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Exodus
Your Daddy
Premium Member
join:2001-11-26
Earth

1 recommendation

Exodus to cp

Premium Member

to cp

Re: Linux Everywhere?

Linux is getting larger in the PC market as well. For nearly two decades, I've been fixing people's home computers and quite often I would need to reload Windows. For quite a while, hardware was shit. Even when new hardware came out, it was slow as shit. Today, old hardware is still fantastic when it comes to most PC user tasks. The problem is that Windows still craps out after a few years of usage and requires a reinstall. When folks are running Windows XP with their OEM hardware, they realize they can't find their original XP disk. When I load Win7 on their machine, I realize that there aren't drivers for half the stuff out there.

On top of that, I'm constantly fielding calls about slowness or shit breaking or whatever from family and friends because of Windows. I started putting Linux Mint on the machines that were solid enough to use (hardware) but too out of date to have drivers for Win7/8.

I never get a call again. I actually had to call back to make sure they didn't just give up and throw the thing away only to find out that it runs faster than their machine ever did and it runs fast every day. They're able to find all the shit they need and then some. No problems.

With the SteamOS announced and cross-platform development in mind, you'll probably see Windows take a huge shit as soon as people can get the same kind of gaming performance (or better) from a Linux rig over Windows.
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

BlitzenZeus

Premium Member

That's 3rd party planned obsolesce, it's not uncommon on old xp hardware, and when 3rd party hardware companies didn't want to make signed or 64-bit drivers for windows on hardware they were no longer selling after a required new change it wasn't microsofts fault. Nvidia bought out 3Dfx, and refused to release xp drivers for my expensive voodoo3 gaming card of those days which were currently in beta, some people tried to modify the 2k/9x drivers, however they were a hack job at best. If I stayed on 9x the card worked for gaming, but there never was an official release to support gaming on xp. There was also a major changes between 2k, and xp where gaming support was added where previously people needed 9x for gaming.

Linux is not so great on the pc, I've had to make a script to run a debian command in operating systems like ubuntu as I was literally dragging my mouse across my desk as it barely moved on the screen, and the gui controls didn't make it fast enough. The mouse worked fine in windows with the default microsoft drivers so the problem was clearly on the linux side. It tried to use my hardware transceiver as a bluetooth dongle, and never let it make the simple keyboard and mouse connections which worked outside of the installed os to install the os, along with the keyboard worked in the bios. The drivers for linux are a hack job quite a bit of the time with little to no official support, and even when there is official support it's not always great. Having two monitors on my nvidia card was such a problem many linux live cds just refused to load for example, and I had to at least try alternative installers if they were available at all. If you have a crappy intel igpu you're golden most of the time. I don't see the point in having linux if I can't run my games in it reliably, and if I'm going to use windows for games I might as well just use windows as it works well.

Linux is not a no problems solution.

ImpldConsent
Scouts Out
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join:2001-03-04
North Port, FL
·Comcast XFINITY

ImpldConsent

Premium Member

said by BlitzenZeus:

Linux is not so great on the pc

My guess this is your personal experience with your personal PC. I, personally, find my 2006-era laptop in peak form running Xubuntu and can certainly play any of the Steam games that I own on it. I could not say the same when bloatware-XP was on it. I found, after hours of updates, that XP was sluggish and jittery.
I also love the community based support that *nix enjoys. 9/10 all I need is a nudge in the right direction and I've received my answer. I also experienced this with *doze, but not near as fun anymore if I can't hit the terminal (command prompt).
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

BlitzenZeus

Premium Member

Oh yeah the old "my decade my old pos which was bought with the minimal hardware of those days somehow runs better with (insert whatever crap here) linux" crap. It's a decade old, and at this point unless it was bought as super high end it's barely qualified to do much anymore.

I too run linux, and know it generally uses less memory, however modern software uses more memory than software a decade ago also. So those systems sold with small amounts of memory like 512MiB might still have trouble running common modern software like web browsers if the processor alone isn't just too slow. No pae support on your old processor, and newer distros will tell you it's not compatible.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

howardfine

Member

I don't know what's wrong with your installation but I run Linux on all my company systems, including new hardware with 4GB or less memory, with none of the issues you may complain about. Sliding a mouse across the screen doesn't track well? Come on!

The rest of your complaints are about Microsoft drivers don't work with Linux. Can I complain that my Linux drivers don't work with Microsoft hardware?

Your previous statement about "planned obsolescence" is BS. In my decades of designing and building hardware systems, not once did any marketing or engineering manager ever come to me and say, "Well, ya' gotta make sure this fails in three years".

btw, I'm not really a Linux user and use FreeBSD for everything instead. Even there, my FreeBSD systems perform just as well and better for anything I would use on Windows. Specifically, browsers, programming tools, and graphics tools.

ImpldConsent
Scouts Out
Premium Member
join:2001-03-04
North Port, FL
·Comcast XFINITY

1 edit

ImpldConsent to BlitzenZeus

Premium Member

to BlitzenZeus
said by BlitzenZeus:

Oh yeah the old "my decade my old pos which was bought with the minimal hardware of those days somehow runs better with (insert whatever crap here) linux" crap. It's a decade old, and at this point unless it was bought as super high end it's barely qualified to do much anymore.

Wow, grumpy much? The point is - well - in your tirade you made it for me. Yep, old POS (1.86GHz/2GB) runs BETTER than it does with *doze. Yep, it's barely qualified to run any DE (uhhg, including DASH), but then again, I don't work for the laptop, it works for me.

*upon edit - changed MHz -->to-->GHz on processor. Jeez, even my 286 was faster
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

1 edit

BlitzenZeus to howardfine

Premium Member

to howardfine
I was referring to a complaint about windows, not microsoft drivers not working on linux. Maybe you forgot your coffee this morning? Planned obsolescence is real, much more common with printers, and scanners. Many companies don't want to release new drivers when they no longer sell the product, and some release a new version every year. There's been driver architecture changes in windows over the years, a big change was signed, and 64-bit drivers in Vista which many companies didn't update their drivers on older hardware to be used in Vista also, which is why so many held onto xp so they wouldn't have to buy hardware again. Driver changes from 9x to NT, even 2k to xp were also real causes of planned obsolescence.

I love when people still try to say their single core processor machine is useful, but refer to the last of the high end intels which consumers didn't buy unless they liked spending a ton of money. They might do some light browsing, or run some kind of simple server. Unless people were rich they sure didn't buy them with 2GiB of ram when they first came out either.

I know linux is everywhere, in handheld devices, atms, etc... It has many uses, but for the home pc user with a wide variety of hardware it's quite hit and miss. When open source isn't always stable, and proprietary is limited, even still quite buggy, otherwise not available it doesn't work well. Except for managed environments, and people willing to tinker it's still not ready for prime time as a home pc. When people have to manually edit configuration files it's definitely not ready for prime time. I wouldn't trust the average pc user to use it, hell they're usually a user intervention exploit waiting to happen.

howardfine
join:2002-08-09
Saint Louis, MO

howardfine

Member

I ran Ubuntu and Mint for a short period, strictly as a user, and never touched config files at all. Any regular can manage just fine with what they normally do with only the tools they use, like editors, being different only cause they're different and not more difficult. Claims of stability, bugginess and unavailability of hardware is only a fact when looking at it from the perspective of Windows can handle 10,000 different cameras while Linux can only handle 1000 (while ignoring it can run all of the popular ones and just not the obscure).
BlitzenZeus
Burnt Out Cynic
Premium Member
join:2000-01-13

BlitzenZeus

Premium Member

I had to edit the config file handling bluetooth hardware to rem out a device it was incorrectly detecting. As stated before I also had to make a manual script to run a debian command to make the mouse far faster than the gui controls allowed on ubuntu. After an update I've had to repair a file as it removed the file manager association from the system config, and the update was meant for the same core, however different gui not included on that build, that was their fault however for letting that update through. Until they worked out the pulseaudio problems when it was new I would have to force reload the sound multiple times to try to get it to work, and if all the planets aligned I might of actually had sound on startup back then.

Some people were just lucky with their hardware, some distros were more updated than others, some distros have less problems than others in certain areas. Most of all I'd like it if they would update the iso downloads once in a while especially their lts releases with updates that would help the live cd function better. Some installation cds just hate my nvidia card, and having two monitors, they wouldn't even load the gui at all, others had no problem at all with them. If I have to do an alternate install, and it won't even load the software rendering driver like in recovery mode, otherwise the open source driver it's not worth wasting my time with that Distro usually.

We see selling *nix with pcs can be successful, osx is based off of unix/bsd, but they also limit what hardware they sell with their packages quite a bit, however that's at least a start. Outside of something organized like that the support is still hit, and miss. I wouldn't mind somebody actually giving Microsoft some competition in the desktop market.
Expand your moderator at work

ImpldConsent
Scouts Out
Premium Member
join:2001-03-04
North Port, FL
·Comcast XFINITY

ImpldConsent to BlitzenZeus

Premium Member

to BlitzenZeus

Re: Linux Everywhere?

A little editing and ...
said by BlitzenZeus:

Some people were just lucky with their hardware...

said by piper:

Has to be the funniest thing I have read in years ....


piper
Premium Member
join:2001-04-19
Buffalo, NY

1 edit

piper

Premium Member

said by ImpldConsent:

A little editing and ...

said by BlitzenZeus:

Some people were just lucky with their hardware...

said by piper:

Has to be the funniest thing I have read in years ....

I bet your US college eduCated ...

How about leaving my damn post alone

You should really get "outside the USA" once in a while

funnest - Adjective

EDit == hell, even merriam-webster has funner & funnest listed as adjectives.

an adjective is a 'describing' word; ... and I described this to be the 2nd funnest thing I have read in years ...

Exodus
Your Daddy
Premium Member
join:2001-11-26
Earth

Exodus

Premium Member

said by piper:

I bet your US college eduCated ...

you're

Sincerely,

A man educated in the United States.

ImpldConsent
Scouts Out
Premium Member
join:2001-03-04
North Port, FL
·Comcast XFINITY

ImpldConsent to piper

Premium Member

to piper
said by piper:

How about leaving my damn post alone

Wait, wait - you misunderstand. Let me put it together for you: "Some people were just lucky with their hardware..." has to be the funniest thing I have read in years ....

Trust me, I'm the last person to make corrections. I really didn't know I did until you pointed it out. I thought "I" had misspelled it. - Wow - I really think we dropped off into the OT cliff - that's fun too!

upon edit:
said by piper:

You should really get "outside the USA" once in a while

Umm... currently on my 3rd combat deployment to Afghanistan. Does that count?