My personal view on Linux
 

Hi

I have been using Linux (Mandriva 10.1) for just over 12 months 99% of the time and NOT ONCE have I caught a virus, been hi-jacked, or had to reformat! And I am only running shorewall. It has being a truely fantastic experience - I even got my self a new desktop (KDE3.4) - It has been absolutely ROCK SOLID!

Thank-you all for Linux!

Regards
Shelton.

"I have been using Linux (Mandriva 10.1) for just over 12 months 99% of the time and NOT ONCE have I caught a virus, been hi-jacked, or had to reformat! And I am only running shorewall. It has being a truely fantastic experience - I even got my self a new desktop (KDE3.4) - It has been absolutely ROCK SOLID!"

Yeh, I'ma guess in window's you didn't have norton, :P

yep I did and it sux with all that overhead !

And whatz more, winBlowz can't match linux in the programming
tools and the "geek environment".

- Rajeev

Well, I often "lose" when people compare Linux and Windows. A lot of times, its just the ease of use, the "away from the CLI" mindset, "next next next finish" kind of setups, "any damn hardware just put the CD in" kind of working, which makes me lose.

Even now, with Fedora Core 4 and Suse 9.1, its not as good as Windows in these aspects. Yeah, stability is really nice, which almost all accept. But, when it comes to user experience, they say, I don't care if you gimme the source or not, I just care if I can complete my job or not.

I tell them, look, if you install Windows, you just get an empty "unprotected" OS. While if you get Linux, you get a safe OS, with all office, internet, multimedia, etc. prebuilt. And they reply.... its just one MSOffice CDROM. Can oo.org match MSOffice? And again, I lose.

Think.

It's really not about winning and losing. Put it this way, would you rather spend a few hours now getting your hardware to work and doing a bit of research, or hours and hours over the next few years reinstalling and rebuilding?

It really is "horses for courses". OO.org doesn't need to match MS Office - MS Office, for me, has around 5% of features that I use and the rest I don't. So yes, OO.org does match it. My partner uses Office for very complex spreadsheets and macros and whatnot, so no it doesn't.

The hardware issues, by the way, are nothing to do with Linux. Microsoft make hardware manufacturers sign all sorts of stuff to allow them to get their hardware to work in Windows. Since Linux developers cannot/will not pay hardware manufacturers lots of money to get the hardware specs, they are left to try to make them work somehow. It's getting better, but slowly.

MSOffice - $200 Open Office $ 0 (or contribution)
Top that with OO being able to do most of what anyone would need it to do equals win not lose.
My first 3 months in linux I never touched the CLI. I have never tried Fedora, but you might show them another distro - like kanotix - if you have so much trouble getting things to work in Fedora (I am not critising Fedora.)

Linux is the only OS I have NOT been forced to reformat my hard drive with! Hmmm ok the only OS that HAS forced me to format with is Windows ohh and I don't think it was anything to do with my PIRATE :D copy just all that spyware and advertising all over the OS

Hell yes it can. It supports much more formats (INCLUDING Windows formats), has more features, isn't as bloated up as MSOffice (proved by programmers) and the text files created by OpenOffice are smaller than EXACTLY THE SAME text files created by Microsoft Word.

You win there.

-A

I like linux because of the control it gives u via the console. I think it's a shamepeople dont use linux just because it's more complicated than windows. I agree it can be more complicated and frustrating especially when it comes to hardware. Your average user is too used to windowss point and click ideas. Most people I know use windows because they say it's simplier. I on the other hand know better than to use horrid windows.

A bit late
 

Greetings!

Just to throw my 2 ¢ in:
I started with Mandrake 10.0 over a year ago; installed it on a 2nd box, played a few games, played around with the enviroment (KDE) and generally was trying to talk myself into believing it was better than Windows. A few months later, an emergency caused me to shutdown this box and I did not boot it back up until a year later.
I did not remember my password! So, I reinstalled it and was trying to learn this time around, instead of expecting it to be the end all be all of OSs. I talked with a few guys at my company that use various distros and in just 4 months time, I have tried FC4 CentOS, Ubuntu, Gentoo, Xandros and now I am back with Mandrake again (I have another thread open in which I am trying to triple boot with XP, Cent and Mandrake). I also have 2 distros running on a couple of laptops, and my wife and son have been getting use to the interface, but they are not quite ready to learn that much more.
The point is, everytime I have had a problem that I could not figure out by reading (or didn't read enough), I have asked for help. I have tried to be nice, respectful and patient. I have yet to be disappointed.
The Linux community, if nothing else, should be commended for the willingness of the 'members' to teach others.
There can be no doubt in my mind (for what thats worth), that if an average person jumps into Linux with the thought that it will be easy to make the transition from Windows, they are in for a huge disappointing suprise. If the same person approaches Linux with humility, respect and a willingness to listen and learn, they will 'get it' in a relativly short time.
I am by no means anything approaching a guru, but I think I have reached that level where I am more than willing to sit down, pay attention and learn. I have pretty much made many of the No Return mistakes that one can make, and after I reinstalled or corrected a few files, I was back and running in no time.
My experience with Linux (just a little over a year so far, as of 10/5/05) has been hard at first, but the more I sought the answers (and most importantly, stopped tryingto compare whatever problem I was dealing with, with Windows and its solution(s)), the more I emersed myself (generally 1-2 hours a day, 3-4 times a week), the more I read in my spare time, the more I learned. For first few months of getting back into it, the novelty of using something new was incredible, and after getting off the milk and more on the meat, that excitment was not really waned at all. (I just tried Enlightenment last night and almost messed myself! If Linux is the sign of a true Geek, then Linux running a windows manager is Uber Geek!) In fact, the more I learn, I become aware of 2 things; the more I NEED to learn and the more I WANT to learn.
It was said by another poster in this thread that they didn't really didn't that much about computers until they started using Linux, but thought they did while using another OS. In my case, I have to agree 100%; it seems as if a veil has been lifted and I am finally starting to see things the way they were meant to be seen.
I really want to thank all of the contributing members of this site, because even though I have not posted a great deal, I have been reading these forums (along with others) and have learned much and continue to do so.

Cheers
Tim

Hi Ahmed

I been to Cairo and Egypt, very friendly people! Pity it is a poor country - but very fantastic history!

Cheers
Shelton.

well M$ Office 2005 or 6 (whatever) is going to cost like $800+ Aussie - for word processing and excel apps - what a RIP OFF!!

Re: A bit late
 

Linux running NO windowmanager is even more geeky ;-) .

No, honestly; What are you talking about? Gnome and KDE are window managers too.
(though some people argue that kde isn't a Window Manager but a Desktop Environment)


Kind Regards Bjerrk