If you have considered switching to Linux but so far haven't, what is holding you back from taking the plunge?

Question

If you have considered switching to Linux but so far haven't, what is holding you back from taking the plunge?

Answer 1

mainly the reason that keeps me away from it these days is that its c**p for gaming. Politically I find it very appealing, and I really like open source software, but there are other things about it that put me off

1. lack of decent quality software

no matter how you try to frame it, ooo is not msoffice, gimp is not photoshop, k9copy is not dvdfab, etc. Linux software is just nowhere near the same quality as whats available for windows, and WINE compatability is iffy with most windows software. Realistically, there's only a handful of apps that are 'gold' standard

2. I hate the command line

Im a really bad typist and all the garbage about having to tackle a filename with 30 characters and mixed capitalisation - you make one typo in the capitalisation of the filename and the whole task is cactus and you have to faff about again with the keyboard. This is just really irritating and time consuming. Yes I know about package managers and all the cool gui stuff but in actual practice if you want to do much at all with linux you have to use the command line.

3. sudo and su

its just a pain in the butt. I got sooooooo sick of the whole issue with permissions, and its not like you can just stay logged in as root because of security issues. The super user thing is an enormous pain in the ****. I just want to be able to do what I need to do without having to type in passwords evbery 5 minutes. typing sudo over and over and over... just unnecessarily time-consuming and annoying

If I could never have to do all the rubbish with SU and not ever have to use the command line then I think I would have an interest in using Linux again (aside from the gaming issue). Its getting better, but I think its still a long way from being viable competition for windoze and osx

Answer 2

I say it needs more preinstalled documentation.

Answer 3

I tried out a live version of Ubuntu on my vista system using VMware workstation, it was nice and smooth and seemed a decent operating system. The reason i wouldn't take the plunge is its complicated (all that complied and un complied stuff) and there just isn't the software for it, why use something that is not going to work with 80% of the stuff i want to use on a computer for examples game audio and graphical software. The pros do not out way the cons in my eyes!

Answer 4

Almost none of the software I need to run is available for Linux. So it would be like cutting off my arms.