I've doggedly stuck with Linux Mint on this laptop for a couple of years now and I'm getting close to the end of my tether.
Yes, it's a shitload faster than it would be with Win 7 or 10 on it, but for the love of the flying spaghetti monster can't these Linux geeks get their shit together and properly hide all the cryptic crap ? I've just wasted two hours trying to get the bloody touchpad to be less sensitive. The GUI control slider is all the way to the left, so I have to get under the hood... two hours of dicking about with config files and changing cryptic entries via command line.
My experience with Linux has been clunky to say the least. It's like one giant software testing suite, where half the shit doesn't work properly and the only way you can fix anything is to Google stuff and then blindly try typing in completely unintelligible commands into a command window, as advised by whatever website you've hit on.
It's such a shame as it's fast - there's no denying - but it's not an OS for the masses, or even the nerds... it's an OS for the acne-laden uber-geeks who look like the Simpson's Comic Book guy.
I hope someone is working on producing a user friendly distro that completely hides all the gobbledegook under the hood. Failing that, screw Unix.... start again with a blank canvas. I don't want to have to go back to Windows, but there aren't any alternatives.
(Don't say Mac... I meant no alternatives without buying new hardware !).
Rant over... still with stupidly fast mouse.
Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
Comments
I find Unix machines by far the nicest to develop software on. I have a Mac for work which meets that need, but if I didn't I would probably set up some kind of Linux machine as a decent Mac for development is nudging £3k these days. You have to accept that it's an OS that's developed for professionals not for regular consumers and it's always going to be some effort and trips to stack overflow to get things how you want them.
If I didn't need to develop software and wasn't bothered about games I'd just get a Chromebook. My Mrs has got one and it's quick boot, long battery life, no viruses, cheap and does everything a casual user could want. Only slightly annoying thing is that it's hard to find one with a decent screen.
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
Whilst Linux is very powerful and flexible it is written by geeks for geeks. Also the license model means a commercial company can't repackage Linux with a 3rd party decent GUI and charge for it.
For what it's worth, I've been using Linux as my main OS for about 15 years now, and for the last four years I've had no issues with it whatsoever (except those caused by the fact that my usage is a lot more in-depth than the average user). My wife used it for years, and the only reason she's moved to Win10 is that she needs Photoshop and Lightroom - even then, she preferred Ubuntu.
I don't think the Unity or MATE desktop managers you get with Ubuntu and Mint respectively are really all that good. GNOME is far superior to both, but only when you use the plugins to get it set up exactly as you want it. In terms of desktop usage, that's the real benefit of Linux in my eyes; you can make it behave in pretty much any way you want so that the computer fits around your workflow rather than the other way round.
is it crazy how saying sentences backwards creates backwards sentences saying how crazy it is?
Once Android apps are available for Chrome OS, that will make it even better for me. CloudMagic is OK as an email app but nowhere near to the level of BlueMail.
Currently building a PC for a friend's kid. Windows 10... blah. Horrible interface.
Feedback
Not used Chrome OS, but I would hate the have to e tied to the internet for my OS/file needs.
Although I like the Look of OS-X I hate being tied to the Apple way of doing things, especially file management.
I'vr always come back to Windows due to the way it workes and the software available.
And I've worked with many OS's, Linux/AIX/Solaris/HPUX/Windows/OS-X/IOS/Android/WIndows (3.0 up to 10).
I've found with windows, it does not get in the way of my workflow too much, I don't have to drop down to the command line to do anything usefull (there always seems to be another package required for linux, that has to be installed via the command line, to make an app usefull).
With Windows, I can do photo/video/music editing, I can game, I can do office stuff, I can develop all within one OS.
Now I wish there were an altertive for the PC market. If Apple were to let OS-X loose for any PC I might give it another go. I have it on another partition (hackintosh), but I kept having to boot into windows to do one thing or another.
As an OS, I'm actually enjoying Chrome OS a lot. It reminds me of the good old days using RISC-OS.
I've not really looked at ChromeOS - is it something that can be slapped on a laptop then ?
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
...but is there really that much between them ? I mean, whatever distro I use, aren't I going to have to still have the bloody command window open all the time ?
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming
Yeesh.
Free your mind, man You may even find that making a total break from your normal UI - for example, using GNOME instead - will give you the necessary mental separation to properly get into it. I personally prefer GNOME because the plugins available let me set it up exactly how I want it to be, and it's probably the smoothest of the fancypants desktops when you actually use it. Unity's sluggish as hell and always has been, and KDE's just bling city for the kind of people who put blue light strips under their cars.
Chips are "Plant-based" no matter how you cook them
Donald Trump needs kicking out of a helicopter
I'm personally responsible for all global warming