like "why did you install linux?" i am starting a new thread.

i have seen many guys here still using windoz in this forum. what makes you use it?? i used it only for my academic purposes but now i am almost a full time linux guy.

waiting for others to reply

mobin

I use it only for gaming, few hours a week of GTA IV / F.E.AR
I dont know if those run on wine, never bothered to try.

*nix is still relegated largely to academic institutions, as it always has been and likely always will be. Many of the hackers who started OSS even consider the PC revolution the "dark ages" of computing. They liked the days of huge mainframes and time sharing. I liked the days of the TRS-80 and Apple ][.

Pretty much still using Window$ 7 beta, just to 3d games, which is rare. Its collecting dust on my secondary drive.

I'd even go as far as to say that web apps and cloud computing are an attempt to take us back to the days when the only thing users could touch were dumb terminals. It's centralized control vs. decentralized freedom in my mind. And in that sense Winblows is sucking just as bad these days.

I don't

Oh, yeah, forgot to answer the question... oops. LOL

Because nobody pays me to use Linux.

I still use Windows because I'm a professional programmer and most jobs for professional programmers require using Windows.

I still use Windows because despite its massive flaws, Visual Studio is still a better IDE than KDevelop or CodeBlocks.

I still use Windows as my primary workstation at work because Windows remote desktop is so badly flawed. I need to develop for both Windows and Linux. Developing for Linux is very practical when the Linux system(s) are elsewhere on the LAN and operated through various tools such as cygwin/xwin or vnc or putty. Developing on a Windows system via any form of remote desktop or VNC is much less practical.

I like linux and BSD - but I am not blind to the fact that they are not perfect.

As a matter of fact all OSes suck, all OSes are messy, quirky things - especially on the desktop (it's different on the server).

I still use windows because

- a well installed XP is just as solid as a well installed linux desktop

- i find it easier to get "just so" so I can do different kinds of work (removing most decorations, quick start and macros) (i have had years, it will take time and regular attempts to get linux there for me)

- over the years I have found a set of tools that just do not have equivalents on linux (that I could tell), for time tracking, reporting, information gathering, snippets management, image/photo management,
and scanning, writing help and idea organising etc. Examples: acdsee pro, clipcache, wiredkeys, onenote, local website archive, asksam etc. I am slowly working my way at using more FOSS software on windows so the transition will be easy, but when it comes to email clients, information managers and graphics, we're far from there yet...

- games, of course

What bothers me in windows:

- media playing is totally broken/missing/lame out of the box. Can't play most formats or a basic DVD without a lot of installs (and if you dont know, buying software for something that should be in the box)

- keyboard operation is lacking, even with added tools

- the amount of stuff needed to make it work "just so"


What bothes me in linux/FOSS for the desktop

- small font support broken (unreadable) Seriously, i have a high pixel screen and end up having to have large fonts, about double the size I can manage to work in in windows. What's the point?

- keyboard mapping always a nightmare

- apps are unfinished, often missing the features that would make them useful to me

- most distributions are becoming more monolithic and feel more closed than windows, making choices for you you cannot undo, even when they are making your life impossible.

- some of the layers are an absolute mess (they might be in windows too, but a)i cant get into them b) they make sure i dont need to get into them to get my keyboard to work right or my fonts to work)

- the nightmare of the desktop-exclusive apps (i.e. any interesting apps you hear about are ALWAYS for the desktop you dont use).

To me the whole situation of desktop-linked GUI toolkits that dont coexist well together is probably the biggest weakness of the linux world - put someone on a slick desktop distribution and within a week they will have heard/read of an application that is really excellent and might be what they need, but sorry, doesn't work on their desktop. I am on XP and almost never encounter an app that is "sorry, Vista only" but on linux I bang my head all the time on apps that do that to me. Try talking to someone about freedom when they have to chose between the desktop with the good information management app and the good screeshot app OR the desktop with the good music app and the good drawing app, but they cant have it all

I've got XP Pro on my laptop, but only boot into it now and then to see if it's still there. No real reason or excuse for keeping it.

I use WXP to do those things I need to do but can't do on Linux:

• Printing and scanning on Canon imageCLASS 5750. There are no Linux drivers for this device, bought before Linux was planned.
• Cell-phone integration using nokia PC Suite There is no Linux solution providing all the features I use:
  • PIM: sending contacts, calendar and notes to phone
  • Voice notes: playing and deleting audio recordings from phone
  • SMS texts: reading, composing and sending.
• Email and PIM. Outlook is required for nokia PC Suite and I could not find a practicable way of synchronising the PIM information with Linux-based email and PIM solutions.
• Developing a Google Earth plugin application. The plugin is not supported on Linux yet.

I haven't used windows (at home, forced to at work) since 1996. Win 95 was the last one for me.

Why? In short: I want control and I want it my way. Linux gives me both, Windows doesn't.

I'll separate this between work and home use.

I use XP at work because the whole corporate infrastructure is geared around it for the desktop. I am a professional programmer, but my program development is for IBM iSeries, not PC's. The PC is only a tool and a workstation for iSeries. We do a lot of work in Outlook, Word, and Excel. Many of my colleagues program Java for Linux from an XP workstation using Cygwin. There were never any plans to migrate the desktops to Vista, and I still haven't heard of any Win7 plans. This is a major corporation with tens of thousands of desktop users, so migration to Linux on the desktop would be a huge task, even though there are dozens of large Redhat servers.

At home I dumped windows several years ago. I set up a dual boot SuSE/Win98 box and when I realized that I rarely booted Windows, I dropped it. I recently purchased a HP laptop with Vista. I wanted to use it among other things to control a MIDI keyboard and tone generator using the hardware vendor supplied tools, which were published for Windows and Mac. The laptop will be convenient because the MIDI system is at my church and I can work on stuff at home and carry the system to church and use it there too.

I spent some time over the last couple of weeks experimenting with those tools through wine, and they seem to be working as expected. Since I can't think of any other reason to use MS Windows from home, it is coming off of my laptop this weekend.

I support mixed Windows / Linux sites so it's a must. There's a lot of windows only commercial software out there that won't run under wine.

My computers all run Debian, and none of them dual boot. However, on my main computer I have virtualbox with Windows 2000 installed, which I use to run Windows only games (and by games, I mean older games, or games that don't have strong requirements) and other software. I don't use it very much, though.