Linux better than XP? What the heck!?

[McCall St. Brewer]

Normally I get frustrated with Linux because when I can't get things to work all of the people who can help can only speak geek-tech-speak and not normal English. Usually, for most of the thing I do, Windows just works and Linux does not always work very easily.

Last night and today, though, I have had the opposite experience. I decided to play around with a spare laptop we have. I wanted to do a fresh install of Windows XP, so I got out a generic (not what came with the machine) XP CD and ran it.

When it finished, there were a whole bunch of yellow question marks in the device manager, mostly for devices needed to connect to networks and to get online. Also, a number of other things didn't work right. Apparently there is lots of stuff to run a Sony laptop that needs drivers from Sony in order to make them work. Windows could not find them on the XP CD. I could not get on the internet with the laptop to download them from Sony.

So, Plan B. I found the Restore CD's I made back when the machine was new. This worked fine. Only problem, though, was that now I had an XP "Service Pack Zero" machine. It took a couple of hours on a fast internet connection to download and install all the updates, including 3 Service Packs. I packed up to go to work and decided to bring the laptop with me to continue to work on it.

Big problem. I plugged in an ethernet cable (no wireless here) and could not get online. By this time I'm getting impatient, so I decide to throw in a Xubuntu CD. I installed Xubuntu Linux without a hitch, and amazingy the machine was connnected to the internet from the moment Xubuntu booted up. The other amazing thing? Everything needed to run a Sony laptop is right there in the FREE installation CD. How come people who are doing Linux for free can get it right when the folks out in Redmond who are making Billions and Billions selling their products for money can't do the same thing?

 

[Mutilated1]

Yep, Ubuntu rocks. You'll really appreciate it after you've been using it for a year or two and noticed that you haven't had to format and reinstall every 7-8 months like you do with Windows.

 

[Chriso]

I'm not very well-versed with Linux.... but I feel your pain re: Restoring.... that's pretty much what I do at work all day. Wipe the drive, install Windows, then let the painful driver hunt begin. And begin and begin and begin.

Glad it (Ubuntu) worked well for you!

 

[EdWort]

Chances are you have a fairly current build of Unbuntu. Your XP CD is an operating system that is 7 years old. Your notebook was probably built long after that XP CD was made and the drivers simply do not exist on it.

It would be great if Microsoft would release new versions of their install CD's updated with drivers, hotfixes, service packs and whatever.

 

[brauhaus]

Ubuntu installed on 3 laptops (2 are gifts for my family) each of them booted up without a hitch and work flawlessly. I'm running Ubuntu right now and loving it!! I won't buy or install windows on any computer I buy from now on for personal use.

I'm very happy making the switch

 

[k1v1116]

you can make a custom spin of XP with the latest service pack and all the drivers for a specific machine nLite - Deployment Tool for the bootable Unattended Windows installation if you plan to get viruses/spyware or just plan to nuke your drive every 6 months its a life saver.
up to date linux distros do tend to have better over all driver support although not always wireless/winprinter/winmodem/video card support.

 

[cd2448]

I installed Ubuntu on our home desktop PC and it picked all hardware no problem: network, scanner, printer. But it couldn't deal with some of my media files so it had to go. SWMBO hated it also - she didn't like the change from IE and we didn't find it particularly stable, either.

 

[zman]

I to am an IT guy in a Windows world that started to make the leap to Linux. I have Ubuntu installed on a laptop solo because when I had a dual boot (Xp installed first) I could not get the NIC to work when I booted into Xp, but it worked just fine in Linux. I wanted to try to figure out how to get Linux to play with my Server 2003 domain that I have at home so I could share files and learn more about internetowrking. I am prolly a Windows guy for the time being ( it is a Windows world) but using Linux is pretty cool so far.

 

[k1v1116]

Linux should be able to handle all media files, but you may need to install the right codecs, mplayer has a windows codec pack that handles everything Ive ever tried to play. BTW linux can technically run IE in wine there is even a program that installs and configures it for you Main Page - IEs4Linux but with the option to run so many other browsers its kind of backwards to run IE.
for linux networking with windows use samba it handles cifs, WINS, domain stuff, everything you need to talk to windows servers and other PCs. My experience has been that samba actually makes a better domain master than windows.

 

[McCall St. Brewer]

I'd be using Linux now at work, but I cannot for the life of me get my Palm Z22 to work with it. Other than that, it does everything I need perfectly. So, I guess Windows will stay.

 

[Tenchiro]

I will say that if you are a gamer then Linux is still way behind the windows world. Unless you are lucky enough to play a game that has a Linux client that is. Unfortunately those are still few and far between.

I do love Linux for general computer use, we just need to see more Linux friendly game devs out there.

 

[bernerbrau]

Another one sees the light. Welcome to the fold, brother

 

[farmbrewernw]

Been using Ubuntu Linux for a couple of years now and I see no reason to go back. I can't do it at work since I use a lot of windows only software but for personal use Ubuntu pretty much is the best thing ever.

 

[MikeFlynn74]

Linux Mint (Ubuntu) is teh ROXORS!

 

[Homercidal]

Well, if you used a Linux install disk that was as old as the Windows disk, you would be in trouble too. Now, if you had downloaded the drivers you needed ahead of time you probably wouldn't have the "don't have drivers, can't get online to get drivers" conundrum.

Also, maybe download a Linux Live CD and have on hand. Then if you have the same issue, you can boot to the Live CD and download the drivers you need to finish the windows install.

So, did you ever figure out where to get your Linux tech support?? yeah, that problem is still no better than before. Gurus who create this wonderful OS and Apps, then never document, or document with the assumption that people using it is already knowledgeable in Linux. That's worthless.

 

[Kilgore_Trout]

Chances are you have a fairly current build of Unbuntu. Your XP CD is an operating system that is 7 years old. Your notebook was probably built long after that XP CD was made and the drivers simply do not exist on it.

It would be great if Microsoft would release new versions of their install CD's updated with drivers, hotfixes, service packs and whatever.

They do that with service packs, but it doesn't really help the driver issue.

They could just make a web-based driver finder that actually works, rather than include their useless one. All of Microsoft's "connect to the internet to find a solution" crap never works.

Well, if you used a Linux install disk that was as old as the Windows disk, you would be in trouble too. Now, if you had downloaded the drivers you needed ahead of time you probably wouldn't have the "don't have drivers, can't get online to get drivers" conundrum.

Fair enough, but current linux builds have much better off the bat driver support than current windows builds.

Also, maybe download a Linux Live CD and have on hand. Then if you have the same issue, you can boot to the Live CD and download the drivers you need to finish the windows install.

Ubuntu is a liveCD, unless he went out of his way to grab the other version. Also, why bother with Windows at all in this situation?

So, did you ever figure out where to get your Linux tech support?? yeah, that problem is still no better than before. Gurus who create this wonderful OS and Apps, then never document, or document with the assumption that people using it is already knowledgeable in Linux. That's worthless.

You're really not familiar with the linux community, eh? Ubuntu forums are some of the most active tech forums on the web.

 

[Chriso]

So, did you ever figure out where to get your Linux tech support?? yeah, that problem is still no better than before. Gurus who create this wonderful OS and Apps, then never document, or document with the assumption that people using it is already knowledgeable in Linux. That's worthless.

You're really not familiar with the linux community, eh? Ubuntu forums are some of the most active tech forums on the web.

Not trying to start a war here.... but from the position of a technician.... who has had to ask M$ for help before.....

I would have to say that any support is a bonus. The fact that Linux (specifically, in this case Ubuntu) forums are active, and have people on them, is a huge start. Have you ever tried to ask M$ for help on a problem? It's not pretty. At all. Unless you are with a magic organization, whose name can cause them to tremble with fear (hey, there have to be a few!)...... the average joe, or even the average computer technician, is not worth M$'s time.

Anyway, rant done... just... asking M$ for help has always been a sore spot with me, with the ways I've been talked down to, hung up on, etc by their craptastic support.

Carry on.

 

[Mutilated1]

The driver issue is definitely one area where Linux has Windows beat. Case in point - try and install a HP printer.

Under Windows, you plug it all in, turn it on, find the driver CD or download the drivers, install the drivers, update the drivers, reboot and then maybe if you hold your mouth right it will print.

Under Linux you plug it in and turn it on.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Windows is too old to recognize your hardware, end of story. They are in the business of producing an OS, not drivers, which is why you need the bundled OS CDs or restore CDs from your vendor which have the right drivers and INF files.

The Linux community produces an OS and drivers, which is why the experience is better.

If you contact the vendor, they may have an updated restore CD pack for your laptop (for a modest fee) which will make life easier if you have to go through this again. Generally I find it easier to use a program like Ghost or Acronis to create an image of the hard disk after the machine is freshly installed and setup with the latest drivers, that way if you are forced to wipe you have essentially a whole disk checkpoint to restore to. With external drives selling for $80 it's more than worth the half day of my time it saves.

 

[Homercidal]

They do that with service packs, but it doesn't really help the driver issue.

They could just make a web-based driver finder that actually works, rather than include their useless one. All of Microsoft's "connect to the internet to find a solution" crap never works.



Fair enough, but current linux builds have much better off the bat driver support than current windows builds.



Ubuntu is a liveCD, unless he went out of his way to grab the other version. Also, why bother with Windows at all in this situation?



You're really not familiar with the linux community, eh? Ubuntu forums are some of the most active tech forums on the web.

Well, of course the Linux distros are updated continuously, whereas Windows are updated once in a while. That was my whole point. One who is installing Windows should have grabbed drivers ahead of time anyway.

The Live CD is very handy thing to have when working on computers, from software cleanups, to re-installs. My point is that even if you are installing Windows (which he was doing first), then it's a good idea to have one (doesn't have to be linux, but they are very handy).

Also, I still stand by my support irk. If I'm installing an application in Linux, and run into config or hardware issues, it's nearly impossible to find help online that is not complete geekspeak. Unless maybe you go to a forum and request help and let them know you are not a linux guru. Whereas Windows installs are so much more populous, there are a lot more support options.

No, I didn't mean to contact Microsoft for support, I meant help form the communities. Although I have yet to have any difficulties with Microsoft support, I just rarely ever need them to solve an issue. Most issues are dealt with through the application vendor.

I'm not bashing Linux, I think it's fantastic OS, and I wish it were better supported by hardware and software manufacturers. As far as HP, I've always had great luck getting their stuff to work. Until recently that is. Now I try to avoid them like the plague. That's not Windows fault, that's HPs fault.

I'd be very surprised if I could get an all-in-one HP printer to work completely in Linux too.

 

[Homercidal]

Windows is too old to recognize your hardware, end of story. They are in the business of producing an OS, not drivers, which is why you need the bundled OS CDs or restore CDs from your vendor which have the right drivers and INF files.

Misleading. You are effectively downloading a brand new version of the OS every time you download a linux ISO. So you are right that the Windows is so old,but if you were to download the updates you can create a new install and very nearly eliminate that problem altogether.

A better comparison is when you download Slackware 7 and try to install on a new laptop and get all your hardware to work.

This is my point.

 

[Pabst Blue Robot]

The IT field I'm in deals in a predominantly Windows environment but I have admined several different unix boxes of one flavor or another over the years. I've recently discovered an open source project called PING (partimage) and ironically it's made admining Windows a whole lot easier. When a new type of box comes in, I build a base image using the Windows OS, the drivers, the common software and configuration, and then sysprep it. I can then boot to PING where I have a server on the network that runs TFTP and has an SMB share (there is a CD that boots running ISO linux or there's a PXE server running in its own VLAN that I can boot to) and take a binary image of the machine and blow to the network (a la Ghost). Then, any more machines of that type I can boot to PING the same way and pull down the image in about 5 minutes. Saves me a ton of time and hassle when it comes to replacing end user equipment or troubleshooting time consuming desktop problems.

While as a desktop OS replacement linux is not very competitive because major applications generally aren't developed for it, its toolset can be extremely useful even in a windows environment. OpenSSH is another great example of a way to use *nix tools to enhance MS products.

 

[Homercidal]

The IT field I'm in deals in a predominantly Windows environment but I have admined several different unix boxes of one flavor or another over the years. I've recently discovered an open source project called PING (partimage) and ironically it's made admining Windows a whole lot easier. When a new type of box comes in, I build a base image using the Windows OS, the drivers, the common software and configuration, and then sysprep it. I can then boot to PING where I have a server on the network that runs TFTP and has an SMB share (there is a CD that boots running ISO linux or there's a PXE server running in its own VLAN that I can boot to) and take a binary image of the machine and blow to the network (a la Ghost). Then, any more machines of that type I can boot to PING the same way and pull down the image in about 5 minutes. Saves me a ton of time and hassle when it comes to replacing end user equipment or troubleshooting time consuming desktop problems.

While as a desktop OS replacement linux is not very competitive because major applications generally aren't developed for it, its toolset can be extremely useful even in a windows environment. OpenSSH is another great example of a way to use *nix tools to enhance MS products.

If we had enough similar machine here at work, I'd consider setting something like this up, but unfortunately it wouldn't make much sense in our environment. I like the idea though. My best approach is to Ghost or image the drive as soon as the system has it's software installed. Then I can re-image it if the need arises, then run any small updates I'm behind on. Makes rebuilding much faster.

I loaded XP and Ubunutu on a Dell server last couple of weeks in my spare time and plan on loading Ubuntu on my desktop at home as soon as I can my hands on a large enough drive. The server has a random reboot problem that makes it unusable for production, and now apparently won't reliably run a windowed OS either. I'll have to see if I can get a server lInux to run stable on it. Seems to be pointing to the video subsystem.

 

[bernerbrau]

as a desktop OS replacement linux is not very competitive because major applications generally aren't developed for it

Oh really?

www: OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite (complete office suite)
GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program (image editing and photo retouching)
Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder (sound editing and manipulation)
Rosegarden: music software for Linux (music authoring)
PostgreSQL: The world's most advanced open source database (database management system)
Rhythmbox - The music management application for GNOME (media player and library management)
blender.org - Home (3D modeling)
Code::Blocks (Fully featured, extensible software development IDE)

You're right, I don't know of any major desktop applications written for Linux. Better reinstall Windows.

 

[Homercidal]

Oh really?

www: OpenOffice.org - The Free and Open Productivity Suite (complete office suite)
GIMP - The GNU Image Manipulation Program (image editing and photo retouching)
Audacity: Free Audio Editor and Recorder (sound editing and manipulation)
Rosegarden: music software for Linux (music authoring)
PostgreSQL: The world's most advanced open source database (database management system)
Rhythmbox - The music management application for GNOME (media player and library management)
blender.org - Home (3D modeling)
Code::Blocks (Fully featured, extensible software development IDE)

You're right, I don't know of any major desktop applications written for Linux. Better reinstall Windows.

Not to split hairs, but those are not MS Office, Photoshop, etc. yes, they can do the job, and sometimes just as well if not better, but that still doesn't negate the fact that sometimes you are required to run certain software, not comparable software.

The point was that Microsoft, Adobe, etc. are not developing the SAME applications for Linux, as they do for Windows.

With that in mind, I highly recommend anyone who wants an Office Suite, but doesn't want to pay for it, or pirate it, to try out Open Office. I used it for 3 months here at work, and it interacted with all MS Office files and nobody could tell.

The GIMP IMO has a large learning curve, but so does photoshop when you start out. I also hear they have a photoshop lookalike product in development for those who already versed in Photoshop. I am used to Corel, so that does me very little good.

I think that Linux is still on the rise, and some of the major hardware makers are selling machines with the desktop installed, so hopefully soem of th emajor software makers will release more apps that run on it.

 

[bernerbrau]

those are not MS Office, Photoshop, etc. yes, they can do the job, and sometimes just as well if not better, but that still doesn't negate the fact that sometimes you are required to run certain software, not comparable software.

The point I was responding to, though, was the erroneous claim that major desktop applications, in general, don't exist for Linux. Given the active nature of the open source community, there almost always exists an open source alternative for a commercial product, which is actively maintained, robust, full-featured, and usually less error-prone than the commercial version. Not to mention, a few commercial companies are already releasing Linux-compatible versions of their software, a trend that is gaining significant momentum.

And in the rare cases when I actually need to use an application that's not written for Linux, I first try to use the Wine layer, which works about 60-70% of the time, and then I have a VMWare server running Windows to fall back on. 99.99999% of the time, this is sufficient. While Wine is not yet fully compatible with Windows it's made huge strides in recent years, eliminating much of the requirement of supporting yet another platform for Windows software. Further, virtualization has already matured to the point where a dedicated Windows partition isn't strictly necessary, even when Windows-only software is.

That said, though, there's really no reason an application shouldn't be written from the get-go with porting in mind. Every desktop application I write has the platform-specific code encapsulated off in its own section where it can be re-implemented for any new target platform.

 

[Tenchiro]

 

[jeder212]

I just switched to Ubuntu last week. I don't use this computer for work, just personal stuff, but man I love linux so far. Only issue I had was getting my 3-1 printer/scanner/copier to scan. After a lil research on-line, I had it going today. It does have a small learning curve, and using commands in the terminal can be kinda intimidating, but gets easier with time. I am currently dual booting XP, but haven't even had the need for XP in days, and don't plan on using it for nothing but Beersmith....Ubuntu rocks!!!:rockin:

 

[billtzk]

Yep, Ubuntu rocks. You'll really appreciate it after you've been using it for a year or two and noticed that you haven't had to format and reinstall every 7-8 months like you do with Windows.

I love Linux, and I run it on all of my computers but one that runs XP. As much as I detest windows, I have to say that in all the years I've used it (since version 2.11 for the 286 in the late '80s) I have never once had to format and reinstall. I have never understood why people do that. No matter what the problem is, you can fix it without taking that drastic measure.

 

[Homercidal]

YMMV, but I've rarely had to re-install Windows for myself. Of course I'm an IT Manager, and have years of experience, but I also have lots of IT friends. Their opinion of Linux is always favorable, but only one of the 4 actually uses it regularly. The others always seem to try it, but never end up using it, just like myself. These guys all recognize the faults of Windows, and have an experienced opinion. In fact, I'd say being in IT has given them a definite negative opinion of Windows.

I'd like to prevent my own kids from falling into the Windows trap of reliance, so to that end I am downloading Ubuntu, and my 9 yo and I are going to try installing it on a spare computer this morning. Hopefully we will get it working fully and I can play with it for a bit. This computer has a pretty standard sound card, that Windows won't install drivers for. I'm assuming the hardware is broken, but we'll see what Ubuntu can do. (Worst case I throw in a new sound card).

 

[Homercidal]

HAHA!! The one person I know running Linux has never had a long-term relationship...

 

[Mutilated1]

Ha yourself, I've been married for 13 years and my wife and 2 kids all use Linux.