I switched to Linux about 3 weeks ago. I like it, but there are problems, especially chasing down dependencies and getting the program to be able to find them. Some programs I just end up deleting because I can't get them working. Getting your 3d card to work is nearly traumatic. It's a fantastic c++ programming environment, though. If you look around you can find just about anything you need for Linux. I feel like I'm learning more everyday, whereas with Windows it was getting sort of boring. I get frustrated sometimes, but I'd never go back. It's c++ the way it was meant to be. Suddenly it all makes sense.

Quote: Original post by fireside
I switched to Linux about 3 weeks ago. I like it, but there are problems, especially chasing down dependencies and getting the program to be able to find them.

That depends on what distribution you go with. I use Gentoo Linux, whose package management tool automatically determines, downloads, compiles, and installs all dependencies of whatever program you wish to install without user intervention. I believe Debian (and Debian derivatives) have similar capacities.

Quote: Some programs I just end up deleting because I can't get them working. Getting your 3d card to work is nearly traumatic.

This also depends—on your video card, distro/package manager, and (not least) hardware platform. For instance, there are as yet no Radeon drivers for the x86_64 architecture, even though ATI have been making promises for quite some time ...

Quote: Original post by andrewk3652

Quote: Original post by Promit
Most of the time, this software sucks

Speak for yourself man. I have yet to encounter a piece of software that came packaged with a linux distro that I didn't love to pieces.

The exceptions are actually the ones that suck - things like Gnome, KDE, etc.

Speak for yourself man.

The good thing about Linux is that it'll let you do pretty much anything you want any way you want, often out-of-the-box. The bad thing is that it has a learning curve if you're used to other systems.

Quote: Original post by Doc
The bad thing is that it has a learning curve if you're used to other systems.

I think there are few things in life where that doesn't hold true. If you're ever gonna enjoy the benefits of a new way of working, you have to spend some time getting used to that new way. Linux was never meant to just be GPLed Windows, after all.

Linux is great to let you have a flavour of unix, personally I'd recommend gentoo.

Bad is that if you are from a strong windows background, with visual studio and stuff - you'll quickly find you were spoiled as a developer. Make files, dependencies ala 'dll hell'... different desktop standards, etc, etc.

Once things are running (servers and such) it's great - my gentoo box has been up for months without need for resetting once.

So good - can be very stable, pretty things can be accomplished on it. Excellent for servers. Bad - not as user friendly for developers (or users for that matter), seems to be certain kudos awarded by peers for doing things the "hard way",etc ,etc. Oh and you get the evangalists that say linux is better in everyway then windows (you know, like the spectrum versus c64, sega versus nintendo, microsoft versus sony, blah blah blah). Sure it goes both ways, but some linux guys seem to think they've achieved a higher state of being by dumping windows completely. [wink]