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Or: you go for Linux and get rid of that M$-Windows mess

no92 wrote:Or: you go for Linux and get rid of that M$-Windows mess

I've tried about a dozen flavors of Linux, and I'm just done fiddling around with it. Tired of having to update my system every week, crashing during updates, glitchy and slow drivers, having to type my password repeatedly for almost every single thing I do, having to fight for the privilege to create and modify files and directories, getting lost trying to navigate a filesystem where every fucking directory has a 3 letter name, and spending countless hours chasing solutions for broken libraries.

My utter hatred for the mess that is Linux aside, I'm starting to get suspicious that Microsoft is sabotaging Windows 7 users to force them to switch to Windows 8. I've never had any problems whatsoever out of it until about 2 months ago. Now, my mouse will often freeze until I right click, dwm and windows explorer will spike up to 3 times their normal memory usage, and it occasionally becomes slow or unresponsive. Many other people have reported the same problems lately, often pointing the finger at a recent Windows update (after which their system restore points mysteriously disappeared). Microsoft has yet to give a straight answer. I'm not really into conspiracy theories and crap, but I'm finding it awfully suspicious.

M$ wants to get the paying user (you) do what they want (in particular to buy the M$-Windows8). When I switched to Linux, I wasn't comfortable with it at all. So I allocated some of my precious time to learn how to use Linux properly. If you're too lazy to spend a weekend doing this, then don't ask for help with your weird Windows setup. Information about Linux's internals is publically available, Windows' isn't. In case you can't figure out something by yourself, there will probably be someone to help you (on sites like askubuntu). My favourite distro is Ubuntu (including all variations, e.g. Xubunu) as well as Fedora, and they seem to be pretty stable.

I use Windows for practical reasons. Games and such. I tried to install GRUB2 and Debian + Windows 7 but it didn't work for some undescript reason. That's why I hate Linux fanboys, you can't "just switch to Linux, it's way better". Most times you need to have knowledge of hardware simply to get a working system set up, which often panics for no reason when your drivers crash. Windows just figures out what to install, and it just works out of the box. No need for the hours upon hours of random forum browsing to get WiFi working (talking from experience) only to be bothered when building the driver that the driver in question is for some undescript slightly different variant of the hardware. And of course, Windows also crashes, but that's because YOU install drivers for dodgy hardware that some script kiddies in Taiwan wrote up and didn't test because his boss needed it as soon as possible.

no92 wrote:M$ wants to get the paying user (you) do what they want (in particular to buy the M$-Windows8). When I switched to Linux, I wasn't comfortable with it at all. So I allocated some of my precious time to learn how to use Linux properly. If you're too lazy to spend a weekend doing this, then don't ask for help with your weird Windows setup.

Like I stated before, I've used about a dozen flavors of Linux; Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Mint, DamnSmall, TinyCore, RedHat, Debian, Fedora, Gentoo, and Puppy. One of my first computers was a store-bought Linux Gateway desktop. All of the problems that I listed were completely out of my control, and not the result of my own incapability. The one I used the longest was Ubuntu. That was about 4 months by itself and over a half year alongside Windows 7. Then it just randomly decided it wasn't gonna boot up anymore one day. The one I used second longest was OpenSUSE. While I was really fond of the familiarity of the interface, it was broken packages galore, and installation manager refused to install pretty much anything that I downloaded. The file manager (Dolphin I believe), wouldn't let me have access to over half of the files and directories on my filesystem, so I constantly had to return to the terminal to sudo it open. Plus, there was this ignorant feature called the wallet, where you would have to type a password just for it to automatically fill in your password. It just defeats the purpose.

The Linux community is almost as bad as Linux itself. I never even bothered asking them anything, because a mountain of google searches gave me a pretty clear idea that it would be pointless. Everything is always the fault of the user in their eyes, and Linux can do no wrong. When you explain your problems in a way which shows you are clearly in no way at fault, rather than provide a solution they say, "you should switch to X, it's what I use and I love it!" Users shouldn't have to switch operating systems every few months.

DaemonR wrote:and installation manager refused to install pretty much anything that I downloaded.

The way you say that suggests you were trying to install and run precompiled software, Windows-style. Unfortunately, Linux tends to adhere to the "you either install the version in our package list or compile it yourself" standard (except Gentoo, where it's usually "you install the version in our package list and compile it yourself"), so precompiled binaries can be difficult to get working properly.

I like Linux, but I'm not going to tell you that everything it does is better than Windows. (There are a few Windows programs that run better under Wine on Linux than they do in Windows 7...)

Octocontrabass wrote:

DaemonR wrote:and installation manager refused to install pretty much anything that I downloaded.

The way you say that suggests you were trying to install and run precompiled software, Windows-style.

I was simply installing an RPM. The tool that was supposed to do it (Yast I think?) almost never worked. I ended up finding an alternative method that took a bit longer, which was aggravating. I agree, there are some benefits to Linux. The executable format is better and the gui toolkit is cleaner (albeit more complicated). But overall, the good just doesn't outweigh the bad imho.

Also, lol at the moderator trolling the topic name

DaemonR wrote:Also, lol at the moderator trolling the topic name

DaemonR wrote: I've tried about a dozen flavors of Linux, and I'm just done fiddling around with it. Tired of having to update my system every week, crashing during updates, glitchy and slow drivers, having to type my password repeatedly for almost every single thing I do, having to fight for the privilege to create and modify files and directories, getting lost trying to navigate a filesystem where every fucking directory has a 3 letter name, and spending countless hours chasing solutions for broken libraries.

Perhaps we are using different Linux? I use Linux Mint and Cent OS extensively for development and testing, and I have not see any crash even I have stressed the machines to extreme level. I also quite happy with the apparmor(sandbox) and lxc (aka. jail) introduce in recent kernels, that make isolation much easier.

I'm not going to compare it with Windows since I have not used it for years, I'm Mac user.

Octocontrabass wrote:(There are a few Windows programs that run better under Wine on Linux than they do in Windows 7...)

Yes like this game which I've got where it plays half the sound when run under Wine and no sound when run under Windows 7 LOL!!! (Actually it's not that funny because it always worked fine under Windows XP on my old Linux desktop until I upgraded to using Windows 7 and Linux Mint on my new second-hand laptop - actually I should have mentioned that some time as I really like the idea of osdevving on the go but I've yet to get round to doing operating systems development again though...)