I've been using Linux exclusivly for a little under 1 year now, and I'm very happy that I don't have to touch windows again :)
Well.. unfortunately sometimes in school I do, but that only lasts a few minutes.

tombomb300, try www.happypenguin.org lots of linux games there.
Also wine and winex will let you run many windows games on linux ( www.winehq.org and www.transgaming.org respectivily)

Hey i dont no if i could live without windows one becuase my modem is only windows (damn thing) and im always using psp7 and well i havent even tried linux yet.so when i fianly i get linux in my comp (this sunday) maybe ill chage my mind but for now its all windows all the time.

I use Windows for printing because my Lexmark X5150 has no Linux support. I should have bought HP instead.

I also use Windows for typing documents in foreign languages. It's too difficult to keep changing the keyboard mapping for different languages when I can just do ALT+... in Windows.

Other than that I use Linux.

I dual boot at work to go between Mandrake 9.2 and WindowsXP however I can basically do everything on Linux like remote to our Windows 2K servers but I prefer doing this on XP because of the look and because I don't have to type in the screen resolution command each time. Plus it's easy to remote from there to other desktops at the run prompt from the remote screen.

Let's see...I have my all important messenger running and DBVisualizer for Oracle. The only thing really keeping me from staying in Linux is that I don't have PRISM for Oracle on there yet. Actually I'm not even sure if its supported by Linux. I know lame excuse 'cause I can always remote into a 2K window that has it - oh to have dual screens. Oh ya - no Launchcast :cry: !!! Bummer as it is a work staple.

I've only been using Linux since June and I know I have lots to learn so I dumped Windows on my computer at home. Since it's not near a phone line I use my husband's computer to access the Internet and my mail account.

All in all I don't see myself ditching Windows completly anytime soon. I do however have a cheering section at work ;)

tammy

What I think about "can you live without windows" debate
 

I've been looking through most of what I called 'pointless' threads in one of my posts, and I want to create another one and see what people think about my point of view regarding "Can you live without Windows" and "Why would you want to use linux".

Let us exclude gaming from the equation (I'll assume that most people here use computers for constructive things, i.e. doing some work), and my question becomes a polar opposite - why would anyone want to use Windows?

Yes, I know that there are certain apps that are not present natively in Linux (photoshop) and that don't have a worthy equivalent in Linux either (Dreamweaver). But I also know, as many Windows zealots have pointed out, that most (I'll venture a total guesstimate of 80% computer users) will never venture out of the warm comfort of email, http surfing, mp3 music, divx / dvd video, and office productivity suites. There is a large number of people whose everyday working life revolves around those applications. Such people will rarely fiddle with the system config, rarely add some exotic hardware to their computer, much less need to understand exactly how their system works or why things happen. I hope that not many people will disagree with this statement, as I remember it being made before and not many protested.

So having this in mind, why would ANYONE who uses their machine for this want to pay however much it costs to buy windows, when you can download Mandrake / SuSE / Fedora etc. and have a totally painless, automatic installation, have all your hardware detected and set up and have a fully working, ready to use system within an hour of starting the installation. This is the case with most modern hardware and most so called desktop oriented distros. This is not the case with windows, where you have to have a folder full of cds to install all your drivers (motherboard drivers!!!) and have to apply numerous registry (how I hate that construct) tweaks to get good performance. Not to mention that you will have to pay for every application you want to add to your system, such as office with its ludicrously exorbitant price tag.

However that is just another side of windows lunacy - people will defend it 'till they froth at the mouth, however very few of these frothy people actually OWN (as much as one can OWN a MS product, with their draconian EULA) Windows or any other app residing on their systems. They are happy to pirate all this software, all the while snickering how "OSS will never make it, who is going to create quality code for free".

This is just my point of view, one that most people don't agree with. But in my opinion they don't agree due to ignorance, not because they can back up their arguments with facts. I have just about given up on advocating Linux to people and trying to get them to see the light. But I would like to see how many people, in this type of forum, OBJECTIVELY agree with me, that using Linux in a typical, low-tech user situation is actually easier and more convenient than using windows?

Not to even mention how much easier it would be if OEMs pre-installed it like they do with windows, pre-tested it like they do with windows, and customized it for their hardware like they do with windows.

Sometimes it really hurts me to see a superior product lag behind an inferior one due to illegal business practices, multi-million dollar marketing and consumer ignorance. But, hell, when the pain gets unbearable I just shut down some poor fuckers machine with the RPC exploit, at least it still makes me smile.

Let me know how you feel.

Cheers,

Vlad.

it's a toss up between feeding cd after cd into windows and rebooting constantly

and the learning curve required to get under way with Linux

even with Mandrake, which is ultra friendly, there is still the circular dependency trap, the mind-numbing version number problem, the 3d acceleration problem and so on

if you can save a file and then find it again under windows, and if you can set up an e mail account
then you can use Linux
it's not harder
it's just different


the hold that money has over peoples souls and minds is such that
they believe that free is equal to substandard

"it must be crap if it's free, 'cus if it was any good it would cost loads"

The way I look at it is, it is all in what you are used to if you are used to Windows and not willing to learn even alittle bit to make the switch then it is not worth trying to get them to switch. Even if you use one of the easy distros you have to learn alittle and some ppl are just not willing. Back to my first statement of it is all in what you are used to. A good example is 2 years ago I setup my grandmother with SuSe it took about 45mins to install and everything worked right off the bat. I showed her how to do every thing from Surfing the net to Email and burning CD's. She is perfectly content and accually when she goes to my Mothers house she cant understand how she can use windows, my Grandmother complains on how complicated it is. Sometimes my Grandmother even shows me stuff I did not know you could do, or knew you could but not exactly sure how.

The way I see it is, "Who Cares." If they want to use some other operating system, let them. It's their computer after all. Hopelessly rambling on day after day won't get anywhere.

Why not express your point of view in the existing thread and eliminate from starting yet another one just like it. That's why we create threads and discussions, to reply to them.

I'm closing this one as I find it really unecessary. If you want I can merge it with the existing thread, but we don't need two of these.

Regards.

PS. If you want these merged or want to defend yourself in the closure of this thread, email me. Do not post another thread asking why'd you close this or trickykid is an a**hole type threads. Simply email me to discuss this any further.

If you haven't noticed Vlad_M that I went ahead and merged your thread you started discussing your opinion and such with the ongoing thread we already have.

In the future, if you want to express your thoughts, opinions and so on an existing thread, it only makes sense to contribute to that thread, to keep the discussion all in one place.

Regards.

i'm always in trouble with the boss these days...sorry again trickykid, thanks for merging with the existing thread.

I use Windows 2000 when I want:

* 32-bit colour

* Drivers for all my hardware

* I want to get work done without having to remember the names of ten thousand annoying little command line utilities that talk to each other and have crazy version numbers and conflicts and revisions & modules & trivial crap.

* I want to reboot instantly without having to sit through zillions of file system errors the next time I boot.

* A system that I can move hard drive master to slave or from PC to PC without kernel panics.

* An operating system that can tell what mouse I have, and lets me look up & down in Quake 3 Arena.

In summary Windows 2000 has generally been superior for me than Linux as far as recovering from crashes, installations and troubleshooting.

For me at least, I think the difficulties I have with Linux aren't stupidity or arrogance, for which red-faced geeks flame at me on IRC - but being overwhelmed at how messy it is in general. Some things the computer should do automatically and/or properly.

But at the end of the day, Linux is free - and that makes any complaints I have about it nullafied and mute. Yay for penguins.:Pengy:

I am forced to use windows because I still have dial up and a crappy win-modem that has no driver support under linux. As soon as i get broadband WinME (tell me about it , it sucks) is dust. GOODBYE MICROSHAFT WINBLOWS, HELLO 100% LINUX!!!!

I have 32bit color on my Linux desktop :)...

Drivers for each and every piece of hardware I have.

You can do your work just like you do on WIndows.. try Konqueror + Evolution + OpenOffice + Mozilla
That's preety much just like windows.

Try using ext3.. no filesystem errors. And the reason you don't have them in windows will.. well.. make you unhappy. It's because it doesn't fix them very much. FIxes some, but doesn't perform the kinds of checks that Linux does. Rebooting in Linux is also faster.. CTRL+ALT+BACKSPACE, type.. init 6, and you're done :)

I can do that.. I have a kernel that I've compiled for i386 compatibility, with all the drivers loaded in, and everything else as modules :)

And.. for the last one.. yup, that one too!

2000 isn't superior in recovering from crashes.. I've seen filesystems that 2000 has corrupted after crashing. I have a buisness fixing computers.. and Windows comps do that a lot. I've also had to install 2000 and I can tell you.. I'd rather install RH 9 because it's simpler :) Gentoo's simple too.. just takes a long time.

I simply use Windows XP whenever I want to.

Just a mood really. If I feel like using Linux, I'll use it, if not and I want to use Windows, I'll use Windows.

I've got weird looks from that sort of philosophy, mainly from zealots. It's fun explaining that I don't care which one is more stable or not. Windows XP wouldn't work in my old computer, neither would Windows 98 etc. So I installed Linux. Now I've fixed everything up I can use Windows again. But I've also kept Linux since I think it's neat.

Really, I love the idea of knowing at least two or more operating systems. On my resume it adds that extra phrase.