The Official Operating System thread

[snoblo]

If you have a decent computer, instead of dual-booting, you can just install a virtual machine (such as vmware or virtualbox). My computer is no beast, but I can run windows xp inside linux at full speed =)

 

[Sensai]

Attention: iTunes on Windows Vista blows.

That is all.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

I officially made the leap to Ubuntu in December of 2006. Since then, I have enjoyed Windows-free computing. Ubuntu is the way to go!

I agree with the reviews stating that Ubuntu is still not newb-friendly (so Windows will continue to hold the market), but when comparing Windows to Linux on a power user level, Linux wins hands down. Linux runs on fewer resources, has no restrictive DRM of any kind, and can do just about anything Windows can (especially with WINE).

 

[Sensai]

The problem with Linux, as of right now, is that, like you said, it's simply not user-friendly. Sure, it CAN do all this stuff (WINE is pretty much the second coming of Christ), but the average user (y'know, someone who still uses IE) doesn't want to (or even know how to) jump through all the hoops necessary.

Ubuntu's on the right track; we're getting there. It's still gonna take a bit of time.

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

The problem with Linux, as of right now, is that, like you said, it's simply not user-friendly. Sure, it CAN do all this stuff (WINE is pretty much the second coming of Christ), but the average user (y'know, someone who still uses IE) doesn't want to (or even know how to) jump through all the hoops necessary.

Ubuntu's on the right track; we're getting there. It's still gonna take a bit of time.

It's only a matter of time before everyone sees the light, though. The world contributes to Linux on all levels (the kernel, the main GUI, the applications that run on it, etc.), so it serves the community well. Windows has a committee of executives who repeatedly state, "We know what's best for you." That attitude is going to catch up to them (if it hasn't already).

 

[snoblo]

One thing that deters many people from linux is simply their mindset. In order to like linux, you have to be open your mind to new ideas and to learn. Those who aren't willing to spend the time configuring and tinkering will probably be put off by this, although Ubuntu does a nice job doing most of that for you. Also, frustrated Windows users who are having problems are more used to referring to their manuals or phone tech support rather than getting help from googling and searching forums.

Another thing that is sometimes troublesome at first in linux is getting stuff to work. While linux's hardware support is better than Windows', most hardware companies don't offer linux drivers for their products, leaving people confused on what to do if their hardware is not detected. Even getting X to work at times is baffling, and many users are uncomfortable with a command-line interface.

When most hardware (and software) companies finally notice the promise of linux, that's when everything will be much easier

 

[Sensai]

I dunno if I've told you guys this, but I've been trying a little experiment with my girlfriend's computer...I put Ubuntu on it. She seems to like it (the little she uses it; I can't get Internet to work on it despite my most sincere efforts), mainly because "it's pretty! Make the cube spin!"

Heh. Like a cat with string...

Anyways, I've fallen in love with Ubuntu again. I just started over with Hardy. Wiped my old partition clean and started again.

@ Linux users: What audio player do you guys use? I've tried Banshee and don't particularly recommend it...it's ok, but it's a bit slow. I know Amarok is a favorite, but it's GNOME, not KDE.

@ snoblo: The command line is hands down the scariest things towards Windows users attempting to switch, my girlfriend says. She says (keep in mind she's pretty dumb when it comes to computers) that it freaks her out 'cause she feels like she's done something wrong, 'cause the only time she'd ever see it in XP is when something bad was about to happen.

But, y'know, I've been impressed with Hardy's almost fool-proof-ness. Everywhere I look, there's an explanation and an icon to help out people who are new to this. It's nice...like an OS holding your hand or something.

@ Buzz: Do you use Emerald on your Ubuntu? Compiz-Fusion? Or are you more of a productivity kinda man?

@ anyone and everyone interested in Linux: Here's an easy way to try it, all that's required is a little patience (downloading and reading instructions) and a thumbdrive that's at least a gig.

http://lifehacker.com/391067/fedora-9-puts-your-desktop-on-a-usb-drive

And if Fedora isn't your thing (which is understandable: it's not exactly newb friendly) you can, if you so desire, do the above with Ubuntu, albeit an older version (not archaic...maybe a year old, tops; it'll still beat out Vista anyday of the week).

http://www.pendrivelinux.com/2007/09/21/usb-ubuntu-704-persistent-install/

And now...I'm off to sleep. Probably gonna try the Fedora thing sometime soon. I'mma try to get Warcraft 3 running through WINE tomorrow, along with recustomizing Ubuntu.

Y'know, snoblo's right. If people didn't like customizing...I'm not so sure they'd enjoy Linux as much as I do.

/end long post

 

[AltF4]

Ha! I was JUST in the process of configuring War3 on WINE. It does run, but it's all slow and choppy. I lurked around on some forums and ppl are saying WINE has a huge overhead and can't play games unless you've got like a Gf 8xxx video card. Which I don't.

 

[Sensai]

I fortunately do...hopefully it'll work ok.

That really sucks that it doesn't run smoothly for you, though. How long did it take to configure?

[Edit:]

And in case the question was missed:

What audio player do you Linux users suggest?

 

[snoblo]

I've used totem, but vlc is pretty good also. I really don't have a favorite, since they're all pretty much the same anyway.

and also, for your internet troubles, have you tried finding the drivers of your adapter (wireless i assume?)
ndiswrapper has worked wonders for me, and I was surprised that the new kernel instantly recognized my linksys adapter, and my laptop's internal one also (the old kernel worked for this too though).

 

[Sensai]

Yep, tried getting the drivers and all that. :-/

The new Ubuntu recognized my wireless drivers from the get go. Pretty awesome.

As to the music player, I was referring to something that managed music for you, a la iTunes, Winamp, etc. VLC is good, and I love it, but it's not much for music management.

 

[Mugquomp]

Well I just use Rhythmbox. It works pretty well for me, except it doesn't always like to play nice with my iPod. I have problems deleting music from it, so I've just resorted to using friends' Macs or Windows boxes to do that. I tried Banshee awhile ago, but didn't like it very much. And it really didn't like my iPod. So I decided to keep Rhythmbox around.

Oh, and something interesting and Linux related. I was traveling a little this past week, and when I was having problems with my bus tickets, noticed that the computers running at the ticket counter for Tur-Bus where running Fedora of some sort. Always nice to see a big company using Linux, isn't it?

 

[Sensai]

Haha, jeah.

Apparently, Banshee just came out with a 1.something beta 2. So...I'm probably gonna give it another chance, regardless.

Rhythmbox works? Alright...I'll give it a whirl.

I've also heard good things about Exaile, which I'm lookin' forward to trying.

 

[snoblo]

I've used gtkpod with a family member's ipod, and it worked okay. And i've heard good things of rhythmbox, but I've never really used it much

 

[Sensai]

So, apparently, Windows 7 was talked about for quite a bit at some thing called 'All Things D'. I dunno either.

http://gizmodo.com/393551/all-things-d-live-bill-gates-and-steve-ballmer-interview

Here are some of the features...

• There will be a OSX-like dock, though how OS X-like is yet to be seen.
• Multi-touch gestures in photogalleries like two-finger zoom, flicking, and panning. Think of the photo app on the Microsoft Surface table.
• Multi-touch paint program where you can draw with 10 fingers (again, think of what you've already seen in Surface)
• Multi-touch piano app
• In-depth mapping application that pulls from Microsoft's Live Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth

So...what it is, as of right now, is Microsoft Surface or the iPhone...except on a desktop.

Pictures:

http://gizmodo.com/393552/

Looks pretty much like Vista.

Am I the only one who's tired of Microsoft copying Apple, but doing it poorly? How long until the masses wake up and realize that they should at LEAST buy Macs if they're going to pay for their OSs?

 

[Gamayun]

I use songbird as my media player. It's the love child of firefox and itunes and was the only thing I could find to play all my ipod music. It's still in the beta stages though.

 

[snoblo]

Am I the only one who's tired of Microsoft copying Apple, but doing it poorly? How long until the masses wake up and realize that they should at LEAST buy Macs if they're going to pay for their OSs?

No, I feel the same way too. It reminds me of how IE 7 copied firefox's tabs, but they suck so much in comparison.

And the "Microsoft's Live Maps and Microsoft Virtual Earth" makes me scratch my head...the name sounds awfully familiar, no?

 

[Mugquomp]

Gamayun, how is Songbird? I've thought about trying it out, but it looks kind of bloaty to me. Is it worth checking out?

 

[Gamayun]

As an itunes replacement it's worked perfectly fine for me. All the music I had that would not work in totem have worked perfectly fine here. Some of the addons are cool, like Attack of the Clones and Ghostbusters, both of which help clean up the library some. But I wouldn't suggest it as a web browser. Maybe by version 1 they will work with the plugin problem but yeah, if your looking for a media player I would say give it a shot.

 

[Sensai]

As an itunes replacement it's worked perfectly fine for me. All the music I had that would not work in totem have worked perfectly fine here. Some of the addons are cool, like Attack of the Clones and Ghostbusters, both of which help clean up the library some. But I wouldn't suggest it as a web browser. Maybe by version 1 they will work with the plugin problem but yeah, if your looking for a media player I would say give it a shot.

Maybe I don't quite get it...but are you saying that you don't recommend a music player as a web browser? Cause that's probably a good thing...

...I can't imagine surfing the web in iTunes, much less Windows Media Player.

Music rant!

Oh, and concerning Linux audio players, I've decided that Rhythmbox IS the best, after all. So, Mug, props to you.

I tried Exaile, Banshee, Audacious, and Rhythmbox (didn't try VLC, but I have before). Out of those, the ones that were iTunes-esque (or, what I would consider full fledged audioplayers with capabilities to rip CDs and organize music) were Exaile, Banshee and Rhythmbox. Both VLC and Audacious (and presumably MPlayer) all player music wonderfully...but lack anything past a VERY basic playlist. Think Winamp.

So, I fooled around with Exaile first and decided pretty quickly I didn't like it. It just didn't really work. It was TOO organized, and this is coming from someone who LOVES folders. It was just a little too deep, y'know? They had too many subfolders and searching was just kind of a hassle.

So, I went to Banshee, which I've been using before...err, today. And, honestly, it and Rhythmbox are almost identical. Like, seriously. Banshee probably has a wider variety of plugins and all that, but...most of it I would never use. So, Rhythmbox won out simply because it loaded my ten thousand something songs first.

And it's good. I enjoy it.

/end music rant

Also..since I've been on Ubuntu a lot recently, I decided to give Firefox another try.

...and I tried. I really did. I just don't like it. Like, I think I might even be willing to use IE7 over Firefox. It's not that it's slow, it's not the way it looks (actually, the fact that it skins with your GTK theme is pretty cool). It's the lack of customability (spelling) when compared to Opera and the fookin' download manager. Seriously. I ****in' hate that thing.

/end all rants.

 

[Mugquomp]

Gamayun, you were using Totem to play music? I think pretty much anything will work better than that. I only use it to play videos (like flash videos recovered from my /tmp folder after firefox crashes because of problems with flash...).

And Sensai, were you using FF3? I can't say I'm too much of a fan either. I've got the release candidate in a folder on my desktop, and I've tried to give it a shot, but I'm still using FF2 because I just like it better.

 

[Sensai]

I'm using whatever ships with 8.04...so, jeah, Firefox 3 beta 4. Or something similar.

I dunno. I just....dunno. I like Opera so much more, haha.

 

[chaos_Leader]

I just got a laptop with Vista pre-installed (terrible). I really need an OS or two to replace it, something that will work with various multimedia editing programs and can recognize hardware easily enough. Your recommendations?

 

[snoblo]

Ubuntu is always a good starting point. Actually, just yesterday version 5 of Linux Mint was released, and it looks really good (I've never tried it, but it's first on my next-distro-to-try list, and it's based off on ubuntu also!). It comes with multimedia codecs preinstalled, so maybe it's worth trying out.

good luck!

 

[Sensai]

+1 for Ubuntu.

 

[chaos_Leader]

Thanks guys, I'm looking into some of the Linux OS...

I've done some research on this, It seems there may be issues with drivers, since the laptop was preinstalled with Vista it comes with all the vista drivers to make all the built-in hardware work. Switching operating systems will mean hardware issues. That said, are there Linux drivers that can bridge the gap between the OS and the hardware? or am I up a creek without a paddle here?

The model is HP Pavilion dv6700 if that helps

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

My best advice is to just try it and see what happens. Run a Live CD. Linux is pretty good at setting up those drivers, and you'd be surprised at how compatible it is.

 

[Ørion]

I agree with Buzz. I just installed it off the live CD, everything worked perfectly, and I have not had any trouble with hardware.

 

[Sensai]

I am ALSO running Ubuntu off a Vista laptop, and I've had no complaints as far as internet and graphics go.

And even if I HAD had problems...everything is simply a Google search away thanks to Ubuntu's great community.

 

[Sensai]

Bump!

Not exactly OS related, but I can kinda fake it, but Opera 9.5 came out yesterday or so and FireFox 3 comes out on Tuesday the 17th.

I have to HIGHLY recommend Opera, once again. The speed increase is so vast...it's like when I switched from FireFox 1 to Opera whatever it was back then. It's truly amazing.

[Edit:]

Check it:
http://lifehacker.com/396048/speed-testing-the-latest-web-browsers

 

[Gerudo Warrior]

yeah i am on Opera 9.5 i love it. I usually have a toss up between it and Safari. Sorry firefox 3.

 

[Sensai]

How is Safari, anyways? I've been lookin' kinda at it....but it just doesn't seem as attractive as Opera.

 

[Gerudo Warrior]

Safari is Great, the Integration into mac os X is great. I use safari is Fast and Stable and thats what i like about it. Safari isn't too minimal and it's just what i want. Unlike Firefox 3 which is down right ugly and bulky... If you were on mac OS X i would suggest it but i haven't tried it on windows. Apple Markets it as the fastest browser. Do you know how it compares to Opera 9.5 Sensai?

Snow Lepord announced!!!!! looks like apple is going to make snow much more secure and stable. Also it is now OS X not Mac OS X

EDIT -

BTW anyone tried KDE4? last thing i tried was the alpha

 

[Sensai]

According to Lifehacker, Safari is comprable to Opera 9.5 in terms of speed...so that's pretty cool.

But, Opera's either ahead or behind REALLY slightly...so it doesn't make me want to switch.

 

[platnum]

I just installed ubuntu, and I need help conecting to my wireless network.

 

[Fenrir]

So Ubuntu works with a Vista laptop... I ought to give that a try, then.

 

[snoblo]

I just installed ubuntu, and I need help conecting to my wireless network.

you should google search (or search on the ubuntu forums) your wireless adapter. Most likely you won't have to do much to get it working (you just have to get the drivers, use ndiswrapper, etc)

good luck!

 

[TheBuzzSaw]

BTW anyone tried KDE4? last thing i tried was the alpha

I tested it once. It is very beautiful, but I found it to run rather slow. It needs a few updates before I'll consider it a permanent upgrade.

 

[Sensai]

I dunno...I just prefer GNOME over KDE. I'm not even sure why....

Also, for people wanting to try out Ubuntu without upgrading (heh) from Windows, simply burn a Live CD and throw it in your disc drive and try it out that way.

 

[snoblo]

xfce ftw =)

What's new in kde4 other than dolphin being the new fm? I've used kde3 (actually a modified one for my distro) for a bit on my laptop and I liked dolphin alot.