Many of you seem to dislike XP because of MS's intrusion into user privacy. But what about Linux?
First a reminder:
Linux changes dramatically every year. Possibly because 98SE more or less stays the same, you forget that when you saw Linux in 2003, that's like seeing Windows 3.1 versus XP or a modernized 98SE (for Linux in 2008.). And Linux in 1999 was like Windows 2.0.
Now, I'm gonna answer your problems & questions with Linux:
* Driver support ("Not enough drivers")
* Speed ("Too slow")
* System Requirements ("requirements too high")
* Software ("not enough software")
* Gaming ("no games")
* Windows programs (Wine) ("but I need Win32" or "but I want commercial software")

Now, here's the answers:
* Gaming. Aah, gaming. I must admit Linux has less games. But whereas Windows 98SE's games are limited, and very few new games are coming out for it (almost all that are solely because they work with KernelEx,) Linux has constantly... new games. For example, id keeps pumping out new games for Linux, it looks like Valve may make games for Linux soon, and Wine constantly make brand-new games like Command & Conquer 3 and Call Of Duty 4 and slightly older games like Phantasy Star Online, SimCity 4 and Battlefield 2. Old games that you loved back when games were designed for 98, like Diablo II, Half-Life & Need For Speed II often work great. And even some of the newest, fanciest games (Crysis) work! In other words, the gaming support on linux is quite good. Also worth noting are open source games: there are quite a few OSS games.
* Windows programs. I'll make it short and stun you: Windows 98SE and Linux have almost equal Win32 & Win16 support. Dun-dun-dun! Whereas Office 2003, Photoshop CS2, and iTunes 7 don't run on 98SE, they run on Wine. Office 2007 even runs, sort of. Quark 7 runs on Wine. etc. And almost anything from the 98 era runs on Wine. So Wine is really magical.
* Linux does have lots of software. Linux has mines of open-source software, such as OpenOffice.org - Office, Firefox - Browsing, GIMP - Photo Editing, Krita - Painting & Photo Editing, Amarok - Audio Manager, F-Spot - Photo Manager, Scribus - Page Layout etc. All the listed apps are very good. And all are free. Some OSS apps are lackluster, but compared to where OSS office apps were just a few years ago, OSS office apps these days are wonderful, whereas just about three years ago, OSS office apps were cumbersome and limited.
'* Linux does not have "equal or worse driver support" then 98SE. It has, for modern and slightly old hardware anyway, far better support. Examples: Almost all mobos work on Linux, basically all ATI cards get 2d accelaration and almost all get 3d accelaration. Built in VESA. Support for CPUs is superior (64-bit, dual-core, hyperthreading) and support for SATA and PCI-e are superior. Support for old hardware, from period 1996-2001, 98SE most likely has equal support, with Linux supporting almost everything from that period, same with 98SE.
* Linux can be tuned to any speed. Linux is not "slower" or "faster" then 98SE. DSL linux likely is faster, a command-line Slackware is surely faster, and with lots of RAM, Puppy Linux is faster as it uses RAM to cache everything. At video encoding on modern computers, Linux is considerably faster because it supports dual-core, but at day-to-day word processing, a bloated distro like Mandriva would be considerably slower.
* Linux doesn't require intensive system requirements. The requirements for Puppy are 64MB RAM, a Pentium (PII recommended) and a CD-ROM drive that you can boot from. The requirements for DSL are 16MB RAM (with 48MB swap), a HD for swap (optional with at least 32MB RAM), a 486, a CD-ROM drive, and booting from either CDROM or floppy. Some distros, such as Xubuntu, have intensive requirements (about Pentium III, 256MB RAM, 1.5GB HD) but these still are generally far lighter then Vista.


Now for a few more FAQs:
"I don't like the Linux directory structure"
You could try GoboLinux, or you could run as root. Also, the reason the Linux directory structure is the way it is is for security, portability, and flexibility, not just multi-user use.
"I don't like passwords"
Then don't set them.
"I like tweaking INI and BAT"
There's lots of shell scripting and config file editing you can do in Linux too! Linux uses text for config files, and they're end user modifiable.
"I like DOS"
Try Qemu or VirtualBox, with FreeDOS (or a copy of 98SE) in it! You can do a lot in Qemu! Also DOSBOX, but that's only good for games.
"I want to know which distribution to use"
Here's a quick pick guide:
* Basic User, Pentium-Pentium III, 64MB RAM-128MB RAM. Puppy
* Advanced user, as above: Puppy for simplicity and speed, or a minimal Ubuntu or Debian install (ask for help).
* Pentium III 128MB RAM: Puppy, SliTaz for speed, Xubuntu for large software selection and flexibility
* Pentium III/4 256MB RAM: Xubuntu
* Modern: Ubuntu, SuSE, Mandriva. I recommend trying the LiveCDs of all three. If you can't do that, try Ubuntu first and then Mandriva if Ubuntu doesn't work out, then SuSE.
"I like this community"
Ubuntuforums.org is an excellent community. I agree though, I like this community a lot too!

A very good summary. Eventually I will also install a Unix system, maybe in 1-2 years. But the same I was already saying over 20 years ago, at the time of migrating from CP/M to DOS.

At the latest I will install Linux when there is no more browser & anti-virus support for Win98. The major problem is the learning curve, an old dog learns no new tricks.

So why do you ask what we think of Linux while simultaneously telling us what to think about it?

As I see at the top of this thread:
MSFN Forums > Microsoft Software Products - Discussion & Support > Windows 95/98/98SE/ME

I can't remember MS to have ever released some Linux version and even if they did, this section is dedicated to Win9x. So your topic is a little misplaced, to put it nicely.

But just to be on-topic of your off-topic, I tried to run Ubuntu and Kubuntu 6.06 and 6.10 on a HP Vectra (Celeron III 633/128RAM) and failed completely. Only Knoppix Live could run somehow decently.
Then tell me what usable version of Linux (and what additional software) could I run on my 200MHz PentiumMMX/64RAM/4MB video ?

I find a Linux topic inside a MS forum refreshing - one should always look over the fence. The question "why am I using Win98 and not Linux to ... e.g. access the Internet" is relevant if you use new hardware.
Why do you still use this old machine? I have kept my old HP 125 CP/M machine as a memory (maybe only one other specimen exists at http://www.hpmuseum.net/display_item.php?hw=41 ) and my Toshiba 3100SX as a portable DOS machine which doesn't require much space. But my Gateway Solo laptop, Win95 with P3 120Mhz, is a piece of computer junk sitting in a box, with no more use.

If you weren't that far away I'd say toss it over, that Gateway.
Anything can still be useful, willingly. That 200MHz machine of mine has done way more than it should've, the system's been up for 2 years without reinstall and although it's not in use currently, it had it's share of bumps, only thinking of dozens of crashes/freezes/instant reboots while testing alpha-staged software, however I trust it'll wake up from its sleep and run without a hitch at any time.
Personally I cannot afford a modern, expensive machine, so I have to deal with parts that others throw away, building my machines from scrap. The most I've ever got (before frying the CPU) was a 800MHz Pentium III on a SiS630 mobo. Maybe it was the crappy chipset, maybe something else, but it was running kinda slow, even slower than this 633 Celeron I have around and that was with 98SE on it. At some point I needed to test an application that wouldn't run correctly in 98 and put up a dual-boot with Server 2003. Gotta say that thing was crawling as compared to 98SE, on exactly the same hardware.
I once tested one of my Ubuntu disks on that machine and it popped up an error regarding HDD cache or something. The HDD was brand new at the time (160GB PATA Seagate) and I'm still using it now with this 400MHz Pentium II I'm typing with (which is my primary machine for now), without a problem.

So, to conclude, I have to say that my experience with Linux - although pretty limited - was somehow negative, since none of my machines could put up with a decent Linux version that could be used on a daily basis. That's why I kinda heat up when people come and throw "hey, why don't you use Linux? it's magic, it works fine and it's free" - it never worked fine for me, while 95 and 98SE have done their job gracefully and still do.

Despite that, I definitely wouldn't go to a Linux-dedicated board and shout "hey, ditch Linux and use Win9x, it works much better" - it's just a matter of common-sense and personal preference.

P.S. If I had a working AT power source and my old 12" monitor back, I'd put back to work my old 486 DX2/66MHz IBM ValuePoint for some old DOS games. Nostalgia...

Because we're not lemmings who have to have new shiny stuff? Seriously, I have a similar machine that I use as my main and am typing this from. It still works fine, so why should I use a newer one just to satisfy some unknown people's desires?

On the topic of Linux, they don't run that well on old hardware unless they're stripped to the command line. With Win9x you can have a graphical environment on as low as a 486. For GNU/Linux you need at least a Pentium II at 300 Mhz or better, according to Debian's documentation.

In fact, we have a Linux box here, a Pentium II 350 Mhz with 128 MB of RAM. It originally had Ubuntu on it, but it was painfully slow. Switching to XFCE window manager helped, but not much. In the end I put Puppy Linux on it, which works much better. I have to say that on my main it runs well too. But that's because it also has a lot of RAM. 64 MB is the bare minimum for a graphical GNU/Linux. Not so with Win9x.

My main issue with GNU/Linux, though, is the lack of standards. GNU/Linux on its own, is a kernel with a command line and GNU tools. All the rest is a collection of programs you put on top of it with questionable integration. They can't even agree on a standard GUI toolkit.

The one thing they did agree on, using X-Windows as a basis for the graphical desktop, is a horrible mess that wasn't even made for what it's used today, and is the main reason that a graphical desktop is so demanding on GNU/Linux. It doesn't even come with a good window manager, so there's a lot of them to choose from too.

Hello

I just tried Linux Ubuntu again, and let me tell you, if you use blue tooth or wireless devises you will find that the
the linux driver versions used to get the things you need working seem mostly hacked and have a lack of features
originally sold with the item. Umm and puppy linux is is a very limited distro. and out of four computers i tried it on
my wireless cards never worked, and the distro offered no recourse no alternate drivers it was like ohh well we
can't get your stuff working sorry. And blue tooth on puppy forget it. Ubuntu 8.04 takes 384megs to run. you
can get xubuntu but it can be quite limited as well. Now as far as linux on it's on merit for basic computing and if you
don't expect much out of your computer, it,s fine, But make sure your hardware is up to snuff, i have one computer
that exceeds the requirements for ubuntu and it wont even boot and yet win98se will. Now a real big problem for
me with linux is the constant upgrade path, for instance Opensuse 27 Fedora 39 upgrade, Windows 98SE,98FE
2000,NT,Me and XP are all old, and i don't have to upgrade every 2-6 months. Maybe when all that works out,
I might become more of a linux man.

I try to use the best of both worlds.

Whenever possible and the machine allows, Ubuntu is a better choice when compared to Vista or XP.

Freedom to go online without fear of viruses and everything for free without need to get strange serials to register office or windows itself.

The Compiz fusion is a simply outstanding visual experience that is light-years away from Vista.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ...ed&resnum=1

Better yet with Virtual Box that allows to run XP perfectly well inside the emulator and integrate with the linux OS so I can't say that I miss much and even removed Vista from my laptop to run ubuntu full time.

---

Older/limited linux versions for older hardware are nowhere as fun as the latest ones for modern hardware and I wouldn't doubt about using windows 98 or XP on them to run faster.

Haven't had any issues with hardware support using ubuntu 8.04 as compared to the previous version.

There are also developments like NDISwrapper that allow to run windows drivers under a linux machine, good for those wireless hardware you mentioned above.

Virtual Box also allows to use whatever is connected on the USB port to be used by the virtual machine and this is good for those things that only work under windows.

I also use both FireFox and OpenOffice so there is little annoyances regarding this shift from MS to Linux, really liked office but I've just grow too tired of the need for buying licenses or using pirate copies that I try as much as possible to use free products and to be honest, the latest versions of OpenOffice are getting better and better.

Windows 98 was my favourite OS for a long time, with 2000 and XP things have grown substantially in terms of redundant addons and now with Vista I simply refuse to buy myself a brand new machine and get stuck with a slug OS.

People with Mac's are faced with even worser difficulties than those using Linux and still people like them so why all these complaints about Linux?

Mac's users live in an even more commercially restricted world than MS ever was but Linux enjoys from a lot more of free options: http://www.boot-land.net/forums/?showtopic=4502

Did I mention that Ubuntu with Gnome and all possible eye candy (compiz, etc) is using little above 380Mb of RAM?

My dual core laptop with 2Gb of RAM and Vista simply took forever to startup and was so slow to let me use it for daily tasks, now it seems like I have a brand new machine (again)..


-----

Enjoy your machine is my advice, so be sure to also keep an eye for the other options.

I use triple-boot here, between XP, NT4 and Mandriva Linux (Windows 98 is in my old trustworthy P3 700, 256MB ram), and I must say, although Mandriva runs without a hitch here (I only disabled some eye candy I hate) and not slow at all, I have more fun in Windows XP. After disabling that Luna horror and going back to the old Win2000-like appearance, Windows XP just seems.... simpler. Runs anything I wanna run in an interface that seems right. I don't get the same feel on Linux, probably because I'm not used to it, but I go there once in a while. Also, I find it interesting that, although Linux has, by definition, a more rigid directory structure, my XP ends up MUCH more organized. I absoluely abhor those two folders with all binaries on it, I'd rather have something like "Programs Files", in which every software creates a folver for itself with an actual meaningful name.

Deli Linux 0.7.2 released last September requires for a graphical desktop only a i486 system with 16 MB RAM. Much the same requirements apply to Slitaz released even more recently I think.
I find the integration of third-party apps far superior to Windows.
I also find the hardware support out of the box much better than Windows.
I don't blame Linux for trying to implement secret drivers for hardware.

I've been playing with PCLinuxOS (a Mandriva derivative) and I love it. It runs well from the live CD and had no problem with wifi or other drivers. Although I must admit I haven't tried Bluetooth as I find it painfully slow data transfer and have no devices that rely on it. I've had huge dramas with Bluetooth on my XP machine anyway so not a fair comparison. The generic XP Bluetooth drivers (by MS) seem pretty flakey so not really a valid complaint of Linux as far as I'm concerned.

Bottom line is each to their own!
- If Windows does it for you, use it!
- If Linux does it for you, use it!
- If Windows doesn't do it for you but you haven't had luck with Linux then keeping checking different distros from time to time and most importantly don't give up on it.

Its been about 2 years since my first distro download (Ubuntu, don't remember which? 5 or 6 .something?) I've given up a few times and gone back to Windows, but I kept trying and now I think I'll stick with PCLinuxOS for a bit.

XP has served me well for years and I know it well and it does what I want. But I'm in no rush to install Vista and I'm not keen to give MS AU$150 +/- for a copy of Vista when Linux will serve my purposes for $0. It will take a little while to setup on my new sys, but so would Vista! I will keep my old PC and keep XP running on it (dual boot with Linux). But my new PC (building as we speak) will be Linux exclusively.

Some fresh personal experience with Linux:

1. Puppy Linux derivative Tiger Puppy 1.6 wouldn't even start on HP Vectra (633MHz Celeron III/384MB PC133 RAM/8MB i815 video) - halt at loading into memory. Tried it on a 166MHz Pentium I/64MB RAM/2MB Cirrus Logic video - took almost an hour to boot, was completely unusable.

2. Ubuntu 8.04.1 crash (random colored rectangles on black background) while previewing screensavers (happened with older versions as well, on different machines).

3. Xubuntu 8.04.1 wasted 2 hours of my time and couldn't find a way to mount the HDD partitions or to connect to a network share on a Win98SE machine.

The only somehow usable Linux version so far has been Knoppix, which unfortunately has a very limited range of included applications and recently - since v5.3.1 - comes in 4GB DVD image format which I have not tried to download yet but it's possible it exceeds the Win9x FAT32 filesize limit.

And a MAJOR annoyance will all these distros (especially referring to *ubuntu series): although they take full CD capacity (700MB), when trying to install certain OS features (like languages or system applications), they run to 'ask mommy' for download. I'm sorry, but MS Windows got it all on that CD, no need for download. What if one wants to use those features offline, with no internet connection?

Bottom line is, personally I would never be able to run a Linux-based machine for my daily tasks, considering my current hardware specs. Thanks to the original poster for making me realize how superior Win9x is as compared to Linux, for me.

Re: Drugwash,
1. Tiger Puppy 1.6 has Xfce and Compiz-Fusion so has system requirements exceeding the machines you tried it on. Also I think it is still in beta. Try Puppy 1, 2, 3 or 4 series.
2. *buntu is bloated
3. Xfce is bloated. Try IceWM, JWM or Fluxbox.
4. Even CD versions of Knoppix include many more applications than any Windows version. DVD versions can be bought cheaply and widely including on ebay.
5. As for certain "OS features (like languages or system applications)" could you be more specific because in my experience Linux does include more on CD than Windows. Among the apps Puppy includes that Windows doesn't are a html editor/IRC client (Seamonkey), instant messaging (Pidgin), spreadsheet (Gnumeric), PDF viewer (ePDFviewer), PDF creator (puppyPDF), Disc burning (Grafburn), Torrent client (Transmission), zip archiving utility (Xarchive).
6. Linux can install software offline. Why do you think Linux magazines provide CDs/DVDs? Have you heard of repository CDs?

@ Drugwash

I haven't heard of Tiger Linux. Did you try original Puppy Linux? Ideally it needs 256MG RAM but some sources claim it can be run on as little as 32MB RAM (but no doubt slowly). Puppy also addresses another of your issues, download size - version 4.0 "Dingo" is about 88MB and includes drivers for scanning, printing, digital cameras, audio recording/editing/conversion and also includes a basic suite of office apps and utilities. I haven't tried it but I've heard many people say its a great OS. I have even heard it favourably compared to the speed of DOS (perhaps that's pushing it!?) I plan on trying it on an old P2 sometime soon.

Ubuntu is not one of my favourites either! But last time I installed it (6.10? 7.04?), I did it with no internet access (mostly because it didn't support my NIC 'out of the box') and don't recall issues like that. I think it did ask to check for updates (but isn't that what windows does too?)

Not sure on Knoppix but a quick google found the official site (www.knoppix.net) and the latest version (5.3.1) is available as a 700MB download which includes "recent linux software and desktop environments, with programs such as OpenOffice.org, Abiword, The Gimp, Konqueror, Mozilla, Apache, PHP, MySQL and hundreds of other quality open source programs." Although perhaps you're right, because as Knoppix is designed to run as a Live CD/DVD (and not be installed on your HDD), the DVD version would be far superior (more built in apps).

Regardless, it sounds like you're happy with 98 and good luck to you. Personally I'm not a big fan, but I have no interest to 'convert' you. If the shoe fits - wear it! It just comes down to circumstance, personal preference and choice. Basically what I wrote above: The 3rd one applies to me and I'm almost at the second (still a few wrinkles to iron out). One thing I will say though - I don't plan to give MS my cash when I build my next PC!

If all this miracle technology is true, I do have a big wonder: why the newer PSUs have higher and higher output power? Old AT PSUs had somewhere between 70 and 150 Watt max. Now I hear about ATX v2 of 500-800 Watt and I may always be behind regarding the news. A single modern videocard would swallow the energy used by a complete 486 machine. I strongly think the only way such a machine would be green is actually paint the case green!

Again, why aren't we talking about Linux in this topic? I really want to find one version that could replace my Windows as it is now.

Topic Split.

As for your search of a lightweight Linux distro, try the following:

Get a copy of Fedora9. Install the base system, but don't install any graphical user interfaces (no Gnome or KDE). Remove all the packages that you don't want or need. Once the system is installed, you'll be dropped into a command line (scary, I know).

Log in as root (you should have set the password during install), make sure you're connected to the internet (ping www.google.com) and then run the following commands:

Once that's installed, press Ctrl+Alt+F7. If you get another command line, press Ctrl+Alt+Backspace. This should start/restart the X-window manager. You'll see a login screen of sorts, and your username listed there. Click it, enter your password, and you should be up and running.

Have you had a go at Puppy? As I said earlier I have heard many good things about it.

Even though I'm not a big fan of Ubuntu and its derivatives, WattOS have miniWatt version (with XFCE desktop) or a microWatt version (with an even lighter weight desktop) that may be ok? I am really impressed with both Mandriva (2008.1) and PCLinuxOS (2007 - a 'rolling' Mandriva based distro). They run really fast from the live CD and even better from HDD. The lowest spec machine I've tried so far though was a AMD64 3200+ skt939 (single core) with 1GB RAM so not sure how they go with lower spec stuff.

As for Knoppix, after having a good look around it seems you are right and that Knoppix 5.3.1 is only available as a DVD iso. So I apologise. However comparing it to Windows is not a fair and reasonable comparison. It is a live DVD (whilst it can be hacked to be installed, that is not the intention, and I've heard installing Knoppix to HDD is definitely only for the seasoned Linux enthusiast). A better (and fairer) comparison would be a Windows BartPE DVD with lots of pre-installed apps and tons of drivers.

[edit]Nice work Zxian

Sorry Zxian, your installation procedure is just not feasible. I may be somehow advanced and computer literate but not even I would endeavour to chopping a Linux distro and diving into commandline operations. I know absolutely nothing about its internals and for sure I wouldn't have known all those commands, haven't you posted them above.
Windows is just a few Next > Next with a couple stops for configuration and it's up and running. No need for Internet to install some extra OS options afterwards; at worst it'll require the CD, if the files aren't already on the HDD. I don't want an internet-dependant OS. I only have one connection, no router, no way to split it. My primary machine is always connected and using the internet so I'm not gonna interrupt it just to update some lousy Linux distro that's unable to fit its additional tools on the CD.
Remember Win98SE complete is about 350MB while the actual files only take 180MB. Is it so hard for a 700MB Linux CD to comprise some required tools? For example, I wanted to try Compiz in Xubuntu 8.04.1 - I marked it in the install applications list and it went to download it from the Internet. I mean, how big could that thing be?! The sources are little above 1MB. I also marked additional languages such as Romanian and Japanese and again it asked for the Internet. Sorry, I can't use that thing.

I don't mind Knoppix being a live CD as long as it does its job. As soon as I free up some HDD space, I'll try to download the DVD image, see if it exceeds the FAT32 limit.
As for Mandriva and PCLinuxOS, I don't think they'd work on my 166-200MHz CPUs. I do have an older PCLinuxOS distro - a 2CD version - and I also have a LibraNet distro, but never tested them.
WattOS is advertised as "a lightweight Ubuntu" and is in alpha stage. If a full Ubuntu couldn't fulfill my needs, I doubt this one could. I may try it though, once it's out of alpha.

Other suggestions?

No matter how you cut it, no linux distro available today can be properly configured with only GUI tools. Believe me, I've tried several of the "common" ones and always had to drop into a terminal at some point or another. Not to mention, once you learn the basics, it's really not that bad. I was even able to get the near-Windows-fanboi jcarle to dig into the command line (haha) after he discovered that his router was running Linux under the hood.

You're asking for something to compete with a 10-year old OS, while the rest of the development community is mostly focused on competing with Windows XP/Vista or OSX (in one way or another). Sadly, you're going to have to do a bit of custom setup here if you want what you're looking for.

As for not having a router, I realize that you're unemployed, but I'm sure that you can find a used 4-port router off a local buy-and-sell for under 20 euros.

Like I said - the problem with modern distros is not the kernel or the underlying packages themselves - it's the GUI interface. The most barebones window manager that I've been able to find is Blackbox. It's a very simplistic WM, and takes a bit of getting used to, but once you do, it's very customizable and fairly user-friendly. However - I don't know of many distros that come with it by default.

Here's a bit of reading for you to do - Building Your Own (Minimal) Operating System. Yes, it involves the command line and compiling all the programs one by one, but in the end, you'll have a very minimal system up and running. You're going to need an internet connection of some sort, so again, the purchase of a basic wired router would do you well.

The thread name is What do you think of Linux?
I for one dislike it heartily.
There are many reasons for that, here are some:

There are so many Linuxes and they all do things in different ways, place their files
in different folders, link and crosslink those configuration files all over the place.
You can't possibly keep up with it all. Switching from one distribution to another is hell.

It's ugly. Even when the graphical user interface is well designed and looks good, there's
always some ugly looking mongrelish terminal based program that spoils the day.

It is also ugly in insisting on all those campy non-descript names of programs, like MUTT,
which in no way indicate what their function is. Well, we are not amused.

It is difficult and complicated to install or uninstall programs.

It is very conservative. You don't really need a GUI they say, you can do it all in the CLI.
Really? But I don't want to type cryptic commands and it's unsexy and no fun.

The Linux people. Fanatics who try to convert you to their religion.



Having said all that I still like and use Puppy Linux.
I use it for aiding me in various Windows installations, for testing and backup.


For those of you who haven't yet tried BSD, do that.
It is logical and more elegantly built and the BSD-ers are'n religious fanatics.
I'm no expert at this, but it seems that the BSD world is more harmonic in its
developer structure, while Linux is a sorts of cacophony.

No Linux distribution has ever made me feel that; Yes! This is it!
FreeBSD did that on first encounter.

I think that XP(SP3) is today the most usable desktop OS there is. I have run
it on a Toshiba Portégé with 96MB RAM and a 266MHz CPU.
It wasn't fast, but usable if you only did one thing at the time.

I still use DOS for updating BIOS-es and for installing XP on (mostly laptops)
machines that can't boot from a CD, or don't have a CDROM at all.

Steve Ballmer once said that Linux was like communism and he was right.
Fragmentation into different directions, supposedly a superior system, but you
suffer under it, it promises but doesn't deliver and everything about it is ugly.

I hate it.

Is BlackBox available for Linux? I thought it was a Windows shell replacement... I still have it installed here, although I haven't played with it in a long time. It's BBLean, in fact.

As for the above post, I mostly agree: it's ugly.
The first thing that stroke me were the fonts: couldn't find one to at least resemble a decent font as in Windows.
Not one font!
Application names for second - I hate acronyms with a passion, my mind refuses to assimilate them.
Then, incredibly large, bulky menus. Heck, I even shrinked my scrollbars to 12 px in Windows while all Linux GUIs come as designed by Vista designers: massive waste of space.

Anyway, enough bashing, I'm tired.

When comparing Linux to Windows, at least compare like for like.

For example, compare the size and functionality of Compiz (a 3D desktop) to Aero (a 3D desktop) rather than the Windows 98 shell (a 2D desktop). A better comparison would be with 2D desktops like Enlightenment or IceWM.

Take the 100Mb or so complete Puppy Linux CD too, where in the 350Mb "complete" Windows 98 CD is the html editor/IRC client (Seamonkey), instant messaging (Pidgin), spreadsheet (Gnumeric), PDF viewer (ePDFviewer), PDF creator (puppyPDF), Disc burning (Grafburn), Torrent client (Transmission), zip archiving utility (Xarchive) or wireless internet drivers? In fact, wireless internet in Puppy is probably only about 5 GUI clicks away.

Is it so hard for a 350MB Windows CD to comprise some required tools?

Romanian and Japanese language support may not be included in most distros (though I think it is with Knoppix, Mandriva, openSUSE and Ubuntu) but as far as I remember, weren't included with Windows 98, XP or Vista either.

Linux can install software offline. You just need to go into Aptitude or Synaptic and go to Settings and sources or repositories. Why do you think Linux magazines provide binaries on CDs/DVDs? Have you heard of repository CDs? There are loads at on-disk. In fact Aptitude and Synaptic make it easier than Windows to install and uninstall programs.

Linux fonts is one of the more valid criticisms but again Windows 98 included few fonts by default and both systems can add fonts.

If you can't reduce the size of menus or scrollbars you're using the wrong desktop environment probably Gnome or Xfce which I personally hate. Use KDE 3 series on a modern machine or fluxbox or icewm on a Win98 machine.

Linux distros do tend to have a similar directory structure - similar files are found in /usr across distros and /mnt and /etc.

Contrary to popular belief, you can configure a Linux system only using the GUI without using the CLI.

eheh.. this is a fun read:


Did your windows 98 package came with Romanian or Japanese languages as well?

What is the complication on letting the OS get the latest files from the internet?

Doesn't Windows XP/Vista do exactly the same with the update center and force you to do this on every new install?

Perhaps the biggest difference is that you won't need to worry with WGA about linux repositories anymore and why would it bother you on the first place to lose 10 minutes to quickly download 300Mb worth of updates (at the max) when a DVD film from one of those torrent sites uses over 4Gb and you proabably spend all month doing so?

To try compiz out of the box you can run the Mandriva 2008 distro as it comes with it by default but you will need to have a graphics card and a SVGA display to say the least. (it won't work on the pentium MMX with 64Mb)

------------------------------





You mean that you know how to use DOS and don't like the Linux console one bit?

Funny but people some decades ago had only command line based apps and survived well with those cryptic commands both under linux and DOS.

The command prompt itself is a great way to work with windows as well and if you look closer on the evolution of windows you'd probably notice that it is getting closer and closer to what unix derivated OS's have already been doing for the last 20 years.

One of the promissed hot features for windows 7 would be the return of the true command line running in full text mode (no GUI whatsoever) so start preparing youself..

The only difference is that windows hides from your sight a lot of things, either good or bad it doesn't matter but in last circumstance they are taking you the right to make any important decisions and you still pay them good money to let them decide everything for you.

---------

So you say that you hate linux?

Do you have any idea how hard it is to change anything on windows?

- That a crack had to be made to allow using different window themes not signed from MS
- That you also needed to literally hack shell32.dll to replace the default system icons.
- Have you ever seen or tried to count how many hidden folders/files are inside the windows folder or Documents and Settings in the first place?
- Do you like having to reinstall every now and then your OS because it got infected (again)
- What if they said that no more than 10 people can be connected to your computer with XP or you'd have to buy the license to install Win2003?
- One day they decided that directX10 doesn't run on XP to force people moving up to Vista?
- If you try to share one copy of windows with the license key written on a small paper to your friends this action would be making you a criminal.
- Have you ever tried to follow how many files, folders and registry entries an MS Office leaves inside your OS? (believe me that it's a messy picture)
- How can you live and love windows even when it promotes such lousy 3D desktop effects called "Aero" to which you can't do anything to improve
- Why would you need a Vista Home Premium and pay so much for a Vista "Ultimate edition" license?

hmm.. I see you probably hate freedom from these limitations on your life as well..

Nuno, I appreciate your input and knowledge, but lessen the impression a bit, will you?
We were asked for our opinions, not for the supposedly CORRECT opinions.
So, even if I mostly hate Linux, for whatever reasons, that is still a valid opinion.


>You mean that you know how to use DOS and don't like the Linux console one bit?

In all fairness I have to admit there's probably some truth to that, yes.

The difference between my use of MS-DOS and the CLI in Linux is that DOS is needed only in a few,
special circumstances. Flashing the BIOS and booting up some odd machines at one time only, to be
able to install some other OS.

The Linux crowd expect us to use the CLI for pretty much everything. Maybe it's just me but I
really fail to see what good there is in that. There is another aspect too. I deal with a lot of people
around me who aren't even remotely as computer savvy as us geeks here are.

Linux is not for these people, who comprise maybe 99% of the population. And yes, I've heard the
stories about the grandmother who got a Linux system from her grandson and she's ever so happy
with it. But that is not the reality in my experience. Most people seem to need to change things
about their software or drivers now and then. They buy a camera, scanner, start using IP telephony,
a new printer etc. Suddenly the Linux system needs to be reconfigured, in the terminal and... Uh-oh...

The things you criticize Windows for doesn't automatically make Linux better.
Needing to hack something to replace system icons is what I did with to my Atari ST, ages ago,
and it was fun. But that is hardly something most "normal" users strive for. Mac OS X has the same policy.
One set of icons, very limited sets of desktop themes.

I support the MS and Apple line here. Different icon sets may be good for vanity, but they're not good
for uniformity. Just like the lack of a standardized written language is a serious handicap for a nation.

I managed to get WiFi working on Puppy. I spent two days reading how to do it from the command
line, and what program modules needed to be downloaded and compiled. It was very complicated
and hard to follow. Then by accident someone mentioned a couple of checkboxes and their meaning
in "the normal world". That was all I needed. With that information it was a breeze. But Linux people
seldom explain things in a breezy way...

Instead it goes something like this:

RTFM!

So you Read The Fcuking Manual.
Which unfortunately isn't about how to have sex...

The manual says; This is in fact the documentation for a much older version, from another
distribution and machine translated from the original Japanese, and for a Sun Sparcstation,
but you'll get the drift. Uh? Will I?

Then it tells me that "Steve" or "Bob" did this or added that. Am I supposed to be familiar with
those guys? And then some "in" joke. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink, get my drift?
Well, sorry, but all that is pretty immature and silly.

It soon becomes very obvious that the people who wrote the manual aren't very good at
communicating their knowledge or skills to others. And that's the whole purpose of writing
manuals, tutorials, faqs etc.

I started looking at Linux since Red Hat 4 and it still hasn't what it takes.
The ugliness remains.
The user unfriendlyness too.

And finally, to cite a certain Linus Thorvalds:
"Linux must become much more like Windows."

Reason why I'm using 98SE. I connect when I want, nto when the OS wants - the OS is not MY master, neither is MS.
Excuse me? Internet is not compulsory in every home. I may be asked to install Linux to some friend with no internet access and tell me how would I ensure a proper installation with all needed modules. Offline installations, you say? Sure, once I find out where to get them from and if there's already compiled versions for that specific kernel, otherwise I'd have to compile them myself. Excuse me again, I'm a freakin' simple stupid user that only wants to type some documents and so, I'm not a programmer to build my own applications (talkin' about 99% of the computer users around).
In Wndows world, there are open-source applications that provide the source, but most of the times they provide compiled versions as well, and those work (or at least used to, before MS started sweezing their balls) on all Windows versions, which are far less than Linux versions.

Last, about DOS commandline: "format D: /Q" rings a bell - a Linux commandline means nothing, just a string of characters with NO intuitive meaning at all. Same as application names. Not humanly readable!

P.S. I'm not using torrents, got better things to do.

My experience with Linux has never been that you have to connect to the net (other than for video codecs and video drivers if you have ATi/nVidia GPU). Many installations will ask if you'd like to check online for updates, but isn't that what Windows does anyway?

Even codecs and GPU drivers can be downloaded and taken with you on a USB for offline installation. It was only from 2K (more so XP) that Windows started including drivers for almost anything (although often providing only basic function). Last time I used a Win 98 system I had a hell of a time trying to get Ethernet and USB ports working. Ended up having to download heaps of stuff off the net to get it all working. I guess it comes down to whether you have all the stuff you need for your installation already downloaded or not.

Linux isn't Windows and never will be. The philosophy is completely different. Windows is a specific consumer product and Linux is a non-specific (generally) non-profit product made by a diverse range of people with diverse skills, interests and needs, without any clearly defined target audience. If you don't like it - don't use it.

Personally I've found it has been quite a steep learning curve but a lot of the reason for that is that I know Windows quite well and Linux does things quite differently. I think for someone who knows very little, learning Linux would be no steeper learning curve than Windows (as long as the system was installed and set up properly). They may required a little assistance if/when they get new peripherals but many modern distros support a large range of hardware 'out of the box'.

The fact that there are so many distros around, each with their positives and negatives, it can be quite confusing for Linux noobs and Windows pros alike. But once you work out what you like and what you want out of your distro (ie for me I like KDE desktop over the others I've tried) you can thin them out a little. The fact that they are free and most will run as a live disk makes it good fun to play with (assuming you have the time and a decent internet connection to download multiple ones).

Yes, you are absolutely right. Reading back my own reply I see that my words were a bit too rash and this wasn't my intention, sorry.

Was just a bit amazed because you know your way around OS's and expressed such strong words.

----------------------------------------------
Do you really know what is going on the background?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/1999/03/07/ms...r_system_could/