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Hi :)
I think this mailing list is often quite helpful about wider issues than it
is meant for.

This mailing list has been quite supportive of people with questions about
various versions of Linux.  I really like it when someone who has been a
huge help to others about technical issues in LibreOffice is then supported
by others in return.


My history with Linux ...
It took me a few goes before i found which version of Linux suited me
most.  I'm very much a point&click user so i went with "Gateway" (or
user-friendly) distros to start with.  Mostly they are all good and so just
settling with anything is good but sometimes trying a different flavour
makes things feel more comfortable.

Mageia (formerly Mandriva in the same way that LibreOffice was formerly
OpenOffice) felt magical to me, fresh from Windows, but i didn't like the
blues in the default theme at the time.  Wolvix was a really friendly and
tiny team.  I could imagine meeting them at certain types of gigs and
enjoying beers and moshing.  But Slackware is not hugely easy for
point&click users so i tried a few others and settled on Ubuntu as being my
main distro while still doing a bit more distro-hopping.

Something i really liked was that during that stumbling around
distro-hopping stage nothing i learned was wasted.  Even just using Wolvix
and it's excellent installer helped me learn how to use Mageia and others
better.  The biggest step was from Windows but moving around between
different distros felt like everything stayed the same except the wallpaper
and other fairly trivial bits&bobs.


Over the last 7-8 years i have accidentally learned a few command-line
things so i would have to remember to use different names for a few things
but the basic grammar of the commands remains the same and most of the
commands are identical in all versions of linux.

I have also accidentally learned how to ssh into remote machines (at least
ones i've been given passwords for!) to do a bit of systems administration
on multiple machines at once and i can rsync or scp to rapidly upload stuff
to the company's web-hosters or between desktops or between servers - all
with the same commands regardless of which version/flavour of linux they
use.

I've also learned how to create virtual machines to use Windows inside
Linux gaining the advantage of Linux solid foundations and minimal use of
resources to abstract-away some of the typical problems of installing
Windows.

Plus i would have never learned about powerful tools to clone drives and
many other things that i would probably never have learned, or that having
learned once would have to keep relearning new tools in order to keep doing
the same thing.



Wine and "Play on Linux" and Crossover and others are all great ways of
running Windows programs within Linux without needing an extra layer(s) for
emulators or virtual machines.

Some versions/flavours of Linux can be installed within Windows, such as
Ubuntu's "Wubi" and Puppy-Linux but that seems to be an odd way of doing
it.

Using Windows as the base and then having another OS within that either as
the Wubi or the Puppy-Linux way or inside a virtual machine seems a bit
weird to me.  Windows is not really a good stable foundation plus it tends
to be quite heavy in it's use of resources and doesn't have a reputation of
"playing well with others".  Linux is much stronger on bare-metal so you'd
be missing some of the key advantages of Linux and really kinda combining
the worst aspects of both types of OSes.  However, many people have a lot
of success with it and it might be a good way-in.


So, anyway, i hope that people do ask more questions about how to use Linux
on this mailing list and that we are able to help signpost people to the
best places to ask questions or even just quickly help directly solve the
problem.

Regards from
Tom :)




On 18 July 2015 at 16:00, Gary Dale <garydale@torfree.net> wrote:

On 18/07/15 04:31 AM, yahoo-pier_andreit wrote:

On 07/18/2015 09:32 AM, Thomas wrote:

On 2015/07/18 6:50, Jack Wallen wrote:

Thank you for sharing that, Charles (I'm the author). Glad to know it
resonated.

Jack

Thank YOU, Mr. Wallen, for your article.
Although I know, this does not belong here, just a word.
I have been trying (STRUGGLING) to move away from MS and get friendly
with Linux for 7-8 years now!
So far with little success. Yet, I still keep trying.


many thanks jack, :-)
I'm not an expert, I start to use linux, basically opensuse, in 2000, and
I agree with thomas, my son, my sister, my nephews uses linux, but, if I
didn't install it and configure it and solved the problems that rised up
and sometimes continues to pop up, they never started to use linux. too
complicate... :-)


The same issue afflicts Windows. It's just that Windows usually comes
pre-installed. Having performed a lot of installs of both types, I've found
the Linux installs to be simpler and a lot faster. Windows may get to the
login screen a bit faster but then you've got interminable updates to
install with reboots needed between most of them.

As for needing assistance, I find a lot more problems cropping up with
Windows than with Linux. And yes, most end-users aren't equipped to deal
with them but that isn't dependent on the operating system. However fixing
Windows problems is more difficult and sometimes even fruitless (e.g.
Windows Updates that mysteriously fail).

I've used Linux pretty much exclusively (except for an income tax program
that I haven't got to work in wine) for 18 years. I find Windows to be
awkward and limiting. And after looking at Windows 8, it seems to be
getting worse, not better.



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