From Vista to Linux (It was a lot easier than I thought)
Like many I had been looking for a way to get my office computer off of Windows for some time. I had played around with various Linux distros and even Mac for about 5 years, but I always had some excuse as to why I couldn’t just make the switch. Usually this amounted to “but what would I do without [insert app here].” For the most part I use my computers for web development as well as a little software development as well as networking with friends and colleagues. I don’t play games and I don’t have to work with many proprietary applications so the idea that I couldn’t replace the apps I use with those available on Linux was a little less founded.
Well, last week I decided enough was enough. I was tired of the 7 and a 1/2 minute boot-up. I was tired of the random waiting after clicking on anything in nearly any program. I was generally tired of all the little nuances we take for granted in Windows. It was time to switch.
For the switch I picked Ubuntu 8.10. Why? Well there are a few reasons. First, it has one of the largest package repositories available. Although I don’t mind compiling and installing apps, the idea that they are there waiting for me does make things a little easier. Second, although I don’t often pay for commercial support I am a big believer in that a strong base of free support such as forums, blogs, etc is a necessity. In this area Ubuntu really seems to outshine the competition. Nearly every search I’ve had to do to answer a Linux question has presented the answer based on Ubuntu (Fedora was a close second, but just not quite there). Finally, I like Gnome. Say what you want about KDE, Gnome, etc but Gnome for me has always been stable in all the distrobutions I’ve worked with. On top of that, although KDE has matured with 4.2 there just seems to be too many bugs and other problems to make it worth it.
So what about the app issue? How did I manage to replace Microsoft Office, Adobe Web Suite, and all the other apps I use with Windows? Well here’s the breakdown:
For Office I chose Openoffice and I’ve been highly impressed. I had used the App back in the 1.0 line and it left a lot to be desired. With the advent of 3.0 however it seems to have come of age in both features and stability. I’ve been able to completely replace MS Office without looking back.
For Dreamweaver I’ve migrated to Aptana. For those who like the WYSIWYG features of Dreamweaver this won’t be an option, however as I hand code everything myself and haven’t use Dreamweaver’s WYSIWYG since DW 3 or earlier I didn’t lose anything. In fact, I’ve gained quite a bit in code support and the ability to integrate my projects with other applications such as Eclipse (which I’ve used for some time on Win/Mac).
Photoshop has been a little trickier. For the most part I’ve been able to do everything I did in Photoshop using Gimp and Inkscape. However I still can’t do all the little details I had perfected in Photoshop over the years and I admit that I have kept Photoshop installed on my Mac. Over time I’m sure I’ll be able to get rid of this as well, however for now I still use it for about 20% of the graphics I need to do.
For web browsers I’ve finally given up my IE and Safari and migrated to Firefox. This was another app which in the past hadn’t quite evolved to where I needed it. However with 3.0 I’ve found it to be the most versatile browser I’ve used especially when combined with all the add-ons available.
For development I’ve been using FTP and testing remotely for years, but with dropping Dreamweaver I just haven’t found the same ease of integration that Dreamweaver has with their FTP features. Instead I’ve replaced it with something better. Namely, I’ve migrated my projects to Subversion repositories using SmartSVN as a client and I test locally with XAMPP. This setup has even managed to work on some of my servers in that I can use an SVN update to push the latest version of the files out to the server without having to deal with FTP or any other technologies (although I do keep Filezilla on all my systems just in case).
As for keeping my files in sync between all my computers I’ve gone from Sugarsync on Mac and Windows to Dropbox. For the most part its a flawless solution however Dropbox does have one downside in that you cannot choose individual folders to sync on each machine. It isn’t something I can’t live without but I would be lying if I said I didn’t miss Sugarsync for that one feature.
Lastly there have been a few things that I just have to have Windows for. Namely there is an app known as Talon we use at work which is specifically designed to only run on Windows/IE (don’t get me started on that topic). For this I’ve gone with Virtualbox and loaded a copy of Windows XP in a virtual machine. Considering I only have to look in Talon for a few minutes once every few days this has been a fine solution. Using the Virtual Machine also gives me the added ability of testing websites on Window’s browsers so in the end it definitely is a worth-while setup.
All in all I couldn’t be happier with my switch. On top of having a much faster, more stable system I have found that using Open Source apps has been a great benefit over the multiple computers I use (so I’m a little behind on that one, what can I say). At this point I’ve managed to integrate all the new apps I’ve found with Linux into my other Windows and Mac machines. The only exception has been Photoshop which I have left on my Mac for the few tasks I still can’t figure out in the Gimp.
Oh, by the way, now that I seem to have all my computers in order I should be able to start writing a little more often…
Posted in 
Tags: 
Take a look at SpiderOak (https://spideroak.com/), it allows you to choose folders to sync with.
Also remember that you can make a link to a folder – right-click, “Make Link”. Place it into the Dropbox folder, and it’ll follow the link and sync the real folder outside of Dropbox for you.
“It was a lot easier than I thought”
Because you make it painfully obvious you have used many linux distributions before?
Using them is one thing, making them your primary OS is another.
Is there a decent wysiwyg web editor for Linux? I am running 8.04
Andrew:
Try Kompozer. I think you will like it.
try
Using it as your main os is the main challenge. Worrying about application equivalents is no where near as bad as people make it out to be, but sometimes there is no equivalents on another platform.
Gamers are almost left out in the cold though.
WINE might be able to assist you with your need for Photoshop. It provides the Windows API via an opensoure solution.
Why to use some OS and then to use WINE for running your software..
If you need a win soft, u use win.
If you want to make love with a woman, you make it with woman, not with some rubber woman, which you make-up before sex..
Robotron: Yours is slow. My two year old Vista laptop boots to the login prompt within at 10 seconds at the most.
I’m very sceptical of this article because for the life of me I cannot see how this could possibly benefit you as a Web Designer/Developer. You’ve switched to a platform with fewer choices for enterprise development software, a platform that doesn’t run basic software like Photoshop and you cannot even run IE to test your pages! Sure you can use WINE, but virtualisation is always extremely slow; it’ll be far slower than your Vista installation.
If I were you I’d uninstall Linux as fast as I possibly could, get a new computer that can keep up with the times and the speed you NEED for your work and reinstall Vista. It’s a fantastic OS that works far better than any of the other Windows versions.
haha. i just surfed in here, but this guy is hilarious. great post.
could you remove Robotron’s comment, it’s very disturbing.
Can I suggest you to use HardLinkShellExt_win32 (http://schinagl.priv.at/nt/hardlinkshellext/hardlinkshellext.html) to link any directory to DropBox?
Pick a link from the source dir and then make a Junction on MyDropBox .
It work….
Firstly, you’re obviously not a newbie to Linux, so this article isn’t really representative of the average person.
So, to the average person. The apps this guy has suggested as replacements to the Windows alternatives (Open Office, Dreamweaver and Photoshop) truly are not replacements. Sure, they can do a lot of similar stuff, but trust me, they are no where near up to the same standard. You’ll install this stuff, and you’ll think “Cool” for a couple of weeks. You’ll find problems, but you’ll battle through it, and you’ll probably still get your stuff done.
Then one day, you’ll sit back down on a Windows PC, and you’re use the real products again, and you’ll suddenly feel like a weight has lifted off your shoulders, and realise that the current Ubuntu along with the aforementioned apps just don’t cut it.
I had this experience just last week. I’m running Ubuntu as we speak, and although its adequate, I can’t wait to go back to Vista and the genuine, professional apps.
I wouldn’t run anything but Linux on a server, but seriously, it’s not as good as Vista on the desktop.
Can you keep Robotron’s comment, it’s very inspiring.
I made the switch to Ubuntu 6 months ago as a “i’ll just try a dual vista boot”.
hardly used vista since, when I do I see it for the piece of shit it really is. the ONLY reason to keep it is games. Most windows apps I need run fine under wine. And Compiz – what can I say – eye candy tastic. I’ve also noticed by uni-core pc runs much much quicker under ubuntu, vista must be caning it just to run.
You said you quit windows because of the slow boot time. Have you ever booted a linux machine? How is it you know how to do these things on Linux but do not know how to properly administer a windows machine, msconfig and the like. This was pretty hilarious, and maybe it is more of a joke than serious.
I use Mac, Win, and Linux, they all have aps that run better on them, and they are tools at the end of the day.
Welcome to the Ubuntu community!
I have made the switch from windows to linux about 5-6 times now, but I keep finding myself going back to windows. It’s hard work having to find different applications to what you’re used to using for various things, and eventually just giving up seems the easier option.
Linux has its place and for certain tasks its great, but if you’re grown up with windows you’re skills will lie with that OS until you die!
From Linux to Windows. Oh wait, I already did.
Get out of here, ubuntu takes ages for me to boot up somewhere like 3 min! ridiculous. I’ll stick to my Win2003 server thank you very much
Good article. Thanks for the tip about Aptana, I just downloaded it today.
If your Windows takes 7 minutes to boot up, you are seriously doing something wrong. It’s amazing how much hyperbole people like to put into these things to make linux seem like it’s the perfect system.
Linux rules for servers, netbooks, web/general office work, but don’t expect to game, run virtually all major software out of the box, and simply just ….work, like windows does unless you are computer savvy.
Don’t get me wrong, Linux is getting there, but it’s not there yet.
Let’s see – you hand code your webpages, you use openoffice which means you’ve probably never had to work across multiple teams (that use MS-office) with complex documents, you don’t need dreamweaver because you don’t need WYSIWYG, you make do with Gimp which lacks some very basic photoshop features like decent CMYK and color profile support, and you still need XP on virtualbox.
Not sure about you but looks to me like your switch was a 95% failure. I too run linux at home and am an active coder, but for real work, I’d rather have a system that just allows me to work with the hundreds of people I interact with that run different systems – mostly windows and mac variants. You are an experienced Linux user so it’s a “lot easier” than you’d expect for most other people.
bah, WINE isn’t virtualization. in fact WINE runs apps better and faster than they run on windows xp on the same machine. WINE is the shit.
As a desktop Ubuntu is just fine. It’s my main OS. I’m running XP in virtualbox for stuff like napster and itunes (for my ipod touch)… that’s pretty much it. It runs about 2-4 degrees cooler (important on laptop) and the eye candy using compiz, is sweet. I’ve got photoshop running in wine (easy as pie to install). Ubuntu just feels easy too use.
I do boot into Vista for gaming… that’s about it. I am reminded everyone once in a while, when I’m thinking that vista is very nice, of why I switched. The OS will crash or pause every once in a while… and the machine will be unusable for a few seconds. that just doesn’t happen to me in Ubuntu. It’s a HP HDX with a core 2 & 4 gig of mem running a nv9600gt. It’s a capable machine… I just don’t get the “strange” things using ubuntu.
But I do like Vista and have no idea what people are complaining about. Other than the pausing (probably due to the virus scanners etc…) it’s a very nice OS. I’ve got Win7 running in virtualbox too and that seems good, but I’ll wait and see because frankly I don’t have a “need” to get yet another OS.
Ubuntu is my OS of choice for day to day stuff like websurfing, email, ripping & burning DVD’s, and watching divx… BUT Windows is my OS of choice for production work. I have a small recording studio and all of my hardware and software runs off of a windows XP pro machine (I’ll probably upgrade to Win7). I think there’s a place for all to exist.
I think you meant get off Windows not “get off of Windows.” The “of” is entirely redundant. What chance a good grammar checker for Linux?
[...] Original post by Chris [...]
[...] Chris Wiegman – From Vista to Linux (It was a lot easier than I … Like many I had been looking for a way to get my office computer off of Windows for some time. I had played around with various Linux distros and even Mac for. Original post by somebody [...]
Hi
Do you never play games ?
You can’t play games like COD4 under the Virtualbox, or maybe u know better. can u hand me tips
If games would run under Virtualbox I know 4 sure me and a collegue would switch right this moment. We migrated to Vista a year ago–> it’s a disaster.
greetz aschwin
Good post, I just switched recently to Linux too from Vista. The only program I need to find is a good blogging client. Other than that I am happy with Linux, I am even learning terminal commands.
I am going to warn you since this hit digg, Linux users get quite protective over their OS. So except a lot of nasty comments that have nothing to so with the post that attack you.
I migrated the field offices of my company (located in African countries) to Ubuntu 8.10 and run WinXP under Virtualbox or later under VmWare player.
Pros:
1. No more virus and other attacks because Ubuntu has no problems with it and WIN XP will be always freshly started (changes to configuration are not allowed)
2. System is very stable and almost “bullet proof” for simple users
3. I have a stable host and can install the client WIN XP with an image to any machine in comparison to give me an headache for hours to install Windows. It cost me some minutes installing a new image compared to hours for Windows.
4. Ubuntu is simple in use – and can be even more simplified for the “stupid ones”
5. Ubuntu is free of charge
6. Service time was down from 20-40 hours per machine/year (pure WIN XP) to 2-5 hours/year per machine Ubuntu/virtual WIN XP.
Cons:
1. People resist for change (that’s why mothers prefer to loose thousands of square km forest instead of using cotton diapers like grandma, what’s why people prefer to put millions of tons of one way stuff to the trash box instead of washing good all dishes, what’s why smokers prefer to die instead of stopping smoke cigarettes, …..and so on and so on…) and try to blame that it is to complicated to change however its never to complicated to change to a new Windows Software.
2. Some applications do not run smoothly and need to be replaced (2…3%)
3. Importing graphics from MS Office files may change them, as well as some formatting.
4. Thunderbird and Evolution although equipped with many features outlook lacks, are not 100% compatible with Outlook (especially when MS Exchange servers are used).
5. Linux in general supports badly dial up modems and it is hard to find one you get a driver for (US Robotics and Trust have USB modem drivers for Linux and a couple of more PCMCIA modems can be found around on the web)
All in one: I am a road warrior traveling a lot and pretty much depend on a always functional laptop. So I use both systems.
- WIN XP because my company requires outlook with Exchange and MS Office 2007.
- Ubuntu/XP on a virtual machine because I am sick and tired of all this hundreds of thousands of threats spreading around and infecting my machine. Regardless which security software I install some threats come through by the end of the day and then I have to spent a day for a fresh install. I hate this!
I like Ubuntu also because I can install it on a memory stick, giving me a complete backup system out of the box. We even install complete Web Apps on it and send it with company designed software to job sites around the world for project controls purposes.
A recommendation to all who like to test fresh ideas (not just the ones having hammered into our brains for years):
Try out Linux Macpup 4.xx http://macpup.org. It can be easily tested from a CD or installed to a USB flash drive. It copies itself to the RAM and runs incredibly fast even on P3 or P4 machines and it has the exclusive look of Mac OS. By the end of the day you may figure out: less is more (that’s why by the way many of us also go to the GYM)!
Thanks for reading! CFM
i well play this game
@DavidYates
idiot. “Get off of” – That’s perfectly acceptable English. Unless you are speaking American? do you “Get off Horse”? probably, from a country that says “write me” instead of “write to me”
Linux is best suited for say, running NFS storage in your business. It sucks for personal computing. and yes..it does…it is just to hard for 90% of computer users out there to switch to and start using. maybe if they made it better.
I’m curious, what exactly do you use an office suite for, as a developer?
The odd spreadsheet? Presentation? Word processors are a disaster for writing documentation in – no automation, too much work, and it looks shit anyway.
Well, I work for a state university so I’m taking advantage of free tuition to get a master’s degree and use the office suite there as well as for putting together manuals, etc.
useless os
Sounds fine, and as it is quite obvious that you have good IT skills I think it is a worthy switch.
However I hear things like “Linux will take on the desktop market this year!” for decades now and it is quite clear that it will not. The reasons I see:
- Gaming: For home PCs gaming is one of the biggest use cases for PCs, you must like pain if you go for a Linux gaming PC! Emulate and have it slower, not supporting the latest graphic interfaces, etc. Personally I will switch to Linux they day major games come out of the box for Linux too.
- Customization: Let’s compare KDE with the Windows desktop, that’s about 100 options versus 100 000 options for customizations. Again nice for tech geeks but in a company I am not sure you want to have your employees spending multiple days in configuring their system until they “like it”.
- Diversity: Low tech people want to know other people being able to help them and knowing the system. There are so many Linux distributions out there and they just get confused which they should use and who could help them with it
I suggest you try playing with Wine or Crossover Office. That will allow you tu run Photoshop, Talon, MS Office in Linux if you want.
Go with Linux or stay with Windows, if you’re comfortable with your choice then good for you.
For those interested in looking, Ubuntu offers many options to try it out. Most use dual boot for those ‘just in case’ fears they have to use Windows some time. If you’re less adventursome, most of the office productivity open source apps will install on Windows (OO, Firefox, Gimp, Inkscape).
I do Engineering consulting with Fortune 10 companies, use Open Office to create/share/edit group documents created in MSOffice. I also use Gimp and Inkscape for graphic design. I have used Ubuntu since 2005. Speed. Stability (I’ve had desktops run for a month before, Windows seemed to have to be rebooted daily to keep operating ok), and ease of use – just fire up Synaptic to find a program to solve a problem, no virus issues.
Be sure to look at http://www.distrowatch.com, Xubuntu, Linux Mint Fluxbox, and MoonOS.
I had a similar experience recently and posted thoughts here-
http://bendunkle.com/xx-thoughts-about-linux-ubuntu-81-from-a-new-user/
So you’re trying to tell us that you’re dropped hundreds of dollars of investment in Photoshop, MS Office and Dreamweaver and the knowledge you had of them to use shitty half-assed replacements? No wonder you’ve switched to Linux. You weren’t doing anything meaningful or relevant then!
Oh, and by the way. This:
<>
… is pure bullshit.
Is it? I actually timed my bootup time for a few weeks to prove a point to a coworker. It averaged just under 7.5 minutes. As for the rest, it really is amazing how many problems you notice with Windows when you take the time to try something else.
As for the rest, the licenses for Adobe were purchased by the company and have been transfered to another user so, why not get rid of them myself? With a little research the free tools are easily as capable as the software they have replaced, and with the ability to use them on multiple platforms switching provides quite a few new benefits.
Great, so this thing parses the comment. Well, here we go again. This:
“I was tired of the 7 and a 1/2 minute boot-up. I was tired of the random waiting after clicking on anything in nearly any program. I was generally tired of all the little nuances we take for granted in Windows.”
… is pure bullshit.
Well Bertie, as a speaker of “American” I can tell you that ‘Get off of’ is perfectly acceptable english on this side of the sea, and DavidYates is just a friggen moron.
Aptana has SVN support built in. You should drop your extra svn client and used the built in system it will simplify your config.
I use the Aptana client as well. However I still find the need once in a while for a stand-alone client (mostly just personal preference).
Congratulations on your decision. Ubuntu 8.10 is a great OS for what you want to do and enjoys a community of many millions of users.
Welcome (and enjoy the peace of mind)!
So how do you check for web site compatibilty, without IE, Safari and Opera(which you didnt mention).
Good point, I have a copy of XP I keep in Virtualbox with all the Windows browsers (actually I have 2 XP installs, one with IE 6 and one with IE7 gonna add another install with IE 8 soon) and I have a Macbook at home I keep all the mac browsers on.
You guys are punks! My FreeDos boots faster than the screen can display it. I am the KING. What the hell is wrong with edln? You nitwits are never satisfied. I’m gonna go play pong.
I support nearly 4000 XP/Vista users in an enterprise. I have my MCSE. I’m a beta tester for Win 7 enterprise
what do I use?
Ubuntu 8.10 – and I Couldn’t be happier. It’s superior in many ways.
Win 7 is promising but still doesn’t quite live up to my Ubuntu machine.
I commend you on making the switch. I’ve recently spoke to 4 diehard Win admins who had tried many Linux distros in the past try Ubuntu 8.10. They were very impressed and at least two are running it on home systems now.
Hey, nice and comrehensive article. Here are some comments.
Photoshop:
If you really can’t live without it (which I can perfectly understand).. use is with wine.. works perfectly.
Browsers:
As you seem to be a webdevelopera you should look at Opera which is available for all platforms and has lots of nice features for webdevs.
Version Control:
CVS and SVN are old-generation version control systems (VCS). I recently made the switch to distributed version control (like git or bzr) and can’t imagine going back. Distributed version control takes some time getting your head around, but it is well worth it. The documentation on bazaar-vcs.org is really helpful with that. You have complete integration with popular bugtrackers (or your own) and can easily deploy changes. There’s not enough room here to explain all the advantages over old systems like subversion. Give it a try.
SEVEN MINUTES BOOT TIME?!
I work with multiple OS’s on a daily basis and although I like Vista and Linux equally, seven minutes boot is a load of baloney, unless you’re trying to run it on a typewriter. I have Vista, Ubuntu and Windows 7 loaded up on my laptop and Ubuntu is definitely the slowest booter with Windows 7 beating them both by a considerable margin.
I hope you enjoy your Linux experience but if you ever grace Vista with your presence again, and find it taking 7 mins to boot or freezing randomly, then take it to someone in the know that can diagnose the cause, because I can guarantee that 7 mins is NOT normal and there was something clearly wrong with your install.
“I used all these windows apps and I’m a developer, but it took to long to boot so I went to Ubuntu because it’s the best liunx evAR!!1!”
Righhht.
This article blows. How the hell did it get Dugg up so far?
I was a big fan of Ubuntu and I’m still a bit fan of opensource stuff like OpenOffice and GIMP. However, since Ubuntu 8.10, I’ve gone back to using Windows XP.
Even after clean installs, I find Ubuntu distributions have been getting slower and slower booting and shutting down with each new version. The main culprits are updatedb (hogs the hard drive every day for a good 5 minutes on boot) and with Ubuntu 8.10 apt-xapian-index, that also runs daily. I managed to comment out the reference to updatedb in cron.daily, but lost my patience trying to find what triggers apt-xapian-index.
Ubuntu was really good until 8.10, and rivaled MacOSX for me. But Ubuntu needs to release a version for average-joe user that doesn’t run all these house-keeping processes on bootup. Ubuntu still thinks its running on an always-on system that run housekeeping at 2am.
In the end, all OSs have good points and bad, it’s just that where Windows is so much more prevalent, we hear about it more often.
You guys are punks! My FreeDos boots faster than the screen can display it. I am the KING. What the hell is wrong with edln? You nitwits are never satisfied. I’m gonna go play pong..
Try some of your Window’s apps with Wine (www.winehq.org). I’ve had a lot of success with it and installing Window’s apps in Linux.
7 1/2 min to boot VISTA???? Please – did you ever consider not having all your programs run at start up? I can boot VISTA – open my mobile modem and be logged with Firefox in 2 min – One moment you sound tech savvy the nest like a n00b – not sure I am buying what you say
7 and a half minutes to boot Windows?, wohohohw, you are really stupid configuring a machine
Interesting – I had to switch to Windows (from Linux) on my main workstation when I really got into c/c++/graphics development… The people I work with just refuse to exchange work in any format besides .sln and .max files. It’s kinda lame that I can’t use my beloved vim and the more-than-adequate Blender…but it’s just how it is.
I do still use Linux on my other machines (router, servers, wife’s workstation), and XP isn’t really painful to use or anything – I just miss the nice little things that make Linux…Linux.
Also: Why are the right sides of these comments cut off, web developer guy? :p
@Johnny: I agree that 8.10 had a few regressions in it that made it boot slower etc. But, I’ve been playing around with 9.04 and it’s waaaaay better. I loaded it with Ext4 and was well impressed.
I made the switch from Windows to Linux around 3 years ago. I was brough up on a diet of Windows 2, 3.0, 3.1, 95, 98, 98SE, Me
, NT, 2000, XP, VB Visual Studio, InterDev, Office etc etc.
I have never looked back. I now use Ubuntu, Eclipse, Inkscape, Gimp, Evolution, Firefox, Pigin, Wireshark, Postgres, MySQL, JBoss, VirtualBox, Liferea (RSS), Glassfish, Alfresco (Beats Sharepoint), GWT etc etc.
I have to run XP in a VM at work as I use IBM Access to support our AS/400..iSeries..System i (I wish they’d stick with one name).
Also, our Windows machines here at work do boot in around 7 minutes. This is no joke or exaggeration. They are loaded up with various boot scripts, SMS audits, big anti virus products, malware catchers etc etc etc that our beloved admins runs and then never look at
.
The running joke in our board room on a Monday morning is .. “I wonder if my PC will have finished booting by the time this meeting ends”.
And on we go.
*sigh* the typical group of comments for anything related to windows vs linux. if windows does what you need it to, go with it. if linux does what you need it to, go with it.
I agree that this article wasnt quite the “new user experiencing linux” as I thought it would be, a typical new linux user would not understand half of what you were saying. That’s not a linux problem, that’s a problem with anyone learning an OS for the first time obviously. Take your relative that’s never used a computer and try explaining half of windows to them and you will get those glazed over eyes and blank stair.
Both OS’s have their advantages, I use them both actually. I just hope like many linux users that one day linux will be able to compete more in regards to adobe products and gaming (for me personally) as well as the needs many other have. When it does I will make the switch for sure.
Judging by the comments,
You get a win for using digg to drive traffic to your site.
Wow, looks like all the Windoze zombies showed up to comment on this article.
I’ve been using Ubuntu on both my home machine and my development machine for over 2 years now. Like the author, I also run an XP vm almost solely for the Sql Server database that I need for development (we deploy our apps onto RH linux boxes that talk to a SQL Server database).
I don’t miss windos at all. Ubuntu is easier to manage, faster (windows I/O sucks donkey balls) and has tons of freely available software available in the repository.
When all you windows losers are ready, there is a better OS waiting for you….
Funny that you don’t “miss” Windows, but most of you have a virtual machine to run it whenever you need to. I can tell you, I don’t have any with Linux on it, because I don’t need it for anything.
Oh, and Linux “a better OS”? My ass.
[...] I thought)makin2572/20/09 11:56 am Getting rid of Windows was easier than I thought!Link source:http://www.chriswiegman.com/2009/02/from-vista-to-linux-it-was-a-lot-easier-than-i-thought/ Leave a comment Powered by LiveJournal.comAdvertisement Customize if (SnapShots) { [...]
@operahouse
I only have windows on a virtual machine because our company (rightly or wrongly) decided on using Sql Server in the data center and in order to develop applications I need to have a local database running. Were we to move to Postgres or MySql, I’d ditch my VM without a second thought.
I am lost. Why do people defend windows and curse linux? or even visit linux forums. I thought windows was 99% of world and had everything. so why stop here take the time to read then post flaming about linux sucks? I loathe windows and I have to deal with it on a daily basis but I wouldnt waste my time bashing it. Mainly cause I am very happy about being able to use linux and have it in my home. Not my at my work regrettably.
great post btw.
On the down side I have to drop the links to alot youth schools and business sites until the cursing and personal attacks are removed from the postings here.
Best Regards
I agree to this man! Just wait till there’s chrome for linux, it’ll fly!!!!
Yes I too have recently discovered Linux, Ubuntu Linux. I love it! But I also love my “Vista Ultimate” box. I have no problems with either. I am not a gamer. Used to be a Network Admin. If I had another system with a different OS I would like it too. But at this time I just want my two systems to play nice. So I figure, network them. Then I read an article that mentioned “Synergy” software. I guess it’s a type of “KVM” but software instead of hardware. You can make the two platforms use one keyboard and mouse and switch between the systems with the mouse. Don’t know if you can use a drag and drop for files. But it sounds good to try out. My experience with Wine, not good for me, but read good things about it. Everybody, enjoy your personal OS!
sounds like if you were a full blown programmer, you wouldn’t have 8 minute boot times with windows.
I’ve tried many operating systems over the years, and I finally found a solution that makes me completely happy: OSX on my Macbook, Ubuntu and Windows on my desktop. Got ‘em all. Done deal.
I agree to what Robotron’s said. Its very true.
I have been using Linux (Fedora) exclusively for two years now.
The *ONLY* problem with Linux is that there is some software that wasn’t made for it. In every other aspect it totally owns Windows and Mac.
Ubuntu is poop-colored.
Comments with excessive profanity will be deleted.
Yes, I have to agree about the “boot” time. It sounds to me like maybe there is software that is loading and clashing with other startup apps or maybe the hard drive is a little too full? Cause I agree that a boot time approaching the 7 minute mark is a bit unusual. But I have seen it. Yup! there may be something configured all wrong on that machine.
HA HA HAAA, Yes I don’t like the Ubuntu background color either. But you can change it.
I gave Debian 5 a shot and it worked great. Problem I had was Photoshop CS2 in WINE working with Quanta+. Images wouldn’t refresh in quanta unless I went beyond saving it in Photoshop and actually closed the image file. With that and the font rendering, disappearing cursor, and random freezes in KDE 3.x I moved on.
great blog man! I finally made the switch xmas day and have a triple boot with sabayon, ubuntu and redhat, but run DSL virtually for grins. This is the year when I could do everything I needed to in Linux without switching back and forth. That said this is a handy dandy guide or doc for explaining how to do a lot of stuff that users want to do in windoze
on a related note: I was thinking about using the vista image I’ve got to use windows if I need to seeing that it came as a coa and all.
Also, I can get my bootup time down to 30 secs using Damn small linux or Puppy linux if that’s an issue.
David Yates, you wrote: “I think you meant get off Windows not “get off of Windows.” The “of” is entirely redundant. What chance a good grammar checker for Linux?” Judging my my experience as a technical writer, I think the real question is “What chance a good grammar checker on anything?”
Grimdeath, very well said.
no sooner than this topic is broached than the linux fundamnetalists pull out the “no virus on linux!” card. damn. I’ve been using windows from the days of windows 3.1 and believe me, I’ve NEVER… repeat NEVER faced any virus “problems”. back in the 3.1 days, my comp got the Die Hard 2 … but I don’t remember a single virus attack since then! and I’m someone who is online literally every waking minute! How difficult is it for people to install an anti-virus and a zone alarm?! To be frank, Linux sucks big time for HOME DESKTOP (now don’t you linux talibans obfuscate HOME DESKTOP and SERVERS for the uninitiated) and has long ways to go before it can hold a candle to windows. heck.. they give the bloody thing away for free and yet people don’t use it!! does it tell you guys something about Linux’s worth on the HOME DESKTOP? It does to me. GNOME is the only saving grace or else even the linux talibans wouldn’t go near the stinky pig.
Ubuntu GNU/Linux is great. It’s fast, flexible, Open and Free. I would really like DRM to go away and make gaming and Netflix possible. If you use a Linux based OS donate some money or time to it, all computer users benefit when there are choices available.
Linux talibans, what a prick! Get a life you facist moron. Linux is open source, look it up. It’s the way forward, even Microsoft is going open source. 10 years to late mind but hey ho, nothing changes.
If you’re looking to attract visitors to your web site, a nice “I’ve switched to Linux” post is the way to go.
By the way, nobody is using Linux because it sucks so badly.
Linux is a cheap clone of Unix, not a desktop OS.
Most everyone here seems to be speaking in absolutes when posting their comments. Personally I think that it matters quite a bit what you’ll be doing with your computer when it comes to a choice of operating systems. Even when speaking about “home desktop” setups, I think Windows, Ubuntu, and OS X all have their strengths and weaknesses. No operating system is perfect; not even close.
I personally use both Ubuntu and Windows XP. I’ve Ubuntu 7.10 installed on my laptop, and Windows XP on my desktop, (mainly so I can play some games now and then), and while I like Ubuntu quite a bit more then XP, (I really like Gnome; it’s my favorite desktop GUI), they both work just fine for what I use them for.
Basically I find myself equally pleased, and annoyed by both of them. It just depends on my mood at the moment, and what I’m trying to do.
I hate these these stupid posts saying Linux is better than Windows for x, y, and z. I’m sorry, but I think I’ve tried to use various distributions of Linux for kicks. Yes, I’m sure for the more than average technical person it is fine and they can praise all the virtues they want.
Granted, there is documentation posted all over the place about Linux and how to solve some issues, but when a newbie is trying it for the first or second time and realizes they can’t even get their wireless card to be recognized by Linux for reasons x, y, and z to be able to download an update or a driver (let alone install the damn thing… face it, it’s not for the casual computer user where it’s download, double-click, wait a couple of mins, and you’re set). Nobody who is new is going to want to pour through endless forum posts looking for answers. It’s way too frustrating, and the loss of time and effort does not make it worth it.
[...] http://www.chriswiegman.com/2009/02/from-vist…; [...]
[...] the road out of Vista 21 02 2009 One Vista user’s road to Linux. Including what Linux applications he used to replace his Windows [...]
Michael surely it isn’t for the casual computer user but I believe it has made a great progress towards this direction the last years.
Linux fans have been saying that very same thing for many, many years now.
Truth is, Linux is not designed for that, and never will be… unless someone with piles of money comes and pull something like OS X. Not very likely to happen.
[...] http://www.chriswiegman.com/2009/02/ [...]
I hate the anti-Linux comments that posts like this always draw. They clearly think so highly of themselves that they feel they can speak for “the average user”. It saddens me to know that they are scaring people away from their options just because they themselves can’t cope with a change of scenery. It’s not the fault of the product, guys, it’s your own inability to use the product.
Saying you tried something “for kicks” shows just how little your opinion is worth – it’s when the crunch hit and you put some ass into it that things matter.. that’s how most of us got into Windows, after all. We didn’t just try it “for kicks”, it was what we were dragged into, sometimes kicking and screaming. It just seems that some of us are too terrified of repeating that to genuinely put some effort into learning another OS. No matter how much like Windows the Linux world tries to be, you’ll always find a nit to pick. Your opinions are therefore pointless – stay where you are, no one wants you to change.
I’ve “converted” dozens of people to Linux, OS X and others. You know what? They couldn’t be happier. Sure, they have problems. But this mythical “everything will blow up in your face” attitude is a complete farce. In fact, I’ve followed up on several people who have told me that they were more willing to put up with all of the niggling little issues in OS X/Linux than go back to Windows again. Don’t put words in their mouth and pretend that they rely on the same stuff you do – they just don’t. Not everyone needs Photoshop.
Also, I’m confused by Underdog.. what do you think Ubuntu is all about? Shuttleworth certainly hasn’t invested $0 in the effort. Many people will tell you that Ubuntu has forced the Linux landscape to a new tier of quality, pulling a lot of other common distributions up with it. It certainly is imperfect, but then neither is OS X. What exactly are you looking for? Steve Jobs and Bill Gates converting to Linux?
One thing I couldn’t do without now is the symlink
No not a shortcut, but a proper filesystem level symlink. I use these all over the place.
Off of is not good British English. You get off a horse not off of a horse.
The problem I see that everyone is having is that they want LInux to be like windows and to perform some tasks exactly the way that windows performs them. That itself is the fundemental problem. They are different, they shouldn’t be the same. I personally experience quite the opposite .. I’m a long time Linux user, when I’m forced to use windows, I try to adapt it to my Linux tastes by installing cygwin. Unfortunatly that too is frustrating.
If you want a seamless transisition to either environment, start using only tools that are available in both places. For development, start using something like Eclipse. For office apps, use Openoffice when you can. Start using GIMP.
Now as a Linux guy, when I’m stuck in Windows hell, I can just download the apps that I’m used to and can become productive right away. I can work in either environment effectivly. The same goes for you Windows folks. When you decide to migrate or have to do work on a linux desktop, you’ll be able to use the tools that you have experience with.
As for you Windows guys balking about making the transition to Linux; thats fine, stay with Windows. We Linux users don’t care what you use. Frankly, we own the server space, and we don’t want our OS being dumbed down for everone.
With the GNU project, most if not all NEW OS’s will be UNIX/Linux like. You simply need to write a kernel and then import all the programs from GNU into your OS distribution. By sticking with Windows, you are making yourself a dinosaur.
My parents use Linux as well. My dad is in his 70’s and has never used a computer for anything. He’s had no problems learning how to surf the web, print pictures, use email or write documents/spreadsheets under Linux. Linux is not difficult to use, its simply a matter of changing your expectations.
Hello Everyone, don’t listen to M$ sales persons flaming here, they get paid for this kind of behavior.
I too used windows from 3.11 to XP, and never had a problem with it. Windows is not bad, but there is a better OS and it is called Ubuntu. Why is it better?
* File system is faster
* Memory usage is a lot better (uses less) and it uses no page file unless all physical memory runs out.
* Very powerful comman line, you can automate everything, fix everything
* OS itself and the directory structure is much easier to understand
* Logs everything, whatever causes problems you can look it up and usually there is a solution
* When there is a hang-up, then no restart is needed, just Alt-Ctrl-Backspace for 2 sec window system restart
* Multiple desktops – productivity grows to the roof with some tasks, believe me, you need to try Alt-Ctrl + arrow keys when you need to use a doc or something. It is actually better that 2 monitors (don’t have to drag windows).
* USB key “turns on” a lot faster
* Boot-up time is a lot faster when replacing enterprise windows (SMS, startup security scripts, anti-virus etc). In lot of firms even hard-core developers need to use antivirus, because when you don’t admins will kick you out of the domain, but not with linux
- There are some games, but i prefer to use a console for gaming. Some windows games work also – like GTA San Andreas, Warcraft 3, but most don’t work.
- Some forum posts teaching something can be hazardous, don’t ever use a command line command if you don’t understand what it does. Linux is made to be a slave for it’s user (yes you can call user a master). There isn’t a thing user (admin of the system) can’t do, but you have to know what you are doing in order to be successful at it.
Last word: Don’t be afraid, use it, think about peace of mind and time you save using the system, it’s priceless.
I’m in a similar position man.
I installed Ubuntu through Wubi as a kinda plaything, two weeks later and I no longer use Windows. That’s pretty impressive considering I’d never even considered linux before then.
I kept it for gaming, but got bored of that too and deleted Windows completely.
Web Development was actually much better for me on Ubuntu.
I use Geany(I’m too paranoid for WYSIWYG), Photoshop CS2(through WINE, works flawlessly), XAMPP and VirtualBox(Running Windows 7 very nicely).
For one, I was shocked at how quickly VirtualBox runs — its as if I’m running the OS on an actual dedicated PC, and had no performance impact on Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is like Windows though — it does alot of things right, but also has some headfucks over certain things.
I’d say Ubuntu has much less headfucks than Windows though
I find it interesting that all these people that have negative comments about Linux seem to be scared of change. I have a news flash for you guys. Windows is on its way out. If you are in the industry I would suggest you get familiar and use all other platforms or you will be out of a job as the world switches to open-source or Macintosh. Both of these are better options to get things done than windows. Before I get flamed. I use all of the stated operating system and if I have my choice I would take Linux, Mac, BSD, Solaris, Windows in that order.
I couldn’t live without Windows…no seriously. I’m in IT and Microsoft keeps me employed.
I’m glad that you found happiness with ubuntu 8.10. I’ve dual booted it at least four times and uninstalled it too before I pulled my hair out. I don’t understand why it took you so long to boot windows. Mine boots in seconds. As for ubuntu, did your printer immediately work? I know I had to go to about 10 forums before I could find something to install that would make my printer work. After all, what good is a computer without a printer and ubuntu does not make it easy. Then there were the games. If you want to play a game, you have to reboot back to windows. Eye candy? Vista provides that without driving you crazy. If I want a headache, I can pound my head against the wall, that’s what ubuntu did for me. I didn’t give up easily as I said but gosh, who wants to have to go crazy making their computer work. Enjoy, you must be working for ubuntu people.