Linux > Microsoft... I THOUGHT SO... Right?... CORRECT!!!

[sam198923]

I have been using Linux for quite some time now and I couldn't be more happy. Now what I am wondering is if Linux does anything special that Microsoft cant do as well.

And i'm not talking about the basics like the fact that it is a way more light-weight OS, and everything runs faster. I mean like better recording software, file conversions, or anything that the average user (like myself) just would not think of.

I am asking because I am trying to become more of an experienced user, but I really just want to out- perform the virus infected Microsoft OS.

Something maybe like this thread, http:////ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=382137&highlight=rosetta+stone. Great thread to find new apps. But im trying to out- perform Microsoft, not match it.


:guitar::guitar::guitar:

[NEUR0M4NCER]

Horses for courses. Depends on what you use your PC for. If you want to outperform Windows with games, you're gonna be sorely dissapointed.

How would you measure 'performance'? Application speed? Ease of use? Most complete features?

[sam198923]

I am thinking about something like a music player, or maybe an application to make .zips anything that would come as a surprise to new or unexperienced users. Maybe mozilla has Linux specific plugins (its a stretch). I want to laugh at all microsoft users is what i want to do.

[sam198923]

And as for ease of use (five stars), app speed (amazing, naturally). Linux lacks some complete features i would say, like Rhythmbox is super fast and great but can not play videos. I want some new extraordinary program that microsoft can not match....

[NEUR0M4NCER]

It really is just a case of taste. For music, I prefer Rhythmbox (the standard Gnome music player), but if you want something flashy, check out Songbird. There's another one, but can't remember the name off the top of my head.

For sheer flash, there's Compiz - just playing with the plugins for that should keep you at the top of the geek pile for a while.

[sam198923]

Compiz tops it all for sure, cant deny that.

[sam198923]

Maybe an app to rip songs from an Ipod. I really want to use Ubuntu to the maximum.

[NEUR0M4NCER]

Open 'Add/Remove Applications' and search for GTKPod. That'll transfer files to and from your iPod.

**edit**
Just be sure that if you're ripping music from CDs to transfer to the iPod, you set the file type to MP3, rather than OGG - OGG's the default for Ubuntu, but iPods don't like it one bit.

[k3lt01]

And as for ease of use (five stars), app speed (amazing, naturally). Linux lacks some complete features i would say, like Rhythmbox is super fast and great but can not play videos. I want some new extraordinary program that microsoft can not match....Banshee plays music, videos, podcasts, internet radio etc. It will even connect to a current generation ipod classic. So thats the music etc application taken care of.

Firefox outperforms Internet Explorer in many ways so theres the Internet application out of the way.

Open Office can do everything MSOffice can do EXCEPT for write to the MS propriety .docx (.***x) format.

Pidgin can connect to multiple IMs so can Kopete, Kopete even does cam chat. Can Windows Live Messenger connect to MSN, Yahoo, Google, ICQ etc and offer video chat on all these IMs? NOOOOOO so theres the IM application out of the way.

Gimp is what programs like Photoshop are based on so you want the best use Gimp cause its free.

It has been said already, its horses for courses. You want to laugh at Windows users cause you want to be able to say you use something extraordinary, the problem is your not seeing the features that are there anyway.

[NEUR0M4NCER]

There are all sorts of little things you can do to show how awesome Ubuntu is.

I find that the best reaction is from Compiz Desktop Sphere plugin, but depending on who you're showing it to, I also like to load up eLinks in a terminal - ever used a text only web-browser?

And scratch what I said about Sphere being the best 'wow' app. That's got to be Synaptic. To someone who has no knowledge of Linux, the ability to instantly search and download almost all apps for Linux beats everything.

Also... don't hate me, but Windows does do some things very well. There's a reason it's still the number one OS, and it's not just down to Microsoft's deal with the devil...

[muteXe]

And as for ease of use (five stars), app speed (amazing, naturally).


I'm a big fan of linux, but do you actually think that linux is a lot more easier to use than windows?

[nothingspecial]

I'm a big fan of linux, but do you actually think that linux is a lot more easier to use than windows?

I used windows for a couple of days once after I`d acquired a new laptop with it preinstalled. But I didn`t know what I was doing so I installed Ubuntu instead.

[egalvan]

I'm a big fan of linux, but do you actually think that linux is a lot more easier to use than windows?

Given the same familiarity with computers and software, I think that Linux-based programs ARE slightly easier to use.

By "same familiarity" I mean the same amount of experience in using hardware and software.

To someone who has been using a computer since Windows was 3,
sitting him down in front of a Linux box will cause some confusion.
He's used to doing things in a certain manner, and will have to change his mind-set.
This can cause difficulties.
It's "not as easy" to use.

BUT
To someone who has never touched a computer before,
sitting him down in front of a computer will cause some confusion.
It doesn't matter WHAT the machine is running, MS or *nix.
But it's been my experience, that these folks find Linux-based stuff slightly easier to use than MS stuff.
"Huh? Go to "START" to stop the computer? Go to "FILE" to end the program?"

Your experiences may vary.
But Linux used to be more about usability and functionality than eye-candy.

[Sealbhach]

Hardware support.

So far I've used a Huawei USB modem, a Samsung digital camera, a Skypephone and a Philips MP3 player.

These all came with a CD which I needed to use them in Windows.

In Ubuntu, I just plug them in and they "just work".


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[presence1960]

I am thinking about something like a music player, or maybe an application to make .zips anything that would come as a surprise to new or unexperienced users. Maybe mozilla has Linux specific plugins (its a stretch). I want to laugh at all microsoft users is what i want to do.

Laughing at all the Microsoft users is something that you may want to consider not doing for these reasons:

1. You once used Microsoft.
2. By laughing and ridiculing them you effectively end any chance of you being helpful to those who want to switch to Linux. Would you ask someone for help who ridicules you or has a low opinion of your choices?
3.Downing someone for their choices of OS is hypocritical. Especially when the majority of the world uses the OS you ridicule. Always remember just as you have the freedom to choose your OS so does everyone else. Instead of being the preacher or reformer why not have some empathy and compassion so you can put yourself in a position to help someone who is tired of Microsoft convert to Linux? Don't think for a moment that Microsoft users aren't viewing this forum. Attitudes like this will turn them off.

[stalkingwolf]

The first thing I usually point out Is OO, and it ability to read MS
doc formats and to save documents in several windows formats.

[blackgr]

Open Office can do everything MSOffice can do EXCEPT for write to the MS propriety .docx (.***x) format.


Who said that? OO supports docx

[yther]

Who said that? OO supports docx

Can yours save into that format? Mine can't... and he did say "EXCEPT for write to the MS propriety .docx (.***x) format." So we've got import-only for DOCX, XLSX, and the other Office 2007 formats.

Still, it's better than it used to be. :)

Oh yes, and on-topic: It's not exactly flashy, but I've always liked the command-line tools for processing text files. Just this week I was using this on my laptop to process logs from Robocopy (on Vista), something like "grep -i error robocopy.log | sort -u >> errors.txt" processed a 12 MiB file, on a network share, in just a few seconds. Wordpad and Notepad both choked on that file, freezing while attempting to load it until I gave up and killed them. That's enough to impress me! ;)

[HavocXphere]

I am wondering is if Linux does anything special that Microsoft cant do as well.
Scripts - The *nix scripts outperform a dos .bat file any day of the week
Servers - There is a reason why 60%+ of the servers are *nix based
Browsers - FF > IE
Running on low-powered hardware
Variety - Choice between Gnome/KDE/Openbox etc
Add Remove software interface
Firewalls

[blackgr]

Can yours save into that format? Mine can't... and he did say "EXCEPT for write to the MS propriety .docx (.***x) format." So we've got import-only for DOCX, XLSX, and the other Office 2007 formats.

Still, it's better than it used to be. :)

Oh yes, and on-topic: It's not exactly flashy, but I've always liked the command-line tools for processing text files. Just this week I was using this on my laptop to process logs from Robocopy (on Vista), something like "grep -i error robocopy.log | sort -u >> errors.txt" processed a 12 MiB file, on a network share, in just a few seconds. Wordpad and Notepad both choked on that file, freezing while attempting to load it until I gave up and killed them. That's enough to impress me! ;)

OO 2.4 needs to be patched to support docx but OO 3 has support for docx files. You can get OO3 from launchpad repositories

[jimmy the saint]

How about this.
I can do everything with my linux box (except manage my iphone, which is an apple issue, not a linux one) that I can do on a windows box, and it costs me thousands less.
--Windows = $300-700
--Photoshop, premeire etc. 300-1500 depending on what you get. To replicate what I have installed it would be around 1000
nero = $70
Office = 400
virus prtection (HA!) 100 + yearly
and the list goes on. I can do all of this and then spend the money I save on something else, like better hardware or (heaven forbid) a vacation.

Also, I love being able to plug in my hp all in one and have it work in 10 seconds as opposed to an hour to install crappy drivers that work for a week under windows.

[DArtagnon]

Try mounting an *.iso file to a directory. This can be done in Ubuntu by default, where windows requires a program like VirtualCD or DaemonTools.

For example, I was able to rip my Star Craft cd to an ISO file, mount the ISO to a spot in my filesystem, and run Star Craft via Wine without the CD in my CDRom drive..

Whenever someone overhears me telling someone about this they say "Oh, you're talking about DaemonTools, right?" and I just say "Oh, no.. I was talking about Linux."

There is a whole host of cool command-line stuff that can be done pretty easily.

[donkyhotay]

I'm surprised no one has mentioned the most important advantage of linux over any proprietary program (including windows), the ability to legally modify the software however you want. It is nice to be able to customize your system however you want. Even if you aren't a developer it's comforting to know that so long as someone(s) is/are willing to do it, new features will be implemented to the software regardless of whether or not it is 'profitable'.

[bitf]

I'd say the .deb/.rpm files are a pretty good idea. They're simple and secure.

[scorchgeek]

If you want to outperform Windows with games, you're gonna be sorely dissapointed.

As for commercial games, this may be true, but there are plenty of good open-source games to fill the gap, some of which aren't even available on Windows.

[sam198923]

Laughing at all the Microsoft users is something that you may want to consider not doing for these reasons:

1. You once used Microsoft.
2. By laughing and ridiculing them you effectively end any chance of you being helpful to those who want to switch to Linux. Would you ask someone for help who ridicules you or has a low opinion of your choices?
3.Downing someone for their choices of OS is hypocritical. Especially when the majority of the world uses the OS you ridicule. Always remember just as you have the freedom to choose your OS so does everyone else. Instead of being the preacher or reformer why not have some empathy and compassion so you can put yourself in a position to help someone who is tired of Microsoft convert to Linux? Don't think for a moment that Microsoft users aren't viewing this forum. Attitudes like this will turn them off.

Alright you got me you are right... sadly

[MikeTheC]

Try mounting an *.iso file to a directory. This can be done in Ubuntu by default, where windows requires a program like VirtualCD or DaemonTools.

For example, I was able to rip my Star Craft cd to an ISO file, mount the ISO to a spot in my filesystem, and run Star Craft via Wine without the CD in my CDRom drive..

Whenever someone overhears me telling someone about this they say "Oh, you're talking about DaemonTools, right?" and I just say "Oh, no.. I was talking about Linux."

There is a whole host of cool command-line stuff that can be done pretty easily.

Linux isn't the only one that can natively do that. You can do that under Mac OS X as well. In fact, typically that's how a good portion of the software one installs on a Mac is made available.

Nevertheless, it's nice that Linux provides that sort of flexibility.

[presence1960]

Alright you got me you are right... sadly

It is more about what is right rather than who is right. When we take the position that we and/or Linux are superior we effectively end our ability to help others. When a lesson is learned pass it on to others! Don't sit silently and watch from the sidelines if you value this community.

[tsali]

Why do people always assume that a current Linux user migrated from Windows?

I fought with linux on the desktop from 2001 to 2006. I had NEVER used Windows before, having been a mac user from the beginning.

MacOS X got me looking into *nix type systems and Linux. I built a machine in 2001 and loaded Mandrake. It ran ok, but it was a real PITA to maintain, as updates frequently broke the system.

In 2006, an attempt to update to the latest Mandriva broke everything...I had just had it. It ticked me off bad enough that I went to Office Depot and bought WinXP RETAIL.

I was all prepared to experience the horror stories everyone writes about...but guess what? THEY DIDN'T HAPPEN!

WinXP installed smoothly and flawlessly and has continued to operate that way since.

No BSODs. No Slowdowns. No Malware. No Reinstalls.

My switch to Windows was like breath of fresh air compared to being stifled by five years of linux.

To be sure, linux has gotten much better even since 2006 and Ubuntu is close enough that I could consider it as my only desktop OS...but five years in Mandrake/Mandriva hell leaves its mark...

[presence1960]

Why do people always assume that a current Linux user migrated from Windows?

People don't ALWAYS assume that. But based on pure numbers and probability MOST Linux users have and still will migrate from Windows. These are the facts of computing life currently. Unless the computing landscape has changed overnight Windows accounts for such an overwhelming majority it pales all the other OS's combined.

[k3lt01]

Who said that? OO supports docxAll you needed to do was read what I said properly and you will know what I mean. OOo supports reading .docx (.***x) formats but most certainly doesn't support writing to it. Try to prove me wrong if you want but you will be wasting your time.

[jre6]

I know that almost everyone in this forum is anti-Microsoft and a Ubuntu addict, but, unfortunately, MS Office does the work of reading and composing Microsoft Office docs the most efficiently. Here (http://www.quicktweaks.com/2008/04/09/install-ms-office-2007-in-linux/) is how you can install MS Office in Ubuntu.