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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.
"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.
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.
That's funny. I worked at Microsoft a few years ago (2000-ish).
I remember the bank tech coming in one day to service the ATM machine in the cafeteria. As it booted up, you could see the OS/2 logo. I asked him about it and he kinda mumbled that he tried not to let people see that.
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.
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?
That is just a cache of the first page.
The google cache of the full article (printable version) is available here
MS Office still breaks a lot of MS Office documents.
Choose your poison
Information: "I want to be anthropomorphized"
Page two isn't much better:
Not only is it pretty much the most popular desktop environment available with this distro but it's also the most recommended to new users as it offers a very clean and attractive GUI (general user interface).
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...
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
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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!
Apples and oranges. Coke and Pepsi sell their product to these companies, and in many instances, actually own them as part of their diversified portfolio. At one time Pepsi-cola owned KFC. Don't know if they still do or not.
Microsoft gives schools the software, takes a tax break for it, and then locks the schools down to using only their software, which benefits them financially in the long run.
And after the school has removed all Linux and gotten rid of the techs that used it, MS may NOT give them more software the next time they need it. In fact, they may force them to buy it.
This has happened. MS made a school remove GIMP, then refused grant to cover purchasing Photoshop.
Of course, I'm not saying this isn't brilliant. MS gives the school a disc which costs 27 cents and "bills" the US Gov for list price (through IRS), and creates a whole new generation of MS button monkeys.
I just think it's laughable to call it "charity."