Coming from 20 years windows background (and 20 minutes linux background)

[Boom]

Hi guys,

I have to admit, Linux is not really my bag, or hasn't been so far. Microsoft products pay my wages and have done for 20 years so there is little to draw me away from using Windows most of the time. The reasons so far have been, poor hardware support (this seems to have evolved to the point where it is almost a non issue now), useability (too dissimilar to anything I was used to, fixed in some distro's) and lack of software.

I have to say, I am happily and significantly impressed by the latest version of Kubuntu...
I was looking for a server/workstation solution that was simple to install, easy to use and easy enough to teach collegues how to use.
Why am I even trying it, you are thinking? Well, Microsoft charges quite a lot for a "server", and to stop you from using a workstation as a file server they stop more than 20 connections to it at once.. Naturally they do this to protect their market in Servers. Historically the company I work for would simply pay for the server software, and they might well continue to do so, but I am investigating creating a "server in a box" for offsite user clusters...

I have tried Ubuntu and Ubuntu Server, one was just too.... weird for me, the other had no Gui...

So I came across Kubuntu, the install was effortless, the controls are all there (in the gui) and I haven't opened a terminal window even once so far. The KDE interface is familiar enough that I can find my way to all the things I am looking for without too much searching.

Big thumbs up to the dev team from me...

[Snowhog]

Welcome! Nice bit of background there. You will find (mostly), that while we are Kubuntu Linux 'fans', we aren't against any who use, or maybe even prefer, using Windows. An OS is, after all, only useful if, for the user, it is useful.

[|_aban]

I completely agree that Microsoft has had a huge advantage over Linux for years. I have never tried to set up a server for professional use. Only test servers for private use, and ordinary workstations.

The first time I tried linux was approx. 12 years ago. I tried something called Corel Linux, and it was a terrible failure. On one computer, the system would not start, I only got a black screen that started filling up with an endless array of 01 01 01 01 01 01 etc. On another I got a scrambled screen that I could not fix. So I was irritated, and threw the whole thing in the garbage. Such problems, I never had with Windows.

So, 4-5 years later, I was curious again, because others around me was using Linux, and got it working properly with remote login, and various other useful features like "Windows did not have." I tried Red Hat Linux and Fedora, and some things worked fine for server use. But the user interface was terrible. I tried some other distros as well, some with KDE, some with Gnome, one with Fluxbox (crappy system), and various solutions. I even tried systems like Solaris and FreeBSD.

At some point I tried Gentoo Linux, which advertised that you could customize the operating system completely at your own request, more than any other distro. The disadvantage here is that EVERYTHING you want to install, will have to be compiled from scratch. I followed the instructions on the distros website, but after 36(!!) hours of compiling, the computer was still not finished compiling the desktop environment. Then I gave up, and also rejected the system.

It took a couple more years, until I stumbled across PCLinuxOS (pclos), a KDE-based system that looked fairly similar to Windows, and was just about usable. That's when I started using Linux in earnest, and moved more and more applications from Windows to Linux. I had this installed in parallel with Windows for some years, but was dissatisfied with the fact that updates came late, and finally not at all. The reason was that a new edition of the distro had been released and no more updates for the old edition was available. No automatic upgrade was available, and no notice was given to me as a user on the screen accordingly. I had to follow up on the website myself, and upgrade manually every time a new version was released. At some point I had enough of this, and started looking for a better solution.

So, at a time when Ubuntu Maverick Meerkat was still on, I discovered that there was a version of Ubuntu which was based on KDE (ie Kubuntu), and it looked pretty similar to pclos. I decided to try, and I have NEVER regretted it. Although they look alike, pclos cannot compare with Kubuntu at all, especially because of the Muon Software Center, and the system setup program.

Today I don't use Windows anymore. It is still on the machine, but I might as well remove it. Kubuntu is upgrading itself every time a new edition has been released, just like Windows Update does. There are no programs in Windows that I can not find anything like or equivalent in Linux, except for popular games, and a fully working edition of Spotify.

What I really miss in the Linux world is a better cooperation between those who develop software. I think there are too many distros available, and most of them (yes, I dare to make such strong statements) are frivolous. In practice, there are no more than a handful of major distributions, and all other distros are based on the major again. The world would rather need a few major distros that really works and that many people are trying to get to work, than a whole bunch of distros that just almost works.

In particular, I miss a proper order in the root folder system. There should be clear rules for what types of programs and files to be stored where in your filesystem. My experience is that some applications and files are stored under /usr/lib, some are stored under /usr/local/lib, other stored under /opt, and a few stored in your home directory.

My point?
Things are improving, but the road is still long before Linux really is being able to outperform Windows.

[HalationEffect]

In particular, I miss a proper order in the root folder system. There should be clear rules for what types of programs and files to be stored where in your filesystem. My experience is that some applications and files stored under /usr/lib, some are stored under /usr/local/lib, other stored under /opt, and for a few stored in your home directory.

The rules do in fact exist, and have been around for a long time, but not every Linux distribution follows them 100%.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Filesys...archy_Standard

[GreyGeek]

Hi Boom!!
Welcome to Kubuntu and KubuntuForums.net.

I used Windows to write software, which put bread on my table, for nearly 30 years, out of the 40 years I programmed, among other things. Except for its lack of stability and security, which drove me to using Linux personally, my beef wasn't with Windows as much as it was with Microsoft's lack of business ethics, i.e., their constant and continuing use of dirty tricks to tilt the PC playing field. Windows XP SP3 an onward is, for the most part, pretty stable. So is Win7. Security, especially for Joe and Sally Sixpack, is still an issue, or they wouldn't have discovered that bot farm last year that had over 5,400,000 Windows zombies in it, almost all of them infected with simple email viruses.

The last place I worked at, from which I retired in 2008, used FoxPro 2.5 for DOS and had switched to Visual FoxPro 5.0 just as I arrived. When MS discontinued real support for VFP we cast around for another tool. I settled on Qt4 using MS Visual Studio C++ 6.0. I needed to test the client-server app I was developing against a database but didn't want to touch the Oracle backend the State was using. So, I installed SuSE 6.3, which I picked up from BestBuy, on an old workstation which I was given by IT to use as a server, running in my office. It ran PostgreSQL on it and I connected to it from my workstation.

I found that MSVC was so slow in compile that it would take 20 to 25 minutes to compile the app. That limited my code-compile-test cycle to about 3 per day, if I compiled over the lunch time. I began wondering if I could compile faster on Linux, so I installed that same SuSE 6.3 as a dual boot on my workstation. Using Kate and Kdbg I found I could compile the exact same code on Linux using gcc in under 3 minutes. I was stunned. So, I used compiler defines to choose which code to compile into the executable at compile time, depending on the OS that was detected and did all my coding and debugging under Linux against PostgreSQL. When I was satisfied that the app met the specs milestone I'd copy the code to the Windows side, reboot, and recompile under XP. Then, I'd copy the executable and dlls to the server to work against Oracle. The guy who replaced me is still supporting that code.

One day the IT supervisor brought an HD to me. He said is was from the Kodac imaging system which scanned received documents as 50Kb B&W images and indexed them. It was running for nearly 15 years on a Sun Unix system, which had crashed. The clerks, when they encountered an abend, would merely reboot without telling anyone. The fs eventually corrupted a boot sector and the 1 GB HD wouldn't boot any more. Those images and indexes were important. Lawyers often consulted them going 15 years back in order to use them in current lawsuits. I shut down my SuSE server, which had been running over 400 days without a reboot, and mounted it in the slave port. When I rebooted I used the dd command to pull a text image of the 1GB drive as a text file of the same size and saved it on a network server. There were supposed to be 15,000 images and their indexes on that drive. I was able to retrieve all but about 300 of them.

That impressed the department supervisor that he asked if Linux could be used as a bulletin board system. I told him it could and he told the IT guy (who was a staunch Windows fanboi) to give me an old PC (P4 was what I was given) with a couple of HDs. It had two 1G Barracudas, notorious for their failure rate. I wrote two Python scripts, and one Bash script, each about 70 lines long, and modified the /etc/inittab script to create two re-spawning connections bound to the two modem tty ports, because they had two phones plugged into two modems cards on the PC. At the time SuSE was using KDE 1.0, which was almost indistinguishable from the Win98 that was running the WildCat BBS that they had been using. The problem was that Win98 crashed at least once or twice a day. It was OK as long as an MSCE was around to reboot and restart the Wildcat BBS, but the system HAD to run 24/7 during tax season, and the IT guys were complaining about having to come in once or twice on Saturdays and Sundays. Being salaried, they weren't on the clock. That SuSE system ran for three years without a single crash, failure or loss of data, and the clerk who ran it said it was no different than using the Wildcat system, from her point of view, except that it never crashed. With the success of that, the department boss sent one of the better MSCE's, who also ragged on Linux the most, to RH certification training. When he came back he was a Linux enthusiast!

From then on the department gradually started replacing Novell servers with Linux, instead of waiting for Novell to upgrade NetWare. I was using my KDE workstation all the time, booting into Windows only to compile and deploy. We were on target for replacing all of the 30 servers and other developers were beginning to use Linux. Then a governor was elected who was a friend of the MS rep for this region. The first thing he did was to dump 10,000 Lotus Notes licenses and replace them with Exchange licenses. Then he dumped nearly 13,000 WP licenses and replaced them with Office licenses. The NetWare and Linux servers were converted to Windows servers running Active Directory. After promising to reduce costs and improve efficiencies, he replaced one tax commissioner with two, and spent well over a $1M in licensing fees to create a Windows shop. Efficiency dropped to half, primary because of the slowness of AD, and because the Windows servers had to be rebooted every week, and some everyday, to keep them from slogging down. But, I retired just as that happened, so its been no skin off my nose. However, it was and is a terrible waste of taxpayer monies and a lock-in which is contractual for years to come and which will cost us dearly.

[rms]

I think there are too many distros available, and most of them (yes, I dare to make such strong statements) are frivolous. In practice, there are no more than a handful of major distributions, and all other distros are based on the major again. The world would rather need a few major distros that really works and that many people are trying to get to work, than a whole bunch of distros that just almost works.

In my view, that is (the quantity of distros and DEs) the main strength and advantage of Linux. If one wants to be comfy one will use Kubuntu with the latest KDE, on older machines Lubuntu, and if one wants full control over what goes into the system then again maybe Arch. Ergo, this diversity is good.

[rec9140]

My point?
Things are improving, but the road is still long before Linux really is being able to outperform Win[virus].

Outperform ... By what metric?

You will find (mostly), that while we are Kubuntu Linux 'fans', we aren't against any who use, or maybe even prefer........ An OS is, after all, only useful if, for the user, it is useful.

I am that mostly part, I am a LINUX UBER ALLES! Call me a zealot, a fanboi, drank the flavorade, check, check, and check! There is no other OS. I made a decision 6+ years ago to throw any and all shackles to one particular OS out both personal and work wise, best choice ever.

[erigais]

it is so true what Snowhog said about kubunt fans. I've always thought it was kinda silly for people to argue distros in some forums. use the tool you like for the job at hand. i use both kubuntu and windows on a daily basis as the fact of the matter is there are just somethings that one just does better than the other and then there are things i like about both feature wise. one thing i really love about the kubuntu community and that keeps me here is the fact that if i ever mention using windows or trying out some flavor of linux i'm not bashed or told how stupid i am. quite the opposite, most people here will offer to give assistance or insight they've had with whatever topic is at hand. ive been on some forums where my posts were deleted and i've even received warnings from moderators for comparing their baby to another distro. so if your a regular poster here just want to let you know i appreciate the "mood" you guys set here. its really laid back and fun and i very rarely see an ugly conversation. you are a great group of people.

[sithlord48]

welcome to the forum. were you a bit puzzled when you booted up ubuntu server and no gui came up? i could see that being a little odd if your only server you have used is windows server . coming for that prospective you might think that no gui is a bad thing(or makes set up harder), but i assure you that is not true, while some gui tools are helpful almost all the server stuff you want to use has easy to set up config files so its mostly a non issue. the gui system is not needed and the best part is when its set up correctly you can even use NX so that you remotely run the gui for the server (and it does not even require that xserver is running on the server!!!) i made a Thread about my server set up, the first time as a pure *nix server. it might be a good read to show you how to set up somethings and what that headless box is used for . the machine on that thread died but the new one runs almost the same but not Gnome and lxde is provided via NX . the server now start also at tty1 so no gui is started locally on the machine. for my desktop systems i perfer KDE and use it many places.

[oshunluvr]

I've been running a server with no gui for about 3 years. Honestly, I can't imagine why you would need a gui or desktop for a server - at least in my application. I rarely log onto the machine, maybe monthly to check for updates. Everything else (NFS, samba, apache, transmission, TvMobili (DLNA), cups, etc. all run without interference. Everything was installed via ssh and when I do want to have a look at what's going on, I use WebMin.