Thread: Linux users

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

Now I'm waiting for Intrepid to come out, so I can completely eliminate the Vista partition and do a clean install.

but why would you need full reinstall? wait, i know why, because it's faster than doing an upgrade

Originally Posted by FiReSTaRT

2) I tried virtualization via KVM, but it didn't play well with USB hardware, so I'll need to look into the other solutions suggested in this thread. Probably before I even install Intrepid.

i'd say wait the 3 days and see if it just works. i haven't been following linux lately, the last time i had usb problems were on somebody's dell i was installing - hardware design problem the workaround at the time was to connect the mouse via usb1 hub.

Tried it. It's ok for some but not for mee. Too much of a hassle getting the games I want to play to run properly and it didn't take to my new videocard very well either. Ubuntu is going out the window this week.

Originally Posted by Berticus

jockeys, I'm not sure what language you use, but there are other IDE's available under Linux such as Eclipse using a C/C++ plugin will add, as you can guess, C/C++. Personally I just use a simple text editor such as vim to edit my files and compile with gcc/g++. As for vpn, think you can trick your company into thinking you're using Windows? Sort of like a user agent string or something? I mean I gain access to certain sites I'm not allowed to have access to by tricking it into thinking I'm a googlebot.

1. all my code has to be in either vb.net or c#.net. not really a good way to work with those in linux, since i have to use visual studio. (unless there's some other linux program that will talk to a team foundation server?) also, i like using visual studio. yes, it's possible to use a text editor, but that's a step backwards, imho.
2. it might be possible, but after spending several hours trying to find a way around it, i decided it was less work to just run windows.

this is one of the reasons (i think) that linux is not quite ready for prime time yet. i've been using it on and off for about the last 9 years, and i always have to make a concerted effort to make a tool work, or use a crappy substitute, or drive myself crazy with some complicated workaround. at this point, i'm just running windows only, i never use my ubuntu partition because it's such a pain it's prolly gonna infuriate the zealots, but let me put it like this: i've never done anything with linux that i couldn't do (usually quicker and easier) in windows. to me, linux is just sort of a neat toy that i play with from time to time because i try to support foss software, but until it's fully featured enough to use in my work environment, it will remain a toy in my eyes.

It is definitely not a toy in my work environment. I have been using Linux as my primary OS for several years at work, even though the IT "support" does not support it. Now I have a virtual XP machine running under VMware (to interact with my work colleagues who are Windows users) I never boot to the windows partition at all. It is a complete waste of hard disk space. Unfortunately as this computer is a work asset, I cannot reclaim the wasted windows partition to put it to some use, as I am required to have windows installed on the machine.

The fact that Linux does not offer a complete solution to specific software requirements is hardly a problem with the OS. It is a problem with the software developers.

James.

I think it's excellent for light users. The people that only do internet/videowatching/music listening.

As soon as you get into heavy duty PC work (video editing, photo editing, music making, gaming etc) Windows is just easier.

Ivan, I'm doing the full reinstall b/c initially, while trying to make a few things work (some software packages like Ossim and SAGA and the Broadcom drivers), I installed a lot of unnecessary packages and made a few system settings' changes that I didn't keep proper track of. Since I have a USB hdd, all I need to do is back up my contact lists, media files and work files, so it's just easier to do a clean reinstall.
Alex, I wouldn't call media editing, gaming and nothing else "heavy duty PC work". I already use my Linux box for GIS and remote sensing applications. In addition to that, Linux boxes have been used for processing of large numerical datasets. Linux servers have also been seen as the enterprise web servers of choice.

I don't know Ilja, it taxes my PC pretty damn heavy. As soon as multimedia is involved Linux is pretty damn useless to me.

Alex, while this sort of work may be heavy on the system resources, it's not the only resource-intensive kind of work that can be done on a PC. I'm not sure about video editing as I'm not too interested in that, but the GIMP has more than met all of my photo-editing needs.
There is a lot of scientific software that is well-supported on Linux platforms and is instrumental both for scientific research and in my case, for mineral exploration. From my perspective, that is "heavy-duty."

For you that would be.

For me....not interesting. I'm not in the line of work...as most people aren't you know ;-)

I'm read quite a bit about GIMP. And from what I understand for the soft users (hobbyists mainly) it's just fine. My Sister in Law however is a pro- photographer...she wouldn't be able to do her work without photoshop.

And even though I only do video editing on an of and on basis I don't have anything in Linux that's compatible with my camcorder.

And games....don't even get me started on games. They're a nightmare to get started in linux. I admit Linux is excellent for some applications (server stuff, massive calculations, light internet use, light multimedia use) but pretty much useless for everything else. (All of this comes with a big massive in my experience sign bytheway.)

Don't get me wrong...I can't stand windows and like Linux...but Linux works even worse for me than windows does. So for now I'll just stick to that.

yeah, let's have again the 'linux is best' war!!!!

i've said it again, but for few years i was on the microsoft's supercomuter project, which is the thing that microsoft spent tens of millions trying to convince the scientific community that windows is good for that. eventually they realized it's not going to happen so they gave up. i did not have a very good experience - it was nice to get access to top of the line hardware, but getting the software to work was nightmare, just wen you get it they do an upgrade and it breaks again. and that's software that we've written ourselves - pretty straightforward stuff, very basic c++, so it's essentially good old c, with pthreads, mpi, blas and lapack. of course may be we're just used to u**x but among all unix types of OS I've used linux is the easiest to develop on and windows was order of magnitude worse than any u**x.

yes, hardware has poor support on linux, but it's a whole lot better than it used to be. that's why games suck - hw manufacturers won't make decent linux drivers so games can't take advantage of the hardware.
as linux gains market share this may change, or may not, after all the best hardware for games gets packaged as game consoles and sold at big discount.

my parents had only used windows at work and not much at all. when i gave them my old computer with a boot choice they quickly decided that linux is much much better for what they use it - browsing and talking on skype.

i'm sure that photoshop is better than gimp, but i believe this is largely because the professional photographers know how to use photoshop and not gimp.
but the thing is that when people do real hard-core CG stuff, like LOTR when they have to develop the whole software, they usually do it on linux (with the exception of Pixar, who I'm sure is loyal to the Steve Jobs).

So I would argue that Alex finds Windows more suitable than Linux, only because he's a niche market - a gamer. And if his sister didn't already know and own photoshop, Aperture/OSX may be much better choice for her.