I think I'm moving to Linux...

[LordIntruder]

Unless someone sets it up for you

Just a hint: exactly that is done in the whole windows world.
If you buy a new computer as a normal customer, the OS is still there, installed by manufacturer. If one of my customers buys a new computer built of parts, the OS is still there, installed by me.

From my point of view the installation of an OS, a driver, a piece of hardware or a piece of software is not the work a user should do. That is always the work of a professional.

Ubuntu 'Additional Drivers' or Mint 'Driver Manager'

Doesn't help if you have to compile the driver from source code or have to get it from a source out of your distro's sources.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Ubuntu 'Additional Drivers' or Mint 'Driver Manager'. Distro specific, I know (but we were talking Ubuntu), so I think you conceded unnecessarily.

No I had to hit the command line precisely because the software delivered by the GUI was the wrong version. Hardware support on the Linux side is just awful at times. The way the kernel modules work relative to the kernel itself is equally awful. It's efficient... and that's WHY Linux is generally more stable than Windows is the distinct lack of a HAL. But when you have driver issues with *Nix, you have driver issues with *nix. They aren't just a little annoying, they're system down, pulling your hair out nightmares.

But, once again since when is that not the same thing as Windows at times? Who hasn't had Windows Update install the wrong driver and then insist on reinstalling it? That process is no less annoying. Most of the time with say Ubuntu, all you do is install it and it has all it needs. Aptitude / Apt / Software Manager does the rest. It's Windows update easy MOST of the time.

LordIntruder is correct, installation and original configuration of the OS on any platform is the function of an OEM. That's not even a skill techs have, that's a specific skill only OEMs perform. Most techs just assume they're an OEM because they can install an OS. That's just now how it works. Being an OEM means making sure that software cooperates on all hardware platforms supported all of the time.

 

[Kirby]

Just a hint: exactly that is done in the whole windows world.
If you buy a new computer as a normal customer, the OS is still there, installed by manufacturer. If one of my customers buys a new computer built of parts, the OS is still there, installed by me.

"Installing the OS" and "Setting it up" are two completely different things. Installing the OS is saying, "Here's a computer". Setting it up is saying, "What do you want to do with it?" and then making that happen. So no, it's not "exactly" the way it works with Windows.

Once again I get an overly rosy picture of the similarities between Windows and Linux. I'm sorry, but Linux is more complicated than Windows. It just is. Google a common fix for a Windows problem and then Google the same fix for a Linux problem. One will give you answers in the command line and they will be long, complicated, case-sensitive and use a lot of symbols, particularly the underscore. Give a customer a vanilla Linux box and they won't know where to begin. What's more, they'll never, EVER figure it out on their own with no help and no searching the Internet. It's difficult in Windows if you know nothing about it, but it's at least possible to click on things until you get lucky. It is not possible AT ALL to click on things until you accidentally get the command line string necessary to connect to your wifi in Linux.

 

[Kirby]

I have to say, I looked up MINT and it's looking pretty exciting with the Cinnamon desktop environment. I'm downloading it now, but I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to try it. All of my computers are currently filling some need which I really don't want to interrupt. If M.2 SSD drives were cheap I'd buy one just to install this on my HTPC without deleting what's already there. I suppose I could get a small one, but I'm not a big fan of spending money on things I want. IF what I'm reading about this is true (but let's face it, Linux people tend to give a rosier-than-real picture of Linux), I may have to admit that I was wrong about modern Linux. Contrary to human nature, the possibility of admitting I was wrong in this case is actually pretty exciting! I WANT to be wrong because it would mean I could start using/supporting Linux after a brief adjustment period. But we'll see.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Just to jump in for a minute....
Many things in Windows seem easier to us techs..because, well...we've had pretty much the same thing since Windows 3.x. WIndows has been quite similar from 3.x all the way up to 7...and then some changes in 8 (which cause a huge uproar...people forced to learn a new thing...oh noze!) and again with Win10. But overall..things haven't changed much in how we IT guys perform those same tasks in Windows several hundred times a day...year after year after year.

When we're presented with something different..that we don't have memorized from already doing in a couple of kajillion times throughout our career...and we have to go look it up, we treat it as...different, difficult..."Cuz I don't know it already!"

I'm a linux novice. I have "some"..but minimal..experience in installing distros on laptops for my personal learning, and a tiny bit of exposure supporting it via business grade firewalls, controllers, and other appliances. I know nothing by heart. Every time I face some task to do at the command line...I turn to Google.

I gotta say that I find my *nix related answers just as easy via Google...as I find Windows answers via Google. Just yesterday I had a BSD based spam filter appliance refuse to boot up after a dirty shutdown. Had to go Google some /fsck commands to nurse it back to health. (it's version of checkdisk). Found the answer quick 'n easy via Google. Or a while ago I had to learn how to run a repair command against a certain type of database that had a tendency to corrupt easily. Found that quite quickly via Google.

Years ago I sorta picked up a hobby of building various linux based firewalls to try out at home. Mostly easy peasy stuff...make a bootable CD...follow the hand holding install wizard....once done everything done via browser to web GUI just like any other router. And then I got to trying various distros on some spare laptops I had...going to distrowatch.org and going down that list trying tons of 'em. Via Google..learned how to get things working like wireless adapters, or stubborn video controllers. Some distros require some research...how to add custom repositories. Yet other distros are so full of options...meant to be totally usable by the noobie Windows convert...and they really are. There are some distros out there which come fully packed...ready to roll! You can't make a blanket statement about linux being too difficult.

I thoroughly enjoyed playing with various linux distros. I dug into them at a time when I became bored with Windows 2K and XP, and even more when the horrendous Vista came out. I wanted a reliable laptop distro. But once 7 came out...I was fine with that. And the reality is, I make my living with Microsoft...we're a company of 5, we have about 250 active business clients, over 5,000 computers we manage out there...and not one "end user" computer is linux. All Microsoft Windows. Just some linux appliances such as firewalls or spam appliances, a couple of NVRs, oddball things like that. Rarely do we have to work on them other than through a GUI on a day to day basis. But when I do need to roll up my sleeves to get something done, honestly a Google search is just as resourceful as a search for how to do something on Windows Server powershell or whatever.

 

[LordIntruder]

"Installing the OS" and "Setting it up" are two completely different things.

Sorry, my mistake. So iirc actual Desktop Distros will be easy to handle if there's not the most exoctic hardware in it. At the moment I am trying elementary os on one of my thinkpads. Worked out of the box if we talk about wired/wireless network connection. I really can't cotton up to that distro because there's too much missing that I need. Yes, I talk about all these things one can do outside the given frame. But maybe it's worth a look to get the experience that there are linux distros behaving like windows (except the bluescreens or scrwed things afert running updates).

 

[Kirby]

...

I don't deny that Linux is a whole lot more "fun" than Windows for the techy type. That's just a given. However, the types of problems you and I Google verses the types of problems general users Google are very different. There are some incredibly complex fixes for Windows problems, many of which require the command line and, yes, from that point I can see it being very similar. What I'm talking about is the general user. I'm talking about the type of person who "downloads" a program and then wonders why they can't find an icon for it (because they haven't "installed" it after downloading it). For this type of person Windows is a whole lot easier, not just because they're used to it, but because the answers are similar; because Windows is easier.

Most simple questions in Windows can be answered with the same few answers, usually involving click, double-click, right-click and drag. For similar tasks you do similar things. If you want to do something to a thing, right-click on that thing and what you want to do is almost always in the list. So it's easy to say, "If you want to do something to the Desktop, right-click on the Desktop". It doesn't matter if you want to change the wallpaper or resolution, create a shortcut or folder or even create a simple text file, the instructions are the same. Contrast that with the answers I got in this thread for creating a shortcut on a Linux Desktop. NONE of them involved doing something to the Desktop directly. I go to where the program shortcuts are, right-click, copy, right-click on the Desktop, paste. Or I go to the web page and drag and drop. Two similar problems, two different answers. In Windows I start with the place I want to change and follow the menus from there. In Linux I start with what I'm looking for and, using completely different methods which I simply have to know ahead of time, work my way toward the destination. That's more difficult. In Windows if you know a single thing you can figure out a dozen tasks. But in Linux, at least with the answers I got here, you have to know a dozen things. That's the very definition of "harder to use".

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

I'm the same way the once every two or three months I have to sit down in front of a MAC..and I can't find where I downloaded something or how the heck I launch a program. I gotta Google even the simplest task that I'm sure a regular MAC user would roll their eyes at me and say "Are you serious? You're a computer guy for 25 years and you don't know how to do that?" <on a MAC>. I chalk it up to a familiarity thing. Yet at the same time I can do incredibly complex things in a Windows box while standing upside down and sleeping with both hands behind my back..cuz Id do them each and every day a few hundred times.

 

[Kirby]

Sorry, my mistake. So iirc actual Desktop Distros will be easy to handle if there's not the most exoctic hardware in it. At the moment I am trying elementary os on one of my thinkpads. Worked out of the box if we talk about wired/wireless network connection. I really can't cotton up to that distro because there's too much missing that I need. Yes, I talk about all these things one can do outside the given frame. But maybe it's worth a look to get the experience that there are linux distros behaving like windows (except the bluescreens or scrwed things afert running updates).

Not a problem at all.

When it comes to drivers I don't even expect the basic user to be able to do that themselves, so that's not an issue, at least for me. Drivers confuse people anyway. Most people don't even know what they are, how they work, why they're needed, etc. If you want to install the latest and greatest hardware on your Linux machine, that's awesome, but you really can't expect it to "just work". Even in Windows it usually doesn't "just work". And you also can't expect that every piece of hardware is going to have Linux support right away. If the end-user is trying to choose, buy and install their own hardware it's really their own fault if they didn't bother to do enough research to see if it had Linux support.

As for the blue screens, at this point Microsoft should just make a blue screen error the default Windows 10 background. My favorites are the ones that shut everything down immediately without bothering to keep a process going to put some info in the log files. Those are fun. Even better is Microsoft's pathetic attempt to fix problems for you automatically, something Microsoft has NEVER been good at, so we never let them do it, so they just took away our ability to stop them from doing it along with removing all information from the screen which might possibly be useful.

 

[Kirby]

I'm the same way the once every two or three months I have to sit down in front of a MAC..and I can't find where I downloaded something or how the heck I launch a program. I gotta Google even the simplest task that I'm sure a regular MAC user would roll their eyes at me and say "Are you serious? You're a computer guy for 25 years and you don't know how to do that?" <on a MAC>. I chalk it up to a familiarity thing. Yet at the same time I can do incredibly complex things in a Windows box while standing upside down and sleeping with both hands behind my back..cuz Id do them each and every day a few hundred times.

LOL, it kind of sounds like the reason you threw "sleeping" in that list is because, with your hands behind your back, you needed morning wood to pull it off.

But yeah, the differences between Windows and Mac are definitely familiarity. And to be honest about it (and I'm about to make a whole lot more people extremely unhappy with me) the thing I hate most about Macs is Mac users. Not all of them, mind you, but they tend to be a little...I guess "pompous" is the word. A few years ago Apple announced some great new innovation. It was astounding! You could long-press the single button on the Mac mouse to get a context menu! (Never mind that the greater innovation would be to simply add a second button!) I read some of the responses to the article and many Mac users said things like, "You can already do that! All you have to do is hold down the Apple key when you click!" I never knew that. Yes, it's a familiarity thing largely, but it's not intuitive. Why would I even think to do something with the keyboard when I click the mouse? What logical sense does that make? The long-press, that is at least something an average person could have a guess at. A second button triggers the "What's this button do?" mentality and pretty much automatically teaches users its function, but that's beside the point.

Apple is also very hostile toward small business. When I was looking at doing iPhone repairs I had 2 options for screens. The first was "official" and cost about $180. The second was "crap" and cost about $60 with complaints that the coating peeled off after about a month. Obviously I couldn't use the second option if I didn't want customers hunting me down. Then I looked up what it cost to have Apple repair it. With an appointment at an Apple store it would cost you 45 minutes and $149. I don't often say this among Mac people, but I loathe Apple entirely, and it has nothing to do with the Mac vs PC mentality. I know it's a fine computer and I know that the OS is in some ways superior to Windows. I don't like the company because they don't like me. It's as simple as that. The most profitable non-religious corporation in the world has a problem with small businesses making money. So f$#% Apple! I've never owned an Apple product and I likely never will. At least not unless and until they are a whole lot friendlier to small business.

 

[LordIntruder]

So f$#% Apple! I've never owned an Apple product and I likely never will.

Even if it is a little bit off topic (but really just a little bit because the Mac OS is also a *ix system): I bought myself an used apple iphone 5s because lots of my customers asked me if I have experience with a smartphone. I always answered "yes" and then got an iphone in front of my eyes. wtf? An iphone is NOT a smartphone. At that point I bought my iphone to learn how it works, what I find where and so on. I am a technician doing his job with heart and soul and because of that I often take an a little bit unusual way to grow my experience with things I don't know.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

LOL, it kind of sounds like the reason you threw "sleeping" in that list is because, with your hands behind your back, you needed morning wood to pull it off..

Either a good wild guess, or you know me from another forum where I have a joke based on that in my signature line...LOL.

Much as I love playing the Microsoft tech who hates and jokes about Apples...what did I get my parents 3 years ago? An iMac.

 

[GTP]

I'm downloading it now, but I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to try it.

Burn it to a DVD or USB and run it as a live environment.
This way you could test it on ALL your computers to see how well hardware is supported.

Edit: Oh and while we're on "hardware support" I - like many others here - have used Linux "live environments" to test hardware issues on computers where Windows has an issue.
I've never had to go find/compile/search for a driver to make a piece of hardware work.
Just my .02

 

[Sky-Knight]

If you stick with good quality, popular hardware. You really won't have to do much digging. You just have to make sure the hardware is at least six months older than the release date of the OS you're using and for the most part... it just runs.

But, I'm an OEM, I build hardware platforms to support all sorts of *nix based routers and firewalls. And these days I spend a fair bit of time arguing with the tuning on Intel 10gbit fiber interface drivers. It's not hard, but it's not easy... and Google? Yeah... Google is useless.

When you're doing a search for a fix on a Windows problem, everyone here has a built in experience filter to automatically dive through the stupid. You'll often find several wrong answers before you even find something you're willing to attempt. This reality exists for any given Linux distribution as well, except with the lack of an experience filter you're left dredging through the worst possible ideas before you maybe, trip over something that works.

For anyone curious about Linux Mint, you have four UIs to choose from. Cinnamon is the full featured release, very friendly but heavy. Mate is good too, the difference is personal preference. I do NOT recommend the KDE version, largely because KDE is just not quite keeping up in my opinion. But that fourth option? Xfce, keep that one in your toolbox. That's the lightest UI you're ever going to get and still be GUI. So if you need a live environment that can basically run on anything, even ancient things, that's your grab. For those that are curious, Untangle uses Xfce on its graphical desktop because it's lightweight.

 

[frase]

I use Mint on a dual boot Win10 system

 

[GTP]

For anyone curious about Linux Mint, you have four UIs to choose from.

Actually you could have more than a dozen choices. Widowmaker, LXQT, Ratpoison, Gnome, Deepin, Xmonad, Pantheon just to name a few.
Personally, I prefer LXDE. It's lightweight, fast and still keeps all the GUI'y things so its not too far from a familiar desktop.
KDE PLasma looks "beautiful" like Enlightenment but is totally useless for working imo.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Actually you could have more than a dozen choices. Widowmaker, LXQT, Ratpoison, Gnome, Deepin, Xmonad, Pantheon just to name a few.
Personally, I prefer LXDE. It's lightweight, fast and still keeps all the GUI'y things so its not too far from a familiar desktop.
KDE PLasma looks "beautiful" like Enlightenment but is totally useless for working imo.

Yes, technically that's true of any Linux. But I was referring to the four default configurations Mint offers.

 

[GTP]

To keep in context of your statement, yes any of the four would be suitable for anyone testing the Linux water.
But I think Mint offer a LXDE version as well, it's just not advertised, although I just searched their site and can't see it now?
Easy enough to install with the Package manager or Terminal...
I did see an LMDE version for Debian enthusiasts.

 

[NJW]

I'm downloading it now, but I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to try it. All of my computers are currently filling some need which I really don't want to interrupt.

As @Barcelona says, you can use the live CD as-is. Alternatively, if you already have Virtualbox on one of your machines, put Mint in there. It will happily install in 20 GB, with space left over for real-world testing (and a dynamically-allocated virtual disk will only require the in-use space).

 

[Kirby]

Either a good wild guess, or you know me from another forum where I have a joke based on that in my signature line...LOL.

Much as I love playing the Microsoft tech who hates and jokes about Apples...what did I get my parents 3 years ago? An iMac.

That's just what it sounded like to me, so "a good wild guess". And a Mac is a good computer for those less technically inclined. It's basically the same learning curve as Windows without many of the issues which frustrate users. I wouldn't call myself a Mac hater (though I don't know much about them), I'm more an Apple hater in general.

Burn it to a DVD or USB and run it as a live environment.
This way you could test it on ALL your computers to see how well hardware is supported.

Edit: Oh and while we're on "hardware support" I - like many others here - have used Linux "live environments" to test hardware issues on computers where Windows has an issue.
I've never had to go find/compile/search for a driver to make a piece of hardware work.
Just my .02

A good suggestion. I actually forgot Linux could do that.

When it comes to hardware, I don't expect Linux to have support for everything. But usually it can come up with something which will work, if not utilize all the bells and whistles. At least from my experience, that is. I don't have a whole lot of recent experience.

As @Barcelona says, you can use the live CD as-is. Alternatively, if you already have Virtualbox on one of your machines, put Mint in there. It will happily install in 20 GB, with space left over for real-world testing (and a dynamically-allocated virtual disk will only require the in-use space).

Another good idea I hadn't considered, and actually better for my situation. I have 2 computers here at work, one on my desk and one on the bench. The one on the bench I just remote into. It has K/V/M, but it's in the corner of the bench under which I shove things, so it's not something I can comfortably "work at". And the one on my desk runs QuickBooks and such, so it can't really be down. A reboot and load of QuickBooks takes forever. So a VM would be ideal, though on emulated hardware, I believe. But I can check out everything except the hardware part doing this. Mounting drives and such is a major part of what I do here, but not the only thing I do.

That brings a question to mind. How is Linux for mounting a damaged drive? Windows, for some stupid reason in the error of multi-core, multi-threaded processors, still treats drive access like the computer can't do ANYTHING until it figures out this drive. The whole system is basically useless while it's trying to determine if it can read anything or not. Is Linux less poorly designed for such tasks?