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Technical FAQ for New Linux Users
Jay writes: "This article is really helpful if you're new to Linux, or even if you're not-so-new. It helps Windows users transition to Linux, but those converting from other operating systems will find useful information here as well." Personally, I'd think that learning a new OS would be worth the cost of a book (which I note is out of print - does that mean a new edition is on the way?), but if you're too cheap to buy a book, well, here's a pretty decent guide to getting started with GNU/Linux.
Are you claiming that only smart people use Linux? I have plenty of evidenc to the contrary...
Aint that the damn truth. The only MS products I've ever purchased were a keyboard and a joystick. If, and I mean that's a big If, I actually paid for windows in any iteration I might have an excuse to bitch about it's quality more. But I make a point of not financially supporting MS through their software (sorry folks, I happen to like the feel of the keyboard and joystick. Too bad their OS's aren't as nice as their peripherals)
Until I read this gem:
What a complete load of bullshit. Has this guy ever use Linux? Nothing about that claim is even remotely true..
And then the part about drive letters and
This document needs to be buried. The author has zero clue about Linux, and his writing will do more harm than good.
There is a problem in the last paragraph on page 36 about hard linking directories. I sent the author a note, suggested a change, and got a quick and thankful response. He said he welcomes comments, even if the l-faq is not his official project right now. (He'd like to see "maybe change ... to ..." feedback instead of "... is wrong, please correct.")
BTW, I am also @us.ibm.com, and I use the document to educate the few remaining WinXX users around me. It works fine with engineering types, but some of the stuff in there would be too complicated for Joan Doe in marketing.
WARNING, the above link is not a link to goatse.cx. Don't click it!
The effect of doing such things, for those who don't know is: /dev/fd0/pcmcia.tar /
scitus:~# cp
cp: cannot stat `/dev/fd0/pcmcia.tar': Not a directory
the real at&t mix
I wrote a small utility that lets you say: amount cp /mnt/floppy/*.txt somewhere. It mounts whatever's needed before running the command, and unmounts it afterwards.
-- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
Looking through it, I've already found one inaccuracy. On page 12, it says that you can copy a file off a floppy by doing cp /dev/fd0/bookmarks.html /home/yourusername/.netscape. This is incorrect. The floppy drive must be mounted and you must then copy the file from the mountpoint. I've just notified the authors.
How is gnome part of Linux?
I believe that sbin stands for static binaries, not system biraries. Meaning that they are statically linked so that they can be executed if the libraries they would depend on are not available.
domc
"(most of the users here give the impressoin that they have been using Linux from 1.0.0)"
/. readers (myself included) started using Linux well after kernel v2.0 -- if they even use it at all.
..." do so because they know nobody else can. :-)
Those are the guys who weren't even born when Linus got fed up with Minix. I'd bet that the overwhelming majority of
The one or two people who say, "Back when we used to DL the v0.91 sources onto floppies,
Just a point to make about the O'reilly book that was mentioned to be out of print. It may be out of print but it isn't offline. And it's not PDF either :0
> Can anyone point me to a document which explains the logic of /usr, /usr/share, /usr/local, etc.?
See the Filesystem Hierarchy Standard
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
> How about an Intuitive UI Instead?
I can't fathom the common notion that you can put an "Intuitive UI" on a Turing complete device.
The presupposition is that people are born with an intuition about what is computationally possible, along with an intuition about some "right way" for every possible computation should be expressed. Neither is remotely near the truth.
In practice, "Intuitive UI" tends to be a euphemism for "straitjacket". You could build a computer with nothing but a single toggle switch for its UI, but you would find it inconvenient if you had more than two things you wanted the computer to do.
The nice thing about UNIX and its clones--along with MVS and VMS and almost every operating system that came along before the Mac--is that it's a full-featured OS that lets you do almost anything a computer can do, and do lots of it pretty easily if you can be bothered to learn the arcana of expressing exotic computational requirements.
However, those OSes will also let you cover them with an optional straitjacket if you do want to limit their operations, say for a net kiosk or a POS system. But not everyone wants a POS system (pardon the pun!).
Simply put, Windows and Mac have traditionally been designed to make life easy for Joe User by filtering out the complexity of general-purpose computing, i.e., Joe User runs a handful of apps, and that's "computing" for him. But lots of people need computers that are general-purpose computers rather than expensive limited-purpose appliances, and for us the "hide the complexity" strategy makes life more difficult rather than more comfortable. No one can make a menu that lists every operation I want my computer to undertake, because even I don't know today what I might ask of it tomorrow.
--
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
This FAQ suggests using the built-in Linux PS/2 mouse drivers for the trackpoints on IBM Thinkpad laptops. You could do this of course, but there is a much better open source driver that allows you to take advantage of some of the enhanced capabilities of the trackpoint, such as the hardware sensitivity control and z-axis control. If you have a thinkpad, you might want to check out this driver if you haven't already.
I can't answer the question about where the logs are on a FreeBSD system, but there are definitely SSH clients for Windows, so if you replace telnet with SSH, you should have no trouble accessing it from a Windows machine. Sorry I don't have any links or names of programs, but a Google search for Windows SSH clients will probably turn up what you need.
Personally, I'd think that learning a new OS would be worth the cost of a book (which I note is out of print - does that mean a new edition is on the way?), but if you're too cheap to buy a book, well, here's a pretty decent guide to getting started with GNU/Linux.
Actually, the link to the ORA debian gnu/linux book is one link away from the full text of that book, online & free, courtesy of O'Reilly.
--sean
Files in /sbin are system binaries. These files are usually run by the administrator to configure or control the system. Different Unix operating systems have different commands here.
> If "Desktops aren't the entire world" why is Linux being actively developed to be forced into the market to people to take windows off the "
"Desktop" market?
Because people are free to persue whatever goal they desire with Linux. Its Free and you can't stop them.
You'll notice it's also pretty actively developed in the embedded, distributed, super computer and server sectors too.
The reason for the continual "Linux on the desktop" drive is becuase more and more people are doing it. Trends; where do you see them stopping?
I can only see them leading to lots of corporate IT managers seeing tidy savings (and larger bonuses) to be made without Windows and Office licenses - especially monthly. These same people are already using Linux in their servers more and more.
"Linux isn't a desktop OS" means nothing tomorrow. It means nothing to many of us already. Its about Apps, as you no doubt know, and 99% of the windows using world will find everything they need on most recent distributions. In fact, there is probably more than they need.
As for those who can't stand Linux, well I dare say their legacy will die along with their OS choices. At least our work can be incorporated into the next best Free OS.
Well, access to the source code has meant it has caught up and surpassed Microsoft's best benchmark output in a very short period of time. If you can find somewhere it hasn't, by all means, make the noise. You will only fuel to the drive to make it happen there too. Microsoft have learned that much from Mindcraft at least. Do you hear them play that record any more?
They're _trying_ to play ours now.
A few points to your questions for the sake of completeness.
.vbs? Why does my screen go blue? Why do I have to hold my breath when using my scanner in case it has anything to with that blue screen appearing.
;) (Seriously, AOL will port when it suits them, and it increasingly does with the tension between them and MS these days).
I'm not really a games player but Wine is solving that problem. It ran Windows Half Life when I last tried it (about a year ago). I'd wager it will run most of the above. If not and you know Windows, why not get involved - its the nearest you'll get to hacking windows code under the currently license terms MS offers.
The package systems solve dependecies well enough. In 6 months most dists with use an APT-like layer making this problem redundant. Debian already does.
Its much better than downloading 6mb VB apps just because the author had to bundle umpteen ocx files you already have.
What is root? What is a user? How about Why did my Outlook just send 30 emails to other people without my asking. What is Lovebug? What is
Why do I want to use AOL
XFree86 4 lets you do the resolution changing (as long as the driver supports the feature). In time all will. They all seemed to offer the RENDER extension quick enough.
Yes people really use it. More and more in increasing increments. Why else do you think MS are making so much noise about it?
Linux has lots of killer apps, remember you're talking about "most users". They'll be happy enough with Blender, Gimp, gPhoto and BCast2000. In a years time, Koffice, Gnome Office and Star Office 6 will no doubt cause quite a buzz on the corporate desktop. The developer world already has its fair share of killer apps (between gcc, emacs, python and glade I'm happy enough - to much to consider windows again for that purpose).
Where there is a lack, it will be solved in time, that pattern is clear. I think its less about "if" and more about "when".
Take into account that lots of new computer users will see Linux in the future, not Windows (the Chinese for example). The western market is already saturated - which is why MS is trying to charge you repeatedly now, and diverging into a games company.
Lots of downloadable utilities to make any window transparent. It's even built into the operating system, rather than the ugly hack ...
... I just used the option in the gnome-terminal ... without downloading anything!? If it's built into the operating system why do you have to DL something? Sounds like your solution is the "ugly hack".
hmmm
One of the guys I work with saw my box at work, saw transparent windows, and told me "I don't care what it takes, I want transparent windows". I gave him the standard warnings (no photoshop, word, etc. etc.) but he didn't care. I chuckled to myself, because that's what caught my intertest in linux in the first place. (e.themes.org, I think even all ye console purists can agree that the right E screenshot can convert anyone.)
.... this was weird to me, because I've being doing it so long, because when he got frustrated, it was like "fscking linux" instead of "fscking gnome, unstable mozilla, stupid rpm." It takes a while to explain how all those things interact and come shipped with a distro, remember they are used to everything coming from one vendor. "No, you can't update KDE with Red Carpet", "Oh, that sucks..." ... you get the idea.
:)
.....
This is what I learned, in a nutshell of course:
1) Teach them to use the console method first, then, when they've done it a while, show them the GUI way, that way they'll learn how it works.
2) The multi-user thing coming from windows is kind of hard to get over. "Why do I have to be root to install this?"
3) Guy calls it all linux, not GNOME, KDE, Red Hat, Ximian, mozilla
4) He needs to know his hardware, regardless of distro - everyone knows this, I hope.
5) After he got a hold of it, he found linux easy to use and maintain (I used Ximian GNOME in this case). Because it's different doesn't make it hard. Once you get them to 'think outside the box' (hate to use that phrase), learning linux can be easy and fun.
6) Nothing will help you learn linux faster than teaching someone. I consider myself an average linux guy, this experience taught me alot, and in the end, we all want to learn something, right?
7) The most important IMHO: The simple things are hard, the hard things are easy. Yes, you don't need to defrag, virus scan, worry about privacy issues, 'registration', or worry about BSODs, but yes, it will take us 2 hours to get yout ghetto ass CD burner working right
I didn't find it seamless at all. I took my old burner that I bought in 97 or so, and tried to get it working in 2k. Yuck, a real mess.
I didn't have ASPI installed, so I go searching for it. Turns out you get an ASPI driver with some products, like Adaptec's stuff. I eventually found a FAQ that linked to two versions of Adaptec's drivers, an old one that would install, and then a new one you could upgrade to. Without that, they look for an Adaptec product and exit if they don't find one.
If you don't get Adaptec's, you need to find AspiMe.exe, which I think was written by Steve Gibson, except it's violating some copyright and thus it's fairly hard to find. Not to mention it's a few years old.
Without ASPI, my CD burner was just a reader. Really useful.
I actually find Linux easier in this regard.
Personally, I'd think that making the OS easier to use would be a good idea.
Well, I don't know. Sometimes I think that the "ease of use" thing is idiotizing everyone.
I mean, did you know one of them ladies of, say, 20 years ago, working in offices with no word processor, email or the likes? They could pretty much record a conversation word for word in shorthand, and they could type amazingly fast on mechanical typewriters. I suppose it was hard to learn to write in shorthand or type fast, but they were incredibly efficient and productive once they did. Today, our average employee needs like 15 minutes to type a single letter, because he uses backspace as often as the space bar --and is completely hopeless without a spell checker.
Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night shivering at the vision of people complaining about having to learn to read because it is too hard. Now I'm exaggerating , of course (I hope so). I guess my point is that ease of use isn't everything, and that people can use a "non-intuitive" operating system or whatever, sometimes being far more productive than the easy way would allow them to be. I mean, geez, how hard is to learn to type "ls" instead of clicking on the picture of a folder? And I think it is much faster to type "ifconfigeth0192.168.1.32up" than browsing through the intuitive GUI to the appropriate dialog to change your IP address.
Thank you. You quite nicely fleshed out and extended my rather sparse comment.
Quite frankly, I was rather shocked to see such a sentiment expressed on /. as well. Especially since it was /. that introduced me to Linux. I know that one of the facts that impressed me about Linux in the first place was the incredible community support in learning the OS through the numerous how-to's and other documents available online, and, as with yourself, it has led me to purchasing many Linux books.
There are many different people who are drawn to Linux and not all of them have the financial resources to lay down $30-$40 on a book. Think kids in not-so-wealthy school districts for one, or even adults who are currently stuck in low paying jobs who are trying to improve their situation.
This is one of the benefits of free software. People are able to bootstrap theirselves in a way that conservatives claim the great American capitalist meritocratic system makes possible. In reality, increasing your earning power often has a steep price tag. Free software helps allevitate some of that cost.
So while there are plenty of people who are too 'cheap' to buy a book, so what? Although those people start off as leaches, and may remain leaches forever, just the very basic fact that they are running Linux almost insures that in some small way they will return something to the community... Even if it is nothing other than just once showing a newbie how to mount a drive.
I found Pico and Pine to be quite the easiest shell-based editor/email client. Why isn't it on more Linux distros, especially ones that try to make things easier, like Corel? Correct me if I'm wrong on Corel's attempt to make things a bit easier for Windwos users. I just found it a lot easier to pick up than good 'ol VI.
You need Gnosis 0.0.1 (a plugin for Lilo)
I find "bash" is excruciatingly easy to use.
Don't confuse "easy to use" with "similar to Microsoft".
full-blown, haha
Better to recognize good examples and implement them yourself, than to go around reinventing the wheel, or doing dumb things instead
So I click your link, and what am I greeted with?
"View the PDF"
Whoops.
Heh heh.
Yeah, enough with the whining already. Enough with the Linux users' whining about how big bad Microsoft has the marketshare. Enough with your bitching that people aren't giving free software a chance. Enough, in short, of Slashdot.
You know why Microsoft has around 95% of all computer users running their software? I'll tell you. It's because microsoft, being run by professionals, realises that the best way to acquire and keep customers is not to suggest that if you are experiencing problems with their product then you must be "a techno moron incapable of counting above ten without taking off your shoes", to quote Restiff the Amazing Talking Rectum up there.
Meanwhile, the Honorable Elitist Opposition here and on sites like this seems to think one acquires allies by making blanket insulting statements. Here's a clue for you: if the man page authors for some utilities label the syntax "needlessly obscure", then the system in general is not quite easy enough for J. Random User to work with. Microsoft understands this, and hence rules the consumer world and is making major inroads in the server market. Your ilk prefers to spend its time alternately whining about how nobody uses Linux or having a circle-jerk over the fact that you're all 1337 because you do, and vehemently resisting any attempts to make the system friendlier because that'd rob you of your hard-earned bragging rights. People like you make me glad to be running win2K and BeOS.
very true, also if you are installing on a new hard drive.
Why is PDF bad?
And why do you say you have to use Adobe programs?
You don't. I have the pdf loaded in to xpdf on Redhat 7.1 right now. Works fine.
The software that exists in Windows comes with something called a Warranty and even phone tech support. That's comforting to users, and it's something that just can't be done with the vast majority of Free, Open source software. Joe Bloe can't call up fictional developer Yzeb Petronix who takes credit for writing some chat program to find out why it crashes his box,
Well, the problem is that commercial tech support is absolutely worthless. I did IT for 10 years on dozens of platforms and the support we got from commercial vendors was complete shit. Hold times over an hour were normal sometimes even with a support contract. Callbacks often came days later. Even when you did manage to talk to a human, it usually turned out to be someone without any sort of clue. If it was a problem with their product, they wouldn't admit it or fix it.
I would rather not pay money for that sort of shoddy quality and support. I've been burned too many times by closed-source software vendors. I know I'm not alone.
Incidentally, Yzeb Petronix is real, and living in my basement where he is working on kernel drivers for biometric scanners.
--
It would be fun to do a controlled study to watch average users scratching their heads over the thing and asking to be excused early.
:)
You mean like the GNOME Usability Study Report?
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Yes, there's easy, and then there's advanced. I think both types of users can and should be catered to.
The key is to have a smooth learning curve, so that someone can sit down and be immediately productive, and then gradually work their way up to the advanced level. The learning curve for, say MacOS, is pretty linear. The learning curve for Linux is not.
--
Well, I was going to post a favorite, but it's kind of hard. (pun intended?)
---
python -c "x='python -c %sx=%s; print x%%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))%s'; print x%(chr(34),repr(x),chr(34))"
The shareholder is always right.
Because then you can figure out the address of an array element by doing base_address + ( index * sizeof(array_type)). If they started from one you would have to do base_address + ( (index - 1) * sizeof(array_type)). That way you save an operation. Since array indexes are often on the inside of loops, this saves a lot overall.
Now, ever since C came out (and before that, with lisp and probably other languages, but C was the popular one) we've had languages that could move the index from 1 to 0 and adjust all the related math at compile time. But they stuck with starting the array index at 0.
Whoever moderated you to '0, Troll' is in need of a cluestick treatment..
"Slashdot - the one place on the internet where guys brag about how small it is." - that IT girl
Sorry, but this is more basic than that - geared more toward Windows users who would like to understand how to get around. Methinks you could benefit more from the HOWTOS
The site seems to have lots of introductionary (such as the new FAQ) and general technical articles (hardware stability, journaling filesystems, embedded Linux, firewalls, etc). The Linux Zone seems to be also an index to interesting documents on other sites.
Unfortunately some of the articles (at least the tutorials) require annoying registration.
The section "Wait a minute! Are you saying that there are no drive letters in Linux?" (page 14) says that Linux doesn't have drive letters but mount points. Correct so far.
But then it implies that '' /dev/fd0 (or /dev/floppy or /mnt/floppy)...)'' are such mount points. Eeeeehhhhhh?
More: ''...There can be many SCSI drives, on one or more controllers. The mount point designations just keep incrementing up through /dev/sdz. ...''
Gods! The writer doesn't know the difference between a device file and a mount point!
Ah, so the /mnt-files are just ''aliases''! Rrright. It's always nice to learn something new!
This came up on...July 29th on Slashdot. I guess the real technical writers are on summer vacation, and the article was submitted by the summer trainee. Am I wrong?
you want http://www.linuxdoc.org/HOWTO/Filesystems-HOWTO.ht ml
Fermat's other theorem: "I have a simple proof, but I can't write it down as I fear it's a DMCA violation to discuss it"
there once was a time when you were expected to understand what DNA is and what it did.
Thankfully my days as a single celled, self dividing organism are over. I now have (between my legs) a convenient, easy to use device that abolishes the need to manually manipulate my DNA.
i too had this same problem. however. i sat back in my chair, tried to forget everything windows, and then thought through intuitively.
and setup lilo using linuxconfig.
i was shocked at the simplicity of it.
it's not better.
it's different.
it's easier.
TIME is the Aether...
You have to download something because for the most part it's left up to the application to control its transparency and most applications don't do anything along those lines. What's built into the OS are the hooks that applications can use.
The only application I've used that uses this is DUMeter, which displays a graph of inbound/outbound network traffic. In the current version, you can set the window to any transparency in 10% increments, then leave it in the corner of the screen and still be able to see what's behind it.
The one feature I'd like to have added is for it to pass any mouse activity through to the window behind it unless that window is the desktop - have your traffic meter visible but not interfering with any application use! Since it normally resides in the system tray, this wouldn't keep you from interacting with DUMeter itself.
-- fencepost
fencepost
just a little off
you know for a while now I've been a supporter of the make linux easy thing. um I'm over that now. momentary loss of sanity. there was a time when kids in school were required to know their times tables. and that they read. I mean not just know how to read but actually read regularly from things other than magazines. there once was a time when you were expected to understand what DNA is and what it did. Nowadays I'm happy if anyone knows the name of the president (that would be bush for those of you that don't know) I'm over this dumbing down of things. If you can't figure out linux then just admit that you're stupid and that you don't want to try and learn something. Admit that you've given up on your mind and don't care anymore. admit that the conept of having to think about anything so complex as reading a god damn manual is beyond you. continue to bitch and whine that this really cool thing that your friends use is too damn hard for you to use and that you are a techno moron incapable of counting above ten without taking off your shoes. I'm over this. If you have given up on your brain then just shut the fuck up and disappear. I'm not blasting windows/mac/etc... users there a great many of smart people that have not given up on their brains that use those systems I'm blasting the fuckers that can't jsut realize that linux is beyond them and continue to bitch cause I won't come hold their damn hands recompiling their kernel. Its not that damn hard. Read the Howto. no this isn't jsut another RTFM I'm serious if you can read you can compile a kernel. Linux is like cooking. If you can read you can do it. and at least linux doesn't use anything so vague as "pinch" to describe certain directions. as for how to convert to linux read Guido's DOS-Window->Linux Howto. I did. see I can read and have not given up on my brain. apologies to those of you that want to run linux but are having troubles. I'm not bitching at you jsut the morons that say someone should make linux easier to use. it is. shut up already. Flame-ON!
-
And that's why Linux will never succeed on the desktop. All the Linux geeks like you.
First of all, I develop numerous Open Source applications. So, while I may not contribute to Linux (an OS I think is crap anyways), I do my fair share.
Second of all, if no one complains, nothing gets better.
Maybe you should try OS X?
I will make it easier for you. How about someone make the install of the fucking OS simple and SECURE?
Personally, I'd think that making the OS easier to use would be a good idea.
And what's with your Windows fanatic attitude?
Those of us who use Linux like the fact that we have access to the source code. Most of us realize that 99% of Windows users don't care about it. Its a much enjoyed feature for us, and we wouldn't be able to give it up. Why can't you respect that?
What do you defrag it with? That I know of, almost nobody defrags ext2 filesystems because the little gain in doing so is just not worth the time to defrag. (ntfs, on the other hand... I defragged at work after almost a whole year, holy crap what a difference).
Enlightenment: the realization that your 100-line shell script can be reimplemented as a 5-line Perl script.
Of course, he also wants to lock us in to a single hardware vendor, so what does he know.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Call me crazy...
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
You forgot the god of all Linux editors.... PICO
IIRC, when I installed Mandrake 7.2, it didn't ask alot of the "tech questions" that I heard about in previous years about having to know damn near everything about any peice of given hardware.
yeah, and their install lasts for about a week then they go back to windows.
Want some indy electronic (and other) music?
This sig intentionally left blank.
I have plenty of evidenc to the contrary...
(Score:2, Ironic).
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
I only wish this had come out when i started using linux. I had no help so i picked up the good old "Linux For Dummies" book.
DON'T BUY IT IF YOU'RE SWITCHING!
Most books state that they don't require any prior knowledge of linux or unix but the authors seem to write as if they're explaining linux to all those "newbies" who have been using linux for a few years.
My only advice, other than reading this FAQ (which is really good, BTW) is to simply fsck around with your new OS. Break it, then fix it, then break it again. Besides - if you're not using linux because you A)want to try out new things and B)want to get into the guts of an OS, then you're probably safer with windows and AOL anyway. Most of the people I know using *nix and it's variants on a *real* basis these days are the ones that were breaking their parents' cable boxes in the process of trying to figure out how they worked when they were kids.
FluX
After 16 years, MTV has finally completed its deevolution into the shiny things network
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." -David Hume
Uuuhh... Do you mean that you have to return your school work in doc format? I would switch school!
There would be a whole lot more people going to Linux if there weren't tons of pirated copies of $90 OSes on the internet free for download.
I look at it this way: some users need GUI, some need CLI. I, personally, am most comfortable having both (which is why it irks me that I can't run OS X).
The fact is that as much as people complain about learning curves, Linux is what it is. It's Unix (if dmr says so, it's Unix; certifications be damned), and that means it takes time to learn. It's not for everyone, though it can be made so with a little tweaking.
As for controlling everything from a GUI... just doesn't happen without a lot of work. Even on the Mac you need ResEdit to change some settings, and some of those you need to hexedit. XML is helping to close the gap, and LinuxConf is an excellent program (couldn't live without it myself). But sometimes, there's no choice but to geek out.
/brian
--
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
Q: Internet Explorer is 100x better than Netscape. So why should I run Linux when it doesn't have a decent web browser??
Nobody tells you to use Netscape, you can use the excellent Konqueror, Mozilla or even Opera instead.
Have you compared those? I've used all three of the free ones (and a demo of Opera, but I've never like Opera's interface, sorry), and I can tell you that while IE 5.5 has only a short lead over Mozilla 0.9.2, IE 6.0 blows it away. IE 6.0 is extremely slick and is a much nicer experience than Mozilla. (IE 6.0 is rock-solid stable, as is 5.5, really, plus IE 6.0 blocks third-party cookies by default, as well as other enhancements such as improved CSS/HTML support and little UI enhancements - Smart Tags not included.)
Q: Windows is super easy to install. To install Linux I have to do an fdisk, whatever that is. What's the deal here?
Try one of those easy distros, Red Hat, Mandrake that come with a graphical disk editor, couldn't be easier.
Actually, Windows is much easier to install than any Linux distro I've tried yet, including Mandrake 8.0 and RedHat 7.1. Actually, that isn't strictly true - the Linux distros were much better at gathering information upfront, while Windows had a "before the install" info gathering period, a "random half-way through the install" and a "after the install" section of junk to answer.
The real Windows win though is that Windows requires one partition while in Linux you can get bogged down with the boot partition and the home partition and the... I've seen one SuSE based custom install where the system had seven or so partitions, I think they were /, /etc, /home, /var, /usr, /bin, and /tmp. I'd like to think that /bin was not a separate partition, but I've got this sinking feeling that it was... (although I'd think /etc would have to have been part of /... unless they'd moved init to some strange place... all these partitions did liven up the inevitable fsck on startup. (They were part of a Linux lab where CS students would modify the Linux kernel for a class, and many a dev kernel wouldn't boot.))
With Windows you basically select the drive and tell it to install itself on it. If you've got multiple partitions/drives, you have to deal with that, but in most users cases, there's just one partition per drive and you tell Windows to deal with that and it handles it appropriately.
Q: There aren't any WYSIWYG word processors for Linux. How should I do my school work??
StarOffice? Lyx? KWord?
I'll give you KWord, but not StarOffice. I can't comment on Lyx. At least when using a KDE desktop, KWord remains consistant with the rest of the user experience, but StarOffice forces this "StarDesktop" crap on you. Not to mention the fun steps it takes to get the thing to run multiuser.
But the problem comes when my WinPrinter won't print under Linux (actually, this is a half-truth - it prints in B&W in RedHat 7.0, and in color with Mandrake 8.0 - however, in both cases, it uses "economy" mode and produces results that while acceptable for most cases are not on par with what Windows can do), but I suppose that's my fault for not having checked compatibility. The biggest problem with Linux word processing is not the software, it's printing the damned things out afterwards. In something besides plain black and white (economy mode) ASCII text.
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You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
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You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
I won't delete it, but I will drastically reduce it. Besides, comments weigh in at 1k, if I guess correctly.
I'll have to read this when I have some free time - I never really understood the way things work inside the kernel, how X works internally, and that sort of thing. Let's hope that's all in there.
Got that right. My computer thinks it's SCSI for some reason or another. One weekend I'll get a few cases of Coke and beat it into submission. Good thing I have another computer hanging around to use it on the meantime.
I prefer a void in conversation to a vacuous one.
One thing I haven't found explained much is the Linux directory structure. The IBM document had a brief paragraph, but didn't say much. I've yet to figure out why software is scattered about so much.
Can anyone point me to a document which explains the logic of /usr, /usr/share, /usr/local, etc.?
I've been considering porting some code to Linux, but at this point, I have no idea where my files are supposed to go!
Aside from that quibble I like Linux.
You had to "learn" windows too, jackass. its just that you have probably been learning it over your entire life. Everyone had to learn how to use any OS at sometime! You cant just expect to have some kind of gnosis while your computer is booting!
Really? Just how do you do a ping or a telnet without a shell? I'm serious, I use ping daily on my Win2k box at work, and I've never found it under Start->Programs->Ping
*BZZT* you just opened a shell. Thanks for playing, thank you drive through.
Start -> Run -> "ping foo"
Start -> Run -> "telnet foo"
:)
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
No Duh.
This must be why I keep coming back to Slashdot... for the insightful analysis.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
I don't care what it takes, I want transparent windows
Or just give him Win/2000. Lots of downloadable utilities to make any window transparent. It's even built into the operating system, rather than the ugly hack that you need to do to make it work on X (which doesn't natively support it).
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Actually, "duh" and wrong, at least as far as Telnet goes. Telnet does not use the shell (although Ping does). You can put Telnet on the menu anytime you want, it's just not there by default.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
If it's built into the operating system why do you have to DL something?
Try clicking on a menu... you'll notice a fade effect. Try dragging files in file explorer, and you'll notice the files are transparent.
Win/2000 has it, but it just doesn't beat you over the head with it. The utilities you can download are ones that allow you specify transparencies for various windows, borders, dialogs, etc.
To tell you the truth, I credit Microsoft with some taste when it comes to this. The other platforms with this effect (and I include Apple in this) seem almost nouveau riche, like wearing big gold chains just to prove you can.
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Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Actually they were talking about Win2k so your parent post is correct. Under 9x telnet is a separate GUI application, but under Windows 2000 it is a command line utility. There are also other things under Win2k that must be done from a command line, ipconfig /renew comes to mind. There is no "winipcfg" utility in Win2k. Rather than weakening the command line interface in Win2k as suggested by the original poster, MS has expanded the command line. They claim you can do almost everything you can do from a GUI (system tasks) from the command prompt.
Enigma
Enigma
IIRC, all CD burners emulate SCSI in the Linux environment. Try the CD Writing HOWTO for more information. It sounds like your burner is behaving normally.
Enigma
Enigma
"Q: There aren't any WYSIWYG word processors for Linux. How should I do my school work??" What? STFU and try Star Office you dolt!
Personally, I think that anything that makes the transition road easier for the masses (who don't have to use Linux, who aren't under any legal obligation to be technically proficient, and who are currently quite content in their Windows world, if only because they don't know any better) is a Very Good Thing. Remember, it's up to us to prove our case to the layperson, they aren't obliged to immediately see the light and become Bourne Again users just on the say-so of some geek who says, "Linux is 1337".
the only thing anyone can do is just to try not to do the same thing to anyone else.
If it does, wouldn't it be a good idea to include this with any given Linux distribution? The how-to's included with Linux right now are good.. but sometimes they aren't good enough.. and they lack details that I have to spend hours searching for on the net. I honestly doubt that most people are willing to put in as much time as I'm going to.
Heh. Whenever I'm using a windows box I've always got at least 10 DOS prompts open and _nothing_ else. Windows user's think I'm really wierd. I guess it's the *nix user in me. Comes out even if I'm not on a *nix box :O)
Either that or the DOS user is in me is still there after all these years.... I never really did spend all that much time in a point 'n click environment. Pretty DOS and UNIX all my life...
But your post just reminded me of my parent's in law who always look over my shoulder when I'm using their computer and ask "Why do you do so much typing???? Can't you just point and click like everyone else?"
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Garett
If a little more effort was put into usability and interface, some of that stuff would be obvious even to a beginning user.
This is a big problem in the adoption of Linux. Look at Sourceforge - there are like thousands of projects, 75% of which are in permanent beta. Think what Linux could be if just 1% of the time spent coding was spend writing documentation and refining interface!
At one point I tried 'learning' Linux, and found that it would take 20 times longer compared to the other OS mentioned.
If you can't see that the lack of cohesive interface, user-friendlyness, quality documentation, and a common GUI are holding Linux back, I don't know what to tell you. But they are.
Someone with moderator points, please mod parent back up. It might sting, but it's true.
PuTTY works well. I don't have a link, but it's popular and easy to find.
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Slashdot: News For Zealots. Stuff That's Hypocritical.
Nope, wrong. /bin and /sbin are binaries necessary for system bootup, before the /usr partition is mounted. Bare minimum commands go here, like cp, rm, vi, init, etc. All should be statically linked. /sbin and /usr/sbin hold commands like reboot, shutdown and init and are intended for root use only.
Paul Anderson
"I drank WHAT?!" -- Socrates
When I started to get into linux 2 years ago, linuxnewbie.org was an invaluable resource, and the plain english NHF's, and friendly people, were a welcome break from the (then) cryptic HOWTO's and man pages.
Now I generally hang out at linuxjunior.org - which is similar in function.
Newbies dont know now to post "my rpm wont install" to kernel-hackers, and many people get fed up the 5th time in the day they tell someone to type ls -a to see their ".foo" file. Thats where these sites (and sites like linuxorbit and linuxquestions) come in.
Copuple with the horrible GUI windows-esque installs of distros like mandrake, and WM's like KDE, its never been easier to make the move. People can sit at a linux box, never even having heard of it before, and manage to get to their favourite website (if the system is set up).
While any pro-newbie move is good, this would have been news 2 or 3 years ago, not now.
I don't *really* know but I'm thinking maybe because the "first" digit is zero, and the "second" digit is one... So... Things start counting from space zero.
Initially i thought this would be a paper for every windows user transitioning to linux but that obviously isn't the case. It seems that only proficient windows users would understand the majority of the paper. all the talk about mounting and swapfiles and ports... i think that's too much for mom and pop users who expect their computer to work like magic... then again, they're also the last people to even think about linux. so i guess this is a good start down the road of demystifying linux and making it easier to understand.
isn't there some kind of auto config option for installing linux? if it were to be a desktop os to contend with... asking lots of technical questions is a lot to ask for a user, regardless of expertise. well, even though i'm not a linux user, i can't deny the sheer power of a good ol' command prompt =)
Most day-to-day computer users don't have a clue and they don't particularily want to get a clue. Thats fine, but thats hardly an argument for linux being useless. Home/end users are unimportant in the grand scheme of computing anyway. They will eventually just be using thin computers or some such derivative anyway.
As far as your quote "I'm going to make a bold statement now...There isn't one thing that I can do in Linux that can't be done in Windows." - Thats laughable. Try again when you have used computers for something besides writing email and browsing the web. Desktops aren't the entire world, only a small part. If you don't care to do anything other than read your email, than windows has probably got you covered, as does linux. If you want to run mathematic simulations, write your own sound processing interfaces, attach custom hardware to your computer, or whatever other crazy thing than you probably would be much better off with linux. Some of us just do more with our computers than the average desktop.
I've got a cheap acoustic guitar and a custom-cut and finished strat with custom electronics sitting right here. Sure, the strat can't play any notes the acoustic can't, but thats no reason to claim it's not a better guitar. It just takes someone knowledgable and skilled to use it to it's full potential.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
I spend more time helping new linux users find replacement applications than anything else. To help alleviate this, I have set up an easy to use linux software index that works a little different than most. Just choose the task you need to do and the index tells you the single best program to do it in linux and advice on common pitfalls with it. You used photoshop? Ok, choose Graphics -> High-end Editing and it will tell you all about getting and installing the Gimp. And so on.
There is some other general help stuff, but I feel that applications are what hold most people back. They surely aren't sticking with windows for the OS itself. The link is in my sig if you are interested.
Uninnovate - Only the finest in engineering.
If you're new to Linux or even been around a little while, you have to check out the LINUX Rute Users Tutorial and Exposition.
Been referencing it exclusively ever since I found it.
There is no need to use a SlashDot sig for SEO...
I noticed that on page 47, under the question "Where can I download or buy Linux software?" there is a link to slashdot, can someone explain to me where the download section of slashdot is?
Books suck... right up until the point where the electronic versions are controlled beyond the point of practical use.
-- Sinistar
Sites like *maclinux have had "getting into Linux" type HOWTO's for a while. Hell, I know I've _written_ a few ;)
My other car is first.
Despite your mod down to Troll status, you're quite right. The idea of needing to read a 50-page manual before using a piece of software has been obsolete since 1984. Most of the computer-using world knows that it's obsolete, but /. is a haven for command-line nostalgics. Apparently there are people who prefer to spend their time memorizing commands rather than using software to get something done, just as there are people who would rather tinker under their car's hoods than actually drive anywhere. I have nothing against this taste, but what seems to be missing on /. is an understanding that this inclination is and always will be in the minority.
Tim
I've known how to use UNIX for twenty years now, but I prefer to use my Macintosh. Everything is easier, and easier means faster, because the software works with me rather than against me. While system stability on the Mac is worse than on Linux, application stability is much better. I got a Linux box (Red Hat) last year out of curiosity, and played with a bunch of software I downloaded, but everything about the application software was so painful, awkward, ugly, slow and unreliable that I found myself still using the Mac for everything. After a few months of idle time on the Linux box I gave it away. I haven't missed it once.
Tim
you can never be totally secure.
"I keep looking in the want-ads under 'revolutionary' but there don't seem to be any listings.. "
In Linux, you STILL need to care about:
Moving to Linux is a good try, but don't treat it as a solution to your Windows problems, especially when half of the Windows problems are related to hardware. You just add a little bit more when you use Linux because you cannot find enough drivers...
¦ ©® ±
It is always nice to spot an occassional reasonable person on Slashdot. Thanks for posting.
Spoken like someone with a very short memory. As someone who had to migrate his user base to Windows in the first place, I can tell you that Windows was not intuitive nor easy for many end users. To those who were trained in the command-line and text-menu environments which preceded it, the iconographic conventions of Windows were often very confusing. Hell, even the mouse took getting used to for some folx! Over and over again, we'd get complaints that Windows was "too hard" or "too confusing" from people who had no trouble with WordPerfect 5.1....
The point of this, of course, is that no interface is truly "intuitive"; the approachability of a new interface is rather a factor of the extent to which it mirrors those with which you are already familiar. For those who were raised on Windows, it is "obvious" that Windows is the more "intuitive" OS. For someone raised in DOS, Linux, CP/M, TOPS 20, or what-the-hell-ever, it would be equally "obvious" that theirs was the "intuitive" one.
Don't confuse your implicit training with an inherent feature of the OS.
-Carter
I think one of the things that made using Linux not so difficult for me was that I grew up using DOS and VMS, and editing BBS configuration files since Junior High. Think about the newbies who've never had to leave the GUI world? In a lot of respects I think I like Linux so much because it brings me back to BBS days in a sense; it lets you become a provider of something (by setting up minor servers and stuff), and it gives you a chance to play around. Bringing up a config file in pico reminds me of fixing up dropfiles in DOS edit :)
Like a BBS, there was a default install -- but chances are you changed it to represent your own personality; Linux is similar. What packages you install and how you configure everything is almost an expression of yourself. Let us not forget the l33tness attitudes originated from the BBS scene.
Umm, it doesn't matter whose fault it is...it's a problem that you can't fix without major time invested.
You mean it has almost caught up with Mozilla for standards compliance?
Fuck standards compliance, I'll take slickness anyday. I don't care if the shit out of my dog's ass is standards compliant, it still stinks and that's pretty much on par with the NS/Mozilla experience...for users AND developers (Mozilla is poorly documented for developers and lacks the robust environment that IE provides)
So you seriously think that you could replace Windows with Linux on the desktop right now? Try setting up *any* type of office with just Linux as the OS. I guarantee I'll have a LOT easier time and get a MUCH better response from users using Windows than you would with Linux (and do it more quickly).
1)For linux to be mainstream, you shouldn't *need* to know how to use the console like an expert. Look at windows 2000, the command prompt is all but needed, you can do anything you want inside the GUI and all at a lot less hassle.
2)Anyone coming from a networked (read corporate) enviroment will know that not everyone can do everything, even sometimes on your own computer, otherwise, yes it might be hard to understand.
3)funny, when a program crashes in windows, most people say stupid windows instead of stupid program, funny
4)No one knows their hardware, only technical people, no one else cares as long as it is fast, and does what they want
5)You can do the same on windows, but once he runs into something he can't do, where does he turn? There are more windows experts that he probably know as opposed to linux.
6)Agreed, asumming you have done it yourself
7)Why should it take 2 hours to get a cdburner working? no matter what kind? ;)
I'm not a supporter of Microsoft by any means, but I think linux still has a long way to go before it can put up a serious threat to windows in the desktop enviroment. It has already been proven over and over that linux is vastly superior in the aspect of a server.
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
I don't have much need for pinging, my home network rarely goes down, and I don't use telnet, I use SSH instead - I don't like broadcasting passwords to the whole world. :)
Besides, most normal joeblow users don't need to ping anything, much less telnet just sysadmins and people like us :)
Winter 2010: With Glowing Hearts
I don't. the gs/gv packages from Slackware render it fine, and then there's xpdf if you don't like gv. If you really want, I just converted it just for you into Postscript using pdf2ps utility. Gimme yr email, or send an email to cpungent@linuxplanet.nu, and I'll send it to you.
C Pungent
Although they wouldn't have if it HAD been encrypted. I've already converted to ps for some guy here, if he wants it, although pdf is quite a bit smaller than ps....lemme see,
ls -l Docs/help/Linuxfaq.*
-rw-r--r-- 1 chris users 279663 Jul 28 07:51 Docs/help/Linuxfaq.pdf
-rw-r--r-- 1 chris users 3167720 Jul 28 08:09 Docs/help/Linuxfaq.ps
C Pungent
OK, I'll byte...
:-)
Q: Internet Explorer is 100x better than Netscape. So why should I run Linux when it doesn't have a decent web browser??
Nobody tells you to use Netscape, you can use the excellent Konqueror, Mozilla or even Opera instead.
Q: Windows is super easy to install. To install Linux I have to do an fdisk, whatever that is. What's the deal here?
Try one of those easy distros, Red Hat, Mandrake that come with a graphical disk editor, couldn't be easier.
Q: There aren't any WYSIWYG word processors for Linux. How should I do my school work??
StarOffice? Lyx? KWord?
Your last question is really lame
Of course.
It makes no sense to learn a little bit and use a stable OS.
The time you take to learn a little bit about Linux will amount to far less time you'll waste with system crashes, forced product "activation," virii and who knows what else.
I just visited to leave my two cents. It is sites like yours that make it a bit easier for potential Linux users to make the transition. If you wish, you may read an article I wrote for ExtremeTech on the subject of modems http://www.extremetech.com/article/0,3396,s%253D16 98%2526a%253D8217,00.asp a trap for unsuspecting Windows users.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
Thanks anonymous. I really didn't want to post in the "Homer Simpson" mode on Slashdot. Say hello to all the little anonymice for me.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
Get off your dead ass3essessesssess and lead the way. What I am trying to say is: for C/sake, actually DO something! Granted, it is not the mission of open source to proselytize, but you can find a way to give a helping hand from time to time. In other words, if you do not wish that the evil empire take control, do domething, like TEACHING. I'll sum it all up in one word: TEACH.
Rien n'est plus beau que le creux du 0.
This is not new, from long ago Linux comunity helps windows users with lots of documentation like this to enter the GNU world.
All of those greyed out menu options eventually drive us to the command line, or defeat.
That's funny, I've used OpenVMS, Linux, Apple II, Apple III, Lisa, MacOS, Atari (all of the early ones), Commodore, OS2, and every version of DOS and Windows. More importantly I've watched others try to learn each of those and you know what? To a novice computer user or someone who really knows how computers work Linux doesn't take any longer to get good at. Anybody can learn enough to think they're good at the GUI based OS's but the odds are they'll never learn enough about how computers work to make their knowledge transferable to other systems. Linux isn't that hard unless you make it that hard. But, if you really learn Linux you will find that a lot of the concepts will transfer to any OS you use. This makes all of your computer use more productive.
"If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then you are not really alive." Myself
Then how come everybody I know who has bought a Windows PC without previous experience has purchased at least one book on how to use it. And pestered me constantly to show them how to install software, or send email, or ...? The answer is: because they didn't learn how the computer works. Not only do they never learn the capabilities of the OS they have but they are totally lost when they upgrade and any part of the interface has changed. The only PC owners I know who are truly happy with their purchase are those who took the time and effort to understand this machine that they spent so much money on.
"If there is nothing you are willing to die for, then you are not really alive." Myself
Goatse.cx has an excellent, nearly complete collection of HOW-TOs and even full-blown guides on just about anything related for Linux. Certainly worth more of my time than working for money to buy an overpriced O'Reilly book.
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Is your company running tools written by ma
l fail to see any reason it would not be good financially, "especially for schools"? What makes schools special, since most schools accept hardware donations and need to install an OS in-house? Or, if purchasing systems, can use Dell or one of the few hardware vendors who will install either linux, or a much cheaper old copy of Windows (one that wouldn't be good for educational purposes, but is just right for FDISK'ing).
For school, servers, businesses and anyone doing development, lisencing is a must. You can argue that people will borrow a copy of Widows from a friend and install it on their home PC, but for businesses, it isn't worth the risk
You also seem to have conveniently left out the portion of Microsoft's EULA which gaurantees the right to not use Windows and receive a full refund on the cost of software, if said software came preinstalled on your system...getting a $100 refund and dropping a free copy of linux on your machines is financially sound..
http://zork.net/refund
-but my username really is Anonymous Coward!
What is the difference between /bin and /sbin?
"... if you're not using linux because you A)want to try out new things and B)want to get into the guts of an OS, then you're probably safer with windows and AOL anyway... "
what is this , a mega troll ?
what about all the scientists, all the non-OS programers and other "simple users" (whose work may be more complex than OS development, an important task by itself.)
yes, there are a few people actually USING the OS instead of developing it, or talking about it.
this kind of attitude just encourages computer illiteracy, it is the "I'm the hardware wizard and you the little non-sys-admin lizards are unworthy of linux" approach which helped unix so well in the past.
oh, and by the way: yes, most linux users are technical personas by nature (I am). I thought expanding the user base from this (pseudo ?) elite is one of the goals of the linux software R&D
-- this rant is not intended to be personal, it is against a social trend.
Working for necessity's mother.
The way I "expanded the command line" in the W2K at work was by going "g bash for windows download" :)
Actually, we started looking for BASH for Windoze as a joke, and I thought, oh well, google might as well find anything, so let's give it a shot. Get binutils and grep for win with it and slowly turn your windoze shell into something useful. Scripts, anyone?
Carlos
Why does Linux always follow BSD's example?
Humpty Dumpty was pushed.
When I read all these articles about intuitive interfaces here, I tried to find out what I especially dislike about the graphical UIs. I made an interresting psychological discovery (I'm talking about people with a fair amount of experience, not newbies): when I go through a directory-tree using a file-manager, my mind is in a permanent state of "not-knowing" - searching for files and searching for menu-items. I certainly know what I want and how to do it, but first I have to find it in the interface - *every time*. This induces stress, makes me angry and helpless. This is mostly unconscious and it comes in small doses which sum up over the day, so it may be not obvious why you are feeling bad when you come home from work. The worst thing is that I can't do anything about it, because it's immanent to this way of computing - so I feel I'm doomed. Well, maybe I'm just too sensitive, but that's the way I feel.
OTOH when I use the CLI, I'm always in a state of "knowing" (assuming I read the documentation). When I know what I want and how to do it (e.g. change directory to a certain path), I *just type it in*. No searching, no confusion, no feelings of being lost.
Happy End.
1) You don't *need* to. But if you want to learn how the system works, then it's a good idea. (yes, in this place that a lot of people talk about called mainstream they don't want to). 4) Unfortunetly not all hardware is recognized out of the box, but the same goes for Windows. I used to work configuring Windows systems a few years ago and I can't tell how many times I needed a CD/floopy driver disk to configure a hardware, because Windows didn't have the driver. Linux doesn't need extra drivers disks, every six months a new release of your favorite distribution is out with all the new drivers. 5) There are far more Linux sites than Windows ones. I know Windows is mores used but I can assure you 99% of Windows users don't know a site with Windows tutorials and forums where people can help each other. Of course, in that place you mentioned earlier (mainstream?), when Linux was installed they had a boxed version, so they have someone to turn to for help. Same for users, who paid 30 USD for Linux instead of 200 for Windows. 6) If you want to learn how the system actually works (you don't have to / Windows doesn't allow that) Linux is the way to go. www.linuxdoc.org has more than anyone can teach you. 7) my CD writer was configured out of the box in the latest version of Red Hat Linux.
Gee, I hope it's not encrypted ;)
I was excited to find that someone posted something for the new Linux user on /. (most of the users here give the impressoin that they have been using Linux from 1.0.0).
My only question is... Why link to a story if the only way you can read it is if you use Adobe programs? Can anybody point me where I could find a good FAQ, or book IN print for the Win to linux person? Thanks
Math is like sex. People who get it are popular in class, people who don't are not.
I have to agree. I tend to migrate to my Mac simply because I don't have to spend hours trying to figure something out to get whatever done I need done. Don't get me wrong, though. I like to tinker, and I have a laptop with Redhat installed on it that I fiddle with, if nothing more than a curiosity. Linux itself may be stable, but as you mentioned, the applications are hit and miss....free doesn't always mean better.... :)
Just use what you like...don't let anyone make you feel stupid for not choosing linux.
I don't hate linux, nor do I feel somehow dumber than most because I work with my Mac more. I do feel silly that I can't stop playing Heroes of Might and Magic III though.