OK.... So I've finally decided to see what the whole deal with Linux is. I don't know much about it but I had a few assumptions - correct or incorrect - about it that made me decide to hold off. Here's an important thing: I'm not a fanboy. I don't care about Gates or Linux and I have no hatred/anger towards any person, company, or product. I've been trying to find a decent comparison but most of them boil down to "Linux is better and Bill Gates needs to be shot in the face." I just want the product that will be the best choice overall. I use a lot of different programs, nearly all of them Microsoft. I wanted to have something where all of the software worked with each other. I was willing to sacrifice some degree of quality/function just to have this feature. I don't want any OS that will lock me out of software or else I'd be using a Mac right now. On any given day I'll use: MS Word, MS Excel, MS Money, MS Project, MS Outlook Express, MS OneNote, MS Frontpage, MS Visio, MS Internet Explorer, Firefox, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, Photoshop CS, InDesign, FTP Voyager, Trillian. I use a lot of smaller programs like FlexWallet, PIMEX Email, Limewire, etc. I have a lot of videos and pictures that I use/store. I also download a lot, usually DVDs, etc. I hook up my 40 gig MP3 player. I want something good for multimedia. I have 2 monitors and I have to keep using 2 monitors. I have a home network and I have a network drive. I use GoToMyPC and I have to keep using it. I don't mind Windows XP. I've never had any problems with it crashing or any virus problems even tho I've downloaded some pretty dodgy shit at times. I use the most current Norton applications. So any good or bad points to switching to Linux? Im pretty sure my auction software won't run on Linux so that will probably kill the deal, but I still have to do more research. Does it help or hurt me based on how I use my PC? Will I create more small problems than it's worth?
You do know that most of those apps you named also exist in a Mac version, and for the others you can use parallels, which boots XP in a screen while still running OS X. I've recently switched as well, and it's great.
Yeah I'd rather not rebuy my software for Mac, tho. And if I ran it all through a parallel I'd probably end up just staying in XP mode and getting less performance in the end....
Maybe something I'm missing, but why would you switch to linux if you don't seem to have any problems with your current setup? I see 2 different types of people make the switch to linux: those who seem to attach a religious zeal to the type of OS they use (the fanboys) and the people who want to expirment or tinker with the inner workings of their computer. If you don't fall into either one of these categories, the only advantage that I can see is you don't have to pay for linux. IMO if your not willing to make the switch to Mac (theres no problem with not wanting to) then you've just summed up Windows almost perfectly. Fanboys may try to argue with you all day, but linux doesn't simply "just work" as well as windows does. Good points: It's free, so if you don't like it, you're not out any money. Seems to adopt bleeding edge technologies much quicker (like x86-64 or EFI booting). Optimizations can be done on a per-machine basis which can sometimes help speed things up. Bad points: It has a steeper learning curve than either mac or windows. Theres only so much that you can do with point and click in the gui, eventually you'll need to delve into the command line to do really useful things and thats always fun if you aren't familiar with *nix and even more fun if you're only familiar with ms-dos </sarcasm>. My biggest gripe: although program installation has come along way with package managers, its still a PITA sometimes. Even some of the simplest programs will require dozens and dozens of libraries to work, I've yet to see a nice gui program that I can just download as a binary to my desktop and double click to make it run (linux just don't work that way). Many of said required libraries are still in beta/incomplete stages. So then the problem is that when the libraries are finished, they either break the an old program requiring them to run, or they maintain compatibility with old programs at the expense of bloat. I hate this. With all that said, why not just go onto Gentoo's website, download a livecd and burn it, then try it out. All you have to do is pop the cd in your drive and reboot. It will give you a tast of linux is like without actually installing or erasing anything from your hard drive(s).
I looked into switching from Windows to Linux and it just seemed like a whole lot of work to achieve little. I tried the Live CDs and they were ok. OVerall it was ok but if I wanted to make Linux my main OS and completely quit Windows would require a lot of work as far as learning the guts of Linux.
I'd stick with XP if I was you. I'm not big fan of XP or Macs or Linux but I do find XP to be the easiest to use and get around. Let's not forget that the amount of applications you have for XP dwarfs the other options as well. Give the fan boys the swift two fingers and see what's best for you as mentioned above. Yakumo
OK, those were actually some of the assumptions that I had. After hearing so much praise I decided to check it out and see if I was missing anything. But at this point it seems like a trade-off where I end up with more issues than convenience.
If you're young and adventures, Linux is good for you until you get sick and tired of the incompatibility of your newly bought hardware, or the fact that many professional packages don't come for linux. (and i don't refer to professional packs such as photoshop for example. An mpeg4 mastering program for broadcasting over a TV network is a professional app too ) The first phase is excitement. You will be so excited that you made the switch from windows to a linux Xwindow environment! Then comes in the feeling of discovery. You want to set some parameteres, and although you were quite the guru in windows, knowing your registry , and other control tools, now you feel totally lost and must seek advice (If you re someone with more than enough things to do in your life , losing this precious time just to find out a simple X or Y isn't worth the while.) Then comes the odd feeling of "where's the My Computer layout?" - There is none, for better or for worse, and I for one am used to it and can't be bothered to re-invent the wheel. But most of all what matters is this: Does your system run fine with XP? My system has been running straight and without a format for the last 3 years using WindowsXP, and it is clean as a whistle and fast as the day I installed XP. (i have service pack 1 - i ve chosen to install SP2 components selectively over a long period of time, instead of just gettings them as a pack). Is the interface that bores you? great, get a new shell, but for your own sake don't change ur whole compatibility list for that. If both XP and a GUI linux pack perform equally well, why leave from the tried and known XP formula? I want to get my job done when i turn on my computer, and i don't give a rat's ass if it runs XP, Linux or CP/M in the background, and neither should you. Linux is very useful for networking and setting up servers, but on a personal one-to-one computer, used for everyday use, Windows just can't be beat imho. You can talk about WINE all you want by the way, but to emulate programs is to boldly state that you miss using your Windows based programs, which are probably better than the Linux ones since you have chosen the emulation path over native or non-existing apps. Finaly, imagine your favourite game console. Do you care if it runs a certain OS, be it linux(Like Ps3) or Win2K kernel (in the case of the XBOX)? No, it doesn't matter as long as it gets the job done. And thanks to the huge popularity of Windows, it seems the the job is done faster , better and in more ways on Windows than any other platform . PS: My windows have never ever hanged or given me trouble that wasn't in some way a product of my fault at some point. For everything there's a perfectly good explanation, and for windows fucking-up the explenation is ignorant computer users. Treat your computer as a tool and not something that is bound to set up everything by itself and be all-wise, and you ll have a healthy system. Security dangers on XP might be more, but if you have a half-decent firewall and an anti-virus, you re as covered as you need to be. The only reason that windows has so many malicius programs compared to other platforms, is not because it's fundamentaly flawed, but because it's the more popular OS out of the lot, so it's also likely to be targeted more by evil coders
That said, for the average computer user a recent Linux build can very easily replace a WinXP machine. I'm not saying it's a better option, but certainly an equivalent one. For example, take Ubuntu. On an out of the box install you have to click through something like 5 or 6 boxes. That's it. It'll take care of autodetecting most hardware and run through the install. When it's done you're presented with a nice X-Windows desktop. Takes -zero- knowledge to get running. Once up, you've got a full office suite ready to go, web, email, and image editing software. There's an autoupdate app and a slick package manager that makes installing and removing software as simple as clicking a box. If you want to run a webserver, ftp server, or something similar, it's going to be relatively simple to setup. Current Linux installs are great for the casual computer user simply because it does everything they're going to want and it's free. For the power user, it really comes down to what do you need and which OSes is it available for? Personally I have more than one machine and each runs a different OS. If you have two boxes, that's also a great way to experiment safely with a new OS. And because the Ubuntu distribution ships with a remote desktop client for windows you can easily use both boxes with just one keyboard/mouse so long as they're networked. Going the other way (remote connection to Ubuntu from Windows) is simply a matter of installing VNC. -hl718
With all the apps that you use, just stick with Windows XP. You'll waste more time getting them to work, (or half-way work) than it's worth.
Stick with XP, but if you want to learn a bit of Linux before actually installing it, get a LiveCD. As for those programs, OpenOffice, Gaim, Gimp, ... All free, and sometimes better (and they have Win XP versions,besides the Linux).
That is true yakumo, but how many programs do you really need? do you really need 1000 programs that do the same, or 2 or 3 that do it way better and easier? mac's dont have as many programs , but you can do almost anything on a mac easier and better. I've switched to mac and.... well, i find using xp anoying now.
Linux is fun to play around with, but for pure functionality Windows is still king until Mac OS becomes a little more popular (thanks probably to the fact that Apple are using Intel chips now, and will allow people to still use XP while experimenting with Mac OS). I think Linux can also run on just about anything, so it can be handy to throw on an old bit of hardware you might have laying around and turn it into something useful.
True, but it is nice to have more options. I have found some programs that do the same function as another work better due to the way they process something or the way its gui is set up. Why do you think some people prefer snes9x over znes even though znes is a bit more compatible. Me myself I prefer windows xp for personal use as it is pretty easy and you have lots of options when it comes to free alternative to programs you usually have to pay for. Macs I only like using for editing or art programs as they are optimized properly on apple's hardware. Linux i would only really reccomend if you want just experiment or code stuff. And as mentioned, its free so you really don't lose out.
To be honest, I need both XP and Linux. I do all my "computing" on the Linux, and also store everything there and access it via a samba share. I access my files from work all the time, and digging around on a terminal is much more simplified, and native to the linux OS than XP. XP running SSH shit is just unnatural anyway. XP for me is basically used for porn, poker, Photoshop (although Gimp is pretty good) and the occasional PC game. Linux is for development, file storing, quite a bit of surfing, etc. etc. Maybe easier if you're just starting to learn computers. Otherwise, it's just different. The main things Macs have going for them is the whole X11 thing. I don't use them, but I do fix them from time to time. They've silly hang ups, just like the Windows ones. The only difference is they look a lot better. As before, there are some things you're just not going to do on a Mac. Namely games, and poker -- important for a lot of people.
you can use openoffice for having the clones of all MS products, or if you are concerned to keep using the same programs, just use linux for everything beside those, a pay a few dollars to make a VMware for running them under, linux. this way you'll have a clean xp installation with the few progs you NEED and linux doesn't have, to run when needed, and use the safety of linux for all other tasks. by the way all the apps you wrote have exact counterparts on linux... so it's really upè to you. i left windows some months ago and i'm really satisfied, still i needed some of Nero burning rom's feature, so i registered on VMware website, got a 30 days key, made my virtual machine for free and now i'm a happy linuix user when i need it i just make my Vmware run win2k and save in a exchange folder so that i can accede to those datas from linux too in case i need. also you can easily make backup of your virtual machine state just by copying the .vmw file it creates. i can do the following with no problem wityh my athlon64 3300 with 1GB of ram; i just leave to windows 256Mb of ram and it runs wonderfully. let me know if you need clarification. karsten
Ubuntu linux and XP is what I like... I just wish linux could run all the games like XP and then I'd probably stick to it.
I use Ubuntu linux, mostly, but for Graphical applications and compatibility issues (my masters' program requires lots of online teamwork), I have an XP Partition. I say learn both, and use the one you like for different things. Knowledge is never useless.
