Actually, every major release of Mac OS X has been faster than the previous one.
Isn’t that just a simple admission that USB support in Linux isn’t adequate?! (Which was my whole point in the first place)
The biggest mistake that switchers make is assuming that your hardware’s going work. That I think is the biggest cause of frustration. Your best bet is to buy components that are “proven” to work with your distro, as opposed to trying to shoehorn your distro to work with your pre-existing system. Buy for Linux first, it’ll work on Windows if you have to go back.
Fortunately most things do work, but it’s lot easier to use whatever plug and play exists, then trying to geek your way into things; unless you know what you’re doing. My printer worked, my wireless worked, but I couldn’t get my scanner to work, which was the thing I needed to use. It would’ve made more sense to spend the $50 and buy a new scanner, than spend the weekend asking questions, trying patches etc.
…and going back to Windows, cause I needed to scan.
The solution to the everyman using Linux won’t be in editing config files, but in finally believing that the everyman has a right not to know how things work.
I would say that its not perfect. I tried to hook up a scanner that had a USB plug ,and sane set it up , but for some reason to do with USB 1 , the scanner would not be recognized.
Then just recently I hooked up a digital cam to the puter , and Mandy recognized the pal format and downloaded the pics onto my puter, something that XP would not do.
So , basically newer distros and newer hardware will most likely be supported ,while legacy hardware and O/S will be hit and miss. But for all linux’s faults , this happened to the windows enviroment as well, trying to get printers to talk to puters and what not .
Declan
A play around with Linux on a second computer.
Linux is ALMOST ready for the desktop, but it’s not quite there. A few annoyances:
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Not being able to easily swap out hardware. Sometimes you have to manually change a configuration file with text; sometimes you have to recompile the kernel.
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File system hierarchy. Instead of “Programs”, “Documents” and “Windows” (the system folder) on a windows system, instead you’ll find this.
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Program names. More so than in Windows, program names usually have almost nothing to do with their actual function. Sure, you know that Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro and Paint are image manipulation programs. The equivalent in Linux is GIMP. Text editors? In Windows, you’ll find Notepad. Linux has pico, emacs, vi, nano, jed, joe, ee, and vim. The program in Linux that lets you connect to a Windows network is called samba. Some programs packaged as a part of Linux window managers will have more logical names, though.
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Window managers. GNOME and KDE are two different window managers, about as different as Windoes and the Mac OS X interface. Sure, you can configure them to your heart’s content, but there you’ll find that you can’t do some basic customizations; GNOME 2.10 won’t let you edit the programs menu (the equivalent of the “Start” button in Windows), for one. GNOME-based programs in KDE will look awful unless you download and install some programs to let GTK-based programs use KDE libraries. “Libraries” are something you don’t have to worry about in Windows; in Linux, it’s a pain in the butt.
“Windoes” = “Windows”. Poop.
No. Guess what? My brand spanking new Windows XP Pro continuously gives me an error about an “unknown usb device” - when I have no usb devices plugged in. I decided to replace my old home desktop, when Windows ceased to operate well. I just had loaded one too many pieces of software on, and entered unexitable dll hell, and that machine was not powerful enough for XP. I’m not starting an operating system war; I use both. GorillaMan should be aware that sometimes people have serious problems with Windows.
Linux, even the easy installs like Suse is much easier to screw up than Windows. (I found Suse easier to install than Windows, btw.) Linux is much more configurable and corresondingly easier to screw up. It is also easier to fix. If you have a problem with Windows, you almost always have to rebuild it, which is what I will have to do at work. (It has other issues, like it won’t hold the start menu configurations I try.) The Linux user community is much more supportive, so you can get much more help for free. MS gets more support for drivers, because if a Windows user can’t user your device, that company probably won’t make money. Both require security updates, although Linux security problems tend to be much more minor. (I have yet to see the incessant XP security patch message “…and take over your computer…”)
Give Linux a try. If you have unresolvable problems like GorillaMan, then you’ve learned. I don’t think you will. I frequent some boards like LinuxQuestions.org, and while I’ve seen problems with a specific printer or usb broadband connection, I’ve never seen his kind of problems. Linux is more secure, and there is an endless supply of free software.
Hmm, my Suse layout is actually more reasonable than my Windows. I don’t hit “start” to shut down, for example. Otherwise, both are mods of the mac look.
But that’s not a USB-support problem. That’s a problem of inadequate hardware. (Windows bloat is a whole different matter)
Agreed - a graphical partitioner in Windows would make me jump for joy, but it’s almost expected in any ‘easy’ Linux distro.
This comment was timesome and inaccurate a decade ago, and certainly doesn’t make sense nowadays. (You should see my XP-familiar mother trying to navigate a Mac. It’s not pretty.)
I won’t expect an actual hardware problem until I rebuild. I get the message more often when I use a usb device, but they all work, so I’m puzzled.
In the “tiresome” part, all I was trying to point out is that the Linux layout is pretty much identical to Windows, and the old Mac - at least for Suse 9.1 KDE. Instead of a “start” button, you have a chameleon, or whatever the Suse lizard is. You have a trash can, instead of a recycle bin. You get the idea. My kids had no difficulty adjusting to the difference. My wife doesn’t either, but only uses it for mail. Otherwise, a computer is just a card deck to her.
I don’t hesitate to tell people to try Linux. At the worst, they end up with an ancillary partition/old machine that they use for reading Excel files if they can’t afford MS Office. At the best, they end up with an ancillary partition/new Windows machine that they use to play 3D games.
I will echo the recommendation of Ubuntu. They have a live CD now that you can try, similar to Knoppix but cooler.
Not quite. Debian’s equivalent of rpm is called dpkg. Apt is just a package retrieval system, for which Red Hat has a very basic equivalent called yum. So, in short, rpm:dpkg:
apt.
I have never understood this desire to make the technical aspects of the system seem user-friendly. The only people who care what is in those directories are already technically inclined. The average Joe does not need to know what’s in /etc/cron.d/ or /usr/sbin/; the only path he cares about is his home folder, which is very simple: /home/joe/.
The idea is that you shouldn’t need to customize your Applications menu. GNOME notoriously favors simplicity over customizability, and I think it is very admirable. If you want something more flexible, there are alternative window managers, such as FVWM, which you can tune to your heart’s content.
By the way, GNOME and KDE are not window managers. They are most commonly called desktop environments, of which window managers are a component.
Cost of freedom, I guess. But some distros include the same default theme for both Qt and GTK+2, so it isn’t an issue.
Once you have everything up and running, I’d love to hear what you think of it in relation to Windows XP.
I realize you are looking at it as a hobby/fun toy and not a replacement, but post your impressions afterwards. It can be hard to get honest thoughts about Linux once someone has been completely assimilated by it :-).