[BTCruz]

I come to you more out of frustration I think than anything, so don't take this as an insult...

I started my "IT career" as a UNIX admin many years ago. I then moved to Windows as UNIX began to dry up. Then along comes LINUX and I happily got my hands on SUSE and played with it at home for some time. Overall it was not bad.

I drifted away from LINUX and for the past 6-7 years have worked exclusively with Windows, but got interested in LINUX again since I'm beginning to see it used more and more at the corporate level for servers, etc. We even have some LINUX boxes where I work.

So, I downloaded Fedora 8 64-bit, set up my dual boot and....well, have been terribly underwhelmed ever since.

Everything on the Gnome desktop takes ages to load, in fact the entire system reminds me of a sluggish 486 rather than an Athlon 4000 with 2 gigs of memory and a pair of Nvidia 7900GS's running in SLI.

I have tweaked and tweaked, shut down services I don't need, updated packages, tried hundreds of suggestions, etc to no avail. This thing is just plain...slow. Why does it take Firefox 42-46 seconds (timed) just to open up when I click the icon? Why does it take a website 20-25 seconds just to be "found" when entered in the address bar? (and yes, my network services are setup correctly, etc) and another 10-15 seconds before any data begins to flow?

I'm not alone in this aspect to be sure. Even our LINUX gurus at work suffer many of these maladies and god forbid something go bad. It takes that crew a week to solve functional issues when us Windows guys can usually troubleshoot, patch, update or fix and be back up and running in a couple hours for a really bad issue.

So please, someone, anyone explain to me what is so great about LINUX?

I've heard the arguements..."I can have 8 things happening at once with no problems"..well, I can do that too in WinXP, no problem.

"But Windoze uses a lot of memory and swap...my LINUX almost never uses swap"...and your point is? I have 2GB of memory and a 250GB hard drive, Windows screams compared to my Fedora, and Fedora is 64-bit to boot. I don't care what resources it uses as long as it functions and functions fast. That argument was valid years ago when memory and hard drives were expensive. It's no longer an issue.

"LINUX is stable, it'll run forever and never crash"....oh really, then you obviously haven't been around LINUX very long. Besides, my WinXP load is going on 2 years now and hasn't crashed once since I loaded it and tweaked it.

etc, etc, etc, etc....

To be fair though, LINUX servers fair quite well, but on the desktop environment I'm really digging to find a good reason why LINUX is so good because I'm just not seeing it. Someone, anyone, please explain....

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by BTCruz

I come to you more out of frustration I think than anything, so don't take this as an insult...

First, take a deep breath. In, out, in, out. Calm yourself. Think peaceful thoughts. Puppies, green meadows, that sort of thing. Feeling a little better? Okay. Let's tackle these issues of yours.

I started my "IT career" as a UNIX admin many years ago. I then moved to Windows as UNIX began to dry up. Then along comes LINUX and I happily got my hands on SUSE and played with it at home for some time. Overall it was not bad.

That's a good start. Linux is very similar to UNIX, and that's on purpose. Linus Torvalds designed his kernel to mimic UNIX but be freely available.

I drifted away from LINUX and for the past 6-7 years have worked exclusively with Windows, but got interested in LINUX again since I'm beginning to see it used more and more at the corporate level for servers, etc. We even have some LINUX boxes where I work.

So, I downloaded Fedora 8 64-bit, set up my dual boot and....well, have been terribly underwhelmed ever since.

Ok, this is just my personal opinion but this is where you messed up. It's not your fault; you should be able in theory to download any version of any distribution of Linux and it be stable. However you picked the least stable version of the least stable distribution out there.

Fedora is a testbed for new and "exciting" features, and they don't always make sure those new features work properly before they release it. I've had terrible experiences with Fedora because of this. Please don't judge the whole of Linux by them.

Also, you picked the 64-bit version. 64-bit distributions right now are a crapshoot quite frankly. Some work great, others are buggy as hell. Even the best 64-bit distribution will still have some issues and gotchas to deal with.

Everything on the Gnome desktop takes ages to load, in fact the entire system reminds me of a sluggish 486 rather than an Athlon 4000 with 2 gigs of memory and a pair of Nvidia 7900GS's running in SLI.

Don't confuse graphical sluggishness for real sluggishness. More than likely your two Nvidia cards just need the proper drivers, which are available from Nvidia proper:

Unix Drivers Portal Page

I have tweaked and tweaked, shut down services I don't need, updated packages, tried hundreds of suggestions, etc to no avail. This thing is just plain...slow. Why does it take Firefox 42-46 seconds (timed) just to open up when I click the icon? Why does it take a website 20-25 seconds just to be "found" when entered in the address bar? (and yes, my network services are setup correctly, etc) and another 10-15 seconds before any data begins to flow?

Again, even if this persists after installing proper video drivers, don't be so quick to judge the whole of Linux from one distribution. There are at least 10 very popular distributions available and thousands more out there on top of that. Try at least a couple before you pronounce judgment.

I'm not alone in this aspect to be sure. Even our LINUX gurus at work suffer many of these maladies and god forbid something go bad. It takes that crew a week to solve functional issues when us Windows guys can usually troubleshoot, patch, update or fix and be back up and running in a couple hours for a really bad issue.

I'm not one to pass judgment either, but come on. Your Linux "gurus" should know more than that. Tell them to post here if they have issues they can't fix in a week.

So please, someone, anyone explain to me what is so great about LINUX?

That's entirely the wrong attitude. Linux isn't a religion nor is it a vendor trying to get you to buy something. It's an operating system. Either it works for you or it doesn't, end of story. If you're not willing to step back, learn some new things and learn fixes for stuff you're using the wrong OS.

We're not here to "convert" you or proselytize about the virtues of the One OS. If you give it time and work, Linux may work for you. If not, there's no harm in realizing you're just better off with something else.

"LINUX is stable, it'll run forever and never crash"....oh really, then you obviously haven't been around LINUX very long. Besides, my WinXP load is going on 2 years now and hasn't crashed once since I loaded it and tweaked it.

If someone told you that, they were an idiot, plain and simple. If you believed it, well... I have bridge I can sell you. No operating system is perfect, MS Windows, OS X and Linux included. They all have their warts. The thing that separates most of the users of this forum from the rest of the world is we're willing to live with the warts we find in Linux. They're not as big or hairy as the ones we see in other operating systems.

To be fair though, LINUX servers fair quite well, but on the desktop environment I'm really digging to find a good reason why LINUX is so good because I'm just not seeing it. Someone, anyone, please explain....

I don't mean to be dismissive, so take this with a grain of salt. I very highly recommend that you try a few more versions of Linux before you give up on it entirely, but if you do and are still not impressed, cut your losses.

If you don't see the value in Linux, no one is going to be able to convince you otherwise. That's just fine. Many people find many different operating systems to their liking. There are people out there who use Plan 9 for goodness' sake. To each their own.

If however you're willing to take the time and not inconsiderable effort to learn some more about Linux, we're here to help. Welcome to the forum.

[ryokimball]

I want a bridge!!

Actually, I started off with Red Hat (before there was a Fedora). Linux has always been a toy to me. Only for the past year or so have I constantly had a version of Linux installed on a computer, and of that only for the past few months have really gotten into using it. I really like the idea (relatively free, moldable, different flavours...), and even if I never do move strictly to Linux, I see it as a priceless learning tool in learning exactly how a computer works (since there seems to be no books anymore that go from "on-off switches" all the way to CPUs in all of their complexity).

I do struggle sometimes (such as learing how to get my full resolution, or even my cursor to appear onscreen), but after I get the system up and running, I have yet to find something I am completely incapable of doing in Linux what can be done in Windows (aside from some games, perhaps, but I like the native games like Konquest much more than the things that come with Vista now anyways). And that alone seems something noteworthy.

[smolloy]

I'm sorry to hear that you've had such a bad experience with Fedora 8.

Aside from agreeing with everything Techiemoe said, I'd like to add that the problems you're reporting do not seem normal. Granted I've only used Fedora 8 as a LiveCD, but even then things worked much faster than you seem to be experiencing. Perhaps there is some other problem somewhere?

I'd like to reiterate an earlier point. If you really want to try linux, then I'd recommend trying a few different distributions (also try 64bit and 32bit). If you're still not impressed after this, then maybe WinXP is the best choice for you.


EDIT:: A good choice of distro to see all the graphical goodness that linux is capable of is Sabayon. This will install the Nvidia drivers for you automatically, and works as a liveDVD so you don't have to install it to try it out.

[carlosponti]

i think fedora has left a bad taste in a lot of peoples mouths. i use Ubuntu but its nowhere near perfect either. back when i used windows at home i had nothing but problems. since moving to linux i still have problems but the solutions are more fun. I also have used Slackware, talk about an acquired taste. For various reasons I still prefer Linux over Windows. Just like the Mac is still preferred by some shows there is no accounting for taste, that last comment was fore Moe

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by carlosponti

Just like the Mac is still preferred by some shows there is no accounting for taste, that last comment was fore Moe

Figured as much.

[ryokimball]

Originally Posted by smolloy

EDIT:: A good choice of distro to see all the graphical goodness that linux is capable of is Sabayon. This will install the Nvidia drivers for you automatically, and works as a liveDVD so you don't have to install it to try it out.

I like Sabayon plenty myself. I'm trying out Fedora 8 right now, but Sabayon was what I used during my last panicked state (new computer, didn't know about SWcursor...), and it worked beyond well. To be honest, I think the only reason I am even trying another distro right now is because it was so pretty that I was scared to dig much into it (in fear of messing it up, I suppose). That, and like I said, Fedora and I go a ways back.

[fingal]

Oh God, not another of 'those' threads.

[BTCruz]

Techiemoe and all,

Yes, you are all correct for the most part. My apologies for going a bit ballistic. I have been fumbling about with this Fedora for a while now and no one has been able to solve my performance issues. I think I will take the advice and try other distros.

Please don't get me wrong, I cut my teeth (in the profesisonal world) on UNIX and when the Windows machines began showing up I was always ready to show those Windows guys just how UNIX ran circles around it. My move to Windows was really more a matter of professional survival than any preference.

I suppose at some deep level I expected the PC flavor of UNIX to uphold that banner of awesomeness and through an apparent malady of choices I ended up with one distro that isn't going to do that.

I will load up some other distros and see how things go. I think I will forgo Fedora for the time being.

I still have my old, old disks with SUSE Pro 6.0 I think it is, maybe I will load those and see about getting it up to date, or maybe MEPIS (which I also have on disk). That Sabayon sounds interesting too.

[techieMoe]

Originally Posted by BTCruz

I still have my old, old disks with SUSE Pro 6.0 I think it is, maybe I will load those and see about getting it up to date

Just a note: I wouldn't recommend upgrading from 6.0 to the latest (which is around 10.3 if I remember correctly). I'd just download the newest one and start fresh.