So, I decided to mess around and install Kali Linux. First I tried it live from the USB drive and I thought that everything is great. It could only get faster and better if I install it to my HDD. Watched a few tutorials, I properly partiotioned my HDD and was trying to install Kali. The install went smoothly, but didn't have much time, so as soon as I installed it, I turned off the PC. Turned the PC on later and it went straight to Grub rescue mode. I just couldn't get rid of it no matter what I tried. I was stuck booting from the USB device for a few days, until I finally put in my Windows recovery disc and reconfigured the boot. From this experience I learned that Linux has many great features, but also isn't very user friendly. I'll stick to using Linux live from the USB. Have you had any similar bad first impression experiences from an OS ?
You should just have used a ubuntu-based distribution, like mint or elementary (or ubuntu). Kali isn't meant to be user friendly at all, it's aimed at security experts, which is about as computer literate as you can get. It's always a little hard to install linux on a system where windows already uses the whole HDD, windows doesn't want you to install other OSes, so it's not very friendly about resizing partitions and doesn't show linux in its own bootloader. BUT, it you first partition the HDD as you like, then install Windows and finally install linux, everything should work fine.
I specifically wanted to use Kali for it's features. I am interested in testing how various security exploits work and just to see the Linux environment. For now, I'll just stick to using the live version, but later on, might get a low end PC just for Linux.
You could also install the live version to your hard drive. That way you don't have to repartition your drive to a weird linux fs.
You might not like linux for a plethora of reasons, but the fs it uses are things of beauty. Ext4 is great, btrfs is very great and zfs is the future. The only reason they aren't used (or supported) on windows is because microsoft want you to use their products everywhere all the time.
I installed Linux on my HDD and promptly lost internet access. Seems my laptop's broadband drivers only work with Windows. Grr.
Or, you had to install them manually. Linux doesn't always plug and play, you know. Most of the time you have to do things manually.
Don't wanna sound like a Linux fanboy (I kinda am), but that's not true anymore. Mainline kernel supports 95% of peripherals out of the box.
I've had linux as my only os for the better part of 2014. Mostly mint, but also debian and chromium os. I needed to manually identify and install (or enable) my wifi card on all three of them. Chromium even needed an mp3 codec. I know chromium is supposed to be dev only but, none the less, an mp3 codec carl!
"Support" and "sets the damn thing up properly" are two different things. Linux has never been, and will probably never be, user friendly. Too many developer egos involved.
I have installed Ubuntu based Linux on over 10 pc and only had issues with a single USB WiFi card. Maybe I'm only lucky though. I use solely Linux myself, since 2011, but I'm a scientist, not the everyday user. I don't rely on proprietary software or have any need to be compatible with anyone but myself.
I think most people here have, why? I've used all of them. I actually kind of miss Windows Millenium. I liked the visual direction that Microsoft went with that time.
I used Windows ME for 3 years. Do I need to say more? Edit- More like forced to use Windows ME. Nobody uses Windows ME voluntarily.
I don't remember 98 being bad at all, although by today's standards all the 9x Windowses would be pretty painful to use.
Hah I have good memories from my Win 98 days... specially because I didn't use any USB device (plug & pray)... to think I used floppies all the time. Hell I still remember running Half-Life on Windows XP, 40gb of HDD and 256 mb of RAM... had to run on 800x600, because the premium resolution of the time (1024x768) made the game laggy on my machine. Not to mention the service pack 3 update with half the programs not working anymore lol. They weren't so bad but they ceirtainly aren't viable any longer. Anyway... Only things linux distros are good for: servers, programming, and whatever high-level tasks there are for computers. It will never be better than Windows or Mac OS -- when UI and usability is an afterthought it's not hard to see why regular users have problems with it (hell even "high level" users have many problems with it too, but their egos are too inflated to admit that the system is hard to maintain). Ubuntu is good until you have to solve a problem or do something outside of the very basic scope of the user friendly UI.
All that arguing about linux not being user friendly isn't true anymore. It was true 5 years ago, but the UX of Linux greatly improved recently, with mint, Ubuntu and elementary OS being wonderful to work with. Read this: https://medium.com/backchannel/i-mo...etter-than-i-expected-9f2dcac3f8fb#.4tgd9ia9v Now, of course it's different than Windows or osx, but that's just because it's a different product, it's normal to take a few days getting used to it. Just as you did when going from xp to 7. My mother is on mint and she simply think it's a green themed xp.
