Why have I gone back to windows

[Drifter]

I have been trying to get the hang of ubuntu for a little while. I really like the idea behind it. It is just too hard to learn the command line, and it seems that you must know that to get along in linux. I have not given up yet, but I have formated my drive that had ubuntu on it, and made it a slave to windows. I do appreciate all the help that I received in the forums. I will give it another try later. The two things that I could not get to work for me was: 1. Backing up my movies, 2. geting gnucash to work. Windows is really not that bad, it is just that it is costing too much and will go higher I believe. Ubuntu has the right idea and I support it, but until things get to the point where I can master the command line I will not be able to use it as much as I would like. I do have a small harddrive that still has unbuntu on it but I do not have it in my computer, so I could still switch out and use it. I think I will wait and see what the next distro has. I will still be reading the forums etc. Keep up the good work and thanks, I shall return.

[aysiu]

It is just too hard to learn the command line, and it seems that you must know that to get along in linux. It may seem that way at first, but it's true only for Ubuntu and certain other distributions. You won't need the command line for Linspire or Mepis.

I highly recommend Mepis for you.

[poofyhairguy]

Yeah, Gnucash does need to be modernized.

[rjwood]

kmymoney2 is really an excellent banking software.
I hope all goes well for you. How will you learn the command line without using it?
Sometimes I feel like a complete idiot with Linux but, at this point, I've decided it is the only way for me. It's not easy but I have some time to devote myself to learning. And the community here makes that part easy enough.

[angrykeyboarder]

kmymoney2 is really an excellent banking software.

And it looks 100x better than GNUCash. I'll never understand why GNUCash is more popular.

I hear GNUCash is finally (!) coming out with a beta of a long-overdue GTK2 version.

[tom-ubuntu]

I had the same problem years ago, everything was alien to me. And believe me, you needed the commandline much more then today ;) But do you know what I did? I get rid of Windows, just installed Linux and just did my usual task. If I didnt' get something to work, I learned enough to complete this task. This way, I get all my work done; slower but I completed it. And I leared everything about Linux I needed to know for my daily stuff.

Now after a few years, I still need to learn new things from time to time. But mostly I can do it as good or even better then in Windows. Now this looks alien to me sometimes ;) Just invest some time, it it worth it. At least it was for me.

[dosed150]

i dont completely understand the command line stuff but whenever i have problems i come here or check the wiki

[Iandefor]

It takes a certain amount of dedication to leaving Windows to really just immerse yourself into a different environment. It's totally understandable to keep Windows until you feel comfortable with some other OS, but I agree with rjwood; the best way to learn to use the command line is to use it. Man pages are a great resource, I've found :).



until things get to the point where I can master the command line I will not be able to use it as much as I would like
The command line is not about to get any easier lol. Good luck learning it anyways!

[Vlammetje]

I don't truly understand the command line but I keep trying. I also jotted down a list of commands I'm likely to encounter again... and I'm learning something new every day.

I totally agree the command line can be very very overwhelming... but I find that ones learns best by doing ;)

I've executed commands I've picked up on these forums (thank heaven for the community here!) that I definitely did NOT understand... that were way over my head.... thanksfully they all did as promised and my system and I have emerged better ;)

[jdong]

Sorry to hear that Linux didn't work out for you. Pleased to hear that you'll be checking back once in a while... Switching to a new OS cold turkey is tough -- I transitioned myself into Linux slowly, and it took nearly a year before all my Windows needs were satisfied by Linux (mind you, this was in the days of Phoenix 0.4 [now called Firefox ;)]), so yeah, it takes time to get used to.

[teaker1s]

cold turkey for me and several weeks I thought what have I done and why would I stay with ubuntu and some comand line?

then I realised that learning several useful commands gave me control no matter what gui I had and unlike windows the wheel wasn't reinvented every release.

Plus any support issues I found windows sites wanted cash to suggest a fix. Ubuntu I had friendly help and If the wilki didn't help then other debian based wilkis provided the solution

So all in all free software great support, flexibility to change any
elements I wanted.

[angrykeyboarder]

It takes a certain amount of dedication to leaving Windows to really just immerse yourself into a different environment. It's totally understandable to keep Windows until you feel comfortable with some other OS, but I agree with rjwood; the best way to learn to use the command line is to use it. Man pages are a great resource, I've found :).


The command line is not about to get any easier lol. Good luck learning it anyways!
I'm OK with the command line for basic tasks. But if we're talking bash scripts or anthing involving "grep" then forget it (and I've been using Linux on an off since 1999). :-)

On the other hand, every time I use Windows I find myself trying to use Bash commands on the Windows comand line (and actually finding Windows command line more cumbersome).

What would be nice is a Bash equivllant of .cmd or .bat files. Bash scripts are just too complex for me.

[jdong]

On the other hand, every time I use Windows I find myself trying to use Bash commands on the Windows comand line (and actually finding Windows command line more cumbersome).

Cygwin is your buddy :). A port of most Linux command-line tools over to Windows, and blends in quite well with Windows commands.



What would be nice is a Bash equivllant of .cmd or .bat files. Bash scripts are just too complex for me.
Bash scripts are the same thing as batch files, only capable of more advanced tricks. But for example:



#!/bin/bash
cp file1 file2
mkdir folder
mv file2 folder
echo "done"


is a simple batch file style bash script. I don't see that any more complicated than a .bat file :)

[angrykeyboarder]

Cygwin is your buddy :). A port of most Linux command-line tools over to Windows, and blends in quite well with Windows commands.
I've played around with Cygwin. I've never warmed up to it for some reason. I'm not sure why.


Bash scripts are the same thing as batch files, only capable of more advanced tricks. But for example:



#!/bin/bash
cp file1 file2
mkdir folder
mv file2 folder
echo "done"

is a simple batch file style bash script. I don't see that any more complicated than a .bat file :)
Agreed, but this is about the simplest example I ever recall seeing. It's even missing brackets. ;-)

BTW, why is that first line necessary when it's commented out anyway? I've noticed it in every Bash script I've come across.

[jdong]

Agreed, but this is about the simplest example I ever recall seeing. It's even missing brackets. ;-)

This is just about what .bat files are capable of doing... If you're asking for the advanced power of Unix shell scripts without learning new constructs ([ ] / test), that's a bit unreasonable, don't you think?

There are Internet articles available with TONS of examples of shell scripts -- I'm sure you can adapt one of them to your needs with little effort.



BTW, why is that first line necessary when it's commented out anyway? I've noticed it in every Bash script I've come across.
The "#!" comment on the first line has special meaning... (It's called the hash-bang, in case you're on a trivia show)

It instructs the shell the name of the interpretor. A Python program would start with #!/usr/bin/python, and Python would be called instead of Bash to interpret the contents.

It's not really "commented out", it just coincindentally starts with the same character as the comment.

[Iandefor]

Agreed, but this is about the simplest example I ever recall seeing. It's even missing brackets. :wink:

BTW, why is that first line necessary when it's commented out anyway? I've noticed it in every Bash script I've come across.
Brackets? In a script? Weird. From the Advanced BASH Scripting guide:

The sha-bang (#!) at the head of a script tells your system that this file is a set of commands to be fed to the command interpreter indicated. The #! is actually a two-byte [1] is a magic number, a special marker that designates a file type, or in this case an executable shell script (type man magic for more details on this fascinating topic). Immediately following the sha-bangpath name is the path to the program that interprets the commands in the script, whether it be a shell, a programming language, or a utility. This command interpreter then executes the commands in the script, starting at the top (line following the sha-bang line), ignoring comments.[2] So, #!/bin/sh just says it's a script and that you use the basic shell "sh" to interpret the commands in the script.

PS: Sha-bang or Hash-bang? Anyone who knows for certain which it is, do tell!

[jdong]

Brackets? In a script? Weird.


I think he means these constructs:


if [ "$1" = "boo" ] ; then
echo "Option 1"
else
echo "Option 2"
fi

[angrykeyboarder]

This is just about what .bat files are capable of doing... If you're asking for the advanced power of Unix shell scripts without learning new constructs ([ ] / test), that's a bit unreasonable, don't you think?

You can't take a joke, son? ;-) My point was that I can't recall coming across a script that was so simple. They typically "intimidate" me (and almost always have brackets in them, hence my comment).



There are Internet articles available with TONS of examples of shell scripts -- I'm sure you can adapt one of them to your needs with little effort. I'm sure. I just have to figure out what those needs are. ;-)


The "#!" comment on the first line has special meaning... (It's called the hash-bang, in case you're on a trivia show)
Heh.


It instructs the shell the name of the interpretor. A Python program would start with #!/usr/bin/python, and Python would be called instead of Bash to interpret the contents.

It's not really "commented out", it just coincidentally starts with the same character as the comment.
I figured the "#" had a purpose other than what I'm accustomed to. I just didn't know how to refer to it.

Thanks!

[jdong]

So you think .bat files can do more than my simple shell script example? ;)

[Iandefor]

I think he means these constructs
Aha... thanks for clearing that up; the mention of brackets really confused me because I assumed, for no good reason,that he meant curly brackets.

[Cuppa-Chino]

hmm interesting the discussion drifted far away from the original problem...

later posts all seem to be more detailed discussion about one command line or another etc...

I think the original posters issue are not uncome to Newbie (including myself) - I spent hours and hours setting up my computer (I had to do several installs from nothing) and I finally got most of it running... (I always has a Windo$ copy on the hd so I could still log in to stuff and get help)

then I realised my webcam had never been tested, soon learned - first hand - of the webcam crash problem and found wiki to help and install the driver..

but since then I have been desparately just to get the internet back up and running ... it is incredible frustrating, incredibly - the system crashes during boot half the time ndiswrapper + wpa_supplicant do not play with each other any more, have reinstalled the kernel (although that means another ati video driver install etc) and so on ...

I think this is the issue for many of us (and I consider myself somewhat geeky) the frustration is really high, things have gotten better but stuff often requires lots of doctoring and sometimes you just cannot get anything back, I am now at a total miss - I have NO IDEA what else to do to get the wireless back to work but I just cannot face another harddisk format & install

... that is the problem

EDIT
ps I am still browsing now on any help I can find (and also pulling my hair!)