For me to do something with just a button is too boring. I like codes, terminal and using my brain. For me computing is learning about how it works and what comes together to make it work, that is why i like linux.

There is a solution for those of us who want to run desktop Unix while waiting for Linux to catch up – Mac OS X!

I work with Linux and run 2 servers at home (the distros if thats important are Knoppix and Fedora3) I use Redhat 9 at work.

He’s dead right, I can plug some (random piece of harware) into my Win XP laptop and it works.

I always have to compile something or other to get it to work under linux. Fine for me. I undestand why this is, and sure I’ll get round to writing the code eventually.

but I wouldn’t suggest my Mother used *any* linux distro.

1. I need photoshop, there is nothing like it for linux.
2. I need a decent PHP editor, I have not found a decent linux one.

I can use and configure Linux systems fine, thing is, I don’t really want to spend hours every day just to get my internal or ADSL modems working…

More information can be found here.

Both Windows and Linux have their merits and I have found that once people get a working Linux system up and running then they don’t go back to Windows unless there is a specific app that they really need. I am sure when you first started using Windows you didn’t just dive right in and get working. It took time to learn. Same goes for Linux.

Too many people assume that just because they know about computers and Windows that they can go into another OS (and different paradigm) I might add and get started right away. Some can, some can’t. Hopefully down the road you give it another chance.

For my own sanity you might also wanna checkout the new distro on the block, Ubuntu.

Linux may be free GNU project, but in terms of time and effort, it’s just not worth it for the desktop user.

I’m a 22 year-old guy who wants to learning more about computers. Driven by such a desire, I decided to try out Fedora Core 2 on my PC.

Since that fateful moment a few days ago, every simple process has turned into a ridiculous ordeal.

It took me two hours to download special rpms to configure my network card for the Internet, even though under Windows it works right off the bat.

It took me about four hours to figure out that I had to download an NTFS rpm and edit FSTAB just to access files on my windows volume.

It took several hours of downloading rpms and gzips files to UNSUCESSFULLY install xine and the XMMS mp3 plugin so that I could just listen to mp3’s and watch videos. Installing the mp3s gave me cryptic error messages, saying that I had to install several dependecies, which THEN in turn gave me more error in that I did not specify the CC parameters.

I finally threw in the towel after typing in
# chmod -R 777 /mnt/windows
allowed me to temporarily give non-root users access to Windows volume files, which then reset their permissions to being unaccessable about two minutes later.

I’ve had it. I’m going back to windows where I can actually get things done, not spend hours configuring my OS.

Maybe Red Hat Fedora Linux 2 is a shitty distro. I’m sure some Linux users will say that I didn’t try hard enough, or that I’m simply an idiot. So be it.

I’m sick and tired of jumping through hoops just so that I can listen to music or even access documents from my Windows partition. I don’t have the patience or the time to tinker around with ridiculous workarounds, and I doubt any normal person does, either.

I’m sure that Linux has made a lot of progress towards being a user-friend operating system. But from my experience, I think it’s fair to say that it’s still got a loooooooooong way to go.

OSX and BeOS both have good guis, if your unsure about beos take a look at this image:

http://www.yellowtab.com/products/screens/system/hi/screen4.png

Thats actually Zeta (beos6 beta with new open source components) but it still looks the same.

Linux != Desktop

I totally agree Wolf. Until Linux can boast a single, unified UI it will always fail to accumulate desktop OS market share.

Don’t get me wrong, I love Linux – I run it on all my servers. It’s an incredibly powerful OS with a software catalogue that can accommodate just about any conceivable task. But, in order to get the most from it (and enjoy some degree of consistency) one has to stay in the shell.

Good Unix GUIs exist (Mac OS X), there’s really no excuse.

Ok, first off I hate linux. Not because its not Microsoft or because it doesn’t run some of the software I need but because it is simply too complex.

People are always talking about Linux being flexable (50 window managers, 100 ways to do this and 500 ways to do that) but they never stop to think about the common user who just wants to get a job done, thats me. I found that this made Linux a very unproductive environment to work in, and thats not counting the shoddy program support and help files.

I think the ultimate system would be something like BeOS with its simple and productive gui and unix style console.