Comments on: How one Windows user came to switch to Linux

by: Chris

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 07:17:23 +0000

That isn’t a problem with Windows; that’s a problem with… c) him not knowing to use Firefox instead of (I assume) IE6

I fail to see how that is NOT a Microsoft fault. You are saying that IE is broken and if people use it and have problems then they can’t blame Microsoft??

That’s like saying “I bought a car, but the wheels fall off. But it’s not the manufacturer’s fault, I should have known to put on other wheels.” This fails to compute.

…there is information about how to simply and easily protect a Windows box all over the web

Once again, if Windows was any good you wouldn’t need to do all these extra things to protect it. Sounds like flawed technology to me.

-c

by: Leothelion

Tue, 27 Nov 2007 17:03:57 +0000

WinXP was first bundled with PCs with only 128Mb RAM, which was a throwback to the days of Windows 95 installed on PCs with 8Mb of RAM!! Swap…swap..swap..swap went the hard drives!

WinXP runs best with 512-1Gb of RAM, it does run on a fast P4 or Athlon with 256Mb if you are just using Office - those modern day multifunction printer drivers will kill it though! Onboard graphics and its dead too!

Vista is a total joke, it needs 2Gb - 1Gb is not enough.

This is all why I switched to Mac recently. My MacbookPro which comes with 2Gb RAM as standard was voted the fastest Vista laptop recently, but I’ve resisted the temptation.

My high-spec PC has been given away and I’ve been downgraded to Compaq P4 2.4 with 512Mb RAM and runs XP SP2 quite happily. It doesn’t run photo apps so I’m getting away with it (I would have 1Gb of RAM usually)

Alan

by: Mike

Mon, 22 Oct 2007 20:28:16 +0000

Rich Lee - the average Linux user only needs to put the Ubuntu live CD in the machine, reboot and select install. The rest happens by itself. I have Ubuntu running faster than xp on my laptop. Ubuntu is in a 10g partition and takes up 3gig of space. xp is in a 20gig partition with a 10gig windows rescue partition. They both have email and calendaring (outlook vs Evolution), Office suite ( office vs OpenOffice), web browsers (Firefox in both)

Yet some how Ubuntu fits in a little space while xp and office have bloated all over the place.

Bye bye microsoft.

by: RichLee

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 08:07:02 +0000

Walt. That isn’t a problem with Windows; that’s a problem with a) the guy’s kids, b) him not knowing how to set up (I assume XP) with multiple accounts, and c) him not knowing to use Firefox instead of (I assume) IE6. The world has moved on and there is information about how to simply and easily protect a Windows box all over the web, but folks are still choosing to blame MS for their own idiocy. Sure there are issues, but if this lot is the best you can come up with then Ifor one am far from convinced to switch.

…and that’s without going into my personal experience of installing and using linux on the desktop over the last few years.

Rich

by: Walt

Thu, 20 Sep 2007 02:57:13 +0000

I use Linux most of the time. My friend had trouble with his computer, P4 with 512mb of RAM, because his kids kept downloading crapware and it slowed the computer to the point it wouldn’t work at all. He was going to purchase a new machine. I told him to wait until I had a chance to fix it. I brought it home and installed Fedora Core 4 on it. His experienced changed greatly! No more slow machine, no more pop-ups (I got him using Firefox) no more crapware. Now, he is a happy newbie!

by: RichLee

Tue, 18 Sep 2007 10:10:51 +0000

The OP just proves he doesn’t know what he’s doing. How in hell will he cope with tarballs, compiling apps and even the kernel on a Linux box?

by: Matthew

Thu, 30 Aug 2007 15:41:10 +0000

Taz,

Excellent point about the need to reboot just to make it work “like it used too”… i use XP at work (os x and debian at home) and if i didn’t turn off my computer at work every night, i would be in the same plight… my os x machine usually has uptime of 20 days or more… my debian machine usually has uptimes of 40 days or more… i only reboot os x when i install new software… i never reboot debian unless i need to change out hardware or add ram or something…

power to the people… not to Micro$oft…

Matt

by: Taz

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 22:32:50 +0000

I concur, I’d really like to see how much tweaking is needed to XP “so it runs very smoothly with 256mb RAM”. But then this is a moot point now since even MSFT is encouraging the masses to abandon the “old ways” and embrace Vista…

I struggle to stay productively expedient using our “corporate standard” of the MSFT platform and tools such as MS Office… as the days roll by, should I resist the urge to reboot for respite, my laptop becomes slower and slower… things start to not work “like they used to”… and then a reboot and TADA! like new but only for a few days.

Alas, the corporate giants who “see far” - or at least to their golden parachute - hold me, a unix devotee, a prisoner in a Windoze world.

by: Matthew

Tue, 21 Aug 2007 22:17:26 +0000

So DaGuru…

XP will not run smoothly on 256MB RAM…. ok, let me rephrase that… unless you do a clean install of the OS from MS media (NOT OEM “Restore” Disks) and tweak any possible settings toward your particular hardware, XP will not run smoothly on 256MB of RAM… Win98SE barely ran smoothly on 256MB RAM…

now, my first computer was a Mac Classic II… grayscale monitor, 4MB RAM 40MB hard drive, 14.4 modem… that was a machine! running Mac System 7.5, I had a fully integrated GUI-based OS in 1993 and it flew… (Microsoft’s first fully integrated GUI was XP!)…. Steve Jobs and Woz are my heroes!!!

by: Edseverripit

Thu, 12 Jul 2007 01:42:40 +0000

I stumbled upon Linux four years ago out of curiousity and suprisingly, I use it a lot more than what’s on my other HD