Linux - the adventure begins...

Which Windows and which Linux? Just curious.

To my shock, chagrin, and horror, I've found Windows 7 to be more acceptable than the Linux I tried. Ubuntu has an annoying interface and I didn't give it much of a chance. Mint w/ Cinnamon appealed, but ultimately seemed more like Windows 95 than anything else. I put an SSD in the old laptop basically just to see what would happen, and Win7 on that platform is just so much simpler, and slicker.

I went from the new Windows [the "app" based one] back to XP, and now to Linux Mint [Q something I believe]. The terminal feature alone is worth it, and the fact that it loads up in under a minute, and haven't hit any snags in a week of "normal" usage.

Allright, reasons I love Mint so far:

1) Comes fully loaded with a host of lightweight programs
2) Related to 1, my computer boots up and down in about a minute, and I have access to most of my processing power at all times
3) The terminal feature allows me to find and download programs that have been more or less vetted by the community, so far everything I've downloaded has worked 100%. Granted I remember Silverlight being a huge issue for my old Ubuntu, but I've lived without Netflix for some time now so it's only so much water under the bridge.

It seems I've only just scratched the surface as well. Don't know how much more functionality I'll need, but this feels nice to know there are options down the road.

Here we go again...

Ubuntu GNOME 17.04

Day 1: proprietary graphics drivers ruin everything

Kubuntu-17.04. Thought I was going to like KDE better than GNOME.

Nope.

Xubuntu 17.04  -  nope
Mint 18.1 w/ Cinnamon  -  not much changed since last time, me no likee, so  -  nope

Turns out I like Gnome.

Presently trying Ubuntu GNOME 16.04.2 LTS (and it's throwing a lot more errors than 17.04 for a "stable" release....). If it works with the nvidia drivers when it's all updated, might well keep

I might be on the verge of a conversion experience. It has occurred to me the reason I'm enjoying the GNOME version of Ubuntu is how it parallels my Android experience. The launcher is minimal to the point of lacking quite a number of useful flourishes and one must go looking for extensions. Which may sound like work. But since those extensions do exist, and finding them is mostly just a matter of googling, that work is eminently more entertaining than the tiresome projects of removing the obtrusive design choices other desktop designers have made. Thumbs up, GNOME 

O linux, you hilarious kidder, apps should remember their own previous window locations? HAHAHAHA, good one.

Boom, new adventure: in place update from 16.04.2 to 16.10 to 17.04. As far as I can tell, nothing broke.

I also discovered that if the file manager manages the desktop, then windows don't remember where they last closed; but where, I guess, GNOME itself manages the desktop, blammo, windows and apps open where they were last closed... mostly.

Next test is the acid test.... LibreOffice. And that's for tomorrow.

Boom, new adventure: in place update from 16.04.2 to 16.10 to 17.04. As far as I can tell, nothing broke.

I also discovered that if the file manager manages the desktop, then windows don't remember where they last closed; but where, I guess, GNOME itself manages the desktop, blammo, windows and apps open where they were last closed... mostly.

Next test is the acid test.... LibreOffice. And that's for tomorrow.

Or you could just go Mac and save yourself all this technology tinkering, and use the time and effort to improve your teaching tinkering.

Computer power is and should be a commodity

THERE SHALL BE NO PREMIUM USER EXPERIENCE!

Currently still on Ubuntu Gnome 17.04. Experimenting with PlayOnLinux. Haven't checked much at all but Office 2010 appears to install and work. PlayOnLinux appears to have China issues however. It doesn't access its servers very well. Automatic downloads of, for instance, Wine elements needed for some program you want to import from Windows are reeeeeally slow and most often crap out after a few hours. (Yeah, that's right, a few hours....) You can do manual installations though. That's what I did to get this particular Office 2010 going.

Going through the list of things I might want to use a computer for and asking if Ubuntu can do it, I get to....

QQ and Wechat


Apparently web wechat is okay, but QQ for Linux basically no longer exists?

WPS Office - formerly Kingsoft Office - an actively developed Chinese product! Available in Free and Premium versions.... and seemingly a surprisingly good word processor, presentation editor, and spreadsheet package. A clone of Microsoft Office, basically. And on Ubuntu, it works better than accessing actual Microsoft Office via PlayOnLinux.

But....


WPS Presentation won't insert audio?!?!?!?

Freaking Jesus, I thought we past this horsepucky. If maintaining Windows 7 just is more functional than using Linux, then wtf? The assorted dumbassery that is the Linux user experience was basically okay to me right up until discovering once again that using Linux to produce a basically functional presentation for class will just... fail.