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Why Linux?

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by islandboy_77

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At the risk of stirring up a hornet's nest, I simply have to ask this question: why go to Linux? I've read a number of threads on Tech Republic recently, and I can see NO reason to swap over from Wintel or Apple. Let me tell you why:
I run a small business in New Zealand supporting Wintel and Apple PCs, some in a small business setting, some in a graphics/design environment. I have found both platform reasonably fraught with glitches, bugs and problems. And before you Mac "weenies" start huffing and puffing, the hardest and "dumest" problems in the last 2 weeks have been on OS X 3 / 4!! I have often wondered about Linux, and have heard much bragging about security, uncrashability etc. However, these are the problems I have thinking about Linux:
1) Will my customers, who run apps from CAD, to Office, to Photoshop, to Garage Band, REALLY be actually better off on a pure-linux machine? Why?
2) Why is it that all the discussions I see about Linux talk about this distro and that distro, looking for drivers, typing commands lines and such? The "beauty" (if I can dare use that word...) of Win XP Pro or OS X 10.4 is that it is one "distro", in one place (i.e. comes in a single box), with all the drivers normally needed for most devices (given that any new system I build on a PC comes with all the necessary drivers for the motherboard, video card etc). I don't have the time to learn a whole "programming language" (which is what the Linux command line looks like: is that right?): I just want the OS I am installing to work "out of the box". Now don't go spouting off about how Win XP doesn't necessarily work that well "out of the box": it does 99% of the time for me, and I don't have to spend copious unchargeable hours trolling thru websites looking for drivers to do basic things like play DVDs.
3) Compatibility: As with the driver thing, neither I nor any "average" computer user wants to waste hours having to "piece" together basic computer functions by having this emulator for Office, and that compatible program for Photoshop, and another to play this game, and another for creating PDFs etc etc: computers are supposed to be about ease, not hard graft. When I started in computers 20 years ago (a ZX Spectrum with 48KB of RAM), "hard graft" was par for the course. GUI's are supposed to take 99% of that work away, not just be window-dressing to make command-line work less frequent.
4) Compatibility 2: In a Mac design environment, it's tricky enough getting a full post-script environment that works with Freehand MX and Adobe Creative Suite (and why that is I don't know... aren't Macs supposed to be "king" of the design enviroment?) - what sort of nightmare could my design clients be in for in a "cobbled-together" Linux environment?
5) Standards: Following on from 4), it has taken the likes of Adobe et al 10 years+ to get a "postscript" environment that is reasonable seamless, robust and "consistent" across various printing presses, image setters, large format printers etc: has Linux got this? If yes, how much time and effort (web trolling again?) is it to "mimic" a full design environment in Linux?

I hope all of you reading this see where I'm going with this: I'm no computer newbie, and have quite a lot of experience in general computing and system builds (as well as 9 years as the production manager for an advertising company, that included tech support for 18+ Macs). But all I see in Linux is a massive amount of endless trolling, updating and general farting about, just so I can say "I use Linux and don't get viruses". Well, I already don't get viruses, and neither do any of my clients, 'cos I show them how not to (standard recommendations are Avast! and SyGate Firewall). So, without getting onto very high soap boxes, will someone out there please explain, in plain, calm, ordinary English, why I or any other "average" computer user should REALLY want all the hassle of Linux? No smart-cracks about Windows etc please (there's enough of that going around to fill several large septic tanks), no xenophobic rants: just tell me the hard FACTS. Let's face it, if you can really convince me, I might just turn into a Linux convert and start "evangelising" this part of the world... ;)

136 replies

by jaqui

what's wintel?
where do you get a wintel operating system?
I've never heard of it.
windows yup
macos yup
linux yup
irix yup
freebsd yup
openbsd yup
netbsd yup
bsd yup
os/2 warp yup
dos yup
unix yup
solaris yup
hpux yup
but no wintel.

the reason for driver problems is hardware manufacturers who refuse to write the drivers for the *x os. ( macos excepting, and apple corrupted thier bsd based os to make the drivers and software usless on any other os )

bands: application rosegarden, full adio recording editing system
video needs for editing/ making films:
http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3

pdf files, creating.
even a console text editor can create a pdf in linux.. it's an ability in the print server, not an application. use any app to create the content, then hit the print button, in the dialog select pdf as the output.

the crossover office plugin is the only tool which will get you comparable tools to adobe's cs.
( I do NOT think that G.I.M.P. is comparable [ other than having a lousy interface just like adobe does ] )
it will allow you to use adobe's cs in linux.

if adobe would actually port thier products to linux then the crossover office plugin wouldn't be needed.
if hardware manufacuterers would write device drivers for linux then the driver issues would go away.
if you are only using runlevel 5 ( gui only ) then the bash scripting isn't needed.
it's only people who want to free up resources by NOT using a gui that want to learn bash scripting.

I agree that mac os is not a good looking interface, I feel the same about windows.

I personally will never buy any operating system designed to be used by untrained monkeys ( gui only )
and that was my opinon back in 1982 when I first saw a gui only system ( mac )
will never change.
no options to look and feel? not going to use it.

by islandboy_77

Sorry about the "Wintel" moniker: I've seen it used extensively in TechRepublic, and thought that was how people were referring to PCs with a Windows installation (of any flavour). Am I using the word incorrectly? How would you use the word? Thanks for any clarification on that.
Do you feel that it is necessary for most users to be able to totally customise their OS? If yes, why? And, if yes, to what extent? Does this raise any inter-Linux compatibility or standardisation issues? Clearly, a large percentage of the computing world are, comparatively speaking, "trained monkeys" (I prefer to use the term "button pushers"). However, one of the main reasons there are so many is that large retailers (incl the likes of Dell and Gateway, RIP) have positioned computers as an "appliance" (the same shops that sell computers also sell washing machines, TVs and stereos). This creates a perception in the "untrained masses" that computers are just like their TV or Microwave. That being true (and it most certainly is in New Zealand), can Linux "migrate" into the "main stream" market? Should it even try? If not, does that mean "we" (those who have at least a moderate working knowledge of what computers are all about) simply write the "monkeys" off, and laugh at them struggling along with Windows or Mac OS?
You say "it's only people who want to free up resources by NOT using a gui that want to learn bash scripting" - does that mean I can grab a distro of my choice, bung it on a fresh PC, and everything is sweet? What about installing drivers and getting all my Windows software (which I've paid good money for, am comfortable with, and can use with a large degree of proficiency) to work? I'm no dummy, and can probably learn "bash scripting", but I really don't have the time to be spending many, many hours farting about with trying to get "basic" stuff to work (I thought I had seen the last of that sort of drama with the passing of Windows 98SE...).
Can you give me an example of an "easy" Linux distro that works "out of the box" to at least Win XP Pro SP2 level (without any smart remarks about Win XP Pro SP2 please)? Where would I get it from? It might be that manufacturers are "refusing" to write Linux drivers, but that's no help to me if I just want my computer to work (which, after all, is the main reason to have a computer in the first place, isn't it?).
Thanks for your input - more level-headed non-emotive comments welcome.

by jaqui

wintel is, here at least, windows telephony services, not an os at all. :)

distro with basically plug and play operations, a graphic install, go with mandriva or red hats fedora core.
( 3 cdrom download edition )

as I mentioned ( probably elsewhere ) crossover office plugin is the way to go for majority of windows apps, but they do not work for 3d graphics / animation tools.
the actual apps in linux are not from the major vendors ( mostly ) and function slightly differently.
in most cases, open office, moz firefox and thunderbird will be familiar enough to most people to be comfortable with them, and give them the tools they want online.

yes, flash plugin in available, so is realplayer, quicktime, yahoo messenger, a java based icq and aol im.
( kopete and gaim, both available with the distros both connect through all chat protocols. )
if you have webcam for video chat, gnome meeting will connect through h232 server with it.
( installed by default if camera found )

Xandros is extremely close to windows in it's layout and feel, based on corel's version of linux. ( using debian package management )
it, with boxed set, comes with crossover office.

ms visual studio, borland's c++ builder, delphi all will install into linux with crossover office.

windows based games are not a strongly supported area, but quite a few can be gotten running, with effort.
( I'm not into gaming, so I have never even tried )

the distros with the bsd installer, like debian and the bsds, are not as user friendly during the install, but once installed are as user friendly to use.

mandriva has a sweet addon to thier installer, you can save package selection, as well as set up an "auto-install" boot floppy. this is fantastic for installing multiple workstations in a network.
go through on one machine..select what you want installed, save selections, then boot and go with the floppy on every other workstation.
if you start with a network install, you can have the server either over the internet through ftp, or a local server running so no need to even worry about switching cdroms.

by charliespencer

Why should he invest the time / money / effort to switch? He's said he's comfortable with his apps and he's apparently doing as well as anyone can in keeping Windows secure. I'm hoping you flightless polar waterfowl will provide some solid reasons because I've had the same question.

IslandBoy, here in the southeastern United States, Wintel usually refers to the Windows operating system running on a computer with an Intel processor. This has been the dominant desktop / laptop configuration in the U.S. for at about a decade.

by apotheon

Ahem. Okay, no singing, then.

The truth is that only you can tell if you should switch OSes. I can talk about the benefits of Linux until I'm blue in the face, but if you don't care about any of those benefits, you might not benefit from the migration.

Linux is lighter on the resources, more stable, more secure, has more software available for it (for free, even), is cheaper/free, allows you access to source code, allows you to modify and customize things (and I'm not just talking about the source code here, either), allows for better-targeted server and desktop roles, has a more certain future (it won't be obsolesced or abandoned by its vendor, since it doesn't really have one), and so on. If all you care about, though, is whether it'll run your branded application, you're better off with whatever proprietary, closed source, expensive, limited OS you're currently using.

Your choice.

by williamtg

It is revealing that the very first response to the question refers to IslandBoy's customers as "untrained monkeys". I work for a tech company with over 40,000 PCs. About 60/40 split desktop/notebook. If all the people in accounting, finance, engineering (all flavors), R&D, contracts, HR, operations, etc., are untrained monkeys then so be it. As a whole, we are very successful untrained monkeys, to the tune of $8 billion/year. We use Windows OS client/server and MS Office as an exclusive baseline because our untrained monkeys use their computers for doing productive WORK, not WORKING to figure out their computer. Quite a novel concept to some IT people.

Most of the arrogant linux proponents that I encounter seem to think that the purpose of computers is to give them job security and a platform for demonstrating their creativity at keeping them running. Rarely are they concerned about overall IT support costs, customer service, usability and other hallmarks of a professionally run IT organization.

by stress junkie

One of my neighbors uses Windows XP. I was talking to him about using Linux. During the conversation he told me about how he was so happy with Gmail. I knew right then that issues of privacy and security just don't cross this guy's mind. End of conversation.

by islandboy_77

Pardon my ignorance, but what is "Gmail"? Is that like Hotmail, Yahoo or similar? If yes, I agree: end of conversation. Having said that, there are tens of thousands of "button pushers" out there who "live and die" by their simple ability to use IE or Firefox and a Hotmail type arrangement - and who, frankly, don't really need anything more than that in their computing experience (they probably own a PS2, XBox or Nintendo to play any games). Would these people be able to cope in a Linux environment? Could they "stuff it up" by clicking on something they ought not? Given the propensity for "basic" computer users to treat any computer like a TV or microwave, what place does Linux "desktop" have in their world? If none, where does that leave them?

by lordshipmayhem

I think Linux is pretty close to ideal for "basic" computers. I've talked to a lot of people who have gone from being the overworked family IT guru to being the lonely Maytag repairman after setting their parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. up with a Linux install.

Because of your ability to tailor the install to the situation, and the ability to LOCK DOWN the security, they can surf the net and read/send e-mails without a worry.

by sam12587

Where does that leave the user?
Well, after seeing someone go out & spend over $2000 on a dell this last weekend because their old PC was loaded w/ spy & ad ware to the point it was freezing up?I?d say it?s leaving them spending a lot of money unnecessarily.

Many people are convinced that PC?s & such are some kind of rocket science & that you have to be some kind of genius to work w/ them. So that leaves many either scared or pissed (at least that?s what I see a lot of when I come to their house to fix it). People fail to really understand the machines they are using everyday ? doesn?t matter if it?s a PC, car, vacuum cleaner, washer, etc. Until they understand the machines will be considered disposable & be tossed in the trash for problems that are simple fixes.

by gralfus

A bit of history first.
Round about the late 1980's, computer hardware vendors realized that in order to sell NICs, printers, and other hardware they needed to standardize on connectors and protocols. Various computer vendors had been trying to corner the market with their proprietary systems, but as computers became more popular, people wanted their systems to talk to systems from other companies. This forced the standardizations to happen, and many proprietary computer companies faded into the background.

As the various operating systems developed, they were able to all use the hardware standardizations. However, software is another story. Most home computers started out running a version of MS DOS, Dr. DOS, or whatever ran on a TRS-80. As Windows developed, various vendors like Lotus wanted to write software that worked on Windows. MS saw them as competitors and installed code in Windows that broke the Lotus code, thus frustrating users who then turned to the MS product. So while there were companies trying to "get along" and produce programs that were compatible with popular operating systems, there were forces at work to hinder that development.

Time wore on and two primary operating systems and platforms rose to the surface - Windows/PCs and Macs. These are still the most popular. Linux has crept up from behind and is becoming more popular, especially as the user interface is becoming easier for non-geeks to use. Like the original Windows, Linux is a command-line interface with one or more GUI "shells" to provide point and click access. Many of us who grew up with DOS remember dealing with the command-line interface, and some of us became proficient at it, to the amazement of the average user.

The problem you are facing today is that the average user is familiar with Windows or Mac, and the interface of Linux feels weird to them. People don?t like to change. For us who grew up with DOS, Linux feels very similar except for the syntax of the commands. For someone who has never used a computer, any of the operating systems will take time to learn.

Another problem is that software vendors will market their software towards a money paying audience. Linux is based on the idea that the operating system and software should be free, for the most part. Most vendors are not interested in supporting the Linux operating system for this reason, and because the various distros of Linux make for a difficult development target. The money is in supporting Microsoft. So various independent developers step in and try to port code over to Linux to make Adobe or other "expected" file types to function properly. This doesn't always work so well.

My feeling at this point is that the average user who is familiar with Windows or Mac OS will not be content switching Linux. Power users can get used to Linux and even prefer it over Windows. Really simple users who only use a computer for email can also use it easily, with a GUI interface. The conflict I hear between the various pundits of the operating systems reminds me strongly of the arguments between owners of the old proprietary systems. That?s my two cents.

by islandboy_77

Thanks gralfus: I appreciate your direct reply. I remember the "heady" days of MS DOS / DR DOS ;) "the average user who is familiar with Windows or Mac OS will not be content switching Linux": I agree that the average user is not the right target (at least yet) for Linux, and that is pretty much what I had figured - so what portion of the market is, and why? Is the change really actually worth it for them?
Despite the "obvious" drawbacks of Windows and Mac (which varies according to the user, I've found), they still have the massive "advantage" (dare I use that word?) of only having one major "distro" to "choose" from. I understand that there are those who simply MUST be able to fully customise their GUI / OS / Distro completely, but surely the percentage of people world-wide who require this is relatively low: yes? I like "tinkering" with Win XP Pro, but I have no urge or desire or need to completely "customise" it to me personally: I just want it to work and not crash (which 98% of the time it does very well). So, if I wanted to start looking at Linux, where would I start? What sort of installation "hassles" could I expect? Will my computer run faster, crash less and be more virus-proof that my current XP Pro installation? (I realise that is a question laced with assumptions, but I am talking in generalities). Can I use all my apps now with no hassles? (Photoshop 7, Office 2003, Freehand MX, Ulead Video Studio 8)
A further thought: one reason people buy Macs is to identify with "Mac" - "I'm a Mac owner, look at my cool dual G5 with OS 10.4" sort of thing. The bulk of Mac users seem to want 2 things: to all look the same (both with boxes and OS) and to have a really "easy" OS to use (despite the fact that it's got more eye-candy than a Peter Jackson film). So, why would a Mac-ophile ever want to go to Linux?
Thanks for your patience as I explore this whole Linux issue: it's been bugging me for a couple of years now, so I really want to get to the bottom of it all with some sound info and get past all the crap that people keep serving up (a special thanks for NOT serving me more of that!)

by hereinoz

As a fellow anipodean, my suggestion, IslandBoy, would be to grab yourself a pc of reasonable spec (1300 Celeron with a 20GB HDD will do, stick a Network card in it, and get hold of a Fedora 3 or 4 distribution, and install the bloody thing.

The download will be about 2.4GB total, so if you are limited in your download speed, let me know and I will stick some CDs in the post to you (not too expensive from Adelaide).

All of the questions you have asked would be pretty much answered by installing a distro of Linux, (Fedora 3 is my current one) and getting involved in it.

I tend to mix windows and linux, although I must say that I always feel a lot more comfortable doing my internet banking on the Linux machine than on the Windows XP box.

Poms are looking good in the cricket!!

Alan

by --loki--

aside from macintosh being an ideal system for graphics applications, since most of them are designed for mac, and later ported to windoze... *winks*

they are, and always have been, faster, than an intel system of comparable processor and memory... in terms of speed and power, mac hardware and the ability of it's OS to work with it's hardware effeciently, has stayed just a step ahead of intel and intel based OS's for quite some time... where intel used 8-bit, mac was 16-bit... where intel was 16-bit, mac went to 32bit, and so on...

as far as the gui, it was designed to be as hassle free for it's target market as possible... already customized to the system it's going on, few adjustments needed... graphic artists and students don't want to hassle with their systems... they just want to turn it on and use it...

now... if they expanded their marketing horizons to focus more on the business world, rather than only the graphics realm, well... *grins* it's all in the marketing...

with all that being said......... a mac system running pure linux os, and not that bastardized bloated version they're using for OS X... would be a kick-ass system... *grins*

just me...

~Loki

by tony hopkinson

is I had my first experience of Linux two years ago.
I installed it from the cds no problems.
Installed a database server no problem.
Enabled Apache no problem
Started writing data to it from a VMS box no problem.
Reading and displaying on a windows box (with VB6 no less) no problem.
reading and displaying in any browser with PHP server side scripts no problem.
Automatic back up to DVD, no problem
Both servers ran for eighteen months with one interuption caused by eejit who couldn't read the label on an isolator switch.
That's with no previous linux experience at all, though to be fair the spectrum 48k was the fourth piece of hardware I has access to , though the first that I owned.

Now how many of your customers who could have a similar scenario I've no idea, but there will be some and if they go for it and you can't support it, they are an ex customer.

OS free. hardware one year old and cheap. database server free, web server free, so apart from bespoke software development costs which would have been incurred no matter what environment the only added cost was my learning curve, which is a one off. When I left there were eleven pairs of these servers implemented in the organisation, another pair in development, and two more being discussed. It's much cheaper, far more robust but different.
P.S Why do you describe your self as an average computer user, that's the guy who rings you up for support because he swiveled his monitor round and it went black all of a sudden.

by islandboy_77

Very good Tony: I had a couple of good laughs from your post. I particularly like the one about the swivelling monitor: I've even had a call very similar to that! I suppose I don't like to "overstate" my position, as there are guys out there, such as yourself, who do stuff that, frankly, scares me! I can do a good hardware build, install XP, tweak it a bit, do all the "patches" (no laughing please... ;)), install the AV etc etc, and even trouble-shoot quite a bit of stuff. But I've never set up a server, and do not understand much of the tech-speak about networking, privilges etc etc. Hence, I consider myself an "average" user. The people who turn monitors around and yank plugs out I consider to be "button pushers"...
Thanks for the comment about the cheap hardware. Now that's something I've heard plenty of times: one Linux-affectionado told me that all he needed was a 486 DX2-66 (or 100) and he could make a server to rival most Win / Mac servers. Is that true? What about Ethernet speeds? Hard drive sizes? CPU bottlenecks? Slow RAM? The physical architecture inside a 486 might as well be a mouse on a wheel compared to even a Pentium II! Was the comment by this guy over-simplistic or fairly accurate? Surely the same scenario would not work for someone wanting to do Photoshop, play games or pretty much anything else - yes?
Lastly, I was intrigued by your comment about the Spectrum. What were your other 3 earlier comps? In the Sinclair line there was only the ZX-80 and ZX-81 that I was aware of. Do you mean a Vic 20 or something? I had a ZX-81 (with one of those annoying 16kb RAM packs that would always fall out the back of the comp in the last 5 seconds that I was saving a game to tape that had taken me an hour to type in...), a 48kb Spectrum, then a Spectrum Plus, then a SAM Coupe. I wish now I had gone down the commodore track instead: how cool was the Amiga series?!

by jaqui

linux will install onto a 386 with 32 mb ram.
( most distros )
I wouldn't recommend under a pentuim class system, and 128mb ram for serious use.

but yes, you could really use an old 386 or 486 as a webserver and firewall / router without to many problems.
but it's not going to be fast as using any pentium 2 or better would be.

mandriva will not install on anything less than pentium. red hat, debian, xandros all say they are i386 supportive.

best rule of thumb for getting reasonable performance, read windows hardware requirements, and gut it by 1/3, you have equal or better performance with linux meeting the lower hardware requirements.

by apotheon

Linux is great at making the most of older hardware, at least in comparison with Windows. I'm using a 366MHz laptop with Linux to post this, and it outperforms a Windows XP system on an Athlon XP 1600+. Fileservers on Linux need almost nothing for hardware, just a 486 or Pentium with 64MB or 128MB RAM under anything short of the highest loads, and hard drive space really, while for a supported and capable Windows fileserver you really need to get at least Windows 2000 Server or newer, and God forbid you have less than 256MB RAM and a P-3 of at least 1GHz clock speed.

On the other hand, you don't want to use a 486 for image editing. It won't even be able to support the RAM needed for the application. I run the GIMP on this 366MHz laptop (128MB RAM) from time to time, and wouldn't be caught dead trying to run a recent release of Photoshop on a Windows system running less than 2GHz processor and 512MB of DDR. Games don't really even need processor clock speed so much as fast and copious RAM and a great video card, which is an entirely separate matter from discussing what hardware an OS uses, but you need a decent video card for high-power image editing, too, and video editing multiplies that need regardless of OS.

In general, you can't really get away with running any reasonably recent Windows release (Win2k or later) without reserving 256MB of RAM just for the OS, without even factoring in applications. Sure, it can run on less at times, but the performance hit will be tremendous. With Linux, 256MB of RAM is all you need for all but the most memory-intensive operations, total, including OS and all applications, and you can get by with decent performance for far less RAM than that. Processor speed isn't as important as what kind of hardware is supported along with your processor, generally, under Linux: I've never approached maxing out the CPU usage except when running something like SETI@home, which is designed to use all unused CPU.

No, you shouldn't play Unreal Tournament or Neverwinter Nights on a 486, but you can use it as a firewall or fileserver without issue.

by tony hopkinson

really old hardware though I'm told it will work.
But you can run a linux server on a decent desktop say the one you had to replace when buying XP.
As apotheon says if you use the box for somethimg that is resource intensive either memory for video processing or drive space for file and database serving you are going to need a more specific solution, but it won't need to be anywhere near as powerful.
For a server solution, if you are prepared to work from the command line you can use your available hardware for something much more productive than a backdrop for your icons with more colours that you are physically capable of perceiving.

The monitor thing was a regular during my early support career, there was one sales type eejit who did it about once a week with his a little bit smarter than this particular user terminal.
Reset the comms , kill session on main frame , plug monitor back in, tell twit it's working again POLITELY, development's much less stressful.

by lordshipmayhem

True, older hardware (older than Pentiums) aren't for the Photoshop/GIMP users, but I've set my friend's Pentium II up on Mandrake 10.1. All he needs it for is e-mail and websurfing, without having to worry about virii or worms or whatnot.

by jmgarvin

1) There are tools to allow Windows products to run in Linux and there are also substitutes.
CAD - http://www.linuxcad.com/
Office - http://www.openoffice.org/ (although MS office has more functionality)
Photoshop -> The Gimp - I hate The Gimp, so no comment

2) For the most part the stuff you see is high end users playing around with their systems. Most of the time stuff works out of the box. Sometimes, you have to update a driver or two after install (simple...just like Windows update, only easier). Wireless is a little harder to setup, but very possible. Some things are a real bear, but generally it isn't until you start to tinker with your system that you encounter that.

3) In most modern distros you don't have to use the command line at all. Everything is double click or drag and drop. The biggest issues that I've seen are with people not willing to learn how to use a computer at all. They brain lock when the GUI looks a little different.

4) PS files can be created on the fly any time, so I'm not sure I understand the problem.

5) *sigh*...if only Adobe would actually make a PDF usable. PS files are far more usable than PDF, but Adobe has cornered the market. While Adobe reader works in Linux, nothing else does. It seems that they are moving towards that, but I really don't see the point. GV can view most PDF files and most PDF files can be directed straight to the printer.

As for drivers and such:
Vendors don't support Linux. While some actually write Linux drivers, so could care less. So the community has to reverse engineer the hardware and write a driver for it.

Software is another issue. Anymore, making software so platform specific it can't be ported is just a cry for help. Porting software used to be a big issue, but it should be (and mostly is) a much more simple task...

by islandboy_77

Thanks for your encouragement Alan: I am definitely going to have a go. I've got a "spare" computer sitting around at the moment that I was going to turn into my "video editing" computer. But it's taken so long to get all the parts together that it's almost a year old now! Since I can quite happily wipe the temporary Win XP install on the HDD, I will have a go at installing a Linux distro. So you think that Fedora is going to be the "softest" move for a Windows user? I am concerned about the download - did you really mean 2.4GB (as in 2400MB)? That seems enormous! Even the Mac OS isn't that big! What is all the "extra" data for? And once I get it up and going, where are the best, most reliable website for the drivers I'm going to look for? Does Linux have any problems with SATA drives? What about RAM limits and CPU compatibilities? The machine I'm looking to use is:
- Intel 3.0 GHz
- 2GB DDR 400 Dual Channel
- 1 x 120GB HDD SATA, 1 x 80GB SATA
- Samsung DVD-R Dual Layer
- Floppy (just in case... ;))
- 256MB FX5700 Video
- Albatron motherboard

by apotheon

I don't see anything in that list of hardware that should provide a problem for Fedora.

Fedora uses the Anaconda installer, which is surprisingly similar in many ways to the Windows installers with which you're sure to be familiar. It should be fine as a first-shot distribution. Others you might look into include Xandros, Mandriva, and SuSE.

The reason the downloads are as big as they are is that full distribution downloads include far more than the OS. All of Windows XP's installation fits on one CD because all you're getting is the OS itself and some random neutered tools like Wordpad. With a full Linux distribution download, though, you're getting CD images for hundreds, or even thousands (in the case of Debian, for instance), of additional free software packages.

If you are going to be running the Linux system with an always-on broadband Internet connection, you likely won't have any need of more than the network install version, which will fit on one CD with space to spare. Net installers just have the basic installer on the CD and actually download additional software packages as they go rather than having everything on CDs. My experience with Fedora installs has all been with minimal installs using CD 1 from the full set, so I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the Fedora net installer, or even whether there is such a thing, but I don't see why there wouldn't be one.

by islandboy_77

Do you think there is any "advantage" in buying a "commerical" version of Linux? A couple of my suppliers that I deal with have Linux available for sael - one has SuSE, another Xandros, and another called Mandrake. As a real newbie to this, would any of those be a "better bet" than Fedora? I'm sure that once I get going, I will begin to feel my way on my own (as I have for the last 23 years in computers), but for some reason this whole thing with Linux has got me a bit "on edge". Don't know why: perhaps I've been using Windows for far too long... ;)

by jaqui

you may find hat video editing software requires higher end hardware than you list.
here is a video editing package designed for professional use on linux:

http://heroinewarrior.com/cinelerra.php3

here is thier hardware specs:

RECOMMENDED FRONT END SYSTEM

Now Cinelerra is by no means a lightweight program. You'll need something slightly less sexy than a handheld organizer to run it most effectively.

Dual 2.4Ghz Opteron
4GB RAM.
200 GB storage for movie files.
Gigabit ethernet

RECOMMENDED RENDERFARM NODE:

Single 2.4Ghz Athlon
512MB RAM
Flash hard drive
100MB ethernet

they have 3 other apps designed for home user, links on the url posted.

it's a case of exactly how high a quality end result do you want. joe average home video or studio production?

by charliespencer

If it hasn't already been recommended, try http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/forumdisplay.php?s=&forumid=8

This link goes to their "Newbie" forum. Speaking as someone is not that far ahead of you in his Linux research, let me throw out a couple of quick hints.

Ignore all that stuff about how Linux will run on any old hardware. It will, but finding drivers for older hardware, especially video cards, has been a problem for this newbie. Also, many people saying their old hardware works great are running from the command line, not the graphical interface. I've found a real performance penalty with the GUI on older boxes.

I remember a couple of posters debating drivers for DVDs; check around. You may want to avoid a laptop until later. You may also want to avoid adding the computer to a Windows network until you've gotten comfortable with the OS.

When participating in a help group, be sure to do a thorough search of the site before posting a new question. Rarely does a complete newbie ask an new, original question. The answer is usually already available.

If it isn't and you do post a question, include as many details as possible. Hardware configuration, Linux distribution (at this stage, think of a 'distro' as a brand), errors displayed, what you've tried, etc. Although most Linux distributions install some of the same apps, they do vary in features and applications installed.

Some hardcore users would say you'll learn Linux better if you don't install the graphical interface. (Unlike Windows, you can leave the GUI off and interact with the operating system from the command line interface.) As another relative newbie, I'd say load it, especially if you are trying to compare Linux applications with their Windows counterparts. You can always run the CLI in a window. Again, there is a performance penalty with the GUI, but at this stage you aren't looking to set up database / web server for EBay or Amazon.

Avoid getting dragged into debates about the relative virtues of one distribution or application over another. There's dozens of websites already dedicated to those who want to wade into those murky waters. Try a few of the distributions that run straight off a CD first; that way you don't have to completely rebuild the box each time you want to try another flavor.

Cricket? Isn't that the baseball game with the weird bats and the balanced sticks? :-)

by jaqui

your recommendations sound awfully familiar. ;)

haven't most of us said exactly that in one discussion or another? :)

this is part of why I usually don't recommend the *bsd os, or those that install through a cli.
( read above between apo and I )

by roger99a

I have successfully setup 4 linux systems. This is what I have learned: Redhat will crash. All it was used for was Squid, but the KDE GUI stayed broken. The proxy software continued to run though. I find the "kitchen sink" distros to be a bit of information overload. Hust too many choices on what to install.
Debian makes a good server and the apt-get command makes it very easy to get the software you need installed. Our web guy and I built a secure website from scratch and saved $16,000 compared to a commercial system.
Xandros is pretty. My wife asked for a copy of it because it was prettier than her MAC. It's also easy to use and seems complete enough for the home user. Better versions cost money, so I won't suggest it.
Ubuntu has the same advantages as as Xandros as far as being easy to use and easy to look at. Plus it's based on Debian so the apt-get works here, too.
Both Xandros and Ubuntu using Firefox will leak memory much faster than my Windows XP box. I blame Firefox.

by --loki--

i've noticed it on both windoze and linux, when any of the mozilla browsers are left open for a length of time... either firefox or full suite... any ideas as to the reason or to a possible fix? it usually happens when i've left the browser running unattended for more than 10 hours or so, usually on a page that has images that change, or a refresh script of some sort... is it an issue with the way it stores the cache? hmmm...

by stuart.carter

I can appreciate you feeling startled at 2.4gb for a Linux install, when Windows comes on a single CD.

Hopefully this will make it clearer....:
Software included in your average Linux distribution:
* base kernel
* various different GUIs (on Mandrive there is a choice of 5 GUIs!)
* a multitude of web browsers, email clients, IM clients, IRC clients...
* ftp clients
* ftp servers
* Samba server (to allow your Linux PC to act as a PDC)
* Samba client (to allow your Linux PC to talk to a Windows network)
* database server (which one would you like.. MySQl, PostreSQL...)
* full blown office suites (OpenOffice, KOffice..)
* and so on....

One of the many reasons why the distros are so big is because of the sheer volume of choices available.. which is just the way I like it ;-)

by jaqui

mandriva 2005 le has more than 5 gui options.
kde
gnome
enlightenment
blackbox
windowmaker
mwm
icewm

just off the top of my head.

by jaqui

distro, like fedora core and mandriva are 3 700 mb cdroms

debian, if you download everything for cd burning is 7 700 mb cdroms

a full install of absolutely everything from 3 cds is just under 6 gigabytes of hard drive space.
but this includes every language option, and multiple different programs to do the same thing.
do you need 12 different irc apps?
8 different email clients?
3 different ftp servers?
2 different web servers ( not counting different versions of apache )
ssh server and clients
kerberos support for everything,
6 different cd burning apps, with 3 different backend tools in each. ( same tools, the apps are gui wrappers for the backends )
6 different media players. ( gui )
2 different console media applications
6 different protocols for sound system
( alsa being the standard )
7 different archiving tools

it is actually over 10 thousand different applications on 3 cdroms

choices and decisions before installing a single thing.. once you pick a distro out of the multitude. ;)

by charliespencer

Without getting into the pros and cons of choice, can you see how a Windows user would find this confusing and overwhelming?

by lastchip

Having spent a while reading this thread, can I offer you this, from another Linux Newbie.

If you're going to try a distro, first, don't be scared of it. Modern installations are pretty much the same as Windows. You are asked for your Country, Keyboard, Date and Time, that sort of thing.

Partitioning can be fully automatic and if you haven't tried Linux before, it's the best option provided you're trying it on a test machine (in other words, you can't screw anything up!).

During the installation process, you will have to create a "root" (administrator) password and at least one "user" and password. As a general rule, use Linux as a user and only switch to root when you need to make a configuration change or install an application. You can do very little damage as a user, but as root, you can screw the system big time. Sometimes only a complete reinstall will rectify the problem (unless you have expert knowledge). This actually, isn't as bigger deal as it sounds, as Linux installs significantly quicker than Windows on a like for like machine.

Avoid Win Modems like the plague. I'm told some of them can be got working, but it's not worth the hassle. Win means Windows in this case and Linux don't like them! If you have an Internet enabled network, just plug the machine into the network and it will self configure like a dream. Linux and networks were born for each other.

I am going out on a limb and going to disagree on one aspect with our learned friends. Redhat aka Fedora, I have found to be a pain in the neck. Whether this is because of my incompetence (probably!) I don't know. But keep in mind, Fedora is a development project and in my limited experience, it shows. I tried Fedora core 4 just this weekend and it wouldn't auto-configure my network and has shut-down problems to name but two.

As you're coming from a Windows background, I would strongly recommend; Xandros; Mandrivia; and SuSE; in that order.

Xandros, I have had no issues with at all. It self configures everything, just boot from the CD, follow the installer, and away you go. (I suppose that makes me a Windows Monkey!).

Mandriva, is the next most user friendly distro I have found, although I have experienced (very) minor issues.

SuSE, is probably the best choice for a commercial disto. With the potential backup of Novell (if you want to pay for it) and the famous YaST application installer, this distro takes a lot of beating. And Yes, I have tried them all along with a few others.

Do give it a try. Even if at the end of the day, it doesn't appeal, it will broaden your knowledge and that can be no bad thing. Good luck.

by charliespencer

I don't work on home machines except my own. It and the laptops we purchase at work all come with modems installed on the motherboard, so I haven't purchased a modem in years. What's a WinModem? Is that a modem manufactured by Microsoft for use with Windows? I didn't think they got involved with the manufacture / sale of hardware components at that level.

by islandboy_77

Thank, lastchip - this is the sort of info I'm looking for! I'm bogged down with Windows installs and fixes at the moment (as in, like, for the last month...), but I have got myself primed to have a go with this Linux thing. Thanks especially for your specific comments regarding the different "flavours". I appreicate the input from the "learned" Linux users who are contributing to this thread: however, a "newbie's" experience just feels a bit closer to home and, dare I say, pertinent to my status (please don't take office, those of you contributing who are part of the "learned" Linux clan ;)).

by jaqui

you mean they finally broke down and got a graphical installer?
the version I downloaded 9 months ago was the bsd installer still.

by apotheon

Hell no, it's not graphical. Why use a graphical installer for what amounts to hitting Enter over and over again?

The new installer is still basically text-based (it actually looks like it's ncurses-based), but now installation mostly consists of hitting the Enter key several times rather than having to input hardware types and the like.

by apotheon

There are advantages, but they're probably minimal for you. The boxed SuSE set comes with the best documentation you can get with a retail Linux install set: as of SuSE 8.2 Professional, it came with three books. I haven't checked later versions' documentation, but I'm pretty sure they haven't skimped on it since then.

If you get the commercial version of Xandros, it reputedly comes with some restricted license software in addition to the normal free stuff, like Crossover Office.

Mandrake bought Connectiva, and the new distro combining both is Mandriva. Ask if they're selling Mandriva or actual pre-merger Mandrake. If the latter, they're selling old software.

Truthfully, Mandriva and Xandros are probably the easiest for a newbie to Linux from Windows, but it's a pretty close call and depends a lot on the proclivities of the user. Fedora and SuSE should be quite good enough as well. Look into the specifics of each a bit and see what appeals to you.

by jaqui

of the bsd installer, to fix the problems with it.

most people seeing any non graphic install will flip out, no matter if it's "only hit enter a few times" or not.
( specially if they are used to windows and macos installs. )
I know that some of the installer team for debian are wanting to get a graphic install option for it, to promote windows users to try debian.

by apotheon

Debian currently uses what is called the "debian-installer", a completely new installer rather than just an improvement over the old installer, as far as I can tell. It's still not a GUI installer in the tradition of Anaconda, but I'm glad it's not. The last thing I want to see happen is Debian turning into another friggin' Red Hat. I like having an installer that doesn't require 128MB of RAM to run. I like having an installer that doesn't screw around with rendering Fisher-Price widgets. I just want an installer, and that's it.

by stress junkie

I agree that once you are past the installation and adding any software that the person wants to use then Linux becomes a very good tool for the average Joe home user. It's the bit about setting the system up, setting up Wine or Crossover Office for some M$ apps, setting up Cedega for some other M$ games that Joe push-button won't get past without help.

It is also worth mentioning that Unix/Linux security is limited to protecting the system software. You can still get in trouble with malware implemented in Java or JavaScript. Anything that the end user can do can also be done by a malware attack. Therefore user files could be copied or destroyed if some malware gets a chance to run in the user's process. This is why we still have to disable Java and JavaScript in web browsers.

Running M$ applications through an enabler such as Wine also brings potential user space problems. The system files are not going to be altered but the user space files are at risk. Any applications that the user runs from their home directory could also be altered if the file ownership permits this.

I think it's a mistake to oversell the benefits of Linux. Most Linux affectionadoes don't mention the obvious attack vectors in Unix/Linix. Anything that the user is privileged to do can be done by malware running in the user's process. That includes doing a lot of looking around and copying files. I'm always trying to tighten security in my test machine. I end up breaking things because those things depended on having a file set to allow everyone to read it. I have broken the man command in the past by tightening file security. Most recently I have broken the CUPS print system the same way.

In spite of these limitations I still would prefer to see all of the home users switch to Linux. We wouldn't have so many thousands of zombie computers on the Internet if M$ went away.

by jmgarvin

This is a good way to get started with the lock down, plus you might see a bullet to lock down something you forgot about.*

*I know you are an expert in Linux, but Bastille is a great tool for every sys admin....

by jaqui

my preffered distro is lfs, building from sources in console is definately not a gui. ;)

but, for people coming to linux from windows or macos, a graphic installer isn't going to freak them as much as a console installer.
they are used to haveing the "pretty pictures" lying to them about what's happening, having plain old text tell them what's happening is to different for them to accept it's a user friendly os.

this must be the biggest sticky point for adopting linux, the console installer makes it look like they need to be a computer science genius to install it. ( the bsd installer specially )

by apotheon

There are GUI installer versions of many distros that normally only have CLI installers. For instance, the Progeny Componentized Linux version of Debian uses a modified Anaconda installer.

by jaqui

xandros, linspire, yellowdog, ubuntu..
a lot of the newer distros are "debian" with graphic installers.

linspire and xandros made one small change, that, in my opinion, hurts them huge.
they altered the repository system to ONLY use thier own branded packages. they went proprietary only.

while they are targeted at getting users from windows, they are hurting themselves by trying to be a microsoft with linux.

by deadly ernest

Savings, stability and security are the main reasons people switch to Linux, another is flexibility as Linux can be cut back and specialised to a specific need and all extra stuff removed - something not possible with M$. Also most Linux versions use far less resources and extend the machine longevity because of this.

Also general administration can be automated a lot more by writing scripts to do the task - this does require a bit more knowledge on your part but is a useful thing to do although not required.

The downside with Linux is that getting drivers for the very latest cutting edge hardware is sometimes a problem. You need to check driver compatibility for your hardware; conversely the latest ditributions have a lot of generic drivers that will make just about anything work. With cost concious companies this is usually not a problem as they will rarely get the absolute latest hardware, and the stuff that is several months old usually has Linux drivers available.

The other downside is that it does look a bit different to M$ and some people do not like change. However with M$ now making their latest versions look different the differences posed by Linux are not that noticable anymore.

Most of the latest Linux versions come with a program called WINE or something similar, this allows you to run most M$ based software within that program with full compatibility. There is a list of tested and known compatible software for WINE etc, just check Google or try www.linuxhq.com or www.linuxhq.org - lost of info.

To check Linux compatibility you would best set up one machine with Linux, load the software and see how well it works for you - you should get a pleasant surprise in most cases.

Because Linux is so flexible the different distrobution companies tend to make their distributions with a particular lean and feel that is different to the others so you should look at them and see which is best for you. It is kind of looking at all the M$ version to choose if you want Win2K Pro, Win2K Server or Win2K ADv Server for a particular usage, NB Kind of not exact.

I have seen people switch to Linux simply because they have problems with legacy software not working properly on the latest M$ OSs - this is not supposed to be a problem but does pop up with some of the very old stuff.

Personally I am in the process of switching all my systems to the latest Mandrake Linux and running Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, GoLive, 3D Max, and many games within WINE. Some of the older games run well in WINE but will not run at all on WinXP - they were originally written for Win95. I have checked and all this software is fully compatible with a Linux / WINE system.

by jaqui

get 3d studio max to run with wine?

I gotta go grab a trial of max and test that out.
it is a better modeller / animation package than maya, in my opinion.

by deadly ernest

Give me a week to get myself sorted out and I will have Mandrake up and running and have loaded 3D Max and let you know how it goes in reality - I NEVER really belive anything until I have tried it for myself. Especially since MS told me my favorite game that ran in Win 98 would run in W2K and it did not and they say it will work in Win XP and it does not. Can't wait to see it run in WINE get rid of two MS OSs at once then - currently dual boot WinXP and Win98.

by charliespencer

I don't think I said much that was new, but I also hadn't seen much of it in -this- discussion. I thought summarizing them for IslandBoy might be helpful.

I wouldn't dream of recommending anything related to Unix / Linux flavors at this stage of my development. I don't know what a *bsd is. I skipped over most of your installer discussion with apotheon since the first couple of posts were too advanced for this greenhorn.

Got those Shift keys working yet?

by elctbreaks

IslandBoy, you will never find a reasonable answer to your question. Asking Linux die-hards why to switch would be like asking Stalin about the benefits of Communism. The fact is, "button-pushers" and "trained-monkeys" have spent YEARS getting comfortable with the computers they know today- Windows. To them, there IS no computer, its Windows. they have no idea about what lies inside that fancy case Dell just sold them. "I want to burn a cd, I want to surf the internet, and type Word documents." The masses are just getting to a point where they are beginning to NOT be intimidated by computers, and to offer them a switch, most would either turn the offer down, or get so flustered by a new learning curve as to give up entirely. If you think you are sup3r-k3wl 3l1t3 because you use a "non-gui" o/s, great, more power to you. But after all is said and done, Windows is on top. It may not be the best o/s, it may not be the most secure, but its IS on top. Deal with it. As for me, I wouldn't install a Linux based system in someone's home or office, especially if I have to support it. You are right, IslandBoy, why spend countless UNBILLABLE hours "trolling" for drivers and fixes when XP DOES work out of box?

by jcrobso

As I have been reading the responces and enjoying most of them. A few thoughts came to mind.
There will allwise be people who are techo- challenged, my wife for one.
Lets us not forget the hunt for the "any" key, or the call about the broken cup holder.
At this point in time most of the problems caused buy XPSP2 have subsided. And the Win2k update has been withdrawn so I've been thinking....
M$ is preparing a "NEW" OS to shove down our throats. Now this "Vista" thingy who knows what it will be??? M$ keeps taking things out of it, so much that buy the time we can get the product it may only be new curtins for XP.
A quote comes to mind "A rose buy any other name would still have thorns"
So as I have been reading the string of posts I have just finished installing SUSE Linux Pro9.2 on a Dell optiplex GS260 wiht out problems and loged on the the W2K server.
Yes every OS has a learning curve, I've made it through DOS, WIN3.1, OS2, WIN95,98,ME,W2k,Active directory and XP, so I guess I can make it throught Linux.
XP dose not alwise work out of the box, but most of the time it dose.
Everything you do costs something! So I'm spending so time of the next 17 months learning Linux so when the M$ thing comes out I will have an optin. John

by jmgarvin

"why spend countless UNBILLABLE hours "trolling" for drivers and fixes when XP DOES work out of box?"

Typically if it works in Windows, it will work in Linux. The problem is that people don't know WHERE to get the drivers and vendors aren't forth coming with drivers.

However, most Linux distros have make updating a computer easy with apt-get, yum, or up2date. Suddenly it is EASY to get packages and you don't have to search.

Why drivers are not working? What vendors? I highly suggest you email the vendor and explain your displeasure with them!

by deadly ernest

Over the eyars I have installed every version of M$ OS except Win 2003 Server. I have found XP to be the most troublesome of the lot, especially XP Home. I know some things are different for you people in the US of A, but downunder we have mucho problemo with XP and drivers. To date I have found seven different modems that come with M$ certified Australian drivers which XP automatically dumps and replaces on every reboot as the 'driver software has been corrupted' according to M$ XP - yeah the OS sees the certified software as being corrupted because it has a few different command strings to work with the Aust phone system and not the US phone system.

Many of the available video cards will work with generic XP drivers if you like 800 x 600 resolution, anyhting higher requires a special driver program that replaces many of the XP graphics files. Same with the high end sound cards. NB all the gear that XP has problems with are 12 to 15 months older than XP and should have been included in the M$ driver database.

Yet I do not get these same problems with the Linux distributions of the same age or their latter distributions.

M$ is on top due to better marketting, I do not know anyone who disagrees with that. However, for the last 4 years or so M$ have been cutting their own throat - the annual fee crap, the 'get screwed' activation process are all pushing people away from the latest M$ products. I know companies that are actively seeking older versions of M$ software for their new systems so that they do NOT have to worry about the activation process.

Activation - lovely process where by changing the video card can kill the OS, don't you love it.

M$ were reasonably good but have been going down hill for the last decade and are now speeding up the process.

by jcrobso

Yes, it can be if you can't get the drivers you
need!!! M$ tries to force hardware companies to
make plane vinilla hardware so it will work with
XP. If it some other flavor now you have to start
looking.
M$ is acting like a company that has a
monopoly( OK they do). Just look at the
impprovments in Mac OSX and Linux over the last 4
years vrs the improments(???) in XP.
I'm posting this on the SUSI Linux that I
installed this morning on the Dell PC.John

by gnunzo

So do you steal your software or just "borrow" it from warez sites or the company for which you work?

: )

For the cost of just your software purchases, I have brand new high performance hardware which--imagine that--has no drivers missing from my "distro".

My experience with drivers is just completely different than yours. As a matter fo fact, yours is different from everyone here at my Windows shop as I am polling the room. I have to find XP drivers for multiple devices, but have only had to do one driver search for Linux over that same time.

by elctbreaks

That a "Windows" shop has such a hard time with Windows. I have no idea what color the sky is where you live, but under the blue sky, XP is about as hassle free as they come. XP's driver base covers most commonly found hardware, including those evere irritating modem/sound drivers.

by islandboy_77

Ah, Gnunzo, were you specifically addressing this reply to me, or someone else in this discussion. If to me, what is it about my opening message that lead to your "stealing software" comment / question? Also, presuming you are addressing you post to me, I don't recall saying that I HAD problems with drivers but that I didn't want to END UP with scouring the net for drivers. Please clarify. Thanks.

by halfbreed32171

well IslandBoy_77. i build cutom pc's for a living and iver worked with just about all of them.unless you plan on doind like web design and anything use for the web.the web is maid in unix.but thease people thats saying you need all thease drivers for windows XP and pro dont know what there talking about.if you pc is custom build.then you need only one cd.i put my XP pro in and i never have to get drivers.but then again i build my machine from the ground up.and as for all those people that say they have to serach the web for driver...well thats what you get for buying a Dell,gateway,ect,ect....cause they use there own drivers.65% of the time programs crash from dell and gateway driver cause a lot of programs dont recignize them.and if you ask me Dell and gateway all the Original Manufacters Equipment or OME.they make there own driver so the cam monopolize there customers pc's all thoe they wont admit to that.but anyways if you have a custom build pc you wont have to look for drivers.all thos complaints are from OME customers.and they pay a lot more for a piece of junk.so if you have windows XP and you have to find all thease driver after you format.dont blame it on microsoft.blame it on your pc and where you got it from.this problem will never get soulved unless people start complaining there OME computer company where they bout it from.like i call the "Dell from hell" and "gayway" "packerd from hell" for thease pc's you pay alot and get very little.so if you got complaints about drivers.complain to the company you bout the pc from.not to microsoft.then when you dune complaining get a custom bult pc.i use one cd for eveything.XP pro.and i never have to install drivers after my format.so if you have a Dell,gateway,packerd bell..i ask you... hows it feel to be monopolized..

by jcrobso

A service tech has to deal with many different
PCs and customers, customers tend to miss place
the driver CDs that came with their PCs. So some
times you have to go hunting for the drivers.
John

by jaqui

happen with open source os.
you find out which distribution, download the version they have and you have all the drivers, if they do manage to screw thier system up that badly.

by apotheon

In the beginning, Kernighan and Ritchie saw a need for a flexible platform-portable operating system. They said "Let there be C, and Unix," and thus did C and Unix come to be, and it was good.

AT&T ended up owning Unix, but because of the results of antitrust litigation, AT&T couldn't legally make any money off Unix, so they gave it away for free to educational institutions and hobby hackers with access to PDPs. Many modifications were made. Unix was the first OS to really embody the open source style of software development, and the center of Unix development after its inception was at the University of California at Berkeley. The Berkeley version of Unix eventually became known as BSD Unix (BSD stands for "Berkeley Software Distribution"). There was a bit of a falling-out between AT&T and Berkeley over the commercial disposition of Unix, though, and there ended up being the proprietary UNIX and the not-so-proprietary BSD Unix, the latter of which was made up entirely of new code that grew out of the old code such that there was no longer any overlap between the original AT&T source and what was being used in BSD, thus allowing Berkeley to distribute under their own license (the BSD license, natch) without copyright conflicts.

Time passed. DOS was popular because it could run on PCs. The 386 came into being, and suddenly processors had enough power to support unices. BSD/386 became available at roughly the same time as Linux (1993). Very shortly, Linux sported Yggdrasil, Slackware, and Debian distributions, and BSD had FreeBSD and NetBSD forks. Eventually, NetBSD forked as well, producing OpenBSD. Ultimately, a few other fringe BSDs came into being, some more successfully than others (Dragonfly BSD comes to mind as one with a chance yet to become a solid contender), but mostly FreeBSD, NetBSD, and OpenBSD are the primary examples of *BSD.

Ta-daaa. This is what *BSD is. It is, in practice, very much like Linux. It is geek-culturally more like Linux than any other unices.

I hope that helps.

by jaqui

there were 2 notable creations at Berkely in the heyday of the peace movement..
LSD and BSD

we do not think this is a coincidence.

;)

in all probability, Linus was most likely running a bsd box when he started the linux kernel coding.
could be wrong, but he wanted to make a unix for pc's so having a unix system would help that process.

by dsullinger

I see these threads all the time and the war is over what is better, Linux or Microsoft. There usually is very little conversation as of what the customer needs. This comes from both Microsoft and Linux lovers, they only care about pushing their agenda instead of what the customer business needs are. I've seen many situations where Microsoft was the best solution for the customer needs, yet I've seen many examples where Linux would provide the customer a better alternative as a solution. The problem is, all the Microsoft'ites I know would immediately slam me in saying the only solution is Microsoft. Yet I know just as many Linux self-proclaimed Guru's who would say the only solution is Linux and there is no need for Microsoft.

In the end, seam's like "we", as the so called technical experts, should be open to all technologies to what would provide our customers the best solution for their business needs, not what best boost our ego's.

IslandBoy_77 - Ask your customers what they need, read all you can about the various software/hardware platforms available to provide the functionality they need (no matter what OS it runs on), then base a recommendation off the customers current technologies and what will best fit in their environment. Make it about them, not what others feel is where we should be going.

My 2 cents.

btw - Before anyone assumes, I'm a Microsoft Certified Professional and have been a Microsoft beta tester for 10 years. I also have 17 years of UNIX background, so I'm not sold out to either side... to me, it should all be about providing a product.

Thanks

by dsullinger

LOL, thx Palmetto, to bad there isn't more open thought in the tech culture... maybe then we could concentrate our efforts to stop Washington from allowing the outsourcing of our jobs out to countries that do the same thing for a buck a day... how do we compete? Maybe new laws should be passed where-as we could start outsourcing Representatives/Senators/Presedential jobs to other countries... I'm sure they would have a different view point then.

by shuubz

pray tell, after describing yourself, how you would qualify as any sort of a "regular user"? the very idea is absurd coming from a graphics/design/support geek...

now, for your question. at the moment, Linux works best on [1] utility PCs (older hardware) as an appliance (web surfing, email, light document/spreadsheet/presentation duty, thin client, etc.), [2] servers as a web/application, HA/DC cluster, and database platform (just ask Oracle, IBM, many others), and [3] a second-boot environment for rescue, DR, and second-purpose needs (see [1]), because dual-booting is really simple to configure (in most cases).

i loaded a Panasonic Toughbook CF-27 mil-spec-hardened laptop (p3/500) with CentOS 4.1 (open-source RPM distro derived from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4 Update 1). it has some decidedly nonstandard hardware in it. worked out of the box, no touchscreen, but i don't need it. same machine loaded with Win2k required a 3-hour hunt for drivers on the web, and no, the touchscreen doesn't work. dual-boots fine, and when Win2k crashes (no, not if, when), it'll still boot, and access the NTFS partitions, too.

i'm not an average user, with almost 20 years of support experience and some certs. i work as a systems manager of a logistics/warehousing company. we run a number of Linux and FreeBSD servers in our infrastructure. i reboot those...when i physically move them. i reboot our Windows boxes every few weeks (yes, even Server 2003, our NT servers are more stable), when they spaz and die.

these are your facts.

i'm actually quite fond of Macs, my wife uses two. before that, she crashed her wintel IBM Thinkpad T40 every 4 to 6 months. two years ago, at my suggestion, she got a Mac. it's been quiet ever since.

it depends on your purpose. please do not try to run Linux on your TV (wait 2 years, it'll come embedded in that, the stereo, and everything else), your microwave (ditto), or your car (yep, there too). please do not try to run Windows on your TiVo (it comes with Linux), your low-end Cisco router (soon to feature Linux), or your IBM mainframe (some ship with Linux preloaded, Windows is not supported).

by the way, Xandros will pass the "grandma" test (surf, write documents, even burn DVDs). all the software comes with the distro.

grandma is the "normal" user.

you are not.

by jaqui

you mean your ms servers don't want to reboot after updating? they usually do.
that would mean a reboot every month. :)

the only time ( other than physically moving them ) that any posix & ieee styled os ( the *x options ) require rebooting is when you change the core of the kernel. ( and this is actually recommended to be at a minimum of once a year.. minor bugfixes, updates, improvements. the security fixes are what would cause this to be done more frequently, but I've yet to see a kernel security update. )

by charliespencer

Windows is getting better about rebooting after updating. It still isn't what it should be, but I'm surprised at the things that used to require a reboot under previous versions but don't under 2K / XP. Reconfiguring the virtual memory is one. I'm not defending them, just saying it's not as bad as it was.

by islandboy_77

Thanks for your reply, shuubz@... Traditionally, we "down under" are somewhat "remiss" at trumpeting our abilities or in any way bragging about our abilities. As I mentioned in one of my other replies, compared to a number of folk posting to this discussion (yourself included), I find it hard to be considering myself as anything approaching a "super user" or such. All my computing knowledge comes from 20 years of just using computers: no formal training, no qualifications. I have no College / Universities or Tech Insitutue papers or degrees, it's all quite "seat of the pants" computing. What I AM good at is providing, dare I user the term, a "wholistic" computer service. I would definte that like this: I take all my knowledge and experience, look at ONLY what my customer needs, then try to make a solution that fits their needs exactly. However, up until this discussion, I had only experience of Mac and PC to guide my recommendations. I know some DOS, a few Windows command-lines, a bit of registry editing, and some other miscellaneous "geek" stuff. However, since I had HEARD that Linux was much more reliant on command-line, I never went near it (citing compressed deadlines, family and life an general as the reason).

Even after having a "play" with Linux myself, knowing who and what my customers / clients are as individuals and businesses, I am unlikely to recommend Linux in the near future (too much of a change for any of the clients I currently have). Also, I have just got to a point where I feel a bit more "competent" and "knowledgeable" regarding Windows and Mac, and I don't want to "splinter" my attention to another system too much. But, as part of my on-going "sponging up useful information" - as I have done the last 20 years - I am starting to have a look at Linux.

Lastly, if I am not a "normal" user, and certainly far from a super user or "geek", what category do I fit into. Note that my Photoshop skills are confined to Photo-retouching (a skill to be sure, but it hardly scratches the surface of the myriad of tools available in Photoshop), Freehand I use for the most basic things (as I hate Word, but need page layout and a couple of other non-Word things) including manual invoices, and my "geekness" extends to having a ThermalTake Xaser case for my new PC that has been sitting "mostly finished" in my spare bedroom for 12 months (back when a 3GHZ P4 was the latest thing...) that has a cheap CPU water-cooler in it (which was cheap for a reason, I discovered...). :)

by jaqui

common is Lucent Technologies modems, designed to use most of thier driver software from windows code.

winmodem means a modem designed by any company to use windows .dll for the driver software.

and by windows .dll, I mean the core ms windows dlls.
until linmodems.org got together, these driverless modems were only good on windows, as they require windows to be thier driver.
( hardware designed for specific os )

by jaqui

a huge sticky point for a lot of people on the 3d sites.
they use windows only because the 3d apps don't play nice with linux.

I checked crossover office pro with Rhinoceros
no-go.
and crossover office is the full wine package.

about the only thing I really dislike with max is the use of ie's .dlls
( yup, max requires internet explorer to run. )

by lastchip

I think, by Jaqui.

Another way to put it is, part of the hardware that would normally be in a "conventional modem" is replaced by software, but this software is Windows specific.

The bottom line is, it was a way to produce very cheap modems.

As I put in my post to IslandBoy_77, there are many reports that Win Modems have been successfully installed in Linux, but not without a considerable amount of hassle, and you don't need that when you're trying something new. So take the easy route and connect via a RJ45.

by jm

Ironically, I'd think your big shop would be the best place to make Linux work, if it would ever work. If you can dedicate a couple of people to doing all the "trolling" and qualifying of components, then create a build that works on a standard PC, you would probably see the marginal cost of supporting a linux PC drop down below the wintel cost level.

For those of us in small shops, however, the cost of qualifying a linux install on a particular hardware platform is indeed weighty.

What's interesting is that Linux is more of a religious ideology than a practical alternative, a fabled promised land that never materializes except through dilligent sacrifice and worship. Some people go to bible study every evening and then to church once on Saturday and twice on Sunday. And maybe they are sure they are better off. Some people use equal time to nurse their linux machines and work around the invetible problems that arise trying to run an odd platform in a wintel world. And maybe they are sure they are better off.

But for those of us who have to sit and hire staff and deal with technical issues and crunch numbers and serve users who really don't care how it works as long as it does work, the evidence tells another story.

The funniest thing I ever saw is when my diehard linux friend lost power unexpectedly and consequently lost his hard drive. The file system had no automatic repair, nothing close to NTFS fault tolerance options, and it took him hours to get it back up, and then he lost a substantial amount of data. As this was caused by a power drop, RAID did not help because it was the file system. It came up in an unstable state, it had nothing to do with a physical problem. What was funny is that he was in complete denial about it -- he just would not accept that this type of issue in any way made his system less practical. There are an unlimited number of "explainable exceptions" to the assertions of linux superiority, I think because it's hard to knock your own religion when you have so much invested in it.

The devout seem to enjoy playing the role of holy prophet: talking in incomplete and often nonsensical sentences, abstaining from the use of capital letters, using bizarre parables, perhaps to "prove" the degree of their righteousness to the other faithful. If there is a linux heaven, I'm sure that is where they will end up.

by jmgarvin

Linux out of the box builds on a standard PC. My most recent install of Red Hat Enterprise 4 detected everything and automagically worked. I have no idea what you are talking about here. Honestly, a modern distro will detect and work very well with most hardware. The only hard stuff to work with is non-standard hardware or funky hardware. What hardware, other than wireless, does Linux not work with out of the box? If you are using the 2.4.30 or 2.6.* kernel you have all the modern needs.

I suggest you check out Red Hat. Not only is their service and support top notch, they will bend over backwards to make it right. They even helped a blind person though an install issue with brltty!

I don't understand your friends experience. What file system was he using? Why did it get trashed? How did it get trashed? Was there no way to rebuild the file system? I just don't get it...it sounds like either your friend didn't know what he was doing or the story is bunk.

How can 50% of the server market be so wrong?

by islandboy_77

Thanks to jmgarvin, williamtg and jm@... All 3 of you raise some interesting points, and also reiterate some "classic" positions. I have been very tempted to consider some of the Linux people I have read / spoken to to be slightly / very ;) "evangelistic" about Linux: in fact, that's one of the reasons I started this post. However, please let's not go off down the road of "painting" the whole Linux community with the same sticky tar brush. There have been some very very good replies to this thread, and it's hard data / info I'm after. I appreciate that an experience like seeing a "die-hard"'s machine die is relevant (and it does have relevance) - do you know what my first thought was: why wasn't he using a cheap UPS? In New Zealand, I "insist" that all my clients have a UPS with their PC or Mac. The area I live in is notorious for having "dirty" power. That inlcudes spikes, surges, sags, brown-outs - the whole shooting match. Given that most PCs are still a fairly sensitive piece of machinery, I strongly believe that ANY user of a computer, regardless of the OS, is asking for trouble if they simply "trust" the power coming out of their wall socket to be "okey dokey". I'm sure enough of you reading this have been in the "game" long enough to know that any number of computer "glitches" and failures can be directly / indirectly linked to power / PSUs. Given that a 500VA UPS is only NZD$200 + TAX, that is a relatively small "investment" on a NZD$1200-$8000 PC or Mac.
But again, without wishing to sound like a broken record or be "finicky", could we all please keep the conversation to the direct issue at hand, as opposed to getting into name-calling or other such "sidelining" things. Many thanks.

by jm

You know, I should get this out there, to its credit: #1, Linux is much easier to repair than a windows OS, and usually does not require a scratch install. #2. the ablity to load/unload drivers dynamically without rebooting is excellent. #3. Linux has a cool look and I think you end up with a better design on the interface, which is probably VERY relevant in a graphic design environemnt where you are going to be impressing your customers.

If I knew of a place I could find standard PC's, I would be there buying them. I always seem to end up supporting PC's that have recent video cards, network cards, and storage such that, even running XP, you need to download recent drivers from the manufacturer, and their are frequent updates to these drivers, every 6 to 12 months. And then there are customers who do not want to investigate driver availability ahead of buying a new PC. Laptops are especially difficult.

The file system must have gotten hit when it was writing to the file allocation table. I encourage you to write some scripts to copy a large set of small files from one place to another and then power cycle your linux machine while this is going on to see what happens. I'm sure that by the 8th or 9th try you will notice someting.

There is a lot of engineering the MS NTFS subsystem that is not noticed because it just works. If you lose power while writing to the file allocation table, it doesn't matter. I'll admit this type of problem is rare.

It was not caused by power failure but by a flaky application. He had gone to a website in Mozilla and something it tried to load had cold locked the machine. I don't think it was malicious, just looked like a programming bug of some sort.

by --loki--

i've used linux quite often to rescue windows systems that have crashed and burned from similar events... a UPS is good prevention, btw... but linux systems, at least the ones i've used, do indeed have filesystem repair tools, drive mirroring support, journaling file systems, etc... whatever floats your boat, it's available... suse has an outstanding repair tool that not only fixes it's own filesystem, but other os's filesystems and partition tables...

~Loki

by roger99a

My spine shivers at the thought of the punishment the Penguin gods will meet upon thee, unbeliever!

We must have faith that the most holy linux coders will make our desire of a 100% functional desktop a reality. Apple's OSx has proven that the platform can support it and there are distrubutions that are VERY close. Our BSD guy at work is very impressed with Ubuntu. He put it on his laptop and everything works, including his wireless. His only complaint was the battery monitor.

by jaqui

Xandros.
linspire
mandriva's 2005le
debian woody
slak

just use either kde or gnome. ;)

unless you are odd ( like me ) and want a gui like enlightenment.
then use enlightenment.

by charliespencer

"We must have faith that the most holy linux coders will make our desire of a 100% functional desktop a reality."

Faith? I hope you were wise-cracking. It's hard to translate faith into dollars on an ROI.

by jmgarvin

Check out transgaming.com and you should be able to get most games running (hey if it can run Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft, it can run anything) See if your favorite game runs:
http://transgaming.org/gamesdb

It is $15 and saves some headaches with Wine and WineX.

by islandboy_77

sam12587 - you've got it in one! I could not agree more. In your opnion, do you think there is one major source of this tendency of Western computer users? Do you think there is any practical way the attitude can be changed? If yes, who's "job" is it? Do you feel the general change in "Western" thinking e.g. more self-centred, less personal responsibility - plays a significant part? If yes, is there any real hope is there of changing that any time soon.

As I said, a very good point. Clearly, the attitude you mention is primarily applicable to PC users (esp viruses / spyware). If Windows is part of the "evil" contributing to this mass-phenomenom, and Linux is still "maturing" to a point for "everyday" users, where does that leave the "everyday" users? Mac? Playstation? Abbacus... ;)

by stuart.carter

I was working from memory...

I know I had my memory backed up somewhere...

... whaddya mean, the backups are on /dev/null?!!?

;-)

by jaqui

~looking out window at power company crews working on the power lines servicing the building~
not even a brownout while they replace lines and poles.

in the last 10 years, there has only been one noticable blackout for the city.
a cat got into the main substation and fried both itself and a main transformer, took out power for half the city.

not quite as good when you move away from the city, but still not as bad as you described.

by stress junkie

Unfortunately a lot of Linux distributions have adopted journalling file systems for their default. These are more subject to data loss in the case of a power failure during a file write than the "old fashioned" Linux/Unix file systems.

These days the oldest file system type offered by the Linux distributions that I've seen in the last two or three years is the ext2 file system. This is a fairly robust file system. You can still lose data in a power failure during a write operation but I believe that the newer journalling file systems are more prone to these problems. At least that's what I've read.

by stress junkie

... if they had to pay decent wages? Unfortunately the current regime in Washington cares more about HP's profits than American jobs. Even in the recent past the high number of H1-B visas was a problem for Americans since HP could import people to work for half price. Now they can leave those people in their native country and pay them one tenth the amount that they would pay Americans.

But I'm not bitter. Nope. Not me.

by charliespencer

means I agree (or disagree) with you. I just thought it was so far off topic even I wouldn't attempt to continue the thread.

by jmgarvin

ext3 is still a little buggy, but ext2 in many respects is equivelent to NTFS.

It was probably some default fs that caused all the pain.

On that note: You can recover file systems in linux, even if they are corrupted. It just takes a boot disk a little time ;-)

by jm

I've heard a cogent argument that Berkeley Free BSD is a better open source OS than Linux.

Apparently, the various Linux vendors are guilty of putting things into their "distros" that increase customer dependency on their documentation kits and technical services. This only makes sense; it's unclear what the profit model would otherwise be for a public company that is essentially competing with University computer scientists that just do it for free.

How do linux vendors recapture their investment?Training? Certification programs? Consulting? Providing on site services? Telephone support services? Providing documentation? All of these are highly dependent on the ability of the vendor to make themselves uniquely qualified so that they did not face competition from say, your average $17/hour 19 year old Berkeley EECS major.

If this trend continues you will see a repeat in the Linux market of what happened in the unix market 10 years ago -- a highly fractured marketplace, lots of alternative ways to do things, none of them work quite right, and all kinds of service organizations poised with their hands out to help you solve your problem for a fee.

You know this is happening already when you ask a question and someone gives you the names of 5 possible software applications that might address that problem. These of course all have their own complex dependencies and their actual utility will fluctuate over time. Needing answers will cause you to have to try to contact the authors, who may have time to get back to you free, who may be charging for "consulting" services, or who may just refer you to some usenet group where you may get your question answered by someone who is pushing an alternate possible software application. The service experience you get will of course vary depending on how busy people are.

Microsoft (MS) is aware of this. After all, they just decimated the entire Unix industry and Novell in 10 short years. MS has been rather avid finanical supporter of Linux and Linux companies. What MS needs, more than anything, is Linux, because otherwise they are just a straight up monopolist like the old phone company, subject to rather severe government restriction and penalties, as evidenced by recent settlements with EU and the US. I know I am sounding jaded and cynical, but their last imbroglio resulted in MS being on the verge of being broken into pieces, and Bill Gates resigning from the top post. Now and then you can hear manicured PR emissions and "leaks" stating MS' concern over competition from Linux. Those are on the same level as Mr Bush's concern with WMD.

A distribution managed by a public University at least is totally void of "profit" drivers and, for some of our users, has proven to be a sane solution in a chaotic technology environment. And if it makes you feel any better, it is not being financially supported by MS.

by stress junkie

WinModems are just plug and play devices. They are manufactured by many/most/all modem manufacturers.

The only difference between a regular card device and a plug and play card device is that the plug and play device is missing the circuit to select a hardware IRQ.

by --loki--

having used multiple versions of windows, macos, and linux... I can say that linux is definitely more secure, straight out of the box, than any windows version i've ever used... and can be made even more secure with a just a fraction of the time, effort, and extra software required to secure a windows system from threats such as hackers, virii, and worms...

in addition, most newer distros have all the hardware support you might need for all but the very newest hardware, and many hardware companies, at least the ones i use, are getting smart and including linux support on their driver disks along with the windows support...

linux, as an OS, is just in general more stable than any windows version i've used... no frequent lockups or reboots... little to no software conflicts... even if a particular program crashes, it doesn't bring down the rest of the system, at worst you use x-kill on the program and restart that program only... while the rest of the system moves right along... on this particular laptop i've been using for the past year or so, i've had to do a complete reboot, maybe.... hmm... less than once a month? with it running 24/7... (which is apparently hard on laptop cooling fans, btw... lol..) on the rare occasion that i've had a runaway program, which occurs quite frequently in windows (thus the joke about the new microsoft keyboard featuring only three keys... ctrl, alt, del) i've only had to either use x-kill on that particular program, or log off, not reboot...

as far as command line goes, even in winxp, there are functions best done from the command line, and the same is said of any windows version... it is no different in linux... most configuration is now done through gui, but there are some things cli is just easier for...

ease of installation, and gui installs... hmmm... i haven't had any issues with either cli or gui installs... just me... my preferred distro is Suse 9.2... complete hardware support for every machine i've used it on, straight out of the box, from an older Dell laptop to a brand new E-machine to a custom built system... gui interface and system configuration through YAST, automatic update notification, most common programs installed by default... install and go... nice clean interface, at least with the gnome desktop, which i prefer over kde... see.. that's the thing... you get a nice stable, secure OS, along with the ability to make it work just how you want it to, with a lot less cost and worry...

sure there are viruses and worms written for linux, but they are few and far between compared to ones written for either windows or mac... and if one has even a minimum of protection installed, you are pretty much worry-free on that count... same goes for adware, spyware, malicious scripting, etc, commonly contracted through microsoft software... the software for protecting linux systems, if it isn't auto installed as part of the distro, is easily and freely obtainable... thus reducing the cost of purchasing such software...

as for hassle? i didn't find any hassle that was greater than windows... other distros may be less user friendly, i'm sure... i have used both suse and mandrake with little to no issues...

cross-compatible programs... hmmm... well... being an adobe photshop/pagemaker/illustrator user, and a QuarkXpress user... i have used Gimp, and although i still prefer photoshop... i must say that gimp is catching up... and Inkscape is not bad as an illustrator program... for most users, those are more than sufficient... for adobe fanatics like me... well... a Mac is best to run the software on, lol... but if you're using linux, then there are several options... either use crossover office plugin, as mentioned... or use win-for-lin... which basically lets you run a version of windows in a window on your linux box.. and i must say, i've never seen windows run faster or more reliably than running that way... and if it does get a glitch, it doesn't crash the system... just close the window and reopen it... instantly... that's how i currently run my adobe software, on 98se... cheap and effective for the only thing i use windows for... and again, little to no extra configuration needed... only a 20 dollar difference in cost there, but when you figure the savings in terms of all the other microsoft based apps that you'd need, from main OS to security to office software, not to mention the time saved in not having huge security headaches, or stability issues, it's not a big deal at all to be able to utilize it on just those systems that need to run adobe...

for office productivity software, well... i've never gone wrong with staroffice... it's completely cross compatible with microsoft office... and it's free or low cost for most environments...

there are several awesome apps for music recording/editing/etc, and even dj software, such as SAM Broadcaster, that are all linux compatible...

i made the switch several years ago, and haven't gone back... *shrugs* i've installed it on even techno-neanderthal's home computer systems, and have had no complaints or additional support issues than what i would have had with the same users on a windows system... actually less, as i don't get calls saying, this or that is broken, come fix it... lol...

for that matter, i've been able to recover users windows systems that they thought were lost forever, using linux... and carrying only a boot floppy to a client's home, who's lost their software disks, can enable me to install everything they need to get up and running straight off the web... i've found it to be one of the most versatile tech tools i've used, and haven't had a complaint from anyone i've switched over... *oddly enough, that's kinda bad for my business, since i don't get called out to fix stuff nearly as often... sighs*

well... just my opinions and experiences on the matter.. take from it what you will...

~Loki

by --loki--

i can't count the number of times i've had users who had their OS loaded with spyware and such, think they needed to buy a new computer... had no clue that they could simply reload the operating system... so they bought a new computer, went on about doing the same things they'd always done, and then wondered why the new computer ended up in just as bad of shape as the previous one... thus the disposable 300.00 computers on the market...

a little education in what not to do, and a little teaching how to effectively use their machine, regardless of what OS they're using, goes a long way...

~Loki

by gatorboy

Not to rain on your parade Jaqui, but.....

You must be the only person I've ever heard of thinking Wintel stands for telephony services.

If you Google it you will get over 700,000 results.
And 99% of those have this definition......

"Wintel"

"Refers to the combination of the Windows operating system running on Intel microprocessors. The term is often used sarcastically to indicate the close alliance between Intel and Microsoft. Because Windows 3.x and Windows 95 run only on x86 microprocessor architectures, Intel and Microsoft support each other in ways that many feel is unhealthy for the computer industry as a whole. However, it should be pointed out that Windows NT runs on several non-x86 microprocessors, and there are other operating systems, such as Linux, that run on Intel microprocessors."

As far as my own experience with it.... I've known the term Wintel to mean Windows/Intel since about 1997.