Well this 43 year old kiddie can see a big difference between a sincere question asking for assistance with a problem and a long whiny post crying about why Linux is too hard. If you ask intelligent questions, you get intelligent answers. You post a whine, you get sarcasm.

"Linux can't replace Windows for this newbie". I felt the exact same way when I first tried Linux. I bought a magazine that came with a CD with Slackware 8.1, installed it but couldn't get it to work for the life of me. I felt really frustrated and went back to Windows 98 until I much, much later decided to try it again. At that time I discovered Kurumin, a Brazilian Knoppix-based distro "optimized for newbies". (I could link it here, but it'll be in Portuguese so I don't think it'll be really usable for non-Portuguese speakers). It runs directly from the CD and is usable directly from the CD (including internet access). It even auto-detected my whole hardware setup better than Windows! My network card was one of those "generic" ones, and I had to install a driver in Windows to run it, on Linux it was auto-detected and auto-configured, I didn't even have to do a single mouse click.

Configuring my ADSL connection was even easier than in Windows, just a few keypresses and I was on, compared to a whole day installing things and rebooting Windows at every reinstall. For a distro that fits in a measly 199 MB (at the time, the current distro size is larger now) it had quite a good set of programs pre-installed, including some games and even window manager options other than the default KDE. Speaking of which, the KDE interface is somewhat spoken badly of because it "looks like Windows". (By the way, not pointing my finger at anyone but that's something I dislike on the more 'hardcore' Linuxers out there: Windows is not 100% bad, although Microsoft seems evil. Even being a proud "registered Linux user" I have to accept that the Windows interface works great).

Well, back to the subject. Being KDE "like Windows", and being KDE the default window manager loaded at the Kurumin boot, it was really easy to adapt to the new OS. File browsing, text editing, and other such tasks were pretty much like Windows, even though the underlying structure is completely different. Also, Konqueror as a file browser is, in my opinion, much more powerful than Windows Explorer, and as easy to use as the Windows file browser.

The only thing I have to complain about it is that X is slower than the Windows GDI, and this is felt especially in older, slower machines like the one I used at the time, a 500 MHz K6-2. I later found out that it's for a reason of architecture, X uses a "client-server" model, made to allow remote graphical applications, something the Windows architecture would never be able to do; the Windows GDI is part of the OS itself and applications talk directly to the OS. This is, despite being slower, a positive point for Linux: when a X application crashes, it never crashes the whole OS like when a Windows application crashes. Instead, it "dies" cleanly and the system remains intact. Putting it short, the stability of Linux was another strong point that made it appealing to me. My record uptime was 16 hours (I don't leave my computer always on) but my guess is in that time span if I were in Windows I'd have rebooted at least 3 times.

Yet another strong point in Linux is its safety. My system is not a stronghold, I'm not running a site server or anything like, but even so trojans or other malware out there don't affect Linux simply because "Your browser is not Win32 compatible!" (got this message from one malicious script while testing for that out there). I had to laugh myself off, "if it were Windows I'd be screwed!!".

Linux has also taught me lots of things about my computer Windows would never do, like how partitioning a disk works. From that time (around October 2004, if I remember it right - might even have been before that) until now I am a happy Linux user, even though I almost desisted when I tried Slackware on my machine for the first time.

Now for the down side: Hardware support in Linux isn't all that great, even though a good deal of effort is being made to change this, - if you have any fancy "for Windows" hardware, chances are Linux is not for you. The blame is to be placed on makers of those devices though, as their hardware usually needs some driver software, they'll provide that software for Windows only and won't even release the necessary info so that someone may write that software for Linux. (Well big loss for them, as they'll be losing about half a million potential buyers, at least). Also, Linux isn't as great as an entertainment platform as Windows yet. That's somewhat the fault of game developers, who'll write their software for Windows only, the reason for that is that "Windows has a greater installed base", I guess. That being so, the more people "do the leap", the more the developers will feel compelled to write software for Linux as well.

Finally: There ARE newbie-friendly Linux distros out there, just tinker enough. Read about it, talk about it with people you know who use Linux, anything goes. However, Linux is not the perfect OS and it's in constant development, it may or may not work for you. In both machines I have I have a dual-boot setup with Linux and Windows 98. I use Windows mainly for games and for using my scanner (unsupported on Linux due to that hardware support thing I talked about earlier. I really should consider getting another scanner). "Live-CD" distros such as Knoppix and variants seem, to me, good for beginners as you can just boot off the CD and use it without installing, to get used to the system before installing it. Linux dual-boot became a "must-have" for me now and I intend to ditch Microsoft completely when conditions are favorable. And... sorry for making it this long, but... I felt I should do it.

Without reading **most** of these responses, this is likely going to turn into a Windows debate if it hasn't already. As such, I'll move this to the General.

Thanks!

Hehe, MasterC, I pity you . How many of these on an average do you tackle per month?

Masonm, hehe... Aww man, you crack me up. Perfectly put. I don't think you could have twisted the knife anymore than you did. Nice shot man.

I'm a Linux newbie, and although Linux does not "replace" Win., it has now replaced everything I used to do with Win. and has given me the freedom I have been looking for in an OS.

I just installed Linux (RHF 3) yesterday and it went smoothly. Tried it in the past and had trouble with a bad distro. dvd. Everything seems to be working just fine and much more stable than my previous OS. I have several questions about some of the software in the distro. but other than that, I'm luvvin it!

Save your drivel. You post a thread in a Linux forum entitled "Linux can't replace Windows for this newbie.", flamebait and all, don't even ASK a question, and then have some orgulous air with the responce?

Blame yourself.

It's not nearly as bad as Linux - General really. And most of the time, a member is free to post their tribulations wherever it fits, as long as there are a few Linux questions followed by it. If it's just a straight forward rant or there is no real question, then it really fits best in General.

It's not a big deal though, about 80% are usually reported and I just have to follow up on em

Cool

I would like to see the distributions start handling things like mp3, and dvd support for their boxed versions that we pay for. In other words, include some non-gnu licensed software. We are paying them the money to do that if we purchase their product. Granted, that some of these things actually are bundled with the computers in the Windows world, rather than with the MS operating system. I don't remember which distro it was, perhaps it was Adobe, when they has a Linux distro, or an early SuSE distribution that included a port of the game Civilization. I play that game everyday, and even though I had purchased Civilization III, somehow I prefer the earlier version on Linux.

In other words, a little added value added to the boxed distribution versions to make things easier for newbies might be a good idea.

i understand what your saying completly i was in your shoes about a year ago .. the installing software issue is what turns newbies away i dont care what any one says but to install software on windows is very very simple compared to linux yea i know you can do
./configure
make
make install

or if your using debian dpkg -i balbla.pkg or use synaptic

i suggest waiting a few more years .. linux is getting to windows wise step by step ( installation of software wise ) but for your other problems im pretty sure they could be solved any way no one flame me please i love open source

I would like to make a suggestion to the Linux community:

If you want to get MS users on your side, STOP FLAMING THEM!! Please try to be helpful for a change. To me, the greatest thing about Linux is the community, and it makes me genuinely sad and disheartened when I see so much ill will coming from such a beautiful project. If any frustrated newbies or frustrated MS users are reading this, I would like to apologize on behalf of the flamers. Please don't pay attention to them, and try to concentrate on the positive aspects of the Linux community. There really are thousands of people out there who just want to help. Finally, if someone expresses an opinion that MS is better at something, or that they prefer XP, maybe we should think about how we can change Linux so it does its job better and is usable by more people. Insulting the intelligence of posters who are having problems will certainly not get them on our side, and will not help Linux become a better OS.

--C

Who wants to get MS users on our side?

Who's flaming whom?

You know what I haven't seen yet? I haven't seen Linux users posting this kind of crap on the MSDN forums. And it's not because it wouldn't be entertaining.. but really, who cares what MS thinks about anything. Not to mention Linux experts are also expert in windows for the most part.

I just don't get the attraction windows users have for posting on Linux forums about how stupid they are, and how much they love being stupid. It's a wierd frame of mind that I've only seen in old women and people on welfare. I just don't get it. I'd rather starve than be chattel.

In any case, my round about point is that I don't see this type of post inversely. Linux users flooding MSDN saying how nobody can see their code, and the world is beholden to them and them alone. It's just not constructive.

An excellent point.

Its like passing your driving test, you dont go onto the net and moan about it if you fail, you just get your head down and make sure you pass next time. Yes i've wasted days on linux.....but its the cheapest hobby I have found