Never been convinced by Windows? Here is a challenge for you. - Page 4

WHAAATTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT?????

IMO Linux GUI is way better as far as customization / personalization is concerned. The only GUI customizing feature in Vista I've found so far is changing the color scheme (excluding "well durr" items such as rearranging the start menu etc.). And Compiz Fusion allows you to do so much more. Compiz is PURE WIN!

I have a cheapass Presario with GMA something, GMA300 or something along those lines I think... it played movies just fine Compiz enabled. What did annoy me was that when moving the player, the video would just appear as a blue box and the system started lagging until I was done...

I have never had Linux crash on me (used Ubuntu, Kubuntu, OopenSUSE and Sabayon on different systems). I can't say the same for XP/Vista (the reason I finally went Linux was because Windows keeps freezing up and crashing on me. XP just locks up. Vista simply has to perform a 2-minute explorer.exe restart operation...) People have different experiences, but generally Linux seems more stable.

Who plays those games anyways?

Whatever codecs Linux doesn't haver out-of-box it's automatically fetched for me (apart from proprietary ones, which were easily installed with, if I recall correctly, 7 or so mouse clicks)... much easier than downloading some bloody codec packs for Windows

this thread made me LOL! Unfortunately ok at work and my boss probably thinks I'm nuts for laughing for no reason...

im a windows [erson, but in no way does the windows gui have more options than linux lol

ANYWAY
i read the first 8 words and gave up on the thread, im already a windows person, im trying to get into linux though, sucks though, took me 4 hours to figure out how to rebuild the grub to get my pther os's working

I wasn't talking about customization, I was talking about functionality. You know, like actually being able to do even the most basic things like mounting/reformating without having to type "mount ntfs-3g /dev/sda1 /media/disk1", or if you are mounting a new drive, "sudo mkdir /media/disk1" before it, or being able to copy files without having to do it through the command line using sudo. The difference I've found between Windows and Linux is that Windows allows you to use the command line, but prefers you to use the GUI, while linux allows you to use the GUI, but makes even the most basic tasks not just hard, but IMPOSSIBLE to do without the terminal. This is the thing thats really holding back linux. Yes, the command line is powerful, but its so outdated and painful to use compared to a GUI.


I've never had XP lock up for a non-OC related problem, not in the 6+ years I've been using it, and I've abused the hell out of it. I have seen some Vista issues though, usually related to OEM installations like Dells, but I'm thinking Vista 32bit in general. I've never had explorer crash on me in 64bit Vista.

With linux its hard to tell when something goes wrong, because when it does, it usually doesn't tell you. Instead, you first have to figure out that something went wrong, then you have to search through your entire system for the log file, which is doubly painful because the search function (at least with Gnome) DOESN'T EVEN WORK!!! After that, you have to google the problem, usually resulting in a thread somewhere with hundreds of other users having the same problem, and try and fix it. If its something important to the OS, like a video driver that went wrong, you usually end up doing a full reinstall because its better than spending 4+ hours debugging (writing from experiences with the fglrx drivers).


Don't get me wrong, I really do like linux. As a programmer I find the terminal extremely useful, and I enjoy the customization. But as a full time OS its a big fail. There are just too many things that can go wrong and screw up your OS, and for everyday use it just becomes a hassle to have to use the terminal, so I only use virtualization for my linux needs.

Good thread

I'd have to say some of your points are a little over dramatised but still some good points. I use XP Pro SP2 and it works ok for me, never got a blue screen but I wouldn't mind giving Linux a try... If its good enough to make people swear by it then it can't be to bad.

Umm... in ubuntu, I only have to hit the actual device in the file browser and it automatically mounts it for me. As a matter of fact, so far I've only used the command line for one thing I want to - downloading youtube videos. Me thinks command-line uToob d'loada is way kewl!

The GNOME search works very well for me, whereas the last time Vista crashed on me before I wiped it and installed Ubuntu happened during a search (twice, actually... I thought that the first time was one of those, you know, regular Windows crashed -jKz-, so I tried again, and boom, that's when I lost it).

As I said, I've never had to use Terminal for everyday stuff - and I use Linux for everyday stuff on regular basis. AFAIK you only need the Terminal for all sorts of advanced stuff, programmin etc. but that stuff I do in Windows anyways, so the Terminal has never gotten in my way.

But I know it's all a matter of preference, there are many things in Windows that I like better...

code a driver.

LOL

I think you meant "install a codec" which is an automated process and takes approximately 15 seconds.

The problem with people is that they don't take the 20-30 minutes to actually learn the operating system. You think when you first sat down on a windows box you knew exactly what you were doing?