First Impressions of Linux from a Lifelong Windows User

[dmengo]

I’ve recently been taking a look at Ubuntu and Linux Mint on the desktop to see how the Linux operating system works. I consider myself a beginner with Linux, but I'm interested in learning more.

I'll share a bit of background about myself. I have ten years of experience supporting and administering almost exclusively Windows servers, desktops, and virtual applications. With that said, I'll probably never give up my Windows desktops entirely.

At this point in my career however, I'd like to broaden my skills by studying and learning how to support and manage Linux desktops in an effort to be more “well-rounded” in my field. I’m also considering going for the LPI and Linux+ certifications. This may sound cliché, but there's a big world out there and a lot of it runs on the Linux platform. Who wants to be a "one trick pony?"

I recently installed Ubuntu 9.10 on a Dell Mini 10v netbook. So far it is working great. I had to do some tweaking to get the wireless to work correctly, but other than that all of the hardware including the card reader worked out-of-the-box.

In my opinion the Linux desktops don't seem to be as polished or refined as Windows or Mac operating systems, but still seems to work well enough. I only experienced one kernel crash when fixing the wireless driver with Ubuntu. Other than some other minor issues that are now resolved the operating system seems stable and rock-solid.

Overall, I'm still not completely sold on recommending Linux for the average person at home or "non-technical" user. Linux certainly has its place in the server world, but I'm just not convinced that it will ever gain dominance on the desktop. In the enterprise market, there would have to be a major financial push by companies like Red Hat, Canonical, and Novell before Linux on desktop truely becomes a reality.

I look forward to learning more about Linux. Thanks for listening.

[svinoba]

In my opinion the Linux desktops don't seem to be as polished or refined as Windows or Mac operating systems, but still seems to work well enough. ...

...Overall, I'm still not completely sold on recommending Linux for the average person at home or "non-technical" user. Linux certainly has its place in the server world, but I'm just not convinced that it will ever gain dominance on the desktop. ...

First of all, welcome to the forum.

May be its a matter of personal taste. I feel distros like Mandriva and Sabayon are more polished than Windows if not Mac.

Also, you may not be inclined to recommend linux to a non-technical guy because _you_ experienced problem and that is probably because you expect things to be (used to) the _windows-way_. If you had started with linux probably you would not have felt the same. Ofcourse this is my opnion.

Anyway, welcome again. Hope to learn along with you.

[Bemk]

First of all, welcome to the forums.
Then we have your first impression, which is quite interesting. Linux indeed has been made by "geeks" for "geeks" (take a look at VI for example). I think, on grounds of "user friendlines" most distro's I've seen have a long way to go. On the otherhand, people who've learned to work with it, appear to find those distro's very "user friendly" (which is why I like VI, and don't start any VI vs. Emacs flames here, I only haven't tried Emacs yet).

[fguy64]

First of all, welcome to the forums.
Then we have your first impression, which is quite interesting. Linux indeed has been made by "geeks" for "geeks" (take a look at VI for example). I think, on grounds of "user friendlines" most distro's I've seen have a long way to go. On the otherhand, people who've learned to work with it, appear to find those distro's very "user friendly" (which is why I like VI, and don't start any VI vs. Emacs flames here, I only haven't tried Emacs yet).

That's an interesting point. I was thinking the other day that while Windows often "takes care of things" for you, it accomplishes this by taking away some of your flexibility and preventing you from doing certain things for yourself.

[oz]

I'm just not convinced that it will ever gain dominance on the desktop.

Welcome to the forums!

I don't think most Linux users or developers really care if Linux ever becomes dominant on the desktop. Speaking for myself, I certainly don't. The main thing is that it remains available as an option for us as computer users because it would not be a good thing at all for the world to be locked into having to use any single operating system. That would be far too much control for any one company to have. Now, it wouldn't bother me if Linux were to become dominant, but I'd still want to see some good options remain available for computer users around the world.

Either way, I hope you will continue to have fun with Linux.

[Rubberman]

First of all, welcome to the forums.
Then we have your first impression, which is quite interesting. Linux indeed has been made by "geeks" for "geeks" (take a look at VI for example). I think, on grounds of "user friendlines" most distro's I've seen have a long way to go. On the otherhand, people who've learned to work with it, appear to find those distro's very "user friendly" (which is why I like VI, and don't start any VI vs. Emacs flames here, I only haven't tried Emacs yet).

A really great Linux/Unix text editor for Windows users is nedit, which provides a very nice multi-file GUI with Windows-style menus and control keys. It also has about the best search/replace capability of any editor I have used, as well as syntax highlighting, auto indenting, and brace matching for just about every programming language known. It is now FOSS under the GPL but it was originally developed at the Fermi National Laboratory physics research lab in Batavia, Illinois, USA - our tax dollars at work!

[dmengo]

I think Linux would gain more credibility in the consumer desktop market if companies like Canonical, RedHat, and Novell would really make the push for enterprise desktop Linux solutions instead of Windows. Desktop administrators really need to be able to manage the Linux desktops as easily as they already do with Windows desktops using tools like Active Directory and Group Policy. I've heard that Canonical is working on a project to manage and administer Linux desktops.

As far as more software applications for Linux, in my opinion there would have to be huge infusions of money to step up the funding for the larger, open-source Linux projects. If there is a growing desktop market then software developers like Adobe, Autodesk, etc. will start porting their applications to the Linux platform. Also using a common, standard method of software packaging (i.e. RPM) would help immensely. A user isn’t going to know what to do when they go out to Adobe’s website, download Acrobat Reader for Linux and end up with a .bin file.

Unfortunately, I don't see either of these happening in the current economic climate, but one can certainly remain hopeful.

[Rubberman]

Linux is like standards. The nice thing about either of them is that there are so many of them! I would agree that a common format for binary package delivery would benefit the entire Linux domain, though I think that there is still room for Gentoo-like build-from-source methods (emerge). Perhaps if there were two standards only - one for the average schlub (rpm or similar) and one for the techno-dweeb (source-level building such as emerge) we would all be a LOT happier. Also, if these two methods would keep a common repository database in sync, then one could use either/both methods and still have a system that knows what has been installed no matter how it was done. These days, if you install with a package manager such as rpm/yum and then install something from source, the package manager has no clue about the components the source installation put on the system.

[dmengo]

That would make sense to use a common standard for software packaging. Microsoft Windows for example still uses EXE and also the new MSI (Microsoft Installer) packages for software. As an enterprise developer you'd probably want to go with MSI as they're easier to deploy using Active Directory and Group Policy.

[Bemk]

All nice, indeed, but when I go for installing software the first thing I am going to look is the repositories. Let's put it this way, the repositories have never failed on me once. All the software I compiled from source, was because I wanted to have that experience as well. I did some kind of trick which compiled to a debian package and let the package manager put stuff in place, keeping the knowledge of the package manager up to date.

MSI is nice and all, but we have something better here(for me at least). Package managers, which are much more versatile. All people need to do is look beyond the first impression and look at what Linux has to offer. There are great documents out there, which can get you started with the command line and all if you wish to. If you prefer the graphical environment, fine with me, which one do you like. Freedom of choice is also freedom, the thing the open source community values so much. If this is not for you, it is not for you. That's it. If you do like it, welcome to the community. I will not sacrifice my freedom for people who want to limit their own, because it makes them feel more secure.