Just over a year ago, I made the decision to dual boot my laptop (which is also my primary computer) with Ubuntu and Windows XP. I’ve spent the majority of that time in my Linux partition and I haven’t actually booted into Windows in over a month now.
I spend, on average, about eight or nine hours of the day on my computer between work (I’m an IT professional), play and running this website.
So what’s it really like to use Linux every day all day? Here are some thoughts, in no particular order.
0. You get to have a mascot that’s a penguin. Maybe this isn’t a selling point for you, but it sure makes my daughter happy.
1. Say goodbye to the crash. Computer crashes are a thing of the past for me. This is a laptop so it gets booted up and shut down at least once a day. Having said that, I’ve yet to have a serious crash on my system. Once in a while some weird behavior may cause a program to freeze or crash but I’ve always been able to close it down and restart it without resorting to restarting my entire machine.
2. I love being on a machine with a built in terminal. My job requires me to ssh into various servers and workstations many times a day. I simply click on the terminal shortcut, type the alias for the computer I want to be in and blammo - I’m there. It may seem a little nit-picky to blast windows for no native terminal, but when you have to start up a program, load a connection profile, click another button and then log in to another machine 30 times a day it gets frustrating.
3. I have to say goodbye to Exchange. There are some folks around me who use Exchange servers for email, calendaring, and whatnot. Not me. It’s not a big deal for me, and I chose to say goodbye to that world. Yes there are native Linux solutions that jive (or somewhat jive) with Exchange but none of them work as well as Outlook does, plain and simple. If you’re going to move to Linux, be prepared to lose Exchange functionality.
3.5 Gaming just isn’t the same. I used to be a pretty hard core gamer. Then my gaming started falling of as I acquired a decent job, a wonderful wife and an amazing kid. I do still like the occasional game but I don’t spend hours and hours in front my CRT anymore. If you’re going to switch to Linux, you can say goodbye to high end gaming with ease. Sure there are games that run, some without a ton of futzing about but you’re not going to get the ease of use and massive selection you will with Windows. There are a few FPS titles available, and some really interesting native games, but if you’re going for a new game every week, you can forget it.
4. My productivity went way up. I don’t know if this is tied in with #3 or not but I’m much more productive in Linux than I ever was in Windows. There’s a huge range of tools I can use to get stuff done, from building a web page to writing a document. The indexed search functionality that’s touted in Vista has been available to me for the entire time I’ve been using Linux. I find myself more able to buckle down and get things done without annoying distractions. If I do find an annoying distraction I have the power to easily remove it.
5. My computer is exactly the way I want it to be but it’s taken me time to get there. You can’t expect to switch operating systems and have a nice place to be in a day or two. It took a bit of work and a lot of looking around for me to have my computer set up exactly the way I want it. That being the case, my computer is *exactly* the way I want it! No frivolous sounds, no extraneous graphics unless I want extraneous graphics, no resource consuming background processes, no viruses, lots of desktop backgrounds that switch when I want them to, plenty of flexibility and everything right where I want it. Music, movies, and websites behave as they should. If you want your system to be like this, be prepared to do a bunch of reading and learning, as you would have to with any new OS. I guarantee you this however, you will never have felt more in control of your computer than you do now.
6. Once you know more about Linux, expect to break your machine if you’re foolin’ around. I like to poke about and see what’s what. Occasionally I’ll do something silly or just plain stupid and cause my computer to hate me. Fortunately I’m able enough after a year of use to get around quite well and I’ve not yet met a mistake I couldn’t fix with a little head scratching and forum reading. If you’re going to go in for real customization, expect some failures as you poke and prod.
7. Don’t expect Linux to behave like Windows or OSX. That’s the biggest mistake I see people make. It’s not the same OS and it won’t work exactly like the others. As soon as you can get your mind around that and start viewing this as something different, you’ll be on much better footing.
Technorati Tags: linux, unix, windows, osx, switch to linux
April 4th, 2007 at 12:09 pm
Right on. I too have had similar experiences switching to Linux. I now use Linux/OSX at home exclusively.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Regarding Linux gaming, there are thousands of games available, at least one interesting game each week. Check out Happy Penguin. Now, some may not appear very professional, but those are non-cost anyway. And, some may be conversion mods to the Quake and Doom engines from 2003-2004. If commercial quality is what you are seeking, then there are a good number of releases. I think Linux Gaming World tracks the commercially supported game releases on their site’s hot-linked database.
I agree it takes more configuration than Windows gaming, but if you’re looking for ease-of-use, then there are three good console gaming systems available. Linux, in contrast, caters to users who enjoy tinkering and seeing all the ways their computer operates. That said, it is getting easier as desktop graphics become standardized and graphic drivers become open sourced.
Thanks for the nice article.
April 4th, 2007 at 2:53 pm
Good points.
And by the way, you have two #3’s.
April 4th, 2007 at 5:57 pm
Great article. I’ve been using Ubuntu exclusively for 2 months now. I love it. Highly recommended for the tinkerers.
April 4th, 2007 at 11:59 pm
Hi.. I been windows free for about 3 yr’s.. Did the full fdisk thing and have never looked back.. But lately have been dabbling with windows as a vitrual machine…It is just another program that way..If it lock’s (and often it does) so what just kill it.. My house still stand’s!! Kinda of fun to do in-front of friend’s. Jaw’s have dropped a few times in amazement..
April 5th, 2007 at 11:53 am
Just a note, I wouldn’t say that Linux is unlike OSX in every way, it is different but if you get down to the nitty gritty they’re very similar systems. Granted one is based of the GNU/Linux kernel and OSX is on a mach kernel with a FreeBSD core but its still a very similar system behind all the graphical libraries.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:57 am
I’d like to be Windows free but Linux likes to “break” a lot. I downloaded the latest Amarok which required a boatload of updates. Then Gnome wouldn’t run.
Thank God I had Windows to save me when Linux stopped working. This happens about every 8 months or so — I download an update or two, then *BAM* I find myself back in Windows land. It’s kind of maddening.
I love Linux. I just wish it didn’t break so often.
April 5th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
My daughter loves the penguin too. I’m also dual-booting WinXP/Ubuntu. Each one does what the other doesn’t. What more do you need?
April 5th, 2007 at 12:49 pm
I refuse to open my wallet to another Windows dissapointment, so I made the leap into Ubuntu, and have not looked back since. It has been alot like it was when I was trying to learn Windows 1.0…’member?
I am now trying to get my wife and son up to speed on it and we will be free finally…
come check out http://www.newspoo.com…100% Linux under the hood!
April 5th, 2007 at 1:37 pm
FYI
“If you’re going to move to Linux, be prepared to lose Exchange functionality.”
Not entirely true. Use Evolution with the Novell’s Exchange Connector. It works great for email, calendering, tasks and address books. IMHO, Evolution is better that Outlook.
There is one caveat, Exchanges needs to have Outlook Web Access (OWA) enabled for the Exchange connector to work.
Nice article by the way.
April 5th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
Even better, two machines - one Windows XP, one Linux - on a KVM.
Dual boot is very inconvenient, always want to be in the other one.
Maybe I’m just greedy though.
April 5th, 2007 at 3:34 pm
Zac: The Linux kernel is not Gnu, never was. Please stop using the misnomer
April 5th, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Hey Whatever,
I thought about that but it was a real pain to carry around a monitor, KVM and a really really long power chord with my laptop.
AG
April 5th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
bert: If he said GNU Tools / Linux Kernel (instead of GNU/Linux Kernel), then would you have put something constructive in your comment?
April 5th, 2007 at 7:34 pm
Wow, you guys must have some rubbish hardware for windows to be ‘crashing’ on you regularly. I haven’t had my OS crash since installing XP all those years ago
April 5th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Nice article. I’ve been Windows free for a little under 2 years now. I have 4 computers in here and the only one that doesn’t have Linux on it is my Powerbook. (I’ve even got my girlfriend running Linux now!)
-A
April 5th, 2007 at 10:14 pm
Welcome to a bigger world- and thank you for pointing out the thing I’ve been trying to tell people about Linux for some time. It’s not that it’s harder- it’s _different_. As for things like Exchange, I’ve not noticed that. With Evolution, I was able to work as if I was working with Outlook on a Red Hat box in a shop that was rather Windows-centric, even though their main clients were Linux shops (Heh… Try and wrap your brain around THAT little conundrum…). As for games, there’s a few more on the way- but the “dearth” of titles is due more to an industry that keeps buying into MS’ numbers instead of listening to the second largest userbase in the world, comprising somewhere around 20-30% of the entire base worldwide.
April 5th, 2007 at 10:36 pm
People change slowly. They seem to stick with the first thing they learned. Witness all of the AOL users.
Anyway, it’ll take some time for Linux to get more popular, but when it does, I hope that Windows dies the slow death that it so richly deserves.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:34 pm
0.Running windows you get a flag! It’s like belonging to one more country! (and for shore microsoft turnover is bigger the many small countries.
2. putty and have have your heard about shortcuts (alias) ? __PATH_TO_PUTTY -load “YOUR_SESSION”. And yopu don’t have to even open terminal or type anything!
P.S. since I have installed XP at home and got laptop with it, I only have one crash with was coast by my experimentation…
agee with testy on this … don’t buy crap!
April 6th, 2007 at 12:47 am
Testy: From my experience about 75% of computer hardware sold by large vendors is “rubbish”. It’s no wonder people in general have trouble with windows crashing based on your assumption that it’s all hardware related.
April 6th, 2007 at 5:47 am
We used to use pirated Windows here, in Ukraine. It’s terrible! We are moving forward to spot the piracy here and I must say I will NEVER PAY for this kind of OS software. I have much better OS just for free.. And I personally will never switch back.
Though we still need to use one Windows server on my office just for running apps that doesn’t work on neither on Linux nor on wine.
P. S. I never reboot my Linux machine “just because”, just hibernate it then restore and keep using it. It runs for monthes in such mode.
April 6th, 2007 at 7:19 am
Regarding point #2, I suggest binding a shortcut key to a terminal (System->Preferences->Keyboard Shortcuts). If I need to use a terminal now (i.e. every half hour or so), then I can just press F12.
Regarding point #5, if for some strange reason you have to rebuild your machine, or switch to another machine, all you really need to do is copy over your home directory, and your new settings will be inherited. Awesome!
Also, to grab a list of all installed programs, you can use “dpkg –get-selection > installedfiles”, and then on your new machine you can do “cat installedfiles | dpkg –set-selection; apt-get dselect-upgrade” as root to download all these programs.
Glad you’re enjoying Linux like the rest of us
April 6th, 2007 at 9:17 am
@kuriharu — You’re doing it wrong.
April 6th, 2007 at 10:38 am
I’ve been using Suse for about 18 months now and I’ve never looked back.
Using a Windows PC again irritates the hell out of me now what with the constant nagging from windows update and the constant virus alerts and the lockups and so on.
I can honestly say that I don’t miss a thing about Windows.
I do however have to run a few applications for work in a VM but this is painless and as you quite rightly say, you can kill it as soon as you are fed up with it.
For anyone who is considering a change, spend more time with Linux each day and you will never regret it.
April 6th, 2007 at 11:20 am
It feels good to be MicroSoft free. Need to ditch MS_Exchange? Check: http://www.citadel.org/
April 6th, 2007 at 2:24 pm
One thing not noted here is the research you have to do about your hardware or at least the decisions therein. The newer the hardware, generally speaking, the harder it is to get it running under linux.
For a relative linux n00b like me, there is no way that I can totally let go of the security blanket of another running machine in the house or at least a Knoppix Live CD. I will break stuff and need to get to the forums to try and find a solution.
This brings up another point, documentation. Don’t expect a vast knowledgebase like Microsoft has with thousands of paid people publishing to it on a daily basis.
April 6th, 2007 at 4:06 pm
April 7th, 2007 at 3:28 am
Would you please stop using “24/7/365″? You see, 7 days make a week, and there are only 52 weeks in a year (not 365). If you want to use something like that, it should be “24/365″ or “24/7/52″.
April 7th, 2007 at 7:13 am
Y’all realize that this is just shorthand for the saying “twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, three hundred sixty five days a year”?
I’m not trying to reflect accurately the time that has passed, I’m paying homage to an old saying.
See? Like “You really screwed the pooch!”
Now how many of you are gonna chime in with how that’s illegal in most states? It’s a *saying*.
Find another hobby, something other than being angry over words on websites.
April 7th, 2007 at 12:26 pm
Cedega from TransGaming lets you run high end games under Linux like World of Warcraft, Battlefield 2, etc. Check ‘em out!
April 7th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
My Windows XP Pro laptop runs for months on end without a reboot (I do put it on standby/hibernation often) without any problems or crashes. I run an ASP.NET test server, databases and WAMP on it.
I like Linux but can’t switch because my job depends on .NET and I’m not too proficient with Mono. It’d be great that Microsoft released their own verion of the .NET Framework for Linux.
I also can’t switch because I rely on VisualStudio and haven’t found an OSS alternative that’s sufficient.
April 8th, 2007 at 8:23 pm
Regards gaming: I’m under the impression that the console games deliver far more than games run under MS Windows. Surely they cost less, even the PS3 is only $600. And they have nice controllers with lots of buttons and stuff. Am I wrong?
Scotty,
You must be looking in the wrong place. There’s _far_ more documentation and help available for Linux than MS Windows. For starters, call a real person at your local Linux Users Group. (Found at linux.org perhaps.) Or get help on the IRC channel for your distro. Or search the mailing list archives for your distro or for the program you need help with. Or read the books at the Linux Documentation Project, etc, etc. With Linux you can even get help directly from the people who actually wrote the program. It doesn’t get better than that.
April 11th, 2007 at 9:36 am
I have been using Linux 24/7 on my laptop for the past couple of years (Debian) & very happy about it.
April 19th, 2007 at 9:36 am
Two biggest reasons I can’t use the penguin (I like Ubuntu, btw)
1: really really poor Adobe products support. I make my living with Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc. There is, at this point, no completely working solution ported to Linux.
2: I really really like EA games’ Battlefield series. No way in hell with this work on my system. (AMD X4000, 2 gigs ram, 1/2 TB storage, nVidia 7900) and Cedega ? I get so tired of having to pay, pay, pay and I’m not even gaming online, I setup my own LAN locally.
XP is actually a very stable o/s at this point. And, when your video settings are wrong, you can at least boot to safe-mode GUI to fix it in Windows.
Dual-booting sux as does running two systems at the same time, and VM doesn’t cut it either.
Get these couple of issues fixed, and you’ll have way more Linux converts, because I’d be the one locally to be pushing it to my clients.
April 25th, 2007 at 1:27 pm
I think #5 is an excellent point, but overall its just like raindog and KC point out. Linux has no support for apps like or equal to photoshop or visual studio.
June 25th, 2007 at 12:31 pm
Cool! Linux is alright, but i prefer mac.
September 6th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
I too use Linux everyday…
I no longer need to use any Windows software, when I first made the switch, I was constantly using VMware and wine, on my newest install, I don’t even have them installed!
After a while (about a month) you get completely used to it.
February 18th, 2009 at 11:27 pm
I somewhat agree, I didnt like it as much though