do you consider switching to linux?

[mbafactory 0]

The way we have been brought up about using computers, I do not feel comfortable when it comes to using any other operating system other than Windows. Linux might be fast, but if you are a geek and keep on using other stuff such as softwares, various codec media you will have to depend on Windows. Actually any developments being brough forward are basically made keeping windows in mind and here you have to be loyal to windows. For the ease of operation, windows again have edge over any other xyz OS. Maintaing and keeping your files and making most of the use of your computer is what other OS might not come up to your expectations, but Windows will surely help you.I also kept on using various beta and working OS while testing them, but ultimately returned to windows for ease of operation. I have faith in XP and that too perticularly SP2. Vista I consider to be a fool OS which irritates you for almost everything.

[y4nzi 0]

I've heard lots of good things about linux but never had the guts to try it out because I hear it's a bit difficult to start out with?I guess I'm just too comfortable with Windows and it's what I've been used to for so long it's difficult to consider using another operating system and effectively starting from scratch.Maybe one day when I'm feeling especially brave...

Edited December 25, 2008 by y4nzi (see edit history)

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I've used Linux a little, but I find it much harder to understand than Windows. Along with that, most of the games(I'm a gamer) that I play would not run on Linux, even using one of the many emulators.I do need to learn how to use it, as I want to run a web server, but I honestly do not even know where to start.Really, when I think about it, I don't think that Linux is that much "harder" to learn than Windows, the only difference is that we've all been using Windows for so long that we are used to it.I guess you can relate it to language. Although people say that "Spanish is hard" or "German is hard" to learn, English is by far the hardest language out of all, due to how many inconsistencies there are in our spellings and/or pronounciations. The only difference is that we were brought up(most of us) in English households, therefore we are much more comfortable with it. I feel that Windows is the same way.

[buxgoddess 1]

do you consider switching to linux?yes [ 16 ] ** [30.19%]
no [ 9 ] ** [16.98%]
maybe [ 11 ] ** [20.75%]
im already a linux user [ 17 ] ** [32.08%]

Look at this , already there are more percentage of people who are using linux as an operating system. And only 16% of these people are saying that they will not switch to linux. About 50% of thye respondents are willing to shift to linux or may try one of its flavours.
Now comes the next question, which version of linux is being mostly used by these people
give your openion on
1. Red hat
2. mandrake
3 ubuntu
4suse
5. debian
6 others

[trapp17 0]

I use both linux (slackware) and windows(xp)... they both serve their own purpose for me... when Im into programming, coding stuff, feeling 1337 lol I go with my slackware and when Im playing games,entertainment,etc. I go with windows

[cemeteryrecords 0]

I use both linux (slackware) and windows(xp)... they both serve their own purpose for me... when Im into programming, coding stuff, feeling 1337 lol I go with my slackware and when Im playing games,entertainment,etc. I go with windows smile.gif-Same here. I use Win vista and BT4 beta. Both serve a purpose...but dam windows...

[tatati 0]

I love micro Linux distros like ddwrt, that fits on 16MB router. It has kickass featues like clustering, i had a teacher who preferred making a cluster out of playstation consoles because PS2 has RISC processors and it was cheaper than buying a supercomputer, also they had some restriction on the import process.I stick with M$ for gaming and drivers, and I don?t want to be a geek when I?m at home. when I need Linux I run a live CD like backtrack.Linux is the OS of choice for brazilian government. when they switched to it back in 2003 they were paying about 32 million to microsoft for licenses.so no i dont want to switch to linux i want to play lineage, pkr and whatnot

Notice from rvalkass:

Merged double post.

Edited March 25, 2009 by rvalkass (see edit history)

[jaychant 0]

Look at this , already there are more percentage of people who are using linux as an operating system. And only 16% of these people are saying that they will not switch to linux. About 50% of thye respondents are willing to shift to linux or may try one of its flavours.Now comes the next question, which version of linux is being mostly used by these people
give your openion on
1. Red hat
2. mandrake
3 ubuntu
4suse
5. debian
6 others

I use Fedora, which I think is derived from Red Hat.

The great thing about Linux is its stability and security. I am already a Linux user, though I still have to use Windows in order to design games with Game Maker.

I also really like KDE's workstation-switching feature. It's very helpful to be able to have two different things on two different workstations instead of crowding everything on one desktop.

[aloKNsh 0]

I LYK LINUX ONLY BECAUSE ITS SPEED FOR SURFING WHICH I THINK IS more than that provided by win xpso i prefer linux for surfing but i find only 1 defect in linux that is i dont get that much softwares for linux as much for xp so i prefer xp for testing a software and i have linux and xp both running together....................

[TheDarkHacker 0]

I guess you can relate it to language. Although people say that "Spanish is hard" or "German is hard" to learn, English is by far the hardest language out of all, due to how many inconsistencies there are in our spellings and/or pronounciations. The only difference is that we were brought up(most of us) in English households, therefore we are much more comfortable with it.
I feel that Windows is the same way.

I do not understand you,what can you relate to language.You are not right,your language,english is one of the most simple languages.Try to learn macedonian and then say about your English.Just go to Google Translate and you will see something when you will learn,that you can't translate english to macedonian with machine,there is completely another grammar and we can't compare this languages.Back to the topic,no sense to talk about that...As i said in another thread,i would not switch to linux,if i see that windows is going good on my computer,but if i destroy my OS,i will install linux.Linux is not interesting for gamers and i think it is more for programmers and for school.Here in macedonia we have Edubuntu-Linux on macedonian language.We are not allowed to turn them on One time one girl turned on the computer server,and all monitors were ON,and we saw how Edubuntu is looking like.Very interesting was,that my monitor/mouse/keyboard were connected to the computer server and i was allowed to turn off the server,and i needed,so that was so fun.When i clicked on turn off,on every monitor which was on my computer server,got screen with one bar,and after completing the bar,computer was shuted down and few commands and blue screen were appearing on the screen last few seconds...Adventure,ahhh.The edubuntu was looking pretty good for school,it had enough options and everything was nice translated i saw.

[FruitRocks 0]

I use Ubuntu 9.10 in VMWARE so it doesn't mess up my Windows apps. It is my favorite distro, by far. On my laptop I use the Ubuntu Netbook Remix

[anwiii 17]

i just recently decided to give linux a try so i downloaded the latest version of ubuntu. i really liked the simplicity of it although i really didn't do much exploring. i tried to set it up as a duel boot but i went wrong somewhere because when i would try to boot vista, it wouldn't boot. i had a little trouble with drivers too. anyway, i decided to give up and just reformat and reinstall my apps for vista only. i hope i get the guts to try again soon because i really did like the feel of ubuntu and would be worth it spending my time to learn the os because for a long time now, i wanted to stop supporting ms. maybe one day. my first attempt failed

I use Ubuntu 9.10 in VMWARE so it doesn't mess up my Windows apps. It is my favorite distro, by far. On my laptop I use the Ubuntu Netbook Remix

[mm22 0]

i just recently decided to give linux a try so i downloaded the latest version of ubuntu. i really liked the simplicity of it although i really didn't do much exploring. i tried to set it up as a duel boot but i went wrong somewhere because when i would try to boot vista, it wouldn't boot. i had a little trouble with drivers too. anyway, i decided to give up and just reformat and reinstall my apps for vista only. i hope i get the guts to try again soon because i really did like the feel of ubuntu and would be worth it spending my time to learn the os because for a long time now, i wanted to stop supporting ms. maybe one day. my first attempt failed

All I can say is that yes you need to spend some time on it to grasp the main concepts and start being productive with it. Once you do that chances are you won't look back I started trying out different distributions of Linux a few years ago but only on a from time to time basis. I always liked the feeling of it, its simplicity as you say, but never spent enough time to understand it under the surface so that what I could do was quite limited. In the meantime I did some trial and error to set up a dual boot, that really helps you understanding not only Linux but also how computers and OS in general operate. A few months ago I decided to do the switch... for real! Installed Ubuntu (which is in my opinion the perfect distro for first time users but also very powerful and well supported) as my main OS and forced myself to do everything I'd do on Windows with it. Surprisingly 99% of things I could do in Windows I could now easily do in Ubuntu, often in a more convenient way. In this regard we have to consider that Linux distributions like Ubuntu but also others get upgraded all the time (at least every year or so) while Windows is mostly stuck to were it was back in 2001 (for Win XP), so the difference in terms of usability and support for the latest computing applications and hardware is most definitely in favour of Linux. With the latest dual core computers installing Windows on top of a Linux OS is a very convenient and usable solution, using VMWare type of applications (I use VirtualBox). So you can still run the few apps that you really need to run on Windows, or just try things out if you develop software / web to ensure compatibility with Windows.

Whether you embrace the open source philosophy is up to you, in any case having the source code of software opens up a whole new range of possibilities for you if you are a programmer. But even if you are not you can be pretty confident someone will for example port a version of your favourite desktop Linux software on your Linux-based mobile device some day, and you know you will be able to use that straight away. Having said so I do think using Linux still requires a moderate dose of adventurous attitude, at least that is required if you really want to take advantage of it. You should be prepared to occasionally type something on the command line and/or edit configuration files. But these tasks are by no means the norm for day to day operation on modern distributions like Ubuntu. You will instead find that they are a natural complement to your desktop experience once you start playing around with it.

So my advice is give it another try if you are so inclined

[legend112 0]

I have considered installing Linux just because I know Windows suck!I haven't heard the time to download and configure it as I think it would need getting used to? I guess i don't like change that much but just for the sake of it, i think i'll install it just so i can choose the one I want to boot with.I love the fact that its usage is increasing as I support Open Source and Free over commercial and closed.

[The Simpleton 2]

i just recently decided to give linux a try so i downloaded the latest version of ubuntu. i really liked the simplicity of it although i really didn't do much exploring. i tried to set it up as a duel boot but i went wrong somewhere because when i would try to boot vista, it wouldn't boot. i had a little trouble with drivers too. anyway, i decided to give up and just reformat and reinstall my apps for vista only. i hope i get the guts to try again soon because i really did like the feel of ubuntu and would be worth it spending my time to learn the os because for a long time now, i wanted to stop supporting ms. maybe one day. my first attempt failed sad.gif

Oh that's just sad - I think the GRUB utility that loads the OSes didn't install properly. Anyway, if you want to use Ubuntu as a test drive for a while, you can always install it inside Windows (pop the CD in when you're in Windows and you'll get that option) - it will just install to a folder and you won't have to bother about partitions or other hassles...