Ever since I switched to Linux my computer has wasted away because I can do nothing productive with it, I cannot get on the internet even though I have tried very hard to, I cannot use my Bluetooth hardware and I cannot use my internal wireless. I have no idea how you guys managed to get Linux to be a fully functioning OS, how? Especially since all hardware seems only to be compatible with windows and not with Linux. My computer has so many cool things to utilize but Linux can’t seem to like windows could. I now think that Linux is not ready for the standard home computer. I know I sound like I'm just complaining and I sound like a child but I have to know how Linux is ready; a lot of you say it is, so please tell me how it’s ready. Look I’m not trying to take cheap shots at Linux but I’m just trying to put things the way I see them, so don’t get mad at me, just tell me how something that is so difficult is ready for an average person.

I hate to say this but I think I might go back to windows because all this trouble is not worth it. Atleast I did give Linux a try, that I'm happy about.

EDIT: sorry my title was too long.

One word:
PEBCAK

Welcome to linux!

Linux forces you to learn, but once you learn how to get past those obstacles you'll be better informed. I'm still a noob but I've learned a lot and I've enjoyed it.

It can be tough if you've never used linux before, another thing is that some distros are less userfriendly.
You can start with any distro, but some might be more suited for what you need.

I personally use slackware, some people say it's too hard, but it works great for me and I'm enjoying it. The only thing that kept me on Windows was games, I ran UT2k4 and Doom 3 on linux and they ran great.
I don't mess with the games any more, but they're still there.

I suggest that you tackle one thing at a time.
If you're trying to get on via wireless, you might want to get on wired first, then you can get any needed help or download any software needed.

Just be willing to read and research the issue, if you can't find anything online the clearly and accuratly document the issue on these forums and you would probably receive some help.
This forum is busy but has a lot of smart people on there. Give linux another chance, try a few different distros, play around with it. You'll find something that works.
-Jason

P.S. gbhil, I LOVE that signature, LOL!

Well I am reinstalling windows (which is already not doing anything when I inserted the disk and restarted). But I will however continue to use livecds and continue to learn more so that hopefully down the road I can switch back when I have more knowledge of linux, but in the mean time I want to utilize my computer more until I'm ready.

Everyone has their own opinion about Linux. There are tons of articles and debates on which is better so I shall not go into much detail.

First off, Linux, for the most part, is NOT user-friendly. For a windows click and install user, linux install is hell. There maybe missing files, compililation errors, not knowing when to use the make commands and configuration scripts. Fortunately, there are programs that will do full installs, even download missing files from trusted sources. My point is that people first had to get used to LED lights, then shell, then icons, GUI's, full OS's.

Everything has some kind of evolution. If you are willing to learn, then linux opens many opportunities for you to do so. If linux is too hard for you, ask for help. Get books and research it. Learning is a never-ending cycle.

Concerning games, majority of the gaming companies are focusing their games on Windows based systems. Most profit is created there. Now that Linux is starting to become a mainstream operating system, companies are turning their eyes. For the time being, windows emulators have been created. Wine and Cedega for the least.

Applications and drivers are basically the same description as games. Where money is where the companies are. Other companies are working with open-source to gain reputation of the open-source-community. Such would be ATi or nVidia, the two main video card manufacturers and their drivers.

My personal standard for running operating systems is if you are the sole user of the computer, run Linux. Mess around with it, take time to discover its innovations. If you are living in a house with other members, such as family who don't know linux and aren't willing to work with it, then install Windows. It's that simple from my part.

If you aren't ready for Linux, LinuxPadawan, then stick with Windows and run a dual-boot so livecds are unneccessary.


--Abid Kazmi

long story short(er)...

about 2 years ago i started playing RH9 on my laptop. i paid for a book by the Wronx group called Learning Red Hat 9 Linux. for me it was the best $30 investment i have made. the book was written in a way that a WINDOWS guy like myself could follow along and understand what was happening and how to do things.

after messing with that, using this great forum, and joining a LUG (linux user group) i got more comfortable with linux. about a year ago i started converting off of RH and onto Debian in order to setup and configure a media box for my house. i had been using winXP Pro for this, but kept having codec problems etc... yes winXP is way easier to configure and does a few things that linux (if it does i have not figured it out yet) can for the media station. example:

windows can have a 12xx X 1024 desktop and still push out the proper 800x600 or 640x480 res to the S-vid for the TV while still having 100% full access to the desktop while the movie file is playing to the TV. linux can do some of that, but not both, and certainly not as easy as a few clicks and you are done. anyways building that media box in debian was a HUGE learning curve for me, but i stuck it out and persevired and it has paid off.

my next project was to convert my main workstation at my school (i own a martial arts school that has 1 win2k server, had 1 win2k pro workstation for POS(that i converted to RH9 about 4 months into my linux learning curve), and 1 winXP Pro workstation for main office work)) from winXP to Debian. that was late Dec, early Jan (2004/2005).

in that i learned out to manage my fstab for auto mounting shares on the win2k server and how to connect to a win2k server for my printer. still have not messed with SANE (scanning software) via that setup yet so i just RDP (terminal service or remote desktop protocal) over to my server and do the scanning that way. Again a nice learning curve to overcome and persever through. i played around with Cedega (the new wineX project) to play World of Warcraft on that workstation late at night after i finish all my daily reports, etc.. Again learned more about linux doing that.

my next project was buying and setting up WiFi on my laptop via the ndiswrapper driver set. still very flacky on how well they work, but i was successful at that after about a week or so of fuddling my way through it.

last weekend i setup my game box at the house on Debian with the 2.6 kernel so my sATA drives would be detected. i had an other problem to learn about as my older BIOS was having issues with linux and all 3 Hard Drives i had. so i learned how to fdisk and creat partitions on a live system and gain access to those disks. i was in dire need of help getting the Nvidia drivers to work as for what ever reason when i installed Debian it did not install any kernel-source packages so i could not figure out how to get Nvidia to see what was not there. my LUG was able to help with that at an install fest this past weekend.

i now successfully play World of Warcraft on that box and get (depending on the location in the game) between better and worse performance then i did under winXP. overall the performance is about the same. in some places like the Auction houses or near water the performance is greatly reduced vs WinXP, but in other places like instances, or caves, or normal zones it is about 10% better then under winXP. that was also a learning experiance as i had to learn about openGL and how to configure Point2Play (the GUI front end for Cedega) as point2play does not work on the vs of debian i have at the school, but does on the game box. could just be a newer vs of P2P too, but i am happy with Cedega on the other box.

i now only own 1 windows system and that is my win2k server at the school. i need to keep that for now as i use PageMaker 7.0 for a large percentage of the flyers and documents that I produce for my business. I am starting to move more and more towards open office for a lot of the documents and flyers, but there are just some things that PageMaker does so much better then anything in the world it is going to be some time before i can replace it completly to the point i can get rid of that 1 windows system.

i now have 1 RH9 workstation, 1 Debian-sarge 2.4.x-speakup workstation, 1 Debian-sarge 2.4.x media station, 1 Debian-sarge 2.6.8 laptop, 1 Debian-sarge 2.6.8 gaming box and 1 win2k server total computers under my controll between the house and the office. the only microsoft software i use is win2k server. everything else is open source software like OpenOffice, FireFox, Thunderbird, etc...

this has taken roughly 2 years and i still can not manage a linux system near as well as i can a windows active directory domain, but that will come in time. the more and more i use Linux the more and more i dislike windows and anything to do with MS.

hope that gives you a bit of light at the end of the tunnle. is it an easy move from windows to linux, no way. is it worth it? IMHO there is no turning back to windows. with linux i have zero viruses on my system, i have zero spyware, and i do not need a large % of my system resources waisted by running a bunch of 3rd party apps to protect my system. the system protects it self by being inherantly more secure and stable then windows ever has been, and probably ever will be.

I am not going to abandon Linux. I am only converting back so I can do more things with my computer while at the same time still learning about Linux. I also bought a book from a company called wrox, the book is called beginning UNIX and it is very informative, it is worth every penny.

When I tried Linux it was an experiment.
I did not get it in my head that I hated Windows and was going to wipe out Windows, install Linux and that would be that. Although my suggestion would be to dual boot for a while, posts on this board suggest that it is not uncommon for people to be happy with doing just the opposite. So this is a personal choice.

Why did I like Linux?
With Windows I had a large "wish list" of programs I could not afford that I wanted to try.
With Linux I have a list of things I have accomplished.
Simple, I could afford a little sweat more than I could afford losing cash.

You need to determine if your statement about Linux being too much trouble is correct for you.
Personally I think Linux is very much worth a look. Once again, you or anyone else needs to determine if that is true for them.

Good Luck

Well when I said that I was fuming because I had just gone through about an hours work only to get nowhere with it. By the time I talked about not abandoning Linux I had calmed down and had come to my senses, I can learn Linux and I will. The only reason I'm going back now is because I want the ability to use my wireless (among other things) and I do not know how long it could take me to configure them for Linux. I know I have the forum here but I currently lack the ability to understand what Linux is saying to me so I can then ask the questions here, in other words its lost in translation. But I am going to learn, I’ve got a good book and a distro when I need it, and I am going to take the advice on going for a dual boot.

Just let me say that when i started with Linux in Feb 2004 i did have problems. Sound and video needed to be worked out, it was a learning experience. I started with Sun's JDS, their customer service reps couldn't tell me that a Win Modem wouldn't work with Linux, it took me 2 weeks to find that out. And how did i fnd out? I found this website. The people who populate LQ had an answer for me after just one posting.
I finally settled on Mandrake 9.2 after further postings. I experimented with Mephis, Knoppix, Slackware, Debian and a few other distro's. I tried installing them all, and Mandrake seemed to install the easiest.
As far as the peripherals, printers, cameras, USB drives etc, asking questions here solved most of my problems quickly.
Well enuf of the LQ praise. LOL
If you really want to end your relationship with Windoze, you have to work at it a little, and ask questions. I am now windoze free and it feels really good.
If you really feel there are somethings that you still need Windoze for, double boot. Use windoze for those things that you can't get Linux to work for, but keep asking questions and eventually those things that you can only get to run under Windoze will be able to work under Linux. The more you learn, the less you need windoze, and the less you need windoze, the less you will have to put up with viruses, trojan horses, paying for anti virus software, and having Bill Gates look over your shoulder while you are using your computer.
Don't give up, the satisfaction of being windows free is one of the ultimate highs of life.

LOL...k....i've rambled enuf

Tom

Could you elaborate on your Linux POS setup (software, etc)? I am thinking of setting up something similar.

TIA

Take a look at this and see if it helps with your wireless setup.

"Wireless is a new technology in networking cards, with high speed rate (up to 11 Mbps). This document explains how to setup Wireless in Linux"
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Wireless-HOWTO.html

And maybe this will be helpful for the beginner-intermediate user.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/winniedapooh/nix1.pdf

I created this journal for future references. Its almost about a year old and will make a new, more in-depth one as soon as schools close.

PS: The website link is outdated.

--Abid Kazmi

well it is an extreemly simple setup.

i have the win2k server that runs Quickbooks Pro 2002. all i did was make a hotkey on the desktop in Gnome on the RH9 box that runs rdesktop into my server. my helpers, my wife, and myself just run on Windows directly via rdesktop... well not directly, but you get my point.

my next step once i replace PageMaker will be to convert that same system to linux, setup NFS server on that box as it is also the LAN fileserver, configure the printer/scanner/fax device to be shared over the LAN, and setup Crossover Office to run via ssh -X.

this will still alow me to run QB off of the server as the front POS system is an older PII 333 with 3xxM ram. the server is a bit more powerful with an AMD 800 and 512M ram, but runs on several SCSI drives so the access to the data is much faster then it would be even on my main workstation.


as for the OP and wifi, yes wifi can be a royal pain in the arse for linux without a doubt. here is a web page that helped me get my wifi up and running. MAKE SURE TO READ THE PAGE ALL THE WAY THROUGH BEFORE ATTEMPTING ANYTHING then go back and do not miss a step. i goofed my first time through and had to start over. when i went back i did everything exactly like the page said, even if i already had some of the information, and it worked without a hitch.

http://ndiswrapper.sourceforge.net/p...p/Installation

as for spending hours... try days, or almost a week. last weekend when i was getting my game box converted over to linux something happend to my network settings on my laptop and neither ifconfig or iwconfig were working even with a working /etc/network/interfaces file.

it was last night i finnaly tried the ifup/ifdown commands on my NICs and poof they both started working in the LAN only. had no access to anything requiring DNS. then i had to dig for about an hour to find out i needed to adjust my /etc/resolv.conf did that made the change to my local DNS server and added my primary and secondary DNS from my ISP, now my laptop is back up on the web and LAN faster then before.

that took from Sat. evening until last night to get working, so 5 days of beating my head against the wall and getting a lot of help from my LUG. most of it was a rehash of what i was already doing, until someone explained how ifup/down vs if/iwconfig work in the system. that is what got me to try the ifup/down and it worked.

best of luck to you.