This is when you realize how far Linux has come...

[Barbados99]

About a year or so ago I quit dual-booting with Windows and exclusively began using Linux Mint. Lots of people have done this so it's no big deal now. But I had something happen that made me realize just how far Linux has come over the years.

My daughter has a Windows laptop for college. She's had it since high school and now is a senior in college. I noticed that she was using my Mint laptop more and more for school work. She is not at all a techie type and just uses a computer as a tool for school and for social media stuff. Anyway, I thought that was neat when she was using Mint apps, but honestly thought she'd hit a wall at some point and have to use her Windows machine to do school work for the University. But no. Finally she had me set up her computer as Linux only - no Windows. She's happier now with the Linux than with the Windows. Her laptop runs so much better than before. But man, can you imagine how far the Linux apps have come when you really don't need Windows software anymore? Maybe you folks already knew this. But it was a shazzammm moment for me.

I think it's the apps on Linux that have come light-years from what there was 10 or so years ago. And I can even work with Linux spreadsheets and docs at home - and share with them at work (my work machine is Windows 7) and I have had zero problems living in this new world. Pretty cool.

[TheObserver]

I hear you!
Linux Mint made me step back from Windows too.
I still have windows 7 on another partition but I barely use it anymore. I could actually remove it completely and never use it again.
I would not have thought Linux to be so user friendly.
I am looking forward to future improvements and new features

[Barbados99]

I hear you!
Linux Mint made me step back from Windows too.
I still have windows 7 on another partition but I barely use it anymore. I could actually remove it completely and never use it again.
I would not have thought Linux to be so user friendly.
I am looking forward to future improvements and new features

My daughter is able to use LibreOffice 5 to get her homework done. The University that she attends uses Microsoft Office and Google Docs, but she's been fine using LibreOffice using the MS file formats. What surprised me is that I wasn't trying to get her to even try Linux. She just happened to pick my laptop up one day and used it to finish a homework project. I'm not even sure she realized she wasn't in a Microsoft environment at that point. I just showed her my office software (LibreOffice) and of course she was familiar with the Chrome browser. All she noticed was that the laptop performed better than hers (hers was an old one and a dog with Windows).

I'd find her using my laptop more and more over the weeks. It got to the point she wasn't using the Windows laptop at all. So eventually she wanted Linux. So I set her computer up with Mint. It performs better for her now and I have my own laptop back

My daughter is not technical at all. There is no way she would have wanted anything to do with a Linux OS as it was years ago when I first began using the Linux apps. But, if my daughter can live in a Microsoft world and seamlessly exist there with Linux now, then that tells me the application software has sure come a long ways over the past years. It wasn't like this before.

[TheObserver]

Cool! I recently convinced my dad to use Linux Mint. (He's in his mid sixties) He was one of the first persons to use a PC, so he always kind of tinkered with computers but never quite managed to switch to linux. He certainly tried, but his patience has failed many times. Now he seems quite happy with using Mint.
I think now that people are familiar with using Android, they might will get into Mint or other Linux distros. In Germany, a city administration has been using Linux for a while, unfortunately the employees complained until they eventually switched back to the costly windows products. I bet it wasn't Min they've used

[myrkat]

I have a dual-boot machine still, but the frequency of loading into Windows is so rare (about 2-3 times a year for a 5- or 10-minute thing). I do admit to keeping a VM of Win7 so I can still use Xara (man, I wish they'd have stuck with their linux development). Other than Xara, there's no reason for me to have windows.

My two kids are also on Mint (one on Cinnamon, one on Xfce) - and we have a MacBook Air (i7, 8gb, 256gb) that is used often. Windows is basically non-existent. I needed to dual-boot for the TI-84+ CE & TI-84+ Silver Edition calculator updates (the tilp did not work for either calc), only because TI's software doesn't like Oracle's VM.

Finally, the other day, my older kid came in and asked, "Why is Linux so much faster than Windows?" - this coming from the non-technical kid. I asked, "What do you mean?" He said, "the computers at school take like three minutes to boot up, and my computer, even on a full reboot only takes like 30 seconds." I informed him that his boots off an SSD, and that will be a huge difference there. Also, the school's networking back-end is more complicated than mine (I'm guessing).

So then he says, "Yeah, but these are new computers and mine is like 5 years old, and it runs faster, too." I just smiled, "Yeah, kid; I know."

[phd21]

Hi Barbados99, myrkat, and everyone else,

I just read your post and the good replies to it. Here are my thoughts on this as well.

I totally agree that Linux, especially Linux Mint, and Linux applications, have come a long way over the past few years. Whether you want a great free operating system for personal use, or business use, or for school use, Linux Mint is very stable with almost any kind of application software, or utilities, that you could want or need to use; and most of that is compatible with MS Windows or Mac counterpart programs. I also think that Linux Mint is much faster than Ms Windows, even running Ms Windows in a Virtualbox. You can even run Android applications in Linux Mint as long as you have the Google Chrome browser installed, even without having Chrome up and running.

For user "Myrkat" and others interested in web development: There are a few really good Linux WYSIWYG Web development programs and numerous Web editors available, including "Google Web Designer", "Kompozer", "BlueGriffon", & 'SeaMonkey. What I have recently discovered is that using the free online Website builders, like" Zyro Builder", and others, which may already be "built-in" to your web hosting company, are extremely easy to use and work really well.

Zyro Builder - super easy & great online website creation tool
http://zyro.com/

Creating your own website with custom domain and web host
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... t=+website

Hope this helps ...

[Fearless User]

True that. I have tried three different Linux distros in the past on a live usb/cd, and wasnt happy at all, but a coulpe of days ago I got really pissed off at Microsoft and switched to Linux Mint 17.2 Cinnamon. Now I ask myself why didnt I switch earlier?

I have tweaked firefox to run super fast, downloaded a few applications, transferred all my files, and thats it. Not going back to Windows, ever (unless I have to use it for university/work, and I really hope that I can get away with using Linux there...), if at all possible.

[Cobber]

I have been using KDE on both my PC and laptop for a couple of years. The PC has XP on it (web access denied), and the laptop Windows 7. I got bored the other day and decided to do a triple boot on the PC by adding MATE. While Mate certainly uses less memory and resources, it really showed me how polished and powerful KDE is. So I have ordered more RAM for the PC.

Rarely do I use Windows on either machine, for "Windows only" programs. I will not be "downgrading" to Windows 10. I have found Firefox to be less and less of a useful browser and now only run Chromium, which runs much faster and doesn't freeze on me.

I have played with Linux distros over the years, but they pale in comparison to what is possible now. For me, Windows is past its use by date, and has dug itself a big hole I think it will take a long time to get out of - if ever. Linux, especially Mint, does everything I need for day-to-day tasks, and without the Windows hassles.

I only have a Root and Swap partition and created extra partitions with the remaining disk space, just for data files. Using Redo Backup, I can backup my Root partition in five minutes. Backing up just the Windows operating system takes over 30 minutes with Acronis.

Once support for Windows 7 ceases in 2020, I will deny it web access too, maybe even earlier if Microsoft keeps up with its sneaky attempts to force Windows 10 on me.

[JosephM]

I had pretty much the same experience with my own daughter who is in high school. She was having problems with her Windows 8 laptop and let me install Mint on it. She has been extremely happy with it since.

For school work the OS you run is becoming less and less of an issue. My daughters school has moved pretty much exclusively to web apps like google docs. She can even pull out her phone and touch something up or make a change if she really needs to.

[Barbados99]

I had pretty much the same experience with my own daughter who is in high school. She was having problems with her Windows 8 laptop and let me install Mint on it. She has been extremely happy with it since.

For school work the OS you run is becoming less and less of an issue. My daughters school has moved pretty much exclusively to web apps like google docs. She can even pull out her phone and touch something up or make a change if she really needs to.

My daughter's laptop is older and it was sluggish under Windows. And it was always needing time and maintenance to keep it alive. I offered to buy her a new laptop but now she says she doesn't need one. The Mint runs so much faster that it's like a new computer for her. I also like the way Mint requires so much less maintenance than the old Windows machine did. Other than running the updates, it hums away perfectly for her. Mint is solid as a rock. Her university uses a lot of web apps like your daughter's high school. It makes Microsoft Word less important. She also uses LibreOffice 5, and that version seems to work very well with Word and Excel files - at least for her so far. If she flat out has to do a Windows thing, she uses one of the library computers at school.

[z31fanatic]

No doubt that for home use you don't really need Windows unless you are a hardcore gamer or in same special cases for HTPC use.
But for every success story, there are probably 5 or 10 unsuccessful ones. Not one of the people that I showed Linux and tried to convert them stayed with it. They all went back to Windows. People resist change.

[Barbados99]

No doubt that for home use you don't really need Windows unless you are a hardcore gamer or in same special cases for HTPC use.
But for every success story, there are probably 5 or 10 unsuccessful ones. Not one of the people that I showed Linux and tried to convert them stayed with it. They all went back to Windows. People resist change.

That had been my experience also, until this past year or so. With so many people now experienced with the many non-Microsoft devices in their lives (cell phones, smart TV's, and all of the many electronic Internet gadgets in their lives now) people are more comfortable getting things done without Microsoft. Internet and cloud based apps are everywhere now, and so many are cross platform too. Another aspect is that the younger new users are much more comfortable with non-Microsoft electronics than ever before.

Things are different than just a couple years ago.

Mint's popularity is probably due to the fact it is crazy-easy to use. People like my daughter don't even notice the change so much from Windows 7. You can use apps that you are already using on your cell phone or even Windows in many cases. What used to be a huge learning curve is now pretty easy.

Things have changed. If I were Microsoft, I would have laughed at Linux as a threat in the past. But right now, I'd be a bit worried. I used to dual-boot Mint with Windows 7, until a year or so ago when I realized that I never used Windows anymore. So I just got rid of it......nothing but Mint on our computers now. And I'm an old geezer. So if an old fart like me, or a young person like my daughter in college has zero need of Windows - and Mint apps have been so mature and easy to use as replacements - then I think there must be many others out there who are doing likewise.

[jimallyn]

But for every success story, there are probably 5 or 10 unsuccessful ones. Not one of the people that I showed Linux and tried to convert them stayed with it.

Everybody that I have turned on to Linux has stayed with it, and have no desire to go back to Windows.

[Quexos]

I am not resisting the change, but trying like heck to get to it. I would love nothing more than to completely dump Windows, and have been trying out Linux off and on for probably 10 years waiting/hoping for the day. It is getting better, but there are still many things preventing me from fully switching. With the direction MS has gone with the spy-bloat known as Windows 10, I was really hoping to move totally over to Linux by now, but just can't do it, so I am stuck on Windows 7 (with extreme scrutiny over Windows 10-like updates) until I can't any more.

1. Audio/music recording stuff is just not there, from a good DAW to VST plugins for it, to drivers for my direct input device.
2. Very basic audio, network card, drivers. Only the most basic features of my sound, network cards work, Asus Xonar cards are a hot mess, Realtek onboard works minimally.
3. Video editors (that I have found) are nowhere near as good. Not even close.
4. Annoying desktop behaviors like not remembering window/program size/position, and most of the desktops/themes are just plain ugly and primitive looking. I hate "bling" (KDE) but there's just something very unpolished looking about Xfce, MATE and Cinnamon. Most programs look like a big glob of grey with no contrast to separate parts of the interface on it.
5. Complexity of installing things and knowing where the heck all the parts of the install went to. No custom install to specific locations, etc. I would like to download my installers, DEB package or whatever, and store them, not use a package manager and a bunch of PPAs all the time.
6. Lots and lots of little hiccups with Nvidia video cards, like not remembering all the settings, laggy mouse/menus in Cinnamon, lots of screen tearing, etc.
7. No Blu-ray? Come on?
8. Gaming...not even close. WINE is a huge PITA. I searched and searched for some native Linux games and they were all crapola that looked like bad mods for a 2001 Windows game or Steam's very limited supply.

I could go on, but I think that's enough. In a nutshell I find Linux has become nice and easy to install and get running, and works fine for surfing the internet and listening to music, but it's after that you start to go, "wait...how am I going to do "x" like I did on Windows?" and either can't or have to settle for a difficult to setup, and stripped function workaround for "x". It drives me absolutely batty having to reposition or resize Firefox, Thunderbird, and almost every other window/program I open every single time I open them.

[z31fanatic]

1. Audio/music recording stuff is just not there, from a good DAW to VST plugins for it, to drivers for my direct input device.

3. Video editors (that I have found) are nowhere near as good. Not even close.

I don't do any music recording or production but Macs seem to be popular for audio and video. Have you tried a Mac?

And I know it's not a popular opinion here but I agree with you. Linux is fine for home use but if you are a power user or a business that makes a living off of good productivity software, Linux is not for you (except servers of course).

[z31fanatic]

Things have changed. If I were Microsoft, I would have laughed at Linux as a threat in the past. But right now, I'd be a bit worried.

I think you are being very optimistic. Even Windows 8 (those people who never updated to 8.1) that is considered a disaster by many has a larger marketshare than all of the Linux distros put together.
Mac OS is a much bigger threat to Windows than Linux in the desktop market.

[Quexos]

I don't do any music recording or production but Macs seem to be popular for audio and video. Have you tried a Mac?

No. Too expensive, and I always build my own (and everyone I know) PCs. I've never bought a brand name PC. Never saw any advantage to going with Apple stuff.

I still dual boot Linux and try to learn and stay somewhat current on it, but yeah, All I can really do with it is surf the internet and play audio files. But if there comes a day where my only option is Windows 10 or the like (spyware and bloat) or Linux...I'll be on Linux and just not doing anything I can't do there.

[phd21]

Hi Quexos,

Well apparently you are mis-informed, or have not been keeping up with the improvements in these wonderful FREE Linux Mint operating systems have been making over the past years. Because, I have Linux Mint KDE, and I can do almost everything you said on my 10 year old very limited hardware. Granted, I could do a lot more with newer better hardware and certainly do it faster.

So that maybe you can make more informed accurate comments, and perhaps help you with upgrading to Linux Mint, I will try to respond to your comments as accurately as I can.

To start with, most people can easily install Linux Mint in less than 15 minutes, try that with any edition of Ms Windows. Of course, because most hardware does not come with Linux Mint, people actually have to spend a little time to find out which Linux Mint edition will work best with your hardware and that can do what you personally want to do with it. The people in this excellent forum can help with that. Yes, there is a slim possibility, that some hardware will not work, or work as well, as it could with drivers that were specifically created for a particular operating system. Of course, you can always install any version of MS Windows in VirtualBox and run anything that ran on that OS while still in Linux Mint.

1. Audio/music recording stuff is just not there, from a good DAW to VST plugins for it, to drivers for my direct input device.

Since you did not mention what your "direct input device" is, I cannot comment on that. But, there are some excellent audio programs like "Ardour3", "Rosegarden", "LMMS, "Mixxx", "Audacity", etc... I provided a link below with search results for Linux DAW to VST plugins. I'm sure you could find more, if you tried.

Ardour - Record, Edit, and Mix on Linux; Ardour's core user group: people who want to record, edit, mix and master audio and MIDI projects.
http://ardour.org/
http://ardour.org/features.html

LMMS - Produce music with your computer, Made by musicians, for musicians.
https://lmms.io/

Rosegarden is a music composition and editing environment based around a MIDI sequencer that features a rich understanding of music notation
http://www.rosegardenmusic.com/

Linux DAW to VST plugins
https://www.google.com/search?q=DAW+to+ ... ST+plugins

2. Very basic audio, network card, drivers. Only the most basic features of my sound, network cards
work, Asus Xonar cards are a hot mess, Realtek onboard works minimally.

Because you were not specific, nobody can respond to your specific concerns regarding these comments. Perhaps you do not know that there are some really good sound related programs and "mixers", that might help. Since you seem to be into music and audio, In your Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), install the "jack" sound system related programs, the excellent "Qas" programs, like "qasmixer" which shows all sound devices and gives you control of their functions (see "sysdefault" on right side), there is also "Veromix", etc...

LinuxMusicians, creating music freely, QasConfig & QasMixer
http://linuxmusicians.com/viewtopic.php?f=24&t=7410

FYI: Get incredible control over volume & sound with Veromix
http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.p ... t=+veromix

3. Video editors (that I have found) are nowhere near as good. Not even close.

Again, there are numerous extremely good Linux video editors available: "Lightworks", "Kdenlive", "Lives", "Flowblade", "Avidemux", "Openshot", "shotcut", and more, etc... I use the excellent "Kdenlive" video editor, and love it.

Lightworks - the professional video editor for everyone

Lightworks is EditShare's Academy and Emmy award-winning, professional Non-Linear Editing (NLE) software supporting resolutions up to 4K as well as video in SD and HD formats. Over the last 20 years, Lightworks has been used to cut many Hollywood blockbusters, including The list of famous Lightworks editors includes: Jill Bilcock (Moulin Rouge, Romeo & Juliet), Tariq Anwar (Revolutionary Road, The King’s Speech), Sally Menke (Pulp Fiction), Peter Honess (L.A. Confidential - for which he won a BAFTA) and UK editor Chris Gill (28 Days Later and Centurion).

Multi-Oscar-winner Thelma Schoonmaker and her team (Hugo 3D, The Departed, Gangs of New York, and the acclaimed thriller Shutter Island) used Lightworks for Martin Scorsese’s latest film “The Wolf of Wall Street” with Leonardo DiCaprio, for which she has just been nominated for a BAFTA..

https://www.lwks.com/
Lightworks spotlight link
https://www.lwks.com/index.php?option=c ... Itemid=214

Kdenlive - features
https://kdenlive.org/features

LiVES is a Video Editing System. It is designed to be simple to use, yet powerful. It is small in size, yet it has many advanced features. LiVES mixes realtime video performance and non-linear editing in one professional quality application.
http://lives-video.com/

4. Annoying desktop behaviors like not remembering window/program size/position, and most of the desktops/themes are just plain ugly and primitive looking. I hate "bling" (KDE) but there's just something very unpolished looking about Xfce, MATE and Cinnamon. Most programs look like a big glob of grey with no contrast to separate parts of the interface on it.

In the incredible Linux Mint KDE system you have control over most aspects of the entire desktop, including being able to easily "remembering window/program size/position", to various defaults on this, and so much more. You, the user, control how much "bling" you want to use or not to use, and you can make it as beautiful as you like, or not. You can create your own themes, download themes, etc.... Contrast is up to the user, although there are themes, and common sense color schemes to help people with that concern, even utility type programs, widgets, etc...

5. Complexity of installing things and knowing where the heck all the parts of the install went to. No custom install to specific locations, etc. I would like to download my installers, DEB package or whatever, and store them, not use a package manager and a bunch of PPAs all the time.

Considering that most of the Linux Mint software can so easily be installed from the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), your comment is unfounded.

I find this comment, "knowing where the heck all the parts of the install went to", to be lacking knowledge of how computer operating systems work, and Ms Windows is one of the worst for this, MS Windows put pieces of programs and VIP user data all over the place (under "programs", system, system32, dll, try to find your outlook data, etc...). Sometimes it is necessary for an operating system to put various parts of a software application into various places on your system, most, if not all operating systems do this, sometimes because they have to for various reasons like security reasons, also because of different user accounts that use the same programs (have their own data and settings), others, like MS Windows for anti-piracy paranoia, etc... There are ways to find out what a software application uses (dependencies) and where all their files are, if it was necessary to do, which is not the case 99% of the time, unless you are having a problem with a program. How many MS Win users, or Mac users, or Linux users, care where the software application files are stored, as long as it works.

You can create a your own "/download/installation_files" folder, like I do, to store any easy install software ".deb" files that you downloaded; most of your installed application files are already available in "/var/cache/apt/archives/" as ".deb" files. You can use a program like the great "Aptik" to backup applications, settings, etc..., And, At least with Linux Mint, 99.99% of all your updates are done simply through the Update Manager, not like Ms windows with a lot of individual programs popping up all the time, all over the place, for new updates.

6. Lots and lots of little hiccups with Nvidia video cards, like not remembering all the settings, laggy mouse/menus in Cinnamon, lots of screen tearing, etc.

If you are having this problem, then you do not have the right video drivers installed correctly, or maybe you are using the wrong edition (and or version) of Linux Mint. I cannot count the number of times and problems that I have encountered with video drivers in MS Windows personally and as a professional support person.

7. No Blu-ray? Come on?

Linux Mint does have support for blu-ray, if you have a blu-ray player, or blu-ray writer (burner). Look in the Software Manager or Synaptic Package Manager (SPM), install "ubuntu-restricted-extras" (contains "libdvdread4"), if it is a protected movie DVD or Blu-ray disc, which is likely, then you will also need to install "libdvdcss2".

RestrictedFormats/PlayingDVDs
https://help.ubuntu.com/community/Restr ... layingDVDs

8. Gaming...not even close. WINE is a huge PITA. I searched and searched for some native Linux games and they were all crapola that looked like bad mods for a 2001 Windows game or Steam's very limited supply.

No one will argue that Linux and Linux Mint do not have the same gaming options as Ms Windows, because a lot of those games were written specifically for MS Windows. But, that is changing daily, weekly, and monthly for the better. A lot of games can run well under Linux and "Wine" right now, and the Linux "Steam" gaming system is improving all the time and adding new games all the time as well. And, I do not think that installing or using "Wine", or installing Ms Windows applications in "Wine" is a PIA.

Steam hits 1,000 Linux games days after Valve's big Steam Machine reveal (March 2015)

Steam’s love affair with Linux continues, and the infatuation is paying off in spades for Linux gamers
http://www.pcworld.com/article/2896797/ ... eveal.html

Featured Linux Games
http://store.steampowered.com/browse/linux/

I could go on, but I think that's enough. In a nutshell I find Linux has become nice and easy to install and get running, and works fine for surfing the internet and listening to music, but it's after that you start to go, "wait...how am I going to do "x" like I did on Windows?" and either can't or have to settle for a difficult to setup, and stripped function workaround for "x". It drives me absolutely batty having to reposition or resize Firefox, Thunderbird, and almost every other window/program I open every single time I open them.

I too could go on and on about how wonderful Linux Mint is...

As I already stated:

" ... Linux Mint, and Linux applications, have come a long way over the past few years. Whether you want a great free operating system for personal use, or business use, or for school use, Linux Mint is very stable with almost any kind of application software, or utilities, that you could want or need to use."

[tipaul]

Linux kernel (more Android) is a beast for Microsoft and Apple...

I've just wiped Windows 7 from my laptop last week : HD failure.
I had Arch Linux, Mint and Win7 on it.
Now only Mint on my SSD is installed.

Arch became too unstable with Gnome 3.18 (resume from suspend failed, Wifi card no more detected, etc, etc..).

Linux Mint is sooooo stable.

[Quexos]

I too could go on and on about how wonderful Linux Mint is...

Hahaha, so could I...in spite of my last post. I could go on even more about what I hate about Windows, but sadly, it does the things I NEED. There are many, many things I really like about Linux. A lot of the "problems" I have with it are surely due to my own lack of knowledge and probably could be overcome. Some are just the nature of the beast (Nvidia drivers not saving settings is by design). Thanks for all that info though! I will check into it next time I install Linux, probably when 17.3 comes out. I think they have fixed the nvidia + Cinnamon problems in it.

My problem with the music recording was that I could not find any VST (guitar and bass amplifier sims, drum software, etc) for any of the D.A.W. software so there was no point even going any further for me...so I did not test the Linux DAWs. My input is a Focusrite Scarlett 2i4 and I did get it working, but again with no VSTs, no point in going any further. It's the same as the lack of games, not that it can't be done, just that developers don't do it.

Just an example. All this was done with VST amplifiers, keyboards, and Addictive drum software. I can not do it on Linux. Now if I had a fortune worth of real amps and mics and a proper studio, I could do it with Linux for sure, but...yeah...I don't.

One of my videos: https://youtu.be/tH2xkRFAuZc?t=3m27s