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Windows Tech Writer Looks at Linux

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the outside-looking-in dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Three days ago I accepted Linux into my life and while I'm not yet a convert, the experience has shaken my faith in Windows. It's hard to reconcile because for nearly 20 years I've mostly stayed on the one true Windows path."

23 of 664 comments (clear)

  1. 20 years of windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's hard to reconcile because for nearly 20 years I've mostly stayed on the one true Windows path.

    If you were using Windows in 1984 and kept using it... you have more problems than just trying to reconcile an OS.

    wow

    1. Re:20 years of windows by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      This must be the guy who makes up all the job ads for "required: 20 years windows 95 experience" and "required: 10 years programming in java 1.4"

    2. Re:20 years of windows by Chyeburashka · · Score: 5, Interesting
      From the article:
      I was a disciple from the beginning when it was called Dos, and kept the faith through the buggy, painful years of Windows 1.0 to 3.11.
      Windows 1.0 was released around November 1985, so nearly 20 years is not an exaggeration, especially since he is counting the DOS days too.
    3. Re:20 years of windows by IntlHarvester · · Score: 5, Insightful

      A decade ago, getting access to Unix was HARD. Sure, a few people could get a shell in a university timeshare setup. However, running 'ls' and 'pine' as non-root in a term emulator doesn't really compare to running a modern productive Unix 'desktop'.

      I know a few guys like the author. People working with PCs in a business setting had DOS/Novell/OS2/Windows/NT and tons of apps and languages to deal with. Non-PC systems were usually VMS or IBM. Unix was easy to avoid because that's not where the applications were. (That's all changed, but only in the last 5 years or so as UNIX took over the high-end and Linux made the low-end accesible.)

      If you're advocating, it's important to grok that "PC Culture" is as old and entrenced as Unix culture. People just don't like to throw out 20 years of What They Know for something different. In a lot of ways, Linux is the bridge between the PC world and the Unix world, but it's still a big jump to make.

      --
      Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  2. It's okay Bill by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    We hold no grudge. Just donate half your money to the free software foundation. Thanks a million.

  3. Favorite quote by Rebar · · Score: 5, Funny
    but the modem was a nightmare taking an hour or so to resolve

    Sheer hell, it sounds like!

    1. Re:Favorite quote by hatstandman · · Score: 5, Insightful

      This kind of feeling / comment can't be encouraging for people who want to make the switch from MS. As it mentions in the article (and a comment above), he had two 'nice, not pushy' guys to help with his install - people who would probably help him with a problem like this rather than sit back and laugh.

    2. Re:Favorite quote by Mr.+Piddle · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sheer hell, it sounds like!

      Back in the day, attempting to decipher the poorly written, unorganized, and very cryptic ppp, slip, and chat documentation could take hours if not weekends.

      An hour is clearly a milestone of progress, here.

      --
      Vote in November. You won't regret it.
  4. "Good" Column by fuzzeli · · Score: 5, Funny

    "That" was a "nice" "article" about "something".

  5. Hm... by Binary+Gibbon · · Score: 5, Funny

    You'd think a 'technical writer' or 'IT Editor' would be a little more knowledgeable about 'basic computing concepts' like 'disk partitioning' and maybe wouldn't use so many 'extraneous unnecessary quotation marks'.

  6. uh huh by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "Three days ago I accepted Linux into my life and while I'm not yet a convert, the experience has shaken my faith in Windows. It's hard to reconcile because for nearly 20 years I've mostly stayed on the one true Windows path."

    If they have been using Windows for 20 years they are foremost a technical person, early adopter, and to some extent a knowledgable computer person.

    The fact that Linux is always an "alternative" to Windows is in my opinion, just furthering the saying that "Linux is for people that hate Windows, BSD is for people that love UNIX". Why do Linux users always have to profess their fate to Linus & Stallman and in the same breath say something, ANYTHING, about Windows?

    I run FreeBSD & NetBSD because I love UNIX and its capabilities and its features and EVERYTHING. It has nothing to do with Windows. Ever. I still run Windows XP and 2K. With Linux users it seems to be a conversion of holy nature like they are becoming a shaolin priest and can't look back....why?

  7. Re:Have we not seen this before? by Martin+Kallisti · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, as most other people here, I support Linux. However, that does not mean that I think Slashdot should be just a propaganda machine, pumping out all positive material regarding Linux that the editors can find, no matter how newsworthy it is. I come here to read news for nerds, stuff that matters, not just to be subjected to "Microsoft sucks and Linux is the best".

  8. Linux Prayer by robbyjo · · Score: 5, Funny

    The author should close with the Linux Prayer:

    Our PC GOD Torvalds, which art in Transmeta^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^H OSDN
    Hallowed be thy skillz
    Thy kernel comes, in the US and all the earth
    Give us this day our daily updates.
    And forgive us our holes, as we apply thine patch.
    And lead us not into closed source, but deliver us from Microsoft.
    For thine is the kernel, the skillz, and the leetness for ever and ever. Amen.

    Only THEN, he can say: "Praise the PC god and Linux open-source apostles, I'm a believer."

    --

    --
    Error 500: Internal sig error
  9. I think this was the newsworthy portion.... by JohnTheFisherman · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The gift came to me via David and Roger, two very nice, not pushy, Linux missionaries who are involved with the coming Linux Installfest.

    It wouldn't hurt to have more of their type.

    --
    +5:offtopic,but anti-American
  10. Re:Defrag? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    You defrag to make it easier to repartition the disck drive. Without defraging you may be limit on how much you can shrink a partition because of a file out near the end.

  11. Re:The Windows only path by anonymous+loser · · Score: 5, Informative

    RTFA. He liked MacOS (back in the day), but switched because he got a job at a PC mag, and also tried OS/2 but ended up going back to Windows. Let's also try to remember that he works at a PC mag, so more than likely everyone he works with uses Windows for their day-to-day activites, all the documents he works with are MS Office documents, etc. Why would you deliberately alienate yourself from everyone else, especially if you needed to be able to swap documents with everyone for work-related purposes? He doesn't follow Linux news, so he'd have no idea that stuff like OpenOffice even exist unless some kindly folks took the time to dispel his false assumptions.

  12. Re:I installed Linux (SuSE) before on my mom's PC by Mr.+Piddle · · Score: 5, Insightful

    .. the thing I found about Linux, is once you have it set up right, it is great for technophobes.

    This is true about UNIX, in general. While Windows would behave as if it were born in a universe with no cause and effect, Linux, OpenBSD, Solaris, etc. just behave. With UNIX, most problems are either up-front configuration issues or external issues, such as an ISP going down for an evening.

    UNIX is sort of like a hard mountain climb, which ends in a flat plateau of endless easy hiking with oasises along the way. Windows is just an endless climb where fatique makes hallucinations of plateaus appear and disapperar tauntingly.

    --
    Vote in November. You won't regret it.
  13. I want to believe. by Glonoinha · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Ok, I want to believe. I honestly do.

    I loaded RedHat around version 5.1 or 5.2 long, long ago - dedicated a machine to it, got it working, don't remember any of the particulars such as which shell I was using, hell it was 5 years ago (plus or minus.)

    I got it running one afternoon, configured the modem (external modems by Hayes / USR - accept no substitutes) and got it talking to my ISP, used some version of Netscape that easily adequate for surfing at the time, I totally dug the 8-way virtual display under the GUI, I almost understood where everything on my drive was and why, had fun with the screen backgrounds (XEarth, etc..) and then ... what?

    What did I do next? Not much else to do. None of my apps (read : games) were available at the time for Linux. I was unable to find replacements for any of my tools (read : an XTree clone such as ZTree, Office, Visual Studio, Drive Image, etc.) - I know now that there is a viable replacement for Office, but my professional experience doing development is on the MS platform. I have an entire support system for coming up with software on the MS platforms that I just haven't found (either where to find, or even that they exist) for Linux.

    And of course there is the real reason we own home computers (and yes, I already mentioned it) : games. Flight simulators. Everquest (et.al MMORPGs) MechWarrior 2/3/4. Battles of Destiny. Yes, I know that Q3 is available on Linux, as is Unreal (well I believe it is) and the UT series. Anything else?

    And as for cost ... people please. XP you have to pay for. Win9x, WinME, Windows 2000 are pretty much available for the asking on a trial basis. Assuming people are actually purchasing their applications the OS is a tiny fraction of the overall cost when you include their 3D modelling package, Photoshop, Games (Q3A for Linux wasn't free last time I checked, nor any of the Unreal series.)

    I would love to run a Linux box at home if for no other reason than the cool 8-way virtual desktop in the GUI ... but I don't think I could find 8 apps to run, one for each virtual desktop.

    Linux is good enough. Quit making it better and spend some time coming up with apps - now THAT will get people to convert.

    --
    Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
    1. Re:I want to believe. by eakerin · · Score: 5, Informative

      Redhat 5.2 was a much older distibution, compared to today's stuff, Similar in to windows 3.1 with windows 2000. There wasn't much available when windows 3.1 came out, and many people said, "I'll never move away from dos, the applications for windows just aren't there."

      Fast Forward to today.

      Most people wouldn't touch DOS anymore (Most Slashdot users exempted from that), and the application base is there now for windows.

      On the linux side most modern distros (Redhat 8/9) (Mandrake 9.1) (Suse 8.2) All include more applications than you could ever need. Need a word Processor, You've got 3, same with spreadsheets. File Managers, Got a few of them, Games, Lots of small ones, and If you want the better ones, You can use most of them through wine. and even a few Games have a native linux version Unreal Tournament, UT 2K3, Quake. I Run Warcraft 3 though winex, and it works great.

      As for Development, it comes with all the development tools you could need, 2 different SQL Based Databases (mysql, Postgresql), a Very nice IDE (Kdevelop), Photo Editors (The GIMP).

      And the list is only getting longer.
      You probably remember having trouble getting most hardware to work, That's a thing of the past as well, It's a rare case for me to install Linux, and have to manually configure hardware. Much better than my luck was ever with windows.

      All in all, linux has improved a lot over the years, and Is worth a try again.
      For something you can try out without committing yourself, Try Knoppix(mentioned a few times before) It includes an Amazing amount of applications.

    2. Re:I want to believe. by Cthefuture · · Score: 5, Informative

      Eh? Depends on what you do with your computer. RedHat 5?! You're talking massive changes since then.

      What did I do next? Not much else to do. None of my apps (read : games) were available at the time for Linux.

      All you do with your computer is play games?? Hmmm. True, maybe Linux isn't for you. Although I'm a hardcore Quake3 player so that's my favorite game and it just happens to run great in Linux. I play some Tribes2 and UT2003 in Linux also.

      I was unable to find replacements for any of my tools (read : an XTree clone such as ZTree, Office, Visual Studio, Drive Image, etc.)

      Xtree? Try "ytree" in Linux. Personally I'd rather use a GUI file explorer or the console though (Konqueror, Nautilus, ROX, etc.).

      Office? OpenOffice, Koffice, the GNOME office stuff... What applications do you use? There are many, many word processors besides the "office" suite versions. Same holds for the other applications.

      Visual Studio? I do a lot of VS development and agree there is nothing as good for Linux, but there are tools if you're into that kind of thing. Kdevelop, wxPython (VB-like), Eclipse, NetBeans, and many others. There are craploads of development tools on Linux.

      Drive Image??? How much time per day do you spend in that app?? There are a ton of backup applications for Linux. I can't comment on any of them because I don't back up as much as I should. Kbackup and others are easy to use.

      I mean what really do you spend your time doing on the computer?

      Need to web surf? MozillaFirebird, Mozilla, Opera, Netscape, Konqueror, Lynx, Nautilus, etc.

      E-Mail? Mozilla, Balsa, Kmail, mutt, pine, and all the others I'm forgetting about.

      Other popular and useful apps:
      The Gimp
      VMware

      I could just go on and on. It really doesn't sound like you gave Linux a fair shot. Plus that was 5 years ago, that's an eternity in computer terms.

      Burn the Knoppix ISO and you won't even need to do anything to your computer to run a newer Linux. It boots fully off the CD and contains a ton of applications. It will kinda chug because it has to read from the CD so much, but it works good enough and doesn't touch your current system.

      --
      The ratio of people to cake is too big
    3. Re:I want to believe. by dtolton · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm not buying your Red Hat 5.2 : Red Hat 9 :: Win3.1 : Win2k analogy. Windows 3.1 is a 16-bit DOS shell with a crude UI, and Windows 2000 is a 32-bit protected OS with pre-emptive multi-tasking.

      So by your logic, Windows XP really isn't all that different than Windows NT 3. I mean Windows NT 3.0 was 32 bit pre-emptively multi-tasked operating system. In fact if you look at the help about for Windows XP you will see that it is in fact only Windows 5.1 (Windows 2000 was 5.0). Windows XP, just has better hardware support and a better interface (packages aren't any better though).

      You are of course falling into the unfortunately common mistake of equating the kernel to the OS. They are not the same thing, yes Red Hat 9 runs a kernel that descended from the same kernel it ran with 5.2 (albeit significantly improved). However a kernel does not an Operating System make, just as a heart doesn't make a human being.

      There are significant differences between Red Hat 5.2 and Red Hat 9.0. All the Linux distributuins have underdone *tremendous* amounts of growth during the past 5 years. In fact they have changed far more dramatically than Windows has in that same time frame.

      --

      Doug Tolton

      "The destruction of a value which is, will not bring value to that which isn't." -John Galt
  14. Which is why... by Kjella · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Linux is not for ordinary people. It's for computer enthusiasts. Most people want to use the computer as a tool, not for its own sake. They have no interest in memorizing reams of arcane computer trivia in order to get email, surf the web, write, and work on spreadsheets. ...Windows comes preinstalled. If you have a properly set up distribution with some good default choices (OpenOffice, Evolution etc.) it is not really any harder than on Windows, apart from unfamiliarity. Getting a Linux geek there to install and configure it shouldn't be the problem, the question is what it takes to keep it running, and more importantly if it runs the software people want to run.

    Kjella

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  15. Technical Writers Can't Believe - No FrameMaker by Tackhead · · Score: 5, Insightful
    > GUI utilities are $599.40+tax a dozen in Windows, and a dime of bandwidth a dozen in Linux.

    Show me a Linux replacement for Adobe FrameMaker (or better yet, a port), and I'm there. Even at $599.40 or whatever Adobe's charging this week.

    The original article was written from the point of view of a technical writer. IMO, any technical writer using MSTurd for documents over 100 pages in length needs to have his head examined. (Fuckin' Windows print drivers that won't print the same Word document the same way on two computers, meantime the FrameMaker d00dz are happily writing stuff in Frame on their Windoze laptops, then checking the files in to the source code control system at work, where they resume working on them from their Solaris and Windoze and Mac desktop boxen.)

    I think FrameMaker's market share at the midrange of tech writers is pretty high, and for good reason. If you want to go beyond FrameMaker, you're talking even more money - Documentum-class document management systems, single sourcing from a big pile of XML into PDF, hardcopy, or HTML - but Linux ain't even in contention here.

    It's sorta like Photoshop vs. The Gimp. The Gimp's great for Joe Tuxpack's vacation photos, but if you're doing color separations for inks that are requires to print on a billboard, and you wanna be damn sure it's the shade of puce that your Marketing department wast^H^H^H^Hpaid half a million bucks in researching, sorry kids, break out the Photoshop.