This is a bit of an odd thing to post on a Linux forum but has anyone had problems “sticking” with Linux?
Here’s a little history. I work as a .net developer and up until about a year ago I would’ve considered myself a “windows guy”. But I’ve been getting a little fed up of the direction Windows is going and I’ve been “dabbling” with Linux for quite a few years (I think I started out by trying Red Hat 7 and Ubuntu 6.10). By dabbling I mean dual booting and I’ve pretty much permanently had a Linux VM around for playing. Anyway I thought I would give Linux a real go this time.
Now the problem I have is that I can’t seem to stick with Linux, I keep wanting to go back to something familiar…
Has anyone dealt with anything else like this? What should I do!
Like I said I know it’s a little strange asking this on a Linux forum as most people here are here because of their interest in Linux, but I just wondered if anyone else experienced anything like this when first changing to Linux. Is it just the “fear” of the unfamiliar?
I think the only reason I use windows these days is because even though I have support for games on linux steam now… I still have a load of games that don’t. If it weren’t for my investment in steam, I’d be linux all the way.
I know what you mean though I think there is something very homely about windows. I wouldn’t say I’m anti windows either. Basically I think there’s room for all of this stuff in your life. Maybe you just need to stop beating yourself up about it? Whatever blows your hair back man. If windows do something good, use that and if its shit, let them know by not paying them for something shit and go for a quality linux distro instead. I don’t think that excludes you from linux, or open source communities does it? Surely a major force behind open source is the tendency toward free thinking?
I’m just throwing ideas in the air sorry, probably not that helpful
If you like Windows, why not use Windows? You shouldn’t feel like you have to use anything if it’s not interesting to you. If you’re curious, then dabble. Eventually you may find something about Linux that you didn’t realize you were missing in Windows. Like, a decent command line environment for example. If you really love .Net and Visual Studio, you’re not going to find much to love in Linux as a developer. If you’re less reliant on a full-blown IDE though, there are lots of great tools available. I have a .Net dev friend that I’ll never bring over to the *nix side, but he’s happy, so why bother?
There’s always some fear to the switch. Some software that you’re familiar, some sort of configuration. Or maybe the looks of the desktop. Ask yourself that question. What I prefer in Windows rather than Linux. Than, post your answer. And someone would give you an advice for distro and Desktop environment. Maybe Cinnamon, Gnome, LXDE or KDE. Or if it’s a software. I liked MATLAB, and until I truly uncover the potential of Octave, didn’t resolved to ditch Windows. MATLAB has a Linux version, but I didn’t have a License at the moment. Now, I don’t worry about licenses.
Like I said I work as a .Net developer which means that pretty much the only software that I use that isn’t OS agnostic is Visual Studio, but now there’s the .Net foundation and for a change MS are actually pushing open source i’m starting to think that might actually change. Plus the mono project has come a long way over the past few releases of mono which gives me some hope!
Anyway aside from Visual Studio i’m pretty OS agnostic. Most things are now online (for better or worse), so there’s very little binding me to any particular OS, there’s just something that makes me want to go back to Windows (despite the fact that I know that i’m going to end up going back to Linux shortly after that).
At the moment i’m running Ubuntu Gnome and I’m getting on wth that pretty well at the moment. I guess I’ll just have to see how it goes!
@mo_roodi it seems that it’s rather an srructural issue, being a .NET developer. I meant, it’s not the visual appeal. I hope that MS keeps embracing the FOSS in that particular area.
Regarding the Linux looks, I dislike Unity and I’m not a big fan of GNOME. It requires too many resources for my taste. I’m currently in LXDE, which works for me and my wife, as it looks quite similar to Windows and UT’s pretty light in resource fingerprint. Maybe you could try it. My next desktop switch would probably be AwesomeWM
that’s a good point. I quite enjoyed Zorin for a while. It didn’t seem to be too resource heavy and is designed specifically for people who like the look and feel of win 7.
I switched to Linux when i had to use Windows Vista and for me it works the best, when i accidently deleted my windows partition and had to stick with linux. However you need the .net enviroment and because of that windows. Did you try to use two seperate PCs? One for your work and one for your private stuff. Most of us have an old machine in the cellar, with linux they can come to a second life and you can stick with linux in your private life.
Really I think I’m over-thinking a non-existent problem!
I already have a work and a home machine, with the work machine being tied to Windows and the home machine being mine to play with. At the moment I’m getting on pretty well with Ubuntu Gnome (Ubuntu Kernel gives me the hardware support I need, and Gnome 3 isn’t terrible anymore).
I suppose I just wondered if anyone else has had any similar experiences either themselves or with other people? Surely I cannot be alone in feeling this way!?
You should start a project that would just be way darn easier in Linux, so that you can soak in the differences for what they are worth.
May I give you some ideas?
Download Arch Linux, and configure yourself a system from scratch. This will give you an appreciation for the sorts of configuration changes you can do on Linux. For instance, you couldn’t forgo a desktop environment entirely on Windows in favor of a bare essentials set up. Try out lots of tiling window managers. These are great fun! If you Haskell at all try xmonad - it rocks.
customize your shell
Write a large project which uses bash, and lots of the gnu utility programs. If you do this for a while you will be saying to yourself “Man, I wish I had these on windows”
Learn to code C/C++ using a minimal editor like vim or emacs, writing your own make files. You may find this liberating once you get used to it.
Do a project where package managers make life easier. Perhaps Ruby on Rails?
Set up a lamp stack and run a server.
These will go a long way toward getting you accustomed to Linux. For me, I miss the package managers the most on Windows. You can get something like that going on Windows, but it’s just not the same.
I agree with you sir. Trying Arch was liberating. It’s probably cumbersome for starters, but I get what I want, the way I want it. If something works, is because I made it work. And if something fails, is because I screw it. But I know I can fix it. And everyday , you learn something
About package manager in Windows, I hate the way they manage updates, with multiple clients running on the background, Adobe, HP, Java, the Mouse vendor, and Windows Update. Hate it soooo much. The only package manager in Windows I like is MiKTeX. I kinda of prefer that way of working, with installation on demand, rather than installing TeXLive collections.
@boardog with the exception of working on a large bash project I’ve tried all of the above, in fact I’m currently running nginx with mono for a couple of work projects. I wasn’t awful keen on Arch, but that was due to the rolling release and a problem with the a couple of the packages I had installed borking x… So that’s why I tend to stick to the Debian based distros because I think debian testing is a pretty decent base, and the work the Ubuntu guys do keep things ticking over really nicely.
As for package management I’ve been using “chocolatey” for Windows (http://chocolatey.org/) which provides 80% of apt-get, but of course just because of the update model Windows has you’re never going to be able to get everything through the command line which is a bit of a pain. Whenever I have to use windows I do always miss apt-get!
At university I’ve seen lot’s of people using Linux for a short while (in many cases just during a specific project) and than switching back to Windows. But there were many people keeping Linux on their machines and being happy with it (like myself).
This is classic addiction symptoms. The only way is total abstinence.
You have to first recognise that you have a problem. Posting here is a good start.
Work through each and every case where you currently fall back into past habits, find a way to do each of these with free software.
Establish new habits
Whatever blows your hair back man. If windows do something good, use that and if its shit, let them know by not paying them for something shit and go for a quality linux distro instead. I don’t think that excludes you from linux, or open source communities does it? Surely a major force behind open source is the tendency toward free thinking?
