Operating Systems > Linux and UNIX

How really easy is to use Linux?

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The Lost:
Greetings people!!

    A friend of mine bought recently Red Hat Linux 8.0, and installed it in his PC's HD.
The OS recognized all of his cards, peripherals, etc. except that his sound card didn't emitted any sound even when the OS said somethin' like, "Yes, I know it's a sound card, I installed drivers, it's supposed to work", you know what I mean... After my friend's seeking for updated drivers got him tired (he works with music) he de-
cided to reinstall Win XP in his computer very frustrated. I have read in a lot of sites that Linux drivers are compiled by users and if someone hasn't written a driver for your device (or the company doesn't do one optimized for Linux) you are screwed. ...And what about installing applications? I'm a Mac user and I love the way Mac OS X works, and I was happy to know that Apple released a X11 version for Mac and so on but after downloading FilmGimp, OpenOffice and other programs and reading in their docs that I had to go to the Terminal and write something that I don't understand or a long list of commands and so on and that to install interfaces (I dunno how they are called, I'm new in this) like KDE, Gnome, etc. I have to know about commands and installing individual packages, and so on Linux had started to scare me a bit... and the X11 world of the Mac OS too... It's hard to learn to use Unix? I'm interested in find a way to stop using all of MS products sometime, but at least in Windows I don't have to be a Command Prompt geek to install stuff... Neither in Mac OS X/9. But I want to learn and hope I can have the "tutorials" on how to learn here...

Thanks for reading!!!

Pantso:
First of all, welcome to the boards! Now, to your questions: It's true that the Unix/Linux commands are numerous, since Unix has been around in many forms for about 30 years. Thus it is normal to be frustrated by the number of commands out there, some of which are very cryptic as well.

You don't need to learn to use all of them though. Only a few will do for doing basic stuff and can prove more convenient than GUI frontends and tools.

As for the hardware drivers you mention, the current situation is not the fault of the Linux community but rather the fault of hardware vedors.

This situation has started changing however, to the better. More and more vendors have started recognizing that Linux on the desktop could prove to be more than just an over-optimistic view or a mere utopia. Hence, they've started providing drivers for Linux as well.

To avoid such problems though, tell your friend to use somewhat more expensive hardware than cheaper windows compatible devices!

As for you my friend, stick with OS X. I'm using OS X as well and can swear by its user-friendliness and ease of management! You really don't need to know any Unix commands to administer OS X but if you want to learn some, i suggest you do a Google search.

Once again, welcome to the boards.  

Master of Reality:
well if your friend had of posted the question on how to help get the sound working when he/she still had linux we probably could have got it working.

Calum:
a lot of stuff on the internet about linux is incredibly confusing. this is because the writers of that stuff are geeks. they think you want to know all about the system and the software et c. hey, i do! but if you don't, it's simply a matter of finding instructions on the internet that are simple and easy looking. if you can't find any, ask at forums such as this one, or the ones at voidmain.kicks-ass.net/forums or the ones at newtolinux.org.uk/forum where you are almost guaranteed a nice simple reply that will most likely work.

linux is not normally complicated all by itself, but a lot of the instructions for things in linux are very complicated indeed, even when whatever is being talked about is actually very simple.

by the way, thelost, what kind of soundcard was it? i bet you that if you tell us here, somebody will answer the question of how to get it working.

[ March 18, 2003: Message edited by: Calum: Member # 81 ]

The Lost:
Thanks for the info...

     I think the reason people's fear about Linux (like myself) is because of the guides made with geeks' 'language' like a user mentioned. But today I learned that I can get some help from people here, and that's cool!!

I now feel confident to order Yellow Dog (BTW, it's easy to install Linux on a Mac, right?).

As for my friend's sound card all I know about it is that is integrated to the motherboard, I have to ask him about its brand and model...

When I have that info, I'll seek and ask with more detail...

Again, thanks for the warm receivement and hope I can contribute to get some people out of the Windows world (or convince them to buy a Mac    :D ).

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