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Topic: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux (Read 30847 times)

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #25

For most intents and purposes there are no differences.

This is mostly what I've experienced myself. :)
It's also the main reason I didn't install Kanotix (or some other distro) on my newer computer which had Win7 preinstalled on it.
However things might change in the future. The reason is my growing suspicion towards MS.


For example, if you prefer the console, you definitely are much better off on Linux.

I'm extreme lazy when it comes to typing. :D
I prefer a frugal but powerful GUI with lots of buttons. :)

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #26
'm extreme lazy when it comes to typing.  :D
I prefer a frugal but powerful GUI with lots of buttons.  :)

So do I. But do you also prefer an operative system that takes you 90% of your computer resources just for working? And that you actually have to pay for it?

This Linux thing I got has a nice Gui (not different from windows and even with many better things) and comparing the same usage, I'm using about one third up to half of ram capacity that I would be using it with windows. It's like doing an upgrade on hardware for free. :)

Do as I done, install it as a dual boot. Experiment it. It's free. Be courageous. :)
I'm starting to like this thing and believe me I'm not someone easy to convince.
You'll need not to type anything but what your own curiosity demands from you. Blame your curiosity. :)
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #27

But do you also prefer an operative system that takes you 90% of your computer resources just for working? And that you actually have to pay for it?



As you can notice in the picture above, resources are not an issue on my mashine. The OS was preinstalled on the mashine (besides I got also an OEM CD).
It was a special offer. A similar mashine without any OS preinstalled on it would have been more pricey.

This Linux thing I got has a nice Gui (not different from windows and even with many better things).

I don't care about how the desktop looks. The more modest the better. Aero was among the first things I've disabled in Win7.
As for many and better things, you made me curious. What are those things? :)

Do as I done, install it as a dual boot. Experiment it. It's free. Be courageous. :)

It's not a matter of courage.
So far I'm still pleased with Win7. As soon as I won't be anymore (for whatever reason) I'll switch to another OS and it won't be dual boot. At least not one with MS as an option. ;)

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #28
Okay Krake.

From the beginning. Since I'm exploited by Germans, I have to use my old laptops instead the new 8 Gb of ram, quad core  machines you use thanks to explore me.
I defend efficiency.  Having the best for the less resources. That's what I'm exploring with Linux.

When I said better things at the desktop, I mean clever ways of presenting things, clever ways of doing things. Install it and you will see it.

Glad that you will not install a dual boot but a full install. We've a brave man, bad thing you hesitate so much... :)

Do you know what really made me install Linux? because I upgraded seven for 10 for curiosity.  And I got stucked with a user password request when I had no password at 7. No way to get around that. Enough of Microsoft, I've already paid them a fortune for what? controlling me? destroying my data?
Enough.

A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #29
For example, if you prefer the console, you definitely are much better off on Linux.

Well, like I somewhat vaguely stated, I'd been using Cygwin in Windows since the early 2000s for easy access to Bash and GNU utils like wget. Admittedly, this was probably only after some of my early ventures into Linux alerted me of just how poor the MS-DOS Prompt was in comparison.

Back in 2011, when I switched to Linux as my primary OS, there were only two applications that felt slightly problematic: µTorrent and foobar2000. Both of these actually ran perfectly in Wine, which is how I managed for a while. The blog post I linked to details how I switched over to the Linux server version of µTorrent, but a combination of µTorrent's decreasing and qBittorrent's increasing quality made me switch. In foobar2000's case I also eventually switched to Deadbeef, which in some ways is reminiscent of the early versions of foobar2000. That being said, I still use foobar2000 via Wine for ReplayGain tagging.

For certain use cases, such as Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, and Adobe Reader, I do maintain a variety of Windows VMs, courtesy of Modern.ie. I could actually install stuff with a proper license, but why waste the time. And for playing games like Dreamfall Chapters I maintain a Windows 7 install, recently upgraded to Windows 10 for gaming performance reasons.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #30

For example, if you prefer the console, you definitely are much better off on Linux.

Well, like I somewhat vaguely stated, I'd been using Cygwin in Windows since the early 2000s for easy access to Bash and GNU utils like wget.

To be able to graft GNU utils to Windoze platform is nice, same as the ability to get Windoze apps running on Linux by means Wine or such, but it's only half of the story. It's an incomplete and unnative solution. The complete solution would provide the same experience as on the native platform, don't you think? Surely you agree that Wine is rather glitchy.

The other half of the story with Cygwin would be ability to boot into console prompt (and do everything from there that Linux can) or to have your fav Linux terminal emulator installed. Looks like the free choice on Windows is rather limited http://lifehacker.com/5857540/the-best-terminal-emulator-for-windows

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #31
Surely you agree that Wine is rather glitchy.

Just make sure to check Wine HQ first. ;) But yeah, I probably use those Windows VMs more frequently than Wine.

The other half of the story with Cygwin would be ability to boot into console prompt (and do everything from there that Linux can) or to have your fav Linux terminal emulator installed. Looks like the free choice on Windows is rather limited http://lifehacker.com/5857540/the-best-terminal-emulator-for-windows

I used PuTTYcyg.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #32
First problem I had, the Grub program that allows for dual boot kapput.  :eyes:
It doesn't presents any choice, loads Ubuntu and loads it badly.

Well, armed with my proverbial courage I went to consult Google's oracle and in small but decisive and brave steps into Terminal witchcraftery I was able to load the repair feature, to upgrade the repair feature, to open the repair feature and, finally, to repair it! :)

All that while having my morning coffe. Course the coffe took me all the morning, but I did it eh eh  :D
Working as a charm. You can give me congratulations.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #33
Congrats!

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #34
Parabéns!
I haven't had troubles with dual boot installed by Linux side by side with Windows. It's strange that you had to repair it. But then, it's Ubuntu... :right:

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #35
It's strange that you had to repair it. But then, it's Ubuntu...  :right:

I believe that some troubles I got while using Otter browser to acces a particular website of shit, that forced me to press the shut off key several times, had something to do with it.
Computers are always reluctant with abrupt shut offs, after three or four times something will go wrong.

Anyway, I like the Otter browser, it made me smile many times remembering me the old Opera and the huge ammounts of time I spent customizing it. :)
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #36
If it weren't for the lack of a mail client, I'd be using Otter by now.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #37
It's strange that you had to repair it. But then, it's Ubuntu...

Lol, I quit installing Xubuntu on my son's computer. Not sure what he does to break it but it goes boom!

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #38
All Ubuntu 15.04 versions failed to install on mine. But Mint and Peppermint work perfectly.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #39
I enjoy to watch the terminal running lines and lines while I' don't have a clue about what's going on... people thinks that I'm an expert. :)
Very surprisingly the computer keeps on working.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #40



Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #42
eh eh, nice map, it should be at the opening post. :)
Kind of game of thrones.
A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #43
I particularly like items such as "Unity Fortress" and "The Great Compile" in those maps. I would like to see more of them. "OpenRC Flagship" and "Systemd Backdoor" come to mind.



So, Belfrager chose the Mate desktop. I have been quite satisfied with Xfce for long now, but lately some minor details get on my nerves. In Openbox and i3wm I can tell specific programs to spawn a certain kind of window. For example VLC to launch Always On Top. And when I need to toggle Always On Top away, I can configure midclick or something similar really simple for this. Not so in Xfce (xfwm). This is why I have been using Openbox as the window manager for Xfce for a while now. (Edit: Alt+F12 in xfwm is not the same thing, particularly when in conjunction with Always On Top I need Omnipresent/Always On Active Desktop, for which there is a titlebar button both in Xfce and Openbox.)

Another nice desktop in my opinion is KDE, even though I have not carefully explored its features. There are just so many settings in KDE that it would take an eternity. Manjaro KDE a few version numbers ago was absolutely fabulous and I installed it for someone who is very happy with it.

Right now the latest Manjaro Cinnamon looks absolutely fabulous and seems to answer my mini-concern with Xfce: Always On Top can be set with midclick. Cinnamon is really the greatest Haven in the Wild-Land of Linux these days. (Edit: The Haven has its own bad apples though, such as Gedit, whose unconfigurable non-toolbar-titilebar is seriously out of place. Should I install Leafpad there?)

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #44
I have been quite satisfied with Xfce for long now, but lately some minor details get on my nerves. In Openbox and i3wm I can tell specific programs to spawn a certain kind of window. For example VLC to launch Always On Top. And when I need to toggle Always On Top away, I can configure midclick or something similar really simple for this. Not so in Xfce (xfwm). This is why I have been using Openbox as the window manager for Xfce for a while now.

I didn't know Openbox could do that. I prefer to use a third-party app like devilspie2 which will work with any WM.

And when I need to toggle Always On Top away, I can configure midclick or something similar really simple for this. Not so in Xfce (xfwm).

Hm, interesting. I figure you can set a keyboard shortcut, but I don't see an obvious way to set up mouse actions.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #45
Hm, interesting. I figure you can set a keyboard shortcut, but I don't see an obvious way to set up mouse actions.

It's Alt+F12 out of the box in Manjaro Linux, but since there's another move that I do at the same time with mouse, I want to do toggle Always On Top with mouse too. I have searched the web to no avail so, if it's possible, it's not easy enough. Now I already installed Cinnamon.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #46
There's a trade off between the amount of time one spents customizing and tweaking systems and the amount of time one actually spents using it.
These days I'm less and less willing to do the first and more willing to do the second.

I find Mate desktop plain simple, not too much customizing possibilities but it goes fine, it's simply clean. I had enough customizing time waisted with the good old Opera browser to realize these things are always ephemeral. Not again.

A matter of attitude.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #47
These days I'm less and less willing to do the first and more willing to do the second.

I agree. But note that in Linux it's super easy to copy over your preferences (stored in plain text files in your profile), while Windows hides tons of stuff in an inaccessible registry.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #48

These days I'm less and less willing to do the first and more willing to do the second.

I agree. But note that in Linux it's super easy to copy over your preferences (stored in plain text files in your profile), while Windows hides tons of stuff in an inaccessible registry.

Well, I am not doing this lightly. I have given it ample thought and luckily I am fast and efficient at copying over my settings etc.

Re: The adventures of an Windows Knight at the Wild-Lands of Linux

Reply #49
But note that in Linux it's super easy to copy over your preferences (stored in plain text files in your profile), while Windows hides tons of stuff in an inaccessible registry.

That's good but I still have to understand the Linux file system so I can know where things are.
I'm not really paying too much atention. Lazy boy. :)
A matter of attitude.