What would cause one to leave Windows for Ubuntu?

[bodean]

Having used Vista on my home pc and notebook since early betas, I am all of a sudden curious as to the advantages of putting Ubuntu on my laptop. I am thinking of a dual boot as there are some pc games that I play when I travel, and feel they won't run/work in Ubuntu.

Curious as to what the "type" of person is who moves from windows to say, ubuntu, and why?
I know a lot of windows apps would not work (and I would have to find different / new apps to replace what I use in windows)....but just wondering from those who have used windows in the past, what made you switch over.

[Famicommie]

At first, it was idle curiousity. But then, one night my room mate spilt a red bull + gin drink down the fan on the top of my computer. He also used Administrator priveleges to completely screw up Windows, so I spent some time using Linux. The complete customization, the power of the terminal, and having repositories all had some sway in making me stay with Ubuntu. Politically speaking, I find myself attracted to the principles of the free and open source software movement (don't let my user name fool you, I am not a communist ).

There are two programs, WINE and Cedega, which are very capable of running many Windows games, by the way. ZSNES is pretty good so far as Super Nintendo emulation goes, X3 is being released for Linux in the near future, and I also play quite a bit of Doom in my free time

[ramjet_1953]

If you are perfectly happy with Windows and it does everything that you want, Ubuntu or any other version of Linux probably isn't for you.

However, if you have continual battles with viruses, spyware, trojans, rootkits, etc, Linux offers a much more secure solution.

Also with Linux, it is free. Updates, new releases and most of the software packages are free. Many of these packages are easily as productive as commercial packages that you have to pay hundreds of dollars for in Windows.

If you like to roll your sleeves up and tinker "under the hood", Linux is made for you. It is completely customizable. My own PC runs a Linux kernel that I compiled for myself, which allowed me to tailor it exactly to my hardware and get reid of a lot of the modules that I never use.

If you just want to be a "user" and don't want to tinker, the new version of Ubuntu (7.04) is due to be released on the 19th of this month and it will, in most cases, detect all of your hardware and be as user friendly as any other OS out there.

What I suggest you do is to wait a few days and then download the 7.04 Live CD and have a play with it. It locks your existing hard drive, so that you cannot damage your existing Windows install and will give you an idea of what Ubuntu is all about. Of course, running completely from the CD and RAM it is much slower than a full install, but it will certainly give you a taste of Ubuntu and you will be able to see how it goes with detecting your hardware.

Regards,
Roger

[aysiu]

If I played PC games, I wouldn't have switched to Ubuntu.

For what I do (email, web browsing, light web design and photo manipulation, word processing, FTP), Ubuntu is perfect. It's free and fully customizable. I don't have to worry about viruses, costs for new versions, or sketchy setup.exe files. Package management is a great way to install, upgrade, and remove software.

[adamklempner]

I switched a few years ago because of an article that I saw in the news. Basically what happened was a Linux company called Lindows, was making a easy to use desktop Linux. Microsoft thought that "Lindows" was too close to "Windows" so they sued them here in the US. Well, MS lost that court case and Lindows was able to continue here. So then MS went and started suing Lindows in every country that they sold the product, namely most of the European countries. They even sent letters to the European Lindows retailers threatening to sue. MS was simply looking to put Lindows out of business by sucking out all of their funding with lawsuits. Long story short, many millions of dollars later, Lindows had to settle with MS and change their name. They are now called Linspire.

It was because of the article on CNN detailing what was going on, that got my interest. I realized how immoral MS's business practice really is, and that this Linux thing must be a serious threat to Windows if MS went through all of those hoops just to shut them up. And then there was the whole SCO fiasco, I won't even get into that.

I then got a copy of Linspire, tried it, and realized I could do everything that I could do with Windows. And it looked a lot nicer than XP, also. I soon realized that I liked being different with my OS. It was fun. I wasn't fighting with Windows all of the time anymore, and I didn't even have to worry about security. Soon it became easy. Especially when I made the switch to Kubuntu. Everything just works. No hunting for drivers. Updates don't require a reboot. No spyware or viruses. KDE is much more customizable than XP. I could keep on going, but I just kept realizing how many advantages there were to this Linux thing after I got into it.

I did my whole Masters of Science thesis and defense on Linspire with out any problems at all. In fact, I even got a couple of my buddies to switch in the process. Now they run Kubuntu and PCLinuxOS. I guess if you like to be different, this a cool way (in a geeky sense) to do it.

And that is my story, in brief. Hope it helps.

[Patrick K]

I've been running W98 since 98. I never saw any advantage in going to XP. Partly because I modify my computer fairly often. With XP, and now Vista, you have to get MS's permission to run their OS after making certain changes (I've change MoBos and drives a number of times and still run the original 1998 install, never have reinstalled).

My plan was to go with Vista but the DRM restriction, WGA, and steep hardware requirements played a major part in my rejecting it. W98 is getting a bit long in the tooth and I wanted a more current OS, so I went with Linux. (Although, I must admit, I'm a bit surprised how rudimentary much of the Linux software is.) I dual boot Ubuntu and W98 (I have one very old app in particular that I cannot find a comparable replacement for).

[delphiguy]

It depends really.

In my case, I've been a Windows programmer all my life we'll most of it. I started in DOS and
now Im programming in Windows.

As a programmer my reason for switching from Windows to Linux would be that some of my clients are
requiring Linux Based apps as opposed to Windows, a few years ago Linux Development might be limited on
the server development (I could be wrong) but lately a lot of companies have started to ditch Windows in
favor of Linux and OpenSource and with that came the demand for Linux Desktop applications. I do still use Windows as this is the primary target of our company, and this is the OS we're using for my day job.

As a user, I switched to Linux because I have no reason to stay in Windows anymore. I mean why continue
using Windows and pay that Licence Fee they charge when I can get all that I needed for free. and from
where I am, WindowsXP Licence doesnt come cheap, its almost a month worth of salary just to get that
License.

Sadly as you've pointed out, most good games dont run well on Wine, but I am not a gamer so I really dont
care. But I've heard that Cedega does the job well, I havent tried it tho. As for the Windows Software Alt,
there's a list in this forum that exactly shows the Linux Alternative Software, or you can run your app
through Wine. I my case Linux fits me well that I only have 1 Windows app running in Wine and that is
uTorrent aside from that its all open source.

Sure Linux can be hard at first but given some time you'll get used to it. This forum is a great source for help.

[RudolfMDLT]

I run an XP dual boot for games... But for everyday life, word processing, email, browsing, development and playing music, Ubuntu is really much better! It allows you to customize your machine like you would customize your office, and as I practically live on the www, having something thats Spam and Virus proof(99%) is a real blessing. Also Ubuntu doesn't have that bad habet of crashing Word, just when you think of saving the last 4 hours of work you did. It's a nice Operating Environment, not just an Operating System.

[NikoC]

I just want to be able to use different OSs, from DOS to Windows to Linux to MacOs. Knowledge is power

[punong_bisyonaryo]

Here is my comprehensive answer to your question:
1. Cost.
Vista Costs $200-$400 depending on which edition you buy. Aero, Windows Mobility Center, DVD Maker, Networking & Sharing Center, Complete PC Backup & Restore, Meeting Space, Tablet PC support, and Media Center is NOT included in the the cheapest edition, and BitLocker (which I believe to be the single innovation that Vista has) is only available on Ultimate and Enterprise (volume-license edition of Vista)

BitLocker also needs your hardware to have a trusted module platform (TPM) or you'd need a USB drive for the TPM.

MS Office is also a separate purchase altogether.

2. If you upgrade computers often, you can only install Vista TWICE due to the Vista EULA.

3. DRM protection being built-in to the OS. Heard of the Zune? Yep, that's M$' music player. Recently, owners of Zune suddenly can't play some of their LEGALLY PURCHASED music. Why? I think it has something to do with the copy protection rules changing, rendering people's entire collections unusable.

4. Vista can "disable hardware it deems unfit". Would you really like to give that decision to M$?

5. Secuirty -- if you still believe they're good at releasing security patches and stuff, ask yourself why Microsoft has a 10-year old vulnerability (search .ANI vulnerability), since Win98.

6. Hardware requirements -- I'll let you figure this out yourself. In the meantime, consider that Mepis running Beryl on idle consumes <100Mb, while Vista on Aero consumes about half-a-gig of ram. Minimum install requirements for Vista is 15Gb compared to about 2Gb.