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Chris Devers skribis 2005-04-21 17:33 (-0400): > Really, does anyone use Linux as a desktop computer and *enjoy* the > experience? Yes, I do. Even though I have been using a Mac for over a month now, I'm glad that at work, I still use Linux. My distribution of choice is Debian. I like that with a simple command, or a simple instruction in one of the GUI frontends, I can install almost any kind of software. If I want to install an MP3 player, I can just try a dozen and pick the one that I liked best and remove the others. (I'm not too picky about this, so I usually settle for Noatun, the media player that comes with KDE.) I've used Gentoo, and indeed, it can be hours before something works. Partly because you need to do a lot of configuration manually, partly because compiling things yourself will always take much longer than just installing binaries. As for the desktop experience, I think that KDE manages this very well. Gnome does too, but I find its simplicity too restrictive. The thing that Windows provides over KDE is some weird kind of consistency between Microsoft software, and bizarre integration between anything. Mac OS X just provides Expose and eyecandy and really not much more than that in terms of usability. You have to install third party utilities for things like virtual desktops and a run program dialog. My dad works with linux too (Kubuntu in particular, after months of Ubuntu). He doesn't know anything about computers and needed me for the initial installation and configuration, but he's using it without any problem and asks for my help much less than he did with MS Windows. I think that in desktop experience, a well organized (non-bloated) Linux distribution and Mac OS X are on the same level, somewhere high above Windows. The problem with most Linux-haters is that they're stuck with an image of how geeks use the platform (in the form of Gentoo, for example), or of a bloated default installation (SuSE, Red Hat, anything with a full KDE installed), or of how Linux used to be years ago. Linux only recently became a good platform for desktop use. > Sure, it's an educational experience to have to tweak every > damned thing just to do *any* tamned thing, but at what point does it > cease to be educational and start to be self-punishment? That is exactly what I mean with how a geek uses Linux. This way of working with an OS is a choice made by the user, as it's by no means necessary. > I think it stopped being fun for me about five years ago. Five years. Have you really no idea of how much has improved in that time? > Why anyone would willfully decide to fight against Linux audio, or > setting up X-Windows (really, who gives a damn about all the parameters > in XF86Config-4? What human should ever have to care about the monitor's > HorizSync and VertRefresh rates?) is a complete mystery to me. Either because they're a geek, or because they picked a rather stupid distribution. Again, with many user friendly distributions, including Ubuntu/Kubuntu, stuff like this is not necessary. X is automatically configured, audio (full duplex, works very well with Skype too) was also automatically configured. And if you WANT TO (for example, because you know your hardware can do more than was autodetected, or because you want to tweak things to more extreme settings, or because you have hardware that in Linux can't be autoconfigured), you can dive into the internals and set things manually there. But that's your choice, unless you do indeed have incompatible (too recent or too exotic) hardware, in which case you should probably just not use Linux. Or a Mac, for that matter. > As Peter said, you are *so* ready for a Mac... So was I. And then I bought a Mac Mini, only to after a month realize that Mac OS X is software like all other, and deserves a good piece of hate. I hate how my terminals sometimes lose their access hotkeys. I hate how in iCal it's very easy to accidentally create an appointment, but it's very hard to delete it. I hate how clicking a dock icon opens a new window only if there's none open already, which means I press the hotkey for opening a new window after clicking the icon, only to often end up with two new windows. (With a screen full of windows, you can't see if there happens to be a window already open.) I hate how Safari won't let me hide referrer headers. I hate how Firefox under this platform won't let me use tab to select hyperlinks and always opens tabs in the foreground. I hate how there is absolutely no telling how keys like home and end will behave in a text input box. I hate how by default radio buttons and checkboxes cannot be focussed with tab. I hate how the terminal can't send page up and down with just those key presses. I hate that iSync often crashes. I hate that the Calculator has no window anymore, and even after a force quit and re-start still doesn't display any calculator. I want my calculator, damnit. I hate that I can't use focus follows mouse because I can't configure the menu bar to be attached to windows instead of the desktop. I hate that there seems to be no good way to navigate the Finder with the keyboard (two enter keys and neither executes the selected program...). I hate that you can't just drag an image to the desktop from a browser to save the image there or use it as wallpaper. I hate that there's no easy way to find out where diskspace is going (like KDE's blocked view in Konqueror). I hate that I can't find where the hell I can set program bindings, so movies start with VLC instead of Quicktime. I hate how long shutting down takes. I hate having to reboot after installing non-kernel software updates. Feels awkwardly like Windows. Maybe I'm better off installing Linux. Juerd -- http://convolution.nl/maak_juerd_blij.html http://convolution.nl/make_juerd_happy.html http://convolution.nl/gajigu_juerd_n.htmlThere's stuff above here
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