Quote:
Originally Posted by kacir
And you can browse the net or play or work during the install, because it is done from the Live system.
That is why I use Windows at work.
At home, I have all the apps I need.
I have no problem to change the system. I started on Linux, many, many years ago - it was only for persistent nerds and it left much to be desired. So I was dual-booting with Windows 98. Then I used FreeBSD for quite a few years, because I found out it works better and I could install most of software I needed using the excellent ports system. At that time I had relatively weak hardware and with FreeBSD you have very fine-grained control about what exactly runs on your PC.
Later on I got lazy to set up FreeBSD on a new computer - much less constrained computer - so I started to use PC-BSD.
Then came period when standard FreeBSD kernel had problem with my particular hardware configuration. So I have abandoned the ship again and discovered Mint Linux. I was delighted. It came installed out of box configured *exactly* to my taste.
I have changed my Desktop system many times Gnome, KDE, Lxde and quite a few others over the years.
As I wrote in previous post I can use DraftSight on linux - so I even have AutoCAD clone for my hobby needs. I have even started to migrate myself and our department from Autocad software to DraftSight (some of my colleagues prefer Intellicad [Zwcad]) at work, because I strongly dislike attitude of Autodesk towards paying customers (us)
For Linux enthusiasts there is DarkTable. No. I am not persuading you to ditch your perfectly working system with all the software you acquired and all the know-how you have accumulated over the years.
I consider myself a power user and at work I miss some features that my Mint Linux at home has. On the other hand, I do different things at home. When I went to USA couple of years ago I only took one computer and I needed to change my work-flow (for things I do at home) when using a Windows computer.
Thank you for a much more reasonable post ;-)
I stay with XP on my old notebook at work. It works. It is *very* fast on Pentium III based notebook, as long as it is a clean install and has minimum of software installed. I need a "clean" computer to connect to a corporate Intranet (belonging to our client) so I can fill in various reports, work logs and other nonsense using desperately bad corporate web apps (many of those were up until very recently optimized for MSIE6).
Other people insist on using XP because that is what they are familiar with. They were able to do the work on that computer for many. many years, so why shouldn't they continue doing exactly the same work? In many cases those people have little understanding of dangers lurking on the net and have no means to pay somebody to do the update for them.
Look at Calibre.
It is free software. It has much better support from developer than the vast majority of commercial products.
It is the proof that free software can be really good.
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If I ever did decide to give Linux a try, I would dual-boot because I would not want to lose what I already have. I know you can do a lot of Windows things using Wine, but some things are a hassle to do. For example, using ADE 2.01 under Wine is a hassle. It can be done, but is the effort worth it if I have a perfectly good working Windows setup? I think not. But dual-booting is better (IMHO) then a virtual environment. A VM will slow you down.
Not all software has to be pay. There's a lot of good free software for all the major OSs and Calibre is one of the best. Heck, I use a number of free programs. Not all are open source, but they work and work well.
I know people don't like to hear they are best to switch operating systems to get done what they want done. The only OS that really needs a switch is XP if you have a processor capable of running Windows 8.1. XP is slow and no longer supported by Calibre or Sigil. And if you don't know what your processor is capable of, then you'll possible have crashes and data loss. Switching to Linux from XP won't help if the process is not up to the task. They only think Linux will do is allow you to install versions of Calibre and Sigil that might not work.
I've been using Windows 8.1 with Classic Start menu and it runs very well and is not slow. Without Classic Start menu, I find Windows 8.1 to be clunky and not so easy to use. The Metro interface feels more like an afterthought then an integral part of Windows 8.
One problem with some versions of Linux is that the users get their software/updates from the repository and that's not always kept updated. We quite often see Calibre support messages from a Linux user who is using some outdated version of Calibre or some outdated support software because the repository is not updated. This is one issue with Linux that is more common then some realize.
But overall, if it works and you know what you are doing, that's great (whatever the OS). XP is the only OS I'd seriously say to dump even if it is currently working. And in dumping XP, there's also a good chance the computer will need some sort of hardware upgrade.