Ubuntu feedback from a Windows user

[BigAl-sa]

Virtualbox is an awesome program.

I agree. There are no linux drivers for my photo printer or my scanner, so installing their drivers in an xp virtualbox gives me the functionality I need. I also use PaintShop Pro as a photo editor in the said xp virtualbox (gimp is awful). With the virtualbox, with office 2007 installed, you can read/edit any docx, xlsx etc that any doofus sends to you.

It's an extra step, but just not having to worry about viruses is a huge plus for me. (FWIW, I use kubuntu.)

 

[SauRoNZA]

First off, I'm not a Ubuntu fan and also not a Unity or Gnome 3 fan since many of your complaints stem from the fact that they removed a lot of customization from their DE's and you have to hunt do on the internet what extra stuff to install to have an acceptable experience.
I'm heavily biased on this, and a lot of other people will disagree with this.

Indeed you are very biased because not a single one of his complaints stem from using Unity or finding it lacking.

Most of his problems are general "new to Linux" concerns.

 

[Maverick Jester]

ClassicMenu Indicator (now in the Raring repositories) made Unity usable for me.

Awesome find, thank you...

 

[MyWorld]

Indeed you are very biased because not a single one of his complaints stem from using Unity or finding it lacking.

Most of his problems are general "new to Linux" concerns.

Maybe, but I recall al lot of similar frustration from my wife when she was introduced to Unity. I'm downloading the latest Ubuntu now to give it a spin again, then I can comment more thoroughly.

 

[w1z4rd]

I bought Crossover. Great application.

 

[DrJohnZoidberg]

I bought Crossover. Great application.

I got two licenses when they had that promo but haven't used it once.

 

[garyc]

It looks like some people have already given very good advice, so here goes my two cents worth:

One photo editor to consider is Gimp. It does have content awareness via it's resynthesizer function. To use this select the desired area and then go Filters > Enhance > Smart Remove Selection (at least under version 2.8). Gimp has a very similar logic to Photoshop so most of the functionality should appear familiar. The main drawbacks relative to Photoshop are the lack of 16 bit support (at least at the moment), and the lack of adjustment layers.

Other photo editors to consider under Linux are:

Darktable: Similar concept to Lightroom where the emphasis is on a high productivity workflow. Supports things like RAW, 16 bit files and non-destructive editing. If you are a keen photographer this is well worth a look.
Digikam: A reasonably comprehensive editor that is a bit easier to use than Gimp. It also supports 16 bit. One thing to look out for is that you need to import photos into it's library before editing. If you clear the library then it also deletes the files from the hard drive.
UFRaw: Very nice RAW image editor.

All of the above software supports the inclusion of monitor colour profiles.

I do not have the same keyboard problem. This is speculative, but it may be worth checking the keyboard localization settings. I have seen a few strange things caused by this setting. When you install the OS it selects the keyboard type as South African if you set your time zone to the country. Go check if this is what it is currently set to and change it to US if it is not set already.

The code bases on Ubuntu Server and Ubuntu Desktop have been merged. In other words there is server OS under your desktop UI, which gives a lot of functionality for file sharing. As you no doubt realise you will be setting up the sharing with the Samba protocol. The SMB/CIFS protocol is for Microsoft networks, but unfortunately Windows can have non-standard implementations of the standard. The instructions at <http://wiki.samba.org/index.php/Windows7> show you how to fix the Windows registry if you are running into problems. Apart from that there are a lot of tutorials on how to set up the sharing. It is best to search for one specific to your distribution.

Linux can make for a very good desktop, so this is worth the effort of trying. The two main drawbacks are the lower availability of games and the lack of native support for MS Office. If you can live with this then you should be happy with the OS.

 

[Bryn]

Thanks for the responses guys, they're very informative. I'm delighted to hear Gimp may be capable of similar content aware filling like Photoshop. I'll give Banshee a proper tryout to get the automatic file organisation working, and hopefully Samba will solve my file sharing problems. Geary email sounds promising, but I could live with Thunderbird. No doubt it will keep improving.

I'm out of town this weekend, which I wasn't anticipating. I'll get around to Ubuntu and Mint when I have a chance. For now I'm just monitoring this thread with Tapatalk.

 

[dj_jyno]

It is all I use, so I would not know what to compare it to. The handful of times I had to work on Office 2010 I was pulling out my hair. Nothing was structured, menus all over the place and it took me longer to format the document than actually writing it!

As an ex-WordPerfect user, OpenOffice's (now LibreOffice after the fork) layout makes much more sense than Office. The one app where I miss some functionality is Impress (Powerpoint replacement), but it's nothing major.

I love Thunderbird since I do not need the advanced features like calander and whatnot Outlook provides. I find it very customizable and it just works for me, it does the job, a email client fullstop. There are other more elaborate clients in Linux but I'm not able to comment on them since it has been years since I last tried Evolution, Kmail and the likes.

Unfortunately I can't comment on Thunderbird, but for me Evolution does the job beautifully.

I use GIMP and after following a few online tutorials (I have no graphics designing background) I find it very, very powerful. There are other apps as well, but I keep going back to GIMP. I know it is not PhotoShop, but last time I checked you can use PhotoShop filters in GIMP?

Agreed. For the kind of graphics editing I do, GIMP is powerful enough (the only feature I miss from Photoshop is macros, unless I'm stupid and just haven't figured it out yet).

Try and stay away from WINE and only use it for the most essential programs that you MUST have. It will save you time and effort to rather find a native solution that works for you.

Yeah, Wine can be very hit-and-miss.

Ubuntu is probably never going to be Windows, but if you sit with it long enough and you're willing to sit back and think about a problem when you encounter it, it's a very secure, fast OS. I installed Linux on my PC a few times in the past, but always went back to Windows because, to be honest, I wanted quick fixes. When I finally found a version I liked and got it working just the way I expect it to (10.04), I stuck with it. Installed 13.04 yesterday and haven't encountered any problems yet.

A must-have app if you want to keep Unity is Unity Tweak Tool. It's available in the Software Centre.

 

[InvisibleJim]

I found some good GIMP tutorials the other day. Just tried the one on partial colouring a photo which I could never get right before. Want to try the one on tilt-shift which creates a cool kind of miniaturisation effect.

Played with 13.04 the last couple of days and getting a little bit more at home with Unity. I'm still finding Mint a little more enjoyable and responsive at the moment though.