I tried Linux Mint 11 RC, but ran into install problems. After three hours of staring at fancy splash screens, incomprehensible syntax on black-background text screens, a Linux command-line prompt on a screen that truncated the first character of every line, and a variety of BSODs, reminiscent of the bad old days of early versions of MS-DOS, I threw my install CD into the trashcan, reformatted the drive to NTFS (from ext4), and made a mental note to wait another ten years before dabbling with Linux again. I don't remember any GUI OS Microsoft ever published being so difficult to install and demanding that novices ascend such a steep learning curve. I had a similar experience with MEPIS and Ubuntu a couple years ago with a different rig. My opinion then is the same as my opinion now: Linux is nothing but a big old waste of time. It never has successfully installed on any system I've ever owned, but has succeeded in wasting several hours of time leading me on with fancy splash screens that ultimately lead to a BSOD or an otherwise non-responsive system.
Definitely any version of Windows is worth any price, yes, even several hundreds of dollars next to the Linux wilderness that requires unknown hours of technical massages in order to install in the first place, with no guarantee that other common tasks, such as connecting to a network and a printer, won't be equally difficult. I don't much care that Linux is free and that the programmers don't get paid. I'd rather shell out some money and get something that works the first time. I prefer to concentrate on getting things done with the computer, not tinkering with the OS and trying to figure out mundane and uninteresting chores that Microsoft solved ten years ago.
To be fair to the programmers toiling in voluntary slavery, I downloaded and tried the stable version, Linux Mint 10, also, and it successfully installed. However, I was stuck with 800 x 600 resolution, which meant I needed a proprietary video driver. That was a sticking point--I'm not sure I found the correct one, and I had no clue how to install it in the first place. I doubled-clicked on several files in the installation package, nothing happened, and I got bored and rebooted in order to get something done in Windows.
Disaster almost struck--Windows only booted on the third try, after I had unplugged the hard drive with Linux Mint installed. That was a bit too close for comfort. I was really hoping that Linux Mint was not going to kill my Windows OS. Eventually, through online research, I discovered that my dual boot installation could only be removed via the Windows Recovery CD. Luckily, I had one on hand--actually, a multi-purpose CD created by my thoughtful brother called "Bart's P.E." With that, I was able to boot to a command line, type in "fixmbr" and thereby kill the Linux boot. Still on the "to-do" list, I need to destroy the Linux partitions. All told, I lost about three or four hours tinkering with Linux Mint. I regret that, but every once in a while I just have to try out a Linux distro to see what all the fuss is about.
I will say that Linux Mint looked awfully pretty while it was running, and the nice appearance made me really want it to work. But in no way can Linux Mint be considered a user-friendly environment. Unless one has a Linux devotee nearby, one is S.O.L.
My conclusion is that Linux is okay if there is a Linux devotee standing by, willing to do all of the things that are necessary in order to set up a Linux box. Unfortunately, I don't know anyone who uses Linux and don't feel like spending a hundred hours mastering all the requisite commands in order to perform the same tasks, or rather a great many tasks in addition to those that I perform on Windows. I'd love to try out a realistic alternative to Windows, but I don't think it's realistic to expect an end user to make all of the sacrifices that the greedy Linux God requires.
As an outsider looking in upon the Linux community, I think it suffers from the old Tower of Babel problem. That is, every adept worth his salt wants to break away from the herd and forge his own distro, whether needed or not. So there are scores of distros, each with its own set of devotees, and each tries to reinvent the wheel rather than all of them working together in harmony upon a single distro. If all the penguins focused on one distro, then they could iron out all of the usability problems and forge a product superior to Windows XP for the first time. As things stand, Windows XP is superior to any Linux distro of my knowledge, because it works the first time out of the box, and all hardware manufacturers support it, and its depth and quality of software surpasses Linux.
Another problem with Linux is that there seems to be a compulsion to compete with the latest version of Windows. Instead of implementing the latest cutting-edge technology, what Linux needs to do is focus upon working the first time and installing all the necessary drivers, so that users install the OS rather than tossing the CD into the garbage can. I am willing to bet that at least one out of every two .iso's downloaded are discarded due to difficulty installing and properly configuring the OS.
I'm not willing to rule out Linux entirely however. A day may come when I switch to Linux, especially if I can find a Linux guru in my local vicinity. The best scenario would be to buy a computer with a Linux distro pre-installed along with all of the usual apps.
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