| Anyone using Ubuntu or FreeBSD much? [message #107847] |
Sat, 21 September 2013 00:40  |
mikeaudet
Messages: 476
Registered: February 2009
Location: Canada
|
Senior Member |
|
|
Hi Guys,
I've been poking around with Windows alternatives just to see where the Microsoft alternatives are at, and it's been a pretty disappointing experience. I'm wondering if my experience is typical.
I gave PC-BSD a try first, and it didn't detect my two Windows installations, leaving me stuck in BSD. The only documentation I could find was out of date, and there wasn't much of it. I had to boot from my Windows 7 install CD to fix my MBR. Only one of my three monitors was detected. I think the lack of Google search results is what got me to delete it. There's almost no information to help solve problems, which makes me think almost no one is using it as a desktop OS. That's fine for those who are experts already and love it, but not for the rest of us.
Next I tried Ubuntu. The install went better, but there were still problems. I could only get one of my three monitors to work using the default, GPL ATI driver. By switching to the proprietary drivers, I got two of the three working. There seemed to be no way to get all three going.
Then I tried adding a printer. The searching for printers app crashed, leaving the dialog stuck in the middle of the screen for a few hours. I restarted, and the process worked the second time.
I opened up Calc (libre office's excel) to see if making a table out of a large data set worked any better than it does on Windows. It basically locked up (same as on Windows). But, on Ubuntu, it locked up the entire Ubuntu UI with it. On Windows, only Calc got stuck. The Windows UI was unaffected, which is how it should be.
I take no joy in these observations. I was really hoping that Linux or FreeBSD might be a new development front to get rid of Microsoft. But, I've never been so happy to get back into Windows 7, where everything just works.
Is Microsoft really as far ahead as it seems to me? Ubuntu was especially disappointing. It felt like the UI was less multi threaded than Windows XP. It actually reminded me of NT 4.
Maybe my ATI HD 5450 video cards are a bad fit with Ubuntu, but I got them because they have no fans, which is important in a studio PC.
Anybody have any different experiences?
All the best,
Mike
|
|
|
|
The PARIS Forums
Search
Help
Members
Register
Login
Home
