Linux or Windows?

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Hi guys.

First off I'm not really a tech-whiz or anything but I was having a nosy around and decided to download the latest Linux OS onto my PC, using the Windows Installer so I can removed whenever etc. Anyway at first I panicked because I couldn't find or my old files, but sorted that (they were in a folder some place where all the windows stuff went). Anyway I was wondering, what are your thoughts on Linux compared to Windows, in a way a tech noob would understand?

As far as I've gathered a recent Steam client has been released for Linux but I can't play my games on it, but that doesn't bother me that much. In terms of other software what limitations are there and all that?

[Bolkonsky]

Anything that needs Microsoft libraries won't run on Linux.

What flavor are you using? Ubuntu?

[AqD]

Using modern Linux desktop is more like iOS or WP7/8: there are huge repositories of free applications with verification (safety guaranteed). 3d graphics, usb storage, printers etc all work reasonably, and you can find browsers, media players for all sort of formats, professional office suites, photostop alternatives, and commercial games etc etc.

But all those are not designed to be clones of Windows environemnt - a lot of problems would pop up when you want to use it just like PC - you cannot play latest windows games on it directly, or edit office documents and expect them to look 100% the same when opened later in MS-office, nor can you work with files used by photoshop or 3ds max etc. There are virtualization and emulators, but what's the point of bothering with linux at all if all you want to run are running windows games and apps?

Besides, those new desktop systems on linux are quite annoying. About a decade ago they started some sort of movement to make linux desktop more friendly, and now it's just as friendly but also as retarded as Mac OS/X. Most of advanced features are removed and no improvement has been done in those parts, although you can still type commands in console. On desktop there is nothing comparable to windows group-policy editor, IIS manager for web servers, or event viewer etc, and you cannot even do file-copy-paste in standard file dialog boxes - which is called file chooser internally. Apart from software installation which is a nightmare on windows, there is nothing good I can say about it compared to windows-7 or server 2008.



PS: if you're still interested, get ubuntu. Don't waste time trying different distributions.

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Anything that needs Microsoft libraries won't run on Linux.

What flavor are you using? Ubuntu?

Yeah Ubuntu.

Using modern Linux desktop is more like iOS or WP7/8: there are huge repositories of free applications with verification (safety guaranteed). 3d graphics, usb storage, printers etc all work reasonably, and you can find browsers, media players for all sort of formats, professional office suites, photostop alternatives, and commercial games etc etc.

But all those are not designed to be clones of Windows environemnt - a lot of problems would pop up when you want to use it just like PC - you cannot play latest windows games on it directly, or edit office documents and expect them to look 100% the same when opened later in MS-office, nor can you work with files used by photoshop or 3ds max etc. There are virtualization and emulators, but what's the point of bothering with linux at all if all you want to run are running windows games and apps?

Besides, those new desktop systems on linux are quite annoying. About a decade ago they started some sort of movement to make linux desktop more friendly, and now it's just as friendly but also as retarded as Mac OS/X. Most of advanced features are removed and no improvement has been done in those parts, although you can still type commands in console. On desktop there is nothing comparable to windows group-policy editor, IIS manager for web servers, or event viewer etc, and you cannot even do file-copy-paste in standard file dialog boxes - which is called file chooser internally. Apart from software installation which is a nightmare on windows, there is nothing good I can say about it compared to windows-7 or server 2008.

PS: if you're still interested, get ubuntu. Don't waste time trying different distributions.

Thanks for your comments. I still have W7 installed alongside so I can switch between the two as and when.

I have found it, interesting for sure. The "openness" of it is quite refreshing but had some difficultly getting exe. files to run. I imported music over to there music player, which works okay, and I can open docs etc. with their applications but you're right they don't quite look the same... (missing MS fonts for one) I'll probably keep trialling it for a week or so, but as I mainly just use my PC for browsing, docs, and GIMP I don't think what OS I use matters all that much, but nice to try something else anyway.

[Ybbon]

Opinions differ..

I use dual boot with Ubuntu 12.10 and Windows 7, admittedly I use windows mainly but I do use Ubuntu 12.10 exclusively for work. The beauty of it is that you can make it work how you want, the default desktop on Ubuntu is unity which I find an ugly mess, no problem, I use Cinnamon instead. Libre opens everything office does, though I agree with AQD that it does not always work - excel macros spring to mind as something that is a pain.

If I could be bothered to spend enough time doing it, you can use the same email profile on the same machine with Thunderbird though it takes a little manipulation. Email clients are the same however, once you have enough email in one client, it is a pain to switch it to another even in the same OS. Browsers are fine unless you use IE which you can't use on linux, but then you have Opera, Chrome, Chromium, Firefox, Safari etc so no big deal.

I do use the command line a lot at work which is probably prefer it for work, that and I'm an old *nix geek at heart

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Ah I see, thanks for the insight ybbon. Yeah I use Chrome so browser-sorting was fine, and no probs with word docs (other than fonts).

So I've been playing around with it a bit this evening and the ability to make it suit you is rather nice, however for some reasons I found myself missing the familiarity of Windows. We'll see.

[AqD]

Libre Office has its own macro and extensions. There is a converter for VBA macros but it seems to be part of StarOffice (commercial edition but you can get for free).

You can copy all windows fonts or even OS/X fonts to linux. However, they cannot look the same due to different font rendering engines. OS/X fonts work a lot better, especially with light hinting. The font engine used in linux is capable enough for you to customize substitutions: basically you can tell browsers to use font A when the webpage wants font B or C, or even change the shape of them.

To run windows apps directly, install WINE or try crossover office (commercial edition of wine) or cedega (another commercial edition targeting games). WINE could work but it has always been in alpha/beta stage and some apps may run with current release but then break in next release.

If you expect to play 3d games, use nVIDIA card. The core of their driver is the same as the windows version and you'd suffer no performance penalty or encounter any weird problem.




PS: don't forget to turn on the funny wobbly effect on desktop, and the mac-style menubar (which was based on my prototype!)

[Shankbot de Bodemloze]

Thanks for the info about fonts.

Yeah I've tried WINE and some things work okay with it, in fact most of the stuff I run does so so far so good. Game-wise I think I'll flick back over to Windows 7 simply because in terms of technical stuff it requires very little.

And I'll be sure too, and most impressive.