Windows User Experiments With Linux for 10 Days

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."

Comments

Wow...

[Matilda the Hun]

I didn't get past the first page yet (slashdotted), but it would appear that this is...stupid. One, from his references of going to school, this is still a student. Two, his mentions of "using windows whether we know it or not" basically come down to one, the ATM which may or may not have embedded Windows. All of his other examples aren't things that most normal people have, let alone people who chose linux over windows (a Windows CE palm? a Windows Media Center connected TV?). I call possible bull.

Coral link

[JavaRob]

This technically isn't working at the moment, because the site is well and truly hosed... but PLEASE only try this link instead of hitting the main one, and eventually it will recover:

coralized link

Future submitters: PLEASE PLEASE use coralized links! It's easy -- just add .nyud.net:8090 to the domain name.

Re:Coral link

[slavemowgli]

Unfortunately, Coral only seems to have cached the error message about the database not being available, but here's the Google cache of the page. It's text only (naturally, since Google doesn't cache the images), but at least it allows you to read the article.

Re:Coral link

[Anonymous Coward]

That is just a cache of the first page.
The google cache of the full article (printable version) is available here

Re:My Wife, my mother and Linux...

[brokenwndw]

If your wife doesn't use iTMS, there are Linux sync solutions, e.g. gtkPod. Have you tried them?

Re:I kicked Windows to the Curb, too!

[Morganth]

Keynote is not as... feature-filled? As Powerpoint?

Are you nuts, or something?

I may be a Linux user, but I've had to put together my share of presentations. I've used Powerpoint, I've used OpenOffice. But then one time, while I was borrowing a friend's Powerbook G4 for a few weeks, I put one together in Keynote. It is, at the very least, the best presentation software ever written, and what's more, it's a pleasure to use. Aligning elements is easy with smartly-coded guides, the output for the presentations are wonderful with elegant themes and fonts, and the transitions are elegant with accelerated 3D transitions and such. But more than anything else, the damn program just "got out of my way." I didn't spend hours tweaking this or that text element a few pixels to the left or right. The damn presentation just came out beautifully even though I had never used the application before.

Powerpoint more featureful? Give me a break.

Re:I kicked Windows to the Curb, too!

[danharan]

MS Office still breaks a lot of MS Office documents.

Choose your poison

Re:Necessary Evil

[jasen666]

wmv has several differences. They have scripting abilities built-in, and can indeed make popups, download drm licenses, and in some cases install spyware. It's been documented. Playing a WMV in Windows Media player is about as safe as surfing pr0n sites with IE, if you don't have activeX and scripting disabled.
However, I don't believe other players run the scripts in wmv files. But I could be wrong.

Re:Necessary Evil

[Pharmboy]

I am in the same boat. Windows on regular desktops, Linux on servers and a couple testing desktops. Just can't run the software that business requires on Linux yet. And so far, most Linux desktops are burdened with TOO MANY choices, making it unnecessarily complicated for the average user.

I personally WANT to run Linux on the desktop, not because of cost (we pitch computers every 3 years, never actually "buy" either) or for political reasons (although I am not fond of MS's tactics). Its about the freedom to use the software, and how much easier some tasks are in Linux vs. Windows. I can hack around with Perl and automate backups, updates, and ssh into each station, which is much harder in windows. Yes, there are ways in Windows, but I already know the *nix ways, which are more universal.

To me, I can get more done with Linux on the desktop, I just can't run the software I need in a production environment. So the most productive way for us is Windows desktops/Linux servers.

Even better link...

[Kamiza Ikioi]

Read Entire Story here

This link has entire story cache'd, and looks more like original site. Enjoy.

And the other big myth:

[Hosiah]

The biggest myth of all: Windows is easy to learn and use.

Oh, yeah? Tell me, Windows loyalists, did you ever get Outlook Express to understand the concept of multiple email accounts and different stationary/spam filters for each? Figure out how to stop Windows from dumping icons all over the screen? Get rid of the MS Network and Network Neighborhood because you never use it? Get Windows to recognise your new graphics card without a struggle? Stop Real Player from firing up at startup and immediately demanding your whole machine's resources? Completely remove software you uninstall, without having to go in and manually delete folders? Confess to you where it hides ALL the cookies and let you clean them ALL out? Not show the taskbar?

Yes, I'm sure everybody's done some of what's on this list... but you weren't born knowing how? Right? You had to...guess what?...READ some DOCUMENTATION to learn how to make it do what you want! After all, if Windows is just SO-O-O-O silly easy, why were manuals written about it "for Dummies" flying off the bookstore shelves from 1985 to 1995 or so? Why would people need things simplified to the "Dummies" level if it were as simple as could be, already?

Linux comes with it's own "for Dummies" docs, free. Man pages, info pages, html docbooks, et cettera ad infinitum. Just have a gander through /usr/share/doc and you learn everything in Linux just like the "for Dummies" books in Windows!

Re:Necessary Evil

[STFS]

Yup, we here in Iceland have that problem too. In my school we had to do without trashcans for a few months because the architect had chosen some designer trashcans from Italy and instead of puttin in "ugly" replacements we had to wait until the Italian ones arrived!

And don't dare mod this as funny! It's true!