Linux v windows

forgotmyname

Take it back to the days of the AMIGA. Who needs shared files and services?

A program installs into its own folder and does not need to alter files installed by another program.

Trying to get Filebot installed on Mint 17.2 (i think), installed fine but wont let me change root permissions. Folder not found...

I have no idea where it has installed it because i cannot find it.

tronator

forgotmyname wrote: »

Trying to get Filebot installed on Mint 17.2 (i think), installed fine but wont let me change root permissions. Folder not found...

I have no idea where it has installed it because i cannot find it.

What do you mean by "...installed fine but wont let me change root permissions". Of course, a program started as user can't change the permissions of a folder owned by root. That's the whole security concept of Linux. Which folder's permissions do you need to change anyway? The files you want to rename should be in your $home owned by you.

The program itself is installed in /usr/share/filebot/, but you shouldn't need to care about that. There should be a launcher in you application menu somewhere, most likely Audio/Video or Utilities or so. Just find it and click on it.

Gloomendoom

esuhl wrote: »

I use Arch Linux myself and it's amazing. But I'd tell my non-techie friends to just stick with Windows. Everyone know it; it's well-supported. And they'd probably find GNU/Linux a nightmare.

In a former life I used to daily battles with unix, Sunos and Primos.

I just want the easy life now.

psychic_teabag

Gloomendoom wrote: »

In a former life I used to daily battles with unix, Sunos and Primos.

I just want the easy life now.

It's horses for courses - I've had my past battles with Windows, and now I too choose the easy life...

EdwardB

psychic_teabag wrote: »

It's horses for courses - I've had my past battles with Windows, and now I too choose the easy life...

With respect, the "easy" life is all very well for the techs, but for the average or jo/anne who struggles with Windows, going to Linux is going to be anything but easy.

I still wonder why the OP felt he would not be legal if all his computers ran Windows; one can reasonably assume they either came with OEM versions of Windows or he bought a version if he built it himself.

Maybe he thought it was illegal to upgrade them to Win10 (God knows it should be) but actually I have always found that it is best to keep a PC "in Era".

If you take a PC designed in 2002 running XP, perhaps with an 16 bit or even 8 bit architecture a max memory capacity of 2gb, upgrading that to a 32bit OS it going to make it run like a dog with constant memory paging just to run the OS never mind the apps. Yet keep it in 2002 running WinXP and Office 97 or 2003 and it will run well.

Now all you Linux die hards will say "Oh but you can install Linux on a memory stick blah blah blah" sure as a concept that is fine. However, I have installed Linux on old boxes and it also does a lot of swapping and used too much memory for the spec, I got them to stick with it for a month but in the end rolled it back to XP and all was well.

Yes of course I am sure that there is a Boolah switch that can be run on the root config in the crochity config nano process but as I said, this is about what is practical not a proof of concept.

Easy!?

fenlander_uk

I still think that for a complete beginner, a 'friendly' linux distro, like Mint, is no more difficult to work with than Windows. It's the conversion from Windows to linux that's difficult: because a linux desktop looks more or less like Windows, people expect it to work the same way and are unhappy when the differences slow them down. This is a shame, because Mint in particular is well suited to the less advanced user who just wants to browse, email, view a video, listen to music or type a letter. After all, the first netbooks released a few years ago all ran linux and were aimed at occasional users. (And before anyone says it, netbooks fell out of favour because they they lacked the power to do anything much, not because they ran linux.)

Most users don't seem to have the same problems with Android or Chrome OS because they don't start out with the same expectation that they will be pretty much like Windows. I started on BBC BASIC, started again with DOS and again with Windows 286. Quite recently I started yet again with linux and the learning curve was no worse than the earlier ones.

psychic_teabag

EdwardB wrote: »

If you take a PC designed in 2002 running XP, perhaps with an 16 bit or even 8 bit architecture a max memory capacity of 2gb, upgrading that to a 32bit OS it going to make it run like a dog with constant memory paging just to run the OS never mind the apps. Yet keep it in 2002 running WinXP and Office 97 or 2003 and it will run well.

Err.. pretty sure XP never ran on 16 bits. Its predecessor NT was designed from the ground up for 32 bits. IIRC, 286 was the last generation that was 16 bits. We've had 386 since 1985. Win 95 may also have needed 32 bits - not sure now.

(Or perhaps you're talking about bus widths and things.)

My system is 2Gb of ram and runs just fine without obvious swapping. (Though my 1Gb eeepc netbook does swap a bit with too many browser tabs open.)

Now all you Linux die hards will say "Oh but you can install Linux on a memory stick blah blah blah" sure as a concept that is fine.

Not quite the same thing, since the memory stick is replacing the hard disk in this case, not the cpu/ram etc. And gives a way to play with linux without replacing windows, or a way to boot into linux temporarily for whatever purpose. I don't think anyone would intend that as a long-term solution.

However, I have installed Linux on old boxes and it also does a lot of swapping and used too much memory for the spec, I got them to stick with it for a month but in the end rolled it back to XP and all was well.

Interesting.. probably the first time I've heard a report that linux behaves worse than XP on the same hardware. The only copy of XP I have is on an old dual-boot laptop, and I know that linux is far more responsive than windows on that machine. (But maybe it's just set up better - the XP installation is old and probably full of the usual gunk that windows seems to attract.)

It probably is true that linux apps are growing over time. Browsers seem to consume vast quantities of memory. So while a linux of the same sort of era as XP would definitely require fewer resources, a modern linux distribution might struggle a bit on older hardware, without a little bit of tinkering. (But choosing one of the more lightweight distributions would almost certainly help.)

Don't forget that linux runs on tiny devices such as routers, rpi etc, so it itself can run on a tiny footprint. But you need a user interface on top of that to be useful, and do need to choose one that is compatible with the hardware. I run a simple window manager rather than gnome-like desktop on my rather dated machine

esuhl

EdwardB wrote: »

If you take a PC designed in 2002 running XP, perhaps with an 16 bit or even 8 bit architecture a max memory capacity of 2gb, upgrading that to a 32bit OS it going to make it run like a dog with constant memory paging just to run the OS never mind the apps. Yet keep it in 2002 running WinXP and Office 97 or 2003 and it will run well.

XP only ran on machines with 32-bit or 64-bit architecture. You can't run a 32-bit OS on a machine with an 8- or 16-bit architecture!

And it depends entirely on the OS as to which is faster. The only reason a modern OS would run slower is if it's more complex and bloated. With GNU/Linux you can install whatever kind of system you like, so it really should perform at least as well as XP, and often much better.

Windows XP is so slow as to be unusable on my netbook, but Arch Linux runs much more smoothly.

EdwardB wrote: »

Now all you Linux die hards will say "Oh but you can install Linux on a memory stick blah blah blah" sure as a concept that is fine. However, I have installed Linux on old boxes and it also does a lot of swapping and used too much memory for the spec, I got them to stick with it for a month but in the end rolled it back to XP and all was well.

You're possibly misunderstanding the differences between Window and GNU/Linux memory management. GNU/Linux uses memory more efficiently than Windows, and will try to use as much memory as possible. After all, why would you not want to use all available RAM when that's what's going to optimise the performance of your PC. You can change the "swappiness" to adjust swap performance.

If you have, say 4GB RAM and GNU/Linux is using that whole 4GB, you haven't "run out" of memory, your PC is just trying to use it all to your best advantage.

EdwardB wrote: »

Yes of course I am sure that there is a Boolah switch that can be run on the root config in the crochity config nano process but as I said, this is about what is practical not a proof of concept.

Easy!?

Then GNU/Linux isn't for you. Don't whinge about it -- just use Windows!

If you know what you're doing, GNU/Linux systems are easier to maintain and configure.

Sometimes I think the people who complain about GNU/Linux being complicated and pointless would also look at Mandarin Chinese and say that it's far too complicated, with too many characters with multiple meanings expressed through intonational emphases which don't exist in English... and come up with the conclusion that Mandarin is only for geeky linguistic show-offs and that EVERYONE would just be better off if we all spoke English.

So... why do some people write in Mandarin when English is "better", eh?

Gloomendoom

esuhl wrote: »

So... why do some people write in Mandarin when English is "better", eh?

Familiarity.

esuhl

Gloomendoom wrote: »

Familiarity.

Exactly.

Some people are better off sticking to what they know, especially if they don't want to learn a different way of doing things.