Pretty impressed...

[DBSX]

I'm going to admit it: I am a "Windows guy". I like Windows. I find it easy to use, and I recommend it (mainly because I know it, and know I'd be the support guy later).

Having said that, I have a Linux box at home that I use mainly for torrents and just goofing around, learning the OS. It is running SUSE 9.3, and has mostly been running awesome.

I recently got a "new used" laptop, a Compaq Presario X1000. There was no OS and I'm waiting on a restore CD so that I can install Windows on it (I am somewhat dependant on a few Windows tools that I am not willing to give up, plus I've found no Linux tools really to replace them). While I waited, I decided to install SUSE Linux 10 so that I could play with the laptop.

What impressed me was the fact that every hardware item works. I was not so lucky with a Compaq EVO n1000V (granted with SUSE 9.3). The only thing I haven't tested is wireless, but I'll try it out at home. I know Windows needs almost a half dozen drivers installed before everythng works (ATI graphics drivers, ethernet, wireless, touchpad). WIth SUSE the graphics card was able to display the correct resolution (1280x800), the touchpad's "scroll jobbie" worked, and I am posting this without having to install ethernet drivers manually.

All in all, pretty awesome. 🙂

I'm still not ready to give up Windows, but I think I'll dual boot this laptop and use Linux when I don't need to use Windows software. 🙂

\Dan

 

[Nothinman]

I am somewhat dependant on a few Windows tools that I am not willing to give up, plus I've found no Linux tools really to replace them.

Not to sound condescening, but when someone says that it means that they haven't looked very hard. I know how you feel though, I'm on the other side of that fence. I use Linux every day on all of my machines so when I have to use a Windows machine I get frustrated because I don't have all of the tools handy that I'm used to using. Obviously if your job requires some odd Windows-only tool or you're an admin of a Windows network you're going to be stuck using Windows. Although if MS ports all of their management stuff over to .Net it might be possible to run all of their admin tools in Mono in the future. =)

If you're open to considering alternatives to the tools you were talking about post what they are here and maybe someone who's gone through the motions already can post some thoughts on what tools are worth your time.

I know Windows needs almost a half dozen drivers installed before everythng works (ATI graphics drivers, ethernet, wireless, touchpad). WIth SUSE the graphics card was able to display the correct resolution (1280x800), the touchpad's "scroll jobbie" worked, and I am posting this without having to install ethernet drivers manually.

That's one of the huge advantages that Linux has over Windows. Since the majority of the drivers are open source they're maintained with the kernel and are included in every distribution. That and they're almost always much, much smaller than their Windows counterparts. For instance, the total size of the available modules for kernel I'm running now is 36M. And all of the drivers included with Xorg are only another 5M. Sadly some things still don't work as they should, for instance if you want hardware accelerated 3D you need to install the binary-only drivers from nVidia or ATI, although that's not too difficult these days. And some companies, like Broadcom, seem to deny that Linux even exists so you have to jump through a lot of hoops to make their hardware work.

 

[Alienwho]

I only use SUSE on my laptop (which i'm posting from now) and i'm dual booting from my main machine and pretty much only boot into windows when i'm gaming. I am the same kind of windows guy like you are. I'm finding linux increasingly useful and easy to use. Don't be surprised when you get home and your wireless works better and easier than if you would have used windows for it.

 

[wpshooter]

I tried SUSE 10 releasely and I liked it fairly well but I could not find any software that worked similar to Roxio's Drag-to-Disc function of their Easy Creator CD software (please note that I am not just talking about burning CD's), what I want is the ability to use the CD-RW just as if it was another drive.

Is there some free software (I know Roxio is not free) for Linux that will allow Drag-to-Disc function ?

Thanks.

 

[DBSX]

Maybe "dependant" was too strong a word. I guess I just like the tools I use. Mainly I use the laptop as a website building tool. As such I use Dreamweaver and Navicat all the time. I can do the MySQL stuff from the command line, but I'd rather not. I am aware that Navicat is available for Linux, but I'd rather not buy it again (it's a personal website, so funds are an issue). If there are other tools similar to Navicat for Linux, I'd gladly try them; a lot of my database work is done by my own php front end 🙂. I'll freely admit I have not looked hard, but then Linux has been installed on the laptop for less than 5 hours at this point 😉. I have looked into WINE and CrossOver Office to see if Dreamweaver will work, but for my version (8.0) it looks like a no go. I'm also considering VM options as well for the tools I "need".

Really though, while I like Linux I'm not so sure I'm personally ready to give up Windows. I'll still probably dual boot, or maybe keep Linux on this laptop and Windows on the other. At least for the time being. I'm comfortable with Windows; it has a nice feeling of "home" for me. 🙂 Mostly I am just impressed with this version of Linux. My previous experiences were not so good, even with SUSE 9.3 many things didn't work correctly without work. SUSE 10 was effortless.

\Dan

 

[Nothinman]

I tried SUSE 10 releasely and I liked it fairly well but I could not find any software that worked similar to Roxio's Drag-to-Disc function of their Easy Creator CD software (please note that I am not just talking about burning CD's), what I want is the ability to use the CD-RW just as if it was another drive.

Packet writing in Linux is definitely possible, but it's not used very often because AFAIK there are subtle differences in the way each piece of software does it so a disc made with one piece of software might not read correctly on a machine with different software installed.

If there are other tools similar to Navicat for Linux, I'd gladly try them; a lot of my database work is done by my own php front end.

I'm not a database guy, I really dislike them. And since I don't know what you use Navicat for most it's hard to make a suggestion, but I would assume that the MySQL Administrator tool developed by the MySQL people would have most of the functionality you would need. There's also phpMyAdmin, since you already mentioned you have a php MySQL setup.

http://www.mysql.com/products/tools/administrator/
http://www.phpmyadmin.net/

I have looked into WINE and CrossOver Office to see if Dreamweaver will work, but for my version (8.0) it looks like a no go. I'm also considering VM options as well for the tools I "need".

I also hate web development, so I can't really comment on DreamWeaver. =) All of the web development that I've done was done in vi and consisted of some perl cgi and basic HTML.

 

[DBSX]

Thanks for the links. I need to work with data, more than administering the database, whichi is what it looks like the MySQL tool is for. I'll check it out more at home. As for phpMyAdmin, the hosting site I use uses it, and I really hate it for all but the most basic of tasks.

\Dan

 

[P0ldy]

Bluefish and Nvu are both WYSIWYG web tools for Linux. Nvu has a Windows download available too.

 

[unmerited]

Quanta Plus is a nice KDE based web application which I use for web related tasks. I've never used Dreamweaver, so couldn't say if it's compatible.

Mysql Query Browser allows you to do actual database manipulation. You might find it useful, I do.


unmerited

 

[SleepWalkerX]

Yeah that's why SuSE is my favorite distro. So easy to use and install. I can't wait for 10.1 to go final. 🙂

 

[spikespiegal]

Obviously if your job requires some odd Windows-only tool or you're an admin of a Windows network you're going to be stuck using Windows.

I guess that means when you find one of the numerous glitches Samba has with native Windows integration, you blame it on what again ? 🙂

Just a point of observation, but I've noticed hardcare Linux admins tend to over-manage, if not blame everthing on end users not being to understand command line syntaxes, while novice Windows admins tend to not be aware of anything beyond click and drool. I prefer to stay in the middle.

Although if MS ports all of their management stuff over to .Net it might be possible to run all of their admin tools in Mono in the future. =)

You mean port it over, and make it work first. 🙂

[/quote] I know Windows needs almost a half dozen drivers installed before everythng works (ATI graphics drivers, ethernet, wireless, touchpad).[/quote]

Uh, no. It means Liux users are willing to put up with stripped down basic drivers that don't offer the advanced features of the Windows drivers. While a lot of this is superfluous crap that results in system bloat and instability, a lof of it is needed. With video cards for example I need the advanced control panel options to enact proper color management - not possible with Linux. Unified drivers are nice, but please spare me how they prove the superiority with Linux. While I'd rather install the 3meg corporate version of a printer driver on my network, the 120meg 'home version' of that same driver will likely have options a house-wife might actually want.

I've used a lot of color lasers for examples that have no Linux driver support - period. Yes, we all know them as 'Win-Printers' and Linux admins are quick to point out how evil this is, but those devices tend to be cheap because of the lack of additional software development.

I also carry a briefcase full of 3Com 3c980's because they are awesome cards with native driver support in every version of Windows that matter. However, this doesn't mean I disable every NIC that's integrated onboard ethernet just because it doesn't work with Linux or has native Windows support. I'd much rather have a correctly written and updated driver than one that's 3years old and vaguely works with all the peripherals that just happen to identify a specific I/O chip in the BIOS. Works both ways my friend.

 

[sourceninja]

aqua data studio is a great piece of database software for both windows, mac and linux. Give it a try.

 

[Nothinman]

I guess that means when you find one of the numerous glitches Samba has with native Windows integration, you blame it on what again ? 🙂

Who mentioned Samba?

You mean port it over, and make it work first. 🙂

It's all most likely done in C++ right now, so a port to managed C++ probably wouldn't be too difficult. And seeing that they're expecting everyone else to start using C# and .Net one would expect them to have the basics working already. AFAIK most Windows remote management crap is just RPC calls and they've already been implemented in other places like ActivePerl so it can't be that big of a deal.

It means Liux users are willing to put up with stripped down basic drivers that don't offer the advanced features of the Windows drivers.

As you said, most of those advanced features are crap.

With video cards for example I need the advanced control panel options to enact proper color management - not possible with Linux.

That's a problem with X, not the drivers. AFAIK X doesn't have any real color management right now, once that is fixed I'm sure the drivers will be fixed too.

While I'd rather install the 3meg corporate version of a printer driver on my network, the 120meg 'home version' of that same driver will likely have options a house-wife might actually want.

And the reason that home version is 120M is because HP is cheap and has removed all of the processing from their printers. Meaning the drivers have to filter, format, etc the printout before handing the final product over the printer. Proper CUPS filters on Linux can do the same thing and not require you to run 4 services in the background.

I've used a lot of color lasers for examples that have no Linux driver support - period. Yes, we all know them as 'Win-Printers' and Linux admins are quick to point out how evil this is, but those devices tend to be cheap because of the lack of additional software development.

They're cheap because of the reason I specified above, you're giving up a lot of memory and processing time on your PC so that the printer can be cheaper. It's up to you to decide if the tradeoff is worth it, I don't think it is.

I'd much rather have a correctly written and updated driver than one that's 3years old and vaguely works with all the peripherals that just happen to identify a specific I/O chip in the BIOS. Works both ways my friend.

In case you haven't looked, most of the NIC drivers (and a huge amount of other drivers) are written and maintained by their respective companies. There's a few blacksheep like nVidia, but they're pretty rare these days.

 

[DBSX]

I know Windows needs almost a half dozen drivers installed before everythng works (ATI graphics drivers, ethernet, wireless, touchpad).

Uh, no. It means Liux users are willing to put up with stripped down basic drivers that don't offer the advanced features of the Windows drivers. While a lot of this is superfluous crap that results in system bloat and instability, a lof of it is needed. With video cards for example I need the advanced control panel options to enact proper color management - not possible with Linux. Unified drivers are nice, but please spare me how they prove the superiority with Linux. While I'd rather install the 3meg corporate version of a printer driver on my network, the 120meg 'home version' of that same driver will likely have options a house-wife might actually want.

I've used a lot of color lasers for examples that have no Linux driver support - period. Yes, we all know them as 'Win-Printers' and Linux admins are quick to point out how evil this is, but those devices tend to be cheap because of the lack of additional software development.
[/quote]

Since you seem to be quoting me for this point I feel I should mention a couple things:

First, I am not necessarily debating which drivers are better. I am commenting on the fact, that out of the box, with NO additional install needed by the end0user (ie; me) everything worked. I have Windows XP on the laptop now, plus a spare partion to put SUSE 10 back. I had to go through the "extra" (granted, not hard, but still extra) step of installing wirless drivers before I could access the internet to update, the ATI drivers before I could use any resolution above 1024x768 (display's native is 1280x800) and the audio drivers needed to be installed before I got sound. All of these things worked, with no additional steps taken by me. Even the touchpad scroll area worked, arguable an "extra" feature. I am hardly a "linux man" but this all impressed me, especially based on my past Linux experience, AND the fact that Windows needs extra work to get these "basic" things working correctly.

Again, I am not arguing the superiority of one group of drivers over the other. I am arguing the impressiveness of one set giving what most people want without extra steps; basic full functionality (the ability to use my display at its native resolution is basic). Most users don't need advaced settings for anything. I like to think of myself as a bit more advance, and I rarely e any advanced settings, because I don't need to.

\Dan

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: spikespiegal

Obviously if your job requires some odd Windows-only tool or you're an admin of a Windows network you're going to be stuck using Windows.

I guess that means when you find one of the numerous glitches Samba has with native Windows integration, you blame it on what again ? 🙂

It's as much Window's as it is Samba's often.

Especially Window's network printing code is THE worst designed and coded stuff that is used in any sort of half way modern operating system. It's very bad.

With Windows XP the authentication protocols used in setting up a file server is broken so that it can't connect to a standalone windows server. (ie a Windows file server that is not part of a domain)

There are lots of little things like that that are wrong with Windows all over the place. Most people using windows for years don't notice this stuff so much because (A.) often they automaticly blame themselves when something doesn't work, (B.) they'd learned a long time ago that you just can't do certain things that they should be able to do safely if the software was working properly (such as double clicking on email attatchments), (C.) and/or they end up going through a bunch of memorized step by step processes to accomplish certain tasks that carefully comforms to a proven working configuration/setup. (among other reasons) Often if you try to do something in a 'weird' way it just won't work.

All software sucks... neither Linux or Microsoft has any exceptions on this fact.