Discussion on:

Linux: The big misconceptions

We've had discussions with as many as several hundreds of posts. A couple of classics went into the low thousands.

nt

... it's a mindset issue. For the most part, computers and software are a specialised area that *require* study to understand thoroughly. Those that say: "I can't get Linux to work on my system" are trying to leverage their "knowledge" - where they've been handheld through a few choices - to sort out how to boot to iso on a stick, how to change boot-priority, how to first check whether drivers exist for your hardware, what hardware you have, exactly, etc.
In the case of the bloke who couldn't get his scanner and printer drivers to work: I'd say he was using the proprietary software that forms an interface in Windows that he expected to see showing up in GNULinux as well. Probably installed everything and then met with disappointment when it didn't behave as expected.

Manufacturers won't create GNULinux solutions for specialised software and hardware unless you're Pixar and have serious money to throw at them. But for the casual user, GNULinux has a faster, easier solution. We have a networked HP colour laser printer on our home network. Ubuntu and Mint finds it, installs the drivers from repositories and I'm done.
For, say, Windows XP I have to first find the printer: no mean task, since Win XP doesn't know what to do with a network address - it wants the official name. Then you have to go to the website and download the drivers. Then install the drivers.
Mean time to install a printer on a GNU box: @ 12 seconds
Mean time to install a printer on a Windows box (any flavour: @ 15-20 minutes

I have installed Linux on many systems (I only did dual boot once) and was only defeated by the D600. Fairly recently I installed Ubuntu on my homebrew desktop, with many legacy parts that were more than ten years old, and it just worked. It even found a fireware update for the really old wifi card which gave it the latest security standards, something which W2k (the previous OS) never did.

I remember the days when after installing the OS, I would have to search for drivers that would work with some bit of hardware. The newer distros are great because they come with almost, and I mean almost, every driver you could ever need. But they don't come with every single one - that would not be possible. There are too many obscure bits of hardware, and too many new ones appearing every day. And the place where I have had the most difficulty is with laptops.

I am disappointed that revdjenk assumed that I had not made some effort towards getting the laptop working. I am not a computer newbie whom assumes that everything is either a one-click success or broken. Although programming is my "thing", I have plenty of scars from the sharp edges you find on the insides of a pc case (its the blood that gives it life!) both from repairing and new builds, and I can use a search engine.

Talking of search engines, all I found at that time were messages from lots of others who had the same problem with the same model.

I am glad to hear that others are having more success. It is a year since I gave up on the laptop, and the combined number of releases of the various varieties of Linux that I keep track of is more than twenty, so I might give it another go. But a search conducted between writing this shows many recent complaints about installing to laptops, and lack of support for many laptop flavours, so maybe I will wait for the New Year.

The various operating systems all have their place, their proponents and their detractors. Having used variants of LInux for about a decade and a half, variants of MSDOS before and after they came with GUIs attached, and even CP/M and OS/2 in their heyday, I guess I'm used to the bickering.
We use Linux-based web servers for cost, stability and for their best compatibility with the CMS packages, based on the CMS's own recommendations. I use a Linux workstation as the "sacrificial lamb" in our local office for open staff access for web searches and access - no-one has managed to infect it yet, unlike its fire-walled and virus-protection-loaded Windows predecessors. I follow the same practice with the kids at home, for the same reason and with equal success. They are growing up in a "racially-integrated" environment and have been comfortable moving between one OS and another since well before attaining double-digit ages..
However, that does not stop us from using predominantly Windows machines in the enterprise, and SQL Server rather than open-source database, largely due to the availability of software that we need.
Personally, my favorite machine is my iMAC, capable of running Windows 7 and Ubuntu 12/04 VMs under Parallels to get the best of all worlds.
Play with them, learn their strengths and weaknesses. The writer is merely pointing out just how far the Linux GUI has come in becoming a user-friendly appliance, rather than an enthusiast's playground (rather like the early days of MS-DOS and Windows, compared to the Mac).

I've used both Windows and some version or other of Linux since 2001, and I can get by with either -- until I need an application that is present in a Windows version, but for which there is no good substitute made for the Linux platform. I've never seen it the other way around, however. Other than this, it's all a matter of which platform one is used to using.

Linux has one great advantage, and that is that it makes less demand on the hardware. A box that can't run a modern version of Windows still can do Linux just fine.

I think the best way for Windows users to learn to use Linux (not talking about power users, just the typical clueless Windows user) is to get a Puppy live CD/DVD and play with it. It's the easiest OS to learn, with helpful wizards to walk you through most tasks, very rare to need to use command line.

Even if you decide to stick with Windows, this is a very useful thing to have on hand as a back-up OS. If Windows won't boot, you can use it to fix Windows, or as a substitute. Since the entire OS loads into RAM, you can use it even if your HD has failed completely. It has the option to put its save files on the boot disc, so all your bookmarks
and other data can be available in that situation.

Loaded completely into RAM, it's blazing fast, too - after using it, you may find Windows seems slow and tired. It's fun, too, and safe to experiment with - if you mess it up, just don't save the session and it never happened.

My first Linux experience was with early Red Hat, before it went commercial. It was a lot like MS-DOS and a few other CLI OSes of the time, although they were dying out. Red Hat was a fun toy, but I couldn't do any work in it - and I had a job to perform.

Tried several distros since then, and yes, Linux is getting better. But I've still had to spend about a third of my time with CLI as superuser. I don't mind a command line interface, per se, but it is irritating when /d means seven (7) different things for six (6) different commands. And I have to login *again* for each of those commands. Or, relearn what /xxx means on a different distro.

What Bill Gates (MS) brought to the party was standardization. Everything written for the platform had to follow certain constraints, but all could count on certain [support] elements being present. That's not true of Linux distros. Too many variant dependencies, depending upon which desktop you choose for whichever distro. If you need a new application, all dependencies must be present or must be installed. In a corporate environment, that likely means a call to IT staff. And in that environment, IT is prolly gonna be overworked .

Linux is simply too splintered to be effective competition to Windows on the desktop. If everyone in an office/business/industry is using the same version of the same distro, stuff works. But let a few upgrade to a newer version of that same distro, and communication suffers, things break (just like Windows). And let someone in that same group go to a different distro - communication could be truncated. This is not theory. I've seen it happen.

Bottom line, for me, is that Linux is a fun toy, but when I have to get work done, I must revert to Windows. Performance and collaboration issues require it, as do certain applications (e.g., MS Publisher).

>But I've still had to spend about a third of my time with CLI as superuser.

What the heck are you doing and what distros are you using? I've been using OpenSUSE now for two years of 8+hours a day business and home use and I've had to edit precisely one config file during that time. You can't possibly be spending that much time on the CLI as superuser if you're using the system for desktop purposes, which is what we're talking about. Not even if you're running Gentoo or Arch... well maybe Slackware.

At the least, you might want to think about changing the permission levels on your login account.

>Too many variant dependencies, depending upon which desktop you choose
>for whichever distro.

There's three major desktops, KDE, Gnome and Unity, and two or three minor ones. They're either based on Qt or GTK+ libraries, and a desktop based on one can run the software developed for the other. There's no complication with users running different desktops, even on the same machine.

>If you need a new application, all dependencies must be present or must be
>installed. In a corporate environment, that likely means a call to IT staff.

And THIS is where your understanding of Linux has to be called into account. You seem to suggest that installing programs is a complicated process requiring IT experts. You either don't understand modern Linux or you have even darker motives (or again you're a poor unfortunate soul running Slackware). Barring Slackware, every other Linux distribution offers package management out of the box. A user simply clicks a checkbox to pick the software they wish to install and the package manager automatically determines whatever other dependencies are required and selects them for install also. If there's a conflict, the package manager will be able to explain it and offer possible solutions. Modern package managers like OpenSUSE's zypper employ a mathematical technique called a "SAT Solver" which mathematically guarantees being able to find a solution to package/dependency installation if one exists (which in practice is rather awesome). No one needs to "call IT staff" to install software on Linux. In fact, Linux software is much, much simpler to install than Windows software, including quiet installs. One can simply select all the software desired and then walk away while the package manager handles everything. The file system can even change (or delete!) files that are still in use by queueing up the change for once the file is closed, making reboots almost totally unnecessary.

To tell readers who don't know better that software installation is so complicated on Linux that one needs IT staff to do it is absurd and hard not to call a blatant lie unless you're simply completely ignorant about modern Linux and haven't used it since "before Red Hat went commercial", which was in 1999.

>And in that environment, IT is prolly gonna be overworked .

Meanwhile, the city of Munich, Germany is completing the transition of about 12,000 desktops to their own distribution of Linux which they've dubbed LiMux. "The maximum number of [IT] complaints was 70 per month before the beginning of the switch to LiMux. After the number of LiMux workplaces increased from 1,500 to 9,500, the maximum number of complaints per month dropped to 46. This leaves Ude to conclude that the decline in complaints was due to the migration to LiMux." They've not only saved money, but their IT support staff is now LESS busy with user problems than when they ran Windows.

>Linux is simply too splintered to be effective competition to Windows on the
>desktop.

More FUD. Linux is Linux; they all run the Linux kernel; Linux software runs on any Linux distribution. Windows boxes have all sorts of different software installed on them, but they're all still Windows, aren't they? It's no different than with Linux. Also, Windows is a monopoly. Nothing can compete with a monopoly; even the Apple marketing juggernaut and its billions only gives it about a 5%-6% market share vs. Linux's 1%. Until vendor lock-in ends (and the "post PC" era in which cross platform, Java, virtualization, the cloud and web apps is making that happen) nothing can compete with Windows on the desktop. That's the elephant in the room no one talks about when discussing desktop figures.

>If everyone in an office/business/industry is using the same version of the
>same distro, stuff works. But let a few upgrade to a newer version of that same
>distro, and communication suffers, things break (just like Windows).

1. If we're talking about a business, how can a few machines magically upgrade on their own? OS upgrades are carefully planned (and tested) in businesses, which makes your scenario silly.
2. "Communication" doesn't break when a Linux distro upgrades, or anything else for that matter. Again - it's all still Linux and everything's still compatible. I really don't follow what you're even saying, but it sure sounds ominous.

> And let someone in that same group go to a different distro - communication
>could be truncated. This is not theory. I've seen it happen.

No, you haven't seen it happen, because you haven't used Linux in this century. What is this "communication" that gets "truncated"??? The words you're using don't even mean anything in the context you're using them. Are you talking about networking? And "truncated" means to cut short - something that makes no sense at all in that sentence. The reality is every Linux distribution is Linux and distros can and do play nicely with each other, as do other desktops. You're making vague claims that are so meaningless that no one can refute them because they don't actually mean anything (like a health food huxter claiming their product "promotes well-being" or something).

>Bottom line, for me, is that Linux is a fun toy, but when I have to get work
>done, I must revert to Windows. Performance and collaboration issues require
>it, as do certain applications (e.g., MS Publisher).

Linux performs as well as, or better than, Windows. Tom's Hardware benchmarked Ubuntu vs. Windows 7 and found the ext4 file system could copy large files around the hard drive 20% faster than NTFS, for instance. Valve is porting Left 4 Dead 2 to Linux and found that after only a few weeks of tweaking they already have a Linux test system pumping out a few more frames per second than Windows. That's not even taking into account the slowdown that occurs from running a real-time virus scanner under Windows. As Tom's concluded, on the benchmarks that really matter a Linux OS matches or beats a Windows system.

Collaboration issues? Linux supports open standards so you can collaborate better than Windows. Heck, out of the box my Linux desktop supports reading and writing to both NTFS and OS X's HFS+, while Windows can't read anyone else's file systems by default. Heck, Windows' partition manager will report Linux partitions as "unknown", even though every partition has a two byte code associated with it that identifies the file system. Like Voldemort, Microsoft considers Linux it which must not be named.

As to MS Publisher - a Windows program requires Windows... I'm shocked. But the problem is that you've chosen to use an entry-level desktop publishing program that only runs on Windows - in other words, vendor lock-in. In fact, it gets even worse, as Wikipedia outlines....

"Publisher's position as an entry-level application aggravates many issues (particularly in older versions) such as fonts unavailable and embedded objects not available on service providers' machines. Instead, Publisher comes with tools to pack related files into a self-expanding application.
Compatibility
Publisher's proprietary file format (.pub) is unsupported by almost all other applications, including other Microsoft products, although Corel Draw X4 features 'open only' support, and there is an ongoing work on converter for LibreOffice with support for 972013 versions of the PUB file format. As such, Publisher is generally recognised to be of limited functionality where multiple-user electronic editing or dissemination is concerned. Adobe's PageMaker software saves files with a .pub extension but the two files are incompatible and unrelated. Publisher supports numerous other file formats, including the Enhanced Metafile (EMF) format which is supported on Windows platforms. The Microsoft Publisher trial version can be used to view .pub files beyond the trial period."

Your "performance" issues have led you to choose an entry-level program, and your interest in "collaboration" has led you to choose a Windows-only program whose default file format is proprietary and unreadable by most other software. Essentially you've locked yourself into a prison and then in the name of "collaboration" require everyone else to lock themselves into the same cell to collaborate with you! It's not a shortcoming of Linux, but rather an unbelievably shortsighted software strategy that mandates you use Windows. Your collaboration problems are all self-caused because you choose single-platform software and proprietary file formats. A check of Wikipedia's comparison of DTP software shows that you've chosen one of only about 3 major programs out of the 18 listed that are Windows only and one with one of the shortest lists of import and export capabilities, including no support for PDF, postscript, Latex or SVG, which are open and universal formats. Meanwhile, you could have chosen Scribus, saved yourself $140, gained cross-platform compatibility and basically the largest set of supported export formats of them all. You only need to "revert to Windows" because you've attached a chain between it and yourself. The rest of us have no problem embracing real performance and collaboration.

"One can simply select all the software desired and then walk away while the package manager handles everything."
That is only true if the program you want is in the Repository.
If it isn't then it's "off to do battle" with the Terminal.

That copy and paste this is definitely advanced technology. Let's say I want to have the latest version of Blender (I do 3D modelling and rendering) on my system at all times.
-- I google "Blender ppa". Top of the heap is "https://launchpad.net/~irie/+archive/blender"
-- Scroll down to the section that says "Adding this PPA to your system"
-- Open Terminal (graphically, from a menu... LOL)
-- The instructions are all right there in that 'Read about installing' section. Really complicated, too... copy and past this line into terminal:
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gwibber-daily/ppa
Terminal prompts you *ONCE* for your password (since you're doing something admin level, not all the bloody time, whenever it feels like it, even if you're still on the same task, like Windows does)
-- Now issue a "sudo apt-get update" (you won't get the password prompt this time: GNULinux knows you're still working at the same task here)... you can copy and paste *this* from the ppa instructions. I'm lazy. I do.
-- Now do your software update from the GUI as usual. Voila, you have the absolute latest greatest clean build of your favourite software! AND - something Windows can never claim - whenever the system prompts you... just a wee icon change that politely lets you know that new stuff is out there to update your system with, won't rudely interrupt what you're doing BY DEFAULT (unless you change the Windows update behaviour). After the update, you have not only OS updates but *software* updates!

Oh, yeah. This is how an OS *should* behave.

OpenSUSE has a few features that make this scenario even easier. The first is "one click install". If I want to distribute an OpenSUSE package on my website, for instance, I can just include a "one-click" button image. This downloads and launches a small file that provides the repository information and launches the package manager, which will then ask if you want to keep the repository (for future updates). Either way the package manager then proceeds to download and install the required files and possible dependencies. No copying, pasting or command line involved.
OpenSUSE also created what was originally the OpenSUSE Build Service which later became the Open Build Service and open to other distros (including Ubuntu, but sadly most Ubuntu packagers don't make use of it). This provides an automated solution for building and distributing packages. Anyone interested in creating a package for OpenSUSE (like the latest version of Blender, per your example) can use it to do so. Users can search the OBS and find the package easily (OpenSUSE even makes a Firefox search plugin, and OBS can detect your running OS and highlight the appropriate version). With OBS users can not only download the package and/or add the repository, but OBS also generates "one-click install" links for packages as well, so generally a user just needs to search for the package name and then click the one-click install button to download, install and optionally permanently add the repository. OBS automatically rebuilds packages when dependencies are changed as well.
Because of this, compiling or installing outside the package manager is rarely necessary. And if it is, the first person to have to do so can just add the requisite files and set up a package on OBS and then no one else will have to do so again, which again makes needing to manually install software quite rare. There also semi-official repositories that always contain the latest kernel, latest desktop, latest Mozilla or LibreOffice software, etc. This makes it easy to keep the system as stable or cutting edge as one desires, again without needing the command line.

Ubuntu 10 vs OpenSUSE 12 (on my PC)

In Ubuntu 10 you:
- Click on the notification
- Click on Install
- Enter your password

In OpenSUSE 12 you:
- Click on the notification
- Click on Install
A new window appears saying you have to install these other items(!?)
- Accept the extra items
- Enter your password

It does that every time on my PC (just like Fedora 14 & 15 did).

The Open Build Service sounds like a useful tool.

...letting you know about extra dependencies because you may want to change your mind and not install once you know about them. OpenSUSE doesn't hide anything from the user or ever do anything without the user's informed consent first. However, I believe you can check a box and turn off the dependency notifications.

I thought that it was for that reason.
I don't know enough about kernel objects, libraries, etc. for it to be much help to me.

I don't like using those "kill this message box" options (in any software).
Once you've killed them how do you get them back?

"Murphy's Law" also suggests that once you've killed the message box, you'll miss an important message.

IMO, operating systems should have an option that determines the size of error messages:
- Detailed: Multiple paragraphs
- Standard: One or two paragraphs
- Brief: One or two lines
- Alert: "I did this" message
- None: Terminal-style (for experts who hate messages)

It's interesting how the same software behaves differently on different PCs.

"Terminal prompts you *ONCE* for your password (since you're doing something admin level, not all the bloody time, whenever it feels like it, even if you're still on the same task, like Windows does)"

I've never had that happen on W7 (GUI or Command Prompt).
At least in Windows GUIs you can pre-provoke "Rights Elevation".

OTOH, I played with 2 Vista laptops.
One behaved just like the Apple ad (the UAC went off constantly).
The other behaved just like W7.

Talking about random password demands, it's fair enough that I have to enter my password to install updates, but why do I have to enter my password to check for updates (in Ubuntu 10)?

What you describe isn't any easier than:
- Locate the program
- Download it
- Start the installer
- Give permission
- Follow the prompts

It is easier to update everything in Linux than Windows though.

BTW, I do use copy and paste for Terminal instructions (once I've located them).

DIFFERENT to learn? Yes. Then again so are DOS, VMS, JCL, AOS, OS X, versions of WIndows, etc. The subtle (or not) differences between various various distros are similar to the dialect differences that exist in human languages.

...for instance. That's not going to come with a completely flat learning curve, by all accounts.

Metro is awful.

Perhaps these folks are too MS, Apple, centric?

I use Linux servers on a daily basis. I tried having a Linux desktop (Mint) at one point, but I gave up on it. I wanted it to work, but there were just too many annoyances.

I use Photoshop Elements for adjusting photographs. Gimp is ok, but I found I had to jump through many more hoops to get things done. It also didn't have nearly as many smart tools as PS.

I like playing games. Not much else needs to be said here. Lots of games are available for Windows. Most of them are not available for Linux.

I ran some Windows apps with Wine, but PS and most games do not work well.

My printer worked, but as someone else mentioned, there were far fewer print options available as compared to the same printer in Windows.

After living with it for a few months, I finally gave up and went back to Windows.

An argument can be made that Unity is easier for a Windows XP or 7 user to learn than Windows 8. Pro and anti screamers on both sides will drown out any reasonable discussion, so I'll stay away from it. And just as many Linux distributions now come with easy-to-learn GUI controls, with PowerShell and Server Core Microsoft is providing command line controls. On Linux or Windows you can use GUI or command line controls as you see fit.

The deal breaker for my clients is one or more of QuickBooks, Photoshop, the rest of Adobe CS, and AutoCAD. There are respectable open source and web-based products that do those kinds of work, but those products have no serious competition that runs on Linux.

I can competently navigate in the KDE interface - I can run and use Linux apps. But my last real experience with Linux was as follows:

Have a spare laptop - Pentium III with 512 MB RAM (IIRC, maybe 1 GB). Had a copy of SUSE 10 Pro a friend had given me (commercial package, manuals, and all). Should work fine on the hardware (Toshiba Portege 7200). Slapped in a PCMCIA WiFi card and installed everything. Everything works great EXCEPT WiFi, which I realistically need to make the machine usable.

So, after working with it for a while without success, I go online to a Linux forum to ask advice. The advice I get back is:
Use newer version of SUSE (probably not going to work on the older hardware)
Get newer laptop AND newer version of SUSE (not going to happen for money reasons)
The one that floored me: You don't have enough RAM to run a GUI. Say WHAT?!! I'd already provided a LOT of detail, including what I saw in KDE (which is, last time I checked, a GUI), so WTH?!
It's hard to ask advice and then dis the free advice you get, but if the community wants to grow Linux, there has to be more than that. After that last 'you can't run a GUI' response, I saw no more responses to my queries, leading me to believe that the frankly stupid and superficial advice made everyone think, 'Well, that guy's question has been answered.' Yeah, with a stupid and irrelevant response, but how much help you gonna get if you complain about the poor quality of the again, FREE, advice?
That pretty much made me give up. I'd been fooling with Linux off and on for about 7 years or so, but that experience finally pushed me off the cliff with Linux. Maybe someday I'll try again, but I can't help feeling like my experience was PROBABLY not that unique.

would have us believe. Aside from the usual collection of muppets, (they give you bad answers about windows with equal aplomb), it's a part of the windows is not linux difficulty, there's a huge range of assumptions made, and like many uber geeks they have great difficulty explaining the "obvious".
That's a geek fault not a nix one though, see it everywhere.

No issue with your comment, I'm just commenting on all of them in general and I closed with yours.

Just reading some of the comments of people who gave it a go and decided against it, many of them made the right decision. Please don't take that the wrong way. All I'm saying is if my career weren't tied up in using unix toolsets, and I hadn't been doing it for longer than I want to admit, I wouldn't just up and say, "Hey, I'm going to wipe my machine and put another OS on it."

Jack, and others who think the world should convert their desktops, are acting pretty darn irrational about what amounts to bits and bytes.

Linux is not marginalized. I make a good living as a Linux Engineer working on key nix systems in a very secure environment. It's out there in datacenters and it's not going anywhere and it and other nix flavors have super toolsets.

But it is NOT going to be the primary OS on most desktops, including my own work desktop.

To me the differences between say a well set Ubuntu and windows box, aside from the availability of familiar applications to stick on the desktop are irrelevant. In fact they are quite frankly boring.

If you are an appliance use pick your flavour, go do the things that float your boat.

I'm not always an appliance user, neither windows nor Ubuntu meet my needs at that point. I want to try, to learn, to investigate, to experiment, to float my boat.

All Jack can see is Ubuntu's popularity helping him finally "win" the Windows versus Linux debate. He's completely lost sight of the fact that while Ubuntu is Linux, Linux is not Ubuntu. So now I treat his advice and opinions with same amount of respect I would a Window's fanboys.

None.

Although Jack's demeanor in print is reasonable, he doesn't approach these things from a logical perspective. He has decided to back the Linux/Ubuntu horse no matter what, and will find justifications to support his pre-determined point of view - completely independent of logic or sound judgment.

Just like most people do, unfortunately.

If you squint a bit linux is out of scope, Windows is a non linux distro.

Back when I was putzing around with Linux, I received decent support with a minimum of attitude at Linuxquestions.org. This place is pretty good, too!

Hey, Charlie,

Been a while, and it was multiple forums, so I don't remember for sure. I'm about 85% sure LinuxQuestions was one of them, and I'm about 80% sure that it was where I got the idiotic 'can't run a GUI response'. Used to run KDE on a Pentium MMX with 96 MB of RAM, so I knew that was dead wrong from the get-go. I actually spent a fair amount of time futzing around with that WiFi card in the Portege, never did get it to work. Still have that Portege, still got SUSE installed on it, might try again some day.

On the somewhat humorous flip side, I currently work at a Help Desk. We have a separate Unix/Linux Help Desk, and I try to get as much helpful info as possible before passing tickets over to their side. Far and away most of the time, when I ask a user what Linux distribution they're using, they don't even understand that question. D'oh!

...is definitely good advice. With Linux the drivers are in the kernel, and if the kernel you're using predates the release of your wifi chipset, that's going to be a problem. On top of that, I don't know how long your copy was eligible to receive updates/support.

You would probably have had the best luck going to opensuse.org for your help.

When I tried to install then current versions of a couple of different distros, they wouldn't work because they apparently didn't have drivers for the older hardware anymore. The WiFi card was also an older one pretty much contemporary with the laptop, that should not have demanded a newer distro.

I'm sure you mean well, and that's appreciated, but you're basically giving me the same advice that did not help to resolve the issue before. It shouldn't be a Sisyphean ordeal to simply get basic WiFi going on a laptop.

I did try opensuse.org and got no help there.

My larger point remains - I was trying to accomplish something that should be simple to do, put substantial effort in to solving the problem on my own without success, then got no real help from the Linux community. Am I complaining about the quality of free advice I got? No, not really. My point is that not being able to get the problem resolved mostly removed me from the community. The Linux community will not grow under those conditions, and I can guarantee most people would not have plugged away at the problem as much as I did. That's a large part of why the OS remains marginalized.

When I refer to Linux as marginalized, I mean specifically as a desktop OS. I know it's got a strong foothold in multiple other areas.

It's a shame that it can't be a better desktop OS than it is - from my perspective (which I'm confident is far from unique), it's tantalizingly close, and could be there, but just isn't quite. As long as it's support structure is as erratic as I've found it to be, it's not a real contender. I like Linux as a concept, and it's made great strides from what it used to be in terms of usability, but I've worked in corporate IT for 17 years, and I can tell you, most corporate IT can't switch until it matures a bit more on the desktop side.

look around and find which version has the look and feel you prefer, kind of like finding out which car has the seating you like best - shop around.

For those who love the Windows look Zorin OS offers a range of GUIs that include Win 2000, Win XP, Win Vista, and Win 7 so you immediately feel at home with the GUI as it's like your current system.

I used unix in various flavors for 15 years. Being able to command rsync to synchronize a file, folder, or application across the world was done with a single intuitive command at the command line. Same with global substitution, data search, file compression, etc. Regular expressions are a must know for any IT pro and adding perl is invaluable - especially in any high-tech design shop.
Besides that built-in mastery of the network and command line simplicity, all flavors of unix have color schemes which are much less problematic than any version of windoze. For example, in SQLserver 2012 they finally have a 'dark' color scheme. But all the numbers default to white, making them hard to read when pasted into outlook - even using the black outlook color scheme. Similar problems have always occurred with every version of Windows 'dark' color schemes.
I have never seen anything close to that on unix. switching from the black on white of windows, to the default green on black in unix is refreshing (and probably healthier). Now that we can run free VMs, loading a windoze OS to boot (for the wife/Outlook), and an ubuntu vm for me keeps everybody happy with little or no performance hit.

I submit NOTHING at the command line (or any other interface) is 'intuitive'.

Correct me please - I must be wrong... to configure network settings you still have to start terminal or similar to set things like domain etc. In Windows you do this in a GUI - there are other similar examples but when ever I set up a friends Linux to work in their home network I have to look up how to get this done using a text based system (some distros use a different text application to add to confusion) - if security is the reason - then perhaps online banking should re evaluate their virtual keyboard inputs!

If you want to use some form of linux my advice is to revive an old desktop, download and install Debian Squeeze from the install iso. This is simple and quick. Forget about networking for the moment and install the gcc compuler suite. That should enable you to write, compile and execute your own programs. There is always the assembler (nasm) just an apt-get away for the geeks, gfortran for numerical work and hundreds of other packages in synaptic. From there the world is your oyster. Remember! Command Line rules, you don't need the GUI.

...who cares? Those who use and love GNULinux are too many to count. And we will keep it not just *alive* but dynamic and growing and cutting-edge that other OSes will copy and steal from but will never ever match because freedom of thought and expression and creativity will *always* be richer and more profound than some dude in an office punching a clock and trying to develop new ideas for an OS.

Which is evidenced quite vividly by the completely banal Win8. Sure, it might have something smoking under that bonnet, but bottom-line, it *looks* pov. Whatever. Not something that is an issue to me. Not here to slam Windows or Microsoft. They have their place, certainly. And most KNOW that place. Most actually only know OF that place. Which is fine, too.

I have some nursing students who are disenchanted with all the frailties of Windows but who don't have the king's ransom to pay that other mob. I do have a solution, but it comes with a few caveats.

BTW, VirtualBox is pretty awesome. So, one can have ones cake and eat it too!

Well., I understand it costs money in developing applications but why do the opensource developing community demand, I repeat DEMAND money for what is called opensource. Instead they can request for donations where the users/organisations will be glad to do so. Am not naming so-called opensource software but they should learn if they read this.

Thankss

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