30 days with Linux @ [H] Consumer

[Lothar the Lotharian]

Absolutely, back when the Newtek Video Toaster was cutting edge!

What are you talking about? The VT is still cutting edge...

All kidding aside, it deserves props for bringing video editing to the masses and still is in use today by VJ's and retro synth-pop composers.

 

[bigstusexy]

Nice article, I don't have many nit picks or anything. One thing though is that you seem a lot more versed in linux than say the average user or power user would be, there are a lot of things that you knew how todo or knew that they existed and I wasn't sure how. Like one of the auto install programs, doesn't sound like it was included with the distro but you never stated how you came accross it.


In regards to youtubs use of flv format, can't VLC handle flv without other codecs? I am sure it doesn't handle for other format plugins in browsers but you'd still be able to play the files offline.

Windows allows you to place the main bar or other tool bars on any of the four sides of the screen, at least the classic interface.


My main gripes with using linux day to day are: Compiling of programs, you still have to do it, there are many packages that don't have an auto install listing, there are no auto compilers that I know of, after that you may still be just left with a binary file and, Gripe 2: Bad documentation if any, sure you've got help man pages and readme's but none of then are written for people that didn't build the program. This isn't really linux's fault as it is the Linux community's fault.

Finally its the little small ways of doing things and using maybe not so popular apps that is the real deal breaker. IE: At work and home I'm starting to use a growing numbers of apps that actually greatly increase my productivity. Launchy (launchy.net) is a program launch that can run anything you want and searches its database based on your query, it the hotkey type and hit enter and you are running. Evernote, a searchable sticky note program saves as you type, categorizable. Arsclip, selectable list of past Clipboard items. That and the way You've gotten windows configured. If you take these way its pretty much like going back to firefox minus all the extensions.


You mintioned that you installed wine but save for the programs that might have used the wine libraries you didn't mention its use. Did you try to use just wine yourself and were you successful? Did you try it to get photoshop installed?


Thanks for the article.

 

[Martindale]

Brian: As far as I know, Photoshop works 100% in Wine.

There's also Crossover Office, but I've not looked into it, and it costs money ($39.99) that I'd rather spend elsewhere.

 

[mryerse]

This is definately one of the most interesting articles I've read on [H] lately. I can't say I am surprised with the results (Internet/Productivity okay, gaming not okay). But the process you went through and situations you examined are very interesting to me. I haven't used Linux as a primary system in a while. It sounds like things have gotten better, especially the simplification of installing applications. I think that my next system will be a dual boot. I'd love to go all Linux, but I think that the major limit here is gaming. Once gaming is as easy on Linux, it will become a mainstream OS. I think Apple can help with this, and it's good to see Apple moving toward Intel processors. Hopefully they continue to open up to new hardware like choosing your own video card.

 

[MacDad]

That was a great read. I am just the target for this type of article and I think I'm going to give Ubuntu a try. Pretty much everything I do on my PC seems to work just fine, according to the article, so I don't think I have much to lose. I don't really do much PC gaming at all lately.. I'm definitely going to do some research first, but I'm kinda looking forward to this. At the very least, it will be a fun project, even if it fails miserably

The only problem I anticipate is the monitor issue. I have almost the exact model monitor, but I'm confident I can figure it out. The page he referenced is actually how to fix my specific model.

I gotta admit, finding out that I can set my windows on fire when I minimize was one of the deciding factors.

 

[Scott Ritchie]

Brian: As far as I know, Photoshop works 100% in Wine.

There's also Crossover Office, but I've not looked into it, and it costs money ($39.99) that I'd rather spend elsewhere.

This is true, at least with somewhat older versions of photoshop. See the various entries for Photoshop in the Application Database.

Brian, have you tried running Photoshop in Wine? What version do you use? 7.0 is known to work very well, although Photoshop CS 2 frequently runs into issues due to its copy protection.

It's a little known fact, but one of the most common things that breaks Wine compatibility is copy protection. This is what prevents a lot of games from working, although many can be made to work with the help of a crack. I'm not sure if cracking helps photoshop, though.

 

[Commander Suzdal]

As for games, well you are quite misinformed!! UT2003 works with linux and the installer is on the last disc. UT2004 has the installer on the DVD. Descent 3 runs fine. Serious Sam TSE is playable. Scorched3D, Armagetron, bzflag, all work like a charm and are cross platform. Enemy Territory and all the mods (Red Orchestra and such) for both ET and UT work on linux. Quake 3 and 4 of course. IIRC Doom III had a playable demo for linux. Postal 2 runs. None of the above are with WINE either. Poke through icculus.org and you'll find a ton of games. Take the time to try some commercial games and let the developers and those associated know you appreciate the linux ports. I know a bunch of people who only use Window because of their games but would switch in a heartbeat if it meant no more BSOD, malware, viruses, etc..

This is the kind of statement that harms the credibility of Linux proponents in the eyes of Windows users (like myself) who are open-minded and interested in alternatives. You lead off with a patronizing claim to superior knowledge, then your refutation of the "no games for Linux" problem boils down to one current game, three or four outdated mainstream games, two outdated games I've barely heard of, a laundry list of games I've never heard of, and a demo. The fact that this is the best you could come up with only highlights how serious the problem is, while the general tone does nothing to improve the stereotype of the typical Linux user.

Major thanks, though, to the big honchos who have dropped by with fixes, clarifications, promises of improvement, and news about where WINE and Ubuntu are headed. That speaks volumes for the Linux community and raises my hopes that one day we will all only pay for hardware and entertainment content/games, not OS's and word processors.

I think the real untold story here (and it's not an original thought, I know) is the similarities between the downsides for Linux and OSX. As Linux rises, OSX will be increasingly redundant until it must simply collapse marketwise. If choosing between "Cool but has some shortfalls, and free," and "Cool but has some shortfalls, and expensive," who would choose expensive? I think the only card Apple really has to play is that they control Final Cut, so it will never go cross-platfrom, and in the video-editing world time is money to such an extreme degree that pros will pay the "Apple tax" just to get the best tool for the job. In the meantime, Final Cut's competitiors are no doubt working hard to erase that advantage, so the clock is ticking.

 

[Saist]

... I just know this ain't gonna end well calling this manure

Windows is the standard, and that's backed up by the ~95% market share.

Wrong. Try dropping that number way down. The computer industry isn't dominated by the "home market." Speaking in terms of the computer industry as a whole, Microsoft has less than 50% market share. Keep in mind the massive number of systems sold that run IBM AIX, HP's HPUX, or Sun Microsystems Solaris. Keep in mind the number of web-servers running Linux+Apache. Now, it might be right to say that Microsoft holds a larger share of the entire computing industry than any single Pure-Unix, Bill Joy Derived BSD, and Linux vendor, but by the same token, Microsoft's products are fragmented through installations of WinNT 4, Win2k Pro, and Server 2003.

Limiting ones self to the "consumer" market, the "magical" 95% number doesn't hold up there as well. Take the the number of computer sales reported by Dell, HP, Gateway, and other OEMs that include Microsoft with no other option, then compare those with the download records compiled from places like Distrowatch, or the universities providing the mirroring services for Linux Distributions.

Presuming a 1:1 ratio of sales versus downloads (one person, no multiple sales), you would be looking at about 35-45% 1:1 ratio of people who bought a Microsoft Taxed computer also downloading a Linux distribution.

Sure, the numbers are going to be screwed up because some people buy 2, 3, 4, 5 computers a year with the Microsoft Tax. Some people build their own computer and put their own operating system on the computer.

Some people go out and don't buy Microsoft Products retail (go ahead, go look up the retail sales on Xp and Vista, they didn't sell in retail). Some people go out and buy Linux Operating Systems from retail.

The point is, there is no reliable metric to determine what Operating System is used on what computer, nor how many are used.

You cannot depend on tracking web-sites, not if you have multiple computers sitting behind a firewall. As far as a tracking web-site would be concerned, it generally can't tell if you have one, two, three, or more computers behind a firewall. If you have 8 computers, and 5 of them use Linux, all the tracking site can do is report that you have at least one computer, and it's detected both a Linux and a Windows OS accessing from that IP address.


Sorry, but Automagically assigning Microsoft 95% of the market is just plain manure. Fine, if you want to assign Microsoft 60% of the market, or maybe 70%, I might cede that.

But for the love of whatever, knock of the F.U.D. that Microsoft is somehow a standard.

 

[ShadowVlican]

Brian, great article and great read.

If I were to write about my experiences with ubuntu linux, I would have done so with extreme similarity as you have done. Problems and comments you put on the table have been experienced by most (if not all) users of linux, and they contribute to why linux is perceived to be a difficult OS for techsavvy users. I hope the developers behind ubuntu and the open source community take notice of your article, because I believe you have just spoken for all of us.

-Calvin

 

[Brian Boyko]

Impressive responses to an impressive article. I only wish KDE would have been selected over Gnome (and that the author would have properly pronounced Linux in his video).



I enjoyed the read.

To be fair, I also mispronounced "Veesta!"

 

[Brian Boyko]

That was a great read. I am just the target for this type of article and I think I'm going to give Ubuntu a try. Pretty much everything I do on my PC seems to work just fine, according to the article, so I don't think I have much to lose. I don't really do much PC gaming at all lately.. I'm definitely going to do some research first, but I'm kinda looking forward to this. At the very least, it will be a fun project, even if it fails miserably

The only problem I anticipate is the monitor issue. I have almost the exact model monitor, but I'm confident I can figure it out. The page he referenced is actually how to fix my specific model.

I gotta admit, finding out that I can set my windows on fire when I minimize was one of the deciding factors.

I wouldn't actually even use that web site - I'd install either the ATI or Nvidia drivers via Automatix2, then just run in a console "sudo dpkg-reconfigure -phigh xserver-xorg" Follow the steps, and that should do it.

 

[nigerian_businessman]

This whole "tear a post apart in sections" stuff is new to me, but I can game.



What I find reprehensible are inaccurate non-factual statements that tend to be biased (kinda like the one I just quoted), it has zero to do with Vista which wasn't mentioned in the particular paragraph quoted. He made such an error in the article about the need for the .NET framework for the ATI drivers, and that's that.



And learn jack shit in the process, or why a particular command is being used to do a specific task. Even so, that's a helluva lot of copying and pasting using the mouse and if you use the keyboard, oh boy. Even that doesn't work the same way Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer running Windows, is used to. In Windows it's Control+C to copy, Control+V to paste. In Linux, add the Shift key to each command to get the functional equivalent. More complicated than is truly necessary, but just another "nail" in some respects towards Linux's acceptance as a desktop OS for Joe Average, consumer that owns a computer that happens to be running Windows.

You go on a rant about wildly innacurate statements and then proceed to make them yourself. You don't have to add the shift key to copy and paste in linux. Have you even tried linux in the past two years or so? Do you even have the slightest clue what you're talking about?

But that's PRECISELY who Linux needs to target to get anywhere.

And I'm not forgetting anything, I made my point, and you just backed it up. And you, like so many others, need to get off the money issue. If you think Linux is free just because there's no cash out of pocket dollar expense involved - inaccurate since someone has to pay for the computer it's running on, the electricity to power the computer, the cost of the Internet connection to download it, the cost of the blank CDR to burn the ISO on, etc etc - you're just sadly mistaken. There's a cost of effort, a cost of time, a cost of frustration at learning something new; all of that factors into my statement. Just because it ain't about dollars, doesn't mean it ain't about sense - and yes, that's correct.

Well, some of those costs are there whether you're running Windows, Linux, OS/2, MacOS, or whatever else you want to run. Blank CDR's are less than 30 cents a pop. Effort? Time? Frustration at learning something new? So installing vista takes no effort or time? You don't have to learn anything new in Vista? What about if your hardware doesn't work? What about learning where all the stuff in the control panel went since they renamed it for no good reason?

Stop looking at things from the point of view of Joe Average only when it's convenient.

Now you're playing semantics, as I just did with the "cost breakdown" above. The issue here, and I commend the author of the article for pointing it out, that regardless of his - or your - personal opinions about how Windows handles issues with DVD playback (i.e. DeCSS or decryption issues) and mp3 playback (i.e. licensing and legality issues), the fact remains that in some parts of the world, playing back encrypted DVDs under Linux is against the law, period.

Just because you can click a few times instead of typing - no, maybe the user will just Google and copy and paste with Control+Shift+C and Control+Shift+V as noted above - and acquiring the ability to play back encrypted content doesn't mean it's legitimate. You and so many others keep missing that point, and again, your personal opinions and thoughts on the matter don't change the fact that it's illegal to watch an encrypted DVD on Linux in a lot of places around the world, most notably the US

And if someone truly gives a shit about it being illegal to watch something they own on their own computer because they don't want to pay the windows tax, they can feel free to pay for Windows or buy a DVD player or whatever. You're talking about something that has little to do with Linux and more to do with retarded legislation in the US. And you're still talking about Control+Shift+C and driving home the point that you haven't really tried linux, you just read about it and decided you don't like it.

That's simply the stupidest thing I've ever heard. As is so often said around here, "no one is forcing you to run it." No one is forcing you to buy it, and if it comes on a machine preinstalled, nothing is stopping you or anyone else from formatting it and installing any other OS they want on it, give or take a few that would be illegal to install - but wait, people can do that too. OSx86 is a hacked version of Mac OS X and can run on generic PCs, sooo... taking that line of thinking to extremes:

If you're willing and able to install software on your machine that will let you break the law and watch encrypted DVDs and listen to mp3 files, why not just scrap that whole concept and install an entire OS that you're not legally entitled -according to the laws of your country, that is, and whether or not you actually care to live by them, of course - and watch the DVDs on that OS because it legally does let you watch encrypted DVDs? And then play mp3 files in iTunes legally too?

See how silly this becomes?

The only thing I'm seeing is how silly you're becoming as you quickly run out of anything relevant to add to the conversation.

Oh, and Windows (meaning XP) doesn't ask for permission to do every time you try to do something, and neither does Vista. You're sounding like someone that works for Apple with those statements. Besides, it doesn't say "Allow or Deny" either. It says "Continue" or "Cancel." Semantics indeed...

It doesn't? Really... so my experiences with Windows are just imagined. I must have taken some really good acid. Because I could have sworn when I just tried to close a program in task manager by killing the process, it said:

"WARNING: Terminating a process can cause undesired results including loss of data and instability. The process will not be given the chance to save its state or data before it is terminated. Are you sure you want to terminate the process?"

and thats only one thing that I do on a regular basis. Several times daily, and thats if programs AREN'T completely locking up on Windows. Several times daily I have to reassure Windows that I am not retarded and I actually want it to do what I asked it to do. Except it's not just those times. It's pretty much every time I want to do anything that Microsoft, in their infinate wisdom, has decided could potentially cause 'data loss or instability'.

There is no such company, and not even Google could make that kind of dent or long-lasting impression on people.

Great, so now you're not only a supposed computer guru who doesn't know shit about the OS that you're attacking, but you're also some kind of stock analyst in your spare time too.

Nice to know you understand the problem, as you stated right there in that first sentence. Now, if you can just find the solution to it, you'll be a very wealthy person from a low-cost alternative OS to Windows.

I don't care if Windows survives or not. It doesn't bother me as much as Linux seems to bother you. I still use it (using it right now) and I'll likely continue to as long as there are some things that I cannot do as well in Linux (such as gaming). However, I've been running linux for a long time and I'd say that it speaks volumes about how far Linux has come when the best a person can come up with these days to attack it is that "you have to break the law to play dvds! wah!".

Windows is the standard, and that's backed up by the ~95% market share. That's a lot of 'puters, yanno, and in all my years of working on these damned machines, I've still never been to a customer's home - and I've worked on close to 100K machines over the years - and found a Linux box, ever. A few Macs, and so few even that ~4% amount I'm suspect of would be more like .04% in my own experience, but nothing to write home about.

I read somewhere once that 95% of statistics are made up on the spot. Linux is making sharp inroads in the business market. The nice thing about Linux being free and all is that it doesn't matter to the people who use it how well it's doing in the market because it doesn't rely on money to survive and thrive. If you've worked on close to 100K machines over the years and never found a Linux box, maybe it's time to leave the back room at Best Buy and get a real job, junior.

Linux has changed so much because of the sheer number of distros out there - it flies right back to your comment about "Linux lacks standards." That is the Achille's Heel of the Linux community, and until "One distro to rule them all" appears and some company puts their entire bankroll on the line for it and says, "We're behind Linux, do or die, we're all in" then it's never going to get anywhere within striking range of the King of the Hill: Windows

Linux has changed so much because it's gaining more and more users every day, and as people start using it, they start contributing to it either by writing programs or submitting bug reports or just letting their friends know about it. If Linux can go from what it was a decade ago to what it is today, Linux can do a hell of a lot more than you're giving it credit for.

And anyway, this is a common misconception made by Windows users. You all seem to think the ultimate goal of Linux is to see Microsoft crumble. It's not. The ultimate goal of Linux is to give power and choice back to the people. Thats all. Its a foreign concept these days, and thats why a lot of people are afraid of it. Thats why Microsoft execs feel threatened, because they know that as Linux gets better and better, there are going to be less and less compelling reasons to pay for an operating system that places limits on you.

It's a fine article overall, I'll admit that. But it seems to cater to the lowest commmon denominator, and it leaves out things I was looking for in an article about running Linux for a month that's written by someone I know to be a better writer than that article shows, and it was "ok" to me as I said earlier.

The biggest problem with the article? Neither Brian or Jason are Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer.

My apologies if people think this is a threadjack; that's not my intention, and this will be my last posting, I just felt it necessary to at least rebut a little.

I think the problem with the article lies with you. This website isn't for "Joe Average", what makes you think the article was?

 

[aramis]

Read the article and didn't read the 5 page thread.

Great article- it had all the information someone who is looking to getting into Linux would want. It was really informative and helpful should I decide to go that route with the extra boxen I have (it's really tempting).

One of your best articles to date, in my opinion.

 

[Subcreator]

Can't believe you don't find a single game in one month? Quake all the parts, Unreal Tournament, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Battle for Wesnoth are all the native linux games and that only ones that i remember. Also much more of these and not including that run under Wine.

 

[mryerse]

One other thing about choosing Linux or Windows... the big advantage Windows has, even though it doesn't directly affect home users, it still heavily affects them, is that Windows is much easier for medium and large companies to manage. Until Linux can compete with that, corporations will continue to choose Windows as their operating system, thus perpetuating the cycle of Windows being the predominant operating system of choice.

 

[Brian Boyko]

Can't believe you don't find a single game in one month? Quake all the parts, Unreal Tournament, Heroes of Might and Magic 3, Battle for Wesnoth are all the native linux games and that only ones that i remember. Also much more of these and not including that run under Wine.

Actually, we did run Quake 4, and tried to run Battlefield 2 and Oblivion via Cedega.

It's on the Gaming page of the article.

 

[Aelfgeft]

Very, very interesting article, and it's going to spur me to finally play around with Linux when I can afford to build my second system. This part, however...

I uninstall Firefox using Synaptic - and everything goes to hell.

For some reason, you can't uninstall Firefox without uninstalling Ubuntu-Desktop. Ubuntu-Desktop is a massive package which includes multiple programs. Such as "Add/Remove programs."

This is utterly hilarious to me because of all the Linux junkies who talked about how much they hated Microsoft's bundling of Internet Explorer.

 

[Mohonri]

Gripe 2: Bad documentation if any, sure you've got help man pages and readme's but none of then are written for people that didn't build the program. This isn't really linux's fault as it is the Linux community's fault.

Whoa, whoa. Bad documentation? I'll admit that my experience with Linux is very limited. However, I have had a much easier time finding solutions to problems in Linux than in Windows. I might have to comb through a dozen pages of search results in Google to find the solution to my Windows problem. Under Linux, so far every answer has been in the top two or three results. And the quality, clarity, and effectiveness of the answers has been incredible.

 

[gurgle]

Frozen Bubble FTW!

 

[hamm3rhead]

Excellent article!! I think this well thought out and referenced log of end-user experience is only going to help the cause of getting linux to the novice end-user. The fact that you've had direct feedback from within the Ubuntu fold only highlights that fact.

For those interested in playing around with linux and having the majority of the work already done for them, sabayon linux might be worth a try. It comes in liveCD and liveDVD form. Specifically in reference to the article it boots with beryl, dvd playback, and ATI/Nvidia drivers enabled. It also has a quake4 demo plus lots of other interesting bits....

Thanks again for the great article

 

[nimps]

i have a computer store in a small town in Indiana, an i have used Linux for over 5.5 yrs now an on the slow pages loading in firefox we have that prob here but i have brought this to Mepis an it has been fixed in it My choice of OS uses KDE but if you open firefox an type " about:config " hit enter then ipv6 enter then double click to change false to true (all fixed) i really like the video i think you did a great job here . but on a BIG note that you should have said something about is the great lack of virus probs or spywhere or not needing to defrag an the list goes on ....... i have got most of my customers to use Mepis an most of them not only like it but tell others to come an see me .
bernie

 

[Subcreator]

Actually, we did run Quake 4, and tried to run Battlefield 2 and Oblivion via Cedega.

It's on the Gaming page of the article.

Hmm.. I wouldn't dare to run such a games right away
I tried the Geneforge 4 and it runs almost fine, but as they say its the lightweight game, not Oblivion. Heard that some games run better with Wine, than Cedega.

 

[wallace69]

Well i read the article and deemed it so good that i`ve had to join your forum to comment on it which aint something i`d normally do....hope you`se dont mind the intrusion

Anyway, i only sat down at a pc for the very first time a year ago now and i only ever intended on learning the basics so i would at least know what my children were doing as they began using the things.I`d never touched a pc since the commodore 64 i had as a kid and i didn`t know nothing whatsoever about anything whatsoever.
We never bought a new machine back then but decided to wait instead for the new Vista release to buy a new pc and so began our journey into this crazy world with the old M.E & XP machines of family & friends and as i was soon to discover they themselves had never known the slightest thing about computers but boy had they USED them..One died completely that very first week with nothing but some weird blue screen with a strange cryptic error message and the other wasn`t far behind

Somehow instead of mabey playing pacman and emailing family home in Scotland i ended up spending four months (after work) learning many of the joy`s regarding viruses,spyware,adware,dodgy drivers,corrupt dll`s(dll hell you call it i think) and bsod`s etc, and i spent the first 3 months on google and forums getting those 2 things as good as new as well as learning how to keep them that way but by time i finally sussed out how to just re-install them both without the cd`s they didn`t have it was already too late......i had discovered Ubuntu at the end of July and we`ve never really looked back.

We now have 4 machines in the house including those first 2 we started out with still(no m.e now though) and although we do have XP & Vista dualboots available to us as well as the Virtual XP i have on my main machine none of us ever actually USE the things.
I only keep them in case the kids ever need Windows for school and the fact that we like messing about with any and ALL os`s now.

If we only had a choice between the two though then Ubuntu would win hands down every single time and one of the funniest things i`ve watched this last 7 months since discovering Ubuntu and the whole community thing is the amount of experts who come and mabey try Ubuntu only to fall down flat on their faces but instead of asking on the forum or RTFM`s and googling(i think you call it ) they then go shouting about how bad and terrible Ubuntu\Linux is or even worse the so-called experts who have never even tried the thing but love nothing more than to knock it...THEIR the funniest
I also understand there are many Linux snobs\guru`s even who apparently frown upon the likes of Ubuntu....THATS even worse!

I KNOW i dont know a lot about computers but boy have i seen some self proclaimed experts making all kinds of outrageous statements this last 7 months and it was finally good to see a long time Windows user who actually decided to give Ubuntu the time and patience it does indeed deserve.Good job & a happy ending

Ubuntu in my very humble opinion is far superior to the Windows options and although we will probably always have both there just aint no comparison.

Ubuntu is a whole lot cheaper,securer.prettier looking with the likes of beryl etc and overall is much more of a pleasure to use.
I`ve learned more about Windows,Linux and just computers in general since moving to Ubuntu and i`m just glad i discovered the alternatives when i did as i couldn`t imagine not having my Ubuntu nowI also have PCLinuxOS & puppy as well as the other *buntus but Ubuntu with Gnome(and beryl of course) is the main man for me.

I applaud anyone who at least gives Ubuntu the little bit of time and patience it deserves....after all,how long have most people given Windows.

One last thing i`d add in regards to new users possibly struggling through those first days and weeks looking for codecs etc is the Automatix2 script\app which will install not only all the codecs you`ll ever need but also your java,flash,Nvidia drivers and a couple of dozen other handy programs and utilities all at the click of a button....very handy for struggling new users although frowned upon by many of the more experienced users who would urge you to do stuff the "proper" ways.Synaptic,add\remove,aptitude,apt-get etc are all great but they take some time getting used of and Automatix2 sorts that out that first time round and you still learn all those "proper" ways as you go.
I can even compile some obscure app if i need to but in all honesty i`ve never really had to other than some newer version of devede i once wanted for my dvd encoding.I have easy access to 20,000+ app`s at the click of a button with synaptic and there aint really much we`ll ever need that is`nt in there.
It`s also a myth that you need to use the command line for everything in Ubuntu and although it is great to use and sooo much quicker than clicking through numerous windows etc you can do practically everything in Ubuntu without ever going near the terminal if you so desire......although it would be crazy not to use it in all honesty

Now that i`ve said my bit i`ll go see what type of forum i`m on?somehow i get the impression it`s not for computer novices.lol.
Excuse my bad English btw.....i`m Scottish

 

[Sabrewulf165]

I hate to disagree but I've used several versions of Ubuntu in the past and APT is not even close to being as easy as installing things in Windows. Sure there are specific scenarios where it works better, but on the whole installing things in Linux is much more of a pain than doing so in Windows. You guys really over-hyped it if you ask me.

Even putting that aside... Linux will never be a serious option for me due to the constant lack of bleeding-edge hardware support. I couldn't even get into the graphical portion of the install on my sig rig with the latest Ubuntu release, I had to install it on an older machine (as has almost always been the case in the past)

 

[Commander Suzdal]

Excellent article!! I think this well thought out and referenced log of end-user experience is only going to help the cause of getting linux to the novice end-user. The fact that you've had direct feedback from within the Ubuntu fold only highlights that fact.

For those interested in playing around with linux and having the majority of the work already done for them, sabayon linux might be worth a try. It comes in liveCD and liveDVD form. Specifically in reference to the article it boots with beryl, dvd playback, and ATI/Nvidia drivers enabled. It also has a quake4 demo plus lots of other interesting bits....

Thanks again for the great article

Very interesting! Does it also have the slick add-remove functions that access the whole freeware universe?

 

[bbz_Ghost]

Of course I said I wasn't going to do this but what the hell. I'm posting it from inside an Ubuntu session of one of many LiveCDs I have laying around here since I run Linux distros many times a week for testing and data recovery services - it does have a purpose, you know.

Anyway, with respect to the "Copy and Paste" fiasco, if you people knew what you were talking about you wouldn't have jumped on my case quite so fast. When that person quoted it was easy to "just Google it and copy and paste yourself to a clean Linux installation," I countered that the person doing such a thing wouldn't learn anything in the process about what's going on - and I was right then, and I'm still right now.

But, when I made the comment about even "Copy and Paste" being different from what Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer running Windows, was used to doing with just Control+C to to copy, and Control+V to paste. While I know you can do that in Linux, my point was directed at the procedure that person stated:

But if you know how to use Google, you can set up Linux. You can hit up the installation wiki and copy-paste your way to a completely functional desktop.

To do such a thing, it would be necessary to copy a lot of commands that typically require sudo priviledges to execute properly. Now, we all know that you can simply highlight text and hit Control+C to copy it to the Clipboard, even in Linux distros, right?

Right. I'm not disputing that fact.

The fact in dispute here is when Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer, tries to paste that command that's sitting on the Clipboard into the Terminal window the instructions told him to open so he could do the command line stuff and copy and paste stuff into since none of the copied commands can be executed just for kicks - they have to be executed from the Terminal, right?

Right. I'm not disputing that fact either.

Here's what I'm disputing:



Anybody else see that there, in that screenshot I just took, of a Terminal window open under Ubuntu 6.10, with Firefox and this very thread there in the background, with text highlighted in the Terminal and text already on the Clipboard waiting to be pasted?

Anybody else see the specific keyboard shortcuts listed there? Silly me, looks like Shift+Ctrl+C to copy and Shift+Ctrl+V to paste. Go fucking figure that one out. So excuse me for making a point that a lot of people missed.

As Will Smith's character in "Men In Black" says at one point to Zed when Zed confronts his character about something he supposed did wrong but of course was soon vindicated over it:

"And to be honest, I'd appreciate it if you eased up off my back about it."

(and just for the record, I did use Control+C to copy that from an IMBD movie quotes page for that movie, and then Control+V to paste it here in Firefox.)

Moving on...

With respects to my "Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer" remarks, that's just the point which again is being missed:

They're about Joe Average, a consumer that happens to own a computer, not Joe Average, business owner, or Joe Average, corporate bigwig. They're directed toward and specifically about the guy standing at Best Buy right this second as I'm typing this sentence.

The guy that's about to purchase a new computer because the old one he has - running Windows, of course - is getting old in the tooth and he's been hearing things about this newfangled Vista and seen commercials about it. So he's there, at Best Buy, or maybe Circuit City, CompUSA if he can find a store that's open (inside joke), or maybe he's lucky and has a Fry's or Microcenter for really good prices.

He's standing there, playing around with a new computer, trying to get a grip on what he's looking at since Vista looks different from what he's probably running, which is XP.

Just for shits and giggles this morning I did a little experiment, just for my own sake. I grabbed the Vegas white pages and called 147 people at random over a 2 hour period. While Vegas isn't necessarily the home of Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer, this is a pretty widely diverse city in many respects. I called 147 because:

- 16 hung up on me almost immediately when I said I was conducting a short poll
- 13 listened long enough to politely say "I'm not interested"
- 14 didn't own computers at all
- 4 didn't answer the question but instead asked me one: "So you know anything about computers, 'cause I got this problem..." and I ended up hanging up on them.

That left me with 100 people picked at random that were willing to answer the question I posed:

If you own a computer, is it running: a version of Windows, a version of Linux, or is it a Macintosh?"

Do you really want to know the results of this informal telephone poll?

Not one person answered Linux, not one person answered a Mac. 100 people, picked at random from the phone book, and polled with the question above answered "Windows."

82 people said XP Home, 11 people said XP Professional, 4 said Windows 2000, and two very nice older ladies and one very kind gentleman answered Windows 98 "because it does everything I need it to do and it still works after all these years."

Joe Average has spoken, at least in Las Vegas.

Guess I'll have to revise that ~95% estimate.

Have fun, always...

 

[Commander Suzdal]

Just for shits and giggles this morning I did a little experiment, just for my own sake. I grabbed the Vegas white pages and called 147 people at random over a 2 hour period. While Vegas isn't necessarily the home of Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer, this is a pretty widely diverse city in many respects. I called 147 because:

- 16 hung up on me almost immediately when I said I was conducting a short poll
- 13 listened long enough to politely say "I'm not interested"
- 14 didn't own computers at all
- 4 didn't answer the question but instead asked me one: "So you know anything about computers, 'cause I got this problem..." and I ended up hanging up on them.

That left me with 100 people picked at random that were willing to answer the question I posed:

If you own a computer, is it running: a version of Windows, a version of Linux, or is it a Macintosh?"

Do you really want to know the results of this informal telephone poll?

Not one person answered Linux, not one person answered a Mac. 100 people, picked at random from the phone book, and polled with the question above answered "Windows."

82 people said XP Home, 11 people said XP Professional, 4 said Windows 2000, and two very nice older ladies and one very kind gentleman answered Windows 98 "because it does everything I need it to do and it still works after all these years."

Joe Average has spoken, at least in Las Vegas.

Guess I'll have to revise that ~95% estimate.

Have fun, always...

I'm glad you did the leg work, and there's only one thing that surprises me from your results: That you didn't get more of Win98. Microsoft should read this and take heart about the future adoption rate for Vista. Well, actually, I'm also slightly surprised that you didn't hit one or two Macs, but not shocked.

People who refuse to believe this are whistling past the graveyard of reality. And one uphill battle for Linux is that, from the user's point of view, anything that comes with the machine when they buy it is "free," so Linux being free really has no impact on them. It isn't that far from the truth, either--it only adds about $30 to the manufacturer's cost with their huge OEM license deals.

 

[bbz_Ghost]

I did have a small handful of people (less than 8) say they had been running some other OS recently and weren't happy with it so they went back to whatever OS they answered with, but I'd prefer not to mention the names of them because that would just inflame those seeking to bash it/them. Besides, I wasn't asking about experiences with those OSes, I wanted to know what they were running at the time I called and I posted those results above. Anything less would just skew the results with bias.

 

[Brian Boyko]

Anyway, with respect to the "Copy and Paste" fiasco, if you people knew what you were talking about you wouldn't have jumped on my case quite so fast. When that person quoted it was easy to "just Google it and copy and paste yourself to a clean Linux installation," I countered that the person doing such a thing wouldn't learn anything in the process about what's going on - and I was right then, and I'm still right now.

But, when I made the comment about even "Copy and Paste" being different from what Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer running Windows, was used to doing with just Control+C to to copy, and Control+V to paste. While I know you can do that in Linux, my point was directed at the procedure that person stated:

To do such a thing, it would be necessary to copy a lot of commands that typically require sudo priviledges to execute properly. Now, we all know that you can simply highlight text and hit Control+C to copy it to the Clipboard, even in Linux distros, right?

Right. I'm not disputing that fact.

The fact in dispute here is when Joe Average, consumer that happens to own a computer, tries to paste that command that's sitting on the Clipboard into the Terminal window the instructions told him to open so he could do the command line stuff and copy and paste stuff into since none of the copied commands can be executed just for kicks - they have to be executed from the Terminal, right?

Right. I'm not disputing that fact either.

Here's what I'm disputing:



Anybody else see that there, in that screenshot I just took, of a Terminal window open under Ubuntu 6.10, with Firefox and this very thread there in the background, with text highlighted in the Terminal and text already on the Clipboard waiting to be pasted?

Anybody else see the specific keyboard shortcuts listed there? Silly me, looks like Shift+Ctrl+C to copy and Shift+Ctrl+V to paste. Go fucking figure that one out. So excuse me for making a point that a lot of people missed.

Yes, in a terminal, you have to hit shift control-C and shift-control-v.

Everywhere else, though it's Ctrl-c/ctrl-v.

I would say that this violates user intuitive guidelines, but in this case, that's precisely the point. Imagine a scenario where you post some text explaining what you're doing in Linux, say, "rm -rf" on a forum. Sadly you misjudge which window has focus at the time, and you end up pasting it into the terminal and hitting enter before you know what happened.

This is a safety feature, not evidence of poor OS design.

Other than that, copy-paste works exactly the same in other Linux applications.

I grabbed the Vegas white pages and called 147 people at random over a 2 hour period.

Why would you bother to do that? Jesu Christo, that's alot of work! I mean, seriously - how do you find time to call up over 200 people and balance family, friends, and a career - for no apparent gain other than to win a minor point on a technical news forum?

I don't think Windows popularity was ever in doubt and don't see what that has to do with the viability of Linux for power users - but I'm glad one person went beyond the assumptions and decided to confirm the obvious. I am truly in awe of your dedication to the truth.

It seems that you're taking this extremely personally and maybe my ribbing just now might provoke you further. That's not what I'm trying to do though. I'm gently ribbing you in an attempt to say: "Relax." A viable Linux installation is not the end of the world. Most people acknowledge Linux's faults along with it's benefits and people tend to choose which OS to use based on what fits their needs better and nothing else. In the end, it's not really important, not when there's lives to be lived and fresh air, and wonderful wonderful people out there, some of which are sexually attractive and intellectually stimulating. Let's all just take a step back and look at the common humanity of this wonderful world rather than arguing about "Linux on the desktop" or whatever.



Just because I'm saying Linux is "good enough to give it a try" does not mean that somehow Windows is diminished in any way. If we ever evaluate Windows, we'll give it the same shot that we gave Linux and judge it on the same criteria but until then, "Linux is Good" does not mean "Windows is Bad."

Love, Peace, and Thermal Grease
-- Brian.

 

[jag0]

I will refuse to use Linux for anything until the following things happen:

1. 3dsmax works natively without having to use any other 3rd party programs
2. Drivers become as easy to install as they are on Windows PCs
3. Photoshop works natively without any 3rd party software

 

[wallace69]

I will refuse to use Linux for anything until the following things happen:

1. 3dsmax works natively without having to use any other 3rd party programs
2. Drivers become as easy to install as they are on Windows PCs
3. Photoshop works natively without any 3rd party software

1 dualboot\vm
2 envy,automatix2,,easy ubuntu????
3 dualboot\vm

 

[bbz_Ghost]

Well, my Wife is sitting across the room on her 'puter, I'm sitting here on mine, we just got back from doing some grocery shopping a few hours ago and I was bored. Career? Phfttt... after 25+ years of working in this so-called computer industry on a day-to-day basis and dealing with 250K+ customer "incidents," fuck it, I'm retired.

It's not about me being right and about someone else being wrong, but dammit, I'm a nitpicker. If someone says something, they better be right about it. To bluntly say "Just Google it and copy and paste and Linux will work for you too" was what floored me. The guy is smarter than that, and to have made such a callous and wide-open statement... well... I still can't believe he even suggested that's all you have to do to get a Linux distro working.

Where's the learning in copy and pasting stuff from Google searches?

And as for the "safety" thing about not being able to blindly just hit Control+C/Control+V for the Terminal, I'll give you that and I totally agree on that point without any hesitation.

When someone says "Windows needs permission to do anything" well, it's not like Linux distros don't have the sudo command and will bitch at you and stop dead in its tracks if a command "needs permission" to do something, now doesn't it?

So, we can all agree to disagree, but I prefer to just leave it at: to each his own. I don't have issues with Linux distros - and Beryl KICKS ASS as I usually say but it's not enough to make me wanna stick with any distro, sorry - and I can install and run/configure/compile any of them with the best of 'em.

Besides, BSD is better anyway. I've done some heavy duty stuff under BSD that would make even the most efficient Gentoo installation beg for mercy and almost come to a standstill - while the BSD box just rolled along like it was asking me, "Is that it? That's all you want done? Pfffhhhtttt..."

I didn't mean to derail the thread, but as others have offered their opinions of the article, I felt justified in offering mine. I just wasn't looking for another Internet battle since we all know what arguing on the Internet is like.

Right?

If not, just highlight and copy this text with Control+C:

arguing on the internet

and paste that into Google's search box with Control+V and hit Enter. You'll find out quick enough...

 

[jag0]

I said native...which means double-clicking the executable and running it without having to use any other programs (i.e. like Windows)

 

[Brian Boyko]

Cool man, yeah, I just wanted to make sure the flames didn't spiral out of control on this one. We've all got our nits to pick, just don't lose sight of the big picture in the nits.

-- Brian.

 

[jag0]

I know...I'm not trying to start a flame war. It just irks me when Linux snobs act as if Linux is the 100% alternative solution for Windows. Just b/c something can be run in VM doesn't mean it runs well or at the same level if it was being ran in Windows.

 

[HyperBlade]

You think setting the resolution on one monitor in Ubuntu is bad?

Try getting dual screens working.

Ubuntu is good and a big step in the right direction, but until they get rid of having to go anywhere near the console and a text editor to get dual screens working i wont go near it.

Wouldn't be hard to do a UI for it, after all it is only settings in a text file. And that functionality is something Windows users have come to expect.

 

[bbz_Ghost]

I will refuse to use Linux for anything.

As defuse2k might say, "I fixed it for you," since that's about all that really matters in that post.

The conditions you set have nothing to do with Linux sooo... each of them is conditional on something other than Linux itself:

1) It would be up to Autodesk to release a 3DStudio client for Linux, and while possible, is just too doubtful.
2) They already are, seriously, but only if the maker allows it to be that way (ATI and Nvidia both have drivers that just require what, one command line to install?)
3) It would be up to Adobe to release a Photoshop client for Linux, and while possible, Gimp has made too many inroads into the Linux desktop publishing community to dislodge it with a single release of Photoshop at this point. Possible? Yes. Likely? Hell no.

 

[jag0]

You think setting the resolution on one monitor in Ubuntu is bad?

Try getting dual screens working.

Ubuntu is good and a big step in the right direction, but until they get rid of having to go anywhere near the console and a text editor to get dual screens working i wont go near it.

Wouldn't be hard to do a UI for it, after all it is only settings in a text file. And that functionality is something Windows users have come to expect.

Correction...I have FOUR items that will prevent me from using Linux. The fact that you have to sometimes use command prompts for basic stuff is retarded.

 

[bbz_Ghost]

I know...I'm not trying to start a flame war. It just irks me when Linux snobs act as if Linux is the 100% alternative solution for Windows. Just b/c something can be run in VM doesn't mean it runs well or at the same level if it was being ran in Windows.

Well, you might be wrong there, and that's the issue.

With VTx support from Intel these days, using virtualization software on a Core 2 Duo means you're going to be running the VM at nearly native speed - and when it says nearly native speed, it damned well means it.

For example: Recently I owned a couple of Macs, Core 2 Duo powered models. Parallels is virtualization software for Intel based Macs, and I used to run Windows XP in a VM under OSX and the benchmarks on non-3D tests were within 2% of the native installation scores almost totally across the board when VTx support was enabled.

I reran the benchmarks with VTx disabled and the scores plummetted to about 65-70% of a native installation of XP on the same hardware. VTx is like magic, I swear, and Parallels on a Mac means you can run OSX and Windows at the same time with nary a performance hit to speak of.

Now, under Linux I can't speak for much other than VMWare at this point. I haven't had ample time to do some benchmarking with Parallels under Linux (they have clients for Windows, for OSX, and for Linux distros) but I'm quite certain that with VTx enabled, they should be right up there close to the same level of performance I saw on OSX.

So... running a Windows application in a VM under Linux might be faster than you ever dreamed possible - but it requires VTx support, and that means a Core 2 Duo or something compatible from AMD.

Just some food for thought, so to speak...

 

[Fooshnik]

Good stuff. I've used linux for servers for quite a few years but didn't realize the desktop had progressed this far. I'll definitely put linux on a spare box soon. If someone knows a good resource to compare Open SuSE desktop to Kubunto please post it.