Slashdot Mirror
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."
If nothing else, then at least to play a lot of our games.
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.
Tluin natha Linux xxizzuss uriu olt bwael mon'tun.
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:
.nyud.net:8090 to the domain name.
coralized link
Future submitters: PLEASE PLEASE use coralized links! It's easy -- just add
I'm not sure what things the blurb poster was talking about, but I use OSX, Solaris and Ubuntu for my desktops at home and work EXCLUSIVELY and Debian on my production server on the west coast. The only thing Windows does for me is play my games - which I barely even do anymore anyway.
So seriously, what's so great about windows that linux or OSX can't do for you (obviously solaris isn't as geared to a few of these things, but still...)? Calendaring? Email? Managing your website? Writing letters and documents and spreadsheets? Personal wikis? Photo albums? Dinky little flash games? Instant messaging? Watching movies? Listening to music? Making music? Coding? P2P/Bit Torrent?
Exactly what is there that you can't do on a non windows box?
"It's amazing how many day-to-day operations require the inadvertent use of Windows in our daily lives."
Maybe this is true at first, however after several months of using Linux I began to see the FOSS alternatives to using windows and now I haven't had windows installed for about 9 months.
It seems like switching to Linux should be more gradual. Linux has a steep learning curve. If you try to jump in all at once your more likely to get a bad impression when you can't figure out how to play a dvd, or even 'mount' the cdrom drive.
Linux strikes me as more the OS of choise for tech types (engineers, IT pros, etc), as its much more robust at those type of applications than Windows.
I think it all depends on the environment.
"Simplify, simplify, simplify!" Thoreau
I put my aged PII 400MHz home computer over to Linux a few years ago (well 2002 actually) and since then my Wife has suffered not a single case of having to reboot using the plug-socket, not a single crash and not a single failed application.
Until she got her iPod... so now we are buying a new PC, just so she doesn't have to use my work machine for iTunes.
My mother had an horrific attack of the virii which has meant I had to do a complete re-install of windows, and I've lobbed SUSE onto the other partition to help the recovery next time. My mother has elected to use SUSE to access the internet, and just go into Windows when she has to use the software from work.
My wife does email, internet, work processing and accounts, pretty much the same as my mother. BOTH have faired perfectly well with Linux (SUSE), with less hassle to me than on Windows.
And here is the kicker... installing Windows on a SATA drive was a pain in the arse, my mothers machine having no floppy drive and Windows not being able to detect the SATA (even in an SP2 install) SUSE 9.3.... had no issues and went straight on.
I couldn't WORK on Linux yet... but for the majority of INTERNET users who just want EMAIL, a browser and OpenOffice.... it really doesn't matter.
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I cannot truly reply to the article considering it was /.'ed before any reply was posted, but I have been part of a trial of Linux workstations at work. Our sysadmins are Windows folks, but with a good original image, I can't see a Linux transition being that hard.
.lwp or .123 format, but it has not been a big issue.
I haven't had many problems at all. Our main issue was that we still use a native OS/2 application, and because we have ditched OS/2 we need a remote desktop connection to a Windows box to then launch Virtual PC and our OS/2 app. Not the easiest and lightest of setups, but it works.
We need Wine for a few apps too, but they run fine under it. Sometimes I'll get Lotus Word Pro or 1-2-3 documents that I cannot return in their original format as Open Office won't let me save in
(If after all those hints you cannot guess what company I work in, you really need to think harder...)
Anyhow, maybe I wasn't sure after home use how easily Linux could be considered in an office environment, but our main problem really is some intranet pages being designed for IE only.
I eventually got the first page of that article to load, which leads me to think the author may be criticising how difficult it can be to get everything working - but if you have built a solid image, there is no reason why Linux should be any more difficult to use than Windows.
Disclaimer: I use OS X, and openoffice.
There is NO WAY IN HELL NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice replace the MS office suite. No matter what people claim, they still break plenty of office docs that get emailed to me, and forget about replacing powerpoint. Apple's Keynote does a pretty good job but isn't anywhere near as feature-filled as powerpoint. I try to use alternate software as much as possible, but I keep a copy of MS office installed too.
And there's still the occasional app I run on my windows box at home that just doesn't have a replacement on OS X. I love my mac, but we're a long way from a M$-free world.
Play "Blue Screen of Death" and "Guess Which Driver Is Causing A Problem Today."
Today the Microsoft database index at work ate itself and I'm waiting seven hours for it to re-index a couple of million documents. I said to one of the guys trying to fix things, "How come every time you guys tell me something bad it begins with the word 'Microsoft?'"
-- I'm old enough to have lived through six different meanings of the word "hacker."
I'm not touching MS Office in part because I can't pay for it and I'm not going to do this copyright infringement thing.
I think it would be hypocritical of myself (and others) if I / they complain about GPL infringement when the complainers themselves don't care that they themselves are committing acts of infringement themselves.
Or we can just use stuff like coral cache and not destroy the person's server. Yeah, it's slower. But it's cheaper for the person whose server it was, and everyone gets the article.
Over the last few years I've read some comments on slashdot about schools teaching linux, and I've just now had an idea that I think might be practical.
I remember in elementary school, once a week or so my class would be herded into the computer lab to learn how to use a word processor and spreadsheet app on the school's Apple IIe computers. I spent a lot more time playing Oregon Trail and playing around with BASIC on those computers, but I definitely learned the underlying concepts about using a word processor or spreadsheet, and was able to really easily transition to Wordstar 5 for DOS and later other apps.
It wasn't so much about typing a letter to the editor or whatever we were doing back then, as it was about being comfortable accomplishing a certain set of steps with a computer.
I wonder, then, if you had 30 third grade students in a computer lab, 10 using Windows, 10 using Mac OS, and 10 using Linux (perhaps Red Hat? whatever is dominating is probably wisest), could you ask them all to accomplish essentially the same task? Of course, I mean that they should rotate to each machine, although not necessarily during a single class session, and be exposed to all the machines.
Any teachers out there? Does this idea make any sense?
I have traditionally been a windows user. Up until I got sick of all the b.s. that came along with it. I installed Slackware (my favorite server distro) on my desktop and have been running with it for 18months. I have even got my girlfriend into using the desktop (KDE). Yes there are some problems with Office documents and features etc But for the majority of people power point presentations etc are not something that needs doing on a regular basis and there are some excellent html/java slide show creators that can do very similar jobs. Taking all that on board YES there is a long way for KDE/Gnome and the others to improve on the desktop but at the same time it has come along way and for the majority of internet users it would have more than enough features and software for average joes and jills at home browsing and chatting...
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.
MS Office still breaks a lot of MS Office documents.
Choose your poison
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
[..]we're a long way from a M$-free world.
Actually, we're there now, considering there is no company on the planet called 'M$'
BeauHD. Worst editor since kdawson.
It is my understanding that Microsoft will ONLY give schools "free" software if they agree not to use software from other vendors, including Linux and other free and/or open source software.
I don't think that should be even legal.
I can't read the article at the moment seeing as their database doesn't appear to be able to cope with the Slashdotting but simply put, switching over is a nightmare.
Before all the BSD/Linux/OSX users jump me, let me tell you I'm desperate to get off Microsoft software, however, I can't very well dump 10 years of computing experience and instantaneously learn 10 years of FreeBSD.
My 1 year plan of attack:
1) Start to use Open Source software on Windows
2) Move exclusively to Open Source software on Windows
3) Move over to FreeBSD
Right now, I'm almost at stage 2. I'm waiting for a decent calendaring solution and I'm good to go*.
Everything else I use is now Open Source. It's been a painful 8 months but I'm working hard to give this a chance.
Now, the interesting part comes when you start to move over to a new OS. It's a complete nightmare!!!
I've heard a lot of people say it's as easy as putting in the RHL disk and clicking a few buttons and I agree. It is, so long as you're only wanting to do office grade work!
Don't get me wrong, I can install RHL, Debian, FreeBSD and run it fine so long as I only want to use the web, send email, create some artwork, etc but if I want to install PHP, Apache, PostgreSQL, Postfix, BIND and connect to a network (Samba) then I'm going to be here for a good few months just to get it working (properly and securely - not hope-and-pray).
Once I've got it working, should something go wrong, I'm down for another day/week if I don't understand how things work.
I am an Open Source advocate but I don't for one second believe a switch-over is going to be easy and neither should anyone else here.
What we need to do is manage people's expectations of moving over. If you think it'll take less than 6 months to do the switch, then you're probably not a developer and I imagine most of the Windows users here do some form of development.
Anyway, enough of the ranting. I look forward to the day I can finally switch over.
Here's a big thank-you to all the Open Source developers who work so hard to give us our freedom!
* I still have to use IE for work to make websites 'work'.
A hundred and twenty characters ought to be enough for anyone...
How do you do it gradually? I've actually been running Linux on my desktop at work some, because I need to learn more about it. We are going to start offically supporting it and unlike Windows and Solairs, we don't really have any gurus, so we all need to learn more about it. The problem is, that I find I have to force myself to boot in to Linux. Why? Well it, at best, does things as well as Windows does and in many cases does them much worse, or just not at all.
So of course I do the natural thing, I take the path of least resistance and just leave my machine in Windows, espically whenever I get busy.
Now I'm willing to do this, I'm a tech worker, it's my job to understand how to support our systems. However how is this supposed to apply to an average user? They are going to be very unimpressed if you tell them "Ya well you can do some of what you want easily in Linux, the rest you'll just have to figure out or do without." They are likely to just go back to Windows perminantly.
I think it's fairly difficult for most people to switch if there isn't an ideological reason behind it. You just don't find any advantages as an end user. For some it might seem like it initally, those that are spyware'd all to hell will probably find Linux a relief initally since it'll be faster and work stable, but soon, very soon, other annoyances and problems will creep in and they'll be frustrated all over again.
This is really the area that Linux needs to improve in, if the objective is to penetrate the mass market and really compete with Windows. It needs to be easy for completely non-technical people to switch over. This is getting more true as MS is slowly erroding advantages Linux once had.
Time was, Windows just wouldn't stay up. It wasn't a question of if it went down, just when. Not the case anymore, a good XP system will basically never crash, and it'll handle patching while you sleep so from a user perspective, it's never down. Likewise spyware and exploits were/are major problems, but they are clamping down on that too. The included firewall stops nearly all automatic worms, and their spyware tool is really quite slick and I imagine will make a major dent when it is in a release state.
So really what Linux needs to concentrate on is an easier end-user experience. Now leaps and bounds have been made in that area. I remember the first time I tried Linux in 1996 and had to get a friend who was an expert to help me even get it installed, now for most research systems in the department I drop an FC3 CD in, install, patch, setup LDAP, run our automount script and call it good. However there's still a long way to go.
One thing, for example, is the install process. For almost all Windows software, including most OSS, the install process invloves clicking on an executable which launched a nice graphical installer. This walks you through any options, and then does all the install needed. Any libraries that need updating are updated, all settings are taken care of, etc. In Linux, things are usually at best a make script. Now when it works, it's pretty easy. Config, make, make install, what's so hard about that?
Well it's intimidating. Normal users, and even us tech peopel that can't program, get intimidated by the compiler. It's something that's way outside the experience of normal users. And then what if something goes wrong? I've had make scripts fail and generally I'm sunk, I don't understand the errors because I don't know C or compilers. Imagine how an artist feels.
So things like that really need to be improved, if Linux in teh mainstream is a goal. Most users won't give a new OS months, many won't even give it a week. It'd better do what they want for word go, or they'll dump it.
Instead, under Linux, you get to play:
"Guess which driver is not supported today."
For instance, when I did a kernel upgrade, I lost video driver support, my vid driver was too old, OK, go get another one, hey look, my video card was NO LONGER SUPPORTED by the newest video card driver.
Gee thanks Nvidia! Because we all know that Linux is primarily about gaming and that no one would dare use an OLDER video card on a Linux box? Right?
Granted this particular problem is Nvidia's fault, but then there are the sound drivers. . . .
Oh and why does something as simple as getting a frame buffered console require me to recieve conflicting advice on exactly which packages to emerge, and then editing of a script file?
Installing Java on Linux, hey, just as much fun! Only 3 or so files to edit in order to get the paths setup right. Don't count on advice from any ONE site since every distro is different! Fuuuun....
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
Indeed.
And if the submitter of the story had taken the trouble to read it, he might have noticed that nearly every link supplied points at Microsoft. Even the link supposedly referring to OpenOffice.org points at a Microsoft propaganda article.
Microsoft Security Bulletin
MS08-021
Windows User Experiment Could Promote Linux Code Execution And Loss of Revenue (8399801)
Summary
Who should read this bulletin:
Users running Microsoft ® Windows ®
Impact of vulnerability:
Run code of users choice
Maximum Severity Rating:
Critical
Recommendation:
Windows Systems administrators should apply nicotine patch immediately.
Disclaimer: I'm a Mac OS X convert as of two months ago. Before that I was a FreeBSD / Linux person that used Windows for various things (Office, games, etc) but without much enjoyment.
Windows: Tries to get in your way, force you to do things its way, doesn't provide a decent option to de-dumb globally. Office is a nightmare of over-featured bloat that most users will never use. When something goes wrong, it takes ages to fix because whilst you know what is wrong, Windows tries to stop you fixing it.
Linux / FreeBSD: Works well. If you know your stuff, it is easy to fix stuff and set up. I've had issues with upgrades however, after some time it will eventually mess up. Desktop applications are a mishmash of good and bad, or poorly thought out in a single crucial aspect whilst being very powerful.
Mac OS X: Doesn't get in your way. Allows you to actually get work done. Many applications are much more specific in their task (alternatively known as not having as many features, but the features that it does have actually work as you expect them to). Dashboard sucks. I don't think it can be beaten as an end-user operating system, however I can see that it lacks certain things that corporations would like in a desktop computer.
Computers come down to personal preference and what you are used to. If you only know how to do something in Windows and you aren't of a mind to sit down and learn how it is done in Linux or Mac OS X, then you are simply going to state that you need Windows for that task. Despite the frustration that you might have with it in Windows (e.g., tables in Word).
One thing that I like about Mac OS X is that it generally eschews the dozens of small icons in a toolbar that you can't really make out that well and thus never really use. Applications like Pages, Keynote, Mail and so on have a few buttons that bring up or hide inspectors or sidebars. A good design guide means that you'll always know how to do the common tasks (save, open, print) and you don't need a small icon that is hard to hit (Fitt's Law) present.
However it will take you a while to get used to this alternative way of working. Once you are there though, you will know you are more productive and find computing much less of a drag. What is unfortunate is that this goes for migrating from Linux or FreeBSD as well as migrating from Windows.
Also there are issues such as Logitech's APPALLING lack of support for Mac OS X for their webcam range. Canon's DIRE support for their scanners (hurrah for ScanVue). Samsung's AWFUL support for their printers (can't use my 1 year old ML-2250 under Mac OS X, but you can under Windows and Linux, sheesh). Now that the Mac seems to be having a small revival, maybe some companies will spend a little time on supporting it. When you run into something like this, it can be very demoralising, and appear as a negative against the OS.
But is there anything I *must* use Windows for? I can't think of anything in my line of work that couldn't be done in Mac OS X. However I think that there are big gaps in the software range for Linux, such as good finance/accounting/tax applications. Specialist software is another area where Windows can have a stranglehold, and if you use some of that, then you'll have issues.
Read Entire Story here
This link has entire story cache'd, and looks more like original site. Enjoy.
I8-D
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!