Linux For Life~!1111111Eleven11111

[WizardStan]

@WizardStan just like ubuntu XP has basic drivers so the system can be usable without using specific drivers. The same argument can be used for ubuntu, how the hell are you supposed to access the drivers online if you cant get wifi working?

Because while wifi support is still growing, I have incredible confidence that your wired ethernet would have worked. Windows frequently fails at even that, I've found: need to go on the internet to download drivers for my motherboard and copy them over (usually using a USB stick from another PC because I always forget to download them first) before I can get online and begin downloading the video and audio drivers I need, assuming I even know what drivers I need.
With Ubuntu, if there's a specific driver I need for my hardware, I just have to enable the universe and it will get it for me; I don't have to figure out whether I've got the AXO9-a or the AXO9-b or whatever.

 

[dnlgreenwood]

The truth is, it was EXTREMELY easy to install Windows XP. I already had all of my drivers handy (I always keep them backed up just in case.)

But how hard would it be to install Windows XP if you didn't keep those drivers handy? If it were possible to download the drivers that you would have needed in advance for the clean install of Ubuntu you had problems with, would that have eliminated most of your problems?

Oh, and I don't trust anything to automatically set up grub. I don't want it to harm my other partitions.

I don't know why that would be a problem. grub doesn't touch the partitions themselves, just the boot loader on your primary disk, and it does its best to play nice with any existing boot loader. Absolute worst case scenario would be it overwrites the Windows boot loader, and you can recover that in about 2 minutes if you've got the Windows CD.

All of my laptop's drivers are on the HP website, all of my desktop's drivers are on the Dell website. (My Dell Dimension desktop didn't need any drivers, Windows 7 searched for them automatically )

It takes so long for my XP disc to load! It's such a pain to go into the recovery console.

Haha, I remember a long time ago when I tried to install linux for the first time... I just blindly picked a random distro (I picked Mandriva Linux) and it crashed ass soon as I opened anything, so I tried to uninstall it. I couldn't get into Vista because GRUB was still there, so I had to dig out my Vista installation disc (which took a while) and the Vista recovery console didn't take that long to get into, and it was more inviting than the XP one. Vista is such a great operating system... I don't see why so many people dislike it. It is a HUGE improvement over XP. Windows 7 is an even huger improvement... The only bad thing is that they take up both more hard disc memory, and random access memory. I guess I'll stay with XP and Puppy Linux on my old Vaio...

 

[Gerix]

I'm a Linux fan. But I also use Windows. I like XP on my tower, but I only use it for gaming. I never take it online. I have a Nokia Booklet 3G, which has a graphics card that doesn't work that well with Linux. But Windows 7 seems a little bloated for its stats.

Here are some experiences with Linux. I started with OpenSuSE. I liked it, but KDE was buggy compared to Gnome. After a while, I got curious and decided to try out Fedora. While updating from 10 to 11, something bad happened, so I had to pull important files and install 11 fresh. And then there were PulseAudio problems. And KDE was buggy compared to Gnome. Anyway, I noticed I hadn't really been using Fedora after the update, so I tried using Gentoo. Now, if I go a month without updating, there's usually some snag that happens that takes time to fix. But now that I have putty installed on my booklet, I can just run commands from that while watching a movie, for example. Also, if I let the nVidia settings manager write to my config file, I end up at the command prompt (so I don't do that anymore). Oh, and my multimedia keys don't seem to work. But except for those small things, I love it.

That sounds really bad, but Windows has problems too.

 

[dnlgreenwood]

Oh, and my multimedia keys don't seem to work. But except for those small things, I love it.

That sounds really bad, but Windows has problems too.

Multimedia keys? I flipping hate those, along with fn keys and odd hardware. I had to reinstall Windows XP on my Sony VAio PCG-R505GL because of a hard drive failure, and none of the volume or screen controls (using the FN key) would work. Also, the laptop had some weird scrollwheel called a jog drive or shuttle drive or something. It simply didn't work after reinstalling Windows, and I couldn't find anything on Sony's site. I just hate it when a laptop manufacturer uses special programs for hardware features! I also hate laptop hard drives; I've gone through 5 of them in the past 5 years on two different laptops. I remember once I had to cut a piece of plastic off of my Vaio's dock because the dock's DC input was broken and the plastic blocked the laptop's DC input and a USB drive (which I fried a month earlier.) The laptop was supposed to be slim and portable, that is without the huge-ass docking station which has the much-needed optical drives and extra USB ports. I ignored it's small problems until I got a netbook. My netbook wasn't really such a great purchase because it isn't nearly as powerful as I need it to be, but it's alright because its small and portable. I managed to get some games running (eg. Quake 3 arena and Halflife 2) so I'm happy. One thing that annoys me is that high-quality streaming video is a bit choppy. If you want a powerful, durable laptop, I'd suggest a Dell XPS. Those are great.

 

[Gerix]

My booklet is ok. I only ended up paying about $7 for it, which is nice. I would have never bought it for what is listed on the website. Plus, it was freezing a lot before I uninstalled a bunch of software (I think the problem was the Nokia apps that came preinstalled). Anyway, I think it should have been Linux based, but having Windows at least lets me take my review course on the go.

 

[Popcorn Dave]

Because while wifi support is still growing, I have incredible confidence that your wired ethernet would have worked.

Wifi seems okay for me, but Ubuntu 10.10 has real problems with my (wired) university proxy. It browses the Internet and downloads via the browser just fine, but no other programs even detect the Internet is there, including the Software Centre, Empathy, and the plugin functions on programs like Rhythmbox... I had to go find a wireless network just to download some damn MP3 plugins. I also can't make my laptop hibernate and the power management settings don't seem to do anything (no matter what I do it always dims and locks the screen after about ten minutes even if you're watching a video).

Maybe I'll go sort this stuff out at some point but it's such a pain in the ass to do. What I can't stand about Ubuntu is that when you Google a problem you always see advice for an old version that doesn't apply any more, so people tell you to open a menu X and click program Y, then you follow their instructions and menu X has changed and program Y has been replaced by another one that you don't know the name of. And most of it involves going online with the Software Centre which is okay for the odd program but no good when you have to sit there for several hours scrolling through 2+ year old FAQs just to try a fix that probably won't work.

I use it when I'm just web browsing, 'cause I made it look all Star Trek for a laugh, but pretty much anything else is too much effort (including word processing ... I tried to set it up so I could type foreign characters, but the menu to change keyboard shortcuts didn't do anything). I dunno, it's nice and fast to start up and shut down but apart from that Ubuntu isn't up to much from what I can see. I know I'm coming across as an impatient Windows type here, but I am disappoint!

 

[kasi]

Well, I am sitting here with my wife's Amilo which originally has XP installed.
Actually, I'm on OpenSuse 11.2 which I have installed on a 32G Express Card I bought in Taiwan.
I installed Grub only on the flash drive and boot it via boot F12/menue so my wife doesn't need to bother when she needs the few windows-only programs we have.
BTW, I just messed up the windows boot loader once on account of being drunk while doing so. and repaired it with a Linux(!!!)-rescue DVD.

Now, I am logging in on my computer, or my (home) server via X-server or SSH there installing twonkyserver, setting up the printers, NFS-server and clients, doing backups, doing even kernel-updates and so on without staying out of the living-room for hours.
Try the same only with windows-machines. This may of course not be impossible, but I say it would suck.
Linux for Life just says it and I got a really new friend in Autoyast.

OK, call me fanboy.

kasi