Long story short, I buy a brand new $1200 PC and it comes with no operatng system. I install Ubuntu on it until I can afford to buy Windows Vista (I intend on having them both installed at the same time).
I guess it looks sort of nice and it runs pretty fast, at least faster than Windows. But... That is about it. I can browse the internet and use IM programs I guess, but I can't use it for anything else. There is like... No software or games or anything at all for it (I can't even install the drivers for the hardware that came with the PC, even the website doesn't have drivers for it :[). Maybe I am just not looking hard enough, or maybe I am stuck with a PC that can't do much other than browse internet, and my old PC was more than capable of doing that (and still is).
Maybe I am missing the point entirely? Or maybe I am just stuck with a horribly over expensive (and over powerful) PC for what I am using it for (internet)?
Someone explain this whole Linux thing to me.
ID:43116
 May 19 2008, 11:23 am
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May 19 2008, 11:36 am
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Nasasistik
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That's quite allot of maybes to ask, Magic Man. I'd go to BYOND Linux, or I'd go and search their site for answers. Who knows really. I personally can't assist you because I don't use Linux.
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Linux users seem to swear by it for some reason, but I don't see why.
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One of the big things about Linux is choice. You can change pretty much every little setting and option. It's pretty nice. There are also pleanty of applications for pretty much every use.
Email:Thunderbird Word Processing/Office productivity: OpenOffice Instant Messaging:Pidgin Money Management: GNUCash Photo Manipulation: GIMP Vector Art: InkScape There are plenty of other programs as well. As for games, well, that depends on what you want in your games. You would be correct if you said there are few big commercial games that work with Linux out of the box, but there are plenty of great basic games that are free and easy to install. Try running synaptic package manager and installing the KDE4 games pack, it's got a good bit of games in it, and a really good solitaire engine, which houses a ton of different solitaire card games. Also, look into setting up and configuring compiz with emerald if you want a very pretty desktop. As for the drivers, well, you can google around a good bit. It is a bit of an issue, because most manufacturers don't provide Linux drivers, so you have to hope the community has made some. My laptop, for example, works 99% out of the box, the touch pad being the only problematic part, and even it works for the basic point and click function. All it needs is a single package installed to work at 100%. | |
I will rephrase the question.
WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH LINUX? No joke. I am using what is SUPPOSE to be an easy to use version of Linux. Yet doing even the most simple task is god damn impossible. All I want to do is god damn install something, but I need permission from GOD HIMSELF, a blackbelt in commandlinefu, I need to follow about 9000 different steps and will have to ask at least 2000 different "experts" what to do next, of which none of them will give a correct or even remotely useful answer. Windows might not be the best thing ever, but when I want to do something in it at least I don't have to sacrifice 7500 babies to the god of Linux while preforming an ancient ritual in the hopes that this all mighty god will make my task even slightly easier to do. I'm not surprised Linux never really took off compared to Windows. Because it is so god damn stupidly impossible to do anything with it. | |
Sure you need permissions, any modern OS will require the same thing, it's called security. One advantage over say, Windows Vista, is that programs want to get the power before taking the action, that way you don't get asked 5 times by UAC when trying to install a single program. Linux is, from the ground up, a secure OS. And part of that security is making sure an application doesn't have the power to make system changes unless it should. If you move to Vista you will have the same problem. If you move to OSX you will have the same problem.
As for installing stuff, most things can be installed with a few clicks in the package manager. On my laptop, I've hardly touched the command line, and when I did, it was only to get to the nitty gritty settings that the average user wouldn't even think existed. Yes, hardware compatibility and driver support is an issue for Linux. It's an issue because few manufacturers produce drivers for Linux, which means that the vast majority of drivers are wrote by people like you who just happen to also own the hardware. The only real solution to that problem is to make sure hardware developers know Linux support is expected, and trust me, they are catching on. Linux is gaining hardware support by the bucket full. If you expected Linux to be a super magical OS that teleported you into Perfecttown, well, you were mistaken. It's an OS. It has its issue. It's a good, highly customizable OS that can do pretty much anything, but for the extremes you have to get your hands dirty. | |
I wasn't expecting some magical OS, but I was expecting a half useable one.
Seriously. I find out that there is drivers for my graphics card and download them. That is easy enough and had I been using windows it would have taken a simple double click to install said drivers. But it's not! Instead I have to open up some command line terminal, and type in some magical chicken scratch which probably means nothing to no one. I do so... But wait! I get some error about things being locked. I scour the internet and finally ask for help... And get about 20 different replies. Then I proceed to try each and every one until I find one that works. I try again with the magical gobbldey gook... And gets me another error about permission. Another search on the internet turns up I have to use some command infront of the magical text to get permission. I do so and get ANOTHER error, this time about X Server. Scour internet again, find nothing of use, ask for help, get 50 replies. NONE of them work, finally get a "working" reply that basically when used takes me to some command line screen that looks like MSDOS... Only it does nothing. At this point I give up and go to bed. Great job to whoever made this operating system! You couldn't have made it any harder, stupid and more frustrating to use even if you tried. I give up trying to install these drivers. I am just off out next week and buying Vista. It might not be the best OS ever, but it is at least useable and can be used for something. | |
Correction, great job whoever made your graphics card for not supporting Linux. When I installed Linux on both my laptop and desktop, in both of them it automatically recognized my graphics card, and for my laptop setup the drivers without asking. For my desktop it told me that the drivers were available, and asked me if I wanted to use them, I said yes, I restarted X, and bam, I had working 3D acceleration.
I'm not sure what your X11 problem is with your graphics card, but permissions is a pretty common error, even in Windows. Hell, with Windows XP it is a really big pain when you aren't running as administrator, most programs wont even run. Sure, there are some basics that you pick up, like using sudo before commands to run them as administrator. If I had to guess, that chicken scratch was probably just commands to download and install the drivers, which are also commands you would quickly learn, not so much because you have to learn them, but more because you will want to. When you have a fully featured CLI environment like Linux provides, you start realizing that things that used to take you 15 steps in Windows only take one quick command in Linux. But as I said before, I've never really been forced to use the terminal for my Laptop, it just worked, which is far more than I can say for Windows, which requires about 3 reboots worth of drivers, and about 3 more reboots of updates, when starting from scratch. Guessing by your description, you killed your xorg.conf file, which is pretty easy to do, and most users never have to touch it. From the sounds of it, you have incompatible hardware which is just going to be a problem with Linux until they get driver support. Funny thing is, I would have the same problem trying to go to Vista. There aren't drivers for most of my hardware, but guess what, I would be SOL with Vista. Linux I at least have the power of the community to help me. If you need to get to a working terminal, but all you see is some text on a terminal with no input, press "Alt+1" and it will take you to a fresh terminal, which you can login to and keep working if you feel like it. If not you could also reinstall the OS, as it sounds like you really didn't get any work done, so your not losing anything. Mind if I ask what graphics card you have? I have heard that the newer series have problems with Linux, because of big changes from DX9 cards to DX10, but I don't own any DX10 cards, my 7950GT is good enough. Hey, if it doesn't work for you, than it doesn't work, but you are placing the blame on the OS, when the blame is squarely on your graphics card manufacturer for not supporting Linux. You wouldn't blame Microsoft because you couldn't find drivers for your graphics card would you? It's a problem of an OS/Community trying to make up for lack of support, and for some, it works. On my home network, I've been able to take a random collection of parts that in no way should equal a DVR and make a pretty good DVR with a web interface and the ability to stream over the Internet. And it did take me days of work to get everything working decent, but I did get everything working and it does way, way more than any store bought DVR. It it was virtually free, because it was made out of spare computer parts. | |
I have a 9600GT, which there is drivers for Linux that support it on the NVidia website.
Maybe it is just me, but everything is so stupidly awkward to do and no one I ask for help knows much of anything. Even the help files provided by Nvidia were useless. | |
For my Nvidia card, there was a button on the notification area that said something like "There are restricted drivers available", I was able to click that icon and allow them. After that it just worked. If you need to do more, I personally can't help you, because I don't have that card, however if you haven't completely gave up, there are plenty of IRC chat rooms you can join for more help. I'm not sure if there is one specifically for people with NVidia cards, but the Ubuntu site should have the address to one for Ubuntu where you can get live help.
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