entertainment - Yes. The games that are on unbuntu are IMO much more entertaining that any stupid minesweeper game. Not to mention linux has the same ability to play windows games if you just get a THIRD PART PROGRAM. games – Again, just get WINE and you are as good as a windows. office applications: Clone of MSO? Yeah. Is that bad? customer support - Much more info online than windows though. user friendliness - Considering it was MADE BY USERS... I'd say its just fine. third party applications - of course its not in stores its free!
dude cut it. i myself have played farcry in linux. what i meant was there arent many options when it comes to games/entertainment in linux. for curious minds jus like anything out ther linux is a good program to explore but definitely not a replacement for windows. even today i use ubuntu & fedora with couple of other os's just to have fun & keep upto date with the trends & i dont mean to offend lin/unix users its jus tht ther is more to it than anything linux has ever offered.
IMO Linux developers try to put so many options and application in a single package that it confuses average users,
I disagree. If all you're doing is browsing the net and doing basic office stuff, go with Ubuntu or a similar easy-to-use Linux distro. Everything is free, everything is updated, and everything is as powerful as you need it to be. You've apparently never used Ubuntu Linux. Installing programs couldn't be easier. Browse the list, click "Apply," and watch it install. You also hardly ever (never?) need to go to the terminal if all you're doing is basic computing/web/office work. The image of Linux as being nerdy and requiring gobs of technical skill is entirely dated. There are plenty of Distros (like Ubuntu) that can be 100% point and click. They are as easy, if not easier, to work with than Windows. The range of freely available open source applications is amazing. You can get a free open source office suite, programming IDE, graphics editing program, illustrations program, etc. All those proprietary programs that cost Windows users hundreds of dollars to buy (if they buy them legally). The only reason I would ever consider going back to Windows is if I wanted to play computer games again. And I'd only do that if the game I wanted wasn't available on Mac. - Walkere
For me, i make the switch to linux and my browsering(firefox) experience dramatically improved. You have more control over the osand can tweak whatever you want.
Majority of a skewed sample set. This forum targets people with some level of technical knowledge of computers and the internet. These people would be much more likely to see the merits of Linux than, say, my mother. She just got Vista because it came on her new laptop. Until then, she had Windows XP. Similarly, my website's logs show that 66% of people use Firefox. I know that isn't true. But the sample set that my site appeals to (people that develop web applications or design websites) tend to use Firefox more than anything else. Statistics are dangerously ambiguous. Don't quote them with such authority. For the record, I voted Linux and use Ubuntu on my main computer. - Walkere
I quoted my statistic, you knew exactly where the results came from. Don't act all high and mighty for knowing what was given to you in my post. If we are going to be using examples then, a friend of mine who rarely uses computers (mainly for school and internet) thought it was really stupid and more complicated than it should be. As a contrast, I showed my girlfriend a version of linux (shes not very computer savvy either) and she liked how straightforward it was. If you want to use an office program, you go to applications => office. She figured out the basics in no time. She likes vista to an extent but all she does is surf the internet, and she was complaining about IE so I switched it to firefox and she loves that too. And to give you some leverage my grandmother just loves vista. I like vista as well, but I think linux for its purpose can just do what vista can and more. So, in my opinion, it is better. I'm not talking how accepted it is, we already know its vista. I'm talking about what may be better for the user. Which I think is linux.
What are the opinions about this. http://digg.com/linux_unix/Amazon_releases_MP3_downloader_for_Linux This demonstrates Linux is getting more and more accepted.
I've always used Windows and really like Vista. At the same time I also messed around a lot with Linux Debian and a few other flavors and although using Linux may make you look like a Wiz! with computers; I found it was only really useful to me as a server .
Really, you consider yourself an 'intellect'? Do you mean intellectual? Sorry, but I doubt it... entertainment - Yes, Amarok is the best media player out there and at the moment it is Linux only. Some nice free games to waste your time. games – Kind of, wine + cedega will play a good number of games. All of ID's games run natively on Linux. You also get that mind numbing game World of Warcraft... office applications are jus a clone of microsoft office - That is bad because? What would you rather have, software you pay $100s for or a free clone? If you want Office just run it under Wine, all versions bar 2007 run fine. customer support - Yes, Dell do sell Ubuntu machines with customer support. Second there is a lot of information out there in forums and websites. I'd rather get support from a forum than ring a clueless customer assistant (it plugged in?', etc.) user friendliness - Yes, run Ubuntu and you'll find it is friendly. I must admit other variations of Linux can be very, very daunting and hopeless for new users; however, they are not intended for new users -- whilst Ubuntu is. You can install/uninstall software with one click and most operations are done via GUI, you don't need to even think about what a terminal is. third party applications - Less that is true, but you can run many Windows applications in Wine. Second pretty much all the Linux applications are free.