Why do new people give up on Linux?

[animaguy]

@ toomuchcoffee & shibblet

I am unfamiliar with the game design industry as a whole.

Are you two saying that DirectX has compatibility issues with Linux?

[Shibblet]

@ toomuchcoffee & shibblet

I am unfamiliar with the game design industry as a whole.

Are you two saying that DirectX has compatibility issues with Linux?

DirectX is a software package developed by Microsoft to allow game designers to build games for that package. DirectX is fully supported by Windows XP, Vista, and 7.

OpenGL is a similar package (or API) that lets game designers build their game engines, but is supported by Windows and Linux.

[AlbertP]

Wine translates Direct3D to OpenGL fine for most games. And the Gallium3D (open-source radeon, nouveau) graphics drivers are attempting to support DirectX 10/11 directly, as that works even faster than having to translate to OpenGL. Don't know if that's yet finished though.

[Shibblet]

Wine translates Direct3D to OpenGL fine for most games. And the Gallium3D (open-source radeon, nouveau) graphics drivers are attempting to support DirectX 10/11 directly, as that works even faster than having to translate to OpenGL. Don't know if that's yet finished though.

That's a great step in the right direction! I am a bit confused how it can be supported, if the OS can't actually install DirectX without WINE.

[AlbertP]

Of course you will still need Wine to use it.

[Shibblet]

Of course you will still need Wine to use it.

Seems like it'd be a better solution to have WINE just run the Windows drivers directly.

[KBD47]

Hardware is the first hurdle, if the drivers are there and it works out of the box, the next hurdle is learning something new, that alone is a challenge most are not willing to face, but get past those 2 hurdles and there is no reason why almost everyone could not run Linux. My guess is that 90% of computer users just use their computers for: surfing the web, doing a bit of email, maybe a bit of word processing, perhaps store music files and pictures, maybe just a bit of photo editing--Linux will handle all that.
I started weaning myself off of Windows a year ago and never need it now, same for my wife. The need for MS Windows is fading into the sunset. Tablets and Smartphones are doing 90% of what computers once did, and power users still have Linux in a multitude of varieties. As for gamers, I'm not into gaming, but why not just get a dedicated device and forget Windows? Same for Netflix, get a Roku for $50 and bye bye Windows
kbd47

[AlbertP]

@ Shiblet: You can't run device drivers in Wine. Only Windows drivers that you can use on Linux are wifi drivers with ndiswrapper.

[Shibblet]

@ Shiblet: You can't run device drivers in Wine. Only Windows drivers that you can use on Linux are wifi drivers with ndiswrapper.

Yeah, the ndiswrapper never seemed to work well for me in the past. And the logical portion of my previous statement was definitely flawed. In order to run Windows Drivers you'd have to be running Windows.

This all seems to come down to games. Windows specific software seems to work fine in Wine, just not games. Games always push the limits of your hardware. DirectX was developed to help developers write to an API instead of being hardware specific. So was OpenGL. But because Microsoft is the marketing juggernaut that they are, DirectX became the more adopted platform.

[animaguy]

Windows specific software seems to work fine in Wine, just not games.

Shibblet,

Have you ever tried running iTunes on Wine?

And if so what is your experience?

Sent from my HTC Status using Tapatalk 2

[Shibblet]

Shibblet,

Have you ever tried running iTunes on Wine?

And if so what is your experience?

Sent from my HTC Status using Tapatalk 2

Nope. I stick with Android devices.

[Kolusion]

People give up on Linux because Linux sucks.

As I developer, I wouldn't develop a commericial product for Linux because the systems are an inconsistant mess. Realisticly, its impossible to create a software application that will work on all Linux's, and for each new distro that comes out simply harms Linux even more.
People talk about "oh freedom oh choice", yeah, well if Linux was so free then you wouldn't be bound by repositories, wouldn't you.
Freedom and choice would only work if Linux had a standards base.

Linux lacks standards, GNU, Linux, and even the distro owners themself cannot work together. They are driven by philosophy, not standards. If GNU/Linux had any standards at all, it would be able to get certification as a genuine UNIX system - a system that has standards; a specification.

You use Debian... Debian is Linux. Try and install Canonical's Unity desktop enviornment... no chance!

I run Ubuntu 10.04 LTS. GIMP 2.8 came out. Its not in the repository and I can't just download and install it from the website. I need to upgrade my entire system. Thats rainbows bull unicorns, and thats a reason no ones also coming to Linux.

Recently I was working on a machine that did not have internet. I couldn't just goto a website and download a package and install it, because of 'package dependencies', but when I installed Windows XP, I was able to just goto an internet cafe, goto the website of the software I wanted, come home install and use it.
I couldn't do this with Linux.

Linux distro people also modify nearly every package they ship in their distro, again creating inconsistency. If you use Apache 2 webserver in Ubuntu from the repostiroy, and then use it in Fedora, or even the official version, you will see they all differ, both the documentation AND especially the file structure of the installation, meaning you have to learn it twice over -- ok, this is my view from a system admin view --- well, even from a power user view of Linux, Linux sucks in many ways... so their you go.

You CAN go and install the latest version from a tarball in Linux, but then the problem is that you can't get automatic updates for it in your automatic update system.
... but not always can you get the latest tarball and just use it, because most distro's are frozen... but this should not matter? Why arn't updated software backwards compatible? ... because most software for Linux is rubbish.
Once I needed to install something and needed a newer Zlib. At the time I was still a little noobie at Linux and didn't know about the whole frozen/rolling part, and I couldn't find the latest Zlib in Ubuntu's repo, so I went to the official website, downloaded it, compiled and installed it..... it completely rainbows my GNOME2. It wouldn't even start, nor did it even give me an error message with what the rainbows wrong. Luckily, I am a smart guy and booted into a live enviornment and compiled again, noting which files went where, then went back and deleted them off my rainbows system which fixed it, but never the less... why the rainbows did this happen? I wanted to use new software? rainbows Linux is unicorns!

You can blame distro's for mistakes, but does the user care? No... and as a power user, it pisses me off even more seing stupid rainbows mistakes made by rainbows retards..... what was that? Then if I'm so good why don't I go and make my own distro? Because I have better things to do and want to use my rainbows system, rather that fixing it.

I hear people repeat "Linux is still in its infancy". No its not, its 21 years old, its never gotten over 1% market share. Linux completely failed at becoming a desktop operating system.
Even this distro is stupid... An 'operating system' based around a mint theme. Geez, I am going to take this seriously, arn't I.

I seem to be hating Linux more every day. I have tried looking for a real UNIX system, but their all closed source... and I refuse to run a closed source operating system, so Linux is it... and FreeBSD can go and get rainbows.

EDIT: This pathetic forum has censored words in my post. I am not wasting any more of my time on a board ran by pansies. For those that were going to reply, don't, as I won't be here to reply, but thank you anyway.

[dagon]

EDIT: This pathetic forum has censored words in my post.

I see no reference in the log that any mod has edited this post. Maybe some words are not possible to enter though and, hypothetically, could be of the kind you sometimes regret having entered on a public forum the day after.

...board ran by pansies.

[zebedeeboss]

Interesting reading... Many good arguments on both sides of the coin.

As a Linux novice I find the most difficult things to grasp are the "instruction sets"... by this I mean that you come into a forum and start to look around for the answer you seek and there are too many "assumptions" made by the experts trying to help. Now I understand "self help" is the best help and that you should have really read some previous posts and checked the "Manuals" of which there are numerous various types out there.... but good grief!!! who the hell wrote them.... for the average "windows" user they are pure "gobble de-gook" and you need a degree in jibberish to understand them.

You're average windows user will take one look and simply walk away. (I did many many times in the past)

Now having tried to use Linux for over 12 months now, I still give up from time to time as its simply too frustrating trying to get a sensible answer to a simple question (OK maybe not that simple, else why are you asking) but you get my point am sure..

I get partitioning now (finally) well, I get it to the point where I can section off a bit more of the HDD and install another distro to see if its any better than the other 30+ I have tried. I am now familiar with apt-get.. I have even reached the point where I know how to "freeze" a working system and not be suckered into the constant "update" cycle to get the latest and greatest version.

The previous post from the developer chappie (can't be bothered to check his name) appeared to make some valid comments... he should have ranted and swore less though. Based on Debian but with these changes... taken from Ubuntu and tweaked but never the two shall meet. YES you can use the Ubuntu repositories, HONEST!! grumble,moan, whinge "Bloody Dependencies"

Take a distro. install it, use it for generic things and you will be perfectly fine... and as such this FREE OS is very very good and I THANK YOU ALL for keeping it free and for spending hours and hours making it better for us to use... Try to do something "out of the box" and BLAMB!!!! you hit a brick wall, at which point most "windows users" will give up. They will go back to Windows as most people know "a windows expert" who can help resolve the issue, but very few people know "a Linux expert"

Also, why do you have such complicated (well complicated to me) releases and repositories... stable, unstable, testing etc etc and when you actually read up on them, they are not what they seem... if someone could point me to the link to explain whats the difference between unstable and testing... surely if you're "testing" something it's "unstable" by the very nature that you're testing it, or am I just being dump and pedantic (btw, yes I am frequently dumb and it does take me a long time to digest new info, but I get there eventually)

This post has ended up being very bitty and fragmented but, to be honest, that is what Linux has been like for me over the last 12 months whilst I have tried to get to grips with it.

Will I give up on"Windows" and go pure Linux... NEVER

As crazy as this sounds and I know there will be loads out there who disagree with me... If I simply "MUST" get something done - I boot into windows - for me "IT SIMPLY WORKS" - It's stable (yes I have sat there and not needed to reboot for weeks and weeks), it's reliable, I have no problems.

Linux on the other hand...... OMG it does my head in but I can't stay away LOL.

[Pierre]

If I simply "MUST" get something done - I boot into MEPIS - for me "IT SIMPLY WORKS" - It's stable (yes I have sat there and not needed to reboot for weeks and weeks), it's reliable, I have no problems.

it's always worked - for me - I find that Windows is kinda frustrating to use

& Just Why DO new people give up on Linux ??

Games - usually - they won't those Games . . . .

[Kevin108]

Rainbows Linux is unicorns!

I think you're on the wrong forum. This is for Mint Linux.

[Shibblet]

@zebedeeboss

I can understand what you're talking about. Windows is "familiar". This is why you keep going back to it to get things done. You are more used to the software and the operations of Windows. This is not a "bad" thing. A lot of Linux users are Dual Booters. I myself, still have Windows 7 on my PC, because I like games.

However, all of my previous PC functions can be done in Linux, and I only boot to Windows to run Steam.

What you need to know about Linux is a couple of things. Linux is not meant to be a "replacement" for Windows. It does not do the same things that Windows does. It is its own Operating System, and runs in it's own way. It's no different than MacOSX in that it's not designed to be free, and run all of your Windows programs.

Secondly, there are many different forms (flavors) of Linux available. All the way from Gentoo (who has time for this crap) Linux, to Linux Mint. Mint is one of the easier Linux's to start using. Other distributions, Like Arch, Slackware, and Gentoo, all need to be built from the Kernel up. Others like SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mint are all built to run from the install. There are positives and negatives with any distribution you choose.

[zebedeeboss]

If I simply "MUST" get something done - I boot into MEPIS - for me "IT SIMPLY WORKS" - It's stable (yes I have sat there and not needed to reboot for weeks and weeks), it's reliable, I have no problems.

it's always worked - for me - I find that Windows is kinda frustrating to use

& Just Why DO new people give up on Linux ??

Games - usually - they won't those Games . . . .

HaHaHa nice plagiarism

[zebedeeboss]

@zebedeeboss
What you need to know about Linux is a couple of things. Linux is not meant to be a "replacement" for Windows. It does not do the same things that Windows does. It is its own Operating System, and runs in it's own way. It's no different than MacOSX in that it's not designed to be free, and run all of your Windows programs.

Secondly, there are many different forms (flavors) of Linux available. All the way from Gentoo (who has time for this crap) Linux, to Linux Mint. Mint is one of the easier Linux's to start using. Other distributions, Like Arch, Slackware, and Gentoo, all need to be built from the Kernel up. Others like SuSE, Fedora, Ubuntu, and Mint are all built to run from the install. There are positives and negatives with any distribution you choose.

I never said it was a replacement for windows, I get it, I just said I found it more complicated. The beauty of Linux is that because there are so many Distro's out there that the chances are you will find the right one for you.... but not permanently

[Shibblet]

I never said it was a replacement for windows, I get it, I just said I found it more complicated. The beauty of Linux is that because there are so many Distro's out there that the chances are you will find the right one for you.... but not permanently

That's great! Most people don't quite understand the concept, and that's due in large part to the Linux Sales Staff. I love this term, because Linux has no "official" staff. The Linux Sales Staff consists of people who largely talk up the points of Linux to someone who is confused or not looking to change. This builds unrealistic expectations of the operating system.

One of my favorite articles on the net: http://linux.oneandoneis2.org/LNW.htm