Apology to Linux

[johnridley]

Last time I tried Linux on the desktop for real was probably 3 or 4 years ago. When I installed it back then, I didn't like it, but figured I'd stick with it for as long as possible and see if I grew to like it. I didn't.

Since then I've maintained that while it may work for a lot of people, it didn't work for me.

However, this latest attempt looks like it may very well stick permanently. Everything has been quite easy to get going. I've found Linux native equivalents for nearly everything I do. The only hard exception is that my Epson scanner simply is not, and never will be, supported; Epson just isn't interested in even releasing specs. So for that reason I have a virtualbox install of XP with just those drivers and Photoshop (I think I will actually try using GIMP instead, to see if I can get used to that).

There are still a few programs for which I can't find equivalents, mainly astronomy software. For those, I'm using Windows programs, but WINE (the system that allows running Windows software under Linux) is apparently pretty mature and these programs seem to be running just fine under Linux.

I've been moving all my hard drive data over to ext4 volumes; I've never liked NTFS anyway, and I trust an OS running its native filesystem better. Also ext4 seems blazing fast compared to NTFS. But moving a number of terabytes over to a temp space, reformatting the drive, then moving it back takes a lot of time, especially since mostly I'm moving the data over USB. Start a copy, go to work. Start another copy, go to sleep. etc.

Comments

[backrubbear.livejournal.com]

To be fair to *Linux*, it's been in pretty good shape over the last few years. Its UI elements, however, needed a lot of work the last time I touched it. I liked Gnome for a lot of the desktop stuff but found the KDE apps to be a lot more mature.

But it's good to hear that it's continuing to get better.

FWIW, I still run windows on my mac to get access to the scanner functionality of my canon laser printer.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I agree about the UI elements being bad a few years ago, but it's actually very nice looking now. I've got no complaints at all, and that's coming from having used Windows 7 for a couple of months, so I was acclimated to "pretty" stuff.

[jvanhare.livejournal.com]

I've been using Ubuntu since it's inception. I think Gnome is the more stable of the two now, the come from behind winner IMHO. Also the novelty of every app starting with a K kind of wore off and became annoying. Petty I know. :). I am pleased that you have had such a positive experience. Hardware support has been ever improving, and trying to make something sort of work under Linux has lost it's luster. This newest release didn't require a single workaround to make something work. That was the one thing Microsoft always had up on Linux. The downside was everyone writes viruses for Microsoft.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

I've been using Linux since the early 90s, when a friend gave me a Slackware 0.x distribution on about 35 floppies (few had CDROM drives then, and NOBODY had burners). I make my living programming and maintaining a cluster of Linux boxes, but I haven't used it on the desktop up to now.

I've always WANTED to run Linux on the desktop, but I kept trying it and it kept falling short. There are a few things that I really need to do that even now, there's no Linux native app for. Last time I really tried, 3 or 4 years ago, that was the killer.

Now I have two solutions; WINE runs most all Windows apps pretty much as well as Windows does, and for the one or two exceptions, I can run a virtual machine.

I need a virtual machine anyway to use to attach to the work VPN; if I don't run it in a virtual machine, the VPN locks out all my internet connections and forces them through the work connection, which means monitoring and censoring - so no bittorrent, etc. At one time it was so bad that I couldn't print to a network printer in my house.

Anyway, since I need a virtual machine anyway, I just made it a Windows XP box, and installed my scanner software and Photoshop there. So far those are the only two things that I just can't run on Linux. Photoshop actually apparently can run under WINE but right now the installer is broken.

[johnridley.livejournal.com]

For hardware, my webcam and scanner still don't run under Linux, and it doesn't look like they ever will. I don't care all that much though.

Linux and Windows 7 were about equal on all other hardware - everything just worked without me having to do anything, even for my network printer (other than telling each of them that there WAS a network printer - they both found and installed it correctly (brother color laser)).