Ok, who actually uses it? Own up now... come on....
I hear all this stuff on the net about 'everyone' changing over, but i don't actually know anyone. I'm not trying not knock Linux here, i'm actually seriously considering jumping ship myself. I just don't want to get involved in a 'Beta-Max' OS. I'm not going to put another penny into Microsofts pocket! I know that much, i've truely had it with those suckaz now.
Few questions.
Is it easier to use now? I used it about 6 or 7 years ago at work. It was great, just so long as you were a programmer. I just want a simple OS that WORKS to run on my home PC for simple things like surfing the Net, some picture editing, perhaps some web design and, at some stage, to run a Recording studio? Any NON techies out there using it yet??
Originally posted by Marinkatombi'm definitely a nontechie and i use it. i think now we have a lot of user friendly linux distributions. the one i use is paipix but actually a friend of mine was the one who install it.
Ok, who actually uses it? Own up now... come on....
I hear all this stuff on the net about 'everyone' changing over, but i don't actually know anyone. I'm not trying not knock Linux here, i'm actually seriously considering jumping ship myself. I just don't want to get involved in a 'Beta-Max' OS. I'm not going to put another penny into Microsof ...[text shortened]... some stage, to run a Recording studio? Any [b]NON techies out there using it yet??[/b]
i think that ubuntu is another nice distribution too.
Originally posted by MarinkatombYou can start off by trying a live-disc system. You download it, burn it
Ok, who actually uses it? Own up now... come on....
I hear all this stuff on the net about 'everyone' changing over, but i don't actually know anyone. I'm not trying not knock Linux here, i'm actually seriously considering jumping ship myself. I just don't want to get involved in a 'Beta-Max' OS. I'm not going to put another penny into Microsof some stage, to run a Recording studio? Any [b]NON techies out there using it yet??[/b]
to a disc and boot your computer from the CD/DVD-drive. You'll know
then if your computer is supported (all the drivers exist) and you can try
it out without actually uninstalling windows. If you like it, there's usually
an install program that will make it very easy for you to install it on the
harddrive.
Google on "linux live disc" and you'll find a lot of them. Knoppix is a
good bet, but gnome has a nice one too.
Here's a list of live CD's. You'd be interested in the ones used for
desktop purposes:
http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php
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Originally posted by stocken(Techie) ^^^
You can start off by trying a live-disc system. You download it, burn it
to a disc and boot your computer from the CD/DVD-drive. You'll know then if
your computer is supported (all the drivers exist) and you can try it out
without actually uninstalling windows. If you like it, there's usually an install
program that will make it very easy for you to ...[text shortened]... disc" and you'll find a lot of them. Knoppix is a good
bet, but gnome has a nice one too.
Originally posted by RussMe too. Linux still isn't there yet for me.
Despite developing for Linux, I still use XP for my desktop. Shocking, I know. 😉
-Russ
I don't know it too well, even used it in varsity, but it never proved to be a better desktop system than the MS offerings.
I have Fedora installed on an old PC - that wouldn't run XP well anymore, because even though I don't rate it highly, I still want to learn more about it.
At the end of the day it depends on what you want to do with your PC. A text editor, Apache with MySQL and PHP runs just as nice on XP as it does on any *nix distro, so why use Linux for dev work?
There is a plethora of apps, games and software that only runs on MS operating systems and I believe that if you want to use your machine for gaming - XP (and now Vista) is really the only way to go - I might be wrong, I don't play games...
Also, I can't see Linux take over the workplace anytime soon. Too many office workers will cry when they can't open sol.exe 😉
I have Ubuntu and xp dual booted on this pooter - I mostly use xp though as I am a complete n00b with Linux.
Anyone who wants a free cd of ubuntu, you can have them send you a few [or more if you want] from this site.
All legal btw.
https://shipit.ubuntu.com/login
ps. They even pay the postage.
Used it since '95.
Windows will be easier because you know it but I have one Windows machine at the office which I find completely illogical and totally irritating so to some extent it's what you are used to.
To directly address your needs though, web surfing is fine using firefox. Image editing is pretty good these days too. "The Gimp" is very powerful though "Photoshop" out does it on colour management, 16 bit manipulation, adjustment layers and, of course, price. These are, mostly addressed (apart from price) with the rather cool "Krita" application though. Raw files are exceptionally well handled with "bibble" (not free) or "Digikam" and "dcraw" The real gem though is for music recording on Linux. Ardour is a professional class recording application with as many mixer channels, effects, knobs and sliders as you could possibly want, Rosegarden is a superb sequencer and score writer and "Jamin" is a quite outstanding mastering tool that is of sufficient quality to master to glass. oooh and these all plug into each other with the excellent "Jack" patch panel application. There are professional recording studios built around these apps and they are all free.
Having said that, some of these apps are not there out of the box and you will have to learn to build some of them from source code. Generally this isn't as tough as it sounds and leaves you with a much more stable system but you might not want to make the effort to learn it all.
As stocken says though, give it a go, you won't lose anything. Just be aware that it IS different than what you are used to.
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Oh... MUCH MUCH better. I still won't say the GUI is on par with Windows but it's very very acceptable, generally.
I recommend Ubuntu.
I use it for my primary environment at work. I'm a software developer in Java and Oracle databases. For the most part Java has always been platform agnostic so almost all of my tools work in Linux too exactly as they do on Windows. Database stuff too, is also agnostic. I do have a secondary machine that has Windows on it that I use for some Microsoft IIS (web server) stuff (yuck) and the occasional Office document that OpenOffice doesn't do well on. And Visio documents which there isn't really a Linux alternative.
In most cases, I don't even switch to the Windows machine, rather i use Remote Desktop...
That and Ubuntu is a dream to install. No kidding. It's not like the old days at all.
My advice to you, is if you want to check it out, download the free VMWare server. Install that onto Windows and then simply install Ubuntu into a Virtual Machine. Mind you, the GUI inside the VM will be a little bit "jumpy" because it's in a VM but it's a great way to "try before you buy". And you don't even have to burn an install CD then. The VM lets you mount an .ISO image and use that as the "virtual" CD drive. If you aren't interested then, dump the VM, uninstall VMWare and no damage done.
Also, Kubuntu is like Ubuntu but with a different GUI. It's a little less refined but more Windows like... I used it first but then switched because I liked Ubuntu better.
BTW, that's http://www.ubuntu.com/ (.com, not .org -- That takes you somewhere else)