My 3rd Linux experience
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One Stone wrote: I prefer Firefox. So I installed it with apt-get (worked nicely), but when I started it I was't impressed again. It didn't use the current KDE theme, the options dialog is hidden in the "Edit" menu like in old times (they've fixed it in the Windows version a long time ago, here it sits in the "Tools", and yes it was the latest 1.0.4 version). Linux isn't made for Office users like you! Linux is for power users. Stay with Windows!
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Yesterday I tried the new Debian stable Sarge linux distro... But wait, first my two prior Linux experiences: The first Linux system I tried was a Suse distro a few years ago (v7 or so?). I was impressed by the graphical installer, but later more and more problems came up. I wanted to change the crappy black mouse cursor to a white one, like Windows has. But think of what? I couldn't find any dialog in KDE where you could configure the mouse cursor. I searched around in the internet a bit and found a detailed tutorial on how to set new mouse cursors. I downloaded a mouse cursor package having a neat white one and followed all steps in the tutorial. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, it just ignored what I did. A bit later, I thought about installing a graphics card driver for my card. I downloaded the Linux driver from the NVidia page and started the installer. Unfortunately, it couldn't install the driver, since it didn't have the kernel sources (I know, such drivers are compiled into the kernel on Linux somehow)... So I went to the Suse package wizard and tried to install the kernel sources, which of course, failed... So, live without smooth videos and even forget about any 3D games. Yet a bit later I found a nice program I wanted to try. I downloaded the package and tried to install it. It failed because of some other missing libraries (not many, just 4 or so). I downloaded those 4 and tried to install them, they are based on some other ones... A bit nervous, I downloaded those others too and tried to install those. Guess what? Version conflict. Some time after this, I tried a new distribution: Debian testing. As I've read, the testing edition shouldn't be that unstable and should have a nice package management system (APT), so I downloaded it and tried it. Its installer wasn't that nice like the Suse ones, but I don't care much about this anyway. After having installed KDE and Gnome by hand using apt-get (I like this package management system of Debian!), I first tried Gnome. Actually Gnome seems to be just a limited KDE... Of course, it was pretty fast, but just about everything was missing or not there, where it should be (for example, almost no configuration options??). I just didn't like it. So, tried KDE again. Unfortunately, the whole new KDE was pretty unstable. When you tried the "quick directory browser" in the KDE start menu, it just hangs when you don't connect to the internet. I don't always want to be online, just to have that crappy directory browser working... Related to this, I could on
One Stone wrote: Somewhat later I was shocked: the root user can't start a KDE environment anymore! WTF is this? Shouldn't the root also be able to start a graphical interface in order to configure the screen or other hardware for example? Must I, as a normal PC user, learn how to mess around with these crappy configuration text files? This was thought to be a security enhancement. The linux zellots will give you more hell on asking about this than posting a programming question in the lounge. They believe you should almost never be logged in as root. They would ask why would you want to do this when you can use su or kdesu? To fix this you have to edit /usr/kde/3.4/share/config/kdm/kdmrc and set AllowRootLogin to true. One Stone wrote: The more I try Linux, the more I like Windows... I would say just the opposit because of many things. Security, stability and the ease of upgrading are several of these reasons why I am moving to linux after being a windows user for 15 years. (Yes I do remember using Windows 2)... Although, I am not sure I can make a buck with linux. The 500K+ lines of MFC code that I have written will not port very easily... John
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I don't think too many people that frequent these message boards are simply "Office users" as you so eloquently put it.
Scott Lee wrote: I don't think too many people that frequent these message boards are simply "Office users" as you so eloquently put it. I would doubt there are many "Office Users" here -- I wouldn't even count my admin asst as just an Office User. Right now Linux is not up to scale in capabilities of real-time 3D graphics because its OpenGL performance is still low. Admitedly this is mostly driver issues, but then, so are most of Linux problems I have had. But that is the point. Windows has wider commercial support, Linux suffers more from adhoc and after-thought type approaches to problem solving. Without 1st order support from hardware manufacturers Linux is most stable with older hardware. This has nothing to do with Office use, or even Open Source specifically. However, this is getting better. Although bug fixes on Linux drivers from nVidia trail windows, the company is doing co-releases on drivers. THAT is the only way Linux can survive, if every company does this. If I buy a 3D object scanner for work, chances are it will only run on SGI Irix, or Windows. 3D modelling software might open up OS/X, but for the most part Linux suffers from lack of industry support. That is real, not imaginary. I don't consider it justified to say "oh you can live without that because Linux is better". We are going cross-platform at work, because of a Linux requirement from a customer. However, I am making it fully cross-platform so that we can open up OS/X and return to Unix based systems from which I started the project over 10 years ago. I figure the choice is worth the port, then I don't have to worry wether Linux or Windows survives, I am primed for either, plus some others. _________________________ Asu no koto o ieba, tenjo de nezumi ga warau. Talk about things of tomorrow and the mice in the ceiling laugh. (Japanese Proverb)
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Yesterday I tried the new Debian stable Sarge linux distro... But wait, first my two prior Linux experiences: The first Linux system I tried was a Suse distro a few years ago (v7 or so?). I was impressed by the graphical installer, but later more and more problems came up. I wanted to change the crappy black mouse cursor to a white one, like Windows has. But think of what? I couldn't find any dialog in KDE where you could configure the mouse cursor. I searched around in the internet a bit and found a detailed tutorial on how to set new mouse cursors. I downloaded a mouse cursor package having a neat white one and followed all steps in the tutorial. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, it just ignored what I did. A bit later, I thought about installing a graphics card driver for my card. I downloaded the Linux driver from the NVidia page and started the installer. Unfortunately, it couldn't install the driver, since it didn't have the kernel sources (I know, such drivers are compiled into the kernel on Linux somehow)... So I went to the Suse package wizard and tried to install the kernel sources, which of course, failed... So, live without smooth videos and even forget about any 3D games. Yet a bit later I found a nice program I wanted to try. I downloaded the package and tried to install it. It failed because of some other missing libraries (not many, just 4 or so). I downloaded those 4 and tried to install them, they are based on some other ones... A bit nervous, I downloaded those others too and tried to install those. Guess what? Version conflict. Some time after this, I tried a new distribution: Debian testing. As I've read, the testing edition shouldn't be that unstable and should have a nice package management system (APT), so I downloaded it and tried it. Its installer wasn't that nice like the Suse ones, but I don't care much about this anyway. After having installed KDE and Gnome by hand using apt-get (I like this package management system of Debian!), I first tried Gnome. Actually Gnome seems to be just a limited KDE... Of course, it was pretty fast, but just about everything was missing or not there, where it should be (for example, almost no configuration options??). I just didn't like it. So, tried KDE again. Unfortunately, the whole new KDE was pretty unstable. When you tried the "quick directory browser" in the KDE start menu, it just hangs when you don't connect to the internet. I don't always want to be online, just to have that crappy directory browser working... Related to this, I could on
We have Suse 9.2 installed on one of our machines, but I've just not had the time to take more than a glance at it. First impressions are that it still takes way too long to configure (by which I mean drivers etc.) out of the box and requires too much knowledge of the command line for everyday tasks. I've not had time to play with development systems on it yet, so that saga still awaits... Anna :rose: Riverblade Ltd - Software Consultancy Services Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
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One Stone wrote: I prefer Firefox. So I installed it with apt-get (worked nicely), but when I started it I was't impressed again. It didn't use the current KDE theme, the options dialog is hidden in the "Edit" menu like in old times (they've fixed it in the Windows version a long time ago, here it sits in the "Tools", and yes it was the latest 1.0.4 version). Linux isn't made for Office users like you! Linux is for power users. Stay with Windows!
Now where did I put that red hot poker?? :evil grin: Anna :rose: Riverblade Ltd - Software Consultancy Services Anna's Place | Tears and Laughter "Be yourself - not what others think you should be" - Marcia Graesch "Anna's just a sexy-looking lesbian tart" - A friend, trying to wind me up. It didn't work.
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Redhat is better but I'm in the same situation. The tigress is here :-D
In my opinion the best distro is gentoo. This is not for the average windows user as you must really learn a lot of linux just to get it running as there is no installer at all. You boot into linux off a live cd and have to run shell commands to partition your disks, edit config files, and then build and install the software, and hardware... But then when you get it up and running to install a program you type emerge . The system goes and downloads the program and all its dependencies for you and builds it from the source customized to the many use settings you have in your system. Then to update a package emerge -u . In the package database there are over 100K entries so there is way more software directly available than any other distro I know. To update your whole system emerge -uDv world. John
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Yesterday I tried the new Debian stable Sarge linux distro... But wait, first my two prior Linux experiences: The first Linux system I tried was a Suse distro a few years ago (v7 or so?). I was impressed by the graphical installer, but later more and more problems came up. I wanted to change the crappy black mouse cursor to a white one, like Windows has. But think of what? I couldn't find any dialog in KDE where you could configure the mouse cursor. I searched around in the internet a bit and found a detailed tutorial on how to set new mouse cursors. I downloaded a mouse cursor package having a neat white one and followed all steps in the tutorial. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, it just ignored what I did. A bit later, I thought about installing a graphics card driver for my card. I downloaded the Linux driver from the NVidia page and started the installer. Unfortunately, it couldn't install the driver, since it didn't have the kernel sources (I know, such drivers are compiled into the kernel on Linux somehow)... So I went to the Suse package wizard and tried to install the kernel sources, which of course, failed... So, live without smooth videos and even forget about any 3D games. Yet a bit later I found a nice program I wanted to try. I downloaded the package and tried to install it. It failed because of some other missing libraries (not many, just 4 or so). I downloaded those 4 and tried to install them, they are based on some other ones... A bit nervous, I downloaded those others too and tried to install those. Guess what? Version conflict. Some time after this, I tried a new distribution: Debian testing. As I've read, the testing edition shouldn't be that unstable and should have a nice package management system (APT), so I downloaded it and tried it. Its installer wasn't that nice like the Suse ones, but I don't care much about this anyway. After having installed KDE and Gnome by hand using apt-get (I like this package management system of Debian!), I first tried Gnome. Actually Gnome seems to be just a limited KDE... Of course, it was pretty fast, but just about everything was missing or not there, where it should be (for example, almost no configuration options??). I just didn't like it. So, tried KDE again. Unfortunately, the whole new KDE was pretty unstable. When you tried the "quick directory browser" in the KDE start menu, it just hangs when you don't connect to the internet. I don't always want to be online, just to have that crappy directory browser working... Related to this, I could on
I do admit that some of these reasons are things that I saw when I tried redhat, correl, mandrake, susi... But with gentoo I don't see any of these problems. Well except for the root not being able to login at the gui login. At home I do not have it boot directly into X so this was not a problem for me until I updated a workstation at work... It took me about 5 minutes on the gentoo fourms to find the solution I do admit the original poster got flammed for asking the question... John
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Yesterday I tried the new Debian stable Sarge linux distro... But wait, first my two prior Linux experiences: The first Linux system I tried was a Suse distro a few years ago (v7 or so?). I was impressed by the graphical installer, but later more and more problems came up. I wanted to change the crappy black mouse cursor to a white one, like Windows has. But think of what? I couldn't find any dialog in KDE where you could configure the mouse cursor. I searched around in the internet a bit and found a detailed tutorial on how to set new mouse cursors. I downloaded a mouse cursor package having a neat white one and followed all steps in the tutorial. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, it just ignored what I did. A bit later, I thought about installing a graphics card driver for my card. I downloaded the Linux driver from the NVidia page and started the installer. Unfortunately, it couldn't install the driver, since it didn't have the kernel sources (I know, such drivers are compiled into the kernel on Linux somehow)... So I went to the Suse package wizard and tried to install the kernel sources, which of course, failed... So, live without smooth videos and even forget about any 3D games. Yet a bit later I found a nice program I wanted to try. I downloaded the package and tried to install it. It failed because of some other missing libraries (not many, just 4 or so). I downloaded those 4 and tried to install them, they are based on some other ones... A bit nervous, I downloaded those others too and tried to install those. Guess what? Version conflict. Some time after this, I tried a new distribution: Debian testing. As I've read, the testing edition shouldn't be that unstable and should have a nice package management system (APT), so I downloaded it and tried it. Its installer wasn't that nice like the Suse ones, but I don't care much about this anyway. After having installed KDE and Gnome by hand using apt-get (I like this package management system of Debian!), I first tried Gnome. Actually Gnome seems to be just a limited KDE... Of course, it was pretty fast, but just about everything was missing or not there, where it should be (for example, almost no configuration options??). I just didn't like it. So, tried KDE again. Unfortunately, the whole new KDE was pretty unstable. When you tried the "quick directory browser" in the KDE start menu, it just hangs when you don't connect to the internet. I don't always want to be online, just to have that crappy directory browser working... Related to this, I could on
One Stone wrote: The more I try Linux, the more I like Windows... I like to develop not play the seemingly constant configuration game. :mad: On the other hand if you can actually manage to get knoppix[^] to download it’s worth the time. Just download the ISO and burn it to CD pop it in reboot and away you go. On my newer machines it booted them without too much trouble. Best of all I don’t have to worry about it changing anything with windows, as it doesn’t install. Everything is run from the CD. If you want to save anything you will need a FAT drive / partition, as it cant write to NTFS. :) -------------------------------
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Yesterday I tried the new Debian stable Sarge linux distro... But wait, first my two prior Linux experiences: The first Linux system I tried was a Suse distro a few years ago (v7 or so?). I was impressed by the graphical installer, but later more and more problems came up. I wanted to change the crappy black mouse cursor to a white one, like Windows has. But think of what? I couldn't find any dialog in KDE where you could configure the mouse cursor. I searched around in the internet a bit and found a detailed tutorial on how to set new mouse cursors. I downloaded a mouse cursor package having a neat white one and followed all steps in the tutorial. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, it just ignored what I did. A bit later, I thought about installing a graphics card driver for my card. I downloaded the Linux driver from the NVidia page and started the installer. Unfortunately, it couldn't install the driver, since it didn't have the kernel sources (I know, such drivers are compiled into the kernel on Linux somehow)... So I went to the Suse package wizard and tried to install the kernel sources, which of course, failed... So, live without smooth videos and even forget about any 3D games. Yet a bit later I found a nice program I wanted to try. I downloaded the package and tried to install it. It failed because of some other missing libraries (not many, just 4 or so). I downloaded those 4 and tried to install them, they are based on some other ones... A bit nervous, I downloaded those others too and tried to install those. Guess what? Version conflict. Some time after this, I tried a new distribution: Debian testing. As I've read, the testing edition shouldn't be that unstable and should have a nice package management system (APT), so I downloaded it and tried it. Its installer wasn't that nice like the Suse ones, but I don't care much about this anyway. After having installed KDE and Gnome by hand using apt-get (I like this package management system of Debian!), I first tried Gnome. Actually Gnome seems to be just a limited KDE... Of course, it was pretty fast, but just about everything was missing or not there, where it should be (for example, almost no configuration options??). I just didn't like it. So, tried KDE again. Unfortunately, the whole new KDE was pretty unstable. When you tried the "quick directory browser" in the KDE start menu, it just hangs when you don't connect to the internet. I don't always want to be online, just to have that crappy directory browser working... Related to this, I could on
True that, some how i had a freakishly similair experience with linux, i tried mandrake, worked out till i wanted to install a program were i had to download like 10 libraries to play a simple game, another problem was there was no sound!!! i tried everything got help, didn't work out, a couple years later i got into linux again thinking maybe they fixed it up, so i tried it again, this time like v10.1 or so and then i installed pretty good, sound worked although it was still messed up, worked great till i found out that no games worked on the os (3d) 2d games were getting boring!! God!!! so i rebooted to get to windows!!! guess what, when i was partitioning the thing wrote over my ntfs partition of windows!!! im like wtf!!!! there was no windows on my comp!!! dunno what happened cause i clearly stated to partition a part of my d drive, windows was on c so how that happened only He knows, so i just gave up using linux, don't even bother with it, especially after that incident, had no back-ups or anything too!! so i had to start from nothing!! IM PROUD TO BE A GMAIL;
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One Stone wrote: Somewhat later I was shocked: the root user can't start a KDE environment anymore! WTF is this? Shouldn't the root also be able to start a graphical interface in order to configure the screen or other hardware for example? Must I, as a normal PC user, learn how to mess around with these crappy configuration text files? This was thought to be a security enhancement. The linux zellots will give you more hell on asking about this than posting a programming question in the lounge. They believe you should almost never be logged in as root. They would ask why would you want to do this when you can use su or kdesu? To fix this you have to edit /usr/kde/3.4/share/config/kdm/kdmrc and set AllowRootLogin to true. One Stone wrote: The more I try Linux, the more I like Windows... I would say just the opposit because of many things. Security, stability and the ease of upgrading are several of these reasons why I am moving to linux after being a windows user for 15 years. (Yes I do remember using Windows 2)... Although, I am not sure I can make a buck with linux. The 500K+ lines of MFC code that I have written will not port very easily... John
But with Wine, you can still write MFC code using VC6... :) In fact, all of the apps I've written for windows run fine through Wine. ------- sig starts "I've heard some drivers saying, 'We're going too fast here...'. If you're not here to race, go the hell home - don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Why don't you tie a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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One Stone wrote: I prefer Firefox. So I installed it with apt-get (worked nicely), but when I started it I was't impressed again. It didn't use the current KDE theme, the options dialog is hidden in the "Edit" menu like in old times (they've fixed it in the Windows version a long time ago, here it sits in the "Tools", and yes it was the latest 1.0.4 version). Linux isn't made for Office users like you! Linux is for power users. Stay with Windows!
CP Visitor wrote: Linux is for power users. Or masochists, take your pick. ;P
Paul Lyons, CCPL
Certified Code Project Lurker -
Yesterday I tried the new Debian stable Sarge linux distro... But wait, first my two prior Linux experiences: The first Linux system I tried was a Suse distro a few years ago (v7 or so?). I was impressed by the graphical installer, but later more and more problems came up. I wanted to change the crappy black mouse cursor to a white one, like Windows has. But think of what? I couldn't find any dialog in KDE where you could configure the mouse cursor. I searched around in the internet a bit and found a detailed tutorial on how to set new mouse cursors. I downloaded a mouse cursor package having a neat white one and followed all steps in the tutorial. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, it just ignored what I did. A bit later, I thought about installing a graphics card driver for my card. I downloaded the Linux driver from the NVidia page and started the installer. Unfortunately, it couldn't install the driver, since it didn't have the kernel sources (I know, such drivers are compiled into the kernel on Linux somehow)... So I went to the Suse package wizard and tried to install the kernel sources, which of course, failed... So, live without smooth videos and even forget about any 3D games. Yet a bit later I found a nice program I wanted to try. I downloaded the package and tried to install it. It failed because of some other missing libraries (not many, just 4 or so). I downloaded those 4 and tried to install them, they are based on some other ones... A bit nervous, I downloaded those others too and tried to install those. Guess what? Version conflict. Some time after this, I tried a new distribution: Debian testing. As I've read, the testing edition shouldn't be that unstable and should have a nice package management system (APT), so I downloaded it and tried it. Its installer wasn't that nice like the Suse ones, but I don't care much about this anyway. After having installed KDE and Gnome by hand using apt-get (I like this package management system of Debian!), I first tried Gnome. Actually Gnome seems to be just a limited KDE... Of course, it was pretty fast, but just about everything was missing or not there, where it should be (for example, almost no configuration options??). I just didn't like it. So, tried KDE again. Unfortunately, the whole new KDE was pretty unstable. When you tried the "quick directory browser" in the KDE start menu, it just hangs when you don't connect to the internet. I don't always want to be online, just to have that crappy directory browser working... Related to this, I could on
I'm currently on my 6th or 7th attempt at using Linux, and I think I finally found the right distro - Ubuntu (debian-based). This is the very first distro that has installed without a single hitch for me. In ALL prior attempts, I could not connect to the internet without completely reconfiguring the network stuff. Most distros had a difficult time with the fact that my on-board NIC card had been disabled in the BIOS so that I could use my preferred PCI NIC card. They always wanted to use ETH0, and my NIC card was always ETH1. What a pain in the ass. I have always been a KDE fan in the past, but Gnome is just plain faster. Ubuntu only comes with Gnome (a KDE version - Kubuntu - is also available). I also finally succeeded in getting the ATI 3D accelerated drivers successfully loaded in a Linux distro (and I'm talking binary drivers with no need to re-compile the kernel). Firefox is installed by default on Ubuntu as well. I don't remember right off, but I could swear I have a white mouse cursor too. :) ------- sig starts "I've heard some drivers saying, 'We're going too fast here...'. If you're not here to race, go the hell home - don't come here and grumble about going too fast. Why don't you tie a kerosene rag around your ankles so the ants won't climb up and eat your candy ass..." - Dale Earnhardt "...the staggering layers of obscenity in your statement make it a work of art on so many levels." - Jason Jystad, 10/26/2001
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Yesterday I tried the new Debian stable Sarge linux distro... But wait, first my two prior Linux experiences: The first Linux system I tried was a Suse distro a few years ago (v7 or so?). I was impressed by the graphical installer, but later more and more problems came up. I wanted to change the crappy black mouse cursor to a white one, like Windows has. But think of what? I couldn't find any dialog in KDE where you could configure the mouse cursor. I searched around in the internet a bit and found a detailed tutorial on how to set new mouse cursors. I downloaded a mouse cursor package having a neat white one and followed all steps in the tutorial. Guess what? Exactly nothing happened, it just ignored what I did. A bit later, I thought about installing a graphics card driver for my card. I downloaded the Linux driver from the NVidia page and started the installer. Unfortunately, it couldn't install the driver, since it didn't have the kernel sources (I know, such drivers are compiled into the kernel on Linux somehow)... So I went to the Suse package wizard and tried to install the kernel sources, which of course, failed... So, live without smooth videos and even forget about any 3D games. Yet a bit later I found a nice program I wanted to try. I downloaded the package and tried to install it. It failed because of some other missing libraries (not many, just 4 or so). I downloaded those 4 and tried to install them, they are based on some other ones... A bit nervous, I downloaded those others too and tried to install those. Guess what? Version conflict. Some time after this, I tried a new distribution: Debian testing. As I've read, the testing edition shouldn't be that unstable and should have a nice package management system (APT), so I downloaded it and tried it. Its installer wasn't that nice like the Suse ones, but I don't care much about this anyway. After having installed KDE and Gnome by hand using apt-get (I like this package management system of Debian!), I first tried Gnome. Actually Gnome seems to be just a limited KDE... Of course, it was pretty fast, but just about everything was missing or not there, where it should be (for example, almost no configuration options??). I just didn't like it. So, tried KDE again. Unfortunately, the whole new KDE was pretty unstable. When you tried the "quick directory browser" in the KDE start menu, it just hangs when you don't connect to the internet. I don't always want to be online, just to have that crappy directory browser working... Related to this, I could on
I will agree with you that Linux is much harder to setup than Windows, but its because it appeals to a different crowd. If Linux were designed for Grandma's everywhere, then it would be as easy to install as Windows. I think Fedora does a good job, every time I've set it up I've had few problems. I use Gentoo on my machines however. Once you get linux setup, I perfer it much more to Windows. There are no CD's to find, install, you just download the latest version from the internet via a simple command (emerge program_name). You can update your whole collection in one command and you get free software that rivials products for Windows. Linux is great for development too, I think the IDE is good, not quite all of the features of VS.NET, but most places are still using VS98, which Kdevelop easily beats. Plus there are so many available libraries and programs to build your code more quickly. You look on this site and you will see lots of SMTP code... not needed on Linux, just use sendmail. Linux runs much faster than Windows (except for some bloated distros like Fedora, my kernel is 2 mb in Gentoo vs 66 mb in Fedora), especially once you get your spyware and oversized registry on there. On best thing about Linux though, is the Wireless support. It is a pain in the ass to setup, but once you set it up it works. Unlike my Windows XP which would randomly connect distant access points it couldn't get any reception to and then kill my internet leaving my trying reconfigure for my old access point. In Linux I just tell is my essid and it connects and stays connected. Plus I don't have the anoying hiss on my portable phones that Windows XP causes when it randomly searches for weaker access points. Another great thing is how modular it is. In KDE every program uses KIOSlaves for reading. Which means ANY kde program can open files directly off of FTP sites, webdav, etc. Which makes it great for editing, and you can use your favourite editor not some crappy program you live with because of one feature. One that sticks out in my head is how Interdev has replace in files support and MSDEV does not. I have opened Interdev to get this feature for C++ projects enough times! Oh and I don't have to talk to some stupid dog everytime I want to search. And when I say don't save my password, it uh.. doesn't save my password *cough*msn*cough*.
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I will agree with you that Linux is much harder to setup than Windows, but its because it appeals to a different crowd. If Linux were designed for Grandma's everywhere, then it would be as easy to install as Windows. I think Fedora does a good job, every time I've set it up I've had few problems. I use Gentoo on my machines however. Once you get linux setup, I perfer it much more to Windows. There are no CD's to find, install, you just download the latest version from the internet via a simple command (emerge program_name). You can update your whole collection in one command and you get free software that rivials products for Windows. Linux is great for development too, I think the IDE is good, not quite all of the features of VS.NET, but most places are still using VS98, which Kdevelop easily beats. Plus there are so many available libraries and programs to build your code more quickly. You look on this site and you will see lots of SMTP code... not needed on Linux, just use sendmail. Linux runs much faster than Windows (except for some bloated distros like Fedora, my kernel is 2 mb in Gentoo vs 66 mb in Fedora), especially once you get your spyware and oversized registry on there. On best thing about Linux though, is the Wireless support. It is a pain in the ass to setup, but once you set it up it works. Unlike my Windows XP which would randomly connect distant access points it couldn't get any reception to and then kill my internet leaving my trying reconfigure for my old access point. In Linux I just tell is my essid and it connects and stays connected. Plus I don't have the anoying hiss on my portable phones that Windows XP causes when it randomly searches for weaker access points. Another great thing is how modular it is. In KDE every program uses KIOSlaves for reading. Which means ANY kde program can open files directly off of FTP sites, webdav, etc. Which makes it great for editing, and you can use your favourite editor not some crappy program you live with because of one feature. One that sticks out in my head is how Interdev has replace in files support and MSDEV does not. I have opened Interdev to get this feature for C++ projects enough times! Oh and I don't have to talk to some stupid dog everytime I want to search. And when I say don't save my password, it uh.. doesn't save my password *cough*msn*cough*.
I'm curious as to why people keep saying Windows is easy to set up. The proverbial parental unit's parent would not be able to install Windows either. Mention the term driver to one of them and they'll ask why you're talking about golf when you're working on the computer. For myself, I find Linux easier to set up, especially on hardware that's 6 months+ old. At that point, nearly all the drivers you need are built into a current distro, and you're off and running. With Windows, I wind up using another PC to download an ethernet driver. Then I can get online to download my video driver, but the screen's still in some ridiculously low resolution so web surfing is oh so fun. Then I can get everything else normally. Oh, but then I still have to install all my programs, which under Linux I could've done as part of the base install. I'm not saying Linux is the end all be all (that's OS X j/k, sort-of ;-) ), but I do think you need to really compare it without the preset mind of how things "should be" based on using Windows (*cough* white cursor *cough* :-D ). Look at Linux from the point of view of someone who doesn't know Windows computers inside and out, then look at Windows the same way, and I'll bet your opinions might change a bit.