2013: The Year You Switch To Linux?

heatlesssun said:
I don't know why people compare Unity with Windows 8, Unity isn't a hybrid design. As for desktop friendliness, Unity might be a bit better, haven't touched it in a while, but on the desktop is suffers the same issues as Windows 8 as the apps used on a desktop tend not to be touch friendly.
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I guess you didn't see the articles about the ubuntu phone and unity going on TV's.

where the heck did you think they thought up the name 'unity'. Its intention was a common interface experience on multiple devices from the onset.

Just because it doesn't function like a Windows 8 clone, doesn't mean it isn't trying to do the same thing the Metro UI is trying to do and be on multiple devices.
 
daglesj said:
I like the idea of linux and I think its great there is a free alternative.

If I had a real use for it I might even use it. Just haven't found that use as yet.

My main issues with linux are -

1. The users. I find they are linux's biggest Achilles heel. All so keen for you to "come on in, the water is great!" but when you ask a question as to 'how, where, why and WTF is a tar.gz in the 21st century?' then its eye rolling all round and "go learn Noob!". Plus often linux tutorials are written by enthusiasts for enthusiasts. So the issue there is the first 3 pages are always missing. The assumption being that you've been using Linux for 10 years and know how to handle a tar.gz from the terminal or whatever. Whereas with a Windows tutorial, even if it means going into the Registry will say "Type Regedit into the Search/Run box and hit enter" to start with. It's the little things.......

2. The sheer diversity of distros, UI types and sub distros. Basically whichever distro you choose "you chose the wrong one dude!" That's kind of infuriating and has a constant "what am I missing elsewhere feeling?" I know linux fans feel the diversity is a strength but I feel it's a weakness. I would rather they dump 95% of the distros and concentrate on just a handful instead. Then some real progress could be made.

On another angle I build and sell custom PCs for folks. If they are short of cash I am more than happy to offer Linux as a free alternative to keep the cost down. I even show them it and make them aware it will do all the Ebay and Facebook they need.

But without fail they always stump up for Windows in the end. I cant give Linux away!
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I totally agree and that's how I felt from the get go when I started using Linux for the first time (probably close to 10 years ago). Most of the stuff I learned was from pretty much having to rip the answer out of someone because they would keep saying "just google it" but when you are new to something and don't even know where to start, even Google can't help you. Even now I feel this way as I'm fairly new to using Linux on the desktop. I barely know any app names off hand, even now. It kinda feels like my first time using Windows, everything is new, obscure, but yet exciting when you do discover something new.

I also hate how most Linux tutorials are written with the assumption that it's going to work and they don't even provide any "if this happens, do this".

"Oh just untar it and run the ./configure and you're good to go"

Suuuure you are. What about those 20 dependencies it's crapping out on? How do I fix that? Even to this day after close to 10 years I refuse to install something that's not 1: a simple G++ compile or 2: part of the package manager and in my distro's repos. Doing the ./configure method always ends badly.
 
Red Squirrel said:
Suuuure you are. What about those 20 dependencies it's crapping out on? How do I fix that? Even to this day after close to 10 years I refuse to install something that's not 1: a simple G++ compile or 2: part of the package manager and in my distro's repos. Doing the ./configure method always ends badly.
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I started using Linux about a little over 10 years ago. I still have Windows for games and that's about it. That being said the number of times I've had to compile my own program from source has been minimal, and of the last 5 years I could probably count it on one hand.
 
A good example of most peoples attitudes toward Linux is my wife.
My dad gave me his laptop after one of my sister's kids stepped it an wiped out the display and keyboard.
I told him what the cost of the parts were and he said forget it; keep it. It was much newer and faster than my wife's laptop so I decided to fix it and give it to her.
After I replaced the display and keyboard I found Win Vista was so freaking full of adware, viruses, crap, it was screwed up even after cleaning everything off I could find.
Dad lost the recovery discs and they are N/A from the vendor. I elected to put Winxp on it but found there were no drivers for XP anywhere.
I put Kubuntu Linux on it. EVERYTHING worked and it was FAST. The KDE desktop isn't that much different than Win 7 (start button, tool bar at bottom of screen etc). I showed it to my wife. And she liked the nifty desktop. Then the question: "will my applications work on it?" That meant a freaking 10 year old collection of windows programs she paid a lot of money for when she was in school. I told her maybe BUT, there are linux apps that will accomplish the same and BETTER than her old collection of software. Deal breaker. Not interested. She learned corel draw, Photoshop, dreamweaver, etc in school and that was all there was as far as she was concerned.
Not worth picking a fight over; but this is how a lot of people view this issue. They learn a few apps; and that is it. Having to get familiar with something different is too much to ask.
 
mustang_steve said:
If they want Linux to be usable, they need to start packaging dependencies into the distro specific install packages, and modifying the script to install those dependencies if required. This will solve many issues. A user should not have to search online for a software package and install it manually to get an OS updater to work.

Also many apps are not designed as well as their Windows counterparts (when they exist). It's almost like the Linux app devs said "good enough" and left it at that. I'd be more likely to drop Windows if Linux apps had the same functions as their Windows counterparts. I realize part of this is that there's no standard way to do nearly anything (such as sound)...that needs to be fixed. If hardware I/O became standardized, it'd lead eventually to easier development (less bugs due to using incompatible I/O standards).
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IMO the problem that creates alot of this is the mentality of linux devs, I remember working with a number of linux programs where I would tell the devs, this is a standard feature needed, for something as simple as an IRC channel and it should be in the program by default. And you would always get resonses like, well you can make a plugin, or linux is open source you can make your own variant, or the whole point is only to provide the core functionality for people with light systems.

Its like talking to a wall, after several of those I knew that linux would never see any traction till a company that didnt give a shit what idiot linux devs think got into the game.
 
As per the thread title, yes I did make the switch to Linux for 2013.

I have gotten so tired of Windows and Microsoft over the years; I may have to use Windows at work but at home I have a choice and have chosen to excercise that choice. Is it a sacrifice, leaving behind a few programs that will not run under wine but c'est la vie.

It is easier for me to make this move than most folk though because my background is software engineering and I am familiar with many different operating systems including Linux. There are valid points made in this thread Windows v Linux.

I can certainly understand the difficulty of adopting Linux and the reasons the majority have for sticking with Windows.
 
I see one post already mentioning FreeBSD... back when I needed usb support in windows 98, a store had a cd case install set. Started with 5.1, half within 'd: - g: ' somewhere due to the help of BootIt NG shareware; running that same install thru upgrades and disk upgrades thru today (v 9-STABLE), thru changes in GEOM (drivers); Xorg (drivers); get code for upgrade changes (csup , now svn or portsnap...); routine and non-routine version upgrade features and sometimes deprecation (latter, isdn support for example); ... I've used several live Linux CD's, and installed/used an advanced linux distro whose forum I read some posts from more than once a day (not using it however, it is "put away" so to speak. ) I use FreeBSD on a p4 with a faster AGP card; it plays all video, flv etc speedily no hiccups. Howsoever, the learning curve is steep (took two years of dual booting...) and the time cost to keep upgraded is greater (though easier in some ways...) All in all something to consider if one has not yet settled finally on a Windows nor Linux. (It is my understanding that this forum used to run on FreeBSD also... at least in part.)
 
Dr. Righteous said:
Not worth picking a fight over; but this is how a lot of people view this issue. They learn a few apps; and that is it. Having to get familiar with something different is too much to ask.
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Depends what segment. For "professional" applications, Linux really has a grand total of crap in several areas. Theres nothing that even comes close to Photoshop, and when people suggest Gimp, you know that they don't understand the situation. (though it sounds like she's not using a modern version, and that doesn't really apply). Even if Linux ran all the game, I still couldn't use it for work anything because it's crappy "professional" software.
 
DeathPrincess said:
Depends what segment. For "professional" applications, Linux really has a grand total of crap in several areas. Theres nothing that even comes close to Photoshop, and when people suggest Gimp, you know that they don't understand the situation. (though it sounds like she's not using a modern version, and that doesn't really apply). Even if Linux ran all the game, I still couldn't use it for work anything because it's crappy "professional" software.
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Photoshop is crap. It is amazing that suckers continue to keep buying the newest version of Photoshop year after year when the only thing new is more features you don't need, more bloat, and more spyware.
 
damicatz said:
Photoshop is crap. It is amazing that suckers continue to keep buying the newest version of Photoshop year after year when the only thing new is more features you don't need, more bloat, and more spyware.
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While photoshop is WAY overpriced (no software should cost that much, it's just ridiculous!) it's still 1000x better than Gimp. Every time I have to edit something and use Gimp it's just a very frustrating experience. In Photoshop everything is at your fingertips, and there are way better features like layer effects and text effects. You don't realize how important it is to have the ability to make simple text effects like shading, outline etc till you try to use Gimp. Also all the fonts in Gimp are CRAP. They pretty much all look the same, and there's no easy way to preview without having to click through each one and apply it. Everything in Gimp is just a pain in the ass.

There are some features in it that are kinda cool like the way brushes work, though.
 
Red Squirrel said:
While photoshop is WAY overpriced (no software should cost that much, it's just ridiculous!) it's still 1000x better than Gimp. Every time I have to edit something and use Gimp it's just a very frustrating experience. In Photoshop everything is at your fingertips, and there are way better features like layer effects and text effects. You don't realize how important it is to have the ability to make simple text effects like shading, outline etc till you try to use Gimp. Also all the fonts in Gimp are CRAP. They pretty much all look the same, and there's no easy way to preview without having to click through each one and apply it. Everything in Gimp is just a pain in the ass.

There are some features in it that are kinda cool like the way brushes work, though.
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I fail to see how the fonts are a problem. GIMP uses the fonts that are installed on your system (as does Photoshop). GNU/Linux supports all of the major font formats so any font that works on Windows or Mac OS X will also work on GNU/Linux.

GIMP does have shortcomings but they've made a lot of progress recently (mainly by getting rid of that dreadful SDI layout).
 
damicatz said:
Photoshop is crap. It is amazing that suckers continue to keep buying the newest version of Photoshop year after year when the only thing new is more features you don't need, more bloat, and more spyware.
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The same could be said for office, but the point is the people who really use something like PS probably are using the features where some novice will think they are all just silly extras. Second people who make a living off of things like office and PS spend years learning the ins and outs and the fastest ways to get things done. After that huge investment, for a professional probably making 50K a year that cost is meaningless if your option is to go back and start from scratch in a new program. This is the same reasons companies keep buying it. Really it would set them back 20k or more to retrain. Or they would have to fire everyone and try to find talent that already knows an alternative program.

In fact you can see this very resistance with windows 8, really I see people freaking out about windows 8 but I always ask them, when they dont know how to turn off windows 8, how would you turn off a phone? How did you know that before someone told you? You didnt, the fact is you are just used to windows 7 and before and as such you do not give a new program a fair shake. But it doesnt matter if gimp or anything gets a fair shake, the only way they can break into the market is if they have a killer feature or integration. And the only way they are going to get that is with money.
 
I will add this, the best thing gimp or any other competitor could do is just strait up copy the layout, shortcuts and features of MS office, the only way to turn people over is to make it so that they dont have to learn anything, they just drop in and feel right at home exactly like the program they used to use. That is how you move people over to a free program.
 
jpm100 said:
I guess you didn't see the articles about the ubuntu phone and unity going on TV's.

where the heck did you think they thought up the name 'unity'. Its intention was a common interface experience on multiple devices from the onset.

Just because it doesn't function like a Windows 8 clone, doesn't mean it isn't trying to do the same thing the Metro UI is trying to do and be on multiple devices.
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Unity on desktops just isn't analogous to Windows 8. I was responding to a post that said Microsoft ripped off Unity for Windows 8. I just don't see that close of a tie between the two.

Ubuntu one phones looks to me to be somewhat different that on the desktop.
 
damicatz said:
Photoshop is crap. It is amazing that suckers continue to keep buying the newest version of Photoshop year after year when the only thing new is more features you don't need, more bloat, and more spyware.
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Ok, so, please list the reasons why Gimp is more suitable for professional use (or some other open source image editor). Also list the spyware, this sounds terribly bad!

Oh, don't bother with any Stallmanish nonsensecrap, looking for actual reasons. :p
 
damicatz said:
Photoshop is crap. It is amazing that suckers continue to keep buying the newest version of Photoshop year after year when the only thing new is more features you don't need, more bloat, and more spyware.
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Are you a professional digital artist?
 
^Photoshop owns the market, it wont last much longer tho. Adobe continues to dig a hole for themselves
 
DeathPrincess said:
Ok, so, please list the reasons why Gimp is more suitable for professional use (or some other open source image editor). Also list the spyware, this sounds terribly bad!

Oh, don't bother with any Stallmanish nonsensecrap, looking for actual reasons. :p
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Photoshop phones home to Adobe. The activation, in and of itself, is also spyware because that too, phones home to Adobe or forces you to contact them.

Professional use is a broad term. There are many different professional applications of image editors and it is impossible for a single application to be the best in all potential applications.

For example, CinePaint, a GIMP fork, is heavily used in the motion picture and animation industry.
 
damicatz said:
Photoshop phones home to Adobe. The activation, in and of itself, is also spyware because that too, phones home to Adobe or forces you to contact them.

Professional use is a broad term. There are many different professional applications of image editors and it is impossible for a single application to be the best in all potential applications.

For example, CinePaint, a GIMP fork, is heavily used in the motion picture and animation industry.
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So you're not a professional digital artist.
 
I've been using Linux Mint for a couple of months, (not exclusively) and I really like it. There are some things that are quite frustrating to try to get working on it, but for most of what I do, it works very well.
 
damicatz said:
I'll remember that the next time you dismiss GNU/Linux.
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I've never completely dismissed GNU/Linux, to use you words. I think I've said many times that Linux is viable, even on a desktop for some people, can do many things, isn't hard to get a basic install setup, etc. It obviously is a great server OS. That said, it's nothing like Windows on a desktop and requires a good deal of effort sometimes to do things that are trivial on Windows.

Desktop Linux simply isn't a consumer friendly packaged product. That's not at all to say that it is crap.
 
heatlesssun said:
No I am not. I am also not the one completely dismissing a tool for which I don't have the professional expertise to do so.
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So, since neither you or dami are "professionals" in that field with the heatless-required 20 years of experience necessary to have an opinion, the idea of even discussing it, much less arguing about it with each other, is pretty stupid. Stop trolling for attention and go do something in real life that adds value to the world.
 
SkribbelKat said:
So, since neither you or dami are "professionals" in that field with the heatless-required 20 years of experience necessary to have an opinion, the idea of even discussing it, much less arguing about it with each other, is pretty stupid. Stop trolling for attention and go do something in real life that adds value to the world.
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Let's not go here yet again. There's a difference between discussing something and totally dismissing it by calling it crap, which I didn't.
 
I own a copy of Photoshop. As a photographer I use it occasionally. It isn't bad but I like Nikons Capture NX software much better for raw image processing.

Between Capture NX and the Gimp I have no need for the stupidly overpriced Photoshop.
 
Zarathustra[H];1039487832 said:
I own a copy of Photoshop. As a photographer I use it occasionally. It isn't bad but I like Nikons Capture NX software much better for raw image processing.

Between Capture NX and the Gimp I have no need for the stupidly overpriced Photoshop.
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Do you think that this software would run well on a Atom netbook with Windows 7?
 
heatlesssun said:
Let's not go here yet again. There's a difference between discussing something and totally dismissing it by calling it crap, which I didn't.
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I have a background in computers and computer programming in particular. I have been programming since the DOS days; I first learned programming in Turbo Pascal. I was writing full-fledged Windows 3.1 applications when I was 8. I have enough experience in software to know when a piece of software is crap. One does not need to be a "professional digital artist" to see that Photoshop is bloated, slow, and inefficient. It takes forever to install, takes up a huge amount of disk-space and installs a bunch of stuff you may not want like Bridge and yet another auto-updated (my understanding is that Microsoft allows third-parties to use the Windows updater for their own software. A separate updater is superfluous.)
 
I want to see one of these 8 year old, XP machines that can run as fast as a modern Windows 8 Desktop. Bonus points if there a laptop that can beat out a modern laptop.

I just built a system that you can restart in about 15 seconds (give or take). Maybe you could have done that in the DOS days, but certainly not in the last 10 or 15 years and Linux isn't that fast on old hardware either.

PC World has been making these doom and gloom statements about windows since XP came out. Windows may die some day (probably will), but I haven't seen the OS that will replace it.
 
nilepez said:
I want to see one of these 8 year old, XP machines that can run as fast as a modern Windows 8 Desktop. Bonus points if there a laptop that can beat out a modern laptop.

I just built a system that you can restart in about 15 seconds (give or take). Maybe you could have done that in the DOS days, but certainly not in the last 10 or 15 years and Linux isn't that fast on old hardware either.

PC World has been making these doom and gloom statements about windows since XP came out. Windows may die some day (probably will), but I haven't seen the OS that will replace it.
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We don't care about boot time as much because we aren't constantly rebooting our computers (we don't have to reboot for minor software updates like Windows does). I maybe reboot my computer a few times a year, at most.
 
damicatz said:
I fail to see how the fonts are a problem. GIMP uses the fonts that are installed on your system (as does Photoshop). GNU/Linux supports all of the major font formats so any font that works on Windows or Mac OS X will also work on GNU/Linux.

GIMP does have shortcomings but they've made a lot of progress recently (mainly by getting rid of that dreadful SDI layout).
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GIMP is impenetrable compared to Photoshop, which is saying something, given how difficult PS is.
 
nilepez said:
Windows may die some day (probably will), but I haven't seen the OS that will replace it.
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Um, that's pretty much already happened a few times. Windows has been dying and getting replaced with something new on an on-going basis. Microsoft just keeps calling it "Windows" so people accept it as familiar because they're comfortable with the brand name.
 
damicatz said:
I have a background in computers and computer programming in particular. I have been programming since the DOS days; I first learned programming in Turbo Pascal. I was writing full-fledged Windows 3.1 applications when I was 8. I have enough experience in software to know when a piece of software is crap. One does not need to be a "professional digital artist" to see that Photoshop is bloated, slow, and inefficient. It takes forever to install, takes up a huge amount of disk-space and installs a bunch of stuff you may not want like Bridge and yet another auto-updated (my understanding is that Microsoft allows third-parties to use the Windows updater for their own software. A separate updater is superfluous.)
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I am not discounting your expertise. But your expertise is not that of a digital artist and neither is mine. All I am saying is that one should use the tool in the roll of the person that the tool is targeted at before making such radical conclusions that you have made.

If Photoshop is bloated at least provide some real world example where the bloated of nature of Photoshop is an issue relative to some other digital art program that can provide similar functionality.
 
To have a fair comparison to Gimp, we need to be talking Windows image manipulators that don't cost anything.
The fact that everyone here is comparing a free program to a $325++ industry standard, is telling.

And if the game is to compare apples to oranges, why aren't the many many imaging pros around here comparing PS to real Linux programs like Maya and Spark farms?
 
paret0 said:
To have a fair comparison to Gimp, we need to be talking Windows image manipulators that don't cost anything.
The fact that everyone here is comparing a free program to a $325++ industry standard, is telling.
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The fact that people use price an an absolute benchmark for software quality, is telling. If that we're the case, we'd be seeing more web-facing servers running Windows/IIS instead of Linux/Apache, or businesses using MSSQL instead of MySQL/Nginx.


And if the game is to compare apples to oranges, why aren't the many many imaging pros around here comparing PS to real Linux programs like Maya and Spark farms?
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We are comparing Apple and Apples. Blender is a "free" application, yet many "professionals" utilize it.
 
dr.stevil said:
I'd love to go to Linux as my default OS... There would be a whole lot of positives in doing so but it's lack of software selection leaves me with windows (or macOS). It usually has decent clones available for most stuff, but until I can get my steam catalog on it, it'll always be a secondary OS for me.

I'm really hoping Valve gets more developers onboard with their release of Steam on Ubuntu
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I'm really hoping this as well. I'm hoping Microsoft just jumps ship for personal computing for the most part and Linux just becomes the option to have for steam. It seems to be most of the reason people on this forum or anywhere don't convert, which is just gaming.
 
heatlesssun said:
Do you think that this software would run well on a Atom netbook with Windows 7?
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Doesn't run well on an Clover Trail Atom tablet either ;P

And you should really keep quiet. You shouldn't comment on things you don't use nor don't own.

Hey... that sounds really familiar...
 
pelo said:
Doesn't run well on an Clover Trail Atom tablet either ;P
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What does run well on a Clover Trail Atom? Even the Windows 8 UI feels sluggish, nevermind what happens to the CPU usage when you start typing a document.

And you should really keep quiet. You shouldn't comment on things you don't use nor don't own.
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Amend that with "Own and have 20 years experience using." Of course, we won't point out that quite a few of those 20 years are childhood. :D
 
I was listening to Anand's podcast and it's apparently an issue with Office and not Clover Trail, or any SoC itself. For some reason typing in MS Office is equivalent to running Crysis on 2007 hardware.
 
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