On Thursday 04 November 2004 9:10 pm, Jeremy Dales wrote:
As requested, I'll try and outline why I am interested in Linux, along with a few first impressions, although I am certainly not a technical person, so I am more interested in what it does rather than how it does it. I like the idea of Linux being open source - in fact I would say it is something I believe in quite strongly, and I used several open source applications while I was running Windows. I was also fed up with the numerous security flaws I encountered in every version of Windows I used, and despite the best protection around, was still plagued with spam, spyware, trojans and viruses. It seems that Linux, for whatever reason, has largely avoided this.
Welcome to the group Jeremy, your reasons for trying an alternative are not that different from most of us here I would guess.
If I have a concern about using Linux, it is less to do with it as an operating system and more to do with my inability to comprehend it. While I suspect that this is not uncommon in the first week of use, I have to say that it has seemed fiendishly complicated to do even very basic things like install applications or get the hardware configured - this has necessitated ploughing through long lines of unfathomable code of the kind I usually try to avoid. I am hoping that I will either become used to it, or more likely, that having got the system set up the way I like it, I can have as little to do with opening the terminal window as possible. In short, I'm looking for a smooth and reliable graphical interface that is simple to use, relatively secure, and has the additional benefit of being open source.
If you haven't come from a Unix background then there are several methods and practices that are going to get you scratching your head. I was the same the first time I played with Linux.
However a lot of these things (once you understand them) really make sense and you start wondering why MS decided do do it differently.
No one is going to argue that Linux doesn't have a steep learning curve, it does however level out after a while.
Ease of package installation really depends on what distribution you are using and whether or not you are trying to run on the bleeding edge by compiling packages from source. I would say that every major distribution has at least one user in this group so hopefully your questions won't go unanswered.
With some distributions it is possible to never need to go near the command line (SuSE can sometimes achieve this) However you will quickly learn that the shell is one of Linux's greatest strengths, it is a very flexable tool.
You don't mention what distribution you are using.
Regards Wayne