Windows fails and I finally decided to get past my deadly addiction to Windows.

Last time I tried installing it I had a problem with the interface because of my video card but since then I have upgraded. Thankfully I tried installing it again and finally have Ubuntu on my computer again!

I've used Knoppix, Fedora Core (5,7,8,9), and now Ubuntu (along with a bunch of other "unknown" small linux distros).

I'm glad for you, but I don't really get why everyone bashes Windows so much. People talk about instability, BSODs, viruses, Vista problems, etc. I've used Windows my whole life, and I know it like the back of my hand. It works great. Vista doesn't crash on my, I haven't had a virus since I was using Windows 3.1 (and it was a funny virus, too!) My computer came with Vista, and it works great, so I've had no reason to downgrade or replace it.

So what's wrong with Windows?

It's not "bad" per se for the everyday users, but for an administrator or power user there's nothing like the command-line power of Linux. You can do so much more.

actually, to be honest, I was getting rather fond of XP by the time SP3 rolled around, my only complaint being that I had to patch uxtheme to be able to install a theme that was actually visually appealing. I have pretty safe internet usage habits, and enough common sense that I only had 2 malware infections (one minor, one not so much) in the 4 years or so that I used XP as my primary operating system. Vista doesn't look too bad, though I still hate the start menu and the labyrinthine control panels. My REAL complaint with Vista is that it CRAWLLLLLSSSS compared to Linux or OS X, even with a 512MB 9600M, 4GB of DDR3, and a dual core 2.5GHz processor. (my windows experience index is 5.3/6.0, I lost some points for having a 5400rpm HD).

Really? I have a 4.0 Vista experience (2 gigs of ram, 128 mb graphics, 2.1 ghz core 2 duo) and it runs great, even when i'm folding proteins @ home in the background!

Edit: Oops, make that 4.1 O_o

Any favoured themes? I'm looking around at gnome-look.org right now and I'm not sure if I should go with Metacity or Compiz?

I agree wholeheartedly with Kerm. I use both Linux and Windows, even though a lot of my friends give me a hard time about not using Linux exclusively.
I use Windows on my laptop, so I end up using it a lot more often than I do using Linux, which I keep on my old tower computers.

Also, Swivel, I'm pretty sure they stopped calling it "Fedora Core" after version 7 or so.

What kinds of "Unknown" distros did you use? Portable ones like Puppy? Or maybe something for a specific purpose?

I've liked Compiz when I checked it out, but to be honest, I use Linux with a GUI so infrequently I don't bother switching away from the Gnome default.

the interface is sluggish, programs start up slowly (comparatively at least), and the boot time....good lord the boot time.....the applications still run with reasonable speed, but the interface doesn't feel responsive at all. OS X and Linux both run beautifully on machines 5 or 6 years older than this.

oh, and firefox crashes every hour or so.



swivel: compiz-fusion

Personally I like "clearlooks" with the "Mist" icon set.

The things wrong with windows are exactly the things you listed. Viruses, BSODs, instability, random lockups, etc... If you don't have any of those problems, then Windows runs just fine. If, however, you DO have those problems, they are pretty much impossible to fix. In Linux, there is generally always a way to fix or work around a problem.

Linux also has other advantages, such as being faster, using far less disk space than windows (Even server 2008 which only has the bare minimum installed out of the box still takes up a ton of disk space). You can also customize the crap out of things without needing hacks, and programs play nice with each other (such as having Gnome and KDE installed side by side)

Of course, there are also nasty things like DRM and the whole "Trusted Computing" crap that basically allows programs to overrule you, even though it is your system. I wouldn't so much blame MS or Windows with that as the industry as a whole, but its still there.



I think you had some other problem. I've run Vista on 4 different machines. The least powerful being (at the time) an AthlonX2 2.2ghz, 2GB DDR2 RAM, 7900GT 256mb, and a 500GB 7200RPM harddrive. Vista was still very responsive. Programs loaded quickly, it didn't take any longer to boot than XP or Ubuntu, etc... This was also when it first came out, before SP1 (when it was being proclaimed the biggest POS ever). I've also run it on a laptop with a 5400RPM drive (I'm on it now, actually) with 2GB of RAM. It is still very quick.

Ubuntu: What incompetent Vista users use.

Well its working out for me!

Any ideas on how to install these? Do I need to download something more then just Compiz-Fusion? I'm not seeing anything about how to install themes. cgwdtheme files, emerald files, nothing. I keep seeing random stuff about renaming files and then it'll work but I have no clue what to do.

I'm trying to use the install feature in the Appearance dialogue but the files aren't showing up. Any ideas?

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/CompositeManager/CompizFusion

read the section on window decorators

You can't even figure out how to apply themes?
Holy crap.

Apparently drag and drop just confuses the hell out of some people

lol I was expecting something like "Open App With" or the ability to use it through the "Install" dialogue.

I'll try it out when I get home, lol.

Why does everyone who bashes windows always refer only to Vista? Windows 2000 was never unstable when I used it, and XP has some features I like (such as a file system that never corrupts). Just because Vista has problems doesn't mean all Windows ports have them.

My theme: Windows classic, with all the visual crap turned off, which cuts the memory usage in half. Now I just need to get the proper power supply and I'll be able to run Source on medium settings.

Ubuntu looks awesome, and from what I've read runs smoothly on as little as 256mb of RAM, with all it's visual crap turned on. I use puppy linux all the time when windows dies(has only happened on shit HP laptops) and it has to be the fastest operating system I've ever used; it even ran great on a crap 32mb machine I got from my Grandmother when she was dying of uterine cancer. I've been wanting to try Ubuntu for a while now, maybe I'll put it on the spare harddrive I salvaged and boot it on my Mom's laptop.

Because Vista is easily the best version of windows to date. Its the most secure, has the fewest viruses, has the fewest crashes, etc... Vista > XP > 2000 > 9x



Aero only uses like 40 MB of RAM to begin with. I'll take eye candy over 40MB of RAM any day.

My laptop was so overpriced that I would feel like I'm being ripped off if I don't keep every everling* graphical effect turned on.

And I'll tell you that I know from experience that Ubuntu can run quite satisfactorily with a decent window manager (xfce) with as little as 90 mb of RAM. I ran a debian machine for a while with IceWM, and that had only 64 mb of RAM! Although, that one did run so slowly it was almost unusable.

*:I have no idea what this means, or even if it is an actual curse in some country or language. I read it in a fairly retarded youtube comment and it was just too pwny to pass up adding to my vocabulary.