Why did you want to quit Windows/Mac and change to ubuntu in the first place?

[GamingMazter]

This is just a thread to see why people changed from either a Windows or Mac computer OS to start running Ubuntu...my reason was that I really wanted to get Vista (mainly because of all the visual effects...Windows Aero etc..) on my Advent 7017 laptop (FROM MY SIGNATURE) but Vista need ridiculous requirements for your computer to be working with it. I gave up on it then and then discovered Ubuntu. I read about it and thought..."Well of course I'm gonna change...it (in my point of view anyway) is so much better than vista and whats even better that that is that all the stuff for it is totally free! What are your reasons?

[MaximB]

We already have 100 threads like this one.
I just don't get why you are always refering to Ubuntu and not to just GNU/Linux ?
Is it the lake of knowledge that Ubuntu is a distro of GNU/Linux (Linux being the kernel) ? we got 1000 more distros you know..
Or is it just pride that Ubuntu is the "best" and "only" distro out there ?

Many people moved to Ubuntu from other distros and not from Windows.

Anyway I moved to Ubuntu not because I think that windowsXP sucks, I think it's a good OS compare to other windows OS's.
When I studied MCSE (for free except the exams) our teacher showed us that there are other OS's except Windows and showed us Knoppix live cd, I was amazed and a month later (after burning all my data) Installed Ubuntu due to recommendations I got.
Now I don't use Windows for more then 2 years.

And believe me Vista's Aero is nothing compare to Compiz-fusion, KDE4 and even E17.

[conehead77]

I never wanted to leave Windows. It just happened after i installed Ubuntu ;)

[GamingMazter]

We already have 100 threads like this one.
I just don't get why you are always refering to Ubuntu and not to just GNU/Linux ?
Is it the lake of knowledge that Ubuntu is a distro of GNU/Linux (Linux being the kernel) ? we got 1000 more distros you know..
Or is it just pride that Ubuntu is the "best" and "only" distro out there ?

Many people moved to Ubuntu from other distros and not from Windows.

Anyway I moved to Ubuntu not because I think that windowsXP sucks, I think it's a good OS compare to other windows OS's.
When I studied MCSE (for free except the exams) our teacher showed us that there are other OS's except Windows and showed us Knoppix live cd, I was amazed and a month later (after burning all my data) Installed Ubuntu due to recommendations I got.
Now I don't use Windows for more then 2 years.

And believe me Vista's Aero is nothing compare to Compiz-fusion, KDE4 and even E17.

The only reason I mainly say Ubuntu instead of Linux because this forum is MADE about UBUNTU specifically!

[steveneddy]

The only reason I mainly say Ubuntu instead of Linux because this forum is MADE about UBUNTU specifically!

And this is the Ubuntu forums....

I left because of three reasons:

1. Virus/trojan/spyware - the usual stuff we see on a Windows install

2. Relaibility and stability - probably caused by reason #1

3. Curiosity

[Washer]

came for the compiz, stayed for the free speech/beer

[el_ricardo]

long story short? my windows broke and i couldn't find the installation disk!

[gn2]

I deleted my Windows installations because I just wasn't using them anymore.

I simply prefer Linux, it's easier to maintain.

[spamzilla]

I moved as I hate the way Microsoft trade and go about their business. Suing everyone that blinks at them isridiculous, so is changing file formats and making old file formats incompatibile with new programs, is just a few things that really annoys me. I'm an IT techie at a school so the latter has a huge impact on everyones ability to use Office 2003.

(Office 2007 has a .docx file extension which is unopenable in other MS office programs and they also released an update in office 2003 SP3 where win97 .doc files and older files are unopenable - just to force people to buy their newer software. Thankfully a lot major businesses kicked off and MS released fixes which makes all files compatible...well apart from .docx files with older versions of Office.)

Thankfully the bigwigs in Europe are getting their teeth stuck in to MS and are fining /restrcting them on how they trade as well as other things. GOOD STUFF!!

[helliewm]

See my web site in my signature for background but I was very unhappy with WGA that installed itself on XP and Microsoft's privacy policies. I am very interested in privacy and IT, especially medical privacy, human rights issues and IT.

I ran a programme to remove WGA and completely trashed XP. I bought Linux Format magazine and SUSE SLED was on the front. An ideal first Distro as it configured my Nvidia Graphics Card.

I literally went completely cold turkey to Linux and there was no way I was going back to Microsoft due to WGA and there privacy policies.

I quickly moved on to Ubuntu. I am running 64 bit on both my laptops and Desktop. I am 100% Ubuntu but have a soft spot for SLED.

Helen

[Acglaphotis]

I switched beacause i got a malware who popped up a "You computer has virus, buy X antivirus". So i felt too lazy to remove it so i installed Ubuntu : D.

[GamingMazter]

Great reasons guys...I agree with the virus factor of it too because when I was with Vista I had so many viruses i had only 5GB left out of 60GB but now I have 59GB! SO GOOD!

[billgoldberg]

We already have 100 threads like this one.
I just don't get why you are always refering to Ubuntu and not to just GNU/Linux ?
Is it the lake of knowledge that Ubuntu is a distro of GNU/Linux (Linux being the kernel) ? we got 1000 more distros you know..
Or is it just pride that Ubuntu is the "best" and "only" distro out there ?



Because these are the ubuntu forums. duh

My reason to switch was:

I got fed up with windows xp, I needed to get rid of viruses, spyware every week or so. Had to reinstall every month. My performances took a big hit by all the secutiry software running all the time. I wanted to change everything and found out I had to pay serious money for such software. I installed a demo version of windows blinds and the program just sucked and messed up my pc.

I was browsing youtube to see vista in action when I saw the infamous vista vs ubuntu video and was amazed.

The next week I learned as much as I could about linux/ubuntu and then made the switch.

I runned vista xp and ubuntu for a while on my 2 pc and since a half year I'm running ubuntu only.

Everytime I need to use a windows computer, I ask myself how in the hell I lived with that OS for that many years.

[FuturePilot]

Curiosity.

[Crashmaxx]

I installed Ubuntu because I had wanted to try Linux for a long time. Once I figured out how to partition the disk for dual boot, it was pretty easy. Then I broke my install a bunch of times trying to install stuff like Compiz and had to reinstall because I didn't know how to fix it. Eventually I got bored and just left it alone only using it once and a while.

But one day, I booted up XP and it would never fully load the desktop. Couldn't open any programs, it just sat there. So I booted Ubuntu and haven't used Windows since. I still keep a good install of XP on my laptop for the few times I need something in XP, but it is pretty rare I have to use it.

[JaggedOne]

My dad is a linux programmer for SGI so I was raised next to him using it on his computer all the time. I had tried to switch several times in the past when i was younger and living with my parents. I would always ask him to help me learn the new OS because he was obviously very skilled with it. He is an old time linux user who does just about everything in the terminal. This was how he tried to teach me how to use linux. Naturally I saw all the voodoo commands he was whipping up and got scared, never really sticking with linux.

Then I moved away to college and got a sweet new laptop. The idea of running a crappy OS like XP (I didn't even consider Vista) on this beauty made me cringe. I decided to give linux one more try. I did some research and found Ubuntu was the most highly suggested distro. I installed it, played around, googled my problems and found that it was so much easier then my dad had made it seem all those years.I barely needed to use the terminal, and even when I did it really wasn't that scary. Ubuntu has been my main OS for the better part of a year and I haven't looked back.

I do still dual boot XP for the rare game that wont emulate under wine. Whenever I use windows it just feels so damn clunky, restrictive and ugly. I really don't know how I used it for so many years when linux was staring me in the face.

[DMK62]

For me it was a few reasons. I got tired of having to do the regular virus and spyware scans. The driver / software installation of my audigy sound card on xp sp2 ( slipstreamed cd install of xp ) would more often than not totally trash xp and I would have to start from scratch ( windows file protection at it's best lol ). The sound card installs perfectly under Ubuntu . The default desktop on XP looks horrible and unless you want to spend money to change that you are locked into only a few options. I don't like an operating system that stores information in hidden / cryptic files. WGA and XP and it's phone home features.

And most of all ..... entering your 50 + digit product id over the phone and then having to explain why you are reinstalling windows.

One of the greatest benefits of Ubuntu and Linux is that it allows you to explore and expand your knowledge of other areas of computing that can cost you thousands on other os's.

There was a post a few years ago about how a group of Ubuntu users in England had gone to a school that could not afford computers. They refurbished some old computers and set up a network for them and it was all done for free. After reading that post I knew the Ubuntu community was something worth being involved with compared to a corporation.

Dale

[stueyboy]

I found that XP was hungry for resources on the system I was using and was fed up with upgrading every time that MS wanted to bring out new features. Also the antivirus stuff got on my goat. I don't miss slow start ups, periodic defragmentations and virus scans that's for sure.

[b0rka7a]

The reasons I switched to Ubuntu::
- Windows has too many viruses...
- ...and bugs :D
- Ubuntu is open-source
- Ubuntu is free
- Ubuntu works faster than Windows
- Ubuntu was new for me and it was interesting to learn how to use it :-P

P.S: I've never bought Windows. I've been using pirate copies. ;)

[tuebinger]

This is just a thread to see why people changed from either a Windows or Mac computer OS to start running Ubuntu...my reason was that I really wanted to get Vista (mainly because of all the visual effects...Windows Aero etc..) on my Advent 7017 laptop (FROM MY SIGNATURE) but Vista need ridiculous requirements for your computer to be working with it. I gave up on it then and then discovered Ubuntu. I read about it and thought..."Well of course I'm gonna change...it (in my point of view anyway) is so much better than vista and whats even better that that is that all the stuff for it is totally free! What are your reasons?

Similar reasons to yours. I tried VISTA. At first it looked really polished and I enjoyed the AERO interface, but after about a week that got old and I realized that it's the same Windows only with some fancy skin. Something else seemed not quite right about it but I can't put my finger on it. I just got more annoyed with it.

I also used OSX for years which I still recommend to my non-techie friends as a Windows alternative, but after trying Ubuntu I couldn't go back to OSX. I just think Ubuntu (or should I say GNU/Linux?) is far more efficient and customizable than either Windows or OSX, not to mention the superior security and stability. And it's free.

Like you I started small, with Ubuntu on an old laptop. Within a month I had Ubuntu running on my other laptop, the home office computer, and a computer at work.

[zenkaon]

I didn't leave windows, I left red hat.

If you really want to know why, try RHEL5 for a day.

[rosegarden78]

Why quit? I have dual boot XP but I run it in VirtualBox. Get with the program! :KS click here (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=679884) please XP runs faster in a Virtual PC.

[ticopelp]

I spent a night working with Vista on a friend's computer. It was so counter-intuitive, buggy and full of annoyances, I couldn't believe it. I started reading the news that XP was going to very quickly have its support discontinued and cost thousands of dollars to get updates for... I knew that Microsoft was going to try to force people into using Vista, and that my days of being able to use XP were numbered.

I decided to avoid that future and learn Linux instead. I have no desire to ever use Vista; it's terrible.

[jrusso2]

I still use Windows for somethings mostly media decoding and recoding as the applications just work better then the Linux ones.

[snakeeyes]

I started running Linux when I saw the Aero vs Beryl video for the first time. Anyway I still run Windows in virtualbox for Microsoft Office and use OS X as well.

[samwyse]

I went from Windows 98 (XP was too late for me) to Red Hat Linux / Fedora Core, because Linux was more interesting and fun and I could get it (and it's updates) legally without cost. I left Fedora for Kubuntu to have a KDE distro.

[LuisAugusto]

I heard a lot of good things about it, so I gave it a shoot.

That was around 2 years ago, 6 months later I erased Windows XP.

Is really Linux as good as they made me believe? No. Was it better than Windows XP? Yes, and I learned a lot using it, however, there were a lot application lacking (and still).

[GamingMazter]

Cool ones again guys...just found out that one of my mates from school has a cousin who is a developer on UBUNTU! Awsome!

[venator260]

I didn't have a definitivel 'move'. It was a slow transition.

Ubuntu was suggested to me by a friend as something that I could try. Being the type that likes to fiddle around with things, I set up a dual boot with Windows Xp on my Dell. I used it awhile simply because of the newness of it, and gradually found that I liked the way that things were done in Ubuntu better than doing the same tasks in Xp. Speed was also another factor. Ubuntu is much faster than Windows at starting up, shutting down, and opening programs, as well as navigating through folders. The lack of viruses and spyware is quite nice as well.

Also, I have no hope of being able to afford a new PC in the medium term future (2 years at least), so Ubuntu allows me to have an up to date operating system, whilst still only having 512mb of RAM, which, while Microsoft says that my desktop will run Vista, I've heard enough to know that it wouldn't be a pleasant experience. And really, why would I want to pay for Vista when I can get a better operating system new every 6 months for the cost of a blank cd?

[argie]

Just for fun. But then I got hooked and can't return to any other way.

[Drakx]

I did'nt I have an intel iMac with OS X 10.5 and a laptop with Arch, I bought the mac because I wanted OS X and fell in love with it and got the laptop for ubuntu but found it was too slow for my liking and then I refound arch and again fell in love with it.

[macogw]

I wanted to learn something new, so I was going to go from Windows to OSX. Then I remembered I hate one-button mice (and I'd used OSX a bit before and disliked it), so I thought I'd try Linux. I tried Damn Small Linux to see if Linux had GUIs yet (hey for all I knew it was all command line still), and figured I could handle Fluxbox OK. Then I got a beginners book and it recommended Mandriva, so I was going to buy Mandriva, and a kid at school said I should get Ubuntu instead of paying for Mandriva. I like GNOME better than KDE anyway.

[ryanlhjess]

Personally,

I got quite tired of using Windows XP as my primary operating system. It is an old operating system, and it seemed that every day i was having to run spyware cleaners not because of negligence on my part, but simply because the day to day internet life seems to make windows dirty.

So i switched to vista, that was the worst way i have ever spent two hundred dollars.

In an honest act of desperation i turned to the o/s that i played with a bit in college and high school. To my surprise Linux had grown up beautifully. I've switched for four months and ill never turn back.

[lestatxxx]

Hmmmm, because linux owns? XD

I never really liked *******, eventhough it was the first OS branch that I used. After making the switch I felt so relieved that I did so. I'm currently enrolled in my programming course in college, and I think that linux will be much help with it. Although I use linux more often, I still keep an XP partition since I heard I'll have to use .Net and Visual Basic.

Anyways, linux has much more opportunities for anyone compared to any other OS, and therefore it rox :D.,.

[pijits]

I wanted to try something new, go against the norm. I discovered the power and customization ability of Ubuntu and was instantly hooked.

[wahr]

While I'll probably be forced to wait until my ppc machine is replaced (for gaming purposes), I'm seeking to switch to linux from mac for increasingly numerous small factors.


Factor 1 - I use my computers primarily as media centers, and have migrated to OSS for these apps.
Specifically: The "upgrade" from qt6 to qt7 fried video performance, and the increasingly pervasive matroska is still not properly supported in qt, meaning I've already migrated to mplayer and VLC as my primary media apps. I've been using mencoder for the vast majority of my transcoding as well because of quicktime's propensity to break components, even on minor hotfixes. (given what i've said I find this quote highly amusing)

I still use Windows for somethings mostly media decoding and recoding as the applications just work better then the Linux ones.

Factor 2 - While every other upgrade to OSX provided increased functionality and also increased responsiveness, the upgrade to Leopard has introduced considerable bloat, and the computer shows it. This departure from the KISS principle is present in other apps as well. Itunes has gone from a lean, unobtrusive, fully functional music platform to an over-bloated monstrosity designed primarily to sell you downloads. Ilife represents the worst transgression, however. Ilife '08 suites take a full minute on my primary machine (twin 2.7ghz 2 gigs of ram) to perform minor tasks, and that's without any files loaded yet!

Factor 3- The increasingly intrusive and condescending attitude reflected in apple products through reduced functionality for advanced users.

It started with the "upgrade" to itunes adding a music store.. and stripping out webcasting. Through tiger the tradeoff was more beneficial than not for me, as the inconveniences were minor, and most importantly removable, while improvements were major.

Leopard has changed this, and is best characterized as an overt cold shoulder toward advanced users (the very same who provide the valuable freeware apps which bridge important compatibility gaps).

-In an effort to 'protect users from themselves', apple added so many nag screens to safari you'd think it was vista. There are no advanced settings to remove them.

-This forsaking of advanced users is also present in imovie 08, which stripped pretty much everything that made imovie useful. Indeed, this "dumbing down" caused such an uproar apple updated imovie 06 for leopard, but it's uncertain what they will do in the future.

-They reworked the guts of the UI, and refuse to release proper tools/documentation to allow theme tinkering which was previously possible, rendering such products as shapeshifter derelict.

-They changed software update to force restarts with pretty much every new install. Most advanced users enjoyed the capacity to force quit that installer after it was done. I understood it would affect system stability, but at least it allowed me to update without having to completely interrupt my workflow. I'm having flashbacks to windows 98, and the funny thing is I've had more KP's since leopard than all my time in panther and tiger.

-Finally, while their previous inclusion of DRM did not intrude on other domains in the platform, apple has now started crippling advanced tools (like debuggers for instance) in attempts to protect their precious DRM. Their stance has obviously shifted from a "you have to twist my arm" mindset to an almost canine obedience in implementing "defective by design" principles.



The initial phase of my formal re-investigation of the linux platform is encouraging.

I've found OSS clones of the major mac native apps I use, and am hunting down the remaining minor ones. Testing should reveal their viability, but the activity i've seen on the projects indicate good prospects.

I know from my experience back on 02 that the possibilities for theming are endless, and even found a theme which mimics tiger very well, and which I hope to research and modify should my migration be successful.

I've also been impressed with the progress linux has made since '02. The edges are much more polished and refined, usability has increased, more guides exist to help beginners into more advanced material, and distros are conforming better to a single standard, reducing the headache factor and dramatically improving daily desktop viability.

I look forward to the possibilities it offers me as a power user and novice programmer.

[zetetic]

This is just a thread to see why people changed from either a Windows or Mac computer OS to start running Ubuntu...my reason was that I really wanted to get Vista (mainly because of all the visual effects...Windows Aero etc..) on my Advent 7017 laptop (FROM MY SIGNATURE) but Vista need ridiculous requirements for your computer to be working with it. I gave up on it then and then discovered Ubuntu. I read about it and thought..."Well of course I'm gonna change...it (in my point of view anyway) is so much better than vista and whats even better that that is that all the stuff for it is totally free! What are your reasons?

Why would a person want to install an operating system because of its "visual effects" ??
Is an operating system a working tool or a shinning toy???

I really don't understand these type of people! What do they know about operating systems, if they choose them because of "visual effects" ?? Do they use their systems to study or to work, or just for showing off?? I don't get it!

I think these are frivolous people, at best!
Get a life!

[wahr]

Why would a person want to install an operating system because of its "visual effects" ??
Is an operating system a working tool or a shinning toy???


Because an OS, or anything else for that matter, should have form and function.

it's the reason I went mac back in early '03 (it had the looks, and more compatibility if you know how to use versiontracker and a shell)

it's the reason i'm re-examining linux again (i want even more function, and the form's always been there)

Even you subscribe to it. Imagine how ugly it would be if you went with pure function for your kitchen.. unfinished, roughly cut plywood doors, an abs plastic countertop, a fridge with no skin and all number of protruding bolts, a bare concrete floor...

[abrianb]

I had ran XP on my desktop for years, overtime my system slowed and became difficult to use. My hard drive also was being filled with windows updates. The only way to get any speed back was to dump and reinstall. I started to look for a solution and found Ubuntu. My same old machine ran faster and the desktop was more to my liking. After months of not using windows I dumped it. When I built a new desktop Ubuntu was my choice for OS. There are some flaws but I am Happier with it than with what I had before.