Do we have any Linux users in the Audience tonight?

[Bronze]

Own up - put your hands up high, even if your dual booting.

What sort of Linux are you using. Why the change. How long have you had it? Give us a genuine review?

What are you using it for? Mapping, Home products, Graphics etc etc

Bronze.
- I'm seriously considering changing over to the dark side -

[CraigRat]

I do.

I just upgraded from Suse 10.0 to Kubuntu last night.
I use it for everything. I only use Windows on the work laptop for Ozi and GSAK, but I'm working getting Ozi working in linux (it's been done....)

I use it for graphics, word processing, surfing the net, playing music/videos, web development, programming,3d rendering etc etc,,,

It's daunting at first, but give it time, it may suit you. REMEMBER: You didn't learn your windows/mac skills overnight... It will take some time to get your head around some stuff... don't crack the shits with it in one night and say it's not for you........

If you are looking at playing, Ubuntu is a good starting point (god, I can't believe I'm saying that....). As a 7 year linux user, I can say it's the easiest distro I've used by far and the community pages (like ubuntugide.org) are terrific, How do I do task X: here the answer.
sometimes the answer doesnt make sense at the start, but follow the instructions and you'll start to pick things up.

you can even boot off the CD and play with *some* stuff without even installing onto your harddrive.....hell you can use it WHILE it's installing,,,which is slightly disturbing.

Oh, and you are already on the Dark Side..... come into the light.

[theUMP]

I've had Linux running on a laptop (which spent most of its time turning WiFi into Bluetooth!) but not on a serious use-every-day machine.

I'm getting into it slowly, though, since I use Firefox, Thunderbird, Open Office and the GIMP on my WindowsXP box. All I need is a free, open source OS to slide under all those free open source apps!

[CraigRat]

TheUmp has a really good point,

Grab Openoffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP and whatnot and run them on your windows machine and get a feel for the Applications.
In the end, if you're using your computer for the tasks these provide, the operating system part becomes irrelevant. Once you've decided you can live with those applications, THEN switch over to the penguin.

I'm happy to offer help and advice...used to be a zealot, but now I'm a realist... but for 80-90% of tasks, there's a suitable linux application.

Unfortunatley, GSAK aint one of em..... I've been playing with making some sort of cache managment system, but time is the enemy

[setsujoku]

TheUmp has a really good point,

Grab Openoffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP and whatnot and run them on your windows machine and get a feel for the Applications.
In the end, if you're using your computer for the tasks these provide, the operating system part becomes irrelevant. Once you've decided you can live with those applications, THEN switch over to the penguin.

I'm happy to offer help and advice...used to be a zealot, but now I'm a realist... but for 80-90% of tasks, there's a suitable linux application.

Unfortunatley, GSAK aint one of em..... I've been playing with making some sort of cache managment system, but time is the enemy

Take a look at the GSAK forums, there is a long discussion in there that covers people who have managed to get GSAK working under linux/wine

[EcoTeam]

I don't speak Penguin

EcoDave

[nomad_penguin]

I don't speak Penguin

EcoDave

I do (couldn't resist)

- nomad_penguin

[EcoTeam]

I don't speak Penguin

EcoDave

I do

There is something wrong, very wrong, with you, go get yourself checked out immediately!

EcoDave

[riblit]

I used to run a couple of linux flavours, now I only keep a virtual machine around to test things on. <p>
The workhorse machines here run

<a href="http://www.openbsd.org/"><img src="http://www.openbsd.org/images/puffy39.jpg"></a>

[Mind Socket]

Own up - put your hands up high, even if your dual booting.

What sort of Linux are you using. Why the change. How long have you had it? Give us a genuine review?

What are you using it for? Mapping, Home products, Graphics etc etc

Bronze.
- I'm seriously considering changing over to the dark side -

I've been using Ubuntu[1] for a couple of years on my desktop machine at home, and debian[2] before that. Currently running the new beta 6.10 (Edgy Eft) and it's rolling along nicely. I went with Linux because it's cheaper, well supported, more secure, does 99% of the things I need and a whole bunch of things I don't need that are nifty.

I primarily use it for photos (gimp for editing, hugin for panoramas[3][4], picasa [5] for photo management, imagemagick for batch processes), web browsing (firefox[6]), instant messaging (gaim[7]), email (thunderbird), p2p (azureus[8]), mapping (GSAK[9] under wine, gpsbabel, Google Earth[10]), multimedia and development (eclipse[11], apache[12], php, mysql, java, sas). All of the software listed also runs on windows and IMHO all of it is best of breed (gimp vs photoshop cost/benefit notwithstanding), so you can try it out. I have openoffice[13], but have practically no need to deal with spreadsheets/documents at home. I also have personal finance software (gnucash). All of the end-user stuff is easy to install and use.

Breaking away from the Windows look 'n' feel takes a couple of days, but then you get to like some of the things that are different. I've had visitors sit down and find their way around the system with no assistance at all. With a new Ubuntu release every six months, it blows Microsoft's upgrade path and cost of ownership out of the water.

I have to list security as another benefit, no virii or spyware, better user management and the open source approach to security (faster fixes, auditable code).

It runs great on old or low-spec hardware as well as the newer stuff. I brought home an old PC from work and my GF uses it for word processing and listening to music. Even my wireless network router (the little blue box in the corner) runs a customised version of linux [14].

For the power users, if there's something you want your software to do, you can get the code and do it yourself, or contact the developer to potentially get a feature added.

Still not convinced? I have a pile of Ubuntu CDs that let you take a test drive before installing. There are also VMWare images [15] available so that you can run Linux within windows.

Not to mention, Linux is part of what provides GCA to us all.

Whew!

- Rog

Ubuntu[1]
debian[2]
hugin
panoramas[3]
panoramas[4]
picasa [5]
firefox[6]
gaim[7]
azureus[8]
GSAK[9]
Google Earth[10]
eclipse[11]
apache[12]
openoffice[13]
OpenWRT [14]
VMWare images [15]

[Geof]

I'm new at it and still havn't got it under control.
Have tryed:
damn small linux - average
Ubuntu lite - I'd consider it "alpha" at best.
Ubuntu 6.06LTS Still coming to terms with how to establish an internet conection so it presently shelved. Seems very impresive however. Even pluged in a camera and up it came straight away.

[EcoTeam]

Own up - put your hands up high, even if your dual booting.

What sort of Linux are you using. Why the change. How long have you had it? Give us a genuine review?

What are you using it for? Mapping, Home products, Graphics etc etc

Bronze.
- I'm seriously considering changing over to the dark side -

I guess someone has to ask - why are you looking to change?

At the very least you will be in for a learning curve, and be prepared for a few "hiccups". Every one I know who has switched to whatever flavour of Linux has had at least a few "hiccups". Some now swear by it after sorting out their "hiccups", and others gave up in disgust after months of trying.

EcoDave

[Bronze]

Thanks Guys. I realy appreciate the discussion and advice.

Grab Openoffice.org, Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP and whatnot and run them on your windows machine ...

I do currently run the above on the XP home (home) computer and have swapped to firefox on the laptop (XP Professional) and work network. I use gimp and open office often for those features and picasa as well to image manage.

Why do I want to cross over to the light side? Good question.

One, I love learning and I wouldn't be a good teacher if I didn't keep learning. There is a whole nother (alternative) world out there called Linux. I have a good friend who I have watched play with linux for , wow I guess is years now and he is 100% opensource. He gave me a Ubuntu (Dapper Drake) CD which I ran live on the laptop. I was very impressed with its userability and the desktop environment in comparison to windows. I have since replaced the home computer (which the wife wants to remain a windows machine) and the old computer is now in my classroom with Ubuntu managing students results and powerpoint (Presentation Open Office) development. For an old computer it runs very fast, like new and is stable.

Why else do I want to change-

The minor reason is I don't like supporting a monopoly and with Vista around the corner I want to get off the MS band wagon. I'm happy to use it for work but like to have an alternative. The main reason is the manageability (if there is such a word) of the system. I seem to fill computers very fast and they aquire so much spyware / malware so easily that eventually my Xp guru friends give up trying to get it to keep running and say, "Lets format it". Ubuntu runs so fast and I hear Edgy Eft is going to go even quicker. I don't like having 30 kids in front of me while I wait for windows to wake up to it self and eventually open powerpoint for the lesson in it's own good time. I want fast and secure. Linux seem to offer that.

If I had a clean slate windows system then I guess it wouldn't be a problem. I'm not bagging windows, It works well and is a great operating system for lots of different user types but when it gets old and has to manage a lot of information it bogs the processor badly.

Thank you Mind Socket for your extensive list. I see now that VMWare and the Windows VM are now free. This means that whatever I can't manage with your extensive list I can run virtually anyhow or in WINE.

What prompted my post -
Well MS Word won't save anymore and when it does it shuts down losing the document altogether so it's a write it and print it job, just remember to turn autosave off while your writing it. Thank god for Open Office is all I can say. Saved my arse last term with 112, year 12 references being written when it started doing it. Now my Laptop startbar has buggered off and I don't know where to find it. Won't pop out from anywhere and can't get it to unhide using the properties menu. Grrr, which makes me wonder will I have the patience for the qwirks of a new operating system.

B.
PS - Thanks for the discussion thus far.

[CraigRat]

Bronze, don't take this the wrong way, but I think I love you


The penguin is a great educational experience, and is all about my fave topic...

Freedom, Baby!

(Free and Open software...Free and Open Geocaching... it all fits together!)

[EcoTeam]

Still not convinced? I have a pile of Ubuntu CDs that let you take a test drive before installing. There are also VMWare images [15] available so that you can run Linux within windows.

How do I get one of those CD's Rog?
Or can I simply download it from a site somewhere and burn my own?

Tech question. Does Ubuntu/Linux read/write external USB NTFS hard drives?
e.g. If I had an XP machine and a Linux laptop could I simply (i.e. seamlessly) exchange the drive between machines?

EcoDave