Windows User Experiments With Linux for 10 Days 1259
An anonymous reader writes "Clarence Ladson over at Flexbeta decided to kick Windows to the curb for 10 days in an experiment to find out just how hard it would be to 'quit cold turkey' and move entirely to Linux. It's amazing how many day-to-day operations require the inadvertent use of Windows in our daily lives."
Myth TV? (Score:2, Interesting)
I kicked Windows to the Curb, too! (Score:2, Interesting)
It comes with a kick-ass graphical interface, too. You might have heard of it: OS X.
I can't imagine encountering any need for anything microsoft again. Their office suite is more than replaced by NeoOffice/OpenOffice. Their browser has always been a joke, so I use Opera. And... well, I can't think of anything Microsoft might have that I would wish to use. I simply don't trust them at all for anything involving email or other internet use, I don't play games, and I wouldn't run their server if you paid me. What else is there?
Microsoft: Offering Nothing For A Lot.
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
World of Warcraft (emulated, faster)
Unreal Tournament 2004 (native, faster)
Neverwinter Nights (native, slower)
Warcraft 3 (emulated, slower)
The only game that has tempted me back towards Windows lately has been Battlefield 2, and that should be working in Linux soon.
Office environment (Score:5, Interesting)
I haven't had many problems at all. Our main issue was that we still use a native OS/2 application, and because we have ditched OS/2 we need a remote desktop connection to a Windows box to then launch Virtual PC and our OS/2 app. Not the easiest and lightest of setups, but it works.
We need Wine for a few apps too, but they run fine under it. Sometimes I'll get Lotus Word Pro or 1-2-3 documents that I cannot return in their original format as Open Office won't let me save in
(If after all those hints you cannot guess what company I work in, you really need to think harder...)
Anyhow, maybe I wasn't sure after home use how easily Linux could be considered in an office environment, but our main problem really is some intranet pages being designed for IE only.
I eventually got the first page of that article to load, which leads me to think the author may be criticising how difficult it can be to get everything working - but if you have built a solid image, there is no reason why Linux should be any more difficult to use than Windows.
Re:COM (Score:3, Interesting)
Funny that you'd mention that, as COM and DLLs are just a weird hack for implementing shared libraries and IPC (inter-process communications.) *nix has had that functionality since the mid-eighties.
About five years later, Windows 3.0 was released. :)
Re:Wow... (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember the bank tech coming in one day to service the ATM machine in the cafeteria. As it booted up, you could see the OS/2 logo. I asked him about it and he kinda mumbled that he tried not to let people see that.
Comment removed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:3, Interesting)
how did you accomplish this? I tried to run UT2k4 native on several distributions, always making sure I have the most recent nVidia drivers, and UT's OpenGL is DOG SLOW.
Do tell me how you got it to be faster than it is on Windows.
Re:10 days is not enough (Score:5, Interesting)
The thing that I've got out of it though, is that my windows environment is becoming more and more open-source-filled. I cant believe I was so used to using WinZip and pressing "Accept" everytime I wanted to open a zip file, etc.
Whenever I look for any kind of program now I go straight to sourceforge. I only started doing this because of my rounds of Linux using.
Eventually, Ill master Linux and never come back. But until then I think Ive got it pretty good with the "best of both worlds"
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:2, Interesting)
qemu + winXP (Score:4, Interesting)
QEMU is so good, it not only does her needs, but I've started playing around with
The speed is excellent, it works with the CD, SAMBA to the host machine (home drives) and sound...it's got everything we want...plus, running full screen on a seperate login it's just like if you partitioned the drive except that you can switch in real time using KDE 'switch user' feature and share data between the two by making your home drive a samba network drive in windows.
Linux and Windows finally operating seemlessly together, thank you QEMU
An idea for teaching Linux in schools (Score:5, Interesting)
I remember in elementary school, once a week or so my class would be herded into the computer lab to learn how to use a word processor and spreadsheet app on the school's Apple IIe computers. I spent a lot more time playing Oregon Trail and playing around with BASIC on those computers, but I definitely learned the underlying concepts about using a word processor or spreadsheet, and was able to really easily transition to Wordstar 5 for DOS and later other apps.
It wasn't so much about typing a letter to the editor or whatever we were doing back then, as it was about being comfortable accomplishing a certain set of steps with a computer.
I wonder, then, if you had 30 third grade students in a computer lab, 10 using Windows, 10 using Mac OS, and 10 using Linux (perhaps Red Hat? whatever is dominating is probably wisest), could you ask them all to accomplish essentially the same task? Of course, I mean that they should rotate to each machine, although not necessarily during a single class session, and be exposed to all the machines.
Any teachers out there? Does this idea make any sense?
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:2, Interesting)
Exactly. (going slightly OT here, but it's still relevant and related)...
I (and probably most
Instead of using the radio\stereo for music, I use my PC.
Instead of using consoles, cards, board games, or whatever else for playing games, I use my PC.
Instead of buying a newspaper or watching the TV to find out news, I use my PC.
Instead of using a telephone to talk to my mates, I use my PC.
Instead of reading books, watching TV, talking to people to learn, I use my PC.
Instead of going to town to buy something, I can order\download it on my PC.
etc.
Generally speaking, doing things on my PC means I can do more than one thing at once, I have much more control over whats happening, and it's normally faster, cheaper, and more efficient. Of course, you all know this, but hey, sometimes people need to point out the obvious before people actually realise what's going on.
I switched (Score:2, Interesting)
My how times change... Today I rather dislike booting under Windows because Linux "just works"!
I do keep a single Windows install now... It's for my ATI AIW 7500. They never got the video capture working under Linux. At least not to my knowledge. Otherwise, it's not enough to really keep me away from using Linux as my primary OS. It's a duel boot, and always defaults to Linux.
Meanwhile my laptop, server, and other desktop are all Linux boxes, and I can't see any need for Windows... But then I'm not a gamer either.
Linux / Windows (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
In other words, "if you don't have any need for Windows, you no longer have any need for Windows". Very profound, I'm sure.
Clue time: anyone citing Windows games as a reason for sticking with Windows probably thinks they still have a need for those games. So, uh, what was your point again?
I'm not supporting Redmond or any of the companies that butter their bread using that damnable product.
Good grief, I can hear the froth bubbling around your mouth from here. Get a grip, man. Windows is not the work of the devil: it's an operating system. Possibly not the best operating system in the world, but not in any way evil. Look, I use it all day and never once have I smelt sulphur or heard the screams of the damned coming from my computer speakers. It hasn't even murdered my family yet. All in all, it's doing pretty well for something you seem to view as the embodiment of Antichrist.
I'm also interested to know how you manage to survive while not supporting any company that uses Windows. For example, that pretty much rules out buying food from anyone apart from the Amish.
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Bill Gates, regardless of the wonderful things he's done for AIDS research and the like (regardless of his motives, he could have chosen any crappy project, but this was a smart move) he and his company are complete arseholes when it comes to code. If a programme is buggy, there are two choices - you can fix it yourself, or you can get someone else to fix it. Noone else is going to fix it unless it benefits them, and the vast majority of the time, it never benefits Microsoft. Without access to the source code, I can't fix those bugs, I can't make the product better for me, and I don't have access to something I have not just a moral right to, but what should be a legal right to as well. It's akin to buying a house and not being able to change the light bulbs or put an extension on without asking the original architect for his permission.
Microsoft aren't also bastards from a software source code point of view, but also in dodgy business practices, mainly involving bribing schools (ok, harsh word, but that's how I see it) with free software to use their products, and not teach the kids about software alternatives.
What about the purchase of companies who are potential competitors in a field (such as the legendary Amiga programme, Bars and Pipes) and then to shut them down, just so that the competition has no way of surviving - regardless of its superior technology (it took more than 5 years for MS to catch up with Amiga)
Microsoft also seem to be bastards when it comes to software patents, but that's for another discussion
Believe it or not, Microsoft will fail. The only way MS will fail is if someone brings out a better product, and if MS buy those products before they reach commercial success, then they win. But if those products can't be bought, or are restricted development due to the GPL - they lose. The GPL is fairly shitty, but I prefer it tenfold to what we have atm.
What about the CAD apps? (Score:1, Interesting)
I work in R&D for an engineering dept and a Linux switch has been tossed around more than a few times but it all comes down to the fact they have a ton of extensions built into AutoCAD and they can't afford to move to something that doesn't provide the same funcionality.
A lot of the functionality they use is built directly into the file format itself. If AutoDesk would port AutoCAD to Linux my users could easily switch as many of them use Linux at home as do I.
It's not so much Windows itself that keeps that dept on Windows it's the apps that run on Windows that they have decades worth of information in that they can't afford to lose which only run on Windows that is keeping them on Windows. I have encountered several Engineering shops over my career in the same boat.
If somebody wants to do something super useful make a CAD program that fully supports the
Re:Just re-installed Linux...not happy (Score:3, Interesting)
It would be funny if it weren't so sad.
And it's sad b/c it's filled with nothing but non sequitur, meaningless garble. There's no real reasons here, just a bunch of whiney excuses. You're obviously a student and a young one at that, evidenced by your "Chewbacca Defense" [wikipedia.org]. There's nothing here to respond to in detail b/c it's all crap. There's no detail to speak of!
Of course, the funniest/most pathetic statement of all is your line about Mac and Linux being dead upon the roll out of Vista. Good one, LMAO! Just keep holding your breath. That line alone makes you deserving of a "troll bait" mod.
Microsoft in schools (Score:5, Interesting)
It is my understanding that Microsoft will ONLY give schools "free" software if they agree not to use software from other vendors, including Linux and other free and/or open source software.
I don't think that should be even legal.
Re:all depends (Score:5, Interesting)
I am a business professional. My desktop is 100% Linux (Ubuntu) and has been for a long time. I've never bothered to tell anyone I was using Linux, and as far as I'm aware no one has any clue. My pain level is zero. (Actually, my pain level is "negative," since from time to time tasks crop up like mass file renaming, which I get done in a few moments but the Windows users take hours and hours to do. Manually. One file at a time. For hundreds and hundreds of files. THAT is pain.)
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:5, Interesting)
Unfortunately, this is actually a reality in many countries, my own (the Netherlands) included.
You see, copyright law states that artists can refuse others the right to "deface" their artwork. Since architects have somehow turned from engineers to artists, they have the right to prevent their customers from making adjustments to their buildings.
Thankfully, many architects don't use this right, but the ones with the biggest egos (the really expensive ones) do. My university built a huge library a couple of years ago, which cost them a couple dozen millions of euros. Turns out they're not even allowed to rearrange the bloody "designer" desks!
The painful switch-over (Score:5, Interesting)
Before all the BSD/Linux/OSX users jump me, let me tell you I'm desperate to get off Microsoft software, however, I can't very well dump 10 years of computing experience and instantaneously learn 10 years of FreeBSD.
My 1 year plan of attack:
1) Start to use Open Source software on Windows
2) Move exclusively to Open Source software on Windows
3) Move over to FreeBSD
Right now, I'm almost at stage 2. I'm waiting for a decent calendaring solution and I'm good to go*.
Everything else I use is now Open Source. It's been a painful 8 months but I'm working hard to give this a chance.
Now, the interesting part comes when you start to move over to a new OS. It's a complete nightmare!!!
I've heard a lot of people say it's as easy as putting in the RHL disk and clicking a few buttons and I agree. It is, so long as you're only wanting to do office grade work!
Don't get me wrong, I can install RHL, Debian, FreeBSD and run it fine so long as I only want to use the web, send email, create some artwork, etc but if I want to install PHP, Apache, PostgreSQL, Postfix, BIND and connect to a network (Samba) then I'm going to be here for a good few months just to get it working (properly and securely - not hope-and-pray).
Once I've got it working, should something go wrong, I'm down for another day/week if I don't understand how things work.
I am an Open Source advocate but I don't for one second believe a switch-over is going to be easy and neither should anyone else here.
What we need to do is manage people's expectations of moving over. If you think it'll take less than 6 months to do the switch, then you're probably not a developer and I imagine most of the Windows users here do some form of development.
Anyway, enough of the ranting. I look forward to the day I can finally switch over.
Here's a big thank-you to all the Open Source developers who work so hard to give us our freedom!
* I still have to use IE for work to make websites 'work'.
Force of habit (Score:2, Interesting)
The sheer mind-numbing madness of Windows addiction was made apparent to me the other day when I was asked to troubleshoot a typical XP box on which an admin-level account was used to connect to a broadband account without the benefit of a router/NAT. This wasn't your average home PC but the sole computer within a business based on a membership database sitting on the same machine. One PC for the whole business with all its sensitive data wide open to the internet.
The owner complained that the box was grinding to a halt and could I do something to remove the inevitable infestation. I suggeted various remedies, one of which was to disconnect the machine from the internet and do all browsing and e-mail on a 2nd reconditioned PC running Linux with a SAMBA share to get files across to the XP machine. Surf in safety I guranteed him.
It was not to be. Not only could I not convince him that he had already suffered enough but I also showed him how to set his LCD monitor to the correct resolution, eliminating the fuzzy fonts and bringing clarity to his display for the first time. I even showed him how to retain the enlarged font size he'd been used to by using font size options instead of changing the resolution. Alas, it was all in vain. "Err, I'd like you put it back to how it was, if you don't mind". So I turned his display resolution back to the wrong, fuzzy setting and he was happy. Happy with his ailing, dysfunctional PC putting his whole business at risk. Such is the force of habit.
TFA (Score:4, Interesting)
Indeed.
And if the submitter of the story had taken the trouble to read it, he might have noticed that nearly every link supplied points at Microsoft. Even the link supposedly referring to OpenOffice.org points at a Microsoft propaganda article.
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:3, Interesting)
[...]
free(remember, an OS is only supposed to be the middle man between your applications and your hardware)
[...]
Cars are just "the middle man" between me being able to get from A to B as well - I guess they should be free, too ?
As long as Windows is designed under the umbrella of a capitalistic monopoly, things will continue in the downward slope they started in the 90's.
Why is Windows any different to any other product designed under the umbrella of capitalism ?
Re:An idea for teaching Linux in schools (Score:2, Interesting)
What really confuses me is why CS classes generally go right into teaching programming, but don't teach the architecture of computers, or at most barely touch on the subject. No one who doesn't know a decent amount about computers should be writing programs for them.
If I were to start teaching a class, the first semester would be all about computer architecture. They should be able to take one apart and put it together, install and configure an OS (or more than one OS) and learn the underlying principles of computers. There's so much there which could make them all so familiar with how computers really work that it wouldn't matter which OS they used in the end, because they all have the same issues they're dealing with, just different methods.
I'd probably have them all come in the class on the first day to computers sitting at an MS-DOS (PC-DOS... something of that sort) prompt. Walk them through things for a little bit, until they understand that "folders" don't always have icons next to them, and C: doesn't necessarily point at your harddrive.
Some may be bored (Think you know it all, eh? To Linux with you! Already played with that? Try VMS on for size!), but there will be a lot of kids to whom this will all be totally new.
But, if you disagree with this plan, don't worry, because the school district will never hire someone who knows what they're doing, or has ideas.
Re:You're stupid (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:2, Interesting)
Any time two groups of people interact, people from one group and going to experience stupid people from the other group, and vice versa. My dad is an architect, and he has a great story about how they designed a church with a gymnasium directly above the sanctuary because of space constraints. They worked things out very carefully with some engineers and chose a specific product to isolate the gym floor so that noise from basketballs, etc. wouldn't make its way into the sanctuary while people were praying. (They designed it so that both rooms could be used at once.)
They made it very clear to the builders that no similar products should be substituted for the specific one they'd chosen. But the builder realized they could pocket some money if they specifically ignored those instructions and put a much cheaper product in instead, so they did.
A few months later, the church's gym floor started "sinking". It was a couple of inches below where it was supposed to be, and if I recall correctly, it was uneven as well. The church got very angry and complained to the local TV news, which aired a story about it. There was talk of a lawsuit. Eventually, it was found that the builder had caused the problem by substituting a cheaper product, and the builder got to replace the entire gym floor.
So, just like builders have stupid architect stores, architects have stupid builder stories. Because, in reality, both do stupid things sometimes.
Re:My Wife, my mother and Linux... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you've ever used a Rio or other device that merely drops files on, browse around and notice how much slower the listings show up. This is because it is grabbing a file list every time you change menus.
Re:10 days is not enough (Score:5, Interesting)
After the system arrived, I installed my favorite distro slackware on it. When I tried using it as a desktop, many programs under KDE crashed very often and predictably. The crashes went away when I switched to another distro. I tried several. There was still one problem left. Anything that used OpenGL with hardware acceleration would crash the system within a minute, on every distro I tried. This problem went away with my switch to Ubuntu Hoary last year when it was still in development, and my system has been pretty stable ever since, due to bug fixes that came with their switch from XFree86 to X.org. I have yet to find a development environment for Linux that I really like, but it hasn't really stopped me.
I use both Windows and Linux at work, but at home my Windows PC has collecting dust, and its keyboard is usually buried under a thick pile of paper, wrappers, equipment, and soda cans. At work, we're pushing towards open source mostly due to increasingly unjustifyable licensing costs, and sometimes due to security issues or simply superior software quality. There's only one program left that we're unable to migrate. A third party ERP system can lock a company into Windows desktops for many years.
I've never managed to render a Linux system unbootable, short of hardware failure. Even then, at work we have a Linux server that's been running smoothly with BAD RAM while we wait for the replacement to arrive in the mail. Linux can be configured to work around the bad parts, which allowed me to bring the failed production server back up within the hour. Another non-production server lost both hard disks in the same week, which would have gone unnoticed if I haven't checked the logs because it just kept working, having enough cache to serve requests from ram. After that happened I've been checking logs and hard disk temperature twice a day now with a simple script that polls all our servers at once. I'm not an IT person, but somehow my programming job has gradually expanded to include absolutely everything that nobody else knows how to do, whether or not I knew how to do it either.
Re:Microsoft in schools (Score:5, Interesting)
it is a lack of punishment when Bill Gates himself has said this about piracy "... about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software. Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade." [news.com]
It's pretty obvious he wants to get the schools and pupils addicted on this free software
Re:Microsoft in schools (Score:2, Interesting)
I've never heard of anything like them offering free software to an MS-only house. We use Linux boxes for internet content filtering and caching at the minute - and if I have my way, other things in the near future.
They'll have to prive my Linux boxes from my cold dead hands before I give them up.
a Bit tangential (Score:3, Interesting)
Most if not all (likely all) those names are of course trademarks.
One of the reasons many other Fast Food chains sell Coke is because they didn't want to be buying thier drinks from the competition.
Mycroft
Interesting that you say that (Score:3, Interesting)
I switched to Linux on the desktop a couple of years ago. Since then, I've occasionally been called upon to use Windows (for example in my current job) and one thing that I've noticed is that I've come to expect problems to be fixable.
For example, MS Excel is consistently generating an "Error 13" popup message every time I load it, which otherwise appears to have no effect whatsoever on performance. If this, or something similar, was happening on my Linux box, I would be digging into the system trying to figure out what was going wrong, even down to source code level if necessary. In Windows, that's a habit that's impossible to get into, cos all the programs are designed as little gated enclosures that you can't see into.
My experience is that most of the problems on Windows can't be fixed unless you're a master of reverse-engineering. You either get used to them or reinstall Windows. Neither is necessary on Linux as figuring out what the actual problem is, as opposed to turning a blind eye, is so much easier.
Counterpoints (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, configuration aside, learning Linux tends to be easier... the Control Panel can be dangerous.
Yes, it is a double-edged sword. But as you said, configuration on Linux may be more difficult precisely because it doesn't have a centralized configuration mechanism. But if you do have to venture into those .xyz and .conf files on Linux, that is MORE dangerous than Control Panel because you don't have a UI to protect you from deleting files, entries, entering invalid data, etc. In Linux, a configuration file is just a file, but in Windows configuration is abstracted into... configuration. Granted, modern Linux distros have UIs on top of their configuration, but there is no ONE Linux "control panel", but there is for windows.
burning CDs (easier with Gnome than Windows)
The operating system makes it easier? First of all, I'd have to say Windows makes it pretty darned easy: you drag'n'drop your files to the CD, then say "Write these files to the CD". Perhaps the default way of doing it with Gnome is easier, I don't know, but I've never really thought it could be easier without implementing mind reading.
emailing digital pictures (again, easier with Gnome than Windows' shoddy digital camera support).
I'll just leave the details of this subject to the other replies and say that you hast have found a rare exception to the norm with your digitasl camera.
Re:code quality (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Necessary Evil (Score:3, Interesting)
Absolutely... with a multi-user XPPro setup, and an account which I never go online with (have removed IE as much as possible, don't even use Firefox under that account), I noticed a toolbar in Windows Explorer. Apparently put there by a script inside a wmv file.
I've switched to surfing pr0n on my Mac only. It's more lickable, anyways.
FC4 and Windows both suck (Score:3, Interesting)
So I took my machine home over the weekend and installed FC4 on it. I run Mandrake at home, but our whole dev team uses FC4. In order to have a common user-base, I thought I'd try it out. I have a 2nd disk in the machine, and installed it to it. I found an excellent step-by-step guide on how to do this. Of course, the FC4 installer screwed that up. It never asked me to create a boot floppy. So after installing, there was no way to get into Linux. After f'ing with it for about 1/2 hour, I thought maybe I missed that option during the install. Installed it again, same thing. Knoppix to the rescue. Booted in, created a boot file, copied it to the Windows drive, and all was good.
Then I bring it back into work this morning, and go to configure it with dual displays (I have dual 21" LCDs) I have configured dual displays before at home, and it wasn't too bad. Of course, with FC4 it just doesn't work. X config looks good, it just don't want to bring up the 2nd display. I prefer KDE, so I have that as my desktop. Then I notice that the Configure option is missing from my Kmenu. (the red wrench icon) It is just GONE. One minute it was there, the next it was just not.
I quit using Redhat after 7.3, because they started monkeying with everything. I hate bluecurve, but understand the need for it (in concept). But let me run straight KDE! All the other developers here use dual-displays, but they have Nvidia cards and use their dual-display software. Since I don't have an Nvidia card, and since I had used Xinerama before, I thought it would be a snap.
So now in order to get work done, I have to boot into Windows (and get around that ANNOYING login issue). Yay! I have 1 machine with 2 crippled OSes installed on it. I prefer to use Linux so I will eventually get it working and have it be my main OS (running XP via VMWare). But I can't imagine being unfamiliar with Linux and trying to get it working and usable. At least I have a chance of getting Linux working the way I want, I have given up on Windows.