I'm a life long computer experimenter, builder, and tinkerer. The first PC I built had a 4004 processor and 12 KB of RAM.

I tried Linux for the very first time 4 days ago and loved it. After much research I settled on UBUNTU GNOME 12.04 LTS.
I was completely dumbfounded by mreff555 's opinion of Ubuntu and Gnome. Ubuntu is a must have because too many software developers only grudgingly put out a single Linux release which is invariably for Ubuntu.
I see every Linux user as an ambassador for Linux who's task is to rescue the masses from Evil Corp (Microsoft).
I'm more comfortable than most with a console command line as I spent years programming into a DOS prompt.
98% of PC and mobile device users have never even seen a command line. If you want to win the hearts and soles of the unwashed Windows masses with Linux you HAVE TO LURE THEM IN WITH A SLICK,PRETTY, CUSTOMIZABLE, FRIENDLY INTERFACE. Once the Noob is hooked on Linux, then they can be gradually introduced to the more hard-core distributions and gently begin realizing the power and preciseness of the command line. I would love for Linux to put Windows out of business. I'm planning on making Linux my primary OS. I have several PCs that I've tinkered together so I can dual or even triple boot a wide variety of Distros and desktops to compare and experiment.
Windows is so virus and malware ridden that it is almost useless. My last Windows virus scan of about 2 terabytes took 27 hours during which the already bogged down PC ran at one third speed. I was also having to reboot several times per day to fix lock-ups and generally quirky behavior. Every Windows program installed plops files down all over the place and makes low-level changes to the registry.

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Hi...

Welcome to the forum

I don't see myself in this light. I think there are strengths and weaknesses to both operating systems. They each offer something based upon what the individual needs are. On rare occasions, I have offered (or installed) Linux as an alternative to my customers after explaining to them what the advantages and disadvantages are so they could make an informed choice.

A lot more is needed than that and there are many people who would find the CLI extremely difficult and/or cumbersome and a "deal breaker" in choosing Linux over Windows. I think what keeps Linux from seriously being considered, in part, is that lack of software compatibility (i.e., "I can't install this cute screensaver I found on such and such website,") and the lack of drivers with certain devices and the potential difficulty in installing the ones that are available. This state of affairs needs to be addressed and fixed before Linux is taken more seriously.


I'm wondering if that's, at least, partly due to the AV program you're using. Did you have 2 TB's worth of data or was that just the size of the hard drive? If the latter, twenty hours is a long time, indeed!

That is one of the strengths and advantages to using Linux, no doubt.

Regards...

For my 27 hour virus scan I used the built in Win 10 Defender. I had exactly 1.92 TB of used disk space that was scanned. My Win 10 PC is a dual core with 2GB RAM. Its showing its age but no virus scan should take 27 hours- I checked with an anti-virus forum and the results were typical for my set-up and fairly large number of Bytes scanned. Some people on the forum had multiple 5 or 6TB drives and talked of Defender scans taking a week.

I will always keep a Windows installation for its near universal compatibility -probably as a dual-boot. I'm lucky to have 2 PCs which is allowing me to test out a wide variety of Distros and Desktops (currently trying Linux Mint with Cinnamon). I was again amazed by Linux when I found it incredibly easy to install and set up my 3rd party VPN. Win 10 is hopelessly confused by 3rd party VPNs and will only maintain a connection for a few hours at best. The troubleshooting wizard only works 1/3 of the time and the other 2/3 of the time It can only fix the connection with a reboot.

I've actually learned to enjoy installing and setting up Linux OSs. In a very few hours I have everything the way I want it (packages, setting tweaks, etc) and it is an intuitive and enjoyable learning process. Windows installations take days instead of hours to get "just right".

Windows is so easily damaged by installing what appears to be good software which more often than not tries to sneak in tons of bloat and crap ware. Every installation makes changes to the registry and places files in many different directories including system directories. As a consequence Windows invariably gets slower and buggier with time usually with a clean install being the best solution. Then there is the price of software $200 for Win 10 Pro (unless you were able to take advantage of the free upgrade). Every program worth having costs a good little bit. Any "Freeware" programs are usually the worst offenders at trying to install a lot of bloat/crap ware with a few exceptions. OK, I've gotten it out of my system now. Then there are the security issues with Windows , it is under constant assault from several directions. I've learned to be a little paranoid about on-line security. Besides, the Windows desktop clashes with my foil hat.

I keep seeing complaints about Ubuntu's instability. About 9 people at my local computer club run some version of Linux -usually Ubuntu. One of them has occasional crash problems and usually decides to reinstall rather than put in the hours to try to fix a subtle problem. This guy runs Ubuntu on a PC he built from spare parts. This makes me wonder if at least some of the problems people have could be hardware and /or driver related. From what I've seen people that are annoyed with the unreliability of a Linux distro talk in terms of months regarding problems. As a Windows user I can testify that the Windows camp is overjoyed if they can go a few days without a big problem or crash. It is also common practice to do occasional formats and complete Windows re-installs because of Windows' habit of progressively getting "buggier" and "slower" with time. I can't count the number of times a simple un-install of a program in Windows seriously broke or damaged something.

Use OpenSUSE 13.2 ( or the current for what ever date one reads this )

no real issues , and no crashes it is almost as STABLE as RHEL/CentOS/SL

I used Ubuntu for several years because it came pre-installed on two Dells I bought (Ahh, the good old days). It worked fine for me. From 8.04 through whenever Unity came out, it weathered every on-line version upgrade with flying colors. The only thing that griped me about it was the pervy sudo fetish.

Ubuntu lost me as a regular user with Unity, but I have it running in a VM right now because so many Linux Questions involve Ubuntu and I like playing in VMs. (I'm using XFCE for a desktop.)

Based on my experience, even though I am decidedly not a Ubuntu fan, I can't say I've witnessed any kind of inherent stability issues in Ubuntu.

Nevertheless, when I'm recommending distros to new users, I seldom point them toward Ubuntu. My reasons for disliking it are, if you will, political in the largest sense, not technical.

I just ran the new Opensuse tumbleweed. Sweet!

I usually suggest to new users that they try distros that catch their fancy in Live Mode, then pick one, but, if I do make recommendations, they are usually for Mint, Mageia, or OpenSUSE. They are all three very competent bits of work. (Unless the posters say they want to learn Linux, rather than just use it; then, natch, it's Slackware all the way!)

All three of them are very solid pieces of work. I installed Mageia v. 3 dual-boot on my Win7 machine and Mageia is still there now that it's up to v. 5. Frankly, I'm mildly surprised at how satisfied I have been with it.

I've been using Tumbleweed on an X1 Carbon for the last few months and really like it. The only issue I've had is it locked up once during a system update and a hard poweroff hopelessly corrupted the filesystem. I blame xfs for that though, since the exact same thing has happened to two of my CentOS 7 VMs with root on xfs as well. I reinstalled Tumbleweed using ext4 this time, copied my home directory and a few files in /etc over from a backup and was back in business pretty quickly.

I don't recommend *buntu because it's the beginner distro personally. I recommend it to new linux users because of all the distros, *buntu is most likely to have packages that people want / need. Closed source proprietary stuff, if they even do release a linux version 9 times out of 10 it's packaged for *buntu.

I use Kubuntu LTS, I just put my fiancee on the same thing. She loves it, and it's rock solid for me to. I've been running linux of some type for a number of years and that is why I settled on Kubuntu. 3rd party proprietary packages are almost always made for it. With other distros, even Debian it's a bit of a crapshoot.

Personally, I disliked always going back and searching for programs in Ubuntu 14/15.04. It could be just my inexperience, but it seemed like there should be an easier way of determining where a program is so I wouldn't have to continually use search. Two cents- that's 23 short of being able to play an arcade game.

Click on the dash and when the window opens there is a Search box. Start typing the name of the program and you will likely see an icon for it showing before you finish typing.

I know, but I can't recall it ever telling me where a particular program was installed in the file system.

There is no single location in the filesystem where any particular program is installed. That's the Windows mentality, Linux doesn't work that way. Anything you install will likely put files in 3-4 different locations. Config files go in /etc, executables go in /bin, /usr/bin, /usr/local/bin or similar, program files typically go in /opt or /usr/local, etc.

It sounds like it's just your inexperience leading to difficulties. You're trying to use Linux tools to search for things in a Windows way. My question to you is, why does it matter where it's installed? Why do you need to know? Executables are always placed in a common location in your PATH, so you can just type their name to run them. You don't need to know where the data files are located because it's almost always irrelevant.

I need to know because I want to learn how to operate Linux.