I am a proficient Windows XP user and more, but after seeing what’s Vista going to be with all the issues in relation to implementing security and the way Microsoft wants to license it, I decided that it is time for me to try to find an alternative. This was happening around a month ago after I attended a Microsoft Techday dedicated to Vista. So in the past month I used exclusively Ubuntu Linux 6.10 on my laptop. Below is the journal of what happened.
I’ve wiped out Windows XP from an IBM Thinkpad R51, selected boot from CD and started the install. Installation went smoothly, everything got recognized including the wireless network card and I realized that in this particular case Linux installation was easier that a Windows XP installation. I didn’t had to manually install drivers for everything: motherboard, video card, sound card, network, power management etc….
Then I had in front of me the standard Ubuntu desktop and it took me around 30 minutes to realize that I can delete and recreate panels the way I want it. You know as long as you are going after the windows users why don’t you give them an option during install to select a panel layout which is similar with the taskbar in windows?
Then I went on the net and following instructions from their site I installed Automatix which allowed me to install audio and video codecs (including standard windows codecs), Adobe Reader, Skype, windows fonts, gaim 2.0 RC and VLC. I understand why you are not including these in the distribution and I see that you are planning to allow some easier integration of these binaries and licensed codecs in the next release.
Everything so far took me around 90 minutes from the moment I started the installation.
Then I realized the fonts are not as pretty as the windows fonts with clear type enabled. I tried to play with the settings but I still wasn’t happy. I had to read some forum, install an Xserver patch which because of apt-get and copy paste went fine and again playing with settings and choosing standard anti aliasing and to LCD anti aliasing. At this stage the fonts are looking ok, but still not as pretty as in windows. Now jumping a little bit ahead in the story: After using OpenOffice, Abiword, Gaim, Firefox, and some other Gnome applications I saw that in some applications the fonts are looking better than in other applications. I really don’t care why, but it is important to me that fonts should look the same in all applications and at least as pretty as in windows without being forced to achieve something like that using the command line. Ubuntu still has some work to do here. Fonts part, is usable but a little bit annoying.
After that I installed my standard Firefox extensions, again everything went smoothly
I opened Openoffice and I realized that the icons are bigger than in the windows version. I had to go into settings and reset the icon dimensions. Again why this is different on Linux I do not understand. It took me 5 minutes to make Openoffice look like the windows version, but ubuntu could have done that at build time.
I had other minor annoyances:
- I am used from windows that when something goes wrong with a program to right click the taskbar and kill that program. Because I had issues with Firefox 2.0 (which could have been related to extensions) it took me 3-4 minutes until I discovered system monitor. Maybe Ubuntu guys will implement the right click shortcut in the next release.
- I am not able to understand why only some software is in add remove programs and the rest of it is in synaptic manager. Can you guys integrate more software from the synaptic manager into add remove programs? I know that maybe there are some packaging issues, but it is awkward for a guy coming from windows.
- I like the desktop integration, but you could add some bits like new open office document. Also maybe I would like not to use send to mail using Evolution because I am using webmail. I wasn’t able to remove Evolution without removing the desktop functionality. So I just hided the evolution from the menu. Again usable but a little annoying
- I have an Sony Erricsson K750i, I tried to connect the phone to the laptop using bluetooth and an Asus bluetooth adapter. The bluetooth adapter was recognized, and I was able to pair the phone with the laptop. I wasn’t able to transfer files or syncronize the phone with the laptop using Gnome Phone Manager. I would like to be able to achieve this using only the mouse and not going into command line
- I am a happy webmail user for both my business Exchange account and for my gmail personal account. I used firefox before on windows, but it still annoying that nobody was able to come up with an extension or a greasemonkey script which could render the OWA interface in firefox the way it looks in IE6. Not really an ubuntu issue, but maybe guys you can do something about it.
- The last issue that I had was that I wasn’t able to connect by CDMA modem. Is recognized by the operating system but the guys in the support center from the telco are plain stupid. Again not really an ubuntu issue.
I really like the way ubuntu deals with running things as an administrator (root, sudo). Much easier than Vista. After a month of using exclusively I am a happy user, but I know I could have been a little happier. I know that if I start to learn command line syntax, I would be able to become a little happier, but I have no intention to learn another script (command line) syntax. I was able to do everything that I was doing on windows: browsing, email, IM , office work, watching movies (all possible formats, including in a flash player in browser), burning cds, listening to podcasts, downloading using bit torrent, updating my blog, connecting using remote admin to a windows server that I have under control, connecting using to other computer using vnc protocol.
I still have 2 things to achieve connecting to a windows domain and sharing files using samba (I didn’t had to do that yet) and printing again I didn’t had to print anything (I am against printing, but this is another discussion). For the time being if I will solve the issue with the CDMA modem, Ubuntu is going to become my main OS.
I agree with you on everything you said there. And I have recently done the same thing, jumping on the Linux wagon for a better life.
For your fonts problem check this post out: http://forums.pcbsd.org/viewtopic.php?t=4216&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=0&sid=667b086ed441339594a3713c37c7bb44
Basically you need the windows fonts
sudo apt-get install msttcorefonts
cd /home
wget http://www.auriance.com/docs/fonts/fontconfig.tbz
tar -xvjpf fontconfig.tbz
Then move all of the extracted files from the archive to /etc/fonts such as:
sudo mv msfonts-rules.conf /etc/fonts
thanks for the comments.. its really great to hear another persons experience. File sharing and neworkng with Samba and ubuntu is a small nightmare.. Involves manually editing smb config file. There are like a million differnt options and it is VERY far from the rightclick share method of windows…
WISH SOMEONE AT UBUNTU WOULD FIX THIS!
#Ubuntufreak
Ok, Samba sharing under Ubuntu does NOT involve manually editing the smb.conf file, though some greater control over the functionality can be achieved by doing this. You can, instead, choose ‘System’ -> ‘Administration’ -> ‘Shared Folders’ and add and remove Samba shares from there.
#blogger
Grammar is your friend. You should at least try to adhere to the grammatic rules that are taught in elementary school.
I am relatively sure that there’s nothing you can do to make OWA in FF look like it does in IE. I’m not sure about the technical details, but I know the Exchange server can tell you’re using FF and automatically serves you the dumbed-down version of OWA. I’m sure something could be done to trick it into thinking you’re on IE, but I don’t think that would just make it “work,” as I bet there are a lot of OWA features that are IE-only (for obvious reasons.)
Ubuntu is built on Debian. I have found that having the Debian Bible ($40.00 at Borders, half that on Amazon) really helps. Especially with things like setting up SAMBA, Printing and Networking in general. I had little experience with Linux but was able to quickly setup Apache 2.0 with PHP/Perl/and MySQL, share my Laser printer from my Windows Network and setup shares between both machines. It does lack details about firewalls; however, The Debian System: Concepts and Techniques is much more detailed. My point being, all of your questions can be quickly answered with those 2 books and http://www.aboutdebian.com and http://www.debian-administration.org. I have used Ubuntu and like it very much, it is just like Debian, just a lot more user friendly. I am running Debian on a webserver and a 9 year old dell laptop. My next desktop will definately be Ubuntu. Hope this helps.
Donald, you can critique the original poster’s English skills when you demonstrate your Romanian fluency.
Ok first of all, if you wanted a more windows feel, you should’ve gotten the other distro instead of Ubuntu, like Suse. Ubuntu has more of a MacOs feel to it. And you’re lucky enough there’s flexibility in allowing you to change things such as font and button size in Ubuntu. How I see it, you have been crafted and molded by Microsoft to follow in their standard never being able to break free from their grasp. If you’re going to use Linux expect that not everything works out of the box.
I switched from WinXP to Ubuntu 6.06 a little while ago. Ran for about six weeks before I found myself switching back. My main concern (what ultimately left me no choice but returning to WinXP) was receiving increasingly more frequent read-errors from my external USB-disks. They worked flawlessly under WinXP before I made the switch, and they’ve performed flawlessly after I switched back.
Upon switching to Ubuntu I reformatted the drives to ext3.
After switching back to WinXP I reformatted them back to NTFS.
I know this isn’t a support forum (I’ve tried those without getting any response), but hopefully someone can help me shed a little light on this issue? Because I would like to switch to Ubuntu again, but I feel I must be able to trust my data is secure and available.
Sincerely
Good article, i myself made the change from Windows about 3 months ago and have not looked back since. I personally settled on kunbuntu as i prefer the KDE desktop. The install of all the extra codecs etc was a pain in the arse but its good to see the developers at Ubuntu plan to make this a bit easier, i also noticed the new distro Linux Mint which is basically a repacked Ubuntu but with all the codecs.
I will be switching to Ubuntu too. F Vista. lol
As a Windows User considering the jump myself, I try to read as much about switching as possible, so thanx for your insites!
@ Donald: I think he did a pretty good job considering he’s not a native English speaker. Please reframe from posting such asinine remarks.
@Robert – Difference between Windows and (most) Linux distros is that XP will be hiding those error messages. If you look in the event viewer, you’ll probably see the windows equivalent of those messages. Anyway, as I’m sure you’ve got good back ups (regardless of your OS) then a disk failing shouldn’t be a problem.
Basically, Linux won’t cause your disks to fail. Nor will windows. You just may not get the advance warning that they are failing in windows, that you will get in most linux distros. Also, I would advise trying the ubuntu forums, it would be rare not to get a response on there. Make sure you post as much detail about your system, the disks themselves and screen shots of any error messages(you can never post too much info!). A simple post of ‘I’m getting errors from my usb drives’ is very hard to troubleshoot.
@Blogger (mr skunkworks.ro) Linux (or any other OS, Mac OS X, Solaris etc) will not be the same as Windows XP. I personally would not want it to be the same. Ever. If you want to use Windows, and have an OS that exhibits Windows like behaviour, then use Windows. If you want to use something different, then accept that it will be just that, different. I’m a strong believer of using the best tool for the job. With these things it is always a preference issue, some prefer using Windows, because that is what they know. Others use linux or mac OS X, again because that is what they are used to.
Good article. I like ubuntu a lot and I run it for my server. Of course with that it’s all command line based so I dont have many of the gui issues that you dislike. Most of the things you are unhappy with in theis seem to be cosmetic issues which arent neccesarily bad but just different from windows. You keep saying “if only they would do this like windows” or “when will this become more windows like”. It’s great that you like windows, but having a different OS is definately going to mean some cosmetic and appearance differences. Also, I dont know what you mean by “pretty” windows fonts… they aren’t anti-aliased and cleartype looks like shit. If you want some nice fonts maybe you should try mac os 10.
If you’re trying to improve looks, check out Compiz and XGL. it’s pretty awesome.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2200109535941088987&q=Compiz
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compiz
I installed Ubuntu Edgy Eft on a partition on my Laptop’s hard drive last weekend, having used Windows (in various incarnations) all my computing life. I am loving it, despite the fact that my Broadcom 4318 chipset in the wireless card was an absolute pain to get running
I agree with all that you have said; I would like to add better support for that damned wireless chip, and a better way to manage wireless networks!
Thanks
Chris
I understand what you are all saying, i did not find that much trouble when adopting ubuntu, but I wasn’t looking for a windows clone, I was amazed at how quick and easy it was to install, and how much easier it is to set up.
When I right click on something on the taskbar I get the option to close, and with a nautilus script I have added kill application to the right click menu too.
Could care less about how fonts look, but that is just my opinion.
As far as your phone goes, try using bluelink (just google it) which was written by a guy who owns a k750i and I have seen it working with a w800i.
All the software is there in add-remove programs it is just laid out differently to synaptic.
You can install IE6 or 7 using the wine project (just get it through synaptic), however if you don’t want to stuff around with wine for browsing the net try konqueror, better yet try out kubuntu which will also do all your bluetooth stuff easily (sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop)
With your cdma modem, there is a guide on the net which will walk you through step by step setting up a cdma modem (pcmcia card or minimax) under linux (just google “how to maxon minimax (pcmcia card) in ubuntu”)
Samba sharing is easier if you setup the shared folder using system->administration->(I think it is) shared folders instead of right clicking on the folder you want to share.
Now to my point… the open source community is largely built upon individual contributions if you don’t like whats in it or how it works/looks. Then do something about it. http://reconstructor.aperantis.com/ has a great piece of software for ubuntu which has a great looking gui, and allows you to build your own linux(ubuntu) distro, if anyone is interested in making things easier and more attractive for people to adopt, I will be more than happy to start a project to do just that.
I had a go at doing the same thing (except with Fedora, not Ubuntu), and chickened back to winxp after less than a week
The big problem for me was the file explorer, and believe it or not lack of good PHP text editors. These 2 apps I use all day long for web dev, and I just couldn’t get used to the linux equivalents.
Having said that, Vista is getting closer, and there’s no way I’m going to agree to the insane amount of licensing grief and spyware MS are bundling with Vista. So I’ll give Linux another go soon.
Good article. It’s not ‘universal’ but for some of the look and feel and related elements, you may want to look into some of the variations of Ubuntu, Kubuntu, xubuntu, etc. Since you have Ubuntu installed and running already, all you need to do to change the personality is to run synaptic, then search for and install the appropriate alternative desktop, Kubuntu-desktop will install KDE over the ubuntu desktop, and xubuntu-desktop will likewise install xubuntu. There are some differences in installed applications along with the UI change, but you will mostly see the differences as kubuntu gives ubuntu the kde personality, and xubuntu takes away the gnome interface and uses xfce instead.
And yes, along the way you end up needing to change how you do certain things.
Xfce does have some XP styled UI elements included in it. No, it won’t give you the entire look and feel of XP, but perhaps having the same style window buttons, in the same places, and with approximately the same colors and such, will get you to the point you might feel comfortable trying out some of the other UI look and feels, giving you a more personalized platform.
Likewise if you have the hardware to support them, Xgl and some of the other higher end Window Managers may be of interest as well.
One thing you might consider doing while trying out UIs would be to create a separate account on your system that you can play around with the various WM and UI looks, until you have found one that suits your style, then use that same WM and UI selection set for your primary account on the system. One of the best features of doing that is you can switch users and demonstrate the various options available to other users without breaking the functionality for your own desktop. You can also let people play around with that UI without worrying about your data, etc.
Fucking noob. If you\’re going to switch to an OS, at least learn something about it. If you don\’t like how a program works, the GPL lets you edit the code. Linux is worse than windows unless you unlock the power of the shell.
anonymous:
No prizes for guessing why you’re anonymous, I would be embarrassed with those comments too.
skunkworks:
Interesting article. I moved over to Ubuntu a while ago, but like some other people moved back because a couple of fundamentals that I just couldn’t get over.
One was iTunes & iPod – the Linux equivalents were just to chunky and confusing. The other was flash videos were not syncing properly. After a few minutes videos were un-watchable. Not good if you enjoy a bit of YouTube or Google Video.
Over all though the experience was an enjoyable one, and I’ve only gone on a temporary basis. I’ll be back when Vista gets it’s strangle hold on the world..
I just want to add how inappropropriate anonymous’s comment was. When someone takes the trouble to try out something new and is brave enough to share his or her experiences with others then it is very unkind and unhelpful to write what you did and use such disgusting language.
What I really mean is : bugger off anonymous. If you haven’t anything constructive to say then don’t say anything at all you arsehole.
I am a Kubuntu user for at least 2 months. I share your frustrations in a positive way – I am anticipating that the Ubuntu guys WILL hear our voices and act accordingly. That’s what I love about Open Source.
Anyway, my greatest qualm would be Open Office 2.0
I sure hope somebody makes it more efficient in terms of speed. (I’m not a technical guy so no specifics.)
Heh, it’s nice to see a review from a Linux newbie where the problems are just annoyances
. Can I reccomend trying Easy Ubuntu by the way.
Nice to read your experience… However, you seemed to be of the mindset to ‘make ubuntu act like xp’.. Which isn’t what it is at all. There are different ways to do things. Gnome (the default desktop manager for ubuntu) has looked like that for a long time, and after getting used to it, I highly recommend it. If you’re after a more ‘windows like’ start menu, then you could try kubuntu, which uses KDE as the default desktop manager.
I’m interested in your comments about fonts, as I have never had this problem, and actually find the fonts in ubuntu to be far superior (in quality and anti-aliased’ness) to that of windows.
I would love to see a better network manager (for wireless and wired) systems. XP lacks a good network manager as well. I think the best one I’ve seen is that in mac os x.
I think it’s a pretty good testament to see how easy it was for you to get something which is built completely differently to that of windows and still be intuitive enough for you to pick it up relatively easy – there’s always room for improvement, and by improvement I do not mean copying microsofts functionality.
You may find this useful:
deskbar applet (right click on a gnome panel, then add.. select deskbar applet then click OK). This little thing is fantastic, as you can easily launch and find applications, as well as get great integration with your documents.
Try out beryl. If you haven’t heard about it, it’s a new compositing environment which makes use of your graphics card.. Allows for advanced effects (similar to the ones you may have seen in mac os x, just with far more options). http://www.beryl-project.org (and for a short demo http://youtube.com/watch?v=i0ZtcxHUSDQ )
The following article may be a bit patronizing, but it’s an interesting read all the same: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm
I highly recommend learning terminal. Just looking back at my experience with it..I started off with windows years ago, and found the shell to be frustrating and annoying.. Launching things was difficult, all I could do was basically navigate a file system and run simple commands on things. This stigma stayed with me when I moved to linux. With bash, after getting over the stigma windows placed in me, I can now easily modify permissions, and see permissions, find files and information about them using regular expressions, run cleanup scripts.. Such as rename every file recursively matching a particular pattern. These are advanced features I’ve wanted in xp for a long time.
Maybe look at it this way..Instead of trying to duplicate your previous windows experience, why not look at it from a “what do I wish I could do with this operating system?”.. Things that weren’t available to you previously in windows xp.
I am also thinking of a switch to ubuntu 6.10 but my biggest concern is VS .net 2005. I realy like this studio with c# as language, I know about the mono project but it has lots to gain yet (comparing it to .net 2005)
I also tried the same thing (Ubuntu for XP) and, like “alt” I went back to XP. My issues were twofold. One, I had a hard time working with my iPod, again due to clunky interface. Also, I had a string of difficulty with Firefox. I could not navigate to https pages (it crashed every time). Mozilla did not work either, I could not get Opera to load, and so the only browser I was left with was Evolution, which was limited in every way. I am sure there are fixes to all of this stuff, and I liked much about ubuntu, but not enough to figure it out.
To replace evolution with your gmail as your default mail client, see http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=252330 .
As for some of your other points…
Killing firefox: KDE does have that functionality. Anyway, normally you can do ctrl+alt+esc or something, which enables you to easily kill a program. You have to bind a shortcut of your liking to the programm ‘xkill’. Gnome probably has a default shortcut for this, no idea what it would be though.
Most windows users would probably use that panel setting you suggest if it’s an install-option. I don’t see why you would want to do this, though. GNU/Linux is better for many things, why not assume there’s a reason behind the panel layout? You should’ve given it a try at least, before immediately changing it. Note that I’m personally not a fan of Gnome’s panel stuff, all I’m saying is that the Windows way isn’t great, and you shouldn’t just automatically ‘revert’ to it.
One can only hope that installing binaries & codecs won’t get easier (yes, I know it’s planned). It’s a bad thing to use those binaries. I’m aware it’s necessary in a lot of cases, but making it transparent would remove the focus on those problems.
Very weird you had anti-aliasing problems. I’m not an Ubuntu user (Debian), but I’d think it comes anti-aliased by default… most distros do.
You ask why the icon size is bigger on GNU/Linux for OpenOffice. Why would it be the same as Windows? We’re not trying to copy that pile of crap. GNU/Linux isn’t Windows, and there’s no reason to make it the same, or to try to copy it’s interface as much as possible. See Fitts’ law by the way, concerning the icon’s size.
Your blog post is informative, etc., but I find it annoying you want everything like Windows. Even more annoying is that you actually rant about the things aren’t identical. You actually consider this a bad thing about GNU/Linux.
And Samba (file sharing) shouldn’t be too hard – I recommend smb4k for this. It’s a KDE program, but it’s really good (of course you can use KDE apps under Gnome as well). As for printers, kprinter is extremely easy to use. It’s KDE as well, though. But Gnome probably has a decent alternative.
Dear Windows XP user,
Please don’t switch to linux we don’t want or need you.
If you want a GUI to be like Win XP, well how about Win XP?
Guys, thanks for your comments
It seems I’ve been dugged.
Rusty: The first thing I do when I install Windows XP on a computer, I disable all the fancy effects that are annoying. I am keeping only the antialiasing for fonts.
Waide, I am going to try the site that you mentioned.
I’ve read also the comments on digg. I really appreciate the ones that are usefull, I am ignoring the ones that are close to “spam” or the “flames” from the linux “real mens”
I am not going to delete any comments that were allowed by my antispam software. Please ignore the ones that are not appropiate. Is the best way to deal with this kind of stuff.
How about c# under Ubuntu?
You are way too much complaining about Ubuntu being not too like Windows. You are expecting to use Windows quirks in GNOME? That’s just because you’re used to Windows. With me it’s the opposite, after getting used to the debian-like menu I can’t stand how it is annoying to use the Windows start menu. It’s not even categorized!
You say fonts are ugly. I say Windows fonts are ugly, since I switched to Ubuntu, I can’t get my eyes of the beautiful and sleek bitstream vera/deja vu fonts.
Add/Remove programs is for non-experienced users. It has lots of assorted software available from Canonical’s repositories. If that’s not enough for you, you’re advanced, move over to synaptic. End of story. Add/remove programs is for total noobs, synaptic is for experienced noobs. For were-noobs there’s dpkg-install/apt-get in the terminal.
And about that right click -> task manager quirk. You really can’t expect something like that in gnome. If you want to add something like it (xkill being my favorite, I’ve added it to the “quick launch”), or if you want to map ctrl-alt-delete to system monitor, you’re free to do so. It’s really easy, there are guides on the net. But for the rest of us who can’t stand windows, please don’t force GNOME devs to integrate windows quirks. Please.
Oh, and I didn’t mean to sound like an asshole.
I’m glad you switched over, after all.
If a program is not responding, close it with the x button on the window “decoration”. After some seconds, the window manager will ask you if you want to force quit since it isn’t existing normally.
Save a blank OO.org document template in your Templates directory (create it if needed) and, here you go, right click -> create document works!
Templates directory should be located in your home directory.
What’re you talking about? You can right click buttons in the task bar and hit close… I do it all the time.
Jobezone’s method is probably better for frozen apps, though. You can also do “Alt+F2″ and then type “xkill” into the run box. The next app you click will be terminated.
As far as the Add/Remove thing goes, my understanding is that only supported software is in Add/Remove (ie, you can call ubuntu and pay for phone support) where as everything is in synaptic. Or, at least everything is there once you add the community repositories.
I didn’t read anyone else’s post, but all the desktop integration stuff (new open office doc on right click, right click for task manager, etc.) are attributes of gnome, which is an open source window manager project that is completely seperate from the ubuntu project. They have nothing in common. If you would like to see these features, post them on a board about gnome! Or install KDE from synaptic, it has a ton of extra features and look very different. You might like it more.
Legacy apps are a common problem in any migration. I myself have a problem with AutoCAD, but can’t live without my highly customized debian. I have proved Wine, but finally I’m using the latest VMware free VM server: I can run any windows app and not waste my WinXP license.
Look at the beginning of the post:
“I am a proficient Windows XP user and more, but after seeing what’s Vista going to be with all the issues in relation to [...] I decided that it is time for me to try to find an alternative. …”
It’s sound crazy to me.
I use and like Ubuntu a lot, but I do not understand why people happy with XP are so in hurry to switch to something requiring exactly the same features, looks&feel, applications, task bars, etc.
Are you happy with XP ? Stay on XP, you already payed for it didn’t you? Get free software for XP if you like more
Move to Linux to enjoy freedom, control, applications made to be good, not to suck your money forever, but take also your time, try, test, learn and do not follow hype.
Max
I’m still trying to convince myself that this blog wasn’t just a bad joke. Learn this and you will find things alot easier: “UBUNTU in no was is trying to become similar to Windows, in appearance or usability. There are other distrobutions of GNU\Linux that cover that market, Ubuntu is NOT one of them.
Some things Windows does are pretty terrible, but you don’t realise because it’s what you are familiar with. With that out of the way, welcome to the club, I’ve used a number of distros, namely Debian, Red Hat – Fedora Core, SuSE, Mandrake – Mandriva, Gentoo and have been happiest with Ubuntu.
Regarding OWA (Outlook Web Access) that site is not a website, it is an Internet Explorer site, it has been written to use special features of Internet Explorer, these are not agreed upon web standards, they are simply made up by Microsoft, there is no way that Mozilla Firefox, or Opera, or Konquor or any other browser can render it properly, because, as mentioned above, its is NOT a website, but an IE site. The UBUNTU ‘people’ cannot fix this, and nor should they, it’s Microsoft’s cock-up, complain to them if you want anything to change,
A final warning, you’ll encounter many GNU\Linux hardcore users who will resent that you want linux to be more like windows, but the rest of us understand that the GNU philosophy is about freedom of choice, and that you should be able to do what ever you need or want to do with GNU\Linux, even if making it behave like windows doesn’t apply to everybody’s tastes.
Good luck, and enjoy the world of FOSS
I just installed Ubuntu on my laptop. I can’t get rid of XP entirely (damn video games), but I’m loving Ubuntu. As soon as I can find a good Virtual Machine to run windows inside of it I’m kissing Windows goodbye for good.
You are correct that not all programs appear in Add/Remove Programs. The reason is that the team developing that program has to specifically add each application to it. A file for each listed program is in /usr/share/app-install/desktop. I suspect they are working to get everything added eventually, but it will be a time consuming job.
Chad
http://linuxappfinder.com
To those of you who want to run Ubuntu but still want access to that one windows program, it would be worth while to look into vmware (http://vmware.com) or Parallels (http://parallels.com). That way you can set up a virtual machine within ubuntu to access for instance vs.net or Yahoo LaunchCast.
I was reading all the comments, and one thing is missing. Remember…. Ubuntu has not been around as long as the Microsoft and Mac guys; and its free (unless you pay for support). The whole thing is dependent on people making it better for themselfs. That is why its free. If you want it to be just like windows than it going to cost as much as windows and the freedome will be gone. But if you want an OS that will pretty much do what you want it do (with a little bit of elbow grease) than this is the way to go.
I liked the comment: “If you’re going to use Linux expect that not everything works out of the box.”
Well, THERE’S a reason to change! (not)
I liked your article, but I had to take issue with one thing. You kept making references about various things that were not “Windows-like” to you. I had been a strict (borderline fanboy) Windows user up until about last year when I switched to Ubuntu (5.04 at the time)
One thing to keep in mind, Ubuntu (Linux) is not Windows. It’s a community project that has various contributers from people who have literally used every OS out there – so that means the interface is going to reflect that. The beauty of Linux is the fact that you can define your own workflows, and make the system look and feel the way you want, not the way Apple, Microsoft or Sun told you it should look.
If you want to completely change your experience:
sudo apt-get install koffice kubuntu-desktop
Will take about an hour (on a cable modem) and at the login screen, select “session” and KDE. That will give you the KDE window manager…. I”m not saying KDE or GNOME is better than the other (I use both) … I’m just showing you that there is a lot more to Linux than what you see after the initial install.
Good luck
You are talking about why you are switching from windows (because vista will be so bad), but at the same you are explaining how you (“easily”) overcome a ton of quirks (which are not that annoying, are they?). So why did you switch to Linux. The *a priori* answer ‘Linux is better’ just do not satisfy me.
It’s clear that you are probably little bit anti-ms oriented as you are just ignoring those annoyances (and at the same time, you do recognize that in Windows you don’t have such problems – thing that many Linux users are not capable of).
To tell you the truth, yes you will get this beautiful freedom of looking at source code and the ability to deeply modify your system – but only if you are planning to become some pretty much hard-core geek knowing and understanding all the different systems to just fix what should be fixed by default.
It’s not for average Joe. I am not talking BS. I’ve tried this wonderful Ubuntu (6.06, planning to install 6.10), but I’ve come back to my WinXP (at first I was just amazed how WinXP is more responsive).
In Ubuntu I had many annoyances – x-windows didn’t recognize my resolution, wireless wasn’t detected (troubles with ndiswrapper + I had to manually delete some driver that came with Ubuntu, coz it was making troubles – I mean how could I alone possible find a unrelated driver file that is for some reason preventing other drivers to work?? ), troubles with DHCP, troubles with binary drivers (I needed thos for xgl), Kdevelop and Anjuta didn’t work well out of the box (well they didn’t run template ‘hello world’ programs!!). I am not making this up, this really happened to me. Probably there are more annoyances (I am pretty sure they are), but well I still had my XP partition and I countinued using it. There are too many times you find yourself fixing something, looking at forums and then pasting weird commands in terminal. Sometimes you don’t find solutions (or you give up) and you have to make compromises (like me turning off encryption on my wireless to jut have a connection). I mean hello, terminal is so 95. A lot of ppl say that in desktop Linuxes (Ubuntu, Suse,.. not Slackware) you don’t need terminal… well my experience tell me that it’s different, I know I had to fix all my troubles in the terminal and I probably learned half of it.
Recommendation for the author – prepare to learn this “wonderful” new terminal with all those weird command with even more weird flags and arguments. Things will probably go even worse.
Oh yes, what’s wrong with vista – you don’t like UAC – it’s the same kind of shit as in Linux and you can of course turn it off. Or is it the ram use – well vista take advantage of it and it uses it as a cache until you really need it. Oh Aero taking too much ram? Well, XGL also takes more than 100 MB of ram and if you want you can turn off aero. I’ve run vista on 512 MB without problems, but well 512 MB is minimum for *comfortable* use in both XP and desktop Linuxes (well minimum for both is 128 MB), but well I agree, for vista you should maybe get 1 GB. (As this is just ‘the next step’).
You should be commended for making the jump to a new OS as you did and for sticking to it. I’ve been using Kubuntu for about two years now and I think it rocks. There are still quirks and issues, but I think you’ll find that with any OS.
As for the jackasses who blast you for wanting an experience you’re familiar with…they are just that…jackasses.
jimbo
Alright, I don’t understand.
If you wanted something that does everything exactly like windows then why are you trying to switch to Linux? All of your complaints were ignorant WIndows user complaints.
In many cases the TERMINAL is easier than doing something graphically. A very good example of this is installing programs that you know the name of. Just open up Xterm and punch in “sudo aptitude install firefox” instead of going and searching through a unavoidably clunky graphical way.
And the force quit option you so disparately need will come up if you try and close a non-responding program or if you want you can rightclick the panel, add to it the force quite button.
My final comment is about the task bar comment. And it is the most ignorant windows thing I saw in your complaints. Ubuntu is not Windows, it doesn’t try to be Windows. The only thing that it is, is different than Widows. It is possible to make the panels look similar to Windows anyway, but thats not the point.
Please just go back to using Windows, its obvious that it is what you want.
@TC – Many things don’t work out of the box on either Windows or Mac OS X either. Generally most *nix systems give you a working system out of the box, quicker than Windows will. Tho’ there are still some things that won’t work on *unix boxes. The main thing that I can think of is Voice Recognition. It is the main reason I’m still using XP on a day to day basis. I use *nix for servers however.
Of course Linuxes have the right to be different. It’s like some cultural thing – everyone has the right to be different and the differences make the world a nice habitat to live in.
I respect Linux for making some distance in GUI design, but in many cases they go into extremes and this should not be so appreciated. When ms makes something right, many times they will go to 180 degrees into opposite way and make some nasty eye-burning sh*t. Like MS figures out in some GUI, there will be maybe more appropriate sans-serif fonts, but Linux counterpart sticks with serif (and they will say you can change this somewhere in configuration file – no, I want it look nice by default). MS has made completely new set of fonts for Vista, why couldn’t Linux have a new set of nice-looking fonts? Those kind of GUI quirks are numerous, it good things are getting better, just look at some 4 yr old distros and the presence – however there is still a very long way to linux being polished.
Even Mark Shuttleworth realized this:
“If we want the world to embrace free software, we have to make it beautiful. I’m not talking about inner beauty, not elegance, not ideological purity… pure, unadulterated, raw, visceral, lustful, shallow, skin deep beauty. We have to make it gorgeous. We have to make it easy on the eye. We have to make it take your friend’s breath away.”
Oh, yeah, I almost forgot. Why do Linux users have fetish on OS X skins. I mean couldn’t you design something nice and that it isn’t looking like apple? Also I have noticed interesting trend – Vista skin on Compiz. Nearly half of them are more or less looking like aero. I mean this is just plain conformism. I hope KDE 4 will make something nice and different.
ubuntufreak said “someone should fix this” regarding networking and file sharing.
I’ll correct his remark a bit: networking has never been a problem with any UNIXlike, Linux and its distros like Ubuntu included. Neither has file sharing.
WINDOWS networking and WINDOWS file shares are where the trouble starts, thanks to moving-target-nondocumented APIs designed to be mysterious to force vendor lock-in. And even in this area samba fares admirably.
You _can_ get easy config tools for samba. Or config it via browser (webmin module).
Just to make it clear: the only networking problems are Windows-related. Purposefully so. Microsoft is to blaim. If you cannot click-and-go in mixed environment, tell the Windows admins to fix their systems to coexist with standardized systems, not the other way around.
Vista will probably introduce some DRM bs in this mixture to totally prohibit connecting to windows shares legally in the US.
This is just a response to mt’s comments about linux not being for the average joe..
To be honest with you, I agree.. You go on to talk about the various problems you had with programming in linux, and about the drastic changes in gui design and such.
I’ve been employed as a professional windows developer for the last couple of years now… When I moved to linux I found the way to program in it, to be very different, and at first, I thought it didn’t really work out for me.. As I learned more, I realised just how superior it is, in many ways. Take gui design.. Microsoft has a set of guidelines to follow when creating a gui. They they monolithic tools, such as visual studio, which includes by default many different gui controls, to provide for different purposes. A DataGridView control in visual studio has millions of options for different styles, behaviour and effects. I’ve spend many days finding out all its quirks and different things to change to allow for different effects. Conversely using the GTK+ toolkit in linux, there’s a grid control, which has maybe 5 or so options to change various settings about its look and behaviour (there is more to it, but really, it’s very simple).
This is a startling difference, but what I’ve found more and more is, the GTK+ is superior in the most important way – interoperability. The way a grid behaves in one GTK application is basically guaranteed to behave the same way in another GTK application. With windows, it’s very possible that each datagridview has been changed in behavior so much that it’s a new thing to learn for every person. Take microsoft office for example.. The way the grids behave when mouse hovers over and scrolls is different from 2003 to 2007. Dragging and dropping works differently. In linux you can basically guarantee that if you click once on a text box, you’ll set focus to it.. Double click will select the word you’re over in that text box.. Triple click will highlight the entire string of text.
This changes from application to application in windows, and is insanely frustrating. That datagridview control does not allow for the same behaviour has microsoft’s office products. Microsoft actually bought a third party grid control to use with office 2007, which is not going to be included in visual studio.
The extra development I’ve spent trying to make behaviour similar in my applications to that of microsofts is ridiculous. With linux all I need to do is design the app, and place the controls on plus add event handlers.. It’s saved me so much time, and I love it.
Using python in linux I find has been a joy, as well as php, ruby on rails, perl and even c# on the mono framework.
It’s all a big learning experience, and I hope you continue thinking of developing for linux, because the more time you spend, the nicer it all becomes for development.
For all the “but what about C#” folks. You can program in C# using Mono and MonoDevelop. MonoDevelop can import Visual Studio 2005 projects and has an integrated graphical GTK# window designer.
I recently found a very interesting website:
http://alreadylinked.com/
There you can purchase ad space for your Blog etc.
@Ryan: Hum, I don’t know about the grid control, but all other common controls fell the same to me. And I call control with more that 5 options, a control with many features that I can tweak if I want.
Also I don’t know what kind of programs you were thinking (I suppose financial), anyway – are you expert in these apps? I mean the only program with grids that I use is Excel. Maybe you thought ‘ListView’ – it’s different kind of control because users expect it to behave differently.
You are talking about GTK, what about Qt, wxWidgets, motif, etc. MS has pretty much standardized set (or otherwise – widgets from other vendors that do not look like standard ones are not very welcomed (by users)), but here in Linux you have mess. Of course all apps are running everywhere, but because there are different widget kits – and I respect the wealth of options and the liberty to chose one that fits me, but still – because of that there exist differences and basically said the whole system looks inconsistently designed because of this ‘liberty’. You can say ‘developers have chosen this style, coz apps shouldn’t all have the same design’, but really you are just excusing it.
I’m still with Windows as it is. Damn linux !
I agree that it sucks that microsoft requires IE for good OWA access… so why not plug evolution into your exchange webmail?
Just as a quote for my friend finkenwalde, there is support for Ipod in linux already.. some nice guys did a reverse engineering on it and created a library called libgpod. So now it supports basically all the functions (playlists etc) . Check out this website: http://www.gtkpod.org It will give more info on that. Some screenshots here: http://www.gtkpod.org/screenshots.html
Hope it was useful for someone..
PS: To install it on debian based you can simply type “sudo apt-get install gtkpod” and thats it!
Ive Been trying different flavors of linux since the late ’90s.
always reverted to windows. but a few months back i tried ubuntu. a few different times, different configurations ,etc. ubuntu is packacged nicely. and the user community is by far more helpful than any other support forum i feel, including MS communities.
I learned and taught myself from the ground up in 1995 how to use and maintain (read–build and upgrade) my own systems.
now i am reliving all that fun, countless hours of researching , troubleshooting and posting bug reports.
and i enjoy it. it is people like us that are figuring out what needs to be done. then one day, it will be just as easy for grandma to use without her even thinking about how it does.
and for the people that talk about hoe things look, style and design….
well, for the most part, all the volunteers writing code and crunching the numbers/algorithms and all that , arent graphic artists.
after spending maybe 10 hours overnight eating taco bell and drinking starbucks writing code,
do you think that they are up to designing colorful 3D flshing graphics??
Now its time for more artists to get involved in the project.
here you go https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Artwork?action=show&redirect=ArtworkTeam
ubuntu is asking for help right here.
Hi,
thanks for sharing your experience. I got stuck with Ubuntu after a dual boot install ate my windows xp ! Funnily enough I haven’t looked back. It isn’t windows, and I still have one win xp machine for the odd game, but I’ve learned a lot about linux in the eight months I’ve been using it on a daily basis.
One thing in particular: I have had problems with Linux, but fixing them takes a heck of a lot less time than on Windows because there are so many friendly people out there in the FOSS world who are willing to give advice.
No viruses, no machine slowing down due to security updates. Long live linux!
“it took me around 30 minutes to realize that I can delete and recreate panels the way I want it.”
– Yikes… It took you *30 minutes* to figure that out? I’m surprised to managed to get Linux installed at all
Seriously, good luck with it… Once you make some adjustments, you’ll find it stable and just as easy to use as Windows if not more so…
@mt
The problem with visual studio is, the controls they ship, while having huge amount of reconfigurability, lack standard behaviour that other microsoft products actually have. You have to spend a good amount of time to get it anywhere close to how they have it. Notice new breadcrumb/address bar in vista? I bet you that will not be included in the next visual studio. Think the ribbon system will be included in visual studio? I doubt it.. Microsoft give you a lot of control, but the time it takes to configure an application so it behaves exactly as other microsoft applications. In terms of clicking, scrolling, dragging, reordering, moving, etc. They’re also in competition with themselves. One of their biggest lines of revenue is from office, and if the controls used to make office were available in their biggest designer, then developers could easily make a version of office which is in direct competition with their revenue. So they ship you the ability to make things act like that, but make it difficult enough, so the development time skyrockets, when more focus should be on application logic, rather than gui logic.
I focused on GTK as it’s one of my personal favourites, and you can say it’s pretty highly used in linux, and has great theme ability. But yes, you’re right, there is a lot of choices and options, and at times, that is the problem with it.. Less standardisation than it could be, however I would argue that it is not any less standard than what microsoft develop for users (office etc) and then what they ship with their visual studio.
Multi-Click with key modifiers is a bit of a nightmare process to code for, since you’ve got to rewrite a lot of their classes to do it. For instance, you have a list of items. You click on an item, then hold control and click another item, now you hold shift as well as control then move the mouse down a few rows, and click again. Now you should have 1 item selected, then a space, then a group of items. ListViews and DataGridViews in vs behave nothing like that, yet in office, that’s the default functionality.. That isn’t in the options to turn on, that has to be coded.
Here’s an example revolving around scrolling. You open an application, such as notepad, which has a lot of text and needs to be scrolled. You can scroll with the scroll wheel straight away, if the application is active. You can even move the mouse outside of the application and continue scrolling as long as it’s kept active. Now, take for example internet explorer. You open that, and the page allows scrolling.. Well you can scroll the page straight away, but if your mouse goes outside the window, it will no longer scroll. Open an instance of explorer, scroll with lots of folders.. Move mouse outside of window, and no problem. Let’s see outlook 2007 for instance. Open that, try to scroll..Nothing. Move mouse onto the list of emails, and yes, it’ll scroll.. Move mouse over to msg area, and yes it’ll scroll without clicking.. Move mouse outside of the application then scroll and then the inbox will scroll. Add/Remove programs has a list.. If active and mouse is in the list you can scroll it, if mouse moves outside of list it will no longer scroll. Writing this kind of behaviour in applications in visual studio, takes a lot of time, and quite a bit more extra code to achieve. With GTK, and QT, the default behaviour is, if the mouse is over it, regardless of it being the active window or not, then it will scroll.
Maybe I should do a study on interface variation and behaviour on operating systems, and a comparison between the different os’s.
sometimes I find that the best way to get away from something and completely enjoy the change is to go for something that is completely different, something that only slightly resembles where you have come from, I have been trying elive http://www.elive.org for the past couple of weeks, and I absolutely love the look and feel (needs a small bit of tweaking for understanding purposes) because it only slightly resembles anything else that I have used.
I love the fact that there is no panel taking up precious screen real estate. I also love how a minimalist system can have some pretty extreme eye-candy.
I have mac osx and vista installed on my macbook, and I use the elive live cd just to show people how much better linux can look and they always agree with me.
As far as vista explorer goes, there is just far too much information being displayed in one space and it is (for lack of a better word) different to windows xp too.
@Ryan: I totally agree, you are not getting those excel grids, I had such problem with me trying to use formatted text-box and the closest thing I got from MS is probably ‘RichTextBox’ which is technologically not far away from WordPad (app bundled with Windows).
).
About scrolling, I am not sure, but probably you could do things you want by using windows messages, however I don’t know if this is possible in all languages (not in some high-level languages that are abstracting too much). I agree multi-selecting is pain in the ass and it’s well known that Microsoft uses some customized controls (they wouldn’t be MS, would they?
What I meant more by my previous posts is that in windows you use standardized controls as far as you can, so that the whole program will look more consistent with the whole system (take look at gap between Gnome (GTK) and KDE (Qt) apps and you’ll see what I meant – better I don’t mention motif). In windows it is welcomed that you make buttons and toolbars and *simple* ‘listviews’ with native ms controls and if those don’t satisfy, you can always look further. At the end you can always use wxWidgets or GTK; all these also work in Windows (maybe you could even find something from Microsoft that is not bundled in VS by default). Maybe this is my quirk, but I don’t like LGPL (under which are most widgets licensed) – it has some conditions that bother me. I don’t like its (as well as GPLs) “freedom is ok, if it’s our freedom”. Would be nice if they were BSD or MIT (I hope VCF will mature
).
Having used various Linux servers to host my webs sites, over several years, I do know a few Linux commands – but that is all I know. I found this blog interesting because I was thinking of first installing Ubuntu on my laptop, then, if I like it, moving from windows, to Linux, on my main PC. Then I read about ‘Mint’ that seemed to be Ubunto with codecs – so is possibly better – but still as easy to install for an amateur?
I use my mobile (cell) phone for lots of things – keeping appointments and listening to lots of podcasts are among the main facilities I use. My phone has bluetooth. On windows I can synchronise my notes and appointments etc to Outlook ( I only use Outlook for this, I use Thunderbird for email).
Just how easy would it be to synchronise a Nokia 6230i in a similar way in Linux as well as doing file transfers from PC to phone? What software would I use?
Which version of Linux would I be best installing?
Advice appreciated !!
Hello All….
I am a Windows AND Linux User.. I am relatively new to the whole Ubuntu world but can appricate the fine job the whole community is doing. However, what gets me is for alot of people…much like this blogger…he is just expressing his preference and in his own way requesting that those of us more knowledgable of the Ubuntu distro help him customize the distro to his preference. Again I use both distros and in many ways think they both have good and bad points. From a Windows users perspective, the whole interface is familiar….whether it is better really isnt my point. But doesnt it serve the whole community to kindly help this blogger customize things to HIS liking as much as possibly…while letting him know why Ubuntu/GNOME might have chosen to do things differently than windows. I thought the whole point of free software was customization and freedom…not stick with XP if you like it…dont play in our sandbox if you dont. I personally would rather help 1 windows user learn ubuntu and then let them gradually wean them off the Microsoft drugs…. than making them go cold turkey….but I guess that is my 2 cents…..
Why should Ubuntu’s user interface be like that of Windows in every respect anyway?
Hello!
In your article, you say the following:
[quote]I have an Sony Erricsson K750i, I tried to connect the phone to the laptop using bluetooth and an Asus bluetooth adapter.[/quote]
Can you please provide which ASUS Bluetooth Model you tested in your Ubuntu that worked?
Is it the “ASUS WL-BTD202 Bluetooth Dongle”?
The one shown here:
http://gr.asus.com/products4.aspx?modelmenu=2&model=1039&l1=12&l2=113&l3=0
Because I am trying to find a Bluetooth USB Stick to work with my Ubuntu & I can’t find any “success” Hardware listed in the Ubuntu Wiki, here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/HardwareSupport
Thanks.
Two weeks ago, the power supply on my XP laptop finally died. I took two other PCs that were laying around dead and pieced together a box and tossed in a new cheap HD. I then installed Edgy and it’s been all love since then.
Had I known how great a Linux machine could be, I’d have shot that XP laptop long ago.
I’m convinced that once Beryl eye candy gets easier to install, Linux will turn heads. If you haven’t seen Beryl, you must.
For “powerusers” coming from windows, I would recommend installing the KDE desktop instead of sticking with the Gnome interface. Gnome focuses on few options and good defaults while KDE prefers empowering users. E.g, that reclick behaviour you were after is possible (and indeed default) in KDE, as is the start up wizard where you select what sort of behaviour you would like (unix, max, windows-like).
You my 0.02€. Hope I haven’t offended any KDE or Gnome users
Interesting, Esben. I’ve been thinking I’d start with using Gnome myself, but you’ve made me want to compare more with KDE to see what other options there are.
(I’m writing about this kind of stuff at my blog — I’ve got so many years of Windows baggage that I need a whole blog to discuss the move instead of just one post.)
Just had my own run with Ubuntu recently which I blogged about. Didn’t really have too much fun doing it, plus I had to use 6.06.
Well, I have used myself windows xp… until six months ago.
I have previously tried redhat and fedora, but got stuck with dependencies and drivers much too much, and always cowed back to windows.
This is no more so, since the coming of ubuntu.
I have installed Ubuntu first on my own old dual-boot linux/xp laptop, then, surprised by the power and lack of problems, on our main house desktop, then, after a little while, on my wife laptop, and then -finally- even on my kids ‘gaming’ desktop.
I did not have any problem whatsoever with ANY driver on all these four (completely different) PCs.
Frankly we all realized very soon that there was no needs for windows anymore.
The only reason we still have ONE dual boot desktop (the box for the kids), with ubuntu and windows xp both on it, is in order to run windows-based games (games are always purposedly written for windows and do not run well inside either “wine” or “vmware”, the two main windows emulators for linux).
But there’s more: I bought a new small Amilo laptop two weeks ago. I have not even *started* its pre-installed windows xp. It was Ubuntu edgy ex-novo and -again- everything worked from the beginning.
So I have 5 positive install experiences for 5 different boxes: I may begin installing ubuntu on friends’ and relatives’ PCs pretty soon
Another point is security for our kids: surfing the web (with opera, that is far superior to microsoft explorer, and imho even to firefox and konqueror for security and SPEED) is now a real bliss: you don’t need any more all those windows antivirus, and all those various norton craps and windows crapolas running behind, against malwares, spywares or rootkits attacks.
And the security, thanks linux/ubuntu is QUITE improved also for my chatting and browsing kids: this was a rather difficult problem before.
Apart from the security issue, from a consumer point of view, using proprietary systems that you have to pay for, and software that you have to pay for, does not make any sense whatsoever in presence of a completely free valid alternative. That people still get tricked into that is something really amazing.
Methinks Vista will soon blow the linux community to critical mass.
Ubuntu 6.10 and usb sticks/dvd+-rw/reader/scanner won’t work. Back to Windows. Thanks and I’ll check you back after a while. Get well..
for the right click in windows and choosing end program there is a terminal in linux .that’s essential, i ve noticed that you want to do everything clicking a mouse avoiding command line. to me , terminal is fast , makes linux special far more powerful than DOS, it looks cool (yakuake on KDE) specially you can do all in it, it just rocks
i just hope ubuntu project will continue and stupid thing about vista is that you have to buy new extra ultra computer or hardware otherwise it won’t run
greets from croatia
You brought up very interesting views that I can into consideration when Windows users are asking me about Linux. (I’m a former Mac-user and have hardly any Windows experiance.) However I think you seem a little obsessed having everything being like it is in Windows, I can see that this is a plus in the beginning… but in the long run it can be a good thing to do things differently. Many users switch from Windows to MacOS X, which is imho. much more different from Windows (at least when it comes to the GUI).
However if you want something more Windows like I think KDE (ie. Kubuntu) is a bit closer than GNOME (Ubuntu) when it comes to the GUI. Also when I read what you expect from your system it seems like you’re more a potential KDE user. KDE is loaded with GUI-features for people who like options that way, while as GNOME has a very simplistic and well organized user interface for those who don’t want to dig through options (in the GUI) either cause they don’t care about options or because they prefer to do it through the command line. (Or actually I’d recommend Xfce for nerds who want everything through the command line, but they can decide for themselves I suppose.)
So GNOME _may_ be more for hardcore nerds and their girlfriend (who supposedly don’t even install the system themselves). (Or nerd girlfriends with newbie boyfriends, or whatever.
Then again people in the middle of those two extremes, those who want or at least can handle a jungle of options, ie. advanced Windows users who don’t know much about Linux but now how to find their way through GUI:s are usually better off using KDE.
I too was in the same boat and looked at various distros before settling on Ubuntu. To be honest I had used Fedora and Suse in the past. As each update was released through various repositories the more unstable they became. Often times those distros had limits on them that I didn’t like an customization that was targeted at promoting that distro instead of promoting Linux. The main reason I chose to go with Linux was various aspects of Vista.
I decided that Vista had too many DRM infections and other restrictions that as a legit user I would be constantly inconvenienced. I want control of my computer not to have my computer control me. The copy-cat aspect of Vista from both Linux and Macintosh just irked me because Microsoft was charging a rather significant price for features that were fleshed out on these two other products. They became this software cop that invaded my privacy and are beginning to try to make the computer control what I do with it instead of me controlling what I do with the computer.
Some comments on a few of the comments posted about your article:
I read two comments in the follow-up to the article. What I want to say to those individuals is to go crawl back under the rocks you came out of.
Of course we want windows users. Of course he’s entitled to try Ubuntu and voice his experiences without having to go through the rigorous evaluation before implementing it.
What we have in those two posts (probably more) are simply zealots such as the extremists you find that are too biased, and/or believe they are wiser than they really are. These guys are the extreme and they are on the fringe and should be given no merit. They are giving bad advice.
Here’s my advice:
1) Take up Linux at any turn for any reason you wish. There’s no reason to not do this. No one, even the Linux zealot who professes you to the general public as a noob has any rights over what you do or how you choose to voice your experiences.
2) Linux is going toward windows usability for a reason. That reason is because Windows has 2 decades of usability success. Hundreds of millions of people world-wide have used Windows and it has been tweaked over time to make it a usable platform. The usability must be compliant with the lowest common denominator.
3) Who said that Windows, the Macintosh, and Linux are so different or ever should be. No, no one said that the OSes have to be binary compatible but certainly when they run on the same processor (the same hardware platform) there are going to be increasing foundational compliances. So, there’s no reason but to expect Linux and Windows to operate similarly.
4) No one really wants Linux to be different in the extreme. The reason is that it has no real value to offer in being that different. The difference is in what it costs you to implement and maintain. It is that very reason that Microsoft has so heavily copied from Linux and Macintosh in Vista.
5) Sooner or later the zealots in Linux will disappear, and rightly so. As the platform matures the immature extremist nature of the zealot will disappear. The only way to rid the community of them is to help Linux move forward in usability.
6) Demand changes that make Linux more user friendly and ready for the desktop. If you don’t get what you are asking for complain louder, much louder and much more frequently.
When things make sense they make sense. When they don’t just don’t accept them. When an extremist (zealot) attacks you because he doesn’t like how you are helping the community just ignore them and move on. If you can, speak up louder and at every chance. There’s very little value to what the extremist has to say when attacking the noob (everyone that doesn’t believe what they believe is a noob).
If you can help the Linux community by volunteering your time then do so. If you cannot give money or time then at least you can do for us is to complain about what we are doing wrong. If you don’t complain we won’t know.
Every noob that tries Linux gets us one step closer to someone that may use Linux for the long term. This brings us to a more mature less extreme Linux.
Finally, Ubuntu is no where near OSX–OSX is just so much more refined. I’ve use Macintosh computers since the first Mac release. I have several Macintoshes in my shop, several Linux boxes, and many windows boxes.
I agree with everything you are saying here, I have tried out loads of Distros and Ununtu is the only one I am persevering with. It’s a nightmare generally working with most of the distros. You are right in what you are saying they need to make it more like Windows.
Most of the people I work with use Windows, that is where the market is, so to have any chance of getting a slice of Bill’s cake you need to be able to get these people to use Ubuntu or some linux distro anyway. The first time your average Windows user has to type in a terminal instruction your distro is in the waste bucket, and he’s halfway down the road to PC World for a copy of Bill’s latest offering, you cannot get around that simple fact.
The only thing the developers at Ubuntu need to do is make it work exactly like Windows, people will use it then, as long as they don’t have to type in any of that stuff in the terminal windows that is a real turn off for a Windows user, if a driver or any other software is required then its got to be installed by double clicking some icon not typing in a load of Geek Speak.
I have got Ubuntu 6.06 running on a Virtual Server along with a couple of XP machines and now I am trying out Ubuntu 6.10. I had a load of trouble getting 6.06 to print and file share with Windows XP, so I am hoping this new distro will be easier.
Ubuntu is the best Distro no doubt however it needs to be even more like Windows to have a chance of carving out even a small share of the desltop market.
Fred
Ten tips to help you get through this dangerous woods of Linux and into forest of fairy tales:
Tip #1: Ignore all the 13-year-wanne-hackers-flames.
They come with the territory, but rest assured: none of them is of legal age. You need not bother with them. They have no life, if anything, you should feel pity.
Tip #2: Have patience.
What many people here forget, is that they didn’t learn how to use Windows overnight. They learned it in many small steps. When you use Vista, you too, will have to relearn some little things. If we would never learn, there could be no progress. If given to a totally inexperienced user, none of the desktop-systems will be learned overnight. Not gnome, not windows, not kde, not Mac Os. None of them would be very much more complex though. People adapt.
Tip #3: Forget the terminal.
You don’t _need_ it. Unfortunately a lot of tutorials out there explain how to do things with the terminal, because its easier than making 10 screenshots of some GUI application doing the very same thing. There are off course things that are only possible if you use the terminal, just like there are things only possible if you have a million dollars. Just consider them: not possible. You don’t need it, and if there is real demand, it _will_ become easier in time. The terminal just puts you in a different place in the curve of progress. It will put you on the tip of the wave.
Tip #4: Consider hardware carefully.
Most hardware comes only with windows drivers. Linux takes care of most of the hardware support themselves. There are less options to choose from if you want a good supported videocard, printer or wireless network card. But you don’t have to pay more, just choose more carefully. If you buy a new pc, buy it from a vendor who pre-installs a linux of your choosing. They will choose compatible sub-components for you.
Tip #5: Stick with the GNOME for a while.
KDE has all the options, but not the sensibility. For example: Who needs text-alignment in a messenger? If you install all the extra’s in GNOME, drop all the panel applets that you have, you will end up with something a lot like KDE. To compare: KDE is more like Opera (all features already included) and Gnome is more like Firefox (minimal features, great extensibility)
Tip #6: Try more than one tool.
For any tool you don’t like, you can find hundres of alternatives. Don’t waste too much time evaluating a tool, just say: NEXT.
Tip #7: Only use Add/Remove.
Forget about Synaptic and stick with Add/Remove. Add/Remove contains all the _desktop_ applications that when installed create an icon in the menu. Synaptic also contains all the libraries, command line tools, documentation, webservers, desktop-environments, etc.
Tip #8: To kill a program use the force-quit-panel-applet
To get a kill-program thingie .. just right-click on the applet, and choose ‘add to panel’ .. here you will find an applet that will allow you to kill any appliction. Just click it and then click the application you want to kill. You can half-reboot using Control+Alt+Backspace. You will be back at the login-prompt and all user-space stuff is killed. Your drivers and webservers, etc. will all still be running. So you don’t have to wait long to get back to what you were doing.
Tip #9: Look Around: There is more software out there!
There is more software out there for linux that just in the add/click or synaptic. The best site is http://getdeb.net since it only contains ubuntu packages. However you should also check http://happypenguin.org and http://gnomefiles.org Sometimes you will find sofware for which there is no ubuntu package. If so, use the request-a-package-form from getdeb.net.
– Sometimes you will find autopackage (.package or .run) files. You need to right-click these, choose properties, and select ‘ecutable’. You have now given yourself the right to execute these files. Now you just click them and an installer will appear.
– Sometimes you will find a binary archive (.gz or .bz2). These files do not need to be installed. They are just archives that contain a directory of files. You need to right click these and say ‘extract here’. Then you find the program there you want to execute (often the same name as the archive) and make it executable. Now you can execute the program by clicking the program. If you want to make a shortcut on a panel: just drag the program to the panel.
Tip #10: Have fun!
There are great linux applications out there for you to find. So go look. Everybody’s into _something_. Some use it to mix their own music, other just wanne play some chess, some nostalgic person wants to learn morse code again, some want to transfer all their old LPs to their PC. Other want to create fantasy 3d models. Some want to program bots to compete rather than playing the game themselves. Some want to find people with the same exotic music taste as they do. The weirder the purpose: the more likely linux is catering to these freaks. And everybody is freak about _something_. So, go find your poison. All it takes is one program you can’t have on Windows or the Mac and you’re hooked: you can never leave. We will assimilate you.
Hi, I found this site by accident (searched google for Zimbra and Samba integration) and I have to say I’ve been using Linux on my laptop for almost two years, having only booted into Windows a few times. I’ve been eyeing off that partition to expand my Linux space, but there is the occasional use for it.
I am using several things thought impossible. One is the ATI video card (9600 built in). I have real 3D using the binary driver. Another is the Centrino wireless – I’m using it to post this message. I also use the speed reducer tool to run my 1.6GHz at 600MHz when speed is not required. I can use my synaptics mouse pad, even with virtual buttons in the corners. Volume control works. External USB mouse works as expected. I burn CDs, DVDs. USB storage all works (one caddy stuffed up but getting the same errors on all OSs and computers I’ve tried it with). My two printers have worked. I have used video chat with a Quickcam. My battery is monitored.
I use Bittorrent and Gnutella sometimes. I do my side-business’s books in Gnucash and others who have seen this are interested in it. I watch movies, listen to music, etc. I use Google Earth. I have had no issues with any browser, except IE6 crashed under wine (no biggy). I generally use Opera since I have been using it since v3.21 under Windows 3.1. I play old DOS games in DOSbox. I use MSN and Jabber with gaim. I do use some binary programs such as adobe reader since its free equivalents don’t have features like “shrink to printer margins” – my printer can’t print to the edge of the paper, and sometimes I get Letter PDFs and there is only A4 paper.
On this laptop I started with Suse, but that only lasted a week before I went to Debian. I had issues with some things so decided to try Ubuntu and everything basically worked out of the box. The upgrade from 5.10 to 6.06 went flawlessly, but I am still hesitant to move to 6.10. I might just wait for 7.04.
The only things I can’t get working (haven’t tried lately though): The SD-card reader, a printer at work over the network, and some complex Windows programs.
You can’t concentrate on how it is different from Windows – you should concentrate on how it works for you. Having a full Apache, PHP and MySQL server is very handy for me. I find Bluefish to be a reasonable PHP editor, although I have been using eclipse lately.
Wonderful article – thanks! I’ve been dabbling with Linux at home for years and recently at work we’ve added Red Hat a supported doftware platform for our product. At home I installed Xubuntu on my new PC after tryng out a couple of other new distributions like Knoppix and Suse. Personally I think Ubuntu is a good distribution for those new to Linux because it pretty much works out of the box and that it has just enough applications installed to be productive, without overdoing it. Most distributions are either very application heavy, using up unnecessary disk space and cluttering your menus, or very basic meaning you need to add everything you want yourself. Ubuntu has just the right mix.
With any Linux distribution you have far more power in customising the desktop look and feel than you have under Windows. Sometimes the posibilities can be overwhelming but on the other hand it’s nice to have that level of flexibility so you can really give your system its own unique touch and identity.
Also if you’re looking for eye candy, the Beryl desktop beats Vista hands down. Depending on your card it can be a bit tricky (ATi is more difficult than nVidia). This HOWTO is an excellent guide: http://wiki.beryl-project.org/wiki/Install_Beryl_on_Ubuntu_Edgy_with_nVidia).
There’s a wealth of community support and applications out there and adding new application with the “sudo apt-get” is a breeze.
The only problem with Linux is the lack of game support from the game developers. That’s why I still dual boot with an XP partition, but for everything else it’s Linux. Ubuntu really shows how Linux on the desktop has matured to become a proper alternative to Windows.
I really appreciate your post as well as the many helpful comments from Linux guys on how to streamline your configuration. I’ve also been experimenting with Ubuntu on-and-off and would eventually like to use it as my main OS.
I’d like to direct the rest of my comments to those who have posted negative comments about trying to make Linux behave like Windows…
Is it not hypocritical to brag that with Linux you have the “freedom” to make your desktop behave however you like yet when someone happens to want that behavior to be like Windows, you flame the guy?! Sounds like you want users to have that freedom as long as nothing they want resembles Windows.
…and to respond to a few more comments that seem to pop-up over and over (I’m paraphrasing):
“Don’t be so stupid–it’s a new OS–learn it”
I for one am not stupid. I’m a software developer and I spend 10 hours a day “learning new things”. Don’t hold it against me that I don’t want to learn the *same* new things that you do. When I come home I want to visit with my family, not learn a new OS. The Linux community wants to be more mainstream yet anyone who doesn’t want to “put in the time and learn” is ridiculed. Nobody ever suggests that you have to put in the time to learn Mac or really even Windows, why is that?
“So why don’t you just stick with Windows if you’re so happy with it–and while you’re at it, why don’t you marry it”
I might possibly stick with XP indefinitely if it would be supported forever, but it won’t be, and I don’t like Vista and I don’t want to upgrade. Also, I would *prefer* to support FOSS if it would give me what I want.
So why is it ok that you guys have hundreds of distros to cater to every geeky random one-off need, yet it’s heresy to even suggest that one of those distros might simply attempt to provide as close a user experience as possible to XP, which some people happen to like???