Linux: Dont be afraid!

[variant]

When I first decided to try Linux it was because i was sick to death of constantly haveing to re-boot/re-install windows because it got all messed up for some reason. Also because I felt that there was no way for me to actualy see what the problem was and possibly fix it, I knew that whatever problem I solved with reinstalation would undoubtedly come around again, sooner rather than later!

The only thing that was holding me back from Linux was the abillity to play games like Quake3, RTCW etc. I have since discoverd that this is perfectly possible as versions of those and other games are available for Linux. I am wondering what fears other people may have (or have had) about Linux so heer is a short poll! :)

Cheers

[Dillinger]

Actually my biggest fear was screwing up my computer somehow, well more specifically my windows drive. I wouldn't care, but my parents still use this computer sometimes. Can't wait to build up that new box.

[Dolda2000]

At the end of my Winbloze life, I was so sick of it that I was on the verge of throwing my monitor out of the window several times a day. I had had a RH6.1 CD lying around for quite some time, but I couldn't install it easily, since I wasn't willing to risk my filesystem by resizing it. I had a lot of precious stuff on there (in the form of different programming projects), so that was my greatest fear. At the end, though, it simply went too far. There came a point where I just didn't care anymore; I just wanted to get rid of Winbloze, and I thought that whatever Linux was, it couldn't possibly be any worse than this insane M$ contraption. So I just backed up that which I wanted to keep and reformatted. And indeed, I wasn't disappointed! =)
I did keep Windoze a while for gaming purposes and DOS programming (ah, those were the days...), but let's just say that from the day I erased it, I haven't once looked back. Not only is it more stable, faster, free, but it also contains all these millions of technical features that make a computer enthusiast like me go crazy with joy.
Actually, that has brought me problems these last months. I have actually automated my system so much that I feel that there isn't much left to do on it; it just does everything for me... =(

And oh yeah, all you native English speakers out there: while we're on the non-technical side of Linux, I just want to tell you all the Linux is supposed to be pronounced Leenuhx. It is, after all, taken from Linus as in Linus Torvalds, and since he is of Finland's Swedish speaking minority, that is how his name is pronounced in Swedish, and therefore how Linux should be pronounced as well. Most RH versions, and probably other distros as well, ship with the files sample.au and sample2.au in /usr/share/sndconfig, which are recordings of the great penguin king himself pronouncing Linux, one in English and one in Swedish. The one in Swedish has much better sound quality, and therefore it should be considered authoritative. Just so that you know of these important matters. =)

[manulite]

Well for me switching from windoze hasn't been quite as smooth as i wanted it to be. First i didn't have a computer of my own so i had to repartition someone else's pc, installed RH6.1 on a dual boot without the person really knowing what exactly was taking place!
Generally i wasn't afraid of messing up until i had problems with some graphics drivers and i was reading through the man pages for Xconfigurator where it said something like 'be careful not to specify incorrect hsync and vsync for your monitor, your monitor might get fried' !!
But eventually i bought my pc but i was already into Lotus Notes/Domino development and one big reason why i still have a dual boot is that for some reason Lotus/IBM does not have a Lotus Notes Client for linux but the other reason is that i'm still learning a lot where linux is concerned and i'm actually scalling down on Domino and getting more into Java so i hope to be soon weaned of this micro$oft windoze.

[variant]

cool... but no-one is voteing!! grr!! ;)

[l_Kriss]

What my major worry when switching to GNU/Linux was to get my ISDN card to work. It was an old Teles 16.3c ISA PNP card Damn, that card gave me a lot of countless hours infront of the computer trying to solve things out. I think I never got the darn card up and working ( exept for some years later when my mother crushed my adsl modem when cleaning under the pc bench, and I had to use that ISDN card ). So I remeber when my mother announced that we where getting ADSL, and after some reading ot the usenet that ADSL would work fine, I was filled with joy as I finaly could install GNU/Linux again. Then when the installman guy came, I wasn't home so that ******** left behind a jensen usb ethernet box if you can call it that. So I switched with a frind, got me a PCI network card, and installed the beauty.

I guess I really wasn't scared of loosing anything, as I was only doing some minor programming in VB (yes, I know ) and my mp3 collection was rather small. Dont get a lot of music when on ISDN.
I never looked back, well at some points yes, when all of my frinds where playing that really great MC game, called Elastomania and I didn't know about wine :/

[Dolda2000]

cool... but no-one is voteing!! grr!! ;)

Well, you didn't include "destroying data" as an option.

[variant]

lol i was going to but i thought "too hard to install" would suffice :P

[Hellmasker]

my biggest fear was whether i could make it work. (and yes i voted for somethign close to that) however i was also sceptical about the stuff i had heard abotu never crashing and no viruses. i just couldnt see how it would never crash, or was impossible to virus.

Now i understand how linux works a lot better and dont see how windows coudl be made that ****ed up.

[variant]

yeah! totaly, you dont realise how bad and frankly weird windows is untill you try something else (linux)