The ONLY reasons why I use a wintendo:

1) WORK: Because my company, as large as it is, just insists on MS; mainly because our IT department has the mental capacity of a tadpole.
2) GAME: The all time entertainment feature of a PC. basically M$ is a toybox and nothing else.
All my "important" work, development, paperwork, etc. are dont in Linux.

L8rz

P.S. I think the kewlest thing about Linux I like is:
When you want to switch from one distro to the other, you can.
With M$, you can, but you have to pay for each one. That's reddiculous. It's all M$.

Print drivers have been mentioned here as an area where Windows is better. Actually it depends on the printer. I had a Lexmark Z54SE which, under Linux, would make a good paperweight if it was just a bit heavier than a pair of feathers! Fortunately the one I got developed a fault after about six weeks so I changed it for another model!

On my new printer, certain things go better in Windows: ie double sided printing. However, I get banding in colour Windows prints using 3rd party photo paper at 4800x1200 (albeit only just noticeable). In linux I get perfect photos using the cups/foomatic/hpijs 1200x1200 driver. The printer? HP3822 (same as 3820). I don't suppose for a moment that those nice people at HP have designed their drivers to make people use HP branded paper???

As for Mandrake being similar to Windows: No linux distro is similar to Windows. However, KDE or Gnome may appear similar to Windows if set up in a certain way. But these are all defaults: you can do all sorts of things in both OSs. I could argue that even my Windows setup doesn't look like Windows! KDE comes with plenty of themes under Mandrake, there are loads more to download, or you can try any of another 4-5 GUIs that come supplied or can be downloaded. Or you could get hold of any other distro, with KDE or Gnome, and make it resemble Windows if you want.

A bit of familiarity won't scare off any newbies, they'll soon learn. The earlier comment was right, it's what's under the GUI that counts and Linux has loads of it!

DAVE

this just shows that the reason for poor peripheral support in some areas in linux is simply down to the manufacturers of equipment making their drivers available for one system and not the other. as i think i said a few pages back, the fact that unsupported kit works in linux at all is something to be thankful for. people developed those drivers in their spare time for the love of it, let's see that happen with windows drivers.

as it happens HP release their printer drivers for both operating systems. In this rare situation where the manufacturer of the gear in question treats both systems equally (by releasing the driver for both systems), it is interesting to see which system does in fact perform better.

Almost all hardware/linux moans are the result of linux having to scrabble in the dirt for the scraps that are left behind by manufacturers pandering to microsoft to the expense of everyone else, and the only way to reduce this is to vote with your feet, simply DO NOT buy something which is not properly supported in linux. If people started doing that instead of moaning so much, maybe companies would either start bringing out linux drivers, or go bankrupt, either of which would suit me fine.

Calum is right of course.

You must check precisely, as well! When I bought the Lexmark Z54SE I naïvely assumed that Lexmark provided a driver for it. After all, they provide Linux drivers for the Z53 and Z55, and the Z54 was a new model so I just thought the websites are a bit behind! I was only just starting out trying Linux then so I hadn't learned about being precise yet!

Even with HP you have to be careful as I've heard that some of their cheaper models are re-badged far-eastern generic winprinters and do not run off the hpijs driver. (Unlike the Apollos which they did make and work.) You should be safe if it has both USB and Standard inputs.

I think nVidia have a good idea in that they regularly post generic, scalable drivers for their video cards and mobo chips for both Windows and Linux so even if the manufacturer who uses their chips doesn't supply one, or you get software faults from the one they do, you can always use the nVidia generic. But even then, people posting here have had trouble getting them to work (more due IMHO to the omission about kernel-source in their instructions than anything else).

DAVE

The only way I can really explain my opinion is this..........

Think of your OS as a cab driver, and your computer is the cab, and your the passenger in the back (or in this case behind the keyboard).

Linux is like the cab driver that drives the cab where you tell it you want to go, maybe even ask for directions if its not sure where to go.
On the other hand windows is more like the cab driver who drives all around town while it tries to figure out where he thought you might have said you wanted to go, steals your wallet, and screeches to a stop when you try to complain that he's going the wrong way.

I prefer having an operating system that helps me tell the computer what to do. Remember those days?

Instead, some people would rather have an two-faced operating system that tells the user what its going to do to the computer and make the end user watch, all while whispering nasty rumors behind the users back. But I digress.


Buying a plastic american flag won't save the world,
mipia

I've noticed that there is software to backup Playstation 2 games and DVD movies in Windows, is thier such a thing in Linux?

I'm hoping so because I'm 100 % using only linnux right now and don't want to setup my other computer back on windows...

somehow I doubt that, because software for 'backup' is actually software for piracy - you want something that will bypass the copy protection on those cds.

If it didn't have copy protection you could do it with dd. Or maybe you can anyway, has anyone tried this?

Yep. It didn't work. I have a CD with some scratches that are starting to bother the reading but I can't back it up for my own protection. Where did I put that Brasso now??

I just had to go into Windoze, coz my Digital Camera is not recognised by Linux, to download some photos. Should be called Crash as it does not doze it crashes. On the third attempt to load it I managed to load up my photos before it locked up again. I'll probably have to install it for the umpteenth time when I can be bothered. I'll just have to buy a CF Card reader and compatible scanner...

Any recommendations?

DAVE

Is is a USB camera?

You should be able to mount it as a USB mass storage device, it'd appear as another directory in the file tree. I'd be able to tell you the command if I actually had my wits about me right now...

I've tried that. Even in Windows it requires proprietry software, Linux does not acknowlege it, and Ricoh have told me it does not work under Linux.

Do any Compact Flash readers work?

DAVE

monos sou to ipes ,etsi gia tin kafrila............

Now that I've replaced and gotten rid of windows, in Linux what takes the place of windows programs like DVD X Copy & Top Secret Mega CD at: http://www.burnpsxgame.com/

Personally I wish to support Mandrake with my money instead of spending it on overpriced and unstable junk for the windows system.

Now all we need is for everyone else to ditch M$ so we can watch bill burn in the eternal fires of corporate hell.

So far I've found there's nothing that windoze did that mdk91 doesn't. (appart from crash and give me a BSOD every hour or so) In fact after a full install there's so much here I havn't even tried everything out yet.

I just wish that more hardware and software companies would get off their back sides and stop sucking up to M$ and make some linux stuff, hardware drivers, linux versions of win software, etc...

...still new to Linux... but I'm not suckin on MS teat like I used to. If only ATI would release 4.3 X drivers and I could get Xine to work... I would kill my Fat32 partitions. Have you read up on Palladium ?? ACK!