What is holding you back from linux?

[Sound_Card]

Discuss.

[Sazar]

Linux.

[shrike126]

A lack of apps I am comfortable with. So like Office for schoolwork. Gaming for non-Steam games. That's about it.

[1madman1]

The same reason I now avoid Android. Fragmentation, a lack of standardization. Why cant there just be one official distro that everyone uses? It would make things a heck of a lot simpler. I've a virtual machine install of Ubuntu right now, and Parallels toolkit does not install. The official instructions do not work, they don't even make sense with relative to what I see on screen. Support documentation is non-existent, and I have no time to poke at it for myself to figure out why nothing works. As such I just can't be bothered.

*edit*
Also, it tends to be *very* visually ugly out of the box. It's appearance tends to be utilitarian, makes me feel like I'm using OS/2 again, and thats a very bad thing. A graphic design team needs to get involved and come up with some nicer icons, colour schemes, and backgrounds.

[daPhoenix]

Nothing, I use it daily.

[VW_Factor]

Nothing in standard productivity that holds me away.

Its simply gaming. Its a primary hobby, and Linux (much like Mac) isn't a gaming OS.

Pure and simple. When I can buy a PC game and be sure it works in whatever OS I'm running without fail (and without too much ****ing around with things to get it to work) I'd use Linux as my primary OS.

[GTwannabe]

I use it for servers... much less useful on a desktop:

- getting Flash/Java to work (and keep it working after distro upgrades) is a pain
- no standardized location for files... infuriating when switching between two similar Linux servers running the same software but with completely different file structures
- distro upgrades rarely work and I have to wipe the system anyway
- can't run some applications I need (Google Drive, vSphere client)
- remote desktop apps are buggy/missing features

[FiggyG]

I use it most of the time. Gaming is my primary reason for keeping Windows around.

[Munkus]

Game support.

[Lazy8s]

Gaming.

I always have a 'nix install going, but with gaming being my primary hobby I spend much more time in windows.

[Payne3d]

Windows does everything for my needs.
Couldn't care less for Linux. SteamOS might be a different story though.

[Dr. Zhivago]

What Payne3d said, with the exception of SteamOS. I'm not interested in a console of any sort.

[VW_Factor]

What Payne3d said, with the exception of SteamOS. I'm not interested in a console of any sort.

+ REP!

[daPhoenix]

- distro upgrades rarely work and I have to wipe the system anyway

Yeah no.

I've been upgrading systems at my old work that have been installed in 2001 and upgraded ever since (servers number in the hundreds, many have been virtualized and upgraded since).

[Yaboze]

Gaming support.

[GTwannabe]

Yeah no.

I've been upgrading systems at my old work that have been installed in 2001 and upgraded ever since (servers number in the hundreds, many have been virtualized and upgraded since).

Last few Ubuntu distro upgrades have been less than reliable. My trusty Yakuake console would only start ~30% of the time and it pissed me off to no end.

[Hyrax]

A lack of apps I am comfortable with. So like Office for schoolwork. Gaming for non-Steam games. That's about it.

Word processing is my only issue. Haven't been able to find a non-Microsoft product that can display certain MS WORD documents without errors.

99% of the time though I am on this thing called the internet. I've Linux Minted in the past. May do so in the future.

[Tizen]

Lack of time to migrate all my stuff. I am accumulating programs that also exist on linux to make the switch quicker.

[AdelphiaX]

I use it for servers... much less useful on a desktop:

- getting Flash/Java to work (and keep it working after distro upgrades) is a pain
- no standardized location for files... infuriating when switching between two similar Linux servers running the same software but with completely different file structures
- distro upgrades rarely work and I have to wipe the system anyway
- can't run some applications I need (Google Drive, vSphere client)
- remote desktop apps are buggy/missing features

Linux Mint solves most of this. Not sure what you're talking about for location of files... only thing I could think of is you're switching from Debian and Red Hat based servers.

A lack of apps I am comfortable with. So like Office for schoolwork. Gaming for non-Steam games. That's about it.

Bingo. Gaming and/or gaming performance, as well as MSFT Office.

[ugly]

Mostly my own ignorance and impatience.

I'm used to using Windows. And I don't really have any issues with Windows 7.

I've dabbled a bit in Linux. I have Mint on another hard drive that I boot to occasionally. For the most part it works well enough. Really, a lot of time is spent in the web browser and they are all cross platform (except for the new Opera, but why would anyone want to use that instead of the old Opera). So, in that sense, it's pretty easy and usable.

But every once in a while I try to install something else, or do something else and sometimes I run into a little roadblock. Especially when dealing with the video card - AMD has probably been the biggest issue for me. Usually with a little bit of looking around I can figure it out, but that's where the lack of patience comes in. I don't really need to use Linux, so whenever something becomes a pain in the ass, I don't really have the motivation to learn it.

I also find the performance to generally not be as good. So I don't really feel like I'm getting anything better by using Linux.

It's something I'd like to learn to use better. I just don't often feel like taking the time to do it. Everything seems to just take a little bit longer to do, and is a little more inconvenient - and that is probably mostly due to my own ignorance because I know many people praise those aspects. And Windows 7 is largely, good enough.

[Redeemed]

Gaming is the biggest hold back. SteamOS may eventually change that. Steam is just a step though- what of my Origin and UPlay catalog?

Next would be media playback. Mostly pertaining to movies I've purchased off of iTunes and my BD collection. I know there are ways to get all of these to play back on an OpenSource OS if you invest the time- I'm too lazy to do that though.

[HAL10000]

I'd probably never use Linux as I've travelled far down the BSD road. Because of that, there's no reason for me to invest time to learn where the Linux world put all their stuff like logs. Every system I've ever used have put even basic stuff like system.log somewhere else. I'm so used to it being in one spot so having to do a 'find / -n "system.log"' or even constantly doing 'man ps' drives me nuts.

I find the Linux kernel bloated but totally understand why the design committee went that route.

[Sound_Card]

I made the thread knowing gaming would more than likely be the big hold back. Just wanted to make sure I guess.

Install ubuntu 12.04 LTS if you are new to linux. You never have to mess with the terminal if that scares you. It's super stable, and modern looking and will be supported up to 2017. I find just about everything outside of gaming superior on linux for the most part.

Gaming is a matter of time now since Valve is backing it 100%. How splendid it would be to think that Half Life 3 could be a steamOS exclusive and what that would do for linux.

[kingofslackerz]

Gaming, configuration issues with multi monitor setups (might be build or id10t)

[MaxSt]

Windows does everything I need, so why jump ship and re-learn all the stuff?

If I need something tested on Linux, VMs are a click away. But it just feels uncomfortable.

I do way too much stuff in cmd/terminal, but even that is surprisingly easier on Windows. Midnight Commander feels wrong while Far Manager feels right. Why can't I just switch easily between my C: and D: and flash drives in Midnight Commander?

[DarkFoss]

GPU Folding on my 7970's. 2 years after launch and the oss radeonsi driver is still a no go for daily use.
The AMD Linux Catalyst driver worked well enough with my older 68-6950 but is less than impressive with the 7970's.

I still run Mageia virtually from time to time.. Maybe with Valve being involved
and Nvidia pretending to care they can employ some devs to get Mesa to GL 4.2. I mean celebrating GL 3.3 is fine and all but the graphic stack still has a long way to go to be considered modern and up-to-date.
Wayland maturing will help things too the casual everyday user has little needs for all the stuff cobbled in to X11 over the last 25 years.

[noko]

Poor buggy AMD drivers, which eventually I would crash/burn the install on Linux being too much of a nubby to fix. Actually I did a few times figure out how to get the graphics drivers working again but all the effort and time just left a sour wasted feeling on the ordeal.

Will try again with SteamOS on the Commodore 64 machine which has been idle for too long.

[RicH(SAD)]

I see no value in Linux. Everything I want/need runs on Windows and it works great too. Why bother?

[BababooeyHTJ]

Gaming

Also, the easier to use distros seem more bloated than windows 7 (Ubuntu).

[Greasy]

Lack of driver support is #1.

Gaming support, and cable card support are #2/3.

[bittermann]

Gaming... /done

They also need to stop the forking of pretty much everything. I don't want to sort through a couple hundred distro's just to find one I like and then try and learn each distro's idiosyncrasies. Trying to get video drivers working for 3D can still be maddening!

[lazyx]

Mostly apps, always had to go back to either windows or osx for webdesign\graphic apps.

[phial]

Gaming... /done

They also need to stop the forking of pretty much everything. I don't want to sort through a couple hundred distro's just to find one I like and then try and learn each distro's idiosyncrasies. Trying to get video drivers working for 3D can still be maddening!

This. Games. And yes Linux is so fractured. Plus moving/reorganizing all my stuff would be a huge pain, like a weekend project. Win7-Ult is a good OS, it can take a beating. That being said it will probably be my last Windows OS since I game less and less as time goes on, and 98% of my daily use does kind of happen on Linux (android device).

[DiaperJe|\|i3]

Gaming is better now on Linux than it ever was. Still no AAA content. Indie stuff.

Mostly, now I use windows because I had to buy a new laptop a while back A8 based and AMD A8 support in Linux wasn't good.

Native support for Netflix would be nice.

[RAY16]

- Fragmentation/lack of standardization. Encountering things that work on one distro and not another, or something that works on multiple distros may have different installation procedures. You may find an automated install package for one distro, but on another have to do every step of the install yourself through the terminal. Having to install a bunch of dependencies separately is always a pain, among other things.

- Lack of driver support, especially for new hardware. Even on supported hardware drivers often aren't fully-featured or are buggy. I recently tried the new release of Ubuntu and had both the open-source and proprietary AMD display drivers crash on me a few times. Ubuntu gave me the option of installing to an encrypted volume and after rebooting and being prompted to enter my password my USB keyboard was non-functional thus making it so I couldn't get into the OS.

- Lack of support for new multimedia, primarily due to content protection. There have been long delays in being able to play protected media—playing media stripped of its protection is usually an option before support for playing straight of the disc comes, but that's an extra layer of "hassle".

- Gaming

- Time spent in the terminal. I don't mind using a command line interface, but I don't really feel like I should have to use one as often as I've found myself doing so on Linux.

- Too lazy to spend the time and effort to find Linux alternatives to windows apps I use and adjust to a new ecosystem.


SteamOS is interesting because it has a very specific purpose, and if it turns out well I could see myself putting it on an HTPC.

[Horus]

nothing, I love Linux lol

[Trunks0]

- Fragmentation/lack of standardization. Encountering things that work on one distro and not another, or something that works on multiple distros may have different installation procedures. You may find an automated install package for one distro, but on another have to do every step of the install yourself through the terminal. Having to install a bunch of dependencies separately is always a pain, among other things.

- Lack of driver support, especially for new hardware. Even on supported hardware drivers often aren't fully-featured or are buggy. I recently tried the new release of Ubuntu and had both the open-source and proprietary AMD display drivers crash on me a few times. Ubuntu gave me the option of installing to an encrypted volume and after rebooting and being prompted to enter my password my USB keyboard was non-functional thus making it so I couldn't get into the OS.

- Lack of support for new multimedia, primarily due to content protection. There have been long delays in being able to play protected media—playing media stripped of its protection is usually an option before support for playing straight of the disc comes, but that's an extra layer of "hassle".

- Gaming

- Time spent in the terminal. I don't mind using a command line interface, but I don't really feel like I should have to use one as often as I've found myself doing so on Linux.

- Too lazy to spend the time and effort to find Linux alternatives to windows apps I use and adjust to a new ecosystem.


SteamOS is interesting because it has a very specific purpose, and if it turns out well I could see myself putting it on an HTPC.

Bolded is why I think most people will not touch linux. Its 2013 for F sake, I really shouldn't have to touch a CLI anymore.

[MaxSt]

I love CLI, it's awesome.

In Windows CLI typing F: will switch me to my flash drive.

Why it have to be so much harder in Linux CLI?

[Sound_Card]

I love CLI, it's awesome.

In Windows CLI typing F: will switch me to my flash drive.

Why it have to be so much harder in Linux CLI?

Its not harder.

[Sound_Card]

Bolded is why I think most people will not touch linux. Its 2013 for F sake, I really shouldn't have to touch a CLI anymore.

You don't need to run CLI. Ubuntu is CL free. It does everything for you just like windows. Only there for people that prefer it or last resort on fixing something.

Whats holding linux back is ignorance.