Go on convince me Linux isn't a pile of ****

It's always interesting seeing people try linux for the first time. There are some notable differences to windows which makes certain things easier and certain things more difficult. Ignoring UI stuff because that always falls back on which desktop environment you choose, some things in Linux are done better than windows, some things are done worse.

Having used Linux for everything but gaming over the last year or so, I have to say, the idea of downloading a random executable file from some arbitrary site to install a program is both long winded and worrying when you're used to installing things with one click from the software manager (or one command in the terminal).

Of course, no matter how hard the developers try you do inevitably end up doing things on the command line and editing arbitrary configuration files to get things working. However, you have to remember that in windows you occasionally need to make manual changes to the registry as well.

I can see why people struggle when coming from windows, although that's getting less and less of an issue each year. That said, I don't think Ubuntu does the world any favours with Unity. It's so far removed from windows now that anyone coming from a Windows background will find themselves in unfamiliar ground with the UI. If the user-friendly distros like Ubuntu focussed more on KDE than Unity I think people would have a much easier time during their first few days using linux as they don't have both a massively different UI and underlying system to deal with.
 
Tom B said:
I can see why people struggle when coming from windows, although that's getting less and less of an issue each year. That said, I don't think Ubuntu does the world any favours with Unity. It's so far removed from windows now that anyone coming from a Windows background will find themselves in unfamiliar ground with the UI. If the user-friendly distros like Ubuntu focussed more on KDE than Unity I think people would have a much easier time during their first few days using linux as they don't have both a massively different UI and underlying system to deal with.
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People manage just fine with OSX.
 
craptakular said:
Op is a moron who didn't read the purpose of the OS he downloaded.

Troll harder young pup.
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Aye because everything you do in life is done to perfection - no learning, discovering, working things out. I wish I was like you ;)

Anyway i'm getting there with it. I'm finding it a bit Marmite and i'm not sure I would want it as my main OS. Thing i'm finding awkward is that sometimes the OS wants to hold your hand and do things for you an other times it just says NO on the simple things and you spend hours trying to find the fix and where it is at. And I end up just switching the damn thing off.

Thanks for the people that have understood where i'm coming from and not just cried noob, idiot, moron etc etc
 
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Stick with it, I was 99% a Windows man until a couple of years ago I perceived and now I only really use Windows at work or very occasionally for gaming.
I find myself getting frustrated in Windows when using command prompt and how much it lacks compared to Linux. Almost everything in Linux seems much more logical although it can appear somewhat more complicated at first glance and I've found the fragmentation of Linux distributions, window managers etc can get quite messy.
 
Edinho said:
Aye because everything you do in life is done to perfection - no learning, discovering, working things out. I wish I was like you ;)

Anyway i'm getting there with it. I'm finding it a bit Marmite and i'm not sure I would want it as my main OS. Thing i'm finding awkward is that sometimes the OS wants to hold your hand and do things for you an other times it just says NO on the simple things and you spend hours trying to find the fix and where it is at. And I end up just switching the damn thing off.

Thanks for the people that have understood where i'm coming from and not just cried noob, idiot, moron etc etc
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It's not about perfection mate, I think it's just that you came on strong and slated something without knowing what it was for.

Stick with it though, it does take a lot of getting used to but from my experience it's more than worth it. Is there anything in particular that you do on your computer or anything in particular that you are getting stuck with right now? What distro did you end up going with after trying Mythbuntu?
 
Although he made a mistake, and the number of derivations of the distros can be very confusing, it is better now than when I started using Linux about 14 years ago.
If you asked a simple question on the Linux forums back then, 9 times out of 10 the answer you got was RTFM, how things have moved on.
 
trackrat said:
Although he made a mistake, and the number of derivations of the distros can be very confusing, it is better now than when I started using Linux about 14 years ago.
If you asked a simple question on the Linux forums back then, 9 times out of 10 the answer you got was RTFM, how things have moved on.
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He didn't ask a simple question though to be fair or ask for help. All he did was slate "linux", not even a specific distro on the OP.

Lol I miss the old RTFM comments I got when I switched to Ubuntu 6.10.
 
I think the administrators should change the title of the thread to 'Go on convince me that Mythbuntu isn't a pile of ***', as opposed to Linux as it's an distribution-specific issue.

I can understand why people are pointing toward the mass amount of distribution's available I see it more as choice, and since when has choice been a bad thing?

My best advice to you would to try a more 'mainstream' distribution, there are some great ones available that are specifically aimed toward a range of experience.

Oh, and most importantly - have fun!
 
Number_25 said:
I think the administrators should change the title of the thread to 'Go on convince me that Mythbuntu isn't a pile of ***', as opposed to Linux as it's an distribution-specific issue.

I can understand why people are pointing toward the mass amount of distribution's available I see it more as choice, and since when has choice been a bad thing?

My best advice to you would to try a more 'mainstream' distribution, there are some great ones available that are specifically aimed toward a range of experience.

Oh, and most importantly - have fun!
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^This
 
Edinho said:
Because we all have to start somewhere but hell everyones perfect on here. To be fair I hardly call an archive program 'none essential'.
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come on the guy was having a friendly dig.

great advice here try the USB distros they are great for seeing what works.

My only fear with Linux is not setting security right and allowing someone to access all my stuff (inadvertently.)
 
jas72 said:
come on the guy was having a friendly dig.

great advice here try the USB distros they are great for seeing what works.

My only fear with Linux is not setting security right and allowing someone to access all my stuff (inadvertently.)
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To be fair you need to be putting your stuff out onto an open Samba share or something in order to do that.

To keep things secure I would:

a) encrypt my home partition
b) disable root ssh logins
c) ensure telnet was not running
d) ensure firewall was running.
e) use a complex password for local logins (and use keys for ssh logins)

Linux is really quite secure out of the box and you have to mess it up yourself. Just don't do anything stupid and you should be fine! :p
 
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