This reminds me of something.

See, I can't imagine that users were really happy when they had to transfer from XP to Vista. But all the features of Vista, the bloatedness, the numerous pop-ups, the start-up time, the sluggishness, the confusion of the file manager showing all subidirectories in one pane, it is all taken for granted. Because computers are like that, and from time to time Microsoft decides to push a new version on the market. Life is like that, and things like that happen, just like hurricanes, war and George W Bush in the White House. No one considers something radically new, which might look harder first, but is beneficial at the end.

Almost 20 years ago I stepped in my car each morning, and as soon as I turned right at the first traffic light I stood in a traffic jam which lasted 22 km (15 miles) until I arrived at my job one hour and a quarter later. Five days a week, fifty weeks a year.

Until I started cycling as a sport. Then I discovered that 22 km was a piece of cake to ride each morning and evening, and it takes only 50 minutes. Not just that, but I felt much better physically, lost weight and saved the money on gas. No, I was not that young at the time, 30, and I never performed any aerobic sports before in my life.

Thousands of people still step in their car each morning and drive in a walking pace from their suburb home to their office. Do they like it? No! Do they continue to do so? Yes!

Why? It always rains, (not true in the Netherlands, statistically you'll get wet 10 times in a year if you commute), the bycicle roads are bad (not true, ever been in Holland, they have the best bicycle roads in the world), they have no showers as the office (not true, employers are obliged to have them, but they gather cobwebs) and my physical condition might not allow it. (not true, everyone under 60 is able to perfrom a physical effort like that)

Likewise, Linux is hard to learn, doesn't offer the applications Windows does, it is for free so it can't be good, and it is for techies only.

jlinkels

I always wanted roboform to work in Linux, then I can sync my work passwords with my home. I know keepass works really well but it lacks some of the features I like in roboform.

No I won't agree that Linux is just for techies, although it does give me a few headaches and I have a lot to learn about it. But I as a Mandriva 2009.1 Gnome desktop user find that it takes 90% of the donkey work out of installing programmes. Their 2008.1 Spring edition let me install my Pixart Single Chip Webcam something I just am unable to do like many others. On the whole what I enjoy as a Newbe is not playing around tweaking the Windows XP registry with various tweak and repair programmes and defragmenting. Sure the Linux Software has some strange sounding names, but I suppose that's part of the fun of trying to work out what the software does.

actually i'm too lazy to read over 200 replies .. but anyways ... i wish to see something like ACD see .. winzip ... and any registry cleaner :P

am new here , just wanted to share ..

keep going linux

From my experience Ole Juul is right: "What 'comfort zone' is that?"

One reason I switched to Linux was because of my increasing DIScomfort with Windows.

For one thing, to rely on Windows is to rely on an expensive upgrade treadmill. (That's not just for the OS, but for applications as well.)

Also, Windows was prone to break or crash in ways that I could not quickly fix or understand. The problem here was that I always wondered whether it was even WORTH trying to understand the source of the crash or failure.

In comparison, with Linux, it has always seemed to be worthwhile to learn about failures or software problems. There is so much help on the internet, which makes it fairly easy. And the information and understanding will continue to be useful for as long as I need to use any Nix-like system.
______________________

Relating to some other recent posts here about applications:
I was using Gimp and OpenOffice long before I switched to Linux. The capability of those applications reduced my anxiety about changing to Linux. I was one of those people who needed to change OS very quickly without any interruption to daily work, and it worked.


Well, it just shows that reasons for changing OS, reasons to be anxious about it, how it might affect one's work and other practicalities, are different for everybody.

Heh...a registry cleaner. For pure entertainment value, I wonder how that would work under Wine. And what about something like Ad-Aware or Spybot Search and Destroy? What would happen if you ran a Spybot scan on Linux under Wine.

Thanks Andy for the idea, I think I might have to try that later today! :P

Wine has a registry, it needs to have one. And yes, Regedit runs in Wine.

jlinkels

why would you need winzip in linux?

My wish list is for Rockwell (500, & 5000) and Intouch (wonderware) software. Add Solutions Electrical and I'm home free. )
I have managed to get Turbocad and Turboproject to run on WINE. The database stuff I do is just learning the syntax for the different applications.
I'm not a techie, just a regular ECIA engineer.

My wish is to have a program for my Nokia 5800 cellphone equivalent to Nokia PC Suite, to update firmware, to load maps, to sync adresses, pictures etc. It's a burden now to use my friends computer with windows.

act 6.0 is my real hot button i really need it and don't really want to convert to another program because i will loose my notes etc. i am using win4lin to run it which works great but is soooooo slow with 6000 names in it.

am using open office more now but so much of my business i.e. proposals is done on office and i just am real comfortable with office 97.

again am using win4lin to run dw mx studio which is critical to me for web design but am trying kompozer which works pretty good

Maybe, maybe not. Personally I find it easier to just delete the user's wine profile and make a new one for what little is run under wine.
I guess that's a matter of user preference?

Probably because while great compression tools exist for Linux platforms, their GUI frontends are lacking.
There is 7-zip, which is a marvellous replacement for Winzip/WinRAR, yet only the Windows port comes with a proper GUI when you install it.
7-zip is available in the p7zip package for Linux, but is CLI only.
File Roller (Gnome) and Ark (KDE) can use the two binaries p7zip puts onto your system to handle 7z archives (and Gna! for RAR archives, if it's still supported/developed.. haven't checked.).
You may have problems accessing split archives from those GUI though, and be forced into the CLI to handle them.

I don't get your comment. As far as I know, that is not a matter of maybe, maybe not. And as far as I can remember, Wine let you use the regeditor. But that is true or not.

Easier than what? Who said what to be easy? What user preference can you apply to having a registry for your Windows programs? A program expect a registry, and Wine handles those API calls. Maybe Wine does use a different kind of storage internally, but that is not visible from the outside, is?

jlinkels

I would really like to see web design software, in particular a Macromedia or other easy to use Flash creator. I have made web sites for other people, and they often want Flash animations. I know you can create .swf files with Linux apps, but it is painful.