As much as it hurts me to say this, but i think it's time to bite the bullet and go back to using windows, for now at least, after about 6-7 months of exclusive linux use

Theres just a few things i havent been able to get right, or that aren't available in linux as far as i know, that are getting on my nerves.

I was using Ubuntu.

1. My Sony vaio brightness controls dont work in linux, so its always 100% bright, as a result (and probably other variables too i dont know about) my battery literally lasts about 5 minutes.

2. kopete/pidgin just don't cut it for MSN when compared with windows live messenger. kopete doesnt seem to work to well in gnome (files never successfully transfer, video chat doesnt work), and pidgin is missing a few features. Kopete makes my computer reboot if i click the notification that somebody has msgd me?

3. Sound - It seems to work until i decide to watch something on youtube/flash. Then it'll stop until i reboot.

4. Screen resolution - why does windows vista allow a much smaller resolution than gnome? i'm not on my computer right now to give specific dimensions (will do once i get home), but it feels like i've gone back to 640x480 (slight exaggeration)

5. did i mention my battery lasts 5 minutes? (lasts much longer in windows)

6. applications are just more readily available, and often better. Microsoft Money > moneydance, dont like any of the media players (amarok excluded, doesnt seem to work well in gnome though)

7. no acpi issue when starting my laptop (have to switch off and on with the power not plugged in) is bloody annoying.

On the flip side, Vista feels so plain, and some of the accessibility and customisability features provided by compiz are second to none.

It shouldn't hurt one bit. You should use what works for you.

It is quite easy to install *buntu onto a Windows partition with WUBI if you don't wish to cut Linux out completely. Or to create Linux and Windows partitions both if your drive is big enough.

Proprietary messagers are often not fully implemented in Linux. Your other issues may or may not be solvable. Laptops can often have proprietary (that word again) hardware that is not easily supported. I guess I was lucky with my Inspiron 1200. The graphics are okay but don't do tricks. The modem requires the Linuxant drivers to work in Linux.

Good Luck.

When I got into linux back in 1995, I was using Caldera eDesktop 2.4. In that time, almost nothing was working out of the box. So I still needed to keep my windows 95 around. I dual booted windows 95 and other linux distros from 1995 to 2006. My goal was to stop using windows completely and in 2006, I finally cut myself from windows. The last windows OS I used was windows 98.

From all those years of reading, researching, getting help from forums and other places, and understanding the types of hardwares has help me to make my descion to move to linux exckusively. I've been windows free since 2006.

But like 2damncommon said, you have to use what ever gets the job done whether its Windows, Mac, linux or other. Using linux exclusively is not easy for some people. Everybody's productivity in the computer is unique and certain hardware(s) is not linux compatible at least not yet.

Anyway, if you get the linix itch you have options like dual booting, live CDs/DVDs, wubi and VMware server.

- Cheers

The whole time? Just Ubuntu? You should try at least a Red-Hat based distro and Slackware before throwing in the towel (or dual-boot these as others have suggested). There's more than one kind of Linux out there, and that's kinda the point. If it didn't work with your hardware, then that's a sign that there is something going on kernel-wise and maybe you need to try another distro.

When I said goodbye to Windows, I installed FreeBSD, Mepis, Ubuntu and PCLinuxOS, before settling on the last one. The first three just didn't work --- they had mysterious problems like you described (but not on a laptop). Then I discovered Slackware and I've been using it since January 2007.

And like dv502, I spent a lot of time using LiveCDs and reading, learning how to handle problems that would potentially come up. By the time I installed, I was somewhat of an expert.

Joel

Well, the applications are pretty much what they are but I do have the impressions that at least some of your issues are a matter of configuration. Are you running a recent distro, by the way, or are you still using the one you started out from? There can be huge differences from one release to the next one, primarily in terms of hardware support.

ubuntu 8.04, and i pretty much always run updates for it.

I Hereby retract this statement.

I installd money 2007 last night and the tools insist you register your passport/hotmail address.

I dont particularly feel like going online with all my financial information and linking it back to my msn account

Moneydance comes in windows as well (and works better cause i think i keep getting java issues when running it in ubuntu)

Maybe try out some alternatives if you really like Linux. Fedora and Mandriva tend to be quick to support new features. And as suggested, there is nothing wrong with running linux inside windows, whether it is through WUBI, VMWare or any other solution.

I might give it a go when i next have the time or patience. The major thing for me is sony vaio laptop support. When i say my battery was dying after 5 minutes i'm not exaggerating. It was lucky to last 5 minutes.

And i've had the battery looked at and apparently it still meets sony specifications.

Not just ubuntu the whole time but pretty much from the same family.

I started with kubuntu, moved onto mint kde, then mint gnome, and now ubuntu.

i cant seem to find any reports of anyone who's tried my laptop on linux.

http://usr-bin.com/wordpress/ubuntu-...250n-laptop/3/

theres one here, that i cant seem to connect to. I havent been able to connect to it in the past 3 months maybe if someone here has better luck than me they can paste the contents? I'm guessing the server is just dead or something.

So what distribution would i be suited to trying next??

2. amsn is a slightly more faithful representation of Live Messenger, so if you haven't tried it then that MAY fix your problems. Kopete seems to be based more off of Trillian than anything else.

3. This hasn't been giving me issues lately, however, I haven't used Ubuntu in quite some time. This used to be an issue with many distros that could easily be fixed in KDE by calling your web browser with the program "arts" at the beginning. That is, you'd go into your menu editor and in the box where it says the command that actually calls your web browser (it might look something like "/pathtofirefox/firefox") you'd just change it to "arts /pathtofirefox/firefox". Stick arts in front. There is supposed to be a similar command that you can stick in front of programs in gnome, but again it's been quite a while since I've used a gnome distro. Stupid issue I agree, but might be an easy fix.

4. That could be an issue with your video card drivers. Sometimes the driver that the distro picks out for your card is nowhere near as good as one that might be available for installation. I'm not sure, but Ubuntu might not even install real Nvidia drivers by default (one of the few hardware manufacturers that actually has great linux support). Also, KDE has a nice application for changing your screen resolution, not sure about gnome.

5. It's always going to be better in Windows. There are a ton of issues that CAN be fixed in Linux with some hacking like hard drive access and CPU stepping, but in general, Linux really seems to be inefficient on laptops compared to Windows (at least XP, I'm not gonna choke on Vista until I absolutely have to).

6. Agreed. And generally, Windows even has more and better options that are "financially free" than Linux. Amarok is a really nice program, and probably my second favorite player overall (after WMP actually). Your problems with it may be that it's a KDE program. Ubuntu's implentation of gnome might be getting hung up on it for some reason or other.

7. Again, sometimes this is just a distro issue (some distros have different kernel patches than others, some of which sometimes provide solutions to these sorts of issues). Otherwise, it might take months before this gets fixed in the kernel (after which, any distro will work on that particular computer). The hardware support USUALLY gets there, but sometimes it takes quite a while.

I'm not going to try to talk you out of Windows. I still use it, and unlike some, I have had no issues with stability/security in it and in fact have had far more full lock ups/kernel panics in Linux than blue screens in Windows XP.

However, before you dump the idea of Linux completely, you might want to try at least one KDE based distro to see if it is more to your liking. It may fix at least some of your issues and it's a very different look/feel that is at least worth the experience once. Not trying to leave out the other desktop systems, but KDE and gnome are definitely the two that are good for new users. Mepis and PCLinuxOS are the two that I would recommend. Mepis will feel more at home to you since it honestly feels like a KDE version of Ubuntu that is a bit more ready out of the box (not sure about the way things stand now, but Kubuntu always used to be like the red-headed stepchild of the Ubuntu family). Mepis also seems to be a bit more laptop friendly than most distros. PCLinuxOS on the other hand is a more ready out of the box version of Mandriva. It will probably feel less familiar to you, but still a good choice. Both of these can be tried as Live CDs so they don't need to be installed and there really isn't any downside to giving them a shot other than the 700 MB download. You should note that they WILL be faster and more responsive once they are installed than when running from the CD for obvious reasons.

EDIT: Sorry. I posted this before seeing your reply above that you had tried a KDE based distro already.