What do you miss, since Windows is gone?

[metjay]

I'm a web developer / designer / freelancer and impressed of ubuntu for about three years. I dualbooted Windows, until one year ago. Then I removed Windows completely from all my machines.
It was a great decision and I never did regret this, but there are little things, i really miss under ubuntu.
Here is my list of "What do you miss, since Windows is gone?"


Photoshop (at least CS2, CS3 would be better)
Yes i know, there is Gimp, but honestly, Gimp is not even comparable to Photoshop. I know Gimp pretty well, and i love to write some filters and scripts. Gimp is a nice graphics program, that is nearly completely useless to do some serious webdesign.
At the time, i'm messing around with wine, to get CS2 working (mostly).



Flash CS3
Yes i know, there is GNASH, but i need ActionScript3. AS3 sucks with gEdit and external compilers. Nothing to say more.



Notepad++
That one makes my heart bleeding most, when I'm thinking about past times in windows. There are so many text editors in Linux, but i can not find any like Notepad++.

This text editor tends to be perfect for following things:


Quick open a textfile.
gEdit and most graphical editors are incredible slow to start, so i have to use vim.
Convert charset of a file.
Why the hell is it that hard to find/apply this under Linux?
Compare files by hand, beside in one Editor.
Vertical splitting is great (especially on my wide screen display). The version of EMACS, which is horizontal splitting, sucks
Syntax highlighting.
Every Language I ever used is included by default in Notepad++ and very important: highlight-color-themes are great! gEdit has the worst colors of highlighting ever - even if you switch color theme, none of them makes sense, they are kind of random colors/bold/italic aso.)
Web-Developing
Notepad++ is the best editor I ever used for editing CSS, XML, XHTML and Javascript, there are quite perfect plugins!
Collapse Code Blocks
Very important to me.
Lightwight editing
Ressource- and interface wise. (SciTE comes close but looks ugly)
Hex editing
I really need that and don't want to install an other editor just for that purpose. (btw: bless hex editor is great!)


Editors I seriously tried and the reasons why I fell not in love with them:


vim and EMACS
Both are quite nice editors, I use them a lot but you have to forget about intuitive editing, you have to learn everything by heart.
gEdit
Slow and ugly with a excessive margin around every button/control. Menu is not usable and lacks of important features (see above).
SciTE
On the way to become Notepad++ for linux. At the moment it's more like a Notepad-- light, btw: has the worst icons ever. If you have no icons for your program, you can still use this ones: http://www.famfamfam.com/
Eclipse
Full featured developing environment but also incredible slow because of Java. It is hate and love at the same time here. But really no every-day-editor. I use PDT (plugin) for PHP programming.
Bluefish
Will be cool in one year or something like that, quite not stable enough and lacks of important features (see above)
Geany
Like SciTE (see 2nd point of this list)
Kate
Kate is nice (especially with some Plugins) but only under KDE4 and not under Gnome. The interface sucks under Gnome.


EDIT: I know, Notepad++ runs under wine, but I just can not work with this 'solution'. i.e. you press CTRL+F to find something, the search-field doesn't even has focus... one example from thousands.



Tag and Rename / The Godfather
Two excellent Programs to maintain your music collection. Sorry, with EasyTag i had to much charset trouble and I was just to slow, doing things, compared to "Tag and Rename". There is also no possibility to reorganize your hierarchy of your collection. i.e you want your collection (Genre/Artist/Album/Song) to turn in something like this: Artist/Artist-Year-Album/Song
Recently I reorganized my whole collection and also the songs of my girlfriend (16k songs). I had to do this on the Windows machine of my girlfriend.


Do you can help me out of some points or have similar problems?
Please let me know.

cheers

[MaindotC]

I just use XP in virtualbox if I need it so I don't really miss anything.

[metjay]

I just use XP in virtualbox ...

This does not fit for me, because I'll never pay for a Windows license again. Because of my freelance activity, pirating is out of the question too.

And I don't want to boot the virtualbox OS to edit a textfile anyway. ;)

[MONODA]

i would say the things I miss but can live without are: sony vegas, windows dvd maker (even though it was REALLY slow to burn dvds I liked being able to easily make nice looking dvd movies.), some other features in vista which didnt work :P

[SyL]

This does not fit for me, because I'll never pay for a Windows license again. Because of my freelance activity, pirating is out of the question too.

And I don't want to boot the virtualbox OS to edit a textfile anyway. ;)


hhaa come on a VMWare image somewhere in your disk, nobody will see it ;-)

And are you willing to pay also the Photoshop license???

[metjay]

..And are you willing to pay also the Photoshop license???

I actually paid it, yes :cry:

[timcredible]

i've been windows free for 8 years, and i miss nothing from the windows world. for photos, of which i take thousands a year because of kids, i use digikam and gimp, does everything photoshop does that a normal person would ever need, for dvds, i use devede or qdvdauthor, or dvdstyler, or kino (or digikam if i'm making pictures into a slideshow with music for a dvd). for music collections i use amarok. sure, making a flash animation may be more difficult, but making a pdf couldn't be easier.

[Barrucadu]

I don't miss anything, everything I need has a Linux alternative :)

[robertchahine]

+1.

windows SUCKS :D:D
(with all my respect :D )

[Bungo Pony]

Notepad++
That one makes my heart bleeding most, when I'm thinking about past times in windows. There are so many text editors in Linux, but i can not find any like Notepad++.


Install WINE. It comes with Notepad

Personally, I hated Notepad for many years. It was a real memory hog back when PCs had less than 48M. Wordpad used less RAM.

The only thing I really miss in Windows is the File Manager from version 3.1.

[sillyxone]

I was a fan of Notepad++ too, especially when I first started with PHP and JS. Since moving to Ubuntu, I tried Bluefish, Eclipse, Geany and a few others (don't remember name) but in the end stick to Geany. The other day I tried to switch to Eclipse since my new programmer wants us to use the same tool (he's on OSX) but I can only part Geany for an hour :-(

There are things in Geany that definitely can be improved but each version keep getting better. Beside, I mainly code in PHP, JS, CSS, HTML, and occasionally shell script, Geany is pretty much all I need. Given that Geany is developed for free software platform, whereas Notepad++, although is free software, is developed exclusively for proprietary platform. That alone is enough to put Geany over Notepad++ on my list (Codeplex, anyone?).

Back to your question, I couldn't think of anything else to miss in Windows. It's been 2 years, out of sight, out of mind, I guess. I'm much more productive on Ubuntu, gnome-terminal always have at least 3 tabs open. Compiz's Cube and and Scale are more than just eye-candy, now I'm much less productive without them. Games? nah, it's so much fun playing with my little one on the Wii.

[SyL]

I actually paid it, yes :cry:



In this case, you really should USE IT!
BTW, don't want to "Stir the knife in the wound" but how much did you pay?

[ComputerHermit]

Not a dam thing :)

[cardinals_fan]

vim and EMACS
Both are quite nice editors, I use them a lot but you have to forget about intuitive editing, you have to learn everything by heart.
gEdit
Slow and ugly with a excessive margin around every button/control. Menu is not usable and lacks of important features (see above).
SciTE
On the way to become Notepad++ for linux. At the moment it's more like a Notepad-- light, btw: has the worst icons ever. If you have no icons for your program, you can still use this ones: http://www.famfamfam.com/
Eclipse
Full featured developing environment but also incredible slow because of Java. It is hate and love at the same time here. But really no every-day-editor. I use PDT (plugin) for PHP programming.
Bluefish
Will be cool in one year or something like that, quite not stable enough and lacks of important features (see above)
Geany
Like SciTE (see 2nd point of this list)
Kate
Kate is nice (especially with some Plugins) but only under KDE4 and not under Gnome. The interface sucks under Gnome.


Vim is actually very intuitive once you get over the near-vertical learning curve. Geany is great. You could try NetBeans: it's pretty slow (like Eclipse) but is a nice IDE.

[swoll1980]

Windows is gone! Someone start the presses quick!

[Dark Aspect]

Tag and Rename / The Godfather
Two excellent Programs to maintain your music collection. Sorry, with EasyTag i had to much charset trouble and I was just to slow, doing things, compared to "Tag and Rename". There is also no possibility to reorganize your hierarchy of your collection. i.e you want your collection (Genre/Artist/Album/Song) to turn in something like this: Artist/Artist-Year-Album/Song
Recently I reorganized my whole collection and also the songs of my girlfriend (16k songs). I had to do this on the Windows machine of my girlfriend.


Do you can help me out of some points or have similar problems?
Please let me know.

cheers

sudo apt-get install tagtool

It creates idv2,idv3 audio tags fairly quickly.

[mokshadaya]

I really miss the BSOD. It was always so pretty. What was really fun was seeing just how many ways that I could get it to appear.

On a serious note though, I still have XP on my work computer where I do my .NET development. I think that Visual Studio is a wonderful IDE for C#. Mono is getting there but fairly slowly. When it comes to development on Linux I feel that Netbeans is the way to go. I like it ALMOST as much as Visual Studio.

[metjay]

Install WINE. It comes with Notepad

Yes i hate the Windows Notepad as well, but I'm talking about Notepad++ ( http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm ) which is OpenSource.

[FFighter]

Well... after almost two years of GNU/Linux, I can say that I don't really miss much of the Windows world besides the Adobe suite (and yes, I do miss running Photoshop CS2 and Flash CS3 natively).

For AS3 coding, the best thing there is out there is FDT (Flash Development Tool), belive-me, after you start coding with this IDE, you'll never want to come back to the Flash CS3 editor, unless you are working purely on animations and art-stuff with little code.

There is one thing I don't like about FDT though. It runs fine on Linux, but you can feel that the developers don't really care much about our choice of OS. There are some aspects of the plugin that only runs on Windows. If you have the time, you could join their forums and ask for proper Linux support! (http://fdt.powerflasher.com/forum/).

There is Flex Builder too, even though it is geared towards the Flex framework, I believe you can also create pure Flash (no Flex framework) with it too, and it runs on Linux (even though it is an impaired version).

If you are into the Flash Platform professionally, you can't rely on Gnash, use the Adobe Flash Player instead.

However, I have XP running all the time on a VMWare Workstation VM. It runs great and I just have to switch to desktop #4 to have Photoshop accessible.

As for notepad++ replacement, I would say gEdit is nice, and Geany is great :)

Nothing beats Eclipse for my IDE needs though.

EDIT: Btw, welcome to the GNU/Linux world, it is good to have more creative workers/coders around. You will surely have a great stay and we are here to help you having this great stay, so don't hesitate to ask and participate in the community!

[metjay]

In this case, you really should USE IT!
BTW, don't want to "Stir the knife in the wound" but how much did you pay?

I AM actually using it, but I'm not happy with the way I do..
It was something around $450, don't know exactly anymore.

[klange]

Notepad++ always took forever to start for me on Windows, but yes, it was great, used to use it for PHP editing back when I first switched (gedit didn't handle certain parts of the PHP quote system properly back then, it now works fine).

Regardless, it runs fine in Wine, what's your problem?

On a serious note though, I still have XP on my work computer where I do my .NET development. I think that Visual Studio is a wonderful IDE for C#. Mono is getting there but fairly slowly. When it comes to development on Linux I feel that Netbeans is the way to go. I like it ALMOST as much as Visual Studio.
Netbeans was always way too slow for me. Monodevelop is great because of all the stuff it does do, like design GTK forms with an interface ten times better than the Glade tools. Yes, it does have its share of problems, but it's a great IDE and the only one I actually use. Visual Studio itself is slow, and the fact that I had to re-register the free version three different times (and for each separate language!) made me hate it even more.

[qazwsx]

Just tried that np++.
:) Notepad++ seems to work wonderfully in wine (very fast).

Oh well Kate for me.

[Kinst]

Use wine-doors to install photoshop CS2 for you, it will do everything automagically.

[karellen]

well I (still) dual boot so nothing is really gone :)

[zmjjmz]

Yes i hate the Windows Notepad as well, but I'm talking about Notepad++ ( http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net/uk/site.htm ) which is OpenSource.

Not sure if someone's posted this already, but...
http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=11726
The latest version of Notepad++ works perfectly in WINE :D

[Matthew Wiebelhaus]

Install WINE. It comes with Notepad

Personally, I hated Notepad for many years. It was a real memory hog back when PCs had less than 48M. Wordpad used less RAM.

The only thing I really miss in Windows is the File Manager from version 3.1.

Notepad and Notepad++ are two different things check it out. Proablly didnt know and I wouldnt ethier if I never programmed java a little.

[tbroderick]

Tag and Rename / The Godfather
Two excellent Programs to maintain your music collection. Sorry, with EasyTag i had to much charset trouble and I was just to slow, doing things, compared to "Tag and Rename". There is also no possibility to reorganize your hierarchy of your collection. i.e you want your collection (Genre/Artist/Album/Song) to turn in something like this: Artist/Artist-Year-Album/Song
Recently I reorganized my whole collection and also the songs of my girlfriend (16k songs). I had to do this on the Windows machine of my girlfriend.


Do you can help me out of some points or have similar problems?
Please let me know.

cheers

Easytag does this. Maybe it's not as intuitive as Tag and Rename, but the feature is there. Just select the songs, easytag can search recursively or manually select which songs to rename. Click the green "Scan File(s)" button or select "Scanner" then "Rename File(s) and Directory" from the drop down menu. You just need to put in the right code. If you want all your music in /home/username/Music, then to rename to Artist/Artist-Year-Album/Song you would put /home/username/Music/%a/%a-%y-%b/%t. "/" make directories. It doesn't won't move album art though. Amarok also has this ability.

[alwiap]

I still dual-boot XP and use XP nearly every day, just to use Sibelius 5 (music-writing software), I am a composer/arranger and NEED to use it. I've gotten close to getting it to work in WINE, but its still the ONE thing that is holding me back from being Windows-free. Also, I do like some programs in Windows, those being uTorrent, Nero, and DVDShrink (I know I can use them in WINE but haven't bothered since I still dual-boot.)

[Bungo Pony]

Also, I do like some programs in Windows, those being uTorrent, Nero, and DVDShrink (I know I can use them in WINE but haven't bothered since I still dual-boot.)

If you know how to get Nero working in WINE, PLEASE DO SHARE! That's the one thing keeping me in Windows.

[alguin2]

My wife's notebook is still uses WinXP -- it's far better than Vista, which does nothing but make a 2.+GHz processor run like an old Pentium.

What I use in WinXP:
1. Apple iTunes -- for buying music and burning CDs.


Nothing else. All my email, web development, Java, C/C++ development is in Linux. I listen to music using an acoustically balanced stereo system, with real speakers, a real preamp, amp, eq, and a CD player that has a AD/DA system designed to produce natural "non-choppy' analog output to the speakers. I'll never seriously listen to music on a PC.

For an office suite, OpenOffice is just great.

For a text editor that has every whiz-bang feature, Emacs can't be beat. I've been using it for over 20 years and nothing touches its features. Absolutely nothing. Steep learning curve, but man, it's one of the best open source software (besides Linux, and the GCC compiler suite).

[blithen]

Games. Nothing else.

[metjay]

Just tried that np++.
:) Notepad++ seems to work wonderfully in wine (very fast)...

Well, the point is, that when I'm doubleklicking a text file, I don't want to wait, until wine comes up.

For AS3 coding, the best thing there is out there is FDT (Flash Development Tool), belive-me, after you start coding with this IDE, you'll never want to come back to the Flash CS3 editor, unless you are working purely on animations and art-stuff with little code.

Just tried it. Works like a charm, thank you.

[stijngysemans]

PRODUCTIVITY and work related:
-Easy executing programs and opening files in start run screen (with keyboard shortcut [windows key]+R)
*Gnome-Do is a start, still need to tweak it though

-Windows still can be blazing fast (sometimes). Excellent explorer:exe:

-Excellent caching of applications and as of Vista: precaching. A MS Word hot start takes less than 1 second, compared to 3,5 seconds in Ubuntu (open office writer)

-Excellent mail client (outlook): tonnes of hidden features

-Great AD integration, ability to 'login' without network connection.

Home and entertainment:
-Logitech harmony drivers: you need virtualbox
-Adobe flash: you need virtualbox
-Tomtom gps receiver: you need virtualbox
-Propellerhead Reason, Cakewalk (sonar), Traktor scratch, .. For this I use a dedicated XP machine. I want to be creative and create music on my syntheseizer.

at work: 100% windows 2000 user
at home: 3 pc's ubuntu (1 with virtualbox) and 1 dedicated XP for music. :guitar:

[metjay]

...
-Easy executing programs and opening files in start run screen (with keyboard shortcut [windows key]+R)
*Gnome-Do is a start, still need to tweak it though


Did you try Alt+F2 ?

[Fedz]

My hardware not working from one day to the next ... ;-)

Downloading a million and one drivers just find one that works with my hardware and mp3 player ...etc ...

Downloading Window$ updates and having them stall then freezing and then rebooting.

Staying up night after night trying to figure where all the files went that background spy and clearing all the temp 'tell-tale' files ...

Having anti-spyware, firewall, anti-virus ... etc running in case ;-)

Ubuntu is a peaceful road to drive down :-D

[metjay]

My hardware not working from one day to the next ... ;-)

Downloading a million and one drivers just find one that works with my hardware and mp3 player ...etc ...

Downloading Window$ updates and having them stall then freezing and then rebooting.

Staying up night after night trying to figure where all the files went that background spy and clearing all the temp 'tell-tale' files ...

Having anti-spyware, firewall, anti-virus ... etc running in case ;-)

Ubuntu is a peaceful road to drive down :-D

Hehe, nice list.

Here is another one:
"Thinking about switching to Linux."

[gareth_005]

I miss SharpDevelop, thats it. (I still use it in virtual box).

I have been playing with awn, compiz, conky and setting up my desktops and shortcuts for applications for the last 3 weeks, linux/ubuntu is very customizable and makes using your applications much neater/easier.

I find most things in ubuntu very easy or flexible, you just need to realise that linux does things simply and things work in a simple manner whereas windows makes things complex and wraps them up with a simple api, therefore linux is 100+ times better than any windows version for me.

[klange]

I miss SharpDevelop, thats it. (I still use it in virtual box).

MonoDevelop is entirely based on SharpDevelop. Have you looked at it?

[gareth_005]

MonoDevelop is entirely based on SharpDevelop. Have you looked at it?

Yes, I have been trying to use it for the last month, no code folding is the biggest issue. I have been creating a gtk+ window, doing the tutorials and I found many properties missing compared to the winforms equivalent. I think that the gtk+ containers may be an improvement over winforms but I do not know how to properly use them yet.

[bigbrovar]

i miss nothing positive really .. all i need i find in ubuntu .. its more than enough for .. i cant spend a minute outside the gnome environments .. i i'll die .. :)

[Fedz]

I must admit I struggle using Window$ as I'm defaulted to Ubuntu but, it actually promotes Ubuntu as when I'm showing someone something to do with Window$ it gets the conversation going with Ubuntu ;-)

[mrgnash]

Nothing.

[metjay]

Nothing.

Honestly? Good on you!

[Sand & Mercury]

One of the reasons I actually got into linux was that I'm hoping to become a professional web/graphic designer like our OP here.

I had some training with most of Adobe's range of products which got me to build a basic understanding of how stuff works in the field, but the problem for me personally is that I'm a poor ******* and can't afford anything from them to use them myself legitimately. Thus, the open source thing appealed to me; GIMP in place of Photoshop, Kompozer in place of Dreamweaver, Gnash instead of Flash. I realise it's a rather bass-ackwards approach to be shying away from programs that are industry standard, but I just don't have the cash to be forking out for these professional programs. They're really the only programs I miss on Linux, but then, if I were using Windows I still couldn't use them anyway.

Another reason I'm discouraging myself from Windows is because of game support, or lack thereof. I realised I was playing games waaay too much previously, so I kind of figured this would be a way to discourage myself. Unfortunately, my focus just shifted from games to customization instead. :/ I need an OS that isn't good at anything that's interesting... :lol:

[Linuxratty]

Ummm,a couple of games I can't play in Linux.
We'd do better to list what I don't miss...The list is quite long,btw.

[EdThaSlayer]

It all comes down to the fun stuff. Games games and more games! Oh, and also--->don't forget the games! :lolflag:

[zgornel]

Some stupid games and guitar software and Word :)

[91004]

I miss running around looking for all of the driver discs that came with my computer only to discover that they are scratched to hell and won't install. Then I have to switch over to the 2nd computer and download the drivers and then install them on a USB stick or CD rom, install the CD Rom only to discover that the CD I had just burnt didn't write correctly........

Then I love having to pay for all of that darn expensive software and the Microsoft Anti-Piracy software, which is easily circumvented by finding the correct software key on the net.......... ..

[BobLand]

nothing.

[chris4585]

I'm not sure if someone has mentioned it... but my friend have you tried mousepad ?

Its what I call notepad for linux.

[-grubby]

I miss Crimson Editor, but Kate does fine replacing it

[gameryoshi600]

I said nothing before but I miss hardware support, adobe software, and alot more things

[metjay]

I'm not sure if someone has mentioned it... but my friend have you tried mousepad ?

Its what I call notepad for linux.

Yes true, mousepad is similar to the Notepad in Windows. But I'm talking about Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net). Two very! different editors, with a similar name.

[Methuselah]

Nothing really. Just about all my hardware is supported well by FLOSS drivers (looked about that when building the computer and as I was building it as a BSD machine, requirements were even more stringent).

I honestly wasn't addicted to many windows programs. I used IE6 because it was there but I later migrated to firefox for tabs. I had office 2000 and rarely used it. For a long time I used Mingw (gcc) for software development since was the only good compiler available for windows if I didn't want to shell out ~$1000 Visual Studio. I LOVED Imgburn after I discovered it, but brasero is easy to use and K3B is very full featured.

There's a chance I'd miss Sim city 4 and Noteworthy composer but the former works quite well with wine and the latter flawlessy as does Roller Coaster Tycoon 2. The only thing I have left to figure out is how set up ubuntu as a sonic wall VPN client so I can connect to my workplace from this computer.

Really, I am as content as Tux and I don't see my self going back to windows...EVER.

[chris4585]

Yes true, mousepad is similar to the Notepad in Windows. But I'm talking about Notepad++ (http://notepad-plus.sourceforge.net). Two very! different editors, with a similar name.

Sorry I never used Notepad++, I always used the one that came with windows, worked good enough for me though, I didn't know there was a big difference.

[knavarathna92]

I would have to say that I miss MMORPG's such as Maplestory. Gameguard only works on windows :(

[Unix_Slayer]

I miss minesweeper. The rest is all garbage.

[goldust]

utorrent (tranmission, ktorrent and deluge are not adequate enough)
mame32 0.64 with Kaillera
foobar2000
and broken closed source client software to obscure chat servers

[RiceMonster]

utorrent (tranmission, ktorrent and deluge are not adequate enough)
mame32 0.64 with Kaillera
foobar2000
and broken closed source client software to obscure chat servers

Why don't you run uTottent in wine?

[ramkumail]

google talk voice chat.

[goldust]

Why don't you run uTottent in wine?

two reasons
1) I'm a jerk
2) I have nothing against Wine, I'd just think windows and linux should remain separate. ReactOS on the other hand.. that's cool stuff.

[PrimoTurbo]

I also miss uTorrent, I don't like how uTorrent looks under wine. Also the icon has a grey border form what I remember in the taskbar. But deluge comes pretty close to uTorrent.

I miss the speed of Photoshop under Windows, under wine Photoshop is slower for me.

I also miss a lot of the games.

I miss the ability to install things faster, sure linux has a repo but it's MUCH MUCH easier to install a downloaded application or game with windows. The repos are often outdated.

I find that installing games, even supported games is a pain in the ***. Try getting Quake2 or Doom3 to work, Windows is easy, Linux is much much harder. Copying paks and troubleshooting sound/video card issues.

ATI support for Linux is still lacking.

The speed and responsiveness of my tweaked Windows XP. I can never make linux come close to the speed and responsiveness that I get with XP, even with huge amount of tweaking, using OpenBox and disabling various features/services or doing tweaks only helps a little. The general responsiveness of Linux and Xorg is sluggish. Application star times are also a bit slower, even with Linux using less ram then XP in certain occasions.

Firefox and Flash under Windows. Firefox is very fast on Windows and so is flash. Under Ubuntu or any Linux distro Firefox is much less responsive, takes longer to start up and has horrible flash support.

[PrimoTurbo]

One of the reasons I actually got into linux was that I'm hoping to become a professional web/graphic designer like our OP here.

I had some training with most of Adobe's range of products which got me to build a basic understanding of how stuff works in the field, but the problem for me personally is that I'm a poor ******* and can't afford anything from them to use them myself legitimately. Thus, the open source thing appealed to me; GIMP in place of Photoshop, Kompozer in place of Dreamweaver, Gnash instead of Flash. I realise it's a rather bass-ackwards approach to be shying away from programs that are industry standard, but I just don't have the cash to be forking out for these professional programs. They're really the only programs I miss on Linux, but then, if I were using Windows I still couldn't use them anyway.

Another reason I'm discouraging myself from Windows is because of game support, or lack thereof. I realised I was playing games waaay too much previously, so I kind of figured this would be a way to discourage myself. Unfortunately, my focus just shifted from games to customization instead. :/ I need an OS that isn't good at anything that's interesting... :lol:

I think you will run into problems with designing with GIMP or anything else. This is due to the that many clients want PSD files or AI files. You also restrict yourself to non-print work.

[imronak]

I m missing BSOD :(

[d.kusummmanth@gmail.com]

This does not fit for me, because I'll never pay for a Windows license again. Because of my freelance activity, pirating is out of the question too.

And I don't want to boot the virtualbox OS to edit a textfile anyway. ;)
each person has his own needs. it is imp to be considerate for others' feelings and needs before crushing them with ur opinion.

[Tom--d]

i don't like Windows..and will never go back.

I do not need any of the windows applications anymore :)

The only good think Windows Vista ever had was the borders :D
Other than that.. its all ****.

Mostly all my family is using Linux now... (thanks to me :D:D)

And my friends are interested.. will, one day, get them on it :D

[rapattack1]

Well there are just some things that work in windows like that it likes the webcam used for surveillance(the cam has night vision and the Quickcam doesn't)so i still have a windows box. The syncing with the pda works and the mobile. One program I used with Debian twice erased my datebook on the pda so I won't be trying that again. I have never been able to get the mobile to synch with either ubuntu or debian. I must note the windows box is offline. I was pulling my hair out with windows before I completely went over to linux when I got the broadband connection 6 months ago. Was impossible to get it to connect via dialup(yep we are that backward in Australia to still have dialup-for us poor people he he)so waited for a deal I could afford. Everything else works with linux but still am battling to have sound(with the multimedia stuff). Wish there was someone that continued to give me advice but no one has stuck at helping me so the machine I have ubuntustudio on is sitting idle.:(

[metjay]

utorrent (tranmission, ktorrent and deluge are not adequate enough)
mame32 0.64 with Kaillera
foobar2000
and broken closed source client software to obscure chat servers

I'm using deluge for one year now, I'm not sure you noticed it, but with plugins, deluge comes close to uTorrent. (close, nothing more)

Do you know sdlmame (http://wallyweek.altervista.org/)? Ok, Kaillera i only got working in wine..

Yes foobar2000 i miss too, a little. But glad I'm not relaying on it.

[Unix_Slayer]

I think you will run into problems with designing with GIMP or anything else. This is due to the that many clients want PSD files or AI files. You also restrict yourself to non-print work.


Photoshop CS2 works through wine. I've been playing with CS3, but have been unable to get it to go without wine crashing. Could be my x11 [kde4]. I'm not sure at this time.

[Unix_Slayer]

Well there are just some things that work in windows like that it likes the webcam used for surveillance(the cam has night vision and the Quickcam doesn't)so i still have a windows box. The syncing with the pda works and the mobile. One program I used with Debian twice erased my datebook on the pda so I won't be trying that again. I have never been able to get the mobile to synch with either ubuntu or debian. I must note the windows box is offline. I was pulling my hair out with windows before I completely went over to linux when I got the broadband connection 6 months ago. Was impossible to get it to connect via dialup(yep we are that backward in Australia to still have dialup-for us poor people he he)so waited for a deal I could afford. Everything else works with linux but still am battling to have sound(with the multimedia stuff). Wish there was someone that continued to give me advice but no one has stuck at helping me so the machine I have ubuntustudio on is sitting idle.:(

I'm still working on getting my Blackberry to use bluetooth in Kubuntu. I know that when I upgraded to Vista, my blackberry desktop manager would not work with bluetooth because Rim failed to come up with the proper drivers for bluetooth. Although my surveillance equipment is working under linux. I have about 9600 hours of nightvision record time.

[metjay]

Photoshop CS2 works through wine. I've been playing with CS3, but have been unable to get it to go without wine crashing. Could be my x11 [kde4]. I'm not sure at this time.

Yes it works, unfortunately I'm using CS2 the same way. But for me working is not like working. When it comes to performance with CS2.. puh.. glad I have a decent machine. I hate to waste resources that way.

[faithsnathan]

I was pulling my hair out with windows before I completely went over to linux when I got the broadband connection 6 months ago. Was impossible to get it to connect via dialup(yep we are that backward in Australia to still have dialup-for us poor people he he)so waited for a deal I could afford.

Yes, I agree that dial-up stinks. The only thing available where I live in the US is dial-up (except for satellite internet, which I now have). I had to also leave Ubuntu for a while and stick to Vista while I had dial-up internet.

So did you get your webcam working in Ubuntu? Thanks.

[rapattack1]

Well i was able to get dialup to happen with gnome-ppp so you might try that. I had it working on the laptop at some point with Ubuntu 6.10 I think. From memory the Quickcam express webcams are the only type I was able to get working with ubuntu but it is not like I had a lot of choice due to lack of funds. I find most of my stuff in rich areas of australia. I rarely buy anything. I remember getting the cam to work with Ekiga but never had time to really investigate weather it works with Skype or other IM's. Will try at some point but there is just too many things more important. With dialup it is painful using a cam anyway from memory.

[Unix_Slayer]

Yes, I agree that dial-up stinks. The only thing available where I live in the US is dial-up (except for satellite internet, which I now have). I had to also leave Ubuntu for a while and stick to Vista while I had dial-up internet.

So did you get your webcam working in Ubuntu? Thanks.

Sounds like that old DirecPC kind of thing. I haven't used a satellite since cable came out in my area many moons ago.

[AlanJM01]

What do I miss about Windows?

I dunno, chasing viruses, spyware, adware?

The constant reboots?

The cryptic error messages?

Plug-n-Pray?

Joking....

sorta....

I really don't miss anything as I have seem to have adapted well to the tools handed to me within all my Linux environments.

Aha! Got it!

I miss Bill constantly looking over my shoulder!

[rapattack1]

I just gave the webcam another try and it doesn't complete it's test in skype. It is recognised by skype though. I just don't get a picture in the test area. I also tried it in VLC as a capture device and that works well with the Quickcam Logitech express. Maybe i need to install some more things to get it working in skype ...i think i read that somewhere. Something called qcusb?
Anyway it is also not a high priority for me to have a cam operational because of my very low internet usage limit. as it is I have to type in the chat programs and forget about voice. That's ok because i find that a better option anyway as I am a fast typist.

AlanJM01-I agree with the plug and Pray thing. I have gotten so many more peripherals to work with Ubuntu especially as most of my stuff is old. The policy of searching to make sure(or googling) that that peripheral has been tested with Linux before is a good one to do everytime I want to connect up something.

[BigSteve_G]

Good things I miss...
All in one printer / scanner working (although I have a spare flat bed & use the printer that much I didnt know the ink had dried up 3/4 full about 2yr ago)

Bad thing I miss... (well ok I dont their just not there now)
updates that need reboots, wife trying to uninstall stuff (what this icon do? oh that), having to update the virus scanner every other day, defrag, waiting more then a minute for boot, waiting for the desktop to become usable, updates that kill my system, keeping track of my driver files, mailware creeping in, daughter using IE8 with 101+ toolbars appearing, activation codes only being valid on 5 (I think it is) machines - although it throws a wobble if you upgrade too much hardware in 1 go, computer (well windows) 'experts' trying to mess my systems up, - you know what I could go on allday as I hadnt realised how many short comings windows has until now.

I totaly ditch windows about 3 month ago (have it on a virtual machine & never use it) & dont know why I didnt sooner

[ubunterooster]

I miss:
Win media Player-wait I like the simplicity of exhaile

Aero-wait emerald+xcfe kills that...

boot times? Viruses? plug-and-look-for-drivers? battery life? Gates? defrags? my dad getting hacked? CSS? Being one of a billion drops in the bucket?
???????

[Chrisco66]

The only thing I miss is auto detection of printers and scanners. There have been a few more driver problems with 10.04, but I have found work arounds. Xp still has the best built in driver selection.

Other than that, I dont miss windoze at all..

[beew]

Not really windows per se. But there are many windows apps that don't work on Linux and there is no Linux equivalence.

I am not talking about big propietary softwares, but simple free downloads that do simple jobs.

A few examples come to mind (and I still haven't found a solution except to use WINE, which I try not to as much as possible)

I was trying to record a song from myspace yesterday. It is quite simple in windows as there are a couple of free as in beer apps that would do that. But strangely there is no such thing in Linux (there are apps to stream live radio but you can just use the browser anyway) So in Linux you use Audacity. But Audacity is complicated to set up and it is way overkill for a simple task like this. Moreover, I have an old PC, runing flash (myspace) and Audacity at the same time would drive cpu usage to 100% and the temperature hovering about 90C, I could smell burning plastic. So that is not an option. There is a script written by someone on this forum that would download (instead of record) music off myspace but so far it doesn't work for me.

Another example: wifi monitor. I do some simple wireless trouble shootings in windows and use a diagnostic tool called Xirrus. It basically shows you the network Aps in the surrounding and some of their infos like which channel they broadcast from so you should avoid those. But I cannot find a simple app that would do that in Linux, they are either too simple (not showing anything but the AP you are connected to)or way too complicated for my simple purpose. There are things like kismet or nmap but you have to read a book in order to use them, assuming that they work and don't require further bug fixing and trouble shootings. Moreover, it seems that a lot of Linux wifi diagnostic tools are bound to hardware so something may work only if you have a prism card or whatever. Hello? Is this for real? I don't even know whether I have a prism card except it is broadcom and what if I don't have the right card? Xirrus has a Linux edition but it was quietly killed before I even started with Ubuntu. Swscanner is supposed to have many of Xirrus' features and more but it has not been working on my PC and the problem apparently has been reported as a bug all the way back to Ubuntu 7.X but never really get fixed.

There are other annoyance like the abscence of any decent PDF reader etc (No, adobe is crap, I don't even use it in windows)

[slackthumbz]

I haven't even used a windows computer since I installed linux on an old P1 box with a 3GB hdd in the late 90s and fell madly in love with it (the OS, not the box ;)).

[beew]

I haven't even used a windows computer since I installed linux on an old P1 box with a 3GB hdd in the late 90s and fell madly in love with it (the OS, not the box ;)).

I can see you wouldn't need anything so you won't miss them obviously, I just wonder what do you use your computer for. Maybe practicing typing skill?

[slackthumbz]

I can see you wouldn't need anything so you won't miss them obviously, I just wonder what do you use your computer for. Maybe practicing typing skill?

Programming, media, internet, I have a small LAMP stack running on my netbook as a testing and development environment for work and my primary tool for most things is the terminal (because it's faster and more efficient than most GUIs). The only thing I don't do on linux is gaming. I have an xbox for that.

[beew]

How do you do media with 3 G of hdd and how do you go on the internet without a browser? Oh, you do have a netbook. :)

[slackthumbz]

How do you do media with 3 G of hdd and how do you go on the internet without a browser? Oh, you do have a netbook. :)

lol, yeah I have actually bought newer hardware since then :p

[perspectoff]

TurboTax / TaxCut

PaperPort

[Chame_Wizard]

Nothing:P

[andymorton]

The only thing I can think of is statistical analysis software like SPSS and Lab Chart Reader. Other than those I don't miss anything.

andy

[murderslastcrow]

Well, many people say that Linux gets you to get to know your computer better, but I must've gotten in the door right after all that terminal stuff was common or something, since it was outrageously easy to set up. The only way you could make it easier is by having it install itself, or buying an Ubuntu computer. Well, I guess they've shown in 10.10 you CAN make installation easier in some ways, and faster.

The point is that, with Ubuntu, the computer's taking care of me, not the other way around. I feel less connected with the innards of my OS than I did with Windows...

WHICH IS A GOOD THING. As good as Linux is, and as inspired as its design is, it just makes no sense to get that close to your OS- using the programs and understanding the freedoms you have, and even coding software packages on top is a lot better for my sanity than having to know the command line because of its problems or something.

So really, I guess that's the only thing I COULD miss about Windows- the way it begs for your attention, like a needy, codependent partner. "Let me open that for you! Oh, I crashed- help me! T^T I'm sorry, could you just try to open it again, I need to know you want me around!"

[kaldor]

Considering I abolished Windows completely soon after (less than 3 months) I discovered Ubuntu... nothing.

If I missed stuff, I would have kept it. I don't even use Ubuntu anymore and I say the same to that; if I missed it, it wouldn't be gone.

Point being use what works best. I much prefer the ideas of FOSS, but sadly Windows is dominant and needs to be used in many sectors.

[MasterNetra]

Nothing, I duel boot.

[NightwishFan]

The beautiful sounds of the disk clicking and the random Mozart and Beck music included by default. The smell of freshly made coffee as I start it to boot. The taste of victory as I finally crush a few more Protoss bases. (ok that was not a real taste XD) The feel of the mouse as it moves over the desk, though the windows were never responsive, the mouse was always able to move.

I will exclude sight because my vision is poor. :)

No I do not miss Windows. I find I like *nix systems better. More room to move around.

[BlazeFire247]

I dual-boot, but if Windows was permanently gone on my system, I'd have to say my ability to scan stuff. Seriously, I couldn't get my scanner to work with Ubuntu.

[Zlatan]

The only thing I miss is auto detection of printers and scanners. There have been a few more driver problems with 10.04, but I have found work arounds. Xp still has the best built in driver selection.

Other than that, I dont miss windoze at all..

in my case nothing is better in device recognition than ubuntu is