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View Full Version : Switching from ubuntu to Win2000 - explanation



orlandu
January 1st, 2006, 02:14 PM
Hello, after nearly a year of running ubuntu linux as my primary OS, I'm switching back to MS Windows 2000. Here are the reasons why - I post them in the hope that it may be useful to developers. Before I begin though, can I say a big thank you to those who have contributed to ubuntu (and GNU/linux in general), for building such a functional and user-friendly set of tools and applications, and allowing me to use them for free (and freely).

Anyway, on to the reasons.

1. Breaking Canon PTP support in gphoto2 with the upgrade to breezy. I have a Powershot S1 IS which I'd been happily using under hoary, but it no longer works under breezy. This seems to be an acknowledged bug, but none of the posted workarounds have worked for me. The only solution appeared to be to downgrade the whole distribution, which seems crazy to me. Canon's software under W2K works fine.

2. Realplayer. The linux version is so poor at streaming over the web (I like to make use of the BBC's on demand features, it would be good if they used a more open format but that's out of my hands!). My installation always seemed to open at least 2 identical streams for each link, both of which would suffer audio and video problems for the first minute or so (at least). Sometimes waiting, closing and restarting the clip would allow it to play properly, sometimes it wouldn't. The Windows version behaves impeccably.

3. Shockwave or Flash player crashing Firefox. I'm not sure whether it was the shockwave player or the flash player, but some animations would bring the browser down. No such problems in Windows.

4. Lack of support for Skype USB devices. I make a lot of international calls to people with DSL connections, I'd really like to shrink the bills for that. Skype looks ideal, but the USB phones/adapters don't seem to have the software support necessary to use them. Drivers and software are available under Windows.

5. MythTV. I would like to use my PC as a PVR, but MythTV looks like a nightmare to install and use compared to free Windows software such as GBPVR.

6. Lack of support for video chat. My wife loves to use Gaim, but the lack of webcam support is a letdown. Video chat is easy under Windows.

I will miss many things about using ubuntu. The Gnome desktop, the excellent security, the automated updates, DVD playback software that doesn't require me to mess about with the registry to maintain region-free status, the lack of rebooting needed, sharing files with my Xbox using samba, and many more - but those things I can live without. The 6 points above I can't.

raha
January 1st, 2006, 03:08 PM
Hello orlandu and happy new year.
I am also totaly agree with you, I hope linux developers think about the above important issues, they are not just your problems but I think many of us.
they will put video chat on Gaim 2.0 (I think but I am not sure) and as you said Realplayer is poor compared to windows and I think there is a lack of video player that act instead of Windows Media player on Linux.
there is one called Gxine but its not that great considering Media player on windows is also free.
I am a linux fan but common guys push these forward faster.
Oh the other thing is the lack of decent IDE (something like Borland or Visual Studio) Borland had some plan for Linux but they stoped it. I hope we come up with a really good IDE and you will see that I will also write good programs for linux otherwise I am not very good at the current tools such as Anjuta, etc.
I think Mono will have some words to say but lets see what will happen. Till then we should cope with the current tools. :)

aysiu
January 1st, 2006, 03:47 PM
Sorry to see you go.

If I had all those problems, I'd probably leave too, but my needs are far less multimedia-focused. I'll surf the internet, check email, listen to music, and edit the occasional photo--maybe type a document in KWord.

Have you considered trying another distro? Mepis? Blag? PCLinuxOS?

orlandu
January 1st, 2006, 07:50 PM
I'd tried a few other distributions before ubuntu - mandrake, fedora and debian, I think. Ubuntu was the only one which set my hardware up correctly, which was the main reason I used it. The support I've had from other users, primarily via IRC, has also been most helpful.

I'm not sure however that any distribution would address all the issues I have - a large part of the problem is hardware support in general for linux. There are items which have come out fairly recently, like the Hauppauge MVP (for playback of video on a TV, via RGB SCART - gives a much better display than a TV-out using composite or S-video, which isn't well supported in the UK anyway) and the Actiontec Internet Phone Wizard (to use any household phone with Skype or similar services, much cheaper and better than the available cordless USB phones). Good support for these types of device are deal-breakers for me.

I can only hope that hardware manufacturers themselves start to consider platforms other than Windows, but I won't hold my breath. Otherwise I'm dependent on the kind charity (and that's what it is - no linux developer owes me support!) of others to write the code that might let me do what I'd like, and even that's never going to be as fast as manufacturer support.

I'll keep ubuntu installed, and its entry in my bootloader will remain. But it won't be the default, and I think the multimedia hardware support in Windows will probably keep me there until the predicted DRM/TCPA nightmare arrives.

Lord Illidan
January 1st, 2006, 07:56 PM
Sorry for your problems. At least, this is the post to make if you are announcing your leaving Ubuntu, not being a troll. I would do the same if I were you.

mstlyevil
January 1st, 2006, 08:14 PM
I dual boot XP/Kubuntu for simular reasons. Some multimedia and web cam functions are better supported under XP. Also, I enjoy being able to install and play any game I like. I use Linux/Kubuntu most of the time though as it is my primary OS for web browsing, E-mail, DVD playback and streamtuner. I like having the best of both worlds and dual booting provides that. Good luck with Win2000 and I hope you continue to use and help improve Ubuntu.

earobinson
January 1st, 2006, 08:34 PM
I assume you are running dapper. I feal it is important to point out that dapper is in testing and many of your bugs should be worked out by the time it is released. For people that need things to work you should not run dapper.

Sorry to see you go.

This is a great post btw, you said why you are leaving with out being a pain about it. Good luck with w2k, let us know what the switch back is like, I know whenever im on windows i miss the terminal and always use ls in dos.

prizrak
January 1st, 2006, 09:43 PM
I assume you are running dapper. I feal it is important to point out that dapper is in testing and many of your bugs should be worked out by the time it is released. For people that need things to work you should not run dapper.

Sorry to see you go.

This is a great post btw, you said why you are leaving with out being a pain about it. Good luck with w2k, let us know what the switch back is like, I know whenever im on windows i miss the terminal and always use ls in dos.
I think he mentions that he uses Breezy actually.

oralndu,
That sux man, sad when 3rd party developers keep us on the inferior platform. Dapper is comming out soon though maybe you should try a clean install of that and see if it remedies at least SOME issues. Canon is REAL weird with their Linux support, I read that Canons don't work on Linux at all yet my friend's Cannon camera worked as soon as I plugged it into my Breezy laptop. In any case good luck, and remember to use a firewall ;)

Lord Illidan
January 1st, 2006, 10:13 PM
I assume you are running dapper. I feal it is important to point out that dapper is in testing and many of your bugs should be worked out by the time it is released. For people that need things to work you should not run dapper.

Sorry to see you go.

This is a great post btw, you said why you are leaving with out being a pain about it. Good luck with w2k, let us know what the switch back is like, I know whenever im on windows i miss the terminal and always use ls in dos.

Yes, he mentioned Breezy.
And that ls problem always happens to me..
I keep saying...wait, how do I do this?? Where is man? Where is ls | less?

earobinson
January 1st, 2006, 10:59 PM
ya he did sorry bout that, i read upgrade and assume it was another user upgrading and woundering why nothing worked. sorry bout that.

poofyhairguy
January 2nd, 2006, 02:44 AM
Each to their own...but I must say that many of your problems are related to third party software, hardware or activities so there might not be much the Ubuntu developers can do soon to make it better for you (if they read the forum).

This is one case where the world around Linux is its biggest problem. And yet another reason why I use Totem-xine for Realplayer files.

Iandefor
January 2nd, 2006, 04:48 AM
I'm sorry you had such problems; Well, nothing is perfect, and you'll see your mistake eventually (jk).

I understand your position totally; if I had such problems, I'd probably go back to Windows too. I just wish more people who were leaving Ubuntu because of technical issues did so as politely as you!

orlandu
January 2nd, 2006, 06:42 PM
It's true that most of my difficulties are outside ubuntu's immediate influence. Out of all the distributions I tried, it was by far the easiest to install and configure, and support (on IRC and the wonderful ubuntuguide.org) was excellent. My only problem caused by ubuntu itself was the gphoto2 issue, I would have liked to have been able to resolve that without reverting to hoary. I've no idea how to go about changing the hardware support issues, all I can say is that if I could buy hardware which offered good linux support, I would choose it over hardware without, even if I had to pay a bit more for it.

I haven't managed to successfully use totem-xine for real video streams (looks like I'm not the only one, see here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=76935)). I'd be interested to know how to set it up, if you (poofyhairguy) or anyone else could spare the time to explain or link to further details.

earobinson, what I miss when I'm back in Windows - it might sound trivial, but what I miss the most is a good virtual desktop manager. Under ubuntu, I had set up two desktops, with a nice little icon on the taskbar where each had its own name displayed, a mouse click switching between the two - one for me, one for my wife. I used devilspie to instruct certain applications (eg. freeguide) to display on both desktops - it was almost perfect (perfect would have been if we could have used different desktop background images, but that's a very minor point). Windows has numerous free (beer) applications in this vein, but none of them are anything like as nice.

prizrak, I already used a combination of hardware and (under Windows) software firewalls, but if there's one thing using ubuntu linux really drummed into me it was the value of running without admin privileges as default. Going back to Windows this time, I have set the default user not to have these privileges, and I now use "run as" in much the same way I used sudo under ubuntu - so it's taught me something useful!

almahtar
January 2nd, 2006, 07:55 PM
rland or Visual Studio) Borland had some plan for Linux but they stoped it. I hope we come up with a really good IDE and you will see that I will also write good programs for linux otherwise I am not very good at the current tools such as Anjuta, etc.
I think Mono will have some words to say but lets see what will happen. Till then we should cope with the current tools. :)

I don't mean to derail the thread on a side topic, but if you haven't learned to use Anjuta how do you know it's not a decent IDE? I've only used it for 2 weeks and I'm deeply in love with it.