2 months Linux

Everyone on here deserves a great big thanks for all the help you gave me getting into Linux. I realize now that I can't ever leave again after getting ticked of today why super+space was not getting me the menu. Seconds later I remembered why... windows computer. Even the Macs don't come close any more. I love everything that I can do with Linux. The terminal is great and now I find myself on windows/Macs and wanting to do something without spending time to find and just want to open a terminal and get started. I have a whole series of cute wallpaper in honor of Tux. My little sister just installed GIMP on the family Vista so that she could make 'sweet' photo edits like the ones I have. Now I want to try out Arch, just for the hell of it. Crunchbang is a total neat distro but I don't want to mess with it as its nice and stable right now, so its going to be virtual arch. So thanks again!

 

Cool...glad you hung in there!!

 

Great to see a satisfied customer Well put.

 

You'll use Linux until you have to do something actually useful where at that time you will return to Windows.

 

nahhhh....I totally work from Linux for a living....windows is just a game launcher

 

Not true. I've been told that before... but the fact is that I've gotten to the point where I'm much more productive in Linux than in Windows. Multiple desktops, customization, integration. Sure, I can put in a lot of effort and customize Windows to the point where it's pretty functional, but Linux beats the stuffings out of it. Web browsing, applications (especially the wide variety and integration), and oh, did I mention customization?

OP: Congratulations and continue to enjoy!

 

Sigh, troll much?

The first few months are always the hardest in a change.

 

S'ok just look at their sig, all the condescension one could ask for!

We should keep threads like this flameproof by not even acknowledging these types of responses, since they are irrelevant to the real discussion. I personally helped FarmersDaughter through a number of problems and am extremely happy that she's into Linux now and having a good time. Cheers.

 

Having played alot with Gentoo and Ubuntu and I can definitely say I can see iGrim's argument that Linux often does not step up when it matters most in times of productivity. Yes you can always get it to work. There's always somebody on some forum deep in google's cache that will lend you at least a hint of a tip on what you're trying to achieve.

But I believe basing one's serious productivity needs solely on Linux is a risky gamble and that's where I think the situation sucks.


For instance, dual monitoring has come leaps and bound from hand editing a somewhat cryptic Xorg.conf file, and yet I've been in a few situations where I or one of my professors was having problem with his presentation because it wasn't detecting the 2nd monitor ( projector ) correctly. Yes we could've fixed it in 5 or 10 minutes, but when you have an audience in front of you, it is somewhat embarassing and not the time for those things to happen.

Anybody dealing with regular, excel, word and powerpoint files cannot garantee that the file edited with O rg will turn out fine on a client's Office XP. Some will argue that it's a reverse engineered proprietary format and that just being able to do so much in O rg is already great. While that is true, the fact still remains that if your client has garbage and random artifacts in their documents, you're going to get in trouble with your boss.


Linux is extremely powerful and it is a great tool in an experienced users hands. On Gentoo, USE flags and the flexibility of portage is just ridiculous sometimes... However when on some mission critical stuff, I'm always weary of depending on Linux.


But nox, Windows BSoDs all the time because M$ is out for your children's soul !

Well that's a risk I'm willing to take .



Now I'm off to reinstall Grub and update my Gentoo since I put Windows 7 lately...

 

I won't risk losing my business data in windows. I DO use windows in linux via a virtual machine for some things, so in that respect, I guess I do use windows...I just don't reboot.

 

Arch Linux is awesome, you might just ditch Ubuntu.

 

Yep, I run a virtual machine (XP and Win7) for mundane stuff, and for hardcore Windoze or gaming, I boot.

I just might. Or Slackware sounds interesting.

 

Slackware just doesn't cut it for me, but Arch Linux borrows from it's philosophy so I guess they're pretty similar.

 

Well I been running linux now for almost 4 months full time. Ill be honest with you all, if it wasn't for the great help in these forums, (allurgroceries, zoid and others) I would have been harder to make the change. Now when I do have to work on my wife computer thats running vista, im like yuck this is so slow. I am happy I made the change, cedega keeps me going strong in my gaming department.

 

One of my friends who's long years AIX admin says:
'Unix is friendly OS, but is choosing his friends carefully" .... i'm glad you were befriended by great unix like OS Linux! ).

as sidenote:
Every OS has its niche where it excels, so yeah, Linux is not the answer for everything, same as Windows.
Linux desktop-wise is for everyone who is patient enough to learn new things. My father is 60 and last year tired of windows reinstallations at my parents i installed them Linux. My father is now happy user too! Why not, Linux is great for safe browsing, occasional text typing, mailing ...
Btw if there is problem, i just connect to my parents comp to running VNC service (of course through ssh tunnel to keep it safe) and can manage (to my parents admiration) things remotely )).

So .... yeah, Linux is great on Desktops too if you consider carefully what you want to use it for....

 

I teach at the university level and everything at my school requires that I use office 2007 anyway. I can use and do use openoffice for many tasks but some of the media management in Powerpoint 2007 just works better for what I do and it is easier to write a book-length document with Word. Also, I play a few games on steam and use the dual screen capabilities of windows to conveniently view media on my hd television (need hdmi sound via nvidia control panel). Because of those things I keep a windowsXP partition alive on my primary laptop. The operating system cost me only $30 and I wasn't forced to buy as I purchased an OSless whitebook.

Most everything else I do on Ubuntu-based distributions. I certainly keep all of my important data on my linux partition and I use crunchbang exclusively on my netbook which is what I am on most of the time. I needn't recount the advantages of running a feature-rich Linux distro or a distro that is scaled to your hardware in this subforum.

In other words, we have different tools available to us and a choice of if/how we are going to use them. Unless you see an ethical imperative binding you to the FOSS movement somehow, I don't see the point of saying that a person ought to use only Linux or only Windows. It's all about the purposes you are trying to achieve.

 

Do you have a guide for that? The less time I spend at my parent's house, the better.

 

So online courses aren't 'useful'? lol I know I'll have to go windows again for herd management but that's one computer and only once a week.

allurgroceries, I still can't thank you enough for all the help you gave me!

 

I would also like to know how...!

 

What about me Farmgirl?

 

For me it's Slackware or Ubuntu....it's great we have distro's for everybody...

 

The three distro's that gave birth to all the ones we have today are Debian, Red hat, and Slackware. But I find all three of the legendaries to be hard to use. I'm a sucker for usability but i hope to one day use them at least.