Linux will never be a replacement for Windows - it's an alternative, not a replacement.

I can't help but notice that your post count is "1" - perhaps if you had actually asked for help you'd have had better luck with getting the answers you needed.

NDISwrapper, by the way, is a way of using the Windows drivers for proprietary WiFi cards under Linux.

Enjoy XP.

It is also a fact that MS still has more than 95% of the market today. The apple company has more or less the rest of it.

Like oneandoneis2 said, Linux is not a replacement of MS. But i still believe that if more people would take the time to get to know Linux a bit better, then PC makers could also focus on something else than MS.

I felt a bit like a philosopher for a while.

Cheers

Yep, with hardware made for the OS, you can do it, but it's not easy as you found out.

If the hardware is made from more common parts, open spec bits, you will find it is, safer, easier to install, manage and use.

Sorry to hear any tail of woe, next time have a go with something like a Thinkpad or some other current OS friendly hardware.

It's hard to turn night in to day when there are no light bulbs provided.
NH

The funny thing is that a Linux or OSS game only runs on windows thanks to the hard effort of the Linux and OSS development community. Very few in the Windows community make any effort to include Linux. So how is of games a knock against Linux?

The irony of trying to make it sounds like it's Linux's fault that such game don't run on it, is that they would run perfect under Linux if more Windows game developers adhered to some of the philosophies of Linux, such as making their source code available if they're too lazy to port it themselves. Yet somehow the blame falls on Linux? The other irony is that sort of attitude that advocates and supports a closed/proprietary environment, is what truly is responsible for why "many of the games that gamers want, won't run under Linux".

Another irony is that using Linux as the escape goat, is that it helps perpetuate what keeps the best scenario for gaming from happening -- more games on a system that would offer better performance and be more robust.

You have three types users in this world. Those that are content with less than ideal options, those that are malcontent but are self-defeating, and those that are malcontent but want to help things become better in one form or another.

All I've got to say is that if one dislikes Linux so much and likes their windows so much, why come on here and expend the energy criticizing something that should be irrelevent to them if they truly feel that way. It's counter-productive any way you look at it.

Hi all,

This is my first post and I thought I'd share a few thoughts.

I've played around with PCs for far too many years to remember and have had an on/off relationship with Linux for the past three or four years. Linux is a great OS and it is crucial it competes with Microsoft for all manner of reasons.

However, I've found it difficult to move over fully and I feel that alanhayward does have a point. Before moving to Mepis, I must have tried and discarded nearly a dozen different distros - there was something 'wrong' with all of them (with the highpoint being SUSE 10.1 almost causing me to take a hammer to the PC). I could list each and every problem but IMO Linux isn't yet polished enough for Joe Public.

Mepis has opened my eyes a great deal to what is possible and I hope the good work continues. Perhaps in a couple of years Linux will have a higher desktop profile and new users will be able to install new hardware without having to resort to user forums. Perhaps I'll be able buy 'Civilisation 5 for Linux' and run it on ATI graphics card.

Just my thoughts - please feel free to flame :-)

I just had to jump in now. The reason why some 'said' hardware is not supported is that most hardware today have windows drivers available, however even now ATI and NVidia are providing Linux drivers for their products, and actually when I built my parent's pc, although it runs XP, the ASUS CD that came with the motherboard, had drivers for the built-in NVida sound/network for both XP, AND not only Linux but also FreeBSD. Now to say that the only hardware you buy only works best in windows is slowly becoming false, however it is true that at this point still 99.9% of the hardware out there has a much better chance of working in Windows is because of just the numnber of windows users, however the number of Linux, *nix users does some to be growing, and it would be unwise for such companies to not offer drivers at least in the form of binaries, if they won't supply the source.

Because even "going back to Windows" threads are Lin vs Win.

No need to Flame, You made valid points about both systems. But again that is what forums are for. They are here to help people. Windows does not always play nice with devices. Forums for windows exsist. As mentioned Linux is not a replacemnet. It is an alternative. With that being Said I used linux as a replacement.

My reason for using linux was to browse the internet with out spyware poping up everywhrere. I also like the fact that software is open source. I am not a programmer but still the philosphy is great.

I will agree though linux is not for everyone.

Thank you for all your efforts in trying to keep all these things together XavierP.

Perhaps we should have a sticky thread titled "Going back to Windows? Click here" or something along those lines.

That would be great if more manufactures, software people, etc would concentrate more on linux.
To me, I think it's unfair that they won't make more software/hardware for linux and Mac.

It's like games that are released. I love Call of Duty, but I see some games are not on computer, but instead some PS2 and/or XBox, possibly XBox360. I began to love the game, and bought the original, then the expansion, and COD2, but I can't play all because they won't release it for PC.
They should continue with the PC, and also for other game consoles.
Same with computers. Some of us are Mac and/or linux ONLY. There's a lot of software/hardware for WINDOWS only.
It's like we are either forced to be under windows, or what linux is doing, is creating such software to run windows programs under linux.

Maybe one day, things will be different. I hear from people who own a Mac, or prefer it, same with linux. You would hope anyway, that the companies that build the software/hardware, would pay more attention to linux/mac.

I may as well comment, since I started this thread.

I am still working on making Linux usable. I found a (for me) decent substitute for Dreamweaver. There are two, really -- Quanta does a pretty good job, and its preview is so easily invoked that it's close to having a WYSIWYG web page designer. And Amaya is an obscure browser that allows you to edit pages while you look at them, and I find that it works well too.

As far as text-to-speech goes, I found a sort of ok voice. I paid for it, and though it is way inferior to voices available in Windows, I can stand it.

Speech recognition? No way. There is no decent equivalent to Dragon Naturally Speaking in Linux.

Unfortunately, I still have a huge problem -- my microphone won't work in Linux. Now, I know I should just accept working for weeks and months on these little problems, but it happens that I get paid for using the microphone. So, I have to reboot and go into my other operating system, which is Windows Vista, in which everything works perfectly for me. I have spent hours searching for a solution to the microphone problem, and though Linux folks are famously helpful, I have seen MANY, MANY similar threads in which people said they had similar problems back in 2003 or 2001 or 2004, and the amazing thing is, many of them never reported that the problem was solved. Now, maybe all these people are conspiring to hurt Linux's reputation by not reporting how easily they solved their problem, but I don't think so. I think that they were unable to solve their problems.

But there is still something nice about Linux, and I plan to keep using it, only resorting to Windows when I have to, despite the fact that every single thing I do can be done more easily and better in Windows.

Well, there is one thing that Linux does better. I recently finished all the levels of SuperTux...

What's the difference between an "alternative" and a "replacement"?

If you actually think about what those two words mean in this context, they mean basically the same thing!

It just means that Linux is not trying to take over other OS (replacement).

It just gives other options to develop and use a PC (alternative).

I want it to take M$ over myself. The internet would be a better place without it.

Not really. A motorbike is an alternative to a car, but it's not a replacement.

If/When ReactOS is stable & complete enough to be rolled out onto the average PC, then it will certainly be a contender for the role of "Windows Replacement". But Linux is not: It's an alternative to Windows, not a replacement.