What is your reason for not running a Linux OS?

[gries818]

I just find Linux to be clunky, unintuitive, and to offer no real advantage whatsoever regarding my computing needs...

Some yes, some no.

It has many features Windows lacks. For instance, you can set a slideshow for a background (like OS X), you can change the length and height of the taskbar, you can also change the background of the taskbar to anything you want or make the background invisible,

I don't care about any of that junk, no offense ...

i agree with you, those are simple cosmetic. there is no technological advantage which one can say out performed windows system.

for me it is all about having choices

having the choice to make your desktop uniquely your own?

[gries818]

Ok so I've downloaded Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon) and as soon as I've setup a system with an IDE for it, I'll start a thread and hope for some help from you and the other linux guys Michaels

I think you'll be fine. I like Kubuntu 7.10 - it seems to be like a fairly good Linux distro.

My Linux prediction - in 3 years Linux will be lightyears ahead of what it is right now. Perhaps then it can stop playing the catch up game and start innovating.

I hope so, because a big advatage to a Linux machine is that you don't have to buy a new OS when it's time to upgrade. Think how much market share Linux could steal from both OS X and Windows if it was good enough to make a mass exodus from those products.

[Michaels]

i think pc makers hold linux from growing, once they start introducing it to a new pc buyers might likely go for it due to the price

[gries818]

For the first time ever, I am posting from a Linux machine. I finally succeeded in connecting with my Linux box and I feel happy finally having overcame a huge barrier.

Linux, more than Windows I think, really requires the 'net to be successful.

[imnuts]

FreeBSD FTW I don't use it for my desktop because it isn't compatible with stuff I want to use, mainly uTorrent and a few games. However, if I wasn't playing any games and Deluge were more stable and further through development, I may switch, but it's doubtful.

[Michaels]

FreeBSD FTW I don't use it for my desktop because it isn't compatible with stuff I want to use, mainly uTorrent and a few games. However, if I wasn't playing any games and Deluge were more stable and further through development, I may switch, but it's doubtful.

while linux has moved further BSD {all of them} is still having issues with hardware compatibility. unless you are one of those who like cook their own meal. one still has to compile one thing or the other to get things going in all BSD variants

[imnuts]

while linux has moved further BSD {all of them} is still having issues with hardware compatibility. unless you are one of those who like cook their own meal. one still has to compile one thing or the other to get things going in all BSD variants

I build my own kernel for FreeBSD to have only the hardware compatibility that I need it in, and will likely compile the entire system in the next week or so since FreeBSD 7 came out. The entire reason that I like them is that they are not bloated and you can quickly get a bare-bones kernel/system up and running and after it's going, you don't have to really touch it as it will stay on and running forever more or less. Linux is to bloated for my tastes, at least among most of the more popular distros. Gentoo is probably the "best" IMO just because you build everything specific for the machine you're on. It may not be easy to use, but definitely would be stable and not bloated with drivers one doesn't need.

[c0ldfyr3]

Gentoo is probably the "best" IMO just because you build everything specific for the machine you're on. It may not be easy to use, but definitely would be stable and not bloated with drivers one doesn't need.

HERE HERE!!!
the Best Distro of Linux i have used yet, and after getting used to the caommands, its actually easy to setup a server from the command line. somthing that was stressed to me while i was learning *NIX was RTFM, well just say its known as Read The Flipping Manual. really hte command in all nix is "man" and you get the manual to the OS, man man , man KDE, man apt-get, and so on and so forth. if your having trouble and get stuck read the manual, it helps and in some distros man is improved so you can look for the options to a certain command like man -sudo and you will get the commands on how to use sudo...

[poisonbl]

i agree with you, those are simple cosmetic. there is no technological advantage which one can say out performed windows system.

for me it is all about having choices

Well, while I'm one to enjoy playing and getting things tweaked just how I want them, Linux (Gentoo, to be precise) shocked me quite well a while back (before a plague of video problems that even screwed me up on Windows). Running an AMD64 2.0GHz, 512MB PC2700, and a GeForce 6800 (I think) ...

I found I could run:
- dual monitors (1600x1200 main, 1280x1024 secondary)
- WoW on Wine in a 1280x1024 fake-fullscreen (a Wine desktop window that emulates "fullscreen" mode) with *higher* graphics settings than I could run in Windows
- full real transparency and drop shadows on my desktop *including* the WoW window translucent when it wasn't focused
- Firefox with several tabs
- rdesktop to my win2k box

All with less lag than I had in Windows (a clean install of XP).

I can't recall if I tried watching a movie as well, but I found it all rather amazing nonetheless. WoW on Windows still doesn't even agree with windowed mode for me, and I've upped to 1GB ram.

Then, of course, I decided to try a multilib build of Gentoo only to find it didn't play well with my Nvidia drivers, and then my video card, unrelated as I was only in windows for over a week preceeding, decided to die ... (sort of, it's running, but ... it acts strange.)

[Grav!ty]

I took the plunge and installed Kubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). HERE's my install thread