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???

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 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.

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.

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

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.

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.

greets from croatia

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.