I think a lot of people take an interest in Linux because they want to switch from using Windows for two reasons:
1) Windows isn't free
2) Windows is starting to get ridiculously dumbed-down (I was liking it up until XP, but Vista is just dire)
Microsoft Windows is a magnificient operating system; I mean I've been using it for about 15 years, from about Win 3.11 for Workgroups, to Win 95, to Win 98, up to Win XP Pro SP2. It's extremely stable, it rarely crashes if not abused.
Windows is no easy competition when it comes to replacing your operating system. At the moment, I've got a few operating systems on my machine, and I'm slowly but surely trying to switch to using Kubuntu as my main OS. I want to switch to Linux for these reasons:
1) It's free
2) It's not getting ridiculously dumbed down (well hopefully it won't)
3) Everything in Linux starts with the commandline (I like this)
4) I like the file system, mounting stuff from the root directory and so forth
The major drawback tho of switching to Linux is simply that 15 years experience with another OS is hard to beat. Anyway, I was hoping some people here could help me with some problems I'm having with switching to Linux. These problems are what I see as essential in an modern OS:
1) I can't for the life of me get flashplayer to work in either Konqueror or Firefox. When firefox (attempts to) load a flash player page, it simply disappears and I get a message box saying that a program's crashed. In Konqueror, I tried to use something called nspluginwrapper, but it too crashes after about 10 second of playing.
2) Trying to get Skype working, but it just doesn't wanna work. When I enable my microphone, something very strange happens. I get a series of beeps, maybe three beeps of middle C, then it move up a few notes and beeps a bit more, then moves up further and beeps a little more.
3) Media. God damn media. I want to be able to play mp3's, mpeg videos, wmv's. I have the stuff like Amarok and Kaffeine but they simply don't work. I could try to figure it out but really I'm not bothered trying to figure out a media player that doesn't work out of the box, because seriously that isn't much to ask.
4) Fonts. Now a lot of people think this is a small issue, but I really can't take an OS seriously if the fonts aren't sharp and smooth. I've already installed Tahoma on Kubuntu, but still the font smoothing isn't the best. I try to read a webpage but I get sick of trying to read blury letters. Turning off the smoothing makes them less blurly of course, but then they look like something out of a 1930's dot matrix printer. (Yes I know dot matrix didn't have printers back then)
Are these all small issues that can be overcome in an hour? Is it realistic thinking that I can make Linux my main OS? Of course, it will be hard to turn my back on 15 years' experience in another OS (because I do trully know Windows inside out), but something makes me want to broaden my horizons and become a fulltime Linux user. I don't know if it'll be worthwhile, but I'll give it a try nonetheless.
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