post #1
19 December 2004, 19:56 UTC#1
I went to the UK for a short break, so in a stop in WHSmiths I spot a Linux magazine on the shelf, with a copy of Linux suse professional 9.1
When I get back home, I install it on a test computer and rig it up to my network. Installation surprised me, formatting was done in a jiffy, and so was the installation, booting into suse, revealed a very attractive desktop. The icons were a little large even at a 1280 by 1024 resolution. The choice of wallpapers are good, and they are awesome. The first thing I noticed about linux was that by default if you clicked on an icon it was set to single click and I double clicked a few times causing windows to open multiple times. No biggie because it was easy to fix by navigating to the control panel and selecting double click option.
Then I tested the default browser - konquerer, which was a very bulky software package, and when minimised it took a few seconds to refresh to end up minimised, it loaded pages badly even on a 1 mbps internet connection. The colour was fucked, and it was anoying when you clicked the back browser button because instead of going straight back it gave you options of where you wanted to redirect your page to. Of course this is no problem because you can replace the default browser with firefox. But on the other hand, Internet Explorer is much better than linuxes default.
After all this I decided to look for an instant messanging program to use. By default linux has some program installed which alows you to connect to any IM client such as messenger, AIM, ICQ, etc. I typed my details to my passport account, on opening the interface was very bland, and you had to manually type in the emoticon symbols, because there was no icon selector, also when sending an IM you have to hold the "control" button down and then hit enter to send. Now of course you can download other programs such as XSMMS or whatever its callled, but then again, it always seems to be installing and searching to bring it up to windows functionality standards.
Afterwards I tried installing files, it was not what I had expected. You have to type in a command into the linux version of MSDOS to install something, which is usually ./usr/filelocation/filename.extension, and beforehand you had to actually CHMOD the file (set the permissions) for it to work. This kinda sucked, not being able to click on a file and it installing straight away. This applies to .bin files and some other extensions. Although .rpm extension will be click installations, if your distro of linux supports them, these are more rare and usually arn't available for standard installations of programs.
Some of the default linux games were very impressive, but because I didn't have the right drivers for my graphics card, and couldn't be bothered to spend ages searching I had a very low FPS rate (Frames Per Second)
Linux by default does not support most hardware and is a lenghty search to get your system functional. The added annoyance of linux partitions not being able to read windows partitions and windows partitions not being able to read linux partitiions was irritating, as I couldn't transfer any of my data. To do this you need a NTFS partition manager, which costs around 60 bucks, and no cracks are available for them, so its just more money.
Searching on google for shit for linux returned results in the german language, as suse is manufactured by them I believe, this made searching very diffucult indeed and aggravating.
Summing up linux I'd say its not for the begginer, it gives the feel of a complicated version of msdos, with different commands with a GUI sloppily stuck on top of it (GUI = graphical user interface)
Heavy modifications to the default installation files are required to make it worthy as a desktop. Linux is great for a server environment, but also feels like you are on remote admin from your windows machine, and click off once you have finished, but of course you can't and this starts to drive you a little insane after a while. Maybe comparing linux to messageboards, Linux is to Vbulletin as windows is to Invision.
So basically, linux is a rock solid operating system which needs heavy modification to give it the functionality of windows. Windows is a vunerable OS, but feature rich, and needs a lot of work to bring it up to half the stability of linux, which is diffucult to achieve with its many exploits.
My reccomendation is use windows for desktop environments and linux for servers. In a few years linux will destinate all desktops. it certainly will be a great GUI in years to come, but not at its present stage. Its just too fiddly and pointless for the average user.
When I get back home, I install it on a test computer and rig it up to my network. Installation surprised me, formatting was done in a jiffy, and so was the installation, booting into suse, revealed a very attractive desktop. The icons were a little large even at a 1280 by 1024 resolution. The choice of wallpapers are good, and they are awesome. The first thing I noticed about linux was that by default if you clicked on an icon it was set to single click and I double clicked a few times causing windows to open multiple times. No biggie because it was easy to fix by navigating to the control panel and selecting double click option.
Then I tested the default browser - konquerer, which was a very bulky software package, and when minimised it took a few seconds to refresh to end up minimised, it loaded pages badly even on a 1 mbps internet connection. The colour was fucked, and it was anoying when you clicked the back browser button because instead of going straight back it gave you options of where you wanted to redirect your page to. Of course this is no problem because you can replace the default browser with firefox. But on the other hand, Internet Explorer is much better than linuxes default.
After all this I decided to look for an instant messanging program to use. By default linux has some program installed which alows you to connect to any IM client such as messenger, AIM, ICQ, etc. I typed my details to my passport account, on opening the interface was very bland, and you had to manually type in the emoticon symbols, because there was no icon selector, also when sending an IM you have to hold the "control" button down and then hit enter to send. Now of course you can download other programs such as XSMMS or whatever its callled, but then again, it always seems to be installing and searching to bring it up to windows functionality standards.
Afterwards I tried installing files, it was not what I had expected. You have to type in a command into the linux version of MSDOS to install something, which is usually ./usr/filelocation/filename.extension, and beforehand you had to actually CHMOD the file (set the permissions) for it to work. This kinda sucked, not being able to click on a file and it installing straight away. This applies to .bin files and some other extensions. Although .rpm extension will be click installations, if your distro of linux supports them, these are more rare and usually arn't available for standard installations of programs.
Some of the default linux games were very impressive, but because I didn't have the right drivers for my graphics card, and couldn't be bothered to spend ages searching I had a very low FPS rate (Frames Per Second)
Linux by default does not support most hardware and is a lenghty search to get your system functional. The added annoyance of linux partitions not being able to read windows partitions and windows partitions not being able to read linux partitiions was irritating, as I couldn't transfer any of my data. To do this you need a NTFS partition manager, which costs around 60 bucks, and no cracks are available for them, so its just more money.
Searching on google for shit for linux returned results in the german language, as suse is manufactured by them I believe, this made searching very diffucult indeed and aggravating.
Summing up linux I'd say its not for the begginer, it gives the feel of a complicated version of msdos, with different commands with a GUI sloppily stuck on top of it (GUI = graphical user interface)
Heavy modifications to the default installation files are required to make it worthy as a desktop. Linux is great for a server environment, but also feels like you are on remote admin from your windows machine, and click off once you have finished, but of course you can't and this starts to drive you a little insane after a while. Maybe comparing linux to messageboards, Linux is to Vbulletin as windows is to Invision.
So basically, linux is a rock solid operating system which needs heavy modification to give it the functionality of windows. Windows is a vunerable OS, but feature rich, and needs a lot of work to bring it up to half the stability of linux, which is diffucult to achieve with its many exploits.
My reccomendation is use windows for desktop environments and linux for servers. In a few years linux will destinate all desktops. it certainly will be a great GUI in years to come, but not at its present stage. Its just too fiddly and pointless for the average user.
