linux

[mnadelin]

People don't use linux because of its complexity more than anything, I think. If linux were indeed user friendly, that would be great. Sorry if I sound like I'm on a big anti-linux rant here. I use it all the time and am quite familiar with it. I typically use the slackware distro. Anyway, it's always been much more difficult installing linux on machines, no matter what distro. Don't even think about using it on a laptop. I've heard many horror stories of people screwing up their batteries due to the lack of good power management. Most people barely can maintain a working windows install. My point is that linux is still inaccessable to >95% of the market. It's not that there aren't alternatives to Windows, it's that there aren't reasonable alternatives. It would be great if someone came up with something better, but so far it hasn't really worked. And I don't think the mac software is any better for several reasons, which I won't get into. Even with all the attempts to make linux user friendly, it's still not. And since it's not commercially driven to a wide market, like windows is, there's really no reason for it to be. Personally, I see nothing wrong with it as it is for the specific uses that we nerdier people use it for. It works great for servers. Of course, there's also the advantage that it's free so you can pretty much throw it on anything. It's not a terrible OS, it's just not a viable altermative to Microsoft for the vast majority of users.

 

[l0calh05t]

People don't use linux because of its complexity more than anything, I think. If linux were indeed user friendly, that would be great. Sorry if I sound like I'm on a big anti-linux rant here. I use it all the time and am quite familiar with it. I typically use the slackware distro. Anyway, it's always been much more difficult installing linux on machines, no matter what distro. Don't even think about using it on a laptop. [...]

Actually, I had it running on my laptop for a while (until I had to switch to windows because there were no drivers for my firewire audio interface....) and I had no problems. (Except that i couldn't turn off my monitors backlighting)

 

[msquared]

While I agree that it's not quite ready for mass consumption, some of the opinions you're expressing are a bit extreme. Several of my friends have been using Linux on laptops for a long time with no problems. I myself have had four laptops which have either been fulltime Linux machines or dual boot. When I met my wife, her main machine was a 486 laptop running Slackware that she had bought before having any Unix experience. The first major issue I ran into with Linux on laptops was when I got an IBM Thinkpad, but until then the Toshiba and Dell stuff I've had was solid.

I would maybe suggest trying a different distribution. Mandrake for instance is really solid and is almost easier to get going on a laptop than Windows is.

 

[DaftCat]

If anyone bothers downloading Dyne:bolic, the German mirror has the latest distro and is blazing quick.