Linux is GOOD!!

[dualboot]

Just wanted to post my Linux experience so far. I've had SuSE 10.0 for about 3 months now and I havn't been back to my Win XP partition in about 2 months. I can do everything with Linux that I could with Windows except get/load music to my Creative Zen Micro (but that's what my laptop is for ) SuSE has been very stable, has never locked up or blue screened (Haha!!) and it runs faster than Windows. I could not surf the web or anything while using Nero to burn a cd in XP, it would simply just lock up until the CD was burnt. In SuSE, I use K3B and I can surf the web, listen to mp3's in Amarok, and check my mail!! The thing I love the most so far is that I can open a prgram suck as Amarok, it stays in the
system tray and comes right back after I turn the pc off for the day and boot it up the next. Amarok even keeps its place in the playlist, so I start right back at the last song I heard before turning off the pc. That's a big plus to me. The company that I work for is looking at switching to Linux b/c our license fees for Microsoft software went WAY up this year and we are going to have to get rid of some software on various PCs. Anyhoo, feel free to post your favorite things about Linux here, I'm curious to see what other distros/applications have to offer!!!

[oz]

It's all about having far more control and options for me, and not having to register Linux is nice, too.

ozar

[Cabhan]

I'm glad to see that you're happy with Linux. I remember back when I was dual-booting: I found that I hadn't used Windows in months, so I eventually just got rid of it.

For me, Linux is about customization, control, and ease-of-use. Back in the early days of my Linux usage, I found it very difficult to work with Linux, but these days, I find it SO easy and adaptive to what I need.

And SuSE: what an amazing distro.

[oosterhouse]

I like it because it's a challenge and it doesn't just idiot-proof itself for you, like Windows does. It makes you work to customize it the way you want, and when you finally do get it fully-customized, it's just awesome and it's MY work, not Microsoft's. I think anyone with time and an interest in computers thinks the same way I do.

[the ex]

the only reason i dual boot is for visual basic, which i need for classes

[Roxoff]

Welcome to the forum, and welcome to Linux. So when are you going to change your user name to 'singleboot'?

[fingal]

Edit: I'm putting this at the top. I like the culture of Linux so this is worth reading. IMHO it's very much more important than the rest of this post, so please feel free to ignore the rest.

I've never tried dual booting, but I would echo what a couple of other people have said: I love being able to customise things. I also like the potential to automate otherwise mundane tasks.

Sometimes you realise you have an issue which was hidden from you. For eg. I asked myself, 'Do you have a good backup strategy ... You don't really want to lose your music files do you?' So a bit of searching on Google and a (very long) weekend later I wrote a simple backup routine in Bash. I don't programme, so this was - for me at least - a challenge.

Then I realised that I need to extend this further. I mean, I'm just an ordinary desktop user, but where can I store those 100s of files? They need to go on a separate machine somewhere ... I have gigbytes of stuff which I don't want to lose. It was never like that when I used Win. 95 and copied things to floppy. Then, all I did was keep those disks somewhere safe and not worry.

So now I've realised that there's always something new to learn, which is what I like. When I get my act together I'll be able get my script to copy my tarred and compressed backups to another machine. It might be mundane for some, but for me it means I can listen to my music and not lose a thing.

What you realise is that your system is very dynamic. You can do a lot with it, and enjoy learning as you go.

[dualboot]

Great posts guys. To add a little to what fingal has said, I myself was just a basic desktop user. I used Windows for e-mail, banking, music, just basic stuff. Windows worked fine for the most part, but it was boring and I really didn't need to know much about it to make it work. With Linux, I feel compelled to figure things out, change things....and if I don't know how, I search. Linux is great b/c you can make it your own. I look forward to the day that I can actually do some programming of my own. As for changing my name to "singleboot", I guess I'm still dual booting b/c my laptop has XP on it. When I get my desktop the way I want it and am very comfortable with Linux, I just may have to change my laptop OS to Linux as well

[ImNeat]

I'm still new to Linux - but I'm absolutely loving it.

In my opinion it's like learning a manual transmission. Frustrating at first - but you just wanna know how to do it. Once you start to get the hang of it you immediately fall in love, and you know you'll never want anything else in the future.

I've learned so much after starting to use my Fedora distro. And I know I havn't even encountered a fraction of what the Linux community has to offer.

I just recently set grub to boot Linux as the primary - Windows was the primary for about 2 months. Pretty much the only time I go over "there" is to play counterstrike or something.