Success with anything takes a personal commitment. Lacking desire, you will never be successful. I've been a software engineer since 1964 -- most of you probably weren't alive then. From a PC perspective I started with the original DOS and a was user up through Windows ME. Over two years ago I switched cold turkey to Linux and in fact am still learning. The other day, I tried to help a friend with a Windows XP Home system. In truth I found it difficult because it was different from what I use and what I used. Did that make Windows harder to use than Linux -- of course not. My lack of understanding of XP is because i don't choose to make the commitment to understanding. Obviously, I have the background to be successful with XP. Opinions are based on personal perspectives and are fortunately not binding on those who read them.

Thankyou...thankyou...THANKYOU!!

I needed a good laugh before heading off to work this morning, and that was it! (Maybe I'm overly tired or something, to have laughed so hard a that 'corny' little joke?) Seriously, I loved it. Nice start to my day!

Nice one !! ;-)

Linux is hard. I like it because it's not like a "refrigerator". You can do things with it, and to it.
I don't use Windoze at all. It's boring, like a refrigerator or a new japanese car. No soul. It doesn't need you(Windoze).
I like to interact with machines. Maybe it's a hobby, maybe it's the challenge.
I do like my new SuSe 9.3 installation though. I also like Mandriva 2006 Cooker on my second drive.
No Windoze for me. Too boring.

Don't I wish it were so. In 1964 I was already a three-yr. veteran of the Marine Corps, and was still two years away from a tour in 'Nam.

Funny the things a little incentive will do. My (still highly frustrating) plunge into linux has induced me to pull out some old college [math] text books (My 'further' education was partly to facilitate a civilian adoptation-and career-of my artillery training as a land surveyor-they're really the same thing!), and I am now planning (at 61!) to return to college and go for an engineering degree. Life takes funny turns. Now, if I spend 'all nighters' on test cramming, I can blame the caffeine jags on Linus Torvalds.

[I think] my rationale is: "What's the use of all this technical knowledge if you have nowhere to apply it?"

Glad to see I'm not the only old soldier in the Linux mix. Unlike our body the age of our mind can be anything we choose it to be. Curiosity is the true root of change.

I remember experiencing the same frustration when I moved from DOS 5.0 to Windows. And again, when I moved from Windows to Linux. It's all about a learning curve. I suppose the real question is, "Am I willing to endure the learning curve or not?" Then, ask yourself why you want to move to a new O/S. Personally, I finally became tired of spyware, security issues and a never-ending string of reinstalls, due to cryptic BSOD messages, generally blaming my hardware, which was not faulty.

In my case, it was worth the effort and being 60 years old, learning Linux wasn't as easy as it might have been when I was younger. But, it's certainly not been impossible and I'd have never made it without the help of a lot of nice people on the forums.

I still can't figure out how to set up and use a cellphone, and I'm not willing to go through the learning curve, so I don't have one. If I needed one, I suppose I'd make the effort. So, as with anything else, if the advantages do not outweigh the effort, for you personally, you're better off to stay with what you have and are used to using. I think that pretty much applies to everything in life....not just computer operating systems.

Please stop bothering me.

I tried to post a serious post with a few relevant questions. I was frustrated at the time. IS THAT A FREAKIN CRIME??????????

It must be. At least from a few of you who just seem to live to kick around the new guys!! You are the types who never flush the toilet because you can't find the command line interface!!! Of course, that makes you better in your mind than everyone else!!!! NOT!!!!!

If that's all you have in your life to make you feel superior, then you are pathetic, loser GEEKS who never matured one bit after high school.

Just leave me alone!!!!

Close this account, and I have filtered my inbox for mail from this site.

It was great reading such a profound opinion... I never thought of it that way. Thanks for the insights you offered.

As little as I know about linux (and thanks to the outpouring of <ever> patient-well, almost-help on this forum, I know something), I know even less about clinical therapy...but, WHEW! this guy needs some guidance in social interaction, heh?

What an incredible community this is to dismiss like that and kick dirt upon! Shame on you!

Perhaps Linux distros should consider including a section in the manuals on "Anger Management."

~:$ man manliness

MANLINESS(1)

NAME
manliness - the art of maturity and social restraint

oh guys, why to waste time with such a shitty discussion. free country, free people, use whatever you want and don't claim about things you don't understand, I also do not claim about MAC's. in my opinion this is more than a troll. just don't waste time and .... your wife...

I'm normally reluctant to read the Dummies books, with their repellently cutesy tone and lack of respect for my putative intelligence. However, SuSE Linux for Dummies is very, very good. I've tried Linux in the past (RedHat) and experienced the frustrations of which this newbie complains.

Many months have passed since I uninstalled RedHat. I've just ordered SuSE 10, after reading a great deal about it in Linux forums. And I think I've come round to the proper mindset for a relatively relaxed, low-blood-pressure learning experience.

I cut my PC teeth on DOS and WordStar (I'm age 64). So I remember some of what we lost when we all trooped dutifully along behind our corporate masters and slowed our mental processes sufficiently to work placidly with Windows.

We lost a lot: speed, control, creativity, the responsibilities of command. DOS and WordStar weren't convenient, but they were efficient as hell, and they were, frankly, fun. Of course, very few office secretaries liked WordStar. ("The manual is terrible!" I thought it was great.) But writers and editors loved it. (See sci-fi writer Robert J. Sawyers's article, "WordStar - A Writer's Word Processor"; sorry as a forum newbie, I'm not allowed to post URLS until I've spouted off here at least three times.)

When I contemplate my forthcoming experience with Linux, what I fear is not that it will be too complicated or command-liney, but that companies like Novell will try too hard to make it work like Windows.

Linux, at present, looks too bland, too much like a follower. I believe that what Linux needs is some of the creativity that brought the Mac out of Windows' shadow in the 1980s. And that means some truly original apps.

Opportunities do exist, in this regard. For example, everyone who uses a computer writes. And, word processing has been on a downhill course, in terms of speed and control, as it has "devolved" from WordStar through the WordPerfect and Word generations.

WordPerfect for DOS has been called the most perfect software ever written. It had some wonderful qualities. Even Word, which as a writer I must use daily, has some good features. But a really outstanding, modern program for writers would blow Word out of the water - and create priceless buzz for Linux.

Brief spec: a completely (and easily; think Word or Textmaker) editable keyboard layout with WordStar template supplied; a freely customizable reference and long-text database that could be opened in a sidebar for convenient cutting-and-pasting, with an option to paste reference info into a footnote at the same time; industrial-strength file management; macro language; templates for scripts, articles, books, proposals, whitepapers, datasheets, business plans, etc.; built-in calendar and communications.

Obviously, some of these features would have to wait for v.3. But the basic power-editing feature set would make a sufficiently large number of people jealous of the early adopters to make business users seriously consider at least installing a dual-boot system (especially if Novell and others give a strong push to Windows file open/write compatibility).

I thought you might find the following interesting:

http://www.wordstar.org/linux/pages/nedit.htm

I've never used WordStar, although I do miss WordPerfect greatly and so understand your commentary clearly, but perhaps what is discussed there will mean something more to you. I don't know how accurately the experience attempted with the instructions at this link emulates that offered by WordStar, but it might be worth trying as a project once you've worked your way around SuSE a bit. Nedit, the editor on which this is based, doesn't come with SuSE, but there is a SuSE RPM available.

http://rpm.pbone.net/index.php3/stat....i586.rpm.html

This in turn requires you to install a few other packages that also do not come with a standard installation of SuSE, which is why this would end up being a project. (My own system is missing openmotif-libs and libXm.so.3.) You can also find those packages via pbone.net in case you're interested at some point.