What would (or did) it take for you to switch operating systems?
Summary: The other day while I was covering Steve Jobs' keynote speech at WWDC 08 I was sort of half expecting him to announce a new MacBook/MacBook Pro line. With this thought came the idea of making a much bigger commitment to Mac OS X than I've made so far. As it turned out Steve didn't announce any new MacBooks so I was let off the hook, but it did make me wonder something - What does it take (or did take, for those who have made a switch) for someone to switch operating systems?
The other day while I was covering Steve Jobs' keynote speech at WWDC 08 I was sort of half expecting him to announce a new MacBook/MacBook Pro line. With this thought came the idea of making a much bigger commitment to Mac OS X than I've made so far.
As it turned out Steve didn't announce any new MacBooks so I was let off the hook, but it did make me wonder something - What does it take (or did take, for those who have made a switch) for someone to switch operating systems?
- So, what is it? If you were going to leave your current OS for another one, what would make you do this? New features? Security scares? Ease of use? Change being as good as a rest?
- If you recently made a switch (and that applies to distro switches for Linux users), what was it that prompted you to make the switch? Was the switch painless or painful? And, most important of all, was it worthwhile?
The more progress I make to becoming OS-agnostic (though I'm more than willing to admit that I have a long way to go on this front), the more I come to realize a few things:
- No OS is perfect.
- Neither Mac OS X, Windows XP/Vista nor the big-name Linux distros are as bad as some people make out.
- Everyone should run more than one platform because it gives you perspective.
- I can never see myself switching back to a single platform (even if this was Mac OS or Linux, because that would just be a case of shooting myself in the foot, part II).
- I wish I could virtualize the Mac OS (really, seriously, what is up with not being able to do that?).
Shoot!
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Talkback
Switching OSs
Sssshhhhh ;-)
LOL.
Sssshhhhh revisited :)
LOL.
WELL ...Ha back atcha!!! I see your current Linux distrib and whip it's butt with my Sun OpenSolaris, or my IBM EZ_AIX Linux Distribs!!
UP with the UNIX to Linux Perfectionists!!!
*We are your Operating System;
*We control your kernel
*We evolve your thinking
*We're where YOU want to be TODAY!!
Resistance is FUTILE!
I just switched to Ubuntu - not so happy here
I can't resume networking after putting it to sleep - it only works again after a re-boot. I prefer not to leave my computer running at max when I'm not using it, but I get on it frequently and re-starting every time would be a pain.
It has fairly frequent momentary freezes that last about ten seconds - this usually happens when scrolling down web pages.
I downloaded Google Earth through the package manager - it says it's installed, but I can't find it.
Poor Flash support - I know this is Adobe's fault, but some sites that I go to have drop-down menus that appear over Flash which don't show.
No Shockwave support - I like to play some online games. Again, I know this is Adobe's fault for not creating the plugin.
What's up with that folder structure? I'm going to attempt to move my old Thunderbird files to Ubuntu, if I can figure out where everything goes.
I'm not willing to give up on it yet and would like to see Ubuntu get better, but so far it has been something of a struggle for me.
The folder structure is
Like the "Documents and Settings" folder in Win XP, Unix based systems use a home folder
/home/{your username}
like
/home/alaniane
Files to your desktop are saved under
/home/alaniane/Desktop
If you want to share documents with other users then you can place them in
/home/alaniane/Public
You can also create other directories, but always use the /home/{username} directory as your base directory.
A good directory to place in your home directory if it is not already there is /home/{username}/bin.
Later on if you want to customize your console you can place the scripts in the /bin directory and they will accessible to you. It comes in handy especially when you want to run a script without remembering the complete path to the script.
So in your case I would store your old Thunderbird files in a folder under your home directory.
Until you become more familiar with the system I wouldn't change things in any directory that is not under your home directory. There are some good Unix books out there that explain the purpose of each directory. This link contains an explanation (it maybe a little technical, but it will give you an idea).
http://www.pathname.com/fhs/pub/fhs-2.3.html
Stick with it...
Or you can/could look at some other distros, most are LiveCD's & all free.
LinuxMint 5
Mepis
PCLinuxOS
DreamLinux etc, etc.
Some of which are considered easier or more feature setup.
I think the Ubuntu's are great, yet my personal preference has been Debian for the past 5 years.
I would hazard a guess the networking issue is hardware or BIOS related or even reseting the DHCP lease time in Network Manager.
What MB & net chipset, etc, do you have?
Also you can stop/restart you net connection with network manager (should be an icon in the upper right system tray) or by issuing the commands. in a terminal.
sudo ifdown eth0
&
sudo ifup eth0
In either case you should not need to reboot.
(logging out & in should also work)
The freezes or pauses, how much mem do you have, and what are the other conditions?
if installed Google Earth should be listed under Applications > Internet.
Shockwave thats Adobe's loss.
The file structure Everything should be in /home/"user" probably as a hidden file as not to clutter up the home folder, under .mozilla or .thunderbird.
No different than learning the conventions of other systems.
A new & different way of looking at things, that like I said can be very worthwhile......
I agree with you!
Ubuntu
I suspect that it's settings are in a hidden folder something like /home/k_b/.thunderbird
What you do is fire up Thunderbird, slip in a CD or DVD which should automount and import your mail from there. It should be flawless. Well, as close to flawless as is possible. :-)
ttfn
John
I just LEFT Ubuntu
I just left Ubuntu in May. What caused it? The release of 8.04LTS, which should have been more thoroughly tested than other versions, was a wreck. Ubuntu switched audio subsystems, causing all kinds of problems. Flash didn't work with Pulse Audio, meaning I was left with the choice of random hangs or iffy audio. Finally, the default photo manager didn't launch at all on the 64-bit version.
These were bugs which Ubuntu knew about and should have been considered stoppers, but Canonical chose to release, anyway. What really made me switch was reading Shuttleworth's interview praising his six-month release schedule and asking other distributors to join him. He was obviously way out of touch with his project or he had his priorities wrong.
I switched to Debian, the parent of Ubuntu and my former OS before 2004. It's rougher and not as easy to use out of the box, but they never push releases.
Try Gutsy (7.10)
Until Intrepid Ibex (8.10) comes out (~Nov), I'd recommend running Gutsy (7.10), as it is much more robust.
As for the Firefox issue (I believe that this isn't Firefox, but a dependant program's issue at this point), I'd recommend trying:
* Opera (*Gasp!* No really, 9.5 <i>just</i> came out, and it is beautiful (except for the font's, however this can be solved by looking through Ubuntuforums) and SCREAMS)
* Konquerer
* (or) Emphany.
Thunderbird's personal information should be in ~/.mozilla/thunderbird/[/pre]
Shhhhhhhhhh, don't let them find out...
Get OpenSolaris. It's made by (looks around) SUN Microsystems. And WHILE the Linux community can build for it, Sun themselves releases updates/upgrades on a regular basis.
I use to be one of the former kubuntu Linux users, BUT finally found happiness with my OpenSolaris.
To Download or Order a copy today, just visit http://www.opensolaris.com
I appreciate all of the posters' responses above
I think that was the last straw with this version of Ubuntu (8.04). My next step is to either go with an earlier version or a different distro altogether.
BTW to answer one of the poster's questions above, I'm running an Athlon 3200 w/1GB of RAM.
Something sounds Flakey?
Like another machine? To test the componenets...
Some/many might be uninterested and stop there and buy a new machine?
From your first post. What was the issue that the MB was the problem?
...What Model eMachine was it?
...What PSU did it have?
...What MB did you get? (brand/model)
...Etc, etc
It can be hard to diagnose without all/most/some of the info...
I could be mistaken, but it could be the PSU?
What Harddrives & Opticals are used?
Having too many things can suck power, especially if they or the PSU are aging?
As to you bookmarks, the html file & bak, should be located at /home/"username"/.mozilla/firefox/"xxxx".default/
Just a thought/comment hope it is of use?
It could be the hardware, but...
BTW, here's the mobo: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813135082
I also replaced the PSU.
Firefox bookmark woes
If a bookmark file or even a configuration file somehow gets an errant space or character in it, when the application opens the file and parses it, it will determine that there is a problem and, rather than alerting you to the issue, it will simply wipe it out and put in a clean file.
We had this issue many times in the past with Netscape Mail where it would simply blow away the entire configuration file.
This isn't a fault of the OS, rather it's a "bug" of Firefox that's been handed down from its earliest incarnations.
My problem was different than that
Something to try...
Medibuntu (Multimedia, Entertainment & Distractions In Ubuntu)
http://www.medibuntu.org/
It's not a branch of Ubuntu but a repository for some of the non-free resources you may need.
SUSE Linux
Links
http://software.opensuse.org/ (I recommend KDE as the desktop.)
http://opensuse-community.org/Restricted_Formats/10.3 (please check your local licensing laws and read the license.)
RE: I just switched to Ubuntu - not so happy here
Hold on tight
Adobe is a sloth when it comes to accepting open source. They've just released the Flash format as open source, and have a few other offerings so we'll have to wait a while before that becomes easy-peasy on Linux.
About the momentary freezes and slow scrolling, this almost certainly is because of the video drivers in use. I've got a few machines here that face this problem, but again there are workarounds and this isn't a show stopper.
With respect to the folder structure, well, I find this folder structure more intuitive. This may be because I've been using Linux for quite a long time, but I'd agree it takes a bit of getting used to as well.
Using Linux requires a bit of reading on the users' part as well and you're always welcome to ask questions on the IRC support channels where a lot of Ubuntu users and developers hang out. Be sure to visit irc.freenode.net#ubuntu. (In Pidgin create an IRC account with any nickname of your choosing and choose irc.freenode.net as your server. Then click Buddies > Join a Chat, choose your IRC account and type #ubuntu in the channel/room name. You'll enter a channel with roughly 1500 people hanging about asking and answering questions related to Ubuntu.) Apart from that ubuntuforums.org has a lot of friendly people that also help users with their problems and answer a lot of questions. This is a big archive that you can search for problems users have already faced.
While you're at it, I'd recommend skimming through a few Linux tutorials. https://help.ubuntu.com/ should be a good start.
Good luck.
Cheers,
Yesudeep.