__/ [ Oliver Wong ] on Friday 15 September 2006 21:56 \__
> "Jim" <james@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
> news:VGCOg.1866$s4.647@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> On or about 2006-09-15 Friday 19:39, I did witness the following events
>> concerning Dano:
>>
>>> I'm a newbie to Linux, but wanted to let others who're contemplating a
>>> move to Linux know that today's distributions - especially Ubuntu -
>>> make it VERY easy to try the system.
>>>
>>> I purchased a surplus computer from my work, a 600MHz Pentium III, with
>>> 256 MB RAM and a 20 GB Hard Drive. Not an especially powerful or modern
>>> machine - but more than adequate for Linux, as I was soon to find out.
>>> I downloaded Ubuntu 6.06 (Dapper Drake), and used it both as a Live CD
>>> and then (as of this morning) as a full hard-drive install. All the
>>> pieces and parts were/are in place.
>>>
>>> Running it from the LiveCD version was fine, and alllowed me to see the
>>> Gnome interface (a KDE interface is available with Kubuntu, which I
>>> have yet to try). It was painless to run, and ran just fine over the
>>> old Windows 2000 OS on the surplus machine. A little slow, but that's
>>> the data transfer rates between the CD and the hardware, I think.
>>>
>>> Installing on the hard drive was about as nice as it could be! Less
>>> than 30 minutes to do, and then a quick trial run before I went to my
>>> day-job. You don't have to be a real techno-geek to install it - I'm
>>> certainly not, though I'm trying to be! - and it was very smooth. I had
>>> perused the Google Groups for a few days prior to the install - and
>>> while waiting for some means of transferring the file from the download
>>> computer to the new (to me) machine. I got a lot of positive comments
>>> from Ubuntu users, and true to their words, the install was every bit
>>> as smooth as they promised. There is a growing enthusiasm for this
>>> distribution, and it's now grown by at least one more.
Ubuntu is slightly (if not overly) overhyped. Opensuse is equally easy to
install, set up, and customise. The same could be said about distributions
such as Mandriva. I am not too sure about Fedora. But the point I am trying
to get across here is that Linux should not become synonymous with Ubuntu.
Ubuntu is a wonderful, wonderful distribution that I installed on two of my
machines in the past. It's pleasant and it does its thing, but there are
even more fascinating routes to follow once you are ready to advance. In
other words, reast assured that the best is yet to come and, yes, it can get
even better. Other distributions or various extensions serve as somewhat of
a Ubuntu superset, which is either overwhelming or welcome, depending on
whether you wish to explore a wide open space or know your virtual universe
in its entirety. Different strokes to different folks.
>>> You really can't go wrong with the LiveCD "try before you buy"
>>> (although there's no buying to it!) paradigm, and when you have a
>>> distribution like Ubuntu which makes the OS installation very smooth,
>>> you can easily make the transition to Linux. I would encourage anyone
>>> out there who's even remotely interested in Linux to give it a try.
The Live CD experience is limited and it can sometimes give the wrong
impression (virtualisation likewise, e.g. VMWare appliance). One must bear
in mind that a fully-installed system can be enriched in all sorts of ways
and hardware compatibility often requires a full installation in order to be
assures.
> I'd like to say this is a great piece of advocacy, and would like to
> see
> more posts in this style; specifically, praising Linux without the need to
> bash Windows, and without the need make misleading statements (or even
> worst, factually false statements).
You're quite right.
>> Welcome to the Real World. Where, in our utopian society, YOU own YOUR
>> computer and YOU own YOUR data. :)
Amen.
>> I was 50% Linux/50% Windows until May this year. Up until then I had been
>> using Linux on and off for around a decade. May clinched it for me, when
>> Microsoft pulled a dirty with their "Genuine Advantage" scam.
Metaphorically, I pulled the plug on the last Windows machine in June 2005.
It had already been quite redundant since 2003. And 2000 is the year when I
began using Linux. I never needed WGA or any lack of security prods to sway
me towards Linux. Experience with Linux for a year or two (maybe ever
months, but it required some experience back in the days of KDE 1.x) gave a
compelling reason that made the transition a natural choice, despite that
fact that I had been with DOS and Windows since the age of 5.
>> I had four machines (my workstations) running Windows XP SP2 with valid
>> licenses (and two servers and two clusters all running Linux of one
>> flavour
>> or another). WGA suddenly flagged ALL of the XP boxes as invalid. Things
>> had been building up to that point, what with the unbelievable and obscene
>> amount of time I had to spend on /maintaining/ them. Right then and there
>> I
>> made the decision to completely junk my Windows partitions and install
>> Linux across my workstations.
Windows has always been a chore. A lot of maintenance and struggles to get it
to 'speak' to other machines. It was like a spoiled boy without any friends.
>> I'll tell you what: I don't miss the twenty minute wait for the
>> workstations
>> to reach work readiness /one single bit/. I don't miss having to
>> defragment
>> the partitions on a /weekly/ basis one single bit. I don't miss cleaning
>> up
>> after the kids' downloading frenzy /one single bit/.
>>
>> With Linux, I power on, spark up a smoke; by the time the lighter hits the
>> desk, I'm looking at a fresh-booted, fully ready and session-restored
>> desktop.
Quite true. My machine has always been ready to serve first thing in the
morning. If you accumulate the time and trouble saved, it verges many hours,
even days. Last downtime was some time in July. There was a compus-wise
outage and I have no UPS.
> Back when I tried it, Linux would take much longer than Windows to boot
> up. From a cold start (that is, the machine was unplugged, and now you've
> just plugged it in and hit the "on" button), Windows would usually take
> 15-25 seconds, whereas Linux would typically take 30-60 seconds. When I
> complained about this to Linux advocates, the retort was that you had to
> reboot less often in Linux, so it tended to balance out. From your "spark
> up a smoke" description, it sounds like it takes you less than 5 seconds to
> boot into Linux. I don't think that's even enough time for my BIOS to check
> that all the drives are still present!
Punching in the password should take just a couple of seconds. It's switching
on the CRT's that takes longer. The hard-drive and LAN can wake up as
quickly as the monitors, in case they support energy-saving schemes.
> Has Linux boot times really improved so dramatically, or have I
> misunderstood what you mean by reaching a "work ready" desktop? I'm
> figuring that when you reach the point where you can double click on an
> icon to start up your webbrowser or IDE or mail client or whatever, you're
> "work ready", right? Or are you perhaps a very slow smoker? ;)
Try to have KDE restore 4, or 8, or 16 virtual desktops leaded with
applications in a very particular state. KDE has this ability. Windows XP
does not, which along with downtime frequencies (e.g. due to system updates)
, discourages people from investing in a wealth of simultaneous tasks. The
lack of virtual desktop is another culprit.
Best wishes,
Roy
--
Roy S. Schestowitz | "I think I think, therefore I think I am"
http://Schestowitz.com | GNU/Linux | PGP-Key: 0x74572E8E
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