2009: The year of the Linux desktop

[Red Squirrel]

Do you think it will be this year?

Sorry, someone had to do it. 😀


It might be for me though, I've been debating on switching to ubuntu.

 

[xSauronx]

i switched over a year ago. i still run into something every now and again that bugs me, but its never worth the trouble of going back to windows

this month: dvd playback. its still hit or miss sometimes (trying with totem, vlc and mplayer)

 

[Nothinman]

I've been using Debian on my desktop for probably almost 10 years now.

this month: dvd playback. its still hit or miss sometimes (trying with totem, vlc and mplayer)

After libdvdcss is installed I've never had mplayer not play a DVD. Although mplayer doesn't do DVD menus, but I hate them anyway and prefer just saying dvd://1 for the first track.

 

[Brainonska511]

Been using Ubuntu since September '08 and have never had a problem using VLC to play a DVD, including menus.

I just wish there was more RAW photo editing programs available for Linux for free. I have Lightroom (which will not work in WINE) and don't really want to pay again for another program, like Bibble or Lightzone. Thus, I'm stuck booting into Windows when I need to edit photos.

 

[Red Squirrel]

That's probably going to be the hardest thing for me is photo/video editing, if I switch. Mostly photo as I'm not really fond of gimp but guess I'll give it more chance. I never used it that much. I heard you can script stuff so I could see that being pretty fun to play with, like for making wacked abstract art and stuff.

 

[Plugers]

UFRaw works with thegimp for raw photos.

 

[Brainonska511]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel
That's probably going to be the hardest thing for me is photo/video editing, if I switch. Mostly photo as I'm not really fond of gimp but guess I'll give it more chance. I never used it that much. I heard you can script stuff so I could see that being pretty fun to play with, like for making wacked abstract art and stuff.

You should see my thread about Linux and Photo Editing. It looks like there are a few decent programs out there.

http://forums.anandtech.com/me...=2261933&enterthread=y

I haven't tried any yet though... too lazy lol

 

[IamDavid]

I switched to 100% linux a little over a year ago. Switched many of my friends/family members over with me. All seem to be accepting it quite well except me. Over the XMas break I re-installed Vista so I could load Adobe's CS4..... Can't live without it any longer..........
Sorry to say it but I will not make the switch back until I have Adobe support. 🙁

 

[sourceninja]

2009 for me is the year of the mac. I'm seriously considering replacing my last linux desktop here at home with a mac. For me the year of the linux desktop was years ago.

 

[Brazen]

2007 was the year of the linux desktop for me.

 

[cKGunslinger]

Running Linux exclusively for over a year now. 😎

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: IamDavid
I switched to 100% linux a little over a year ago. Switched many of my friends/family members over with me. All seem to be accepting it quite well except me. Over the XMas break I re-installed Vista so I could load Adobe's CS4..... Can't live without it any longer..........
Sorry to say it but I will not make the switch back until I have Adobe support. 🙁

I hear you can just pop the Photoshop into the drive and install it through Wine onto Ubuntu and it works flawlessly.

 

[Fox5]

Experimented with Linux a bit back in high school.
Started using Linux regularly in Fall 2006 when I sold my desktop and my laptop harddrive went ka-blooey and I booted off a lifecd for a semester.

Didn't try ubuntu until...hmm...7.04 so 4/07 I guess. My linux usage has been going up and up, just because Windows has too many hassles. I boot into Windows basically just to play games.

My mom's computer runs linux, just because the windows xp install on it became too bloated to run in 256MB of ran. Even still, Xubuntu runs pretty darn slow on it, but at least it's usable.

Over the XMas break I re-installed Vista so I could load Adobe's CS4..... Can't live without it any longer..........
Sorry to say it but I will not make the switch back until I have Adobe support.

There's always virtual machines. Newest version of virtualbox supports 64 bit guests and has some 3d support.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I've been using Debian on my desktop for probably almost 10 years now.

this month: dvd playback. its still hit or miss sometimes (trying with totem, vlc and mplayer)

After libdvdcss is installed I've never had mplayer not play a DVD. Although mplayer doesn't do DVD menus, but I hate them anyway and prefer just saying dvd://1 for the first track.

it played it, but on this particular dvd i couldnt resize the picture to fill out the monitor....or even to double the size. nada. a little annoying, at the very least.

 

[Spyro]

For me, 1997 was the year of the Linux desktop. I remember that was the year for Linux desktops as well.

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: IamDavid
I switched to 100% linux a little over a year ago. Switched many of my friends/family members over with me. All seem to be accepting it quite well except me. Over the XMas break I re-installed Vista so I could load Adobe's CS4..... Can't live without it any longer..........
Sorry to say it but I will not make the switch back until I have Adobe support. 🙁

I hear you can just pop the Photoshop into the drive and install it through Wine onto Ubuntu and it works flawlessly.

I haven't had this experience. Neither CS3 nor CS4 work at all using Wine.

 

[IamDavid]

Originally posted by: Spyro
For me, 1997 was the year of the Linux desktop. I remember that was the year for Linux desktops as well.

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: IamDavid
I switched to 100% linux a little over a year ago. Switched many of my friends/family members over with me. All seem to be accepting it quite well except me. Over the XMas break I re-installed Vista so I could load Adobe's CS4..... Can't live without it any longer..........
Sorry to say it but I will not make the switch back until I have Adobe support. 🙁

I hear you can just pop the Photoshop into the drive and install it through Wine onto Ubuntu and it works flawlessly.

I haven't had this experience. Neither CS3 nor CS4 work at all using Wine.

agreed. even tried crossover which claimed some success, I never did mysef though. 🙁 I truly hope Adobe releases a compatible version a I can switch back. Vista isn't bad but Ubuntu with all the eyecandy and such is amazing.

 

[SickBeast]

Originally posted by: IamDavid

Originally posted by: Spyro
For me, 1997 was the year of the Linux desktop. I remember that was the year for Linux desktops as well.

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: IamDavid
I switched to 100% linux a little over a year ago. Switched many of my friends/family members over with me. All seem to be accepting it quite well except me. Over the XMas break I re-installed Vista so I could load Adobe's CS4..... Can't live without it any longer..........
Sorry to say it but I will not make the switch back until I have Adobe support. 🙁

I hear you can just pop the Photoshop into the drive and install it through Wine onto Ubuntu and it works flawlessly.

I haven't had this experience. Neither CS3 nor CS4 work at all using Wine.

agreed. even tried crossover which claimed some success, I never did mysef though. 🙁 I truly hope Adobe releases a compatible version a I can switch back. Vista isn't bad but Ubuntu with all the eyecandy and such is amazing.

There are tons of tutorials online showing how to install Photoshop through Wine. At WineHQ, they list it as having a "gold" compatibility rating, and that it runs very fast and pretty much bug-free.

I know Wine isn't perfect, but if you're persistent enough I think you can get pretty much anything to run, including modern games like HL2, and even complex programs like AutoCAD.

 

[Fox5]

Originally posted by: Spyro
For me, 1997 was the year of the Linux desktop. I remember that was the year for Linux desktops as well.

Originally posted by: SickBeast

Originally posted by: IamDavid
I switched to 100% linux a little over a year ago. Switched many of my friends/family members over with me. All seem to be accepting it quite well except me. Over the XMas break I re-installed Vista so I could load Adobe's CS4..... Can't live without it any longer..........
Sorry to say it but I will not make the switch back until I have Adobe support. 🙁

I hear you can just pop the Photoshop into the drive and install it through Wine onto Ubuntu and it works flawlessly.

I haven't had this experience. Neither CS3 nor CS4 work at all using Wine.

And CS2 doesn't work very well.

Seriously, virtualization is the way to go for something like that.
But if you're a hardcore user of photoshop, or similar programs, you've got to go native, since virtualization doesn't offer anywhere near the graphics performance of native.

 

[NoShangriLa]

W2K was the last version of MS OS that I ran on my home game system (8-9 years), and recently I have gone completely Linux.

 

[freegeeks]

For me it was Windows > Linux > Mac OS.
In my opinion Mac OS has all the positives from the nix world without the negatives. It works out of the box for the normal user and if you want you can be the nerdiest power user, all with the same os. Most of the linux stuff is ported to osx and if needed I can fire up my Ubuntu VM

 

[ochadd]

I've tried switching over to Linux every year for the past 7-8 years until 2008. Without more gaming support it will never happen I'm sorry to say. As much as I love the concept it's not a reality until everything I do on Windows can be done as good or better on Linux.

I do use Linux for a proxy server, firewall, and small internet boxes for old people who are not already familiar with Windows.

 

[Robor]

At home I've had various flavors of Ubuntu on my desktop for years but switched to Vista because I... 1) got a free copy of Ultimate 2) need it to connect to my GPS software 3) need it for iTunes/iPhone

Server at home has been a version of Ubuntu since '06

Work system is always Ultimate Ubuntu + an XP virtual machine (although it is frustratingly slow at times)

 

[silverpig]

I went exclusively linux about 3 years ago... maybe 4. I've since converted to OSX though.

 

[Duddy]

I try Ubuntu every time there is a new codename for it.

Things I like:

- I feel totally l33t using it.
- Compiz Fusion (Desktop Effects now)
- Free
- Fast as crap and is very lightweight (I mean, how many OS's can fit on a regular CD?)
- I can boot it from a USB stick
- The community actually feels like a community. Everyone is very nice and helpful.

Things I hate:

- Games, there are no good ones.
- DirectX will never come to it (And don't tell me OpenGL is the same, it's not.)
- No support from major software makers
- Impossible to get all your hardware fully working unless your an uber geek. (Not an issue for me, but still annoying.)
- It does not feel like home to me. I grew up on Windows and will probably never use anything else.)
- I make good money and can afford Windows Vista Ultimate
- None of the applications I want support quad-core processing


I triple boot Vista x64, Windows 7 x64 and Ubuntu 8.10. I keep Ubuntu on there to recover files if I fuq up my windows installations somehow.

 

[Nothinman]

- DirectX will never come to it (And don't tell me OpenGL is the same, it's not.)

OpenGL isn't the same, but SDL is analogous even though it uses OpenGL. SDL also supports on Windows so if we could get game developers to start using SDL it would mean more gaming for OS X and Linux users.

- No support from major software makers

Sadly still true on the desktop side although I don't miss it. Most commercial software is absolutely horrible.

- Impossible to get all your hardware fully working unless your an uber geek. (Not an issue for me, but still annoying.)

Depends on your hardware but yea, there are still some pretty common, problematic devices.

- It does not feel like home to me. I grew up on Windows and will probably never use anything else.)

That's probably the biggest hurdle, most people start with Windows and want everything else to work just like it. Thankfully OS X gaining popularity is helping this because it's giving more visibility to non-Windows systems.

- I make good money and can afford Windows Vista Ultimate

Most everyone can afford Windows because it comes with their PC.

- None of the applications I want support quad-core processing

That's true of most software these days. The only stuff that's highly threaded is usually server stuff because that's where the SMP machines have been for a long time.