It’s all about the applications and whether they help you get the job done.

When you’re a professional photographer, you need Lightroom or Aperture and Photoshop. The GIMP is not even close to being an alternative.

When you’re a musician, you need Ableton Live, Propellerhead Reason or Logic Studio.

When you are a medical doctor, you need software like Albis or MediStar (both products for the German market) to manage your office.

When you’re writing novels or screenplays, you want software like Scrivener (Mac-only) or Montage (Mac-only). You certainly do NOT want crap like Microsoft Word or OpenOffice.org Writer.

When you are editing movies, you want stuff like Final Cut Studio.

What you don’t want to do, unless you’re a geek, is study arcane commands and learn magical (GUI) tools like ‘Synaptics Package Manager’ and try to find something that might be useful in there.

The problem is that most GNU/Linux users just don’t get the idea. A computer is just a tool, and it better be a good one that’s not getting in your way. The computer has to help its user, not the other way ’round. A good tool is intuitive and easy to use and does not require the user to get a degree in computer science first.

I’ve got a laptop with WXP preinstalled (of course) about two years ago. I tried Linux but found that I would risk my hardware to overheat. (Some wierd ACPI-issue) So I obviously didn’t pursue it further.

But then some weeks later I got it: The Ubuntu Gutsy beta disk
With a current kernel the ACPI problem was gone and I could try Linux.

Long story short I’ve switched on my laptop from WXP to Ubuntu and on my desktop from W2K to Ubuntu and I’m happy with it since about 8 months now.

Now the twist:
Wanting to play “Company of Heroes” I needed WXP (yuck) and when my friend (he is the one who inspired me to try Linux with his Debian on his laptop) came by and showed how he played C&C on his WXP I really needed to play “real” games again. So I did it. Dual boot.

Windows takes the same time to boot to the first prompt of the install CD as Ubuntu takes to boot to the full fledged live-environment.

Windows asks questions during install requiring constant attention, Ubuntu has 8(!) simple questions up front and has done with it.

But the real shock was when I had installed WXP and even the network-drivers where missing. (That stuff works just fine with Ubuntu)
I had to pull some weird stunts involving a Ubuntu desktop and an USB-memory-stick to get the contents of the (2.5 GiB!) driver pack from HP for my laptop unpacked.

Since I had that experience I’ll never think that Linux has bad hardware support again.

And I’m not even talking about all that configuration that was necessary to get WXP on a base usability level, or the activation process, or the really bad CLI.

- Rechteck

Well, I am one of the posters who disagreed; however, I don’t see it that way. Right? Wrong? Nope. I didn’t want you to burn your time; yes, it is your time and you can do with it as you choose.

“But my heart goes to the rarest of you out there. A very special group. Those who used Windows, then switched to Linux for some months, and then decided to go back to Windows. I really respect you for making an informed decision (unlike most Windows users). I also pity you for not having the great first Linux experience I had. Guess I got lucky with my hardware.”

Well, I use Windows not by choice but out of necessity. Here are a few simple items that has not been worked out.

1) Active X. One of the few things that I need. Well, actually I dislike it; I would prefer the world to actually embrace a (non-commercial) standard.
2) Crazy / insane MS Word documents. Sorry, but VBA doesn’t belong in documents or spreadsheets, but alas I need it. OO.o does 100% of what I do with it; however, the documents that I get don’t always translate, rare but it happens. For the record, I do use OO.o for 99% of what I need; but I have MS Office for everything else; ie: the documents that I receive.

So, don’t dish out pity. It bothers me more that you know.

As for “teh Linux r0xx0rz”, I’m an avid *NIX user but I’m also a graphic designer. My problem (some say addiction) is that I’m dependent on Adobe’s Photoshop. I’ve created lovely works of art with Inkscape but GIMP doesn’t cut it. Maybe I haven’t tried hard enough?

Anyway, what got me to Linux was the hype — the hype of trying something different. Everybody has it, few admit it, some find it lame and stick to current (ugly) solutions. So, I tried and it worked. Since then I tried promoting my new experiment. Whilst everyone had a word in my presentation, few actually tried it. Why? Basic fear which we all have — fear of the unknown.

BUT, when I stick on a GNU beard and started acting rugged — naah, you ‘s a script kiddie, you absolutely can not handle this — some started pondering! And so, today, three out of my fellowship of six have a UNIX clone on their home computers. They adore it, clothe it, worship it and (of course) brag about it.

Conclusion: None of my friends payed for Winschmlows so the price is not an issue. Few of my friends dared confessing to be incompetent schmucks who can’t handle it. The others — they’re writing academic papers in LaTeX and have never been happier.

j_secreto

The geeks will switch and they’ll bring some friends and family along with them. (I know I did.) After all, updating anti-virus and scanning, and checking firewalls is work to the average user as well. Linux has less of that, so they’ll like it once they get there.