What linux has Cost Me:

[Compintuit]

Hello all. I downloaded Linux Mint XFCE CE yesterday. I've experimented with linux pretty thoroughly, and can do most things. So I have some thoughts I thought I'd share, of what I've lost by switching to linux. You may be surprised what one can lose, when windows has been tweaked beyond all belief.
1. Speed. Though people don't want to believe it, Windows XP reacts faster then any of the main distributions. The apps do too. For whatever reason, those milliseconds that pass before an action happens make linux seem far less responsive. I mean, linux actually does do many things faster - I can load firefox faster, search my history faster, and generally actions that take a while faster, but for all actions the response time is just a little bit slower...
2. Touchpad Support. It was a massive pain just to enable horizontal scrolling, and I still have a host of features I'm missing. i) the scroll does not continue when I lift my finger at the end of a swipe ii) tap zones - tap a corner of the touchpad, and have an action happen. It increased my productivity many times. Instead I have a left-click and middle click emulation on two corners of the touchpad, indicating that the software exists and I'm just unable to learn how to change things.
3. Sound just doesn't sound as good. My Toshiba laptop had a Virtual Surround Sound thing that made sound sound real. AFAIK nothing like this exists for linux.
4. Flash is slower - way slower. Few players will play without dropping frames. Fullscreen is a nightmare. I actually hate flash, and am really glad that it is being replaced with pure video streaming, but that's not entirely here yet.
5. Finally, I have problems with package management. It doesn't keep stuff up to date. I understand the reasons for this, but it is still disappointing. Freemind? 10 versions behind. Midori? 7. Getting Firefox 3.5 was annoying, too. I find that to be a shame - and I'm not advanced enough to compile and later, uninstall from source. A shame. And I detest having software installed in my home directory!

So those are what I'm missing. I have a few other things I've had working before, and am trying to get working again. Then, there is irreplaceable software, like notepad++. Emacs has nothing on that, boy. I do love Open Source, but I think people must realize that there is a lot to lose in switching from Windows.

So, what have you lost? And does anyone know of replacements for me? Thanks.

[KingX]

Well think about it this way, you were using windows for a long time and in that time had figured out tweaks and other nifty stuff that made your experience with windows pleasant and speedy. Now did windows act like that out of the box, or only after you had it "tweaked beyond all belief"?

Linux can way outperform windows, but it requires some knowledge and experience about where to find that extra performance (and trust me it's their ). So keep using linux and soon you will begin to understand it more and your performance issues will start to sort themselves out also. The reason people don't want to believe that xp is fast.. maybe cause it is not the case, only you happen to be having an "off" experience with linux.

Your 2 and 3 points are not the fault of linux but that of hardware manufacturers who get their $ from M$ and therefore have their drivers etc. available for windows only. If they put the time in to produce those same drivers for linux you won't miss a thing and will see the same performance in linux.

The issue regarding firefox is a Deb related issue, 3.5 was made available in every other distro the day it was released. So that is a distro specific issue.

Regarding the point of "losing a lot" when switching to linux. You would only get this feeling if you were looking for exact same stuff you were using in windows, then when an app is not available in linux you get the "I lost this app in windows" feeling. Keeping an open mind is a must for open source apps. If you found EMACS to be inadequate try VIM instead, now these are not simple pick and play editors unfortunately, if you invest some time in learning the in's and out of either one you will find they can easily accomplish everything notepad++ could do and even more. I don't feel I have lost anything in moving to linux.. on the other hand I have gained a lot of knowledge that I would have never gained had I kept using windows.

[bigtomrodney]

I wasn't going to reply to any of your points because they're either subjective or you've misunderstood concepts, either intentionally or otherwise.

Then I read this, and even as a Vim/gedit user I just had to laugh:

Then, there is irreplaceable software, like notepad++. Emacs has nothing on that, boy.

Nice troll, take it somewhere else. The members here at Linuxforums are either long term Linux success-stories or people who are making a genuine effort to get things configured. If you're in neither of those categories and Linux doesn't suit you, that's fine and I wish you good luck with your future choice of operating system. There's no place for whinging or trolling here.

Thread closed.