What Keeps You Off of Windows?

J. J. Ramsey asks: "schnell has already asked the question What's Keeping You On Windows? It seems only fair to ask the opposite question. For those of you who have elected to not use Windows, what keeps you away from it? Concerns about stability? Security? Dislike of Microsoft's business practices? Or are you simply a fan of your chosen platform and just don't care about Windows one way or the other?" Might recent events sway your decision to keep Microsoft's premier software offering off of your computer?

Consistency

[swordboy]

I always stop my "Linux conversion" when I get to the point where I have to choose Gnome or KDE (or both).

Sasser

[awhelan]

Sasser keeps me off windows... then I go back on and it restarts my computer within 10 minutes!

What Keeps Me Off of Windows?

[Anonymous Coward]

Simple! Greased walls.

I just simply hate Microsoft

[donbrock]

and Gates and Ballmer and ...

countdown

[That's Unpossible!]

Tons o' preaching to the choir in 3... 2... 1...

(This coming from a Windows/Mac user.)

Descartes answered it best

[Anonymous Coward]

I think. Therefore, I am (off of Windows).

POST counting memory... following blue-screen

[DarthStrydre]

Used to be blue screens and reboots kept me off Windows and watching the POST count up memory - so the BIOS has kept me off windows. Windows (XP) has proved more stable - but it regularly dumps core as well, if not as often.

Thankfully modern POST routines skip many power-up tests - so most of the time it is GRUB keeping me off of Windows :-)

Oh... and the other alternatives that GRUB permits...

Well...

[rbgaynor]

Samba and Wine keep me off Windows, I just can't find reliable alternatives on the Windows platform

Re:I'm cheap...

[Anonymous Coward]

no offense sir, but i dont think linux runs FAST on your dual CELERON 500. i think the term that might most accuratly describe the speed is "LESS SLOW"

Re:The fact that it is so difficult to administer.

[Anonymous Coward]

I still don't know how to set up DNS under Win2K.

Did you try asking the dancing paperclip? He claims he has all the answers...

Re:One thing

[Anonymous Coward]

I found the question "What's keeping you off of windows" to be interesting.

Literally, I stay off of windows because too much stress and they break.

Same is true for GLASS windows.

Windows = prostitute

[DJ Rubbie]

Windows is like a prostitute. It's expensive, but it does look pretty, give you a good time with its 'ease of use'. Unfortunately you can easily contact virus, worms and other parasites (such as adware, spyware) easily by using it long enough.

I'd rather have a stable relationship, that's why I pick Linux.

Re:Very rare

[kfg]

Prior to Windows 2000 I used Linux extensively, mainly because it was very stable indeed, and rather exciting. Now it's just not worth it, Windows does everything Linux can do and more.

I must say that "Windows has finally caught up to Linux" is certainly an unusual argument.

KFG

Re:The fact that it is so difficult to administer.

[Mr Guy]

"I know how to do it" does not equal "This is trivial."

Setting up DNS on UNIX is quite complex. Whole books have been written on the subject.

And books being written on a subject doesn't make it complex. Whole books [dummies.com] have been [dummies.com] written on [dummies.com] MANY topics [dummies.com] that are [dummies.com] relatively simple [dummies.com].

Re:Lack of killer applications

[mabu]

What always amused me endlessly was that for the first few years of Windows existence what was the NUMBER ONE APPLICATION?

Berkley Systems' screensaver.

You know you have a winning OS when the most popular application sold for it addresses what your computer should do when you're not using it.

And what was the second most popular Windows application?

An un-installer.

I rest my case.

Re:I live without Windows

[AviLazar]

hmmm. obfuscating, discutable, decommoditizing... lots of big words, this person smarter then I am.

Three words

[wildernessvoice]

Infantile, cumbersome and boring.

Re:One thing

[Kevin108]

Linux is safer around dumb friends because it's nearly impossible to install anything even if you want to, much less have the convenience of something installing itself.

Re:What keeps me off?

[corbettw]

Ahhh, so you are evaluating your software based on looks of the people in the company? Wow. Can it get any more closed minded than that?

Actually, I'd say it's ironic, not just close minded. I mean, have you seen some of the gurus of "open source" lately?

Re:One thing

[HeghmoH]

This would be more like blaming Ford if your friend borrowed your car and bumped the "Explode" button while going around a sharp turn.

But real-life analogies to computer problems generally suck, so who knows.

Re:The fact that it is so difficult to administer.

[spectecjr]

Finally, I don't like the idea of rebooting a system every ten minutes.

Then stop rebooting it every ten minutes.

Re:I'm easy

[Phillup]

You don't run X, do you?

He said unexplained.

;-)

Care to share the the "power button set to restart X" trick?

TIA

I would blame....

[vwjeff]

Would you blame Ford if your friend borrowed your car and wrecked it?

No, I would blame Firestone.

Re:I live without Windows

[carlos_benj]

...this person smarter then I am.

Cheer up. You're equally smart as neither one of you knows the difference between "then" and "than".

Re:I live without Windows

[mrchaotica]

Well, you see, we only agree with the government when the government is right!

Re:I'm cheap...

[cshark]

Man that was sloppy post. I understand why you don't want to attribute it to yourself. No one ever said anything about OS religion.

Unlike when your RPM database gets corrupted or when RedHat inadvertantly puts the wrong information on glibc and everyone upgrades and is left with a machine that you can only reinstall the OS on (the shortest path).

Look, if you cared that much about my stupid post, you would have pointed out that Linux isn't an operating system or platform. It's a kernel. Nothing more.

Further you shouldn't assume that redhat is the only distribution, or that I even use red hat. I don't think I even mentioned red hat in the post, come to think of it. Odd...

Something goes wrong enough to where this is a feature?

Have you used Windows lately?

As opposed to the 1000s of games on the Windows box that all their friends are playing. Could be that you have only the default 5 games installed on the Windows box and they are tired of them and that's why they don't want to use those?

Yes, to put it back into context from left field "Games that come with Linux" was the operative term. Darnit, I called it Linux again, you should have corrected me. What kind of old timey know nothing snob are you?

Proof of that which exists today? or are you still living in 1995?

Yep, it's no secret. Don't believe me? Buy any third party firewall with application level blocking. Norton internet security catches most of them.

Heh, yeah... those wonderful 'man' pages. When there is documentation, it is completely dry when having simply one example of a very common use would answer 90% of all questions about it. Linux documentation (and even Unix documentation for the most part) is seriously lacking. It's written by engineers for engineers. No examples, just lists of the 200+ command line options for every program with almost no direction of which ones are useful together.

Ouch. Sounds like fun. Actually, I've only really needed to resort to man pages a couple of times. There's this great thing here in the 21st century called the internet.

Who cares, neither of them kill babies and eat them raw. I don't idolize either of them, they are just humans like me, not a god, and not worthy of religion.

Babies? Raw? You're right. It was a joke, specifically engineered for a single brief chuckle, for those inclined to think it was funny. If you need help this definition [reference.com] comes in handy.

One word: Slackware!

[Lispy]

Two more words: Dropline Gnome [dropline.net]

'nuff said. ;-)

Isn't this sort of ironic?

[mark-t]

... that an operating system called "Windows" would lack something called "Transparency"?

Re:My default Linux install is just more USEFUL

[Dimensio]

The difference between Outlook and knode is that if I were given a choice between using knode and being stripped naked, strung to the back of a pickup truck with a rope wrapped around my genitals and driven through a field of broken glass, I'd choose to use knode.

Re:Consistency

[arose]

Nethack and "the falling brick game" are the only games I really need. YMMV.

Reboot chimp too expensive

[gad_zuki!]

When you factor in diapers, care, and feeding its just not worth it. [depaul.edu]

Quote that nobody on /. will see

[INeededALogin]

but it is too awesome

"Never ask a man what sort of computer he drives. If it's a Mac, he'll tell you. If not, why embarrass him?"

Tom Clancy

What keeps me of windows?

[Snaller]

Gravity!

Re:What keeps me off?

[krumms]

I mean, have you seen some of the gurus of "open source" lately?

Whatever [lugos.si] can [computec.ch] you [lugos.si] mean? [linux.org]

Re:What keeps me off?

[krumms]

From the links in my previous post, I learned two things:

a) Alan Cox, you are a scary, hairy man; and
b) I now know why Perl is such a mess: clearly larry couldn't see the code he was writing from behind that moustache.

No offence, you're all smarter than me and I love you, but by the law of the school yard that makes poking fun of you okay.

Re:I live without Windows

[Quebec]

Then, than...
it's all sound the same for my french ears

Re:I live without Windows

[Flere Imsaho]

Did it hurt when they removed your sense of humor? Or are you just American?

Re:Why not windows?

[jonnystiph]

"I-Need-Some-Capability-But-I-Would-Have-To-Pay-Ex tra-For-It"

Yeah, like ANYONE pays for windows software. haha.

Re:You must not be a Perl programmer...

[AviLazar]

Isn't Perl that thing that's created in a shell, is connected with strings, and then sold on the market? ;)

Re:I live without Windows

[AviLazar]

I only know three languages: English, Hebrew and bad English. The third one is my primary language :)

Re:I live without Windows

[Moofie]

Call it revenge for the silly notion of assigning genders to inanimate objects. : )