First impressions from a Win-user point of view.

Booting, installing, newbie
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rarsa
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#21 Post by rarsa »

uhu? I got lost.

When did this thread turned in a Windows V.S Linux thread?

I thought it was about Current Puppy towards a better Puppy.

Every person will have personal ideas of how to improve Puppy. Those ideas may certainly come from previous experiences, that's how knowledge advances.

So, let's listen to the ideas and let Barry decide which ones he likes for Puppy and what each unleasher likes for they personal flavour.

Can we move on?
Splash screen appears and Puppy begins loading.
Make a coffee.
Use the computer .
Woow, rick you really have a fast kettle. Or maybe when booting puppy you settle for instant coffe?

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Flash
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#22 Post by Flash »

rarsa wrote:uhu? I got lost.

When did this thread turned in a Windows vs. Linux thread?
Um, the subject line of the first post? :)

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rarsa
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#23 Post by rarsa »

Flash wrote:Um, the subject line of the first post?
Which, as far as I can tell, refers to his past experience, not to a comparison of Operating Systems. :lol:
rarsa wrote:Every person will have personal ideas of how to improve Puppy. Those ideas may certainly come from previous experiences
Imagine brand A of cars having ABS breaks, and a customer asking car B manufacturer: Why can't you have them too? and receiving a response we are not going to implement ABS breaks because that's a car B thing, and we want to differentiate ourselves from them.

I only read good suggestions. If it's a good suggestion, who cares where it came from.

So personal ideas may differ greatelly from what you and I prefer. That's just the nature of things.

What I like from linux is choice. Options only exist because people have preferences and they (we) have either implemented them or asked the developers to implement them.

Makes sense?

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Bancobusto
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#24 Post by Bancobusto »

Good points there... I to enjoy being able to make my desktop look and act and feel pretty much however I wish... :D

There's a fine line though between giving someone the choice to modify their desktop and dumbing them down. Currently, with Puppy, we boot into FVWM by default, because that's Barry's preference. At least we have the ability to change that without much hassle at all.

I agree that there are some great suggestions being made here... I guess it comes down to what direction Puppy is going to take, right? Is the only way to attract new users is to look and act and feel just like Windoes? No, I was attracted to Puppy without a trash can or anything else.

Again, everyones differrent , and everyones opinions are valid and interesting.
Just remember, that all these suggestions are quite easy to implement personally, and then one could remaster the CD and there you go.

Cheers

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Ian
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#25 Post by Ian »

You are all right in what you are saying, Windows is not Puppy and with a little effort almost anyone can have their own custom version of Puppy.

For the people who want that out-of-the-box solution there is the main release of Puppy, the other versions created by Barry and others are there to be tested and used by anyone who cares to tinker with them.

All this input including this post does go towards improving and refining Puppy so lets keep the discussions rolling, remember any debate always raises points that some people might never have considered.

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Bancobusto
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#26 Post by Bancobusto »

Hey, you know that cute Puppy that we get to admire for about 5 seconds if we boot off of the live CD? How hard would it be to load the boot messages on top of the picture? I think that would look really nice. That way we could still see the messages, yet have something pretty to look at in the meantime.

Boot messages don't bother me much with Puppy, as they only seem to last for about 10-14 seconds when I have it installed to hard drive. Not freakin' bad. :D

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Flash
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#27 Post by Flash »

Ian wrote:For the people who want that out-of-the-box solution there is the main release of Puppy, the other versions created by Barry and others are there to be tested and used by anyone who cares to tinker with them.
But there seems to be no mechanism for feedback, other than this forum perhaps.

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Mechsus
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#28 Post by Mechsus »

When did this thread turned in a Windows V.S Linux thread?
Sooner or later, it always happens.

Guest

Correct spelling

#29 Post by Guest »

Ay Chiwawa - woof woof (or "yes" "done")
I think this was supposed to be

Ay Chihuahua......no?

:)

Guest

#30 Post by Guest »

[quote
Quote:
Ay Chiwawa - woof woof (or "yes" "done")


I think this was supposed to be

Ay Chihuahua......no? [/quote]

Or maybe even "Hay Chihuahua"?

:)

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rarsa
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#31 Post by rarsa »

It really has to be :


guest

#32 Post by guest »

[quote]So prepare yourself because:


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#33 Post by terrorhertz »

I've had my share of debates over the years.
KDE vs Gnome
Windows vs Linux or any other.
this program vs that program
Many have trouble with the cross-over to linux from windows or other OS's. I had my own trouble too. I remember it at try to make things better but I'm not a x-over anymore.
I have my own stuff that I like others to try out and give me their opinion on. I espesually seek out non Linux people to see what they think. I value their opinion. since in order to win this war( or OS's) we will have to bring them over from another side. MS has whatever percentage of the PC market. 90% or more ...something like that. I think most will agree that most everyone that they know has a PC( and it also has MS on it). There are very few people left in this world without a PC. Since they all mostly have PC w/ an OS then it seems that getting them to cross-over is more benificial than trying to prove that what they are doing is wrong.
I loved Linux from the 1st time I read of it! Without ever haveing Linux I supported it and belived in it. Then when I got it I found that it wasn't as hard as everyone made it out to be. It still has a learning curve and thankfully it still has that learning curve. ( Linux is growing)
As long as Linux still grows then we will have that learning curve. and that is one of the greatest things about it. How long do you have to wait for MS to extend your learning curve each release?
Many of us have been in linux for a long time and one thing we have lost is being a newbie! When one comes along and offers advise then it should be taken as newbie advise. When they say that they are considering linux and crossing over from windows then we need to listen. this is how we can grow. If we don't listen then we don't grow.
As programmers we see only our environment. as an outsider coming in. he has what most all programmers on about any program don't have and that is an outside opinion. untainted by our our OS. I think it should be respected

Guest

#34 Post by Guest »

How many windows user's that complain about linux being difficult to setup could do a fresh install of windows if they had to ?

Not many I think.

How many Windows users had to learn to use windows, like it doesn't come naturally.

If two people with no experience where each given a pre-configured pc each, one running windows and one running Linux the learning curve would be the same.

Now if those same two people had to install there respective OS to each machine and configure it, the windows user would spend more time rebooting.

I think alot of the bad press Linux gets about installation is that alot of the horror stoires come from people entrenched in windows and I suspect a large portion would have trouble installing windows anyways.

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#35 Post by Retina »

bladehunter wrote: If two people with no experience where each given a pre-configured pc each, one running windows and one running Linux the learning curve would be the same.
I agree with everything but that.

Windows was made so user-friendly over the years, that it's almost impossible not to be able to do a fresh install, even for inexperienced users. Linux is definitely thought out and done well, but most distros are generally aimed towards experienced users.

I've been on the computer for almost as long as I could walk, using Windows, and I know quite a lot when it comes to computers. However, I'm almost brain dead when it comes to using linux. It would definitely be a lot easier if Linux auto-detected new hardware and drivers.

But then again, Linux hasn't been up as long as Windows, and will most definitely grow better over the years.

Guest

#36 Post by Guest »

It would definitely be a lot easier if Linux auto-detected new hardware and drivers.

With hotplug running if linux has a driver for the hardware it loads the driver...If it doesn't know about the hardware is can't load a driver.

All windows does when it doesn't recognise a piece of harware is asks the user for a driver. The only reason you'd have a windows driver for a new piece of hardware is that the vendor supplies it. Now wouldn't it be nice if the vendors supplied the source code for a linux driver with their hardware ?

What you have to realise is that very very very few hardware vendors support linux. So it's up to the Linux community to supply the drivers. Not only do the Driver Gods have to write\test\debug the code they also hae to purchase a piece of hardware to begin with.

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#37 Post by Retina »

Yeah, it would definitely be easier for Linux Users if the major companies provided precompiled drivers for linux. But then again, most of these major venders only cator to the majority of people that buy their products. And the majority use Windows/MAC. Minorities very rarely get recognized obviously.

And yes, the people who do make Linux drives are very unappreciated, as they do so much work.

[Oh, and blade, check your PM's :D]

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seldomseen
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#38 Post by seldomseen »

Learning curve? Probably the biggest part of a learning curve (if you're switching from another OS) is unlearning that which you already know.

Didn't take that long to get used to the old Mac back in the mid-80s, considering at that time I'd never used a computer before.

Took me a LONG time to learn DOS, several years later. Spent at least a week staring at the DOS prompt, wondering what to do next.

Took me an even longer time to get used to Windows 3.1 when it came out. Almost tore the computer apart looking for the command line.

Every so often I'd take jobs calling for me to use a Mac, and each time it took a while to get used to that OS again.

So was I surprised it would take a while to learn Linux? No. Actually, the transition was relatively painless (maybe my DOS background helped; the command shell wasn't a total stranger). But yeah, the biggest frustration now is tracking down drivers and all of that good stuff.

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Ian
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#39 Post by Ian »

The beauty of Puppy is that it will run on most older computers so there is not really a need to go out and buy the latest greatest machine, just buy a second-hand machine or accept what people are throwing away.

There is a perception in the world that if it is not store bought or if it is old, it is useless. This applies to people as well as objects but there is still a lot of life left in many an old dog so have a think about that when you are considering buying a new machine or asking for advice.

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mike
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#40 Post by mike »

yes, fashion before function.

that's what keeps this horrible machine called society going - :cry:

some people won't be interested in linux until michael jordon or britney spears tells them it's allright...

:)

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