Why don't YOU use *nix, or why have you switched back?

[imported_LoKe]

I've got Ubuntu 5.10 running as my secondary OS...the reason I rarely use it is because I have no idea what to do with it...Heh. The fonts are all screwishly wrong and everything just seems so...hard to use, I guess. When using it, I miss the windows GUI.

 

[Nothinman]

All I hear are excuses for who's fault it isn't, the end user doesn't care, they just want something that works. And they want that same experience no matter what pc they are using.

They're not execuses they're reasons. If you want to help reverse engineer broadcom's wifi check out http://bcm43xx.berlios.de/ but that crap takes time.

Who said anything about being cheaper? They do it to appeal to the masses because people want to have a little bit more control of their car sometimes but not all the time. And I'll take a wild guess that in the long run it is cheaper to have one single platform (when it comes to the transmission) then having a separate assembly line for manual and auto.

And in the long run it's better and easier if the user actually learns how to use their computer but all everyone talks about is how they should be easier and that no one wants to take the time to learn anything.

Or have you seen a game where the game designer didn't work with the programmer? The results aren't as good had they been working together.

Yea, pretty much every game based on an engine that was licensed from someone like id or epic.

but I thought that a software developers ultimate goal was to create something that many people will use and want to use, after all the more people you have using your software the more money you make. And this isn't just a linux issue, some windows programs and apple programs are designed quite poorly from an end users standpoint.

You are missing the point. Most OSS developers ultimate goal is to make something they like to use, if other people like it then that's just icing on the cake because the software is free and in a lot of cases they don't make any money directly from software sales.

Let's look at microsofts Word program (and probably any and every other word processing program out there). No one can deny that MS Word is a pretty powerful word processor, it can do a lot. But did you know that a majority of users only use about 10% of it's features? So what's the point of having such a powerful piece of software if no one will ever use most of it's features? Do you think MS should just remove all of those unused features? Microsoft doesn't think so. Instead what MS is focusing on for it's future version of office 12 is a user experience that makes those unused tools more accessible. Whether they can pull this off or not only time will tell. The point is microsoft came to a point and it was to either keep wasting resources on features that a majority of people don't use or make it so that people will and can use those features and do it easily.

Of course they won't remove them, the work was already done and it would make their bulleted feature list smaller instead of bigger. And instead of focusing on redoing the UI yet again (which will just end up confusing current users, again) they should be adding support for OpenDoc format so that people don't have to worry about their data being trapped inside of MS' proprietary formats.

And whether you hate them or love them you can't deny that microsoft must be doing something right and if they see an issue with their programs and are willing to fix them or at least try then don't you think linux developers would want to do the same? After all, in the end isn't it really about linux vs microsoft?

MS leaves tons of bugs unfixed, there used to be a page dedicated to tracking bugs in IE that MS hadn't released patches to fix. I think MS finally did fix them eventually, but it took them a very long time. And since MS' bug trackers aren't public there's no telling how many more bugs are documented internally that they don't plan on fixing until they absolutely have no other choice.

 

[ivwshane]

You are missing the point. Most OSS developers ultimate goal is to make something they like to use, if other people like it then that's just icing on the cake because the software is free and in a lot of cases they don't make any money directly from software sales.

That is all that needs to be said.

If that's their main goal then all this discussion is pointless. Who cares if some wireless chipset doesn't work in linux if the developers of linux don't use it then why should they bother trying to get it to work? Who cares why people haven't switched to linux or have switched back?

Why should I or any other computer user care about linux if the linux people don't care about me/us?


So basically you can just sum up linux in one sentence, if you want to create your own software for your own personal use then use linux otherwise stick to windows.

 

[CTho9305]

Do you have the same complaint about Apple because most hardware vendors don't support them?

I have a whole other list of reasons I don't like Macs.

Yea, I don't like the extra work they're putting into making changing the defaults so difficult either but IMO it's still better than KDE.

Both options suck . That's the linux philosophy - 10,000 options, all of which suck in different ways. Fortunately, the ways Windows sucks are 1) universal to all Windows installations, and 2) not a big enough deal to warrant changing to some other set of things that suck.

There's no intellisense in vim for function params or anything, but that's minor IMO.

Lots of minor things can add up to make something less pleasant to use.

There are people that made intellesense for Vim.
http://insenvim.sourceforge.net/

It's currently only for Windows, but they'll help anybody who is willing to get it to work in Linux.

I laughed when I read that. I guess that means that it is good enough for vim-fans who have used real development environments (i.e., those on Windows) to spend the time writing their own version.

I don't think there is a big desire for this sort of thing... but whatever. If you want it in Linux you could have it, if you thought you needed it enough.

I don't want to have to need it enough to write it myself. MS realized it was useful and implemented it, and it Just Works already on Windows.

I've got Ubuntu 5.10 running as my secondary OS...the reason I rarely use it is because I have no idea what to do with it...Heh. The fonts are all screwishly wrong and everything just seems so...hard to use, I guess. When using it, I miss the windows GUI.

You need to make sure you're using GTK2 - GTK1 fonts are awful. The fact that you need to know that is yet another reason not to use that OS.

 

[Nothinman]

If that's their main goal then all this discussion is pointless. Who cares if some wireless chipset doesn't work in linux if the developers of linux don't use it then why should they bother trying to get it to work? Who cares why people haven't switched to linux or have switched back?

I think that is the point, most of the developers don't care. They use it because they want to, not because someone said it was cool. And they are working on supporting the crap wifi chipsets because they're popular and someone will want to use them but it's hard to develop drivers for hardware you don't own. The people who seem most to care about getting people to switch from Windows are a few Linux users that are the vocal minority and the news outlets because having the little guy topple the big evil monopoly makes for good stories.

Why should I or any other computer user care about linux if the linux people don't care about me/us?

Virtually all Linux, Gnome, KDE, etc developers care deeply about their users because they are their users. But screaming "You suck!!1!1" and hand waving won't get you anywhere. Linux and most OSS projects are a meritocracy, you get a bigger voice in the project the more work you do. The problem is that most people just want something for free so they ignore the community aspect of the software, it's a chore to get most people to even file a bug report and test patches.

If you don't want to get involved that's fine too, the software is still free and you can do whatever you want with it. But you'll have to deal with what you're given. Don't expect your hardware to become magically supported if you're not willing to help out a bit, even though that does happen and if you're willing to wait long enoug eventually someone else will probably do the work for you.

So basically you can just sum up linux in one sentence, if you want to create your own software for your own personal use then use linux otherwise stick to windows.

That was probably true 20 years ago, but times have changed and it's not a requirement to be a developer to use Linux (although it helps in some situations). I use Linux and don't develop any software and so do a lot of other people.

If you don't like it, that's fine, go away.

Lots of minor things can add up to make something less pleasant to use.

Right and IMO Windows is much less pleasant to use than Linux. I'd rather deal with vim's shortcomings than run Windows.

You need to make sure you're using GTK2 - GTK1 fonts are awful. The fact that you need to know that is yet another reason not to use that OS.

I don't think GTK1 is shipped with anything any more, it's still in Debian because a few app still haven't been ported to GTK2 but 99% of the packages are GTK2 now.

 

[drag]

There are people that made intellesense for Vim.
http://insenvim.sourceforge.net/

It's currently only for Windows, but they'll help anybody who is willing to get it to work in Linux.

I laughed when I read that. I guess that means that it is good enough for vim-fans who have used real development environments (i.e., those on Windows) to spend the time writing their own version.[/quote]

I took it to mean that there are a very large number of very experianced programmers who are quite happy enough without intellisense... otherwise they would have already written one. That is, it's aviable, they just don't care.

Kdevelop and Eclipse are made for people that care about such features, and do include their own 'intellisense' stuff.

Vim is a text editor, not a IDE. Still plenty of people seem to prefer it. Same thing with Emacs.

You figure it's just out of tradition?

 

[imported_Lucifer]

I would have probably used it, but I ran into issues to where I couldn't install Ubuntu on a small partition I had on my Mac G4.

I have the Ubuntu for X86, but I don't know if it will install on an AMD pc???

 

[Nothinman]

I have the Ubuntu for X86, but I don't know if it will install on an AMD pc???

All AMD CPUs can use x86 instructions, but if you own an AMD64 chip and want to run it in 64-bit mode you'll need a special version for it.

 

[CTho9305]

I took it to mean that there are a very large number of very experianced programmers who are quite happy enough without intellisense... otherwise they would have already written one. That is, it's aviable, they just don't care.

I took it to mean that those who hadn't seen it didn't realize what they were missing.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

I took it to mean that there are a very large number of very experianced programmers who are quite happy enough without intellisense... otherwise they would have already written one. That is, it's aviable, they just don't care.

I took it to mean that those who hadn't seen it didn't realize what they were missing.

Well it's probably a little bit of both.

I've seen people that claim big benifits when they moved from a complex IDE to a text editor, were I've seen other people move to IDE's and say it's nice.

 

[Tiger]

I have dedicated drive carriers for all of my OS's. More often than not I've got a distro of Linux booted up. I keep WinXP Pro, Win2K, and Windows Server (2K, and 2003) around because that's what I support for desktops at work, and the wifes Dell laptop from hell.

In the last year i've tried Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, Kubuntu, Gentoo, SuSE, FreeBSD, and Solaris10. Currently running Solaris on my file server, and have drives setup with Slackware, Gentoo, and Kubuntu. Tried Solaris 10 on the desktop. That sucked bad. I'd also have to say that I'm done with .rpm distros. Just don't need it.

If I was going to recomend a distro for someone who just wants it to work out of the box and ease of install it'd be K/Ubuntu. For the dedicated Linux dweeb, and those so anal about their OS that they NEED to configure everything, Gentoo. For flat out speed I'd say Slackware.

 

[Tiger]

If you do any other tasks, there is probably 10 open source apps that can replace what you use on windows easily, often better, and for a better price.

Not exactly true.
I'm a Ham Radio operator and the miriad of windows software available for Ham Radio kicks the snot out it's Linux counterparts. It's a niche market to be sure but the one advantage Windows devleopers have over Linux developers is Vsual Basic. Yeah, I know all the arguments about VB and I agree, but you can whip out a fully functional app for Windows using VB a whole bunch quicker than you can using C++/Java/Perl/Pyhton on the Linux platform.

 

[KoolDrew]

Game Support lacking

 

[Shamrock]

If Linux supported games natively (complete with DX9 and OpenGL) I'd give all my Windows (XP home, Pro, 2k, 98, ME) to charities!

 

[imported_drx]

*too

 

[DasFox]

Well for the game crowd you don't toss out Windows you run DUAL BOOT and then have the best of both worlds. I run XP Pro/Slackware Linux.

There are alot of games that work in Linux with native Linux binaries and alot more that run under Cedega. But for the ones that don't, then you just boot up Windows and do your thing, BUT when you surf the Internet world you can KISS all that damm spyware and viruses away!

Plus movie playing, whether a DVD or DivX and playing MP3s, the Unix/Linux applications run them much better. The games, movies and mp3s play more stable then in Windows, which is a great plus for those that manage to learn what it takes to get there.

Dual Boot systems rock, been doing it 6 years.

The rewards for the Unix/Linux world take work, as we say "This Ain't no Windows", so for those that stick it out to learn will one day see their reward!

 

[bjc112]

OS X

Windows XP Pro


Poor PCMCIA wireless support, and weak gaming support are the deal breaker for me at times..

 

[nweaver]

Originally posted by: bjc112
OS X

Windows XP Pro


Poor PCMCIA wireless support, and weak gaming support are the deal breaker for me at times..

Wireless support is fine for the most part. Atheros based cards work well, Intel cards work well, ralink works well...it's mostly TI and broadcom that suck. Again, don't blame the distro, blame the H/W folks. Do you really think windows writes all those drivers themselves?

 

[sourceninja]

"Right and IMO Windows is much less pleasant to use than Linux. I'd rather deal with vim's shortcomings than run Windows. "

heh, I run vim on windows (at work). I do all my development on it. I hate the MS Visual stuido tools. Just give me subversion and vim and i'm all set.

I like linux because I have control. Everything is setup just the way I like it.
I also like linux because gtk is a great toolkit to work with for programing.
I like linux because 100% of my hardware is supported.
I like linux because it actually works better in 64bit.
I like linux because I can use it for my server, my desktop and my firewall. All with different processor types and ranging from the very old to the very new in hardware.
I like linux because of emerge.
I like linux because I hate drive letters.
I like linux because I hate spyware and viruses.
I like linux because I have the source code for 80% of the software I use and 100% of the desktop.
I like linux becuase it is in development constantly.
I like linux because it is free.
I like linux because ut2004, americas army, quake 4, doom 3, NWN, and quake 3 all run faster then on windows, and because I can still play all the games I love to play with cedega (starcraft, warcraft 3, HL2, BF2, Guild wars, Wow (although I dont play anymore), Coh (although i havn't played in a year, but i'm thinking about picking up CoV), Dawn of war and its expansion, Moo2, and others) and I dont mind waiting a few months to get support for a game in cedega (plus it keeps me from buying a game on release due to hype).
I like linux because all the tools I use on windows are there in linux (sometimes were in linux first). Firefox, Thunderbird, Adobe PDF viewer (although I dont use this anymore on linux, I found the new gnome viewer to be better), Azureus, Filezilla, Aqua DataStudio, Gaim, Nvu, vim, and more.
I like linux because its console is better then windows.
I like linux because apache runs better on it.
I like linux because it doesn't use file extensions to figure out what stuff is.
I like linux because of detailed file permisions on user and group level.
I like linux because of cron.
I like linux because of bash.
I like linux because I dont have to use daemon tools.
I like linux because of SharpMusique.
I like linux because I can use a 64bit web browser and still use 32bit plugins (thank you nspluginwrapper).
I like linux because of beagle.
I like linux because of chroots and sandboxes
I could go on like this for a lot longer, but i'm getting tired of writing, so I'll change gears.

Things I dont like about linux.
I dont like that there is no easy way to backup encrypted dvd's on linux like dvdshrink.
I dont like trying to make QT based apps match my gnome theme, this needs work.
I dont like the fact I have to use a 3rd party program (SMEG) to edit gnome menu entrys with the gui.
I dont like the politics.
I dont like rpm's (but thats fine because I dont use them).
I dont like the fact things like kioslaves and gnome-vfs are part of kde/gnome, that functionality should be party of the OS not the gui.
I dont like the fact that google doesn't seem to want to release google earth/google chat for linux.
I dont like the fact there is no app (that is not qt based) that looks like rhythembox and has an equalizer so my mp3's/acc's dont sound like crap. Or I dont like the fact gstreamer doesn't have an equalizer.
Lack of a good replacement for the UTeditor or NWN editor. Why are these windows only?

Things I like about windows.
I can use linux tools on windows, firefox, thunderbird, vim, etc (see above)
I can use itunes, google earth, and google chat.
I like that windows can run cygwin for things I miss like bash.
I like windows for vendor support.

Things I dont like about windows.
The windows user/admin schme and the permission system.
Windows registry
lack of a gui based way of doing ntfs hardlinks and symlinks.
shortcuts
extension based system of figuring out what to do with a file (ie. exe is executable instead of just setting the file as executable).
Windows 64 is no where near as good as 32bit windows.
IE is required for windows updates without using automatic updates or downloading each one by hand.
spyware and viruses.
Changing the DPI messes up a lot of crap with your windows.
A file system that uses drive letters (we have problems with some users here that need more then 26 drives).
DRM - nuff said
An attitude leading to lack of universal comptablity (closed file formats, directX, constantly changing api with each release to break comptatblity, forced upgrades).
Cost
Strongarm tactics with hardware makers (not really an OS problem, but a company problem).
Lack of source code.
lack of quick security updates.
Lack of supported arch's.
Lack of hardware requirement scaling (can win xp get stripped down to run on a pentium 90 for a firewall?).
embrace, extend, destroy
Again, I wont go on forever, but I could.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Kibbo86
2 cents here:

I have a broadcom chipset in my wireless adapter. I wanted to learn how to use linux, but having to reboot everytime I needed to google something was just too much of a hassle.

I will come back, someday. Either when I can afford to waste money replacing a perfectly good adapter, or when I move to a place where I can set up my network differently.

If it's perfectly good, it should work everywhere. Right?

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: IamDavid

The Linux and BSD developers (the ones working on the guts) probably don't care either way. They just want a better OS. :beer:

Better OS? For who?

For them. They are the ones doing the work after all.

It doesn't make sense to build on something no one wants, can't use.

That's true. But there are plenty of people that can use unix-like systems.

I know some people use it along with some corporations but in the end wouldn't they all benefit if it was more accessible to everyone?

How? So people can continue to do nothing to help?

To me the argument seems crazy.. It would be like all the car companies not wanting to put power steering in there cars back in the day because they were to busy working on the rest of the car..

Not at all. It's like if you want to have a house built. Why make it accessible to everyone, if you're the one designing it? If it's for you, you build it to your specifications. These developers aren't stupid, so they don't need to make the OS stupid.

AND YOU IGNORED THE REST OF MY POST. You know, the important stuff. :roll:

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: The Linuxator
See n0c that's exactly what I am talking about, the problem with *nix in general is that there is this disintegration, why should the user care about all of that, damn! The users that we are talking about don't even know that there is a kernel in windows for that matter!! All they care about is a productive easy to use non time consuming app period.
How can "They just want a better OS. " and not care about it's usefulness?? A good OS for me is like a handy tool that anyone can pick and accomplish a certain objective through it.

Then you build an OS to your specifications, just like Linux and BSD developers are doing. When you do the work, you get to choose to make it easy enough for grandma. When they're doing the work, they can choose to make it useful enough FOR THEM. If someone else finds it useful, that's great, but it's not their objective.

If you are going to release an app that doesn't have a GUI at this level of advancement in computer technology then I don't know how much it's bettering the OS. For me the more ppl that are able to use it the more this app is capable of bettering the OS in general, because that way you are able to get more feedback, from ppl at different leves of knwoledge, and you will be able to know what ppl need in reality.

blah blah blah.

You know that if an app is released a user will want to use it in a GUI.

I want to use it however it's easier. For a lot of things that's on the command line.

Do you know what else I hate , the fact that GNOME KDE and all the likes of them aren't just a GUI, no they are more than a GUI and I don't think this is right nor good. Those should be an interface period, apps should be able to run on any GUI in any condition with no other software to help accomplish that. Developers should manage a way to make all apps run easily in between all distros and GUIs, we as a *nix community shold stop being scattered all over the place each tweaking a different platform here and there. There should be this common uniform platform that is used by all, and runs independent of the type of GUI and whatever you have on there all you need is have the core (Linux) and then everyone can put there own final touches. Somone might jump and say "well we do all have that common platform you are talking about , what's wrong with you?" Well I still don't see it the way things are going nowadays, sorry if I offended anyone but that's just my opinion.

We? But some of us don't like Linux. And some of us don't like Firefox. And some of us don't like Gnome. And some of us don't like emacs. And some of us don't like <insert anything here>.

When you do the work, you get to make decisions. Simple.

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: thesix

That has nothing to do with Linux developers, and everything to do with the GUI developers.

It's not just about pretty graphic interface, it's also about integration, especially at the system level. Gnome/kde etc. are looking pretty good these days, you even hear many Linux users say Linux is prettier than Windows or OSX, but once you start operating, start touching different aspects of the OS, you see inconsistency in user interface all over the place, while Windows and OSX provide a consistent view in every aspect (well, almost) of the OS.

I see SuSE's YaST as an effort towards that goal. I am sure there're similar projects in other distributions. However none of them have achieved being as good as Windows or OSX. With the current development model of those GNU/Linux distributions, I don't know if that will ever be achieved.

So don't just blame the "GUI developers".

Who do you blame then? Should we have resolution controls in the kernel? No, it isn't necessary.

And I hope they don't do anything like that. Screw the stupid.

Now you're just joking.
By this logic, for example, Sun should just stick to CDE on Solaris and leave the GNOME/KDE to "the stupid"?

What makes CDE any better?

Interestingly, Sun seems to be getting their act together on the user friendness.

Last month, Sun published "Solaris Desktop Gap Analysis" on OpenSolaris site.
Darren Kenny, the author, also commented on Solaris-x86 Yahoo Group: Future Solaris Desktop

The "Solaris Desktop Summit" (apprently a Sun internal event) has been mentioned in this blog.

As a Solaris user, I am very happy Sun is making these efforts, which will also benefit other opensource projects, especially GNOME, and therefore, GNU/Linux etc. However, I am not optimistic that these efforts will make a huge leap in the near future. Like I said, the integration and consistency at the system level is not something easy to achieve.

Sun is a business. Linux isn't.

 

[networkman]

Originally posted by: Lucifer
I would have probably used it, but I ran into issues to where I couldn't install Ubuntu on a small partition I had on my Mac G4.

I have the Ubuntu for X86, but I don't know if it will install on an AMD pc???

If you'd looked at the 1st page of this thread you'd have seen my post:

"I just installed Ubuntu 5.10 on a rig I built last night using an AMD Sempron 2400+ and a Biostar motherboard with onboard video/lan/snd."

 

[SynthDude2001]

I wasn't really sure how to vote, since my reasons for not using Linux (or a variant thereof) are more than one...mainly lack of game support, lack of hardware support, and the fact that I don't see what I'd really gain by using a different OS. Windows works fine for everything I do right now, so I don't see much point in changing or trying it out (especially when there are compatibility issues - whose fault those issues are, is irrelevant).

I'm sure one of these days I may get around to trying it out just to do something different, but for now, I certainly don't feel like I'm missing out on anything.