Linux Bye, Ubuntu

Tonight I'm switching my main PC over to Mandriva. I've had enough of Ubuntu, the constant faffing about to get things to work, the fact that it doesn't come with a lot of major codecs (and that installing them is anything from a major pain in the arse, to completely impossible), and poor hardware support - on my system at least. Oh, and also my Ubuntu system doesn't seem to be able to play (or convert) H.264 MP4 files.

Installing an update last night broke it, too.

I do realise Mandrake isn't 'free' in the same way as Ubuntu is, but it's free to download and it actually seems to work.

Anyone else gone over to the dark side?

 

Don't like Mandriva or any of the all-inclusive distros any more. Give me Arch any day o the week.

 

I haven't tried Madriva since it moved from Mandrake, let us know how it goes. TBH i very much doubt i'll swap from Debian, maybe one day i'll get around to giving Gentoo a try.

 

Amen to that.

 

I went from Ubuntu to Arch, then I found Arch to be too constricting and went to Gentoo

 

Arch + AUR + pacbuilder script > Gentoo

 

That's the sort of comment flame wars are born from

 

It’s not the just the package management system (pacman sucks compared to portage in terms of intelligence), but the whole idea. And ever since installing Gentoo I have become suspicious of automated installers

 

Can't really be bothered to change.
Was a fedora fan, tryed mandriva one (first ver) hated it.

 

no, "Linux suxxors, welcome to OSX" is the sort of comment that starts flame wars! hehe. before i got to read the thread, i really thought that xenomorph was dropping linux in favor of "the dark side" (ie, windows!) that woulda been a shocker!

 

The thing I love about linux is that it doesn't cost anything besides time to try out something different. I've been using ubuntu after having tried out suse (got it free from school) and kubuntu. There are bits about each of them that I like and don't like but I don't really mind spending time to customize things to be how I want them to be.

 

Despite what others may think of us, it's hard to be a really annoying linux fanboi because part of the linux expierience is realizing that there are a nearly infinite number of options and that one sixe does not fit all. That realization is counter to the prototypical fanboi mindset of "My way is the only right way and everyone who disagrees is a stupid n00b!".

 

I've only tried ubuntu and I found it difficult to add anything useful to it, also very difficult with ati gpus. But... it's easy to install and I found it fairly easy to configure for file sharing on a windows network so it's currently running on my server. I'd recommend it as a suitable OS if all you need is basic firefox, email and openoffice but anything else - no. I couldn't even get all the browser plugins configured correctly.

For me windows is much easier on a normal desktop but I like the idea of free...

 

Windows > Mandriva > Kubuntu > Ubuntu > anything else....

If you start calculating time spent on making Linux work contra making windows or OSX to work, you'll find that Windows/OSX is very cheap...

 

Hmm, just copy over your Windows mozilla folder (the hidden one)... All plugins work, except for the IE tab and the likes...

EDIT:

For newbies maybe... but an experienced Linuxian won't agree, at all... and Kubuntu == Ubuntu, just another frontend, it's not an other distro...

 

Undoubtedly, but when you're a college student with more time than money then $100 for an operating system is quite pricey despite the fact it doesn't take as much time to install and configure.

 

The free, or the proprietary unsupported ones?

Um, what else is there? Other than programming, or having an interesting environment to work in (well, gaming I suppose).

Did you seek support or just give up?

I think you are confusing "making it work" and "making it work exactly how you want it". If you are, I think you will find you can never make Windows or Mac OS work exactly how you want it.

 

I actually completely sympathise with this. The idea of free (as in speech) software is great, I love the philosophy and the fact that I can really do pretty much whatever I want with it. What I hated about Ubuntu though was that, basically they seem to actually purposely be as unhelpful as possible whenever it comes to something they don't approve of. Now, isn't forcing ones own motivations, beliefs, and ideas upon the user one of the things we all bash Microsoft for? So why am I being told that because I happened to buy X wireless card instead of Y wireless card, the drivers won't install, and I'm going to have to do everything myself, the hard way (which, of course as an Ubuntu user, I'm clearly incapable of) because the Ubuntu devs don't approve of the driver framework or some other rubbish that my card happens to use?

That is not usability. That's a bunch of righteous geeks being dicks to a userbase who they're supposed to entice into linux, and doing an absolutely terrible job of it.

Free (as in speech) is great, but I'll take free (as in beer) and working, over free (as in speech) and not fully working any day of the week.

 

The most irritating thing about that is that they aren’t even consistent, they ship with a 3D accelerated window manager for ****s sake.