# Switching to Linux



## WarMocK (May 14, 2009)

Alright folks, since quite a few people in this forum already talked about switching to Linux (and quite a few probably consider it) I think that we should focus this discussion in this particular thread so anybody who needs some advice knows where to look for it. 
I'm gonna fire it up by giving some generic advice for migration.

1) First of all, the most important thing you need for migrating to Linux is .... *TIME*! If you just wipe your XP partition and grab a random linux CD and try to install it you will fail - no exceptions. Switching to Linux requires you to do some homework first, which is VERY simple but vital if you want to avoid unpleasant surprises. ;-)
2) The first tools you will need are a pencil and a sheet of paper. write down what programs you use, then sort them into two categories: games, and non-games. Compare the two lists. If you got far more games than other tool - honestly - stick to Windows for now. While there is a chance to make your games run under linux using WINE you do not know if all of your games are supported. If you just got a few games, have a look at http://www.winehq.org/ to check out if they are supported, among with the other tools you have. If you just have "other" programs you frequently use, move on to step 3.
3) Ok so you got a list of programs you use, now you got to check out if they are either compatible with wine (http://www.winehq.org/), or if there are some alternatives for them. If there are alternatives, try to find out if they are available for Windows as well (which is quite common). Download them, install them, and test them under XP/Vista/whatever to get used to them. This is the part that is so time-consuming: you need to try to leavy your old programs behind and try to get used to the new ones if there's no chance of getting your other programs up and running under Lin.
4) When you know how to work with your new toys: CONGRATULATIONS! Now you can give it a try and finally throw you Linux Live-CD (!!!) into your drive. Boot it, and see if the distro you chose is able to detect your hardware out of the box. The older your hardware, the better chances are that your system will work with Linux. Graphics cards are not really an issue btw, they got pretty good drivers most of the time and are fairly well supported most of the time. Most problems still occur with onboard sound chips, AIO solutions (scanner + printer, printing usually does work, but scanning won't), and sometimes modems (not sure about that part, I've been using routers for ages now xD).
That would be it I guess. Good luck! 



Oh and one more thing: Linux isn't easier or more difficult than Windows, it's DIFFERENT. ;-)


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## lilEmber (May 14, 2009)

Linux is awesome, only I play games that aren't supported by wine... at all... not to mention ATi drivers aren't the best for games that are supported.

So is this going to be some tutorials on things like compiling and such, or just for questions in general?


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## Jealousy (May 14, 2009)

As someone who had to get used to Linux very quickly after my computer crashed, may I request that this be stickied, please?


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## WarMocK (May 14, 2009)

NewfDraggie said:


> Linux is awesome, only I play games that aren't supported by wine... at all... not to mention ATi drivers aren't the best for games that are supported.
> 
> So is this going to be some tutorials on things like compiling and such, or just for questions in general?


AFAIK the Ati drivers got much better since ATI was bought by AMD.
And this thread is about anything that could be useful if you want to give it a try and switch to Linux. ;-)


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## lilEmber (May 14, 2009)

Well actually I'm talking within a few months of using it they were bad, RuneFox's ATi HD4850 was unable to play any 3d game at all I believe.


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## ToeClaws (May 14, 2009)

I can add a bit more advice here too (lots of reading, but worth it)...

On point #1 - I know it sounds annoying that you have to "take time" to learn a bit about it, but honestly - you have to do this for ANY operating system that you're going to use.  There was a time in the past where none of us knew anything about Windows either, so this is pretty normal.  And modern Linux releases are, in fact, very easy to learn and use.  

_Example:  An elderly neighbour couple a few houses down from me had a computer with an illegal copy of XP Pro on it (installed by the family computer "tech" guy.... yeah).  After explaining some of their options, they liked the sounds of giving Linux a try, so I installed Ubuntu 9.04, and spent about 20 minutes with them explaining the basic functions of it (where stuff was, how to do general things with it, etc).  I was there a couple nights a go (only about two weeks since installing it for htem) and they have it all customized now and are really enjoying it saying "This makes A LOT more sense to us than Windows did."  So there ya go - if two seniors can manage the switch, so can you.
_
On the hardware talk though, this is where I do have to extend some caution to everyone.  First off, as of early this year, Linux officially supports more hardware out of the box than ANY other OS!  That's very cool and impressive, but it doesn't mean that support is 100% gaurenteed. 

You can run into hardware issues if you have a piece of hardware or a proprietary system (like a laptop) that happened to be very unique or badly designed.  I know the pain of this one ALL too well because I have both in my main systems:  

My PC, for example, has a Radeon 3850HD AGP card.  Why is this problem?  Well, AMD/ATI stopped officially supporting AGP after the 2000HD series.  Vendors like HIS, Saffire and so on decided to make an AGP card anyway with the 3850HD chipset, so the "official" drivers for the card don't work.  You have to use special "hotfix" drivers that aren't official or supported just to make the card work on Windows XP.  To my knowledge, there are no such drivers yet for Linux.  I didn't know that at the time that I got the card.  As a result, I cannot run OpenGL and basically all the fancy high-end video on Linux that I used to, and that really crippled my Linux install on the main PC, which I had used as the primary OS until getting that card.   

Is this a common problem?  Hell no - I'm one of the few idiots around the world that actually bought this card because I still have an AGP-based motherboard (and I wanted more performance).   It's extremely rare to run into a case like this where the card won't work.  In fact, it's the only case I know of where you'll hit this kind of video problem.

Second example, my laptop.  I have a Compaq R3000, which is about 5 years old.  In it's day, the R3000 was a monster of a machine that boasted a lot of power, which is partly what drew me to it.  Unfortunately, it also used some hardware combinations that have made it one of the worst laptops in years for running anything other than what it was built for.  

The video on it is an nVidia 440 Go GPU.  The Go series have had long standing issues with their Linux drivers (which are unlikely to be fixed, given their age), and I can't do full screen video or DVD playback properly (which is something I use the laptop for constantly, so that's a problem).  The sound card is an AC97 running on an nForce3 motherboard, and for some reason, that combo causes no lack of grief with the latest Linux releases (though oddly enough, not the older ones).   The onboard Texas Instruments card reader isn't supposed in any Linux kernel and half the time even bluescreens XP when you try to use it.

I have tried Ubuntu 6.10, 7.04, 7.10, 8.04, 8.10 and 9.04 with no luck.  I tried Arch Linux and Puppy Linux and those didn't work either.  I also give PC-BSD (based on FreeBSD) a try, but the laptop (and I kid you not) shuts off during boot of the Live CD.  Same with OpenBSD.  I even, a few years back, tried putting Windows 2000 on it, which is the same major kernel revision as XP, and THAT didn't work!

So... ocassionally, you can encounter such things as cursed hardware.  Understand though that these issues are not because of Linux (or BSD), rather, are because the manufacturers of the parts have produced Windows-only drivers, and kept everything closed-source for them.  That makes it extremely difficult for Linux (and BSD) developers to write drivers for them.  Fortunately, hardware this problematic is quite rare.

I have installed Linux and BSD onto a ton of systems in the last few years and I've only had major issues with my two main systems, and those are both because of oddball hardware issues.  Just the other day, I installed it to a co-worker's brandnew and state of the art Dell Precision M4400 laptop, and Ubuntu nailed everything off the initial install.  

I appologize if your eyes are bleeding at this point...

Back to trying it out - in the sticky post about Linux or Windows, not far from the top I have a part where I quickly go over some of the major options out there.  Give it a read if you've not seen it yet, and also, take the time to read other stuff in that thread too - there is a ton of great information and links to good OS's and stuff in there!

The coolest thing about a lot of Linux (and BSD) distributions is that they have LiveCD's (and/or LiveDVDs), which means you can boot the entire OS off of a CD or DVD without changing your current OS.  So - want to try Puppy Linux but don't want to get rid of Windows XP just yet?  No problem - download the ISO, burn it to CD, and boot up your system on Puppy.  You can try it out and get a feel for how it works and your Windows XP install is not touched.  It's a very handy way to get a feel for whether you like that particular OS or not.

You can also do things such as dual-boot, meaning you can keep Windows on the system AND have Linux too.  I do this on my work laptop - it boots to Ubuntu by default (which has most of the hard drive to itself) but I can select Windows and boot from it if something comes along where I must have Windows.  You can also download a multitude of free (open source) virtual machine systems, so you can install Linux, then install Windows XP (or any other OS you want) into a virtual machine.  Very handy.

In short, don't be affraid of trying something new.  Working the major Linux releases is a lot easier than you think.  In fact, I personally find it easier to go from Windows XP to Ubuntu than to go from XP to Vista (Vista's design and layout and functionality is much more confusing than any major Linux release).  There's lots of folks around here who run it and have been running it for ages, so we're happy to offer help if you need it. 

Okay, go put some ice on your eyes now. :mrgreen:


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## Carenath (May 14, 2009)

I suppose it might be worth noting that there is also the option of keeping Windows around on your computer, on the odd-chance that you do need to switch back because of something windows-only you cant/wont do without.

If you have a big enough hard drive, one option is to create a dual-boot by partitioning the drive, and installing windows first, then Linux afterwards. Linux's boot-loader will detect the Windows installation and create an entry, this way you can pick which system you wish to boot, at startup.

The second option available, is to install Windows as a virtual PC using VirtualBox which will let you run Windows inside a window on your desktop, handy if you need to use that one windows-only application but dont make much use of Windows other than that.

If anyone's interested I'll post up my guides/instructions on the 'perfect' dual-boot setup which should work for everyone with the least amount of hassle.


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## Irreverent (May 14, 2009)

Carenath said:


> If anyone's interested I'll post up my guides/instructions on the 'perfect' dual-boot setup which should work for everyone with the least amount of hassle.



Please do!  Virtualization instructions for those not into WINE would be good too.

Added to the sticky list.


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## WarMocK (May 14, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Please do!  Virtualization instructions for those not into WINE would be good too.
> 
> Added to the sticky list.


Thanks Irre. 
And another thing that definitely will help you when setting up a dual-boot system from scratch: the partition schematics of the system drive.

1st partition: the GRUB bootloader partition. Filesystem = Ext2, size approx 1 GB, set up as the booting partition
2nd partition: the SWAP. Filesystem = swap, size should be at least twice your RAM size
3rd partition: Windows. NTFS, size is your choice ;-)
4th partition: Linux. Ext3 (Ext4 and Btrfs are not officially declared stable atm so keep your hands away from it). Size should be 4-8 GB, depending on the distro. Of course you can allocate even more (or less). Most of my lin system partitions are < 4 Gigs because I use a microdistribution and my personal data is stored on another drive (some of my installations are less than 1 GB, and those containers have a load less than 50 % xD).

IMPORTANT: Install Windows first and use the built-in partition tools to create the partitions (without formatting them), otherwise the Win bootloader would kill GRUB and you would have to reinstall GRUB again.


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## yak (May 14, 2009)

Virtual Machines.
Seriously, learn it, love it, live it. Play games all you want on your Windows based host PC, use Linux all you want inside the virtual machine. Best of both worlds, and no way in hell to screw anything up even if you are not technically gifted.


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## net-cat (May 14, 2009)

It should be noted that this doesn't work the other way around. 3D support within virtual machines is rudimentary at best. So you can't run Linux as the host and expect to be playing new games in a Windows VM.


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## ToeClaws (May 14, 2009)

net-cat said:


> It should be noted that this doesn't work the other way around. 3D support within virtual machines is rudimentary at best. So you can't run Linux as the host and expect to be playing new games in a Windows VM.



Gah... no, definitely not.  Likewise, if you're doing heavy 3D stuff in Linux (via OpenGL and the appropriate nVidia or ATI driver), it doesn't work very well either.

But as already said, going dual boot is very easy too, so no worries.


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## Takun (May 14, 2009)

Seeing as I have two hard drives in my laptop... I assume I can install linux onto my second hard drive to mess around with?


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## X (May 14, 2009)

thanks for the info.

anyone know if tf2 works with wine? (left 4 dead, css, and hl2 work, so i am assuming it does)

because if it does, ill be able to put ubuntu x64 on my future desktop. (instead of having to drop $200 for vista x64 or $200-$350 for windows 7 x64)


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## net-cat (May 14, 2009)

Takumi_L said:


> Seeing as I have two hard drives in my laptop... I assume I can install linux onto my second hard drive to mess around with?


Yes.



X said:


> anyone know if tf2 works with wine? (left 4 dead, css, and hl2 work, so i am assuming it does)


Yes. Games based on the Source engine work in WINE. I won't say they work perfectly, but they work well enough to play. There's a few things you have to do, though.

(a) Use Wine's repository instead of Ubuntu's. (May no longer be necessary with 9.04. I don't recall which version they have in their repository. 8.10 and 8.04 definitely, though.)

(b) Enable "Virtual Desktop" mode in the Wine config. (I'm not at my computer, so I can check where it is right now.) Note that this makes it so you can't run full screen. You can try full screen at your own peril, though.

(c) If you're using the ATI proprietary driver, turn off Compiz while you're playing games. (In Wine or native. Set "Visual Effects" to "None.") Older cards that can use the open source drivers don't have this issue.


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## Ruko (May 14, 2009)

I've switched to Ubuntu back in January, from running XP for years (had win95 before that). It was surprisingly very simple. I mainly use this computer for Firefox anyways, so it wasn't like a difficult decision or anything.

Steam works just fine too. The only thing I still need windows/mac for is iTunes, nothing on linux will work with my iPod Touch. I don't really think I will go back to windows. Ubuntu boots up and shuts down in seconds, which is absolutely astonishing for me. I got this laptop back in '05 and running Ubuntu makes it as speedier as it was back then, drastically lengthening the life of this comp.


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## yiffytimesnews (May 15, 2009)

Oh Brother!!! Speaking as someone who had used Linux for a year and a half before switching back to Windows. Don't get any idea that Linux is easier to use than Windows, in fact it about 3 times harder and a learning curve just about as big as the Gateway Arch. First off all codecs, because of legal issues they aren't free any more, unless you check out some foreign sites and unless you know how to use that crazy terminal, my guess is you won't be able to figure out how to install it. Programs, as the other posts say, you won't find all that you use. Many companies don't support Linux, the biggest one is Apple. No quicktime files will play, and NO Itunes  period. As for graphic drivers I give you a no better than a equal chance that they will or won't work. If they don't it could crash your video drivers like it did with me.


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## ToeClaws (May 15, 2009)

yiffytimesnews said:


> Oh Brother!!! Speaking as someone who had used Linux for a year and a half before switching back to Windows. Don't get any idea that Linux is easier to use than Windows, in fact it about 3 times harder and a learning curve just about as big as the Gateway Arch. First off all codecs, because of legal issues they aren't free any more, unless you check out some foreign sites and unless you know how to use that crazy terminal, my guess is you won't be able to figure out how to install it. Programs, as the other posts say, you won't find all that you use. Many companies don't support Linux, the biggest one is Apple. No quicktime files will play, and NO Itunes  period. As for graphic drivers I give you a no better than a equal chance that they will or won't work. If they don't it could crash your video drivers like it did with me.



Ouch... I think this comes down to a bad experience overall.  To address some of your points:

*Ease of Use:* Most of the main distributions of Linux are very easy to use - Ubuntu (and it's main derivatives), Mint and Puppy are wonderfully simple to use.  Are they easier than Windows?  Well, I think if you put someone that doesn't know either OS in front of a computer, they'll have an easier time using those Linux distros than Windows.  For someone who's never known anything _but_ Windows, it might seem a little weird at first, but it's easy to get used to.  It's just like learning _anything_ new - there's a learning curve.  We all had to learn to use Windows too. 

*Codecs:* This is easily avoided - you just need the right repositories installed to get the codecs.  Or in Puppy's case, the right .PET packages.  I just went to Apple's site and watched a Quicktime trailer for the new Terminator movie just fine one my Ubuntu 9.04 system.  By default, in an effort to be 100% Free and open-source, some Linux distributions (like Ubuntu) do not support all media right out of the box.  You have to add additional packages to them for them to be able to do so, which takes about the same time and skill as downloading something like Quicktime (in Windows) and installing it.  Or, if you get a specialized Linux distro like Mint which is deisgned to do all of this stuff out of the box, it just works to begin with.  Windows doesn't support anything out of the box either - it has to fetch the codecs as well, and you also have to install several secondardy players like Quicktime, flash, real-player, etc., same as in Linux.

*iTunes/iPod:* First and most important thing to understand here is that there's not a problem with Linux, there's a problem with Apple being corporate ass clowns about their product!  The whole iTunes, iPod, iPhone and other stuff from them are extremely proprietary, and the company themeselves are well known control freaks.  I avoid their products at all costs because I want to be able to use my music and video players without restrictions or the need for a certain piece of software. 

So, that said, there are ways to run iTunes within Linux, such as running it under WINE.  You can also use various iPod devices with most versions of Linux pretty easily.  Some of the newer ones, however, are locked because Apple are being pricks and trying to force more compliant use of YOUR hardware (which is a whole other ethical rant).  There are ways around it though, such as doing the Jailbreak hack on them to get rid of Apple's death grip on them.

My primary advice there, regardless of what OS you run, is DON'T BUY APPLE PRODUCTS!  There's plenty of other great media products out there that don't have all the idiotic restrictions of the Apple stuff.


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## Eevee (May 15, 2009)

*Linux is not just a wine platform*

please stop touting wine like it is the end-all be-all of transition problems.  wine is *duct tape* and it should be treated as an *absolute last resort*, not a way to still effectively be running windows while feeling much snootier about it.  the ultimate goal for wine is for it to *vanish entirely*.

Linux is an _entirely different platform_.  surprise: the software is different.  if you absolutely cannot stand not using specifically Microsoft Office and specifically Photoshop and specifically iTunes, then *don't install Linux*.  don't install it, try to run everything under wine, and then complain that a colossal hack isn't perfect therefore Linux sucks.  Linux was not built as a cheap replacement for the Windows API.






yiffytimesnews said:


> Don't get any idea that Linux is easier to use than Windows, in fact it about 3 times harder and a learning curve just about as big as the Gateway Arch.


ok what is hard?



yiffytimesnews said:


> First off all codecs, because of legal issues they aren't free any more, unless you check out some foreign sites and unless you know how to use that crazy terminal, my guess is you won't be able to figure out how to install it.


the first time you play an MP3, Ubuntu offers to install the codecs for you.

alternatively, you can use Synaptic to install them yourself.

or you can use Mint which has the non-free stuff out of the box.



yiffytimesnews said:


> Programs, as the other posts say, you won't find all that you use.


yes.  because it is a *new operating system*.  would you switch to a Mac without investigating whether it had all the software you needed?  come on.



yiffytimesnews said:


> Many companies don't support Linux, the biggest one is Apple.


not Microsoft?



yiffytimesnews said:


> No quicktime files will play, and NO Itunes  period.


QuickTime plays fine.

if having your devices not controlled solely by a single company is important to you, don't buy or use an iPod.



yiffytimesnews said:


> As for graphic drivers I give you a no better than a equal chance that they will or won't work. If they don't it could crash your video drivers like it did with me.


just use a semi-recent nvidia card, use nvidia's blob drivers, and feel very badly about yourself


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## ToeClaws (May 15, 2009)

Eevee said:


> *Linux is not just a wine platform* *snip rant*



Heh, totally agreed.  I'm not touting WINE is a solution, just one of many workarounds that have been posted.  *MY* personal advice was not to buy Apple crap.  

Eevee is absolutely right though - WINE is not intended to allow Linux to run every single Windows application, rather, to provide some Windows win32 binary capabilities for Linux.  Linux has it's _own_ software to choose from, and most of the time, it's much better than the stuff you can get for Windows anyway.  To see "alternate" Linux programs that do the same as Windows stuff, check this site out: http://www.linuxalt.com/


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## Carenath (May 16, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Heh, totally agreed.  I'm not touting WINE is a solution, just one of many workarounds that have been posted.  *MY* personal advice was not to buy Apple crap.



This is what I find amazing right now:
You have Linux & BSD, MacOS X and Windows.
Wine works, by translating windows API calls into Linux system calls, allowing some windows applications to run under Linux without being recompiled. This relies on reverse-engineering and debugging to acertain what API calls are being made, and what they mean, so they can be translated.

Why is it then, that no one has thought to emulate MacOS X?
MacOS X is for all intents, FreeBSD with a fancy window manager and a couple of tweaks and changes. You would think then, that with iTunes and other binaries being compiled for a BSD-compatible platform, and the relative ease at which BSD applications can be ported to Linux, and vice-versa.. that more efforts would be made to get the Mac versions of iTunes and Photoshop, running under Linux that much easier as there is less hacking and translating that needs doing.

That being said.. the main thing that stopped me moving to Linux was the inability to do EVERYTHING that I can do on Windows.


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## Zaiden (May 16, 2009)

When I started trying out linux (around Ubuntu 8.04) I think Ubuntu was starting to use Pulseaudio, and with my onboard audio this caused a delay in sound for everything. When I took other peoples advice and just remove it, I couldn't log on without the system freezing up after a few seconds.

Thankfully this has changed in 9.04, so now I can remove pulse without the system freezing and get no delay in audio whatsoever. This doesn't make me want to ditch windows just yet, but definitely a step closer.


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## ToeClaws (May 16, 2009)

Carenath said:


> Why is it then, that no one has thought to emulate MacOS X?
> MacOS X is for all intents, FreeBSD with a fancy window manager and a couple of tweaks and changes. You would think then, that with iTunes and other binaries being compiled for a BSD-compatible platform, and the relative ease at which BSD applications can be ported to Linux, and vice-versa.. that more efforts would be made to get the Mac versions of iTunes and Photoshop, running under Linux that much easier as there is less hacking and translating that needs doing.



I thought the MacOS was NetBSD, but not much difference, really.  Ultimately, it _is_ BSD of some flavour.  And I agree - given what it is, you think there would be a lot more stuff coming out for BSD in general, and then Linux, but I think part of the problem could be Apple's stranglehold over licensing in an effort to keep things unique to their platform.  I'm very surprised no one's found a way to engineer around Apple's tinkering yet.



Carenath said:


> That being said.. the main thing that stopped me moving to Linux was the inability to do EVERYTHING that I can do on Windows.



*chuckles* Of course, that saying easily goes both ways.  Every OS has its own unique perks and drawbacks.  There will always be things Windows can do that Linux can't, and there will always be things Linux can do that Windows won't.  Likewise, BSD will always do certain other things better (or worse) than either of them.  *shrugs*  In the end, it comes down to the individual user's preference, be it one of functionality, price, ethics, aesthetics, logic or madness.


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## Raithah (May 16, 2009)

Carenath said:


> Why is it then, that no one has thought to emulate MacOS X?



Not intending to derail the thread, or anything, but I thought of that a while back and put some Googling into the matter. Apparently, it's a combination of Cocoa & Quartz being complicated enough not to merit their reverse engineering (term.?) and that there isn't much interest in such a project by the general Linux community (as of ~1 year ago). For the most part you'll get disgruntled Windows users jumping on the Linux bandwagon, thus Wine; not so much from the OS X users.

That being said, if you want to reap the benefits of Mac OS X's super secure, Unix-based kernel you can check out Darwin! Or, y'know, one of those 'other' Unix-like OSes that are flying around ...


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## AlexInsane (May 16, 2009)

Let's back up here.

Windows is Windows, Linux is Linux. Wine allows people to access Windows-based applications while running Linux, creating a sort of bridge? 

And that's another thing: alternate applications. I hate the very idea of that. I love Microsoft Office, I don't want to use some shitty-looking word processor that a stoner kid in college made during free periods. 

I use iTunes because the only alternatives are 1) pirate all the music I listen to off the internet or 2) buy all the music in CD form and transfer it to a MP3 player format. Both of these are unacceptable for me. I don't care if pirating supposedly doesn't make a dent in the millions of dollars musicians make; I won't steal music. But at the same time, I won't pay hundreds of dollars for CD's when I only want one or two songs off of them. iTunes is convenient; I can pick and choose the music I want without stealing or paying out the ass for it. Unless there's some Linux-compatible music program that allows me to access the internet and find the music I want at a reasonable price, I'll have to stick with Windows.


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## ToeClaws (May 16, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Let's back up here.
> 
> Windows is Windows, Linux is Linux. Wine allows people to access Windows-based applications while running Linux, creating a sort of bridge?



Sort of - WINE allows some Windows apps and games to work in Linux.  Likewise, Cygwin allows some Linux/Unix like stuff in Windows.  Neither is a complete bidge... more like a pole vaulting across a river and hoping the pole doesn't break. 



AlexInsane said:


> And that's another thing: alternate applications. I hate the very idea of that. I love Microsoft Office, I don't want to use some shitty-looking word processor that a stoner kid in college made during free periods.



I liked Microsoft office years ago, but then they kept trying to add features and improve it when it didn't really require improvements.  Office 2007 then took everything people were used to and completely screwed it up, making it a horrible application to use with a godawful (and fugly) interface.  MS Office also (still) doesn't support the open document format properly, which makes it an increasingly useless product in a global market where more and more countries/governments are adopting the open document standard.

But... apples to apples, there simply isn't anything to compare MS Office to.  I say that for one simple reason - there is no Office product in Linux/Unix (that I know of anyway), that costs a small fortune like MS Office does.  Open Office is the most obvious equivalent in the *nix work, but it's free, so though it may not have every feature of MS Office (and it's got a good 90% of them), given that it's free, it's kinda hard to complain about that 10%.   



AlexInsane said:


> I use iTunes because the only alternatives are 1) pirate all the music I listen to off the internet or 2) buy all the music in CD form and transfer it to a MP3 player format. Both of these are unacceptable for me. I don't care if pirating supposedly doesn't make a dent in the millions of dollars musicians make; I won't steal music. But at the same time, I won't pay hundreds of dollars for CD's when I only want one or two songs off of them. iTunes is convenient; I can pick and choose the music I want without stealing or paying out the ass for it. Unless there's some Linux-compatible music program that allows me to access the internet and find the music I want at a reasonable price, I'll have to stick with Windows.



I buy CDs or buy albums (or songs) on-line for the artists I like.  I cut the CD's to MP3's myself, though if at all possible, I try to buy from the artist directly if that option is available since that benefits them most.  I don't like iTunes and wouldn't use it if someone paid me because I will not use or support anything that forces any sort of DRM on the customer.  Besides, some artists are starting to offer some or all of their work for free download now.  Vert cool.


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## Toaster (May 16, 2009)

ubuntu is best for people new to linux.


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## AlexInsane (May 16, 2009)

So, basically, you have to be completely anti-establishment to want to run a Linux computer, amirite? Nothing name-brand at all works on Linux, is that pretty much it?

What a shame. I would love Linux, but it's just not compatible with my way of living.


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## incongruency (May 16, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> So, basically, you have to be completely anti-establishment to want to run a Linux computer, amirite? Nothing name-brand at all works on Linux, is that pretty much it?


Not really, all my iPods work fine with linux, I can open any Microsoft Office file from school on linux, and I can still buy music Ã  la carte if I want to through linux.

Actually, if it wasn't for linux I wouldn't be able to use this computer at all.  The screen on the laptop is broken and Windows refuses to output the monitor through the RGB connection.  Linux, on the other hand, has to issues with doing so.  This is even one of the laptops considered 'name brand', and was one of the more popular models at the time.

All you need to run a linux computer is a desire to do so.  If you don't want to, don't, and at the same time don't complain about it.


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## ToeClaws (May 16, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> So, basically, you have to be completely anti-establishment to want to run a Linux computer, amirite? Nothing name-brand at all works on Linux, is that pretty much it?
> 
> What a shame. I would love Linux, but it's just not compatible with my way of living.



Heh, no - as incongruency pointed out, you can do plenty of normal things on Linux.  Works great with all my name-brand gear.  I'm not anti-establishment either - I'm anti-stupidity.  I have no problem with corporations that do things in a smart and/or ethical way, and there's plenty out there doing it that way.

If your "way of living" means that your dead-set on using iTunes of MS Office, then perhaps Linux is not for you.  But those applications are fairly generic in that there are plenty of other programs (both open source and not) that do the same thing.  You had to learn to use MS Office and iTunes and other Windows applications at some point, so it's not really any different than having to learn new ones for Linux (or the MacOS, or whatever) either.  If the issue is that you don't _want_ to learn new stuff, then again, stick with Windows.

I love Linux, but I do have and use Windows as well - it's not like anyone's going to make you run one or the other!


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## AlexInsane (May 16, 2009)

ToeClaws said:


> Heh, no - as incongruency pointed out, you can do plenty of normal things on Linux.  Works great with all my name-brand gear.  I'm not anti-establishment either - I'm anti-stupidity.  I have no problem with corporations that do things in a smart and/or ethical way, and there's plenty out there doing it that way.



Let me guess: Windows isn't high on that list of smart, ethical corporations? I don't mind you saying that; I just use Windows because it's convenient.



> If your "way of living" means that your dead-set on using iTunes of MS Office, then perhaps Linux is not for you.  But those applications are fairly generic in that there are plenty of other programs (both open source and not) that do the same thing.  You had to learn to use MS Office and iTunes and other Windows applications at some point, so it's not really any different than having to learn new ones for Linux (or the MacOS, or whatever) either.  If the issue is that you don't _want_ to learn new stuff, then again, stick with Windows.



Well, there's the rub: If I can't use iTunes, then I'm pretty well fucked, because most of my music is in that particular iTunes format, and I'm unaware of any way to change it to a form that Linux will support. I have 632 songs as of right now, about 150 of which were bought from iTunes and the rest were put on by downloading CDs and whatnot. When you manually add music to iTunes, does it change the format automatically to something that can't be modified, or does it remain the same?

MS Office 07 I bought for myself as a birthday present. It's served me well from the time I bought it. I mostly only keep it around for Powerpoint and Word anyway; I never got a handle on how to do spreadsheets really well, which might end up being my undoing, as a matter of fact. If there exists an alternative that is almost as good and has what I want, I might be convinced to use that instead, but for now it stays.



> I love Linux, but I do have and use Windows as well - it's not like anyone's going to make you run one or the other!



I'm just getting the impression that it's better to run pure Linux without Windows entering into the equation at all. I know no one is forcing me to run one or the other, but the more negative things I hear about Windows the more Linux sounds appealing.


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## CyberFoxx (May 17, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Well, there's the rub: If I can't use iTunes, then I'm pretty well fucked, because most of my music is in that particular iTunes format, and I'm unaware of any way to change it to a form that Linux will support. I have 632 songs as of right now, about 150 of which were bought from iTunes and the rest were put on by downloading CDs and whatnot. When you manually add music to iTunes, does it change the format automatically to something that can't be modified, or does it remain the same?



iTunes uses AAC, which is an audio codec standard. (Just like MP3 and Vorbis (Yes, Vorbis is a standard. Lots of games, and even toys, use it)) As long as they don't contain any DRM (Which some, but not all, tracks from the iTunes store have) then they'll be perfectly playable under Linux, or most any other OS/device that has support for AAC.


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## ToeClaws (May 17, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Let me guess: Windows isn't high on that list of smart, ethical corporations? I don't mind you saying that; I just use Windows because it's convenient.



Heh, sorta - Microsoft isn't high on the list of _smart_ companies, but it's also not rock bottom either.  Much as some folks would hate to admit it, Microsoft has done a lot of good things - if they had not pushed to make OS's easier and more widespread, I doubt the PC would have ever caught on as much as it did.  Microsoft is mostly a company that does some pretty dumb things.  Best put as "they march to the beat of their own drums."  They frequently ignore standards, misuse their power (oddly, sometimes), and often just don't seem to understand the people they're trying to cater to.

In recent years, their ethics are starting to slide a bit as well, but I don't dislike them as much as others like Apple, or really evil bastards like Imperial Oil. 



AlexInsane said:


> Well, there's the rub: If I can't use iTunes, then I'm pretty well fucked, because most of my music is in that particular iTunes format, and I'm unaware of any way to change it to a form that Linux will support. I have 632 songs as of right now, about 150 of which were bought from iTunes and the rest were put on by downloading CDs and whatnot. When you manually add music to iTunes, does it change the format automatically to something that can't be modified, or does it remain the same?



That's something I can't answer - I'm not sure if there's software that can do the conversion (does anyone else know of some?).  There is the other way around it of recording the songs via playback and cutting to MP3, but that would certainly take a while.  I once bought an album online that was DRM protected, and that's what I ended up doing to cut them to normal MP3s instead (then sent the company a scathing complaint letter about using such a thing (had they mentioned their songs were DRM protected, I would never had bought anything from them).  When I download music, I only accept it in Mp3s or non DRM Windows Media formats.  

On a sidenote, the only frustrating thing is I wish I had started using ID3 tags years ago.  After 13 years of colleting MP3s, I have around 6400 of them, and only half of them got ID3 tags :/



AlexInsane said:


> MS Office 07 I bought for myself as a birthday present. It's served me well from the time I bought it. I mostly only keep it around for Powerpoint and Word anyway; I never got a handle on how to do spreadsheets really well, which might end up being my undoing, as a matter of fact. If there exists an alternative that is almost as good and has what I want, I might be convinced to use that instead, but for now it stays.



Well, I used to use Word Perfect... like... long long ago.  After that, I got into using Office back with MS Office 6.0.  In terms of features and functionality, they didn't really add that much after Office 97.  The last version I used was 2003.  I tried 2007, but holy crap it was awful.  Prior to that, I had been using Open Office for a bit anyway, and eventually just got rid of MS Office on my work machines as I've not used it for 2 years.  Open Office does everything MS Office did/could do for me, including Spreadsheets.  And yeah - knowing how to work the spreadsheats are a good skill to have.  They're not that hard to learn though - and many colleges and universities offer night classes that can help you get the basics down.  The plus - MS Office Excel, and Open Office Calc work almost exactly the same, so you don't have to relearn anything.

Perks of Open Office (which I use on both my Linux and Windows machines) are things like a more normal interface (as opposed that that odd super-GUI thing in office 2007), full support for the Open Document format, and the ability to export to PDF files (which you can even go so far as locking to read-only and stuff - very handy).  Oh and it's free. 



AlexInsane said:


> I'm just getting the impression that it's better to run pure Linux without Windows entering into the equation at all. I know no one is forcing me to run one or the other, but the more negative things I hear about Windows the more Linux sounds appealing.



*nods* I think the biggest mistake people make with OS's is trying to get an one OS to be like two.  You can't make Linux be just like Windows and/or run everything from Windows.  You can't make Windows be like Linux.  You can't make the MacOS into Linux and so on.  This is why I use dual boots, or have a machine specifically as one thing or the other.  With as big as most drives are nowadays, doing a dual boot is pretty simple.  Again, a perk of Linux and BSD is that they can both read/write to the Windows NTFS partition, so you can still see and use all the data on it.  Now quite so easy for Windows to do the same with Linux though.  There are some tools though that make it sort of possible.


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## Adelio Altomar (May 17, 2009)

AlexInsane said:


> Well, there's the rub: If I can't use iTunes, then I'm pretty well fucked, because most of my music is in that particular iTunes format, and I'm unaware of any way to change it to a form that Linux will support. I have 632 songs as of right now, about 150 of which were bought from iTunes and the rest were put on by downloading CDs and whatnot. When you manually add music to iTunes, does it change the format automatically to something that can't be modified, or does it remain the same?



Well, I experimented with dual-booting Linux and Windows and found out with Linux Mint that I could play my music from iTunes by burning the stuff onto a CD in *MP3* format. There should be a feature on there when you burn your mysic from iTunes.

Pretty much just turn it into a *music* CD -- this is important since you'll have a fully functioning CD to play in a music player and such. And make sure the format's in *MP3* format so it can be read, though I think you can do it either way when you turn 'em CD playable.


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## Eevee (May 17, 2009)

Carenath said:


> Why is it then, that no one has thought to emulate MacOS X?


because
(a) it would be a massive undertaking
(b) OS X is a relatively new platform; wine was started in *1993*
(c) not enough Linux users care about software exclusive to OS X



Carenath said:


> that more efforts would be made to get the Mac versions of iTunes and Photoshop, running under Linux that much easier as there is less hacking and translating that needs doing.


but you'd have to start from scratch for a new platform.  that's still far more work than working on the existing, actively-developed solution.



Carenath said:


> That being said.. the main thing that stopped me moving to Linux was the inability to do EVERYTHING that I can do on Windows.


odd, the opposite drove me away from Windows




AlexInsane said:


> Windows is Windows, Linux is Linux. Wine allows people to access Windows-based applications while running Linux, creating a sort of bridge?


wine is a layer that translates windows api calls to equivalent linux ones



AlexInsane said:


> And that's another thing: alternate applications. I hate the very idea of that. I love Microsoft Office, I don't want to use some shitty-looking word processor that a stoner kid in college made during free periods.


OpenOffice.org is owned and developed by Sun Oracle.

get your head out of your ass.  free software does not mean "college kid", college kid does not even mean bad software, and corporate sponsorship does not mean good software either.



AlexInsane said:


> I use iTunes because the only alternatives are 1) pirate all the music I listen to off the internet or 2) buy all the music in CD form and transfer it to a MP3 player format.


3) buy MP3s off Amazon instead, which I do all the time

Amazon's full-album downloader even runs on Linux




AlexInsane said:


> Well, there's the rub: If I can't use iTunes, then I'm pretty well fucked, because most of my music is in that particular iTunes format, and I'm unaware of any way to change it to a form that Linux will support.


Linux will play anything not DRM-encumbered.  I believe iTunes will let you swap DRM'd tracks for non-DRM ones if they are now available, and for everything else there are illicit ways to rip out the DRM and play it on anything.

don't buy DRM'd media and this will never be a problem.



AlexInsane said:


> When you manually add music to iTunes, does it change the format automatically to something that can't be modified, or does it remain the same?


iTunes does not convert stuff you import as that would be retarded



AlexInsane said:


> If there exists an alternative that is almost as good and has what I want, I might be convinced to use that instead, but for now it stays.


welp OpenOffice.org 3 has finally figured out how to draw a UI that doesn't look like it's from 1997

but you have not clarified what exactly you need from an office suite or what you like about MS Office



AlexInsane said:


> I'm just getting the impression that it's better to run pure Linux without Windows entering into the equation at all.


that would be the general goal here yes

why would publishers ever bother porting to Linux if we're all content to run everything under wine?


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## Irreverent (May 19, 2009)

Eevee said:


> iTunes does not convert stuff you import as that would be retarded



Yes it does, and yes it is. :evil:

 iTunes and the iPod family are ACC players, they wont play native MP3; it converts it from mp3 to ACC on import into iTunes.

But there are iTunes replacements for Linux, so AlexI should be able to get around that restriction.


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## Eevee (May 19, 2009)

well that's fascinating; not only would that make the music _worse_, but I have used iTunes before and I am pretty sure my mp3s are still mp3s

also, "iTunes 8 can currently read, write and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless." -- wikipedia


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## nrr (May 19, 2009)

You know, I really had something witty to say regarding this thread, but I think I'll refrain from being an ass here.  Nevertheless, what I'm about to say will be useful for anyone considering moving from Windows to Linux.

I run recent versions of OS X and Ubuntu at work (I work in a condensed matter physics lab, so we're traditionally a UNIX shop anyway.), and I run Windows Vista on my Tablet PC.  I grew up on commercial UNIX and eventually switched full-time to Linux in 1997 or so after having run it part-time from 1995 until then on a 486 DX4/120.

However, the straw that broke the camel's back came when I couldn't have two processes sharing /dev/dsp (i.e., playing audio the OSS way, like Flash and Java both do) at the same time on Linux in 2007, I sought to fix that situation by switching to Windows.  Before you ask, I did try to get OSS emulation through ALSA to work with software mixing to absolutely no avail.  The same one-off mixing behavior remained, and whichever process got to /dev/dsp first would be the sole process playing audio.

I bitch every now and again about some of the things Windows does, but I don't think my life would be any better (It certainly hasn't been worse!) having stuck with Linux.  The only thing I'm really missing is a good Lisp implementation, but I can run a virtual machine for that kind of thing anyhow.

(For the tl;dr crowd: If your Linux box breaks, feel free to keep both pieces.)


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## Pi (May 19, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Yes it does, and yes it is. :evil:
> 
> iTunes and the iPod family are ACC players, they wont play native MP3; it converts it from mp3 to ACC on import into iTunes.



You are 100% incorrect on both counts. The AAC reencode is only an option; the iPod can play mp3 natively, and always has been able to (considering the product line was introduced before AAC even existed)


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## Eevee (May 20, 2009)

nrr said:


> (For the tl;dr crowd: If your Linux box breaks, feel free to keep both pieces.)


if your Windows box breaks, feel free to buy a new one  8)


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## hitokage (May 20, 2009)

Pi said:


> (considering the product line was introduced before AAC even existed)


That's not correct as Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) was standardized in 1997 (MPEG-2 Part 7 - aka ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997) and updated in 1999 (MPEG-4 Part 3 - aka ISO/IEC 14496-3:1999) - that's a few years before the iPod was introduced.


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## Pi (May 20, 2009)

hitokage said:


> That's not correct as Advanced Audio Coding (AAC) was standardized in 1997 (MPEG-2 Part 7 - aka ISO/IEC 13818-7:1997) and updated in 1999 (MPEG-4 Part 3 - aka ISO/IEC 14496-3:1999) - that's a few years before the iPod was introduced.



Well, I stand corrected.

I do know that iPods didn't support AAC until around 2003 or so, so claiming it to be the native format (when they can play FLAC, WAV, AIFF, etc) is absurd.


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## Pi (May 20, 2009)

Carenath said:


> MacOS X is for all intents, FreeBSD with a fancy window manager and a couple of tweaks and changes. You would think then, that with iTunes and other binaries being compiled for a BSD-compatible platform, and the relative ease at which BSD applications can be ported to Linux, and vice-versa..





ToeClaws said:


> I thought the MacOS was NetBSD, but not much difference, really.  Ultimately, it _is_ BSD of some flavour.



NO. OS X does not so much as _resemble_ a BSD, except in _some_ of the userland components. The kernel is completely different (Mach derived), the executable format is different, there's no such thing as Carbon or Cocoa except on OS X, and so on. iTunes and such are not being compiled to a BSD-compatible platform, they're being compiled for OS X.


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## ToeClaws (May 20, 2009)

Pi said:


> NO. OS X does not so much as _resemble_ a BSD, except in _some_ of the userland components. The kernel is completely different (Mach derived), the executable format is different, there's no such thing as Carbon or Cocoa except on OS X, and so on. iTunes and such are not being compiled to a BSD-compatible platform, they're being compiled for OS X.



That's too bad, but that would certainly explain why there's been no BSD ports of popular MAC stuff or other apps like Photohshop.


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## Irreverent (May 20, 2009)

Eevee said:


> well that's fascinating; not only would that make the music _worse_, but I have used iTunes before and I am pretty sure my mp3s are still mp3s.



Your mp3's are still mp3 on disk....the conversion happens on download to the iPod.



> also, "iTunes 8 can currently read, write and convert between MP3, AIFF, WAV, MPEG-4, AAC and Apple Lossless." -- wikipedia



I don't think that iTunes, used as a media player on the pc converts anything.




Pi said:


> You are 100% incorrect on both counts. The AAC reencode is only an option; the iPod can play mp3 natively, and always has been able to (considering the product line was introduced before AAC even existed)



Already corrected but, that's not to say that some newer version of the "i" family dont.  Certainly 5th gen Nano's only play ACC.

Does anyone know if the newer "i" family of devices support direct drag and drop of mp3 to the device with playback?  And not just as a flash drive.  You can copy any file to a Nano...you can only play back ACC.  Given that windows users are still claiming to be locked into the platform for i-family compatibility, I suspect the answer is No.



Pi said:


> I do know that iPods didn't support AAC until around 2003 or so, so claiming it to be the native format (when they can play FLAC, WAV, AIFF, etc) is absurd.



If there are hidden registry entries, radio buttons or flags to prevent the "mp3 to acc" convert on download to the device, I'd love to know them.


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## lilEmber (May 20, 2009)

No, converting to iPod is not converting at all, it's just syncing.
It can play mp3, mp4, among other files. If you go into the file info on the device itself you can see it's still mp3/mp4. Irreverent, you can't honestly think that transferring several gigs of music (and converting it all to AAC) takes only a few minutes.

I've owned 5(.5)th generation iPod, my boyfriend has a nano, and one of my friends has a touch iPod; all play mp3/mp4 fine, without conversion.


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## Eevee (May 20, 2009)

Irreverent said:


> Your mp3's are still mp3 on disk....the conversion happens on download to the iPod.


this is *absolutely* false.  I have browsed multiple iPods after sticking stuff on them with iTunes and they are still mp3s.



Irreverent said:


> Does anyone know if the newer "i" family of devices support direct drag and drop of mp3 to the device with playback?


ah-hahaha, good fucking luck.  buy a real player or use rockbox on an old one.


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## WarMocK (Jul 4, 2009)

Ok, in order to revive this one a bit again:
Since many users in here do some artistic stuff using graphics tablets I think you should know that the ones from wacom seem to be pretty well supported under linux. I installed my bamboo under NOP 4.12 a few days ago, and it works just fine. Apparently the newer kernels include all the drivers for the tablets, all you need to do is to activate them with "depmod" and "modprobe wacom" from a terminal of your choice, followed by installing the generic wacom drivers for the X server and inserting a few configuration lines in the xorg.conf.
It sounds worse than it actually is, I did it in less than 2 minutes. Ok, doing this stuff in Puppy Linux is always a matter of seconds anyway, so I can't tell how quick you can do it with distributions like Ubuntu. :-|
If someone has a version of NOP or Puppy Linux (or one of it's derivates) installed and wants to try it out feel free to PM me, I can send you the necessary drivers and the config files. ;-)


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## Raithah (Jul 4, 2009)

Just a few points to add: as of Ubuntu 9.04 (server, as that's all I've tested on), the Wacom Bamboo works straight out of the box without fiddling with xorg.conf, with exceptions only if you're using it in odd circumstances. Say, if you're using a left handed mouse but draw with your right, use xinput to change pen clicks and not xsetwacom - it's been depcrecated, but works perfectly fine for rotation. Incidentally, mine tends to stop functioning after system suspension, but that's not a huge problem. Pressure sensitivity doesn't always work and I have had Inkscape hang up on me once in a while, but that's probably a general problem with the software than one specific to tablets. Other than that, it seems to just work out of the box.


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## Axelfox (Dec 9, 2009)

I found one that mirrors Windows.

http://zorin-os.webs.com/


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## Geek (Dec 9, 2009)

- I switched from Windows to Linux to OS X.
- Love Apple's hardware and software for it's "all in one package".
- Macs are "first class computers".
- Linux is great but i still no video editing support.


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## ToeClaws (Dec 9, 2009)

Geek said:


> - Linux is great but i still no video editing support.



Correction: Video editing support... but it's terrible.

Yeah, Mac's are still the undisputed kings of media, and are definitely a good OS as well.  Mac's are based on a derivative of Unix, hence their speed and stability.


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## Rhetorica (Mar 18, 2010)

ToeClaws said:


> Yeah, Mac's are still the undisputed kings of media ...



This is worth disputing. They have that image because graphics and video people use them, but _that_ has more to do with ease of use and perceived status as a luxury item due to the higher point of sale. If we look at actual industry software such as Avid, it's often available for Windows as well.


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## Runefox (Mar 18, 2010)

While that may be true, programs like Final Cut tend to be what people are talking about when they say that the Mac line are media-centric; I personally haven't used it more than a couple of times at school, but I also haven't found any real analogue with the same ease of use and general power it offers at its price point. While the example of Avid might be one of, if not the most commonly-used and powerful industry editing tool, I'd dare to say that most of the people currently using it cut their teeth on Final Cut.

I don't really defend the Mac camp often, but this is one area where I haven't really seen much growth in on the Windows/*NIX front, though several promising projects have been cropping up for *NIX. Many of the people I know who are in multimedia design courses are using Macs with Final Cut, and the same was true of the multimedia design courses available at the college I attended for a while (and I know this because our class set them up).


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## Rhetorica (Mar 18, 2010)

Finding professional reviews that compare them. Statistics suggest that, yes, Final Cut Pro is more used than Avid. However, this greatly ignores _who_ is using the products, and for what: it appears that mostly students use FCP and professionals go with Avid; one person compared "FCP vs. Avid" to "Honda vs. Ferrari", and others have noted that FCP usage is more common amongst the independent and broadcast market rather than studio filmmaking.

I think it's more accurate to say that there is a section of computer users who like Steve Jobs, and that for ideological reasons many of them happen to be artsy types themselves. The real, established brands in editing work are much more vendor neutral. (After all, we're leaving out other established names like NewTek)

What matters is that Windows has shown it is technically capable of handling top-end video tasks, and so any portrayal of OS X as better for video editing is a reflection of consumer belief, not technological quality.

*tl;dr*: don't defend Macs, because the arguments are always the same in the end no matter what it looks like at the outset. Repeat it with me: Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.


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## ToeClaws (Mar 19, 2010)

Rhetorica said:


> *tl;dr*: don't defend Macs, because the arguments are always the same in the end no matter what it looks like at the outset. Repeat it with me: Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field.



*chuckles* I think I've been misunderstood - I don't like Macs; I respect the things they're good at, but don't like them.  I don't like them with nearly the same level of loathing that I don't like Windows.  Any time giant you get giant corporations making something with little to no say from outside help, you get a product that is centric to their own interests and agenda.  While each have their merits, each has a separate list of horrors to go along with it.

The reality of the OS world is that there is no mythical perfect solution.  Every choice has its ups and downs.  For me, I prefer my solutions to have a less heavy-handed corporate control to them and be more community driven.  Comes with its own set of pros and cons.  I'm just glad that the diversity exists to afford us these kind of choices.


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## Rhetorica (Mar 19, 2010)

Oh, of course! All I want to clarify is that Macs _aren't_ especially good at video stuff, that's just a brand image.


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## Fenrir Lupus (Apr 24, 2010)

I used linux for some time, and I find the OP to be right...  actually, the path I took was sorta funny...  It was mac os 9 to windows 98 to windows xp to ubuntu, then back to mac os 10 (10.3 and up)

Sorta missing some parts of linux, but i'm just a tad more productive on a mac because of exposÃ©...

Maybe after I get more RAM i'll put linux in a virtual machine...


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## Fenrir Lupus (Apr 24, 2010)

Rhetorica said:


> Finding professional reviews that compare them. Statistics suggest that, yes, Final Cut Pro is more used than Avid. However, this greatly ignores _who_ is using the products, and for what: it appears that mostly students use FCP and professionals go with Avid; one person compared "FCP vs. Avid" to "Honda vs. Ferrari", and others have noted that FCP usage is more common amongst the independent and broadcast market rather than studio filmmaking.
> 
> I think it's more accurate to say that there is a section of computer users who like Steve Jobs, and that for ideological reasons many of them happen to be artsy types themselves. The real, established brands in editing work are much more vendor neutral. (After all, we're leaving out other established names like NewTek)
> 
> ...



Despite being a mac user, I approve of this post.  There are some applications I prefer and some hardware that's mac-only  (logic and final cut, and the hardware i'm talking about is apogee...  I know you said professionals use AVID more, but i'm not exactly a professional)
PC's are perfectly fine for any task...  I just tend to like macs more, and that's my choice, no argument necessary.  People just love starting arguments for some reason, and as you said, "the arguments are always the same in the end no matter what it looks like at the outset."


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## Fenrir Lupus (Apr 24, 2010)

ToeClaws said:


> Correction: Video editing support... but it's terrible.
> 
> Yeah, Mac's are still the undisputed kings of media, and are definitely a good OS as well.  Mac's are based on a derivative of Unix, hence their speed and stability.



Yeah, Darwin kernel...  It's Carnegie Mellon Mach kernel mixed with some BSD...  much goodness.


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## Thou Dog (Mar 28, 2011)

Eevee said:


> if your Windows box breaks, feel free to buy a new one  8)


 
I've never heard of a Windows box "breaking", or any other computer failure, that couldn't be solved through a fairly simple process: if it's a hardware failure, replace the faulty hardware. If it's an OS issue, repair or reinstall the OS. If it's a problem with drivers, use a boot disk to repair or reinstall the appropriate drivers. If it's a problem with non-system-necessary software (office productivity programs, games, viruses, etc.), uninstall the software and then either reinstall or consider an alternate software package that does the same job. Okay, don't reinstall the viruses.

Of course, you have to balance the cost of doing any of this stuff against the cost of wholly replacing the computer; if the cost of repairs exceeds the savings of not replacing the machine, give your computer away and get a new one. (But take your hard drive out and keep it, if it still works, because you can never have too much hard-drive space.)


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## Duality Jack (Mar 28, 2011)

ugh been working on compacting BackTrack and I am having allot of setbacks. so slowwww to sort threw and remove parts and utilities that are unneeded without damaging parts that are needed.


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## Ikrit (May 10, 2011)

*fucking ubuntu*

i'm wanting to try out fedora, but ubuntu is being a homophobic like windows and dosn't give me the proper support to do so!!!!


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## WarMocK (May 11, 2011)

*Re: fucking ubuntu*



Ikrit said:


> i'm wanting to try out fedora, but ubuntu is being a homophobic like windows and dosn't give me the proper support to do so!!!!


 Which is why no Ubuntu installation survived very long on my PCs. ;-)


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## ToeClaws (May 11, 2011)

*Re: fucking ubuntu*



WarMocK said:


> Which is why no Ubuntu installation survived very long on my PCs. ;-)


 
Heh, if ever you started to think otherwise, just try the latest Ubuntu - it'd be off your system quicker than any of them.   The new Unity interface is just horrid.  Hey, you don't by chance have a latest version of K9 I could grab, do you?


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## WarMocK (May 12, 2011)

*Re: fucking ubuntu*



ToeClaws said:


> Heh, if ever you started to think otherwise, just try the latest Ubuntu - it'd be off your system quicker than any of them.   The new Unity interface is just horrid.  Hey, you don't by chance have a latest version of K9 I could grab, do you?


 I'll do my best to provide a new version, but there still is SO much work to do that it'll take some time to finish what I started. Just FYI: I started to program in C++ to create new tools using the GTK+ API, wrote a multi-user patch that works pretty well so far (except for mounting devices, that's the last nut I gotta crack as it seems right now), I started working on my own desktop environment based upon metacity, fbpanel (which I modified), ROX and a few extra tools, including mouse gestures for the desktop (which makes things a lot easier to handle).

My current version btw: http://img809.imageshack.us/img809/7456/screenshotzp.png


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## ToeClaws (May 13, 2011)

Sweet!! Looks nice so far, and you have infinitely more patience than I. ^_^  I think the last time I touched C++ was 1996. >_<


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## Brass (Mar 14, 2015)

I'm just curious but how many arch users do we have here? I just switched from CentOS to Arch. Over all a pretty great experience.


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