What Made You Switch To Linux?

snutz411

May 28 2006, 10:58 PM

I first tried Linux a few years ago, not because I was completely against Windows or anything like that, but just because I had some free time on my hands. I started off with Mandrake 9.0 which was very user friendly and Windows-like. After reading through a bunch of message boards and learning which distros are good for what, I soon realized my current distro was great for Linux noobs. So then I decided to try something a little more advanced like Slackware which I knew had a steep learning curve.

Since then I've been using Slackware as my main OS and couldn't be happier. Of course somethings are a pain in the ass to configure, but that;s Slack for you. If it ain't hard, then you won't learn anything from it.

That's my story, I basically started to learn Linux because I was bored.

Jeigh

May 28 2006, 11:06 PM

I haven't switched, I mean I dual boot and use linux almost exclusively at work, but I basically started it because I can't stand programming in windows. I just prefer coding in linux 10 fold... of course I didn't know I would at the time but I knew I hated it in windows so gave it a shot just to see why everyone liked it. Now I like it for tons of reasons, but my main reasons for trying it was to get programming on it. That's MY story.

yordan

May 29 2006, 08:49 AM

The question seems to be : "What made you Switch from Microsoft Windows to Linux " ?
This seems to suppose that there are only three kinds of people : Microsoft People, Linux people, and switching people.
This is not completely true. There are people being neither Crosoft neither Linux people.
In my real life, I started with a Unix-Like project.
Then, I added PC-DOS on IBM-PC. I loved the principle of personal computers at reasonable cost. Now I am fanatic of free ms-dos-like operating systems. I have to cope with Crosoft because they are sold as part of the home computers you buy in most supermarkets today. And, in professional world, workstations are now mostly Crosoft-Based.
Of course, my main pleasure is Unix systems. There are a lot of Unix Operating systems, depending on the platform : Sun-OS, HP-UX, AIX. And SCO on Inter X86 platforms. All of these softwares costed a lot, because they were multi-task/Multi-user operating systems for a lot of users on huge machines.
Now Linux comes, and most of its distros have a free version. So, for me it's a Unix system looking last most of the other standard ones, and it's my preferred version because I can put it on my home computers for free.
However, I must say, I never swithced. I always was a Unix man, ms-dos looked like a Unix command line system, and Linux looks like a powerful and free Unix system with graphics and telecoms.
Isn't this nice ? A fully Linux fanatic since sevarl years, who never had to switch to Linux ?
Regards
Yordan

xboxrulz

May 29 2006, 10:07 PM

for me, originally, my friend was recommending me to look into Linux when I was making plans to start a webhosting company (never happened). Then the further I looked into the hole, the more I learned that it's one of the best operating systems in the world. I soon also learned the evil side of Micro$oft. Now, here I am, running Linux on my desktop and laptop. SuSE Linux to be exact.

xboxrulz

Quatrux

May 30 2006, 09:05 AM

I am also a guy who never needed to switch from Microsoft Windows to Linux, because I switched from Linux to Windows a year ago, why ? Because of my Information Technology Exams which I passed a week ago, in my country everything is windows, windows, windows. I was/am a user of Amiga OS and looking forward for getting a hardware to use Morph OS, from Amiga OS I switched straight to Linux and was using it for a long time and of course still am using with joy. I only knew that windows exist and some friends has it, in school I was made to use them.. (this was the year 2001) One year ago, when I installed XP I had a lot of problems with it (Speed, stupid GUI, Viruses, Spy-ware, stupid Programs having different GUIs, A lot of commercial software), but with time I got used to it and learned office and all the stuff "how to use it" even optimized it to work for me, so now I don't have any problems with it, no viruses, no spy-ware, I did not format it since 2005 November and the speed is still great.. after my exams I am planning to make another site on how to optimize windows XP for yourself and how to use it that you wouldn't have any problems.

mastercomputers

May 30 2006, 10:50 AM

Switching to Linux improved my productivity but the real reason I switched was I didn't like the direction Microsoft was taking. You weren't in control of your machine, you were limited to what you could control, and it was dumbified to a point that if you did want to do something you couldn't. Now a lot of their resources go towards preventing piracy, etc. These things they introduce can and sometimes do break your system, yet all the mistakes Microsoft does, it still manages to maintain their loyal users.

I remember when Microsoft asked how Windows was productive for you, and remember this should not include programs that are not part of the Operating System, but many people liked talking about Office, etc. I answered with "it is not productive at all", Wordpad, Notepad, Paint... what do you expect, you can only do basic things with them and that's not productive at all nor is it going to make you successful, you really need the arsenal of programs to do what you want. Windows is only to help you control your computer, it should not take over it, nor should it try to do other things that aren't considered part of an operating system.

It's also quite costly especially since Windows just kept slapping a coat of paint over the top of it and selling it like a new version, if you want to believe that it's built from scratch, then obviously changing the kernel and still maintaining the same old files isn't much of a change, there was little improvement and minor optimisation but it could have done more. It continues to support obsolete devices that no longer exist or would not even run on modern computers now, especially when Windows forces you to use modern hardware.

I'm quite happy with Linux, I can still do mostly what I would want to do, although there's some areas that is lacking, but I find that as an opportunity for me to improve those areas with software that suits my needs and would most likely suit others who'd feel the same.

To have a secure Windows machine, you have to rely on third party software, some which could cost you more. In the long run, I will continue to stick by Linux and it won't be long till it surpasses Windows in every way.

Cheers,

MC

Sarah81

May 30 2006, 03:09 PM

I'm a dedicated Windows user at this point, but I don't like where Gates and co. are going with Vista. If XP is a resource hog, then Vista is setting itself up as the Godzilla of resource wasters.

That and the screen shots I've seen of the 3D desktop interface don't impress me much, if at all.

Anyway...if I ever get off my lazy butt and give Linux a shot - which I've been meaning to do for years but never quite actually do - it'll most likely be because Windows finally enrages me enough to make me go to Linux. i.e. I'd rather install and learn Linux than have to upgrade my computer (or buy a new one altogether) just to run a newer Windows OS.

Jeigh

May 30 2006, 05:04 PM

Sarahs post inadvertently reminded me of another reason I had wanted to switch to linux back in the day. I had older systems kicking around that I wanted to make use of but newer windows were slow as crap on them. To resolve this issue I had hoped to throw linux onto them once I learned its basics on my main machine which is exactly what I did

abhiram

May 30 2006, 06:29 PM

I'm crazy about computers. I'd learn anything that is new to me and I find interesting. I first came in contact with *nix systems when I joined college and had to work on SunOS systems for a course. I really liked it since it was completely different and learnt a few shell commands. After the course also, I still kept using the same systems for personal work like browsing the net. But my real foray into Linux came with Mandrake 2 years ago when I bought my own computer in my dorm. Later on I switched to Slackware for a while, loved it (still do) and then shifted to Gentoo and have been using Gentoo ever since.

Now, even while using Slackware, Windows was my main OS, because there were so many things I needed in windows and installing similar applications with their dependencies and libraries was a bit of a pain in Linux. But, enter Gentoo ... and there have been times when I haven't booted into Windows for weeks.

I'll just state why I prefer Linux over windows .... No Antivirus needed, no firewall, no anti-spyware, no slowdown and system instantly accessible from anywhere in the campus via SSH, even from Windows systems. Also, sharing resources on the campus LAN is not a problem at all, since in Linux, firefox (once opened) doesn't slow down even if someone is copying stuff from your comp. It works just as it does normally.

I still use Windows for my project work (can't get F90 compiler in Linux) and for games. But to give credit where credit's due, Windows XP really has a lot of things in the right place. I mean, other than terrible security and poor performance, it has been designed with the utmost care to be as user-friendly as possible, maybe overdoing it a bit

unimatrix

May 30 2006, 09:57 PM

I started with Slackware 2 on a 486DX with 8MB of Ram upgraded at a later point to AMD P75 chip that made the machine a 133Mhz 486DX and upgraded to a whopping 20MB of Ram. (I still have this machine since it the last one still with a functioning 5.25" disk drive.

I did so because Linux was this uber leet thing for computer nerds and half the battle was getting it to actually install. And then as my dad said, "great you got it to install on the old computer, now what do you use it for?" I think I stared there with a blank face because I had no idea. And truth be told, unless you were running a server in those days, there wasn't a lot that Linux could do...

Well that was good because I designed web-pages in High School ten years ago and make a lot of money, you could charge $150 a page back then, and eventually I learned the basics of Perl programming, SQL thanks to MySQL and then on to PHP. When I got into college, I thought about CS, but quickly found out after a couple real programming courses that computers were more of a hobby, not a career choice for me.

Then I started doing consulting for a couple dot com start ups and got to reading about FreeBSD. Well I got both of those companies set up through Pair.com and got FreeBSD 3.4 to install on my then PII 450 with 256MB of Ram as a test server. About this time Apple made the switch to OS 10. 10.0 sucked, had a lot of problems like not being able to burn CD's and such so i waited. Then the Summer of 2002 I needed a new laptop, my Viao P233 was dying so I Ebayed and bought an iBook. I've been Apple ever since.

To me, Linux was a stepping stone between Dos/Windows to the Unix world. It's like cheap coffee to me. It's okay and till you get a hold of the good stuff (real Unix) and then it tastes like crap.

Anyhow, over the years programming and webpages (I still do a few, like the one for church and stuff) my interest in it wained quite a bit, but interest in 3D animation started to peak. That's how I landed my last job, I did a bunch of animation for our architecture students including setting up ScreamerNet and 3D Studio Max's network rendering cluster in the computer labs. One of the students went on to work for a small video production company and when I graduated they offered me a position based on his recomendation. They were all Macintosh and switching to OSX based machines and I knew the Unix background so.....

I went Linux->FreeBSD->OpenBSD->Mac OS -> nice paying job right of out college at a fun place to work -> lived at home for two years to save a butt load of money -> now on to Lawschool and what I really want to do for a career.

Funny now that I think about it...

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Lancer

Jul 30 2008, 10:36 PM

I had a friend that seemed to think I would like Linux many years back. He showed me on his computer, but I didn't see that it had anything over windows, and it looked to me at the time like he;d just installed some new programs. (Gimp - and then he didn't know that well enough to really show it off).

Later on I had a hard drive failure with my mission critical machine. As it was off getting serviced I paid $200 for a 486DX2 (very old) computer to at least do text processing. I needed something to help out with a student whom I was helping C++. I saw this as an opportunity to at least try Linux out. I installed Red Hat 5.2... a bear to get going fully and slow and anything would be on that machine. At least it had text processing and I soon learned enough command line to convert unix to dos formats, dump files onto a floppy (mount, cp etc etc) etc for giving the student or printing in my other computer when I got it back.

Two things I liked...

Linux already had a C++ compiler so I could test the programs we were writing straight away... we had to search for compilers in Windows.
I left it on one day... for about a week. When I returned to the machine I was expecting it to be totally frozen (Windows would have been). Instead, moving the mouse resulted in the screen flicking into life, and it was still as fast as if I'd only just left it.

That got me hooked.

Then Windows XP came out and I got scared by the new EULA which basically gave Microsoft permission to delete stuff from your drive if they crawled around and didn't think something was properly registered. I'm not into piracy, but the thought of "how would they know?" at my risk scared me.

After not very long, I found I could do pretty much anything in Linux that I used to do in Windows, only for free (except play my favourite MechWarrior game). Then I found I was getting used to a whole bunch of things that Windows can't do...

...been hooked since. These days I usually shut up about it. People ask me when they see what I'm up to

richard_site

Mar 28 2008, 01:53 AM

I started to use Linux because in the work that I get in was a Linux philosophy and I had to learn even if I liked or not.

The things on Linux were more difficult than make a click and saw what happened. There wasn’t a graphic environment. For set the graphic environment on Linux system was exhausting. There was a Gnome and KDE alternatives but I don’t had idea what they meant. That was discouraging when my fellowships knows command on the simple line command prompt that I wanted to do on a graphic way. How to imagine a table on databases tha was simple to see on Microsoft Access.

But when know it the paid alternatives identify that they was to expensive maybe not as difficult to use but expensive because they have to be paid the software, the training, the support even the hardware and infrastructure.

After a lot of suffer began to like me and now I tried to work with the best of each environment, for Linux for databases, web, email servers, for Windows Office software, image editors and games.

My conclusion must be we have to take the best of each environment for increase the productivity.

--

Yo empecé a usar Linux porque en el trabajo al que ingresé ya tenían implantado sistemas Linux y tuve que aprenderlo por obligación más que por convicción.

Las cosas eran más difíciles que dar clic y ver que pasaba como en Windows, no había tanto ambiente gráfico, el solo configurar un ambiente gráfico en Linux era agotador, no tenía más alternativas que un Gnome o KDE que no sabía que eran, era desalentador que los demás compañeros tenían su línea de comandos y se sabían muchos comandos que controlaban lo que yo quería hacer en un ambiente gráfico, el manejar bases de datos era tan difícil como imaginarte una tabla lo que en Access la veías sin problema.

Sin embargo al conocer las alternativas de paga eran demasiado caras y tal vez no tan difíciles de usar, pero era mucho mayor el costo monetario de que se tenía que gastar en el software, capacitación, soporte y hasta en hardware o infraestructura especiales.

Después de mucho sufrir empezó a agradarme y ahora trato de manejar los ambientes que son mejores para lo que fueron hechos, en Linux para servidores de bases de datos, de servidores de Web, servidores de correo electrónico, mientras que en Windows manejo ambientes de oficina, edición de imágenes, juegos.

Así que mi conclusión sería que hay que aprovechar lo mejor de los ambientes y sistemas operativos para que la productividad sea mejor y más eficiente.

abhay

Jan 16 2008, 01:32 PM

I am a fairly new user. I have a few months practice with Fedora Core 4, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 4, and Knoppix Live DVD. First, I would like to say that I like the stability, the free aspect of Linux, and the relative immunity from viruses and other nasties. I think Linux will be ready for the desktop of the average home user, when it is easy to do the common tasks in it. Most of those are already very close. I think the hardware support for certain devices needs improvement, as well as some software tasks such as installing new software, updating existing software, and configuring software.
Linux has been time-proven to be a reliable operating system. Although the desktop is not a new place for Linux, most Linux-based systems have been used as servers and embedded systems. High-visibility Web sites such as Google use Linux-based systems, but nowdays you also can find Linux inside the mobile sets also like motoming by motorola.Linux is very reliable and secure and it has not been uncommon for Linux systems to run for months or years without needing a single reboot.Viruses are very less in linux and unix systems. Although it is possible to create a virus to target Linux systems, the design of the system itself makes it very difficult to become infected. A single user could cause local damage to his or her files by running a virus on his or her system; however, this would be an isolated instance rather than something could spread out of control because there is nothing like autoexecute functionality in linux which is there in windows and if we are logged in with a non root account then it is nearly impossible. Also SELinux enhances the security manifolds.
In addition, all Linux distributions are upadted regularly by the supporting communities. The general philosophy of the Linux community has been to address possible security issues before they become a problem rather than hoping the susceptibility will go unnoticed.
Linux was designed and written to be easily portable to different hardware. For the desktop user, this means that Linux has been and likely always will be the first operating system to take advantage of advances in hardware technology such as AMD's 64-bit processor chips.
Linux offers freedom of choice as far as which manufacturer you purchase the software from as well as which application programs you wish to use. Being able to pick the manufacturer means you have a real choice as far as type of support you receive. Being open-source software, new manufacturers can enter the market to address customer needs.
Choice of application programs means that you can select the tools that best address your needs. For example, three popular word processors are available. All three are free and interoperate with Microsoft Word, but each offers unique advantages and disadvantages. The same is true of Web browsers.
Linux itself and many common applications follow open standards. This means an update on one system will not make other systems obsolete.
Each Linux distribution comes with hundreds and possibly thousands of application programs included. This alone can save you thousands of dollars for each desktop system you configure. Although this is a very small subset, consider that the OpenOffice.org office suite is included as well as the GIMP, a program available for photo editing; Scribus, a document layout program similar to Quark Xpress; Evolution, an e-mail system equivalent to Microsoft's Outlook Express, Open office which gives most of the MS Office funtionalities like word processing, presentation and Excel shhets; and hundreds more.
For the more technically inclined, development tools, such as compilers for the C, C++, Ada, Fortran, Pascal and other languages, are included as well as Perl, PHP and Python interpreters. Editors and versioning tools also are included in this category.
Whether you are looking for Instant Messaging clients, backup tools or Web site development packages, they likely are all included within your base Linux distribution.
More and more computers are being connected to networks. No system would be complete if it did not include tools to allow it to interoperate with computers running other operating systems. Once again, Linux is very strong in this area.
Linux includes Samba, software that allows Linux to act as a client on a Microsoft Windows-based network. In fact, Samba includes server facilities such that you could run a Linux system as the server for a group of Linux and Windows-based client systems.
In addition, Linux includes software to network with Apple networks and Novell's Netware. NFS, the networking technology developed on UNIX systems also is included.
Other operating systems are the products of single vendors. Linux, on the other hand, is openly developed, and this technology is shared among vendors. This means you become part of a community rather than a customer of a single manufacturer. Also, the supplier community easily can adjust to the needs of various user communities rather than spouting a "one size fits all" philosophy.
This means you can select a Linux vendor that appears to best address your needs and feel confident that you could switch vendors at a later time without losing your investment--both in terms of costs and learning.
Because of a combination of the internal design of Linux and development contributions from a diverse community, Linux tends to be more frugal in the use of computer resources. This may manifest itself in a single desktop system running faster with Linux than with another operating system, but the advantages go far beyond that. It is possible, for example, to configure a single Linux system to act as a terminal server and then use outdated hardware as what are called thin clients.
This server/thin client configuration makes it possible for older, less powerful hardware to share the resources of a single powerful system thus extending the life of older machines. Linux is a true multi-user operating system. Each user can have his or her own individual configuration all on one computer. This includes the look of the desktop, what icons are displayed, what programs are started automatically when the user logs in and even what language the desktop is in.

wutske

Jan 15 2008, 11:15 PM

1) Cost is low if you already have people that know how to use linux. Linux trainings can be very expensive.
2) For server use, but on desktop things turn out differently
6) Yeah, but at what cost ? Some programs are very picky on their dependencies
7) There is too much to choose from
8) This used to be different, believe me, installing Red Hat 6 was a real pain in the ass

(btw, some distro's are still hard to install).

I just want to straight things out a bit, some people are so fixated on the positive aspects of linux (mac os or windows) that they start to ignore the lesser aspects and even start to think that their favourite os is perfect.

wutske

Jan 15 2008, 08:37 AM

QUOTE(xboxrulz @ Jan 15 2008, 03:03 AM)

Make sure that you have the latest Flash installed, or else it won't work universally through the system. Else, revert back to original installation. openSUSE 10.3 comes with Flash 9 preinstalled, while the older Flash 7 have many incompatibility and inconsistency.

xboxrulz

Small detail, but I've installed openSuse 10.3, not 10.2 ... my bad

. Anyway, I'm not going to give up on openSuse, I've never done that with windows, so I don't see a reason to do it with linux

.
I think the flash player problem is more like an opera problem, rather than an openSuse problem.

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