix/Linux system has to offer.
One thing for sure...we do have to stop referring to it as 'switch' and rather replace the word 'switch' with 'dual-boot', because seriously we can only gain so much by not hating each other, but by getting along with each other. I have several computers and two of them run Windows XP. and I haven't decided to fill 'em up with Linux because I do want to use Windows and what MS has to offer until and unless it becomes obsolate.
You don't necessarily have to switch to a particular OS. You can dual boot and GNU/Linux comes with Lilo and GRUB bootloaders. It all depends on wheather or not you think GNU/Linux is gonna bring you what you need.
Someone wrote a Linux OS for PS3 and Sony finally hired them because Sony knows only Linux can extend a hardware device's capability to a great extent and Windows can't. PS3 owners now have an official Linux OS and developers are writing software for it to do amazing things with PS3 that would have never been possible using Windows. In near future, almost everyone is inevitably going to switch to Linux in some extent and you can't stop that by paying 120 dollars for your shiny disk of Windows Vista. Not that I hate MS or Vista, but most noobs don't care to read the EULA and in Vista's EULA it says clearly that the software/CD/Whatever isn't sold to you, but its license is. Normally EULA is such a boring piece of crap that even the most seasoned user would hate to read it and consider doing so a waste of time and MS takes advantage of it. In Vista's EULA it says that if you reformat or change your hardware, you would have to again pay 120 dollars for your windows ultimate vista. You can't use that CD to install Vista for the second time if, god forbid, your first install gets borked for some reasons. If you wanna pay to become a bitch that's fine cause that's your decision. - dygitaljoe, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I think if users continue to switch to Ubuntu, we can hopefully influence manufactures to create drivers for their devices. Either them or us... all in all, eventually all devices will be supported on Linux. :-)
- MilesLombardi, on 10/12/2007, -2/+7This might be a silly question. But what did you do when you got Vista? Surely you "switched" from XP to Vista.
I guess you could have simply upgraded, but that doesn't always go well. -
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