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

[Ralgha]

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?

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...

Linux may work for you then, though if you didn't check the configuration of your new AV I still wonder. Much more configuring in Linux than Windows. Most of your problems still sound user induced though.

Comfort with the command line is pretty much a must for running Linux since the window managers/desktop environments never give you access to everything, and the GUIs that do exist are often a half-finished composition of mostly-functional stuff thrown together as an afterthought.

Basically I switched back to Windows when I realized two things:

1) Linux required an inordinate amount of time messing with stuff. Despite liking it, it was getting to be too much.

2) I didn't need Linux for anything, whereas I did need Windows for certain things such as Photoshop and games.

Windows 7 sealed the deal. It's so much better than any prior Windows that I didn't miss the things that Linux did do better.

[the86d]

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.

Now that you mention it, I don't recall the last time I had a BSOD on a 7 box, maybe 3-6 months ago... and leave Work and home Rigs on 24/7 (w/UPS of course).

Not that it will keep me on it... I just have to find a Distro that is as zippy as Slack 11, without Gnome (as not a whole lot of good things come out of Mexico, and Gnome has always seemed slower than KDE). I guess I'll start here, as I have so many times before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of...lackware-based

Sorry for the trainreq-derail... OP.

[vmwerks]

just depends on your needs, really. Linux works fine for a lot of people.

let me know when you have Skyrim, EVE, and DCS A10-C working and I'll meet you over in Linux land.

The total truth - I've been an IT person for as long as there were desktops. I was an early adopter of Linux and worked for a set top box company that ran on QNX, a real time OS, I was instrumental in convincing them to convert to Linux. I was also the go to guy on the Linux for Laptops site for the Micron platform.

That said Miscrosoft isn't going anywhere. Open source has it's issues as well.... for a regular Joe who wants to surf the web look at pron and send out the occasional email you're good to go. Quite frankly I could never really get used to the application interfaces, they always seemed klunky to me. I'd run a MAC OS desktop... I think it was KDE theme at the time.

[JDay]

I can tell you that my desktop system at home over it's various incarnations has had zero issues(aside from the occasional hardware problem that would have been an issue with linux as well) since I quit letting guests use it to check their email or whatever idiotic things they do and just mindlessly click "yes" on everything that pops up

I enabled the guest account on my desktop/notebook for just this reason. Once they logout the account is reset. And since it does not have admin permissions they cannot infect the system.

[JDay]

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'll be you the real reason they went with thin clients is because it costs far less than having a workstation for each employee. Why do you think virtual machines are taking off in the enterprise?

Just try to blow out a corrupted user profile on a Win7 box that is on a domain, NIGHTMARE.

Hahahahahahah.

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.

I have never had this problem on any of my multi-core systems. In fact it pops up instantly for me.

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.

Lies! Microsoft has been optimizing their code for quite some time now.

[QUOTE]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.[/QUOTE[

Umm, no. I'll be you run those crappy optimizer programs that screw up your system.

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.

Never takes more than a couple seconds for me. Is your system 5+ years old?

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

Whatever.

[JDay]

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.

Sounds like user error to me. I have setup dozens of networked printers to work with Windows 7 and have never once had an issue with them.

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

Upgrade your system drive then, sounds like you have a bunch of crap thrashing it constantly. This is not good for the drives longevity.

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.

It's your system causing this, not the OS. Buy some better hardware.

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

No wonder you know little about managing clients connected to a domain. And a lot has changed since Windows 2000. You really should get up to date on your certs before you go blaming Microsoft for your lack of knowledge.

[yellowsulphur]

I'll admit Windows7 is nice and I've yet to have a BSOD from it, but the bundled version that came with my laptop sucked. Anyway I haven't had a kernel_panic or BSOD from either in years.

[ibanezfoo]

I'm just sick of the crappy software that Microsoft has been putting out for years and years. No, I won't be going with their Windows 8. I've been using Ubuntu Linux to make my videos (using Kdenlive) and I gotta say, it's been pretty damn good. No operating system will ever be perfect (nope, not even Apple's Mac OS--sorry, Jobsians), but Ubuntu Linux comes closer than others have. Runs on any cheap commodity computer, totally easy to use, way more secure, less buggy, and tons of really good software out there for it (e. g. Kdenlive).

No more Microsoft for me. My Dad's running CentOS Linux and is doing great. Some of my neighbors are now running Ubuntu Linux and are loving it. It's nice to have a computer that actually works...without being "pwn3d". :-)

Any other GNU/Linux users 'round dese here CalGuns parts? (BSD counts, too, BTW)

Linux pays my bills.

[the86d]

No wonder you know little about managing clients connected to a domain. And a lot has changed since Windows 2000. You really should get up to date on your certs before you go blaming Microsoft for your lack of knowledge.

Not worth it. I could, and make a little bit more money, at the expense of more car repairs, a long commute, working far from my kids, and much more.

I should not have to buy an i7 to run an OS that's system min. req's are:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Yeah Min Req, whatever... I am running a quad Athlon 64.

I am guessing y'all trolls are PAYING child support? I'm RECEIVING it, as I put my kids 1st over a new cert, and just a bit more salary( oh, and my house is only MY name).

[Merc1138]

[QUOTE=the86d;8721505]Not worth it. I could, and make a little bit more money, at the expense of more car repairs, a long commute, working far from my kids, and much more.

I should not have to buy an i7 to run an OS that's system min. req's are:
1 gigahertz (GHz) or faster 32-bit (x86) or 64-bit (x64) processor

1 gigabyte (GB) RAM (32-bit) or 2 GB RAM (64-bit)

16 GB available hard disk space (32-bit) or 20 GB (64-bit)

DirectX 9 graphics device with WDDM 1.0 or higher driver

Yeah Min Req, whatever... I am running a quad Athlon 64.[quote]
There was no quad athlon 64, unless you mean you're running a dual socket setup. So you're telling me that your 6 year old CPU and mnotherboard that's well ahead of the minimum system requirements is incapable of doing a basic task like unmounting a USB device without taking more than a second or two? Ok... did you miss the part where I said I was using an old core 2 duo in my HTPC? Yeah, 2 powerhouse cores that can quickly unmount a USB device in windows 7. As I said, you've screwed something up, it doesn't get like that on it's own.

I am guessing y'all trolls are PAYING child support? I'm RECEIVING it, as I put my kids 1st over a new cert, and just a bit more salary( oh, and my house is only MY name).

1. Yup, that's maturity
2. When did I say anything about paying for a cert? I mentioned learning how to use something and reading documentation. You can do both of those for free, instead of making up excuses for why you can't get something to work correctly.

[the86d]

1. Yup, that's maturity
2. When did I say anything about paying for a cert? I mentioned learning how to use something and reading documentation. You can do both of those for free, instead of making up excuses for why you can't get something to work correctly.

Any type of Net. Cert. still does not make 7 work correctly, even non-domain.

That would be A+ Cert for tech with desktop OS (i.e. 7)... I have always run circles around most Admins, A+, Network+, and my boss the Net. Admin Actual, who never had a Cert. and I have always run circles around him, AND most coming out of school with XP/2003 Certs. with some experience. Cert. don't mean crap, degree don't mean crap. So someone never had the issues I see, because they do less. So what... meh

I took some A+ classes to see if I needed/wanted that cert. too... circles around instructor.

Whatev', Trollerz.

Been fun...

[Merc1138]

So now you're trying to brag about CompTIA certs? Really? The only thing anyone can take away from your posts(I'm going to just ignore all of the childish bs for the moment) is that you think Microsoft hires the worst programmers who write the worst OS ever, yet somehow Windows is sentient and capable of screwing up it's own driver installs and adding browser toolbars with absolutely no input from the user other than turning the computer on. So is it that MS has horrible programmers writing horrible code, or that they've managed to create a slightly retarded but still functional AI like HAL 9000?

As far as your cert bragging goes, the paid support department at Fry's has people A+ certs. They aren't exactly the epitome of tech gurus. Also, who in the world goes(or went) to school for a windows xp cert? You're seriously trying to bring that up as if it actually means anything? I was talking about reading through the server 2008 material, you know, for the MCITP(formerly MCSE, among other names) so you might actually learn how to do some of the administration on a 2008 ADS that you were complaining about. Not some CompTIA garbage. You keep on running those circles, but bragging about it is like telling us that you can beat up a 5 year old karate student.

As far as what you think I do(not sure why you're assuming I do less, same as I don't get why you assume I was running windows 7 home edition at home. Even for the dynamic disk support I'd need pro) at work... wow. I'm not going to get into some e-wang measuring contest, but no I'm not in IT(would be a step down, our IT department comes to me for issues).

Your failure to actually learn on your own and keep up with changes reminds me of the guy who complained about being a teacher and having to spend a day learning that wasn't at full pay. If you're in the tech industry in in capacity and you aren't keeping up with current trends(server OS' that have been around for 4+ years now), you're eventually going to get dumped for being a dinosaur on the job.

[DaveInOroValley]

I've been thinking of trying Linux again as well. I had played around with RedHat and a few others early on, but it seems that "Mint" comes up allot as a favorite. I'll have to take a look.

[Merc1138]

I've been thinking of trying Linux again as well. I had played around with RedHat and a few others early on, but it seems that "Mint" comes up allot as a favorite. I'll have to take a look.

If you haven't used linux in a while, it's definitely worth a shot as most of the distros have drastically improved their usability in the past 5 years or so.

At the very least you could get yourself some live CDs of various distros and boot off of those to give 'em a try before you spend the time actually installing something.

[yellowsulphur]

@Daveinwoodland - Mint would be a good choice. Their latest release has long term support. Distros like Fedora update every 6 months and have support that only lasts a year. Constantly reinstalling tends to turn some people off.