"It may be useful to remember that Christian faith is ultimately dependent upon what actually happened rather than upon the views of historians."
- I. Howard Marshall
Monday, July 5, 2010
Are you tired of struggling with Microsoft Windows?
Two alternatives:
The cheap one - Ubuntu Linux
Linux is not necessarily for the faint-hearted, but it is a more stable OS than Wind'ohs, and you can run it from a CD or on a dual-boot option if you want to try it out without a lot of risk. It's a straightforward install, but you'll feel more at home with Linux if you have a strong inner-nerd.
And you won't spend hours on the phone with tech-support (I'm not sure there is telephone tech support) but you can find out how to fix any problem you have by googling for it. Someone else has gone through what you've gone through. There's a large and active ubuntu community out there.
PLUS - it is absolutely free, now and forever. And it comes with a huge library of free software to do almost anything you need. I use Ubuntu myself, and run Opera for a web browser, Thunderbird for email, OpenOffice for MS Office capabilities, plus a large array of other software. My current favorite app is the Lucidor ebook reader (I'm finishing up reading Dostoevsky's The Idiot as we speak - that book was also free). If you're a developer type like me, it's a fabulous environment to work in.
Free.
The second alternative? Not so free. But still great. Get a Mac.
Five and a half years ago I debated on this site whether to get a Mac. Some people were telling me that Macs don't last long and are non-upgradable. The Mac we bought in 2004 still runs great, and I've upgraded it two OS levels and for a larger disk and memory, and - full disclosure - I replaced the motherboard on it last year, but was able to do it myself. We recently bit the bullet and bought a new iMac, just to get newer capabilities and more performance. It is one sweet machine. Macs, by the way, run on top of a linux variant.
Not free. But awesome.
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Comments on "Alternatives":
2. Shrode
- 07/05/2010 10:51 pm CDT
Don't try to deny it.
My travails prompted this post.
No, stop. There's no use pretending Bill.
I know the truth.
I'm your muse.
4. Quaid
- 07/05/2010 11:04 pm CDT
I've been using Windows 7 at the office and I've not had a problem with it. I realize that Windows has been, in the past, somewhat problematic at times for some people (although I loved Windows XP and never had any problem with it, either).
So, even as I type this comment on a Mac, I really like Windows and don't see why everyone hates it so much or, at the least, feels the need to search out alternatives. Sure - there may be other OSes that are stronger or better than Windows, but it's not as if Windows 7 isn't a decent OS - right?
5. Bill
- 07/05/2010 11:20 pm CDT
Quaid,
The other side of the dual-boot on this laptop I'm using is a Win7 partition, so, no, I don't think it's terrible.
But here's what got me to go for the dual-boot and make Ubuntu my OS of choice (I use it 90% of the time), and this may seem like a small thing to some, but I got sick of it: When I put Windows 7 into "hibernate" mode, it can take a LONG time to get there. Getting it out of hibernate is sometimes impossible - I click the mouse, hit keys, beg, plead, etc.
Ubuntu takes exactly 30 seconds to hibernate, consistently, and less than that to come out of it, consistently. Our Mac goes into sleep mode in sub-second time and out of it in the same.
Again, a small thing, but I'm SICK of not knowing if the machine will come out of hibernate or not. Windows has always had really long and inconsistent standby modes (in my experience). This is, of course, a bigger issue for laptop users who want to preserve battery power during non-use than for other kinds of users.
I've been around a long, long while, and have been using Windows since version 3.0, back in 1990. I liken Windows to episodes 1-3 of Star Wars. They have all the money, all the resources, all the time to make a really, really GREAT OS and they just can't get it done. It's flashy, it's pretty, it's got lots of software available, etc., but it still hasn't hit the promise. As a programmer myself, this is sand-poundingly frustrating at times to think about.
Linux is based upon Unix, which is an OS that was created in 1970 or thereabouts, and is amazingly stable and secure in comparison. Apple took a huge risk with version 10, 8 or 9 years ago (I can't remember how long) to rip out their OS and replace it with a Unix variant. It's paying off in spades. Macs just run. Most Windows users I know experience slowdowns (usually because their machine is glutted with spyware, adware, etc).
In short, I've given Microsoft every opportunity to win my loyalty, and they just can't do it. Linux just works, and works - here's the key word - consistently. I'm weary of the Windows experience.
But your mileage my vary.
Shrode - yes, you prompted this post. You are my muse.
III - I like it. I haven't finished it yet, though.
6. Jeff the Baptist
- 07/06/2010 8:55 am CDT
Windows OS's are hit and miss. I don't really have any complaints with XP or 7. Vista is slow and a bit inconsistent. 98, NT, and 2000 were ok. 95 and ME were offal.
Macs. Eh. They're nice, but you definitely pay for it.
Linux. Also eh. It's free, but you still pay for it. I have to use this at work and it often makes easy tasks difficult.
8. Quaid
- 07/06/2010 11:16 am CDT
My Win7 machine at work definitely takes longer to sleep and wake up than my Mac, but I've never had it stall out on me or go unresponsive. Also, while it takes longer, it usually only takes about 10 seconds or so (which is about four times longer than my Mac) - maybe if I were to have more programs running at hibernation it would take longer???
I know nothing about Ubuntu, but I like Win7 just as much as I like Snow Leopard - the diff. is the machines that run Win7 cost about half as much. Two years ago, when Microsoft's best was Vista, it was probably worth it to spring for the Mac, but it would be hard to justify to anyone purchasing a Mac today with Win7 doing so well. I guess it comes down to whether or not saving an extra seven or eight seconds each time your computer wakes up is worth $500, or more.
For me, the best part about having a Mac is that when I have a problem with it (I've had two minor hardware issues), the Apple store is only five minutes away and I don't have to call India to work on the issue. I just take it in. The customer service there is beyond amazing. I almost want to tip them for their kindness/help. (Granted, I paid a few hundred dollars for AppleCare, so I guess they've been tipped quite enough)
9. Bill
- 07/06/2010 1:07 pm CDT
Quaid
For me it goes way beyond just the sleep issue. That's just a symptom of larger probs. I agree that macs are expensive - especially their laptops. I'm not a mac bigot.
A completely free and constantly improving linux holds a lot of appeal for me. Some of this is visceral, of course, but I didn't start out as a windows-doubter. 20 years of using the blasted OS has made me grow very weary of the never-arrived-at promise. At work we have lots of fun too w windows servers, such as crashes and sudden restarts.
Shrode's recent post is exhibit #203652 in my case
Ubuntu - not for the masses. Definitely for me. ;-)
10. Manders
- 07/06/2010 1:15 pm CDT
I bought a MacBook a year and a half ago and I am never looking back. Performance aside, the people in their user experience/interface design department are deserving of their pay, for sure.
13. Bill
- 07/06/2010 8:51 pm CDT
Quaid, the easiest thing to do is download ubuntu to an ISO image, burn that on a CD, and boot from the CD. It won't run as fast there, but you can try it out without actually overlaying your main computer.
If that seemed good to you (and it may not - the gnome interface is not as fancy as winders) you can then do a dual-boot thing (it's an option in the ubuntu install) where you can setup a partition to boot ubuntu and another to boot Windows. That's what I did - it actually just takes your existing windows partition, makes it smaller (about half the harddrive size) and creates an ubuntu partition, and installs the GRUB boot manager. Everytime you restart your computer it will ask you which partition you want. Within ubuntu you can read and write to your Windows partition (your documents, etc) which is nice.
Bobbi - that's tough. Were you able to get the iMac back up and running? How did you crash it?
14. jez
- 07/07/2010 7:02 am CDT
Jeff: "I have to use linux at work and it often makes easy tasks difficult."
I have arrived at an only rarely contradicted principle: it might be hard to get linux to do something, but it's just as hard to get windows to stop doing something.
Another way of stating this is that windows tries to be clever. Often it succeeds, but occasionally its cleverness gets in the way of mine, and I wind up having to do odd magical things to trigger the behaviour I really wanted. Computers aren't supposed to be magic, so I don't like resorting to it. I guess I'm ideologically disposed towards a system when I can just type in what I really mean, even if that means I frequently have to look up how to spell it, instead of working around windows' cleverness.
What I'm saying about windows is probably out of date, I haven't tried doing anything hard on windows for several years.
15. Jeff the Baptist
- 07/07/2010 8:07 am CDT
"It might be hard to get linux to do something, but it's just as hard to get windows to stop doing something."
Agreed. Linux is customizable while Windows has its way of doing things and in many cases you just learn to live with it. But there's a double-edged sword of standardization there as well.
16. Bobbi
- 07/07/2010 10:22 am CDT
Bill-Yes, thanks to apple care I was able to get my mac up and running. This happened several months ago so i'm foggy on what happened. I was told over and over again how intuitive and user friendly mac's were so I didn't read the book I just started setting my machine up the way I like it. With my PC, to remove things off of your desktop, you just delete and know that the info was still on your harddrive. With mac you drag and drop into the trash. I proceeded to drag and drop those things that I didn't recognize like the key chain. Somehow I realized I was trashing my programs. I took them out of the trash and they were all piled on top of each other. I called apple care and they said I would have to load my disk again. They guided me through that so sometimes I read the book first now!
17. Cara
- 07/08/2010 11:14 am CDT
I have had a Macbook for a couple of years now, meanwhile our PC has crashed and died from some type of made-to-look-like-Windows-security-warning virus that the kids fell for and downloaded. I ran AVG as a virus protector and it did pretty good up until that point. I've loved my Mac the whole time.
Recently though, my Safari browser keeps crashing. If I'm on a website with a lot to load (think blog with a lot of pictures and "playing in the background music") I don't know why, but it just disappears and I'm back to the desktop. I've been using Firefox instead and I don't have those problems.
I also dropped my laptop and broke the screen (anguish!) and it cost me $400 to get it fixed...
18. Cara
- 07/08/2010 11:19 am CDT
I have had a Macbook for a couple of years now, meanwhile our PC has crashed and died from some type of made-to-look-like-Windows-security-warning virus that the kids fell for and downloaded. I ran AVG as a virus protector and it did pretty good up until that point. I've loved my Mac the whole time.
Recently though, my Safari browser keeps crashing. If I'm on a website with a lot to load (think blog with a lot of pictures and "playing in the background music") I don't know why, but it just disappears and I'm back to the desktop. I've been using Firefox instead and I don't have those problems.
I also dropped my laptop and broke the screen (anguish!) and it cost me $400 to get it fixed...
19. Cara
- 07/08/2010 11:34 am CDT
I have had a Macbook for a couple of years now, meanwhile our PC has crashed and died from some type of made-to-look-like-Windows-security-warning virus that the kids fell for and downloaded. I ran AVG as a virus protector and it did pretty good up until that point. I've loved my Mac the whole time.
Recently though, my Safari browser keeps crashing. If I'm on a website with a lot to load (think blog with a lot of pictures and "playing in the background music") I don't know why, but it just disappears and I'm back to the desktop. I've been using Firefox instead and I don't have those problems.
I also dropped my laptop and broke the screen (anguish!) and it cost me $400 to get it fixed...
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