I myself is an ex-Ubuntu user, I have been using Ubuntu as my primary OS for few months but finally I decided to go back to Windows for some reason--it does not meet my requirement in many ways. I wonder why you all use Linux? your job needed? it looks cool? you are just interested to learn something new? or you are purely supporting freeware? And u use Linux to serve for what purpose? Networking? Desktop usage?

I run OSX for business applications, and Linux for any thing other than that. Both I've been using for a years. Linux have been quite good and all my needs are met, this is for my desktop. I don't use Windows be cos all my needs are being met by Linux and there are no fees paid, hence the support for free ware. For a license Windows+Office=RM1000 vs Free ware which basically works the same. Would I pay 30% of total workstation cost for an OS that requires me to pay some more license fees for anti virus, spy ware etc ?
I'm sure your 'requirements in many ways' can be resolved on the an Ubuntu forum and you can continue to enjoy splendid OS+applications in Linux.

Thanks, what I want cannot be done in Linux, I need an alternative of Adobe suite, however gimp / inkscape is still far behind adobe. So you are using Linux for your business? glad to know more and more people found the true value of Linux!

Btw actually there is another problem when im using Ubuntu -- I cant play some video file format properly

so far i have no problem playing any video file in my ubuntu.
wmv, avi, flv, rmvb, and etc all can be play in ubuntu.

mind to tell us wat video file u cant play

that's true, I was not able to play a real dvd9 dual layer in Linux at the moment but I'm sure if I needed to I will find a way. At the moment the need is not there. Other video files no problem.
As for Adobe perhaps u can try Crossover Office or lastly dual boot.
Welcome back to Linux then.

beside using crossover office, or dual boot, you may also try to install windows on Virtual Machine such as Vmware, Qemu, VirtualBox, etc. then install the software you need in that virtual machine, when need to use, just boot it up and use.

this is what i do for me to use those application which cannot or hardly run on linux.

i don't use window, is mainly because of virus, spy ware, Trojan attack, and i do not wan to waste my CPU, RAM resource for Antivirus Software. haha. and i am very comfortable with linux.

linux for bypass tmnut throttling bandwidth.............
linux for hacking..............
linux for programming..................

that's what I'm using for

Linux is fun, exciting, full of new things, nothing to do? Then go and open the config files, the source code, many weird weird programs, and do research, then write shell scripts, do bash programming, etc...hack windows password XD. Not like Windows, everyday it's the same, dull, boring, see liao wanna sleep...ZzzzzzzzzzZzzZzZZZzZZZzzZzzzzzzzzzz....sleep liao nightmare leh....coz BSoD...

I just used it for fun onli! Usually i used it to surf web onli! Nothing else!

I not so sure, if not mistaken is all formats (or divx/rmvb?), it is playing in black n white color that time i cant figure out the problem, so just let it be.



I havent try installing Windows on virtual machine yet but i guess it will be much slower than you run it from a real Windows right?

When I am using Linux, I also found that it is less responsive than Windows, and 'good' softwares are less. In my point of view it is less productive for people who only want to get job done without getting himself doing apt-get all the day (but it is free! this is always one of the best reason to choose Linux)

It takes some times for ppl to get use to linux. I am sure that you also takes some times to familiarize yourself with windows the first time you use it. You can always have the softwares that is not available for linux in a virtual machine of windows inside linux host. All the memory and processor power you saved from using linux can be use to run the virtual windows

i've found some ppl think is cool when they using Linux they can show off to thier friend that they are expert


for me, as my client still win xp cause got many multimedia app couldnt run on linux i have no choice so i rather use prirated

i dont use linux at home but i use linux during work
my laptop still dual boot win xp n linux. and during work, i just putty to the linux box

for me i never think linux can replace windows

I have always heard that Linux use up less resource than xp because xp got a lot of antivirusspyware etc, but actually I feel it is almost the same, running Linux on the same machine doesnt significantly faster than xp (seriously i feel it is slower --longer startup, less responsive), perhaps you are right people are just not familiar with Linux just like when they start using Windows at first, but not using wizard guide setup is really a pain for ordinary people.



so many in ur reply haha.
Yea I feel it is cool to use Linux too
for me i never think linux can replace windows <-- at first i thought it can.. who know in future Linux will dominate the computer world?

yup linux is very cool....

say bye2 to virus....

Linux does use less resources than win xp especially when one using XFCE, enlightenment, etc instead of KDE or Gnome. I believe that the upcoming KDE 4.1 uses even less resources than current 3.5.9 version.

Startup is certainly slower than win xp but who needs to restart their computers that often. Linux is stable for months, unlike windows xp which will crash for no apparent reason after leaving it for a week. However, that are several projects that aimed at reducing startup time. I think suse linux is developing one.

Reasons why I use linux:
1. No virus, spywares, adwares. Actually there are some virus. But they cannot take down your whole system because of linux's unique file permission system - also found in mac os I guess. Worst case scenario, delete your /home folder and recreate a new one. No need to reformat your whole computer. They don't attack home users though. Implication: No need to use antivirus softwares that only slows down your computer.

2. The open source nature of the software - GPL license. Since there is no one single entity who control the software development, I can rest assured that linux and GNU project will continue. If the developer decides to quit, anyone can take up the project as the software code (or blueprint) is available for anyone to see.

3. As the software blueprint is opened for everyone to see, any bugs (or software errors) can be fixed very quickly. Anyone from around the world will be able to make the fix and send it to the developer directly. Updates are frequent. There's freedom of making software improvements by anyone. Implication: You know that you'll always get up-to-date softwares and quick bug fixes.

4. Linux's filesystem is cooler. You do not need to leave your computer overnight to defrag.

5. There is a feeling of freedom while using such open source software. You have complete control of your computer. You choose what ever you want to be installed to your computer.

6. Compiz Fusion - This puts Mac OSX and Aero to shame. mac os is cool, but aero is really really lame. You can run Compiz fusion on a 256MB ram computer. Even windows xp will be slow at 256MB of RAM. Let alone Vista which need a minimum of 1000MB of ram

7. I can install softwares from synaptics. No more hunting softwares on the internet and worrying about viruses or adware that might hit me.

8. I have almost all the softwares I need right after installing linux. this holds true in case of Linux Mint, PCLinuxOS, etc. Can you say the same for windows xp? I can play all my musics, videos, flash, office documents, pdf files, zip, rar, 7z, (almost everything under the sun), use skype, chat using Pidgin, Firefox pre-installed, straightaway.

9. Installs very fast - about 20 minutes. As opposed to my win xp OEM version which takes 90 minutes!

10. I oppose monopolists and those who used dirty tricks. Monopoly is bad and I hate bad guys.

11. You can choose which desktop environment you want (KDE, gnome, xfce, enlightenment, etc), window manager (kwin, gnome). It's extremely customizable.

12. Owh, most of linux operating system is free (no need to buy) like ubuntu, linux mint, PCLinuxOS, etc. No feeling of guilt in using pirated softwares. It's like stealing. Say no to pirates!

13. Community support is wonderful. Ubuntu forums and pclinuxos forum are an excellent place to find almost instant help as you meet real people. They are very friendly towards new linux users.

eh, I could go on. But I'll stop for now..

Linux is actually slowly rising in its popularity - if you read the news. Many governments and educational groups are turning to linux and open source softwares to reduce cost and obliterate dependency on one company - like Malaysia, some states in india, russia, UK, etc

You need to run Photoshop CS3? Yes you can, using WINE. Microsoft Office,? Uee WINE or crossover. Some games - WINE too. I dual boot to play some games, but for everything else (college work, surfing, music, movies, etc) there's linux. Now windows xp is my gaming console

I don't think linux is for experts only. I have a female friend, using linux mint 100%. She removed windows from her computer. She even refused to use windows after I said she can use yahoo messenger using VirtualBox. She's loving it! She explored it by herself and is proud to show off the 3D effects to her friends. I read many success story of such geeks installing linux for their girlfriend, parents and grandma.

Problems:
1. No drivers for linux (wireless, monitor, other things).Thanks to ALSA project, ATI, Intel, that old webcam grandpa guy, etc, drivers in linux has improved significantly. when compared three years ago when I started using linux. Unfortunately, many hardware manufacturers still do not make drivers for linux. There are some initiative to develop drivers for them freely though.

2. Software availability - Not really relevant. You have excellent alternatives, even better than its windows counterpart. Worst case scenario, there's always WINE and VirtualBox.

3. People do not know the existence of linux - Linux is used is servers, among the world's supercomputers, mobile phones, cars, etc. It's not prevalent among desktop users yet.

4. Games - Many pc games still do not run under linux. There's initiative to combat this such as wine. Once the number of linux users grows, they will have to develop for linux as well. Do I need to mention OpenGL is much superior than the Directx 10?

5. There are some elite linux users who still do not believe that linux is ready to take on the world. They are wrong, look at how successful Ubuntu is.

6. Thus linux is hard. It's only for pro hackers: Not true. If you grow up using linux, then windows will be hard at first time use. You just need time to adjust yourself to a new environment. Even a grandma can use linux. My parents insist that I install linux on their desktop. I know that I'm not alone.

7. er... what else?

wow wat a long post there,
tl;dr

for me, just for fun and torrenting
but it seems like my utorrent speed is back in action,
wont use ubuntu 4 the time being, unless new driver comes out that support my hd3870

does anyone tell u tat u talk just like mojo jojo?



if u doing creative stuff i'd suggest you go over to OSX.
the biggest problem with linux doing creative stuff is color pallete when printing.

give Mint Linux (unrestricted) a try.

is it easy to install and use vmware + linux?
or is there any section/guide in this forum that have step by step of install/use linux on virtual?

I recommend Virtualbox.

Installing Linux on VMWare is exactly the same as like you install Linux in a new machine.
The bigger problem would be installing VMWare itself on your machine.

great post! but i'm going to highlight these 2 points (for now.........i think)

#1
If Mac OS can be a Windows replacement, why can't Linux? It's all a matter of time and support, it CAN replace Windows.

#2
Linux is HARD for certain things, say compiling some new stuff. the average person wouldn't even want to touch CLI. most people prefer the double-click, next next next next ok done-style.

but hey, not everything needs CLI. Just run even LiveCD Linux and the fella connects to the Internet, comes with browsers, some games and even office productivity applications already.

#3
the ASUS EEE PC uses Linux.

gold - yeap true.

OSX is unix at the core and is much similar to linux than anything else. We can see that with proper funding, focus and vision to develop linux it is be the the best in the market.

Take Ubuntu for example. It was a windfall but the people were professional enough to do the job unlike the Mandrake case in which people just cashed in.

maybe too excited to see the ppl show off that they are using Linux and it's very cool to use linux as desktop so u see too many HAHA

what i can says bullshit not cool at all

i am running fedora on my PC and laptop. and centos on my high performance PC (server)...
I choose it bcoz it is mimic to Redhat and it is a useful OS for ppl in development area and integration area... and fedora also nice for home use...

I'm new to linux. for me linux is cool. it free from virus, spyware,adware which i do not have to worry when i serving the net. Now may be the linux is not good enough compare to windows but one day it may have equal place with the windows. Not every person from the poor country afford to buy license so they will choose linux because it is free. And now many program which running in windows u also can find it linux. Linux and windows are 2 different os. If you are expert, you can create your own linux with your name but this cant be done in windows.

So Linux[COLOR=red] is COOL[COLOR=blue] !!!!!!

Because the software I need is only available for Linux.

Because of curiosity towards the OS.
All i know bout it is its an open source OS and it has a fat penguin as a mascot.

And what do u know, i totally love it. Its not better or worse than windows, its just different (besides based on the purpose and usage of it)

I am not from IT film, but i like anything about computer. many os had been tried for my web server previously, win xp pro, win server 2003. finally i got ubuntu, it is stable and flexible. I like it very much, currently on the way to master it. i am looking for laptop to run ubuntu too.

linux got so many flavour to choose

ubuntu 100% working on my notebook (protege a100) but there is a hibernation issue with GG but not in FF but FF got keyboard keystuck issue which is irritating

cause i hate M$.... lol

I don't agree on this. At least in short term period.

Linux will never replace Windows (frontend) as long as there are no support and standardization. Windows and Mac works because of standardization. All the linux distro have their own way of doing things. Even updating packages is not standardize. Each have their own version of packages. And when third party developer do their own package, this gets even messy. So, unless there is a big corporation that can take up this challenge, linux will never replace windows.

Ok.. i just stated my personal facts. I love both... windows and linux, i use linux for my server and i use window for my personal.. yea.. linux not much game u can play on, but windows are compatible alot.. well that is my view.. xD that is all....

because i use it for work. It is not that hungry on resource like Windows Vista. Have been using Linux on and off for 9 years. It is a never ending learning cycle.

because i use it for work...my production using centos..so development also need to use same as production..

For fun. It's something like a computer game played in a different way to me. I have to admit that for the distros that I have used so far (Ubuntu, Fedora, Ubuntu Studio), none of them meets my daily-use requirements. But I still use Linux for fun, play around with the apps, set it up to meet my daily-use requirements as closely as possible.

for the office there is enough apps to cover.
but of course there are apps which just didn't get ported over to linux, well there are but the easy to use ones aren't.

One reason linux because of ease of setup. I know it sounds contrary to what people believe but it takes me a week at least to get windows running the way I want; everytime i reformat it's tweaking time again. With linux I could just put the home folder in a different partition and save all the important conf files like samba and cups and a new version of linux would be running within an hour. All set up properly.

I also use linux to get full speed torrent downloads.

There's also the security factor. I set up a router/firewall using an old duron box and a 1GB compact flash card connected to an IDE convertor and it protect's my home system.

Configurability. My internet @ home has all internet services speed controlled. No lags in surfing and YM voice even when torrent is running courtesy of the linux router.

By the way my soon to come gaming PC would be dual boot (currently only playing old games and all could be run with Wine or dosbox in linux).

edit:

Forgot to put speed. I use Slackware after trying a few distros and as such there's currently a huge speed difference between my windows and linux environment. (Note huge is relative here. It's not as if the difference is in hours or such. Just no waiting for applications to load and such)

1. FOC
2. Challenging
3. Not another OS
4. Curiosity

feedzz once u get used to the instanticity of linux applications then dual booting to windows would seem like a nag.

opening a file and editing the file name = windows nag.
boot-up on a clean windows is alot faster definately but linux boot-up is a constant 2m for me.
copying files under 200mb is instantly done.

etc.

It is rather annoying to use windows but I need it for new games and only that. No need to pull out my hair running anything else in windows. Everything I need is available in Linux in fact it's even faster here. Anyway I'm surprised your windows loading is faster. My system loads Linux faster. Well, at least I remember it that way. Don't have win partition anymore. Don't need it for this system. (A Radeon DDR 64 a.k.a radeon 7200 can't play new games anyway....)

LOL.

i can't get certain applications to behave well in linux's wine.
that is why windows only survives.
as a 1-2 application dummy os

Same here. Wine's a hit and miss with newer applications or games (actually some old stuff won't work either). Thankfully I found native Linux programs for all that I need to use. I guess if I need to use a less popular or known windows app for work or somethin it'd be a headache to setup in wine...

I'm a week old Ubuntu Gutsy user... The reason? The vista basic shipped with my Dell lappy is just lame...
I'm not an avid game player anyway, so, Ubuntu gets everything done, speed and in style.
*I'm a non-conformist anyway, so many people using Windows, so I need something fresh.

Welcome to the fraternity
Shiny desktop without vista's lameness~~ Have you tried any 3D desktop environments?

well those stuff loses its novelty value quickly after you've wow-ed everyone

though many winDOS supporters say AERO gives the display a high-quality look.

Welp, it's still nice to enable it on your laptop. Whenever you're in public like making presentations or giving talks it makes people go oooh and aaaah Also 3D screensaver on laptops too My desktop just blanks out No need to impress meself.

Anyways some bling features are actually useful like semi-transparent inactive windows and in fact the multi-desktop which would seem like an extra feature for win users is a basic feature of any linux desktop environment. Can separate ur work into different desktops so not much clutter~~

HAHaha.....they can have multi virtual desktops but i doubt it is stable.

Can they do this on an entry level spec computer?
d1 = burn dvd
d2 = rip cd
d3 = watching divx movie
d4 = surfing, email, IM, etc



I even had one beta program once called cube.
It can run 8 different media/movie files simultaneously on 8 faces

3days old ubuntu user here..really...getting used 2 it is really pain in d @ss,..there r way 2 many ways 2 get 1 thngy done...but not everyway suitable 4 ur cases, some might worked with others, but might failed with u..

That high quality look thing is more to do with the stark contrast between Aero and the previous non double buffered GUI on windows. To give an example, when your system is busy, and you are to drag windows over each other, you'll find ghost images of the window in front lagging behind on the windows under. This is what that makes things look rather sloppy. Linux tends to have this problem as well, but making use of one of the 3D desktop thingy such as Beryl and so forth resolves this problem on Linux too. And not to mention, OS X has been making use of double buffered windows to prevent such ghost windows for ages already.

In short, yes, its something new to windows, but not new to other OS.