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I TRIED linux because the Windows 7 RC bored me and just seemed like Vista with a different kicker. I SWITCHED to linux because my Vista laptop did the 18 months and out crap thing that Windows does while I had a tower climber 300 feet in the air trying to troubleshoot a loss of connectivity. I haven't looked back.
I am experiencing W7 (it came with a Quad-Core PC we bought at the university) and it simply turns off by itself, from time to time!!??!! and it's not a nice deal for speed and usability (the "file explorer" is awful).
So, I use GRUB to choose the real deal in OSs: LINUX! My Poseidon GNU/Linux (scientific distribution based on Ubuntu LTS) is working very fine, using less RAM and not turning off or rebooting unless I ask for
By the way, in the list of links in this forum, I saw a link called "upgrade to Win7"... but when opening, I read something about upgrading from Linux to W7!!?? How comes? That's crazy! If you are using Linux, go back to that OS is, from my point of view, downgrading!
PS: how did you guys put a penguin (with/and/or) a logo for your distro on the left panel of this forum? Thanks for the answer, in advance.
PS: how did you guys put a penguin (with/and/or) a logo for your distro on the left panel of this forum? Thanks for the answer, in advance.
Change the user-agent for your browser to include your distro. Your particular distro may not have a logo available on LQ if it is not very common. If you are using mozilla then open about:config and create a string for general.useragent.vendor and put your distro's name there.
I like Linux because it's internals are more accesible and easy to tinker with, because it's more transparent about what it's doing, it's more customizable, more secure, more stable, and overall better than windoze. Also it's not owned by M$.
I loved my windows 95 & 98SE and dualboot till 98SE became obsolete. lol It did crash alot. I just wanted to learn more about computers and howto use them. First thing I did with my brand new PackardBell was take it apart. Did lots of formatting and reinstalling not having any computer background I just had fun. First PC i build was win98SE then went to dualboot. My first linux distro was Slackware8 because it was the only distro that would work out of the box on my build. For a few years all i could do was install, configure and browse the internet, do email, dig around in directories With help from forums I have learned what linux is and soon I'll lauch my own web server. Slackware has never crashed, I broke it once. Linux keeps me learning, strongly respect and admire the Linux Spirit and philosophy its built on, its my exit from consumerism. Linux is stable, secure, and I can learn to do anything I want on it.
Windows7 handles pretty well and so does Mac if you want to get something done with now time for a learning curve these OS s have their place.
i like learning new things about computers especially something that alot of people in my school don't know about
i also switched because windows was starting to give me attitude about performing certain tasks and i was tired of it so i switched (my first distro i have used for a few months was pclinuxos 2009.1) a great distro for what i used it for. also because i also tried to bring my old computers (most of them) back to life (puppy linux was a great distro of choice) and lemme says i couldn't be any happier my computer haven't run this fast. i now dual boot ubuntu karmik-koala with windows 7 but i use ubuntu more often than i use windows
If my linux system needs to be reloaded or I choose to change to a different flavour; I can load any new system within about 1 hour with applications and not lose any of my data. My new system will load customized as I previously set it up (with a separate /home partition).
I can install slackware within 30 minutes, or simple type a command into my present system to bring it back to a synchronized fresh installation.
When windows crashes you can spend more than a day to get it back to your original customized state; and more often than not at lease some data is lost. Then you have to go through hours of updates once again.
- had no money
- mom got tired of having a wireless network with a mind of it's own
- I got tired of getting called everytime she had said problem
- switched her to linux and she doesn't have to go out and buy a new PC once a week because her old one doesn't work right
(unfortunately that means that my newest computer is now 3+ years old)
I used to use it extensively as opposed to Windows.
Now, since I've switched to OS X, it's provided a similar enough environment that I've delegated Linux (in this case, Fedora), to a virtual machine. Mostly for experimentation and the few cases I need it (working with linux programs, etc.).
Beginning with DOS, the command line was not unfamiliar. I got PO'd that M$ forced WP5.1 out of the marketplace with an inferior product. Learned about drivers with pre-PNP NT4 for GIS work; went to W2K and tweaking the Registry to meet needs forced on by budget constraints. Became too good at it. Got burnt out about the time of the New McCarthyism. Too late -- had cost some good ole boys money. Took a forced sabbatical from all computer work.
When I came back, it certainly wasn't going to be to Windoze. Solaris had sold out, so I looked to Linux. Learned on jaunty and superos with bastille, went to slackware then sidux (where I saw i was a little behind the curve), so i'm having fun with the LXDE versions and learning with xange and git. Life goes on without fences or gates.
Freedom of choice is what our Creator gave us -- I'm practicing it with Linux, gratefully (too set in my ways to do otherwise)
I started with Slackware 1.0, buying a double cd in the shop!
In those days you basically had a choice of DOS, GEM, Windows 1.0 and Linux.
Well DOS was history already by then, GEM (GUI) looked promising and was a lot better than that windows thing that mounted upon DOS...
But the first view of that X server (the enlightment window manager) I read so much about, but was out of reach al the time, it was simply mind blowing!
Windows became the best marketeer and ended up on a lot of desktops.
Linux was under my dual boot option all the time.
Linux is open and honest, what you see is what you get and best of all: if you don't like it, change it and in the process contribute to the community.
Openness is the best road to security. If you know what's inside (or at least of the option to investigate) you know what you're building your infrastructure on.
It's the best example of what can be achieved if we work together across all kinds of silly boundaries.
My short answer is the same as most others' here, got fed up with Redmond. I started using Linux before that though.
I bought a beater P4 machine back in '04 which for some reason wouldn't take any other RAM in the 2 unused slots, so it was stuck with 128MB but had what was at the time a decent Hercules 3D vid card. I decided what better machine to try Linux on, since it's more efficient and has lower hardware needs? So I slapped in a CD-ROM and downloaded all the Fedora Core 3 CDs. It was neat; I would mess with it from time to time and that was it.
Later, it dawned on me that I wasn't going to learn how to use it if I just kept it in a corner on a spare box; I needed it in front of me, so I decided to set up a dual-boot. By this time Fedora Core 4 had been released. So I went about rearranging stuff on the 2 hard drives I had to make room for an EXT3 partition.
That's when $#!t got real...
First, the DVD drive started throwing fits. Driver issue. Then reboots got slower and slower. The closer I got to setting up a dual-boot, the more grief I experienced from Windows. Next was a NIC issue. Then graphics (Nvidia issues in XP?????). I was a good little convert and started backing up all my stuff on DVD. Out of 30 discs, I coastered 10. I had to keep switching between Nero and Roxio to get it all done; I'd get 2 good burns, next one would be a frisbee. Keep in mind these were known-good discs from a reputable brand, and known-good hardware. I don't believe in the supernatural or anything but it really seemed like my Windows install was actually fighting me on installing Linux next to it.
Fine. I'm stubborn too; to the point of irrationality. I finally took stock of everything that needed to be saved (which of course turned out not to be very much), shunted it to a little NTFS "island" on one of the drives, and torched Windows. Just like that; buh-bye. Core 4 didn't require a Ph.D to set up basic networking; I figured as long as I had Google and didn't try to take over the world I could get myself out of trouble.
Core 5 came and went; I switched to KDE from GNOME. Fedora 6, then 7. Then I started trying out LiveCDs. My wife ran PCLinuxOS for a year to avoid having to use a just-released Vista. I dual-booted Zenwalk for awhile. I eventually had to switch to 64-bit. Outgrew Fedora after version 9 came out; I wanted an official 64-bit Slack but there was none; went with Arch Linux and here I am with it still. Just recently I toyed with switching to Sidux but decided against it.
I have my virtual machines (XP, Win7, Server '03, Server '08) but they will always run on a Linux host. I go to work with 8-year-old XP boxes and it feels like working with one eye closed. Tried BSD as well; might switch to that when and if I ever get tired of tweaking my machine.
I started using Linux because it was compatible with the OS the company I was working for used. Still not sure what *nix it was, but it booted into X with Netscape, Bash, XV, and a mail program, I forget which. I found Linux to work better and the programs were comparable for what I wanted to do. I haven't looked back.
I have to admit, I still have a 75G partition on my main PC so I can play the games that dont run in Linux. That is the only reason I do have it But, with the Humble Indie Bundle, rumblings of getting a native Steam client, hopefully the big game makers will port or grant someone the ability to port the games over to Linux.
Oh, and I LOVE that I can mod it to do whatever I want.
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