No more Microsoft Windows; it's GNU/Linux for me

[gugoo]

ArchLinux!

[bish0p]

I discovered Linux in the mid 90's and dabbled over the years. I started using Linux full time in 2003 with Debian. I use mostly Debian and Arch. I like the small distributions. Puppy Linux is the bees knees.

[the86d]

...Aside from one old printer that is collecting dust in a closet...

It holds 1000 sheets of paper, and they NEVER die, so yes I will keep it for longer than somebody with an all-in-one, or a stand alone inkjet (1-3 years). The "black" toner cost about $100ish, and last me for YEARS. I have a few that I can pull parts from at work, and I have never had to replace the fuser (and if I did I could pull one from an unused machine at work). It was a free kick-down from work as they are being replaced by faster printers. I don't need to print pretty rainbows in color, so a B&W laser is GREAT especially for ZERO maint/replacement costs. These printers were workhorses in the Enterprise for years. Win7 gets confused with the driver install for them, and it can take a while, with a bunch of tweaking to get it working since it is a wired network printer, not usb, as it not near any computers... I am guessing you don't work in IT, or you would be aware of even more issues with existing infrastructure Win7 hiccups on/with. 1800 users had to be put on Thin Clients because supporting individual PCs with Windows issues could not be kept up with.

I can tell you that my desktop system at home over it's various incarnations has had zero issues...

Users on "Home Editions", which I would guess most people are running do not see half issues others do at work, and home, nor are the issues apparent for most home users. Just try to blow out a corrupted user profile on a Win7 box that is on a domain, NIGHTMARE. On WinXP, you could just dupe their data, delete profile folder, and put the data in the new profile. Win7 won't even create a new one without scouring the registry, and you guessing which registry profile entry THAT user is to remove (randomly generated registry entry, not by SID, and if it is by SID... try to find that)...

"windows just staring at you"

About "windows staring at you": Right click to dismount/remove USB on a 2-4 core system and see how long it takes on Win7 box to even pop-up. It does nothing for 5-10 seconds before it even pops anything up so you don't even know if it took the click you just did. There is not reason for this, the user should have priority, and M$ puts "pretties" over performance more each version they come out with. You can click something, focus changes, not relevant to what you clicked, and your click is ignored.

If you right-click an MP3 or other audio file, you can get one menu WITHOUT "Play" OR "Add to Media Player list" and have to click it, so you can Right-Click it to get the right menu to come up. i.e. "Open Containing Folder" in an application, then Windows7 selects it after opening the folder, but it is selected off the screen where you can't even see it, so THEN you have to use your arrow-up (makes the view refresh to the page the file is actually on), then arrow-down to select it again in that window, what a PITA.

In the control panel if you wish to uninstall an application, you have to sit, and wait for the installed program database to load, then refresh, then load some more, then refresh, and eventually you can find the application you are trying to remove. THIS is with no applications running, just printer drivers installed, a few productivity apps (say an FTP client, Citrix, and a few more, installed not running), and maybe a few (3-5) things in the system tray including an AV.

These are just a few of the issues I've seen, and they are worse EVERY NEW VERSION OF WINDOWS...

[Ralgha]

LibreOffice is an improvement over OpenOffice as development stopped when Oracle acquired it. I agree with you though on how the GUIs could be quite clunky, but as of late they have started to mature. Of course I've only run Gnome or Fluxbox so my experience in limited.

I tried KDE, didn't like it. Used Gnome a lot, for a while I was using only Enlightenment and that was pretty cool until it broke. Then I replaced Gnome's window manager with Enlightenment and that worked until one of the Gnome updates broke it forever. Managed to get Metacity to do mostly what I wanted. Used Xfce a bit too, that was nice.

Mostly it was the fiddling that I was tired of. There was always some bit of my hardware that didn't play nice. Usually it was some facet of the sound. Video drivers worked ok, only because Nvidia liked Linux and made drivers for it. Wasn't as fast as the Windows drivers though. I was always recompiling some driver to try to make the hardware work together better.

Man the networking was nice though (once you got it set up, holy crap on a poop stick). Transparently connected to my network drives on multiple university servers, able to execute commands on engineering servers from my own command line without logging in, scheduled rsync runs to update files. Run programs on my computer from a computer lab to freak out my roommates, run programs on my computer and display it in the computer lab (without using some stupid remote desktop bullshoot). Boy was it slick, but when it broke, oh...my...God...did it ever break.

[Merc1138]

It holds 1000 sheets of paper, and they NEVER die, so yes I will keep it for longer than somebody with an all-in-one, or a stand alone inkjet (1-3 years). The "black" toner cost about $100ish, and last me for YEARS. I have a few that I can pull parts from at work, and I have never had to replace the fuser (and if I did I could pull one from an unused machine at work). It was a free kick-down from work as they are being replaced by faster printers. I don't need to print pretty rainbows in color, so a B&W laser is GREAT especially for ZERO maint/replacement costs. These printers were workhorses in the Enterprise for years. Win7 gets confused with the driver install for them, and it can take a while, with a bunch of tweaking to get it working since it is a wired network printer, not usb, as it not near any computers... I am guessing you don't work in IT, or you would be aware of even more issues with existing infrastructure Win7 hiccups on/with. 1800 users had to be put on Thin Clients because supporting individual PCs with Windows issues could not be kept up with.

What does this have to do with me having an old printer sitting in my closet? As I said, the Laserjet 5Si has windows drivers.

"Home Editions", which I would guess most people are running do not even support half the features used at work, and home, nor are the issues apparent for most home users. Just try to blow out a corrupted user profile on a Win7 box that is on a domain, NIGHTMARE. On WinXP, you could just dupe their data, delete profile folder, and put the data in the new profile. Win7 won't even create a new one without scouring the registry, and you guessing which registry profile entry THAT user is (randomly generated registry entry, not by SID, and if it is by SID try to find that)...

What does the various hardware configurations of my home systems have to do with what version of windows I'm using(Professional btw)?

Also, why would you be using the windows 7 client to get the SID for a domain user account, when you can just do that from the DC, or via the MMC(connecting to the DC) on the windows 7 client? You also realize that the profiles can be managed from the DC as well, right? It's a right click menu option on their account in "Active Directory Users and Computers". Also, is using psgetsid so hard?

About "windows staring at you": Right click to dismount/remove USB on a 2-4 core system and see how long it takes on Win7 box to even pop-up. It does nothing for 5-10 seconds before it even pops anything up so you don't even know if it took the click you just did. There is not reason for this, the user should have priority, and M$ puts "pretties" over performance more each version they come out with.

5-10 seconds? Really? I just timed it with a flash drive sitting here on my desk, from the time I hit "stop" to it popping up the "you may now safely remove your device" was maybe half a second.

If you right-click an MP3 or other audio file, you can get one menu WITHOUT "Play" OR "Add to Media Player list" and have to click it, so you can Right-Click it to get the right menu to come up. i.e. "Open Containing Folder" in an application, then Windows7 selects it after opening the folder, but it is selected off the screen where you can't even see it, so THEN you have to use your arrow-up (makes the view refresh to the page the file is actually on), then arrow-down to select it again in that window, what a PITA.

Well for one, maybe you should try right clicking on the file first instead of missing and clicking on the window background. I've also never had windows pop anything up off screen unless I've been playing around with different displays connected, resolutions, etc. and never bothered to actually correct my desktop settings. What are you talking about?

In the control panel if you wish to uninstall an application, you have to sit, and wait for the installed program database to load, then refresh, then load some more, then refresh, and eventually you can find the application you are trying to remove. THIS is with no applications running, just printer drivers installed, a few productivity apps (say an FTP client, Citrix, and a few more, installed not running), and maybe a few (3-5) things in the system tray including an AV.

I can only assume that this is because you've got something screwed up, and it's likely the same reason that it takes your 5-10 seconds staring at nothing while waiting to un-mount a USB drive. If it's not bad hardware(screwed up HDD causing IO to take forever), yeah... I'm going to say it: user error(this is why I don't let other people use my systems at home for anything. Too many people have a weird compulsion to blindly click "yes" no matter what appears on screen, and end up making things FUBAR). There have been plenty of legit reasons to bash windows over the years, and as I said linux/unix/etc. make sense for some people depending on their actual computer usage. But don't blame windows for your user errors. Windows does not do this:
all by itself.

[yellowsulphur]

^That's funny. I haven't seen Altavista or Excite in what seems about 10 years.

[the86d]

...As I said, the Laserjet 5Si has windows drivers.

As I said, "Win7 gets confused with the driver install for them"... and does not work the way it should for a network printer as it did in every prior version of Windows I have installed drivers on. Their big sellers of the past that may still be in use should have drivers included is all I am saying.

Also, why would you be using the windows 7 client to get the SID for a domain user account, when you can just do that from the DC, or via the MMC(connecting to the DC) on the windows 7 client? You also realize that the profiles can be managed from the DC as well, right?

If it is the SID that is directly related to that registry entry for the profile folder, but as I stated appears RND Gen.
The Domain profile for the user was/is fine, it appeared to be something LIKE a Corrupt registry, and it USED to be a whack user.dat, or what was it system.dat? in XP. The profile folder referenced in the local registry for this user's local (profile?) folder was the issue, end result.

5-10 seconds? Really? I just timed it with a flash drive sitting here on my desk, from the time I hit "stop" to it popping up the "you may now safely remove your device" was maybe half a second.

to even pop-up.

Not after clicking Eject, but "after right-clicking"...and REALLY long if doing a daily virus scan.

Well for one, maybe you should try right clicking on the file first instead of missing and clicking on the window background. I've also never had windows pop anything up off screen unless I've been playing around with different displays connected, resolutions, etc. and never bothered to actually correct my desktop settings.

Yeah... missed. Nice try, Nope direct right-click. I have even done it a few times in a row, same results. It happens less now that SP1 came out, but still happens.

Windows does not do this:
<http://worcester.typepad.com/pc4media/images/toolbar400gif.gif> all by itself.

All users say it does, why should we disbelieve them?

Win2000 WAS my cert, but see the issues with the newer OSs a lot more.

[Merc1138]

Not after clicking Eject, but "after right-clicking"...and REALLY long if doing a daily virus scan.

Even any of the clicking needed to do anything happens for me with no delay, the one exception being that it takes about 2 seconds to list all of the attached USB devices.

Yeah... missed. Nice try, Nope direct right-click. I have even done it a few times in a row, same results. It happens less now that SP1 came out, but still happens.

Yeah, because you've managed to break something.

All users say it does, why should we disbelieve them?

Win2000 WAS my cert, but see the issues with the newer OSs a lot more.

For the same reason that I don't believe someone's gun magically went off on it's own and shot someone else on accident. Your lack of familiarity with anything after windows 2000 might explain a few things, but I guess learning the documented changes for system and server administration on the OS you're using 12 years later is unacceptable, since you never ever have to read changelogs for anything in linux

[the86d]

...g...et......o...f...f my...n...u...t...s...

That is what I am telling you.

[Merc1138]

So you're telling me that I'm telling you to get off my nuts? How sense that does any make?

[the86d]

None. I am not here for you, but you seem to need the attention.

I have been where I work 12 years, and it's not getting any harder... and click quote on your post instead of mine...trying to be funny.

[Ralgha]

Honestly, the problems you detailed you're having with Windows aren't going to get any better with Linux, just different. Linux is going to break on you eventually, it's going to happen, and it's a hell of a lot harder to make it work again without massive surgery. The major difference is that it's not all tied together in a shiny bow, so the whole thing won't break, just little parts and pieces.

Daily virus scanning in Windows shows a lack of knowledge of how it and malware work. I haven't run a system scan in years (but I do have an antivirus program) and my computers have been malware free the entire time. This indicates to me that you might not be ready for Linux, since Linux is easier to make less secure than Windows. It starts off more secure but if you start messing with things without knowing exactly what you're doing, all bets are off. Security through obscurity only goes so far.

Windows 7 is arguably the best version of Windows they've ever put out. The simple fact that you apparently believe that screen shot of IE with all the toolbars was done by Windows on its own indicates that most of your problems are user created. Stay far away from Linux.

Don't get me wrong, Linux is great for the right person. It's not for the person who wants their computer to "just work." You will eventually have to spend more time making it work than you would with Windows 7, assuming a roughly equal level of familiarity with each.

[the86d]

Honestly, the problems you detailed you're having with Windows aren't going to get any better with Linux, just different. Linux is going to break on you eventually, it's going to happen, and it's a hell of a lot harder to make it work again without massive surgery. The major difference is that it's not all tied together in a shiny bow, so the whole thing won't break, just little parts and pieces.

Daily virus scanning in Windows shows a lack of knowledge of how it and malware work. I haven't run a system scan in years (but I do have an antivirus program) and my computers have been malware free the entire time. This indicates to me that you might not be ready for Linux, since Linux is easier to make less secure than Windows. It starts off more secure but if you start messing with things without knowing exactly what you're doing, all bets are off. Security through obscurity only goes so far.

Windows 7 is arguably the best version of Windows they've ever put out. The simple fact that you apparently believe that screen shot of IE with all the toolbars was done by Windows on its own indicates that most of your problems are user created. Stay far away from Linux.

Don't get me wrong, Linux is great for the right person. It's not for the person who wants their computer to "just work." You will eventually have to spend more time making it work than you would with Windows 7, assuming a roughly equal level of familiarity with each.

I assume you are referencing my post, as nothing was quoted.

There is a policy for a daily scan of all files via an AV server policy at work, and I don't know if there is one on my home rig... never checked since I switched AVs. I have services that are FW'd to run on ALT ports to my Win 2k8 server at home, some that run to my Slackware box, and my main rig.

You might wish to double-check who posted that image? Yeah.

I prefer the cli in Slackware Linux for editing .conf's (in vi usually), start and stop services and interfaces manually at the cli, and do much in the cli for Windows that cannot be done quickly in Win7 GUI. I think I'll be okay. At work, we are a 'NIX shop... well... were until recently.

I may have to run a Windows VM in VMware or Virtualbox, if I can get it to run on Slackware like I did before it was Oracle's for sharepoint access from home...

[Merc1138]

He didn't accuse you of posting the image. He was referring to your comment that was in response to me posting the image

All users say it does, why should we disbelieve them?

You're either agreeing with the users who think windows automagically does that to their browser, or you think it does not and those users are wrong. Your statement seems to agree with the users claiming it does that all by itself.

[odysseus]

Windows 7 is arguably the best version of Windows they've ever put out. The simple fact that you apparently believe that screen shot of IE with all the toolbars was done by Windows on its own indicates that most of your problems are user created.

I never have had a BSOD problem, personally. Systems under my domains did not have BSOD problems. People who think all BSOD issues are Microsoft's too don't understand how the architecture with third party device manufacturers making crappy drivers works. A lot of FUD out there about it all.