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2012 - year of Linux!

I tried Mint for a week and it still felt buggy. The mouse pad stopped working randomly and at one point my desktop completely disappeared, or wouldn't render properly.

For me I cannot rely on it as much as Windows 7, which always works.
 
Good thing Linux is free. I would hate to pay good money for it and still have issues as other OSes have. They may not be same type of issues but they do have issues...

IMO, most new users to linux picks the wrong distro to start off with, Ubuntu, currently is not the best one. After distro hopping for years, I now stick with the main top 5.
Slackware
Debian
Red/HatFedora
OpenSuse
Well it used to be Mandrake/Mandriva but it seems their about to go bankrupt.
 
saptech said:
Good thing Linux is free. I would hate to pay good money for it and still have issues as other OSes have. They may not be same type of issues but they do have issues...

IMO, most new users to linux picks the wrong distro to start off with, Ubuntu, currently is not the best one. After distro hopping for years, I now stick with the main top 5.
Slackware
Debian
Red/HatFedora
OpenSuse
Well it used to be Mandrake/Mandriva but it seems their about to go bankrupt.
Click to expand...

Do you really think that someone who is brand new to Linux is going to pick Slackware?????

Personally I think Ubuntu is the best thing for a new user, and has done more for desktop linux than all other distros put together since day one.
For experienced (removed from reality) users like you Slackware might be great, but for someone like my mom who knows crap about computers and has a hard time leaving XP, it takes a super-friendly, easy to install, GUI centric OS like Ubuntu. Hell, Ubuntu still has a ways to go on all these, but is still the best.

It's a tech nerd's GREATEST weakness that he forgets how hard this stuff is for the other 99% of the world.
 
I was lucky with Ubuntu 10.10. Everything ran from the get-go. One hassle with printer actually wasn't Ubuntu, it was Firefox. I've gone to 11.04 but did use the old desktop as I didn't like Unity. When that comes out totally customizable, I might use it. By that, I mean text with icons. I'd rather have plain text.
 
zuben el genub said:
I was lucky with Ubuntu 10.10. Everything ran from the get-go. One hassle with printer actually wasn't Ubuntu, it was Firefox. I've gone to 11.04 but did use the old desktop as I didn't like Unity. When that comes out totally customizable, I might use it. By that, I mean text with icons. I'd rather have plain text.
Click to expand...

Text with icons where?
 
I keep shortcuts all over the XP desktop. I have no start bar and try to keep stuff out of the tray. All icons have text.

FF and Opera give you the options of icons, icons with text or text only on the menu, status, etc. bars. Click on the menu bar in Firefox - customize - and a small drop down menu will appear for icons, icons and text, text only. If browsers can have the choice ----

Oh yeah, phone also has icons with text. If Android is a form of Linux - I'd like a desktop like the SGS4G.

I can get the photo background, but not the buttons and the bar.
 
^ I'm quite certain you can do that in nearly every linux desktop environment...

Though, I'm not sure about unity... I know I did a upgrade today and it kept my shortcut/icons, so the functionality does exist...
 
mikedt said:
They went bankrupt before didn't they? Probably quite difficult to make money of out something which is free
Click to expand...

I think many Linux companies fall prey to not having any idea what they're in business to do. A business model of just providing a free product is fundamentally flawed so they need to do more than that obviously. What that something else is is usually the problem. I've tried a few flavors of Linux over the years that have since gone out of business/died.
 
Very dot com.

These Linux flavors - are you sure that they were business or were they free distros that simply lost popularity? Do you remember the names?

These business models of just providing free goods and services is hilarious, I agree with you. Imagine what sort of people go for that.

It seems that several professional Linux companies know exactly what they are doing. Are you familiar with any of them?
 
9to5cynic said:
^ I'm quite certain you can do that in nearly every linux desktop environment...

Though, I'm not sure about unity... I know I did a upgrade today and it kept my shortcut/icons, so the functionality does exist...
Click to expand...

I'm not infront of my 11.10 unity desktop, so I can't remember where I set this, but My Icons on my unity desktop are both tiny and textless. But to have JUST text, instead of icons... How would that work?

Set all icons as an invisible .png I guess?
 
EarlyMon said:
Very dot com.

These Linux flavors - are you sure that they were business or were they free distros that simply lost popularity? Do you remember the names?

These business models of just providing free goods and services is hilarious, I agree with you. Imagine what sort of people go for that.

It seems that several professional Linux companies know exactly what they are doing. Are you familiar with any of them?
Click to expand...

I guess I'm assuming they were businesses because this was before we had high speed broadband in wide availability. I had to go down to the store and purchase the product. Turbo Linux jumps immediately to mind. That was around the turn of the century. Red Hat was another one that I tried since then and had to pay for. It's still around of course. I've tried Ubuntu as well and that one is free of course. There was another version that was education geared that I tried too.

Google search reveals that Turbo Linux left the States and started focusing on Asian markets where it is apparently doing quite well. Not sure if that qualifies or not. It left the State in '02 does that qualify as a failure here? I don't know. It is successful overseas.
 
Companies did and do offer the distribution media as a product. Without adding value, that's all the license allows them to charge. RedHat grew up to offer professional support, much as one segment of the Ubuntu community does.

I downloaded my first Linux to a bag full of floppies over a 1200 or 9600 baud modem. Where there's a will, there's a way. Back then it was the only way.
 
SUroot said:
I'm not infront of my 11.10 unity desktop, so I can't remember where I set this, but My Icons on my unity desktop are both tiny and textless. But to have JUST text, instead of icons... How would that work?

Set all icons as an invisible .png I guess?
Click to expand...
I ran into that task bar on the left and couldn't change, move or delete the things.
Also couldn't figure out how to make that task bar static. I didn't like it appearing and disappearing.
 
SUroot said:
I'm not infront of my 11.10 unity desktop, so I can't remember where I set this, but My Icons on my unity desktop are both tiny and textless. But to have JUST text, instead of icons... How would that work?

Set all icons as an invisible .png I guess?
Click to expand...
Sorry, I think I miss understood. I meant that icons on the desktop (where files go when saved to ~/Desktop)... not the unity bar or whatever they are calling that. And I only say that (you should be able to get shortcuts there) is because in a VM I upgraded from 10.10 to 11.10 it kept the shortcuts.

I would think blank .pngs would work -- or if you made the png with the text of program? ;) But that seems .... not very efficient.
 
I can get shortcuts on the desktop, no problem. But on the older interface you could link programs you wanted on the top bar, and the bar was static. Which meant that if I was using one program, I could just hit icon on the top bar as it was always visible. The fact that the Unity bar was wider due to larger icons, and came and went by where your mouse was drove me crazy.

All the browsers have the tool and menu bars on the top, so giving those of us who are used to that system and like it a good option to keep it would have been nice.
 
I think I know what you're saying.

In the Unity-Panel in older versions, you could pin applications (like windows 7 task bar), but now all applications are in the unity-launcher, which autohides (unless you change the settings in Compiz)?

I kind of like the Unity panel, where the file, Edit, Help menus etc for whichever application window has focus are now in teh unity panel, but if that window is small and you have it in say the bottom right corner of the screen (to give better use of the screen real estate) it can be pretty annoying.
 
A.Nonymous said:
I think many Linux companies fall prey to not having any idea what they're in business to do. A business model of just providing a free product is fundamentally flawed so they need to do more than that obviously. What that something else is is usually the problem. I've tried a few flavors of Linux over the years that have since gone out of business/died.
Click to expand...

Presumably Canonical/Ubuntu is financially secure at the moment, mainly because AFAIK Mark Shuttleworth is financing the whole venture from his fat wallet.
 
Hm.
I tried to run the new Ubuntu (or what was new at the time, I think they came out with a new version since then), but it just seemed so bloated. :( And as much of a fan as I am of KDE, KDE4 isn't much better. (I couldn't even get my freaking wireless to work) Am I bad for wanting a simpler Linux? I'm currently running Puppy with Xfce 4 and I love how simple and easy it is to use.
 
I hear ya. Unity does not strike me as quite being 'there' yet and I haven't ever really gotten into KDE. I think it'd be great on a desktop, but I'm always on a laptop with a tiny screen.

I've been trying to install LXDE on my arch install, but I'm having a bit of trouble getting it to actually do anything lol.

You could probably install another DM over it and change the .xinitrc file or whatever you are using to allow that change. Daemons or something.
 
My first taste of Linux was Caldera 2.1 It came standard with KDE. I really liked it alot and used it a bit. Then I got Mandrake 7 and it also was standard with KDE. Used it for a while then tried out Novells OpenSuse. I decided to try gnome out. Even on OpenSuse it wasn't as heavy as KDE. When I tried Fedora I really liked the Gnome desktop. I was in a bit of a learning curve but I was really enjoying it. I have tried xfce and it looks like with gnome 3 I may switch over to it. Enlighten is pretty kewl but again a big learning curve and since XFCE is based on Gnome I think it will be easier for me to learn it. Linux has come a long way since the time I first tried it out. Of course all kinds of Flavors have come out since then as well. I've tried out a bunch of them but keep finding my way back to Fedora. IMO fedora is one of the most stable systems out there. Its friendly enough to give you a GUI install and Tough enough to handle my clutzyness :D The most issues I have had with Fedora have fallen mostly in two categories they are Operator Error or Operator Ignorance. There is a common theme there just wish I could figure it out :rolleyes:

I still want to try to install Gentoo one day.
 
argedion said:
My first taste of Linux was Caldera 2.1 It came standard with KDE. I really liked it alot and used it a bit. Then I got Mandrake 7 and it also was standard with KDE. Used it for a while then tried out Novells OpenSuse. I decided to try gnome out. Even on OpenSuse it wasn't as heavy as KDE. When I tried Fedora I really liked the Gnome desktop. I was in a bit of a learning curve but I was really enjoying it. I have tried xfce and it looks like with gnome 3 I may switch over to it. Enlighten is pretty kewl but again a big learning curve and since XFCE is based on Gnome I think it will be easier for me to learn it. Linux has come a long way since the time I first tried it out. Of course all kinds of Flavors have come out since then as well. I've tried out a bunch of them but keep finding my way back to Fedora. IMO fedora is one of the most stable systems out there. Its friendly enough to give you a GUI install and Tough enough to handle my clutzyness :D The most issues I have had with Fedora have fallen mostly in two categories they are Operator Error or Operator Ignorance. There is a common theme there just wish I could figure it out :rolleyes:

I still want to try to install Gentoo one day.
Click to expand...

I haven't used Fedora really because I keep hearing that they have gone downhill over the years. In all honesty the problems aren't big ones and can be fixed by anyone with basic Linux knowledge. But for new users it seems Fedora is not a good choice. They just aren't polishing their distros before release in the way they should be.
Then again I have never used it personally so I don't know for certain.

p.s. I just moved to Hawaii from Northern Florida. I miss St Marys :-)
 
Fedora seems really nice. I prefer to use a Debian based distro as I can simply install .debs and have access to the largest repositories.
 
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