By now, looking at my posts under the linux tag, most of you must have guessed that I am a 1337 linux user. And yes I am. I use linux almost exclusively, whatever be the purpose. From playing games to work, from viewing multimedia to browsing the internet, from office work to multimedia studio applications, from desktop publishing to web designing, from programing to customising, I am always satisfied and I can never have enough of this wonderful system, GNU/Linux.
Despite all this, I still need to keep windows. There are a variety of reasons, none of them my fault, due to which I still need to keep an inferior, insecure, featureless platform with me all the time, and though its rarely booted into, windows is still an important software I need to install…
Why ? Its quite simple. My family needs windows. My parents are both used to using windows. They don’t know how to use other OSes. My sister is fast learning how to live with linux, but windows is still needed. When windows was in trouble, it was linux which came to my rescue. Then, everyone had to use only linux. But it was not well received at all.
Moving on, windows is still needed if I need to game. I am no more a gamer, but I still have the old familiar gaming pangs from my gaming days once in a while. And yes, gaming is a way I entertain guests. So without windows, I wouldn’t be able to do that either. IF you are wondering why I am not using the windows emulator, Wine, then my answer is that I simply can’t. My computer is just too weak for that.
Finally, windows is needed for Security. Not the virus/internet protection type, linux does a much better job there (isn’t it obvious ?), but I need software security. If I need to get some work done on my system for which I am given a windows software to start off with and I get a deadline thats too short, the last thing I can do is search for a way to get it onto linux.
But I have absolutely no usability related reasons, which many people find surprising. I transformed from a windows power user to a linux power user easily, and I find the keyboard shortcuts and some tricks in linux better and more comfortable than windows. Infact, I am starting to hate having to use windows now due to which I never boot it, but thats an entirely different story.
Family always comes in the way. There have been so many times between the countless reinstallations of Windows that I wish to put Linux on the family PC, but I can’t cause everyone wants MS Word and whatever else it is that Windows offers.
Right now though the PC has a smiling “Restore Active Desktop as your wallpaper” thing going on and I’ve left it like that. Probably around 15 viruses floating around in there.
You are lucky that you atleast have a macintosh to keep you satisfied and away from your family PC. I doubt you store sensitive or important data in your family PC. But unfortunately for me, THE only PC is this PC I am typing in. I break an arm and a leg trying to educate my family the 420 commandments of security in windows.
I am still scared to the sh!t about a situation when my partition containing all my music and video, ones I collected painfully over the past 3 years, which is in FAT32 format, may suddenly get infected and all my music is gone for ever.
My experiments with Linux are slightly more positive. since i installed Linux, i was dual booting in-out 10 times a Day. Decided to end torture by removing windows.
When my Folks at home first reaction was “WTH is this?, where is Windows?”. but next time i placed Firefox shortcut right on desktop. since then my folks have no problems, they just Double-click on Firefox icon.
lol, still typical windows way, but who cares
for me. bye-bye bill gates.. welcome ubuntu, goodday Open Suse….
Same experience for me Gautham.
I switched to (Ubuntu) Linux about 2 years ago. It took about a month for me to get used to the new interface, get all the little tweaks out of the way, and install all the software I needed.
Now Windows is just an irritating reminder that I need to boot into about once a month, mainly to do testing of my websites with MS Internet Exploder 7.
And like you, I find myself feeling annoyed with the interface (especially that little dog yapping about when you want to search for something).
Francois
@francois
If Running IE7 is your only motive then you are better off with ie4linux or Running Windows in Virtualbox.
so that you don’t need to reboot again & again
well, i have been using windows from the past 8 years and to tell you guys, i have had no problems as such…most people have problems with windows cause they dont have a good antivirus and antispyware or their hardware requirements are too less for the version of windows they are using…
i am currently running windows xp with sp3 and nod32 and have absolutely no problems…of course i dotn use any resource hogging applications like photoshop, etc…
even my friend who recently got a HP special edition laptop which came with Windows Vista Home Premium is extremely happy with it…
I have tried Ubuntu and Red Hat Linux …and this was quite some time back…never really used them too much…went back to window as i was not really comfortable with them…
Also, my dad and aunt use my pc regularly, and they would go mad if they saw linux…they wouldnt understand a damn thing…
So i am sticking to windows….
One word: wireless. I hate to say it, but I’ve upgraded my kernel multiple times and my wireless connection STILL sucks pipe in Linux. As much as it pains me to say it, the Windows drivers are far, far superior.
I find that if I have serious work to do I have to reboot and go into Windows. I’ve seen posts that indicate I’m not alone on this. I hate using Windows, but quite simply, it just works better.
Well TenSigh, have you ever heard of NDSI wrappers for linux ? They are something like MPlayer’s Win32Codecs. They act as wrapper for drivers for windows. Why don’t you use them ? I have lots of linux using friends who use Wireless and are happy with it.
The #1 reason I still use windows…
iTunes
-C
Gautham, I HAVE used NDSI wrappers. After spending days to get them to work, I found there was almost no difference in signal quality. I still had significant problems with my connection getting dropped.
On the exact same hardware, tho’, my Windows connection works almost flawlessly. Of course I get a timeout every now and then, but that’s maybe once per every 20 session or so. When I use my Linux partition, I get a dropped connection at least once every 15 -30 minutes of usage. Quite annoying.
I’d shut up about it if I haven’t read about 5 dozen blogs from people who have experienced the same problem.
TenSigh, I wish you the very best in getting the wrappers to work if that is the issue you are facing. I suggest trying to state the exact card you have and the distro you use, in a forum like linuxforums.org. I am sure (atleast hopeful) that you will get good results there.
Anyway, you did mention a good point without meaning to. Windows has the world’s best Download Manager, FlashGet. Till it appears on linux, windows is better for downloading. You can have a single app for eMule, BitTorrent, Normal HTTP/FTP, File Sharing Sites with password, and multimedia streaming protocols like RSTP and MMS.
dude… cud u brief me up abt linux… i know windows sucks (dunno what!)… so if i have the power to ditch windows… i will feel more powerful…
sure. Its simple really. Get yourself a newbie oriented linux, use the internet a lot and ask a lot of questions in the distro’s forums, and after a year or so, you are a pro.
I personally suggest Ubuntu Hardy Heron linux distribution, or its ( really awssome ) derivative, Linux Mint Elyssa.
wht all needs to be taken care to use WinXP and Linux in the same machine…?
For that I need your entire system configuration and the way you currently partitioned your hard drive. If you tell me that, I can help you set up a nice dual boot the way I did more than an year back when I first installed linux.
Otherwise, just go to http://www.ubuntu.com/ and take a look at their beginner’s manuals. Reading around for some time will ensure that everything gets neatly crammed into your head to help you install ubuntu. It is not much information really, but you must still read it since you are a first timer.
Now, Ubuntu is the best Newbie Centric Linux based Operating System around IMO. It and its small list of derivatives are a good set of OSes that don’t need you to be a geek to install and use. I have confirmed from several that Ubuntu is simpler to use than Vista.
Linux Mint is a ubuntu derivative which has some extras, to help migrators from windows and to help make the rather plain-ish ubuntu look to kill with its eye appeal. Every tip for ubuntu can be applied for Mint as well, since mint is just a slightly modified ubuntu by looks and software and they are otherwise one and the same internally.
Finally, I recommend that you go to ubuntu’s website, read up sufficiently, then install either ubuntu or mint deciding on one by either your own tastes or by the flip of a coin.
If you still have doubts, feel free to ask here.
Thats a LOT of help for now, man… i’ll try it and get back to u if i am trapped somewhere… thnx…
well, since you are using ubuntu, http://ubuntuforums.org/ would be the perfect place to start asking questions. A few visits there while using ubuntu and you will return a PRO. You can get any question answered in around 2 hours max.
I hope you have a good internet plan, since using ubuntu means you might be naturally inclined to try out every software in their add-more-programs menu.
In ubuntu, you don’t need to download software and their updates manually. All you need to do is go to the applications menu and click add/remove. There you will get hundreds of programs to choose from. Synaptic Package Manager can be run to get rarer programs.
Since I have been dual booting Ubuntu and Windows XP for quite sometime. I have realized that Windows is a necessary evil. 90% of the softwares are made for Windows. Most of the people are accustomed to windows interface. It is plain snap and work kind of OS.
For me the greatest us of Linux is when we are ONLINE. It gives a sense of security. My system has been virus free for almost two years as I surf in linux and work in Windows !!
Good blog man.. I came across from ur response to the post about linux across the globe.. I too am a 17 year old, fully on linux, but still forced to keep that-other-OS on my only PC for the same reasons you described above… and its the first time I am coming across someone of my own age, in India using Arch.
@Shriram:
Thanks for your comment. Actually, there are lots of people here in India using arch linux. You want me to point to a guy who is aged 15 and uses arch with ratpoison ? Here is his site
http://www.hullap.com
I typed a several paragraph comment here, but when the submission was rejected because it didn’t like my e-mail address, everything I typed was thrown in /dev/null.
You need to get that fixed.
@ Scot McPherson:
I tried to see if your comment was caught as a spam, but it was not. I have no idea why it was rejected, but I’ll try to see if it can be fixed. Sorry for the trouble.
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