Linux....

[Resonance]

What do you guys think of it? I would expect there to be several computer literate users on here of a similar level to me. By that I mean not a computer wizard but not a "dummy" either. How many of you have run Linux and had a really great time with it, or just given up in plain dispair?

My experience is much summed up in this article http://www.freeos.com/articles/4830/ (well worth a read). Although I am not at the point of giving up yet, I have had several moments where I feel like doing so. To be honest, I want to run Linux just so that I have a second OS under my belt, and have access to a second operating system and some of the great software that it offers as well as the superior security and stability.

I am just confounded by the emperors new clothes like proclaimation that it is easy to use, when it often is not. Installation is painlessly simple, but installing software can often be a nightmare, from dependency hell, to cryptic error messages, to stuff downright not working, I am having a real hard time making getting to grips with it. Right now the books on Fedora Core 5 (the distro that I have at the moment) are scarce as the books are just being published.

I find that I am not satisfied with XP, dont really want to use OSX (and cant freaking afford it!) and Linux just confounds me.

I was just curious to find out what other peoples experiences with Linux are?

[Insom]

I must admit, my experiences were very similar to yours. Whilst I rarely have a chance to play about with more in-depth parts of linux I always have a distro on my lappy. I love how secure it is, and the software is just amazing. So much so that many years ago when I first started playing with it, I swapped to the windows versions of Gimp, OO, Firefox etc etc because I found them to be far superior to their MS versions.

I have to say though, that after trying all sorts of things out, when you finally do get that bit of software working, I feel most pleased with myself. I have learnt a lot over the past year or so by just faffing around with this and that in Linux. I wouldn't say I am a 'power user' yet, but I will say this, Windows is used only for games now. I do everything else on the computer in Linux (SuSE 10 x64 atm).

[kernow]

Been using slackware since 7.1, its on 11 nearly now.

Use Linux on all my pc's , I used to dual boot, but I dont need to any more.

I mean I have firefox 1.5.0.2 and all the other tools anyway and it suits me better, my NAT/Firewall/HTTP/FTP/DNS/DHCP/SSH/RSYNC box uses Linux too.

The people that find a need for it will find and use it eventually, the people that feel they have no need for it or that it is useless for them, wont. and never will.

been using it in work last week on a junker pc, to load balance brittany ferries websites, using a High availability / multiple director setup. If we wanted to do it with a piece of hardware, a intelligent application based switch would cost ?12,000 for the job, my debian disc was free.

so yeah, people will find a use, others will slag it off.

its just a big ball of putty that you can mould to do anything, it just depends how good your moulding skills are.

[oracle]

use ubuntu its friendly debian

[kernow]

Also, for some reason my girlfriends CMOS battery died in her PC , causing the windows C: partition to not boot any more. wtf?

I try booting in safe mode, try booting in normal mode, nope, not having it.

put the windows xp cd in and attempt a rescue command line, nope.. not fixing it.

get my gentoo system rescue disc out, boot from it, get a dhcp IP from my (linux) server upstairs, mount her NTFS c: partition, enable SSH, use rsync over SSH to sync all of her important data upstairs to my server. then reboot with the winxp cd in - ready for the dreaded reinstall...

I know most people have multiple parititons for OS and data, but my girl still likes to keep a crowded desktop full of stuff.. how would you rescue data normally without using such a disc? I am so used to using livecd's to rescue laptops etc I dont actually know the windows alternative - apart from formatting.

imagine having a windows laptop that wont boot , or wont repair with the winxp cd, but you still need data off it.. how ? Do some people take the drive out and put it in their main pc? or do they have a special rescue disc I dont know about.

everyone in technical environments has to know how to use both in my opinion.

else you're not being very technical

[kernow]

ubuntu would have been totally unsuitable for serving really. the debian 3.1 net install disc is 311MB installed and doesnt have Xorg or any WM's.. perfect.

The only bummer is that it still relies on the deprecated DEVFS and the System 5 init layout is not my favourite compared to slackwares BSD based layout.

use ubuntu its friendly debian

[Valken]

I run Gentoo and FreeBSD myself. The former for my "server" and the latter on an old piece of **** machine for tinkering about with.

Honestly, I don't think much of Linux as a desktop OS *yet*. It still needs a lot of work to be something that any old fecker can use like OSX. That said, it's ****ing cool to be able to seriously customise your system to suit your needs and make it unique.

If you have time to burn and want to mess around with computer but cba to learn how to program, then Linux is great.

[Resonance]

imagine having a windows laptop that wont boot , or wont repair with the winxp cd, but you still need data off it.. how ?...

Happened to my mate yesterday. Her PC XP install was totally futzed, safe mode would not work and she had 80% complete essays on it due for next week. Knoppix live CD to the rescue Managed to grab the files off the PC and email them to her (mounting my usb pen drive was not working on her laptop for some reason). Without it she would have been ****ed big time.

From the sounds of it, it is quite a common occurence at university.

The parts of Linux I know I love, it is just the difficulty of getting knowledge and wading through the confusing amount of jargon used to explain stuff. The barrier seems to be a bit higher then with windows.

My advice to her was just to get a Mac next time she gets a laptop. She can do everything she wants with it and it is likely to be less trouble. Linux is not quite there yet for me to suggest to a complete computer noob, but the default Suse 10.0 install is almost there.

[kernow]

true, kde is getting there on the desktop, but it all depends who's desktop it is hehe

KDE is the best we have as far as window managers go though, I installed suse 10 on a junker the other day and was quite impressed. anyone could do it. lovely installer and overall presentation from the minute you put the cd in, to when its booted. then you have kde though hehe.

too heavy for me is kde, fluxbox here.

gentoo is also awesome, my buddy swears by it, if I was to go anywhere from slackware it'd probably be gentoo, but my feeble dual p3 800e would suck compiling all day.

[Ish]

Oddly enough I hopped from Linux to Mac OSX because I love Unix but Linux is just too much hassle for a day to day machine. Oh and the PowerBook looked cool. I would never have even considered buying an Apple pre Mac OSX.

And funnily enough since I bought the Apple and started talking about it to friends they've bought them too.

Geek love of Unix + beautiful UI + beautiful kit. Its a geeks dream.

[kernow]

it is nice, but i couldnt move from slackware, plus I find getting all the extra functionality out of macos is more hassle, and its not cheap.

plus, the darwin layer of macos is pretty poor, it runs off a single kernel thread and could be improved quite a bit. looks nice on top though.

[Resonance]

I have just started using Gnome on Fedora and I like it. KDE is a bit too menu intensive. There are so many features it becomes a bit difficult to find what you want sometimes. I also found KDE to be a bit slow, WinXP with themes off runs better.

With my new Fedora install, I formatted it to ext2 and using a plug in that I found on sourceforge I can access the files through windows which is a big plus. Inter-OS file exchange is a plus when trying to learn new stuff.

[Resonance]

... looks nice on top though.

XGL is pretty swish. It looks great but they need to come up with a killer looking theme for linux and it would look sex

[Ish]

it is nice, but i couldnt move from slackware, plus I find getting all the extra functionality out of macos is more hassle, and its not cheap.

plus, the darwin layer of macos is pretty poor, it runs off a single kernel thread and could be improved quite a bit. looks nice on top though.

Yeah it could use a new kernel but I don't think that really effects it as a desktop OS.

I wouldn't even consider it as a server OS - Linux all the way there.

XGL is pretty swish. It looks great but they need to come up with a killer looking theme for linux and it would look sex

I don't think its the appearance of the desktop thats the problem for Linux. Its the inconsistency between apps, the fact you have multiple desktop choices, and the whole getting things to run.

Having said that I've not used it for a year. About to install it on my PC though as I need a Subversion server.

I'm also a bit more interested again now Mono is more mature.

[kernow]

its true, consistency is key, but when theres so much choice its hard.

a good example is the ".desktop" files you get on gnome and KDE, years ago these used to be totally different as no-one was agreeing on standards etc. but now if you look at them they are the same structure (only text files anyway), as both teams have decided its better to agree on a set standard.

basically, this means if you ever decide to change from gnome to kde etc, your desktop icons will all just work the same .. woot

*trivial*