Google Chrome arrived and I had to log on MS Windows to see how it works. I am so impressed that I don’t really feel like going back to Ubuntu and use Firefox. I have installed Windows Vista, which has Aero theme. I use Chrome and the world is beautiful again.
Honestly, I don’t like Microsoft Windows much. Previously I had trouble getting it configured for my internet, graphics and audio settings. It is just too much work with windows, I thought. But may be I was a little bit too biased towards freedom. I had this feeling that I am a software freedom fighter, I can not use Windows. But I am starting to think differently now.
If I use Windows I have Aero which looks 10 times better than Gnome with compiz and it has Google Chrome which is faster than Firefox and works like a charm.
These new things make me feel good. The graphics aren’t ugly, I have the same visual effects on Ubuntu too but they don’t look that good. Gnome’s interface that I have loved so much, now looks childish and boring. The simplicity has gone to a point where it feels like an insult to the human intelligence.
The windows are too big they take a lot of screen space. The fonts are ugly. Definitely Ubuntu has better support for Urdu Language but Vista is not that bad either. Using Vista I can use the new VLC media player that uses QT and has good looking interface.
I tried searching the Gnome website to see if they have any plans to give me something thats more beautiful than Mac OS X, Vista and KDE4. But I don’t think they have any plans to bring something modern and new for at least a few more decades. I can go for KDE4, and I did. I tried it with opensuse. But it crashed so often and after a week of trial I gave up. I tried KDE4 on ubuntu and the result was the same.
Developers at Gnome should think about improving their simplicity. Give me an intelligent user interface that is smarter than me. Give me better fonts. Don’t fill my screen with thick windows, fat buttons, and king size Icons. The KDE folks if they read it, please make it available for Ubuntu and make rock solid. Every body hates to see the crash handler poping up now and then. and I want VLC with QT ASAP.
Please bring me back to the free world. Please bring something exciting and modern.
BTW, after finishing this post I am going to try KDE for windows and see how it works. It might be unstable like hell but I want to do try it anyways.
Note: I haven’t completely switched to Windows yet. I am just jealous.
“Bring Me Back To Freedom”! i read it as an open invitation to remind you the reasons that make gnu/linux is better for you, or may be to remind you why you switched to it from windows previously
ok, i don’t think with your head, i found you have listed some thing like this before (http://ubuntu.sabza.org/2007/05/10/five-reasons-to-love-ubuntu/) but not including the reason that attracted you from ubuntu to vista again, its look
actually we are not all the same, that’s related to your artistic taste, i just want to tell you that most of my relatives and friend that have (or had vista) find it not usable, some of them hate it, and others find it eye candy but a memory hog, they keep it just because they got it preinstalled on their laptops! for me i really find it nice, but i will never sacrifice many things to have it (the material ones are mainly memory and ..uh money, but even if i have 2GB of ram and vista is offered gratis i cant switch for the other reasons you know about, though i may think of have dual boot).
for the look, kde4 is in my view way better than gnome2.x/xfce4.x/vista/xp/macosx but as you realized, it is not mature enough, may be you should wait more, but someone like me would prefer the simple gnome2.x than the shiny kde4.x, i just feel comfortable with gnome, that’s where i feel at home, i don’t like to live in a 7 stars hotel but be able to visit it from time to time
i am surprized that you will return to vista after trying chrome, if it is a matter of look, i find chrome looks more like gnome than vista aero, may be after few tweaks in its color theme.
unfortunately, chrome is not few days away, not even few weeks, you have to wait may be few monthes untill it is ported completely to linux (http://dev.chromium.org/developers/how-tos/build-instructions-linux)
if you like chrome for its speed, try those lightweight web browsers for the moment kazehakase, midori, foxkit, all the three can use webkit (that chrome, safari use) as their rendering engine, thanks for kde/konqueror team for their promising khtml.
if that’s chrome’s features that you liked over firefox, let’s say you can try opera, the only genuine feature i know chrome innovated is its multiprocessing paradigm (which is really great, if you have lot of memory), almost every thing else you could find in other browsers, mostly opera.
this bring me to discuss the same point of my own, i wanted to only use free softwares (open source) if possible, though opera is proprietary, closed source software, and is probably the most piece of software i can’t live without, for my [special-]needs it has no alternatives 🙁 so that’s why i have to repeat Pavel’s advise, if you find windows the only os that fits your needs, go with it, you loose your freedom if you lost the oportunity to choose.
but before you take a final decision, take a look at enlightenment, it could be really beautiful
http://exchange.enlightenment.org/files/module/4/screenshot.png
http://exchange.enlightenment.org/files/theme/304/screenshot.png
http://exchange.enlightenment.org/files/theme/154/screenshot.png
http://exchange.enlightenment.org/files/theme/274/screenshot.png
good luck with your choice whatever it is 🙂
Based on my own bad expirience I wouldn’t recommend Kubuntu. But there are a lot of Distros arround that work perfectly with kde. Pardus, PCLinuxOS and of course the major ones like Suse, Mandrake, Debian, and and and…
Gosh, you know, I like how my linux feels. I like how linux doesn’t cost me anything.
How it works with all my hardware. And how I get free hardware, scanners and wireless cards in particular, because they don’t work in vista.
I like how I don’t ever get pestered about making sure I have a legal copy.
I like kino, my video editor that I use for video editing. (The same product supports fewer formats, is slower, and costs 100USD)
I like how I can get thousands of songs, unrestricted and free to my computer through rhythmbox.
I like how my hardware has the same interface even if I change the hardware. My mouse settings and configuration dialogs are the same among all mice. I have the same dvd playing software, totem, between hardware changes.
I like how I can burn an ISO right from the desktop instead of using a fancy software.
I like how I can install ALL my software from one location and it works. I don’t use KDE but all my software works. Gnome, compiz, the works.
I like how I can setup, install ubuntu and games on 25 computers in 1 hour and have an lan party for the evening. And better, how I use a live dvd and play all the games and simply kill the power and every computer is back to the way it was before I started. (Lan parties at schools)
I like how my computer has 1gb ram celeron 1.8ghz and it runs like the wind, so fast that while others are throwing their computer away, I pick them up, run linux on them and make robust servers.
I like how my laptop that someone was throwing away sits under my couch closed and runs my website, chat, server, and file sharing tool, for 2 years straight without a reboot. Don’t tell me windows is better, you have lost your freedom.
Dave K: plain Kubuntu install is next on my list but I will wait till 8.10 (Intrepid Ibex). I have read that the Kubuntu team is working hard to make it rock solid. I just don’t want to see things broken.
I don’t like using windows applications inside my linux OS. They don’t fit in right and I don’t think it is a good approach.
Paradigm Shift: So you agree with me that desktop managers need improvement? I already know and tell every one that Linux is superior in terms of flexibility, stability and security. But by each day I am moving my work to web so I spend most of my time working with a browser. Thats why I am jealous that Chrome is not yet available for linux. As for looks of my Gnome desktop, I tried different color combinations, effects, fonts, may be I just don’t have the aesthetic sense to customize my desktop beautifully.
This post is an attempt so that you the fellow community members can assure me that better days are coming. I haven’t switched to windows yet. Vista looks good but I have used linux for 3 years now so you guys can understand how difficult it would be for me to use vista now. I didn’t even know how to display hidden folders in windows and had to search for it on google.
It’s a good thing this blog says it is tips from a non-expert. At least do a little research before gushing like a school-girl.
Now to be fair, before I start tearing down your shrine, at first glance Vista/Chrome can be sexy. But just like looking at Lindsey Lohan, you quickly learn that there is a ton of not-so-pleasant baggage that goes with it.
Let me address Google first since I am actually a fan of Google. Chrome is nice. It is fast and sporty. So let me batch image download…oh, that is right…no add-ons. How about blocking malicious scripts or ad blocking? Nope, those add-ons are gone too. Yes, the segmented tabs that prevent one bad apple from over-turning the cart is nice (and hopefully Mozilla gets a clue) but I am just not ready to be boxed into what Google tells me I should like. That is why I prefer the skins and add-ons with Firefox. As for speed, the next Firefox currently in alpha is reportedly beating Chrome on speed.
Vista. Hmmm. Not much to be said that has not been said. If you are using the default Gnome appearance and not really leveraging the power of Compiz then yes, Vista looks great. With minimal effort you can make your desktop so much more than Vista. Now I will grant you that Linux (the collective – I’m aware of the multiple desktop managers) needs a little improvement here and Mark Shuttleworth of Ubuntu fame agrees. That is why he is investing his resources into several of the Linux sub-projects, including Xorg, so that a desktop “better than Mac OS X” can be created. If this goes like most FOSS projects then it should be game-on by this time next year. I won’t bore you with all the technical aspects of why Vista is inferior to Linux. That can be easily researched.
If you REALLY like Vista/Chrome, then by all means go with it. If you said you had an old TI-99/4A and it was the bomb, then that is great for you. To each their own. IMHO it is like comparing an over-priced, Ferrari look-alike kit-car to a home-built, battle-tested, performance race-car that has a few nicks and dings on its exterior.
Well good luck with Windows then. The things that matter to you are available there, so why should someone try to hold you back?
You can try Kubuntu, plain install. I do not understand the appeal of KDE, never mind Vista, or even OSX. I think a tweaked Compiz desktop is far superior to them all.
If Chrome is that important, you can get it working quite easily via WINE. However I do not think a Linux port is that far off… since Chrome is OpenSource I am willing to wager that a team should port it fairly quickly.
That being said I dont think Chrome is a reason to abandon Linux, you can always use Chrome in VirtualBox as a last resort. I like having Windows XP as one of my workspaces. I’d shudder to think of using pure Windows… ewww.
If you feel the default Ubuntu has nothing to offer you, you should try other things… like AWN (https://launchpad.net/awn), Gnome-Do (http://do.davebsd.com/), Enlightenment (http://www.enlightenment.org/)… or search for any other other cool things the Linux desktop has to offer 🙂
About Chrome, I guess it will be released for Linux within weeks. You can use it via wine though.
Anyway, there is a discussion about how GNOME 3.0 will be, there might be a big change (or not), if you have ideas to improve it, you can share them with the community and maybe (or maybe not) some of them will be used.
Dave actually I did install it and it didn’t work. I was unable to set my screen resolution, and a crash handler popup kept coming now and then to surprise me. I loved KDE4 and I think that plasma rocks but its not working the way my gnome desktop works i.e. crash free and rock solid stability.
Did you say “please make KDE available for Ubuntu” in there?
sudo apt-get install kubuntu-desktop-kde4
you will then have KDE4. Being super pretty and awesome. And VLC-QT will fit in even nicer with KDE than anything else.