MEPIS Community Forum

Thanks, Jim.

Some of that I have recently found, other parts, just today.

Lotta stuff to digest.

Thanks again
Jerry in Anchorager

Absolutely right, especially about the "friendly" part. On most any other Linux forum this thread would have quickly devolved into a hateful, insulting flame-fest as soon as Jerry mentioned logging in as root. People here, on the other hand, may prod, advise, suggest, or cajole, but almost never do things turn ugly just because someone doesn't follow the accepted dogma or didn't RTFM. In that respect, this forum is pretty much unique.

JMO.

First, I do not run Mepis on my main machine and like many others who post here, I have two to three other distros loaded to see how well they hold up. I travel into many different
forums of Linuxland and BSD. This forum is truly unique. For anyone who is having the ruff time with the learning curve to those that have a lot of experience can come here and
ask a question without being degraded and still not have an answer. If you want to learn more about working with Mepis and Linux, this is the place to post your question. There
are enough of us "older than dirt", Computer users, programmers, techs, networking and so on, that have worked or are working the computer fields, as far back before the desktop
computer.

Everybody has to start from square one at times and more than once. So post the question, so we the Curmudgeons of the Mepis Forums can help for one to understand, or find/fix the
missing piece of the puzzle. This is part of the Mepis magic.

That's what Usenet is for.

And why I like it as much as I do.

No doubt about it, Windows is easier to get up and running than Linux. Some Linuxes are easier than others; MEPIS is one of the easiest. But it still requires some more effort than Windows.

So why bother?

(1) Security. All that stuff about root passwords and permissions is annoying, but you KNOW when something is being added to your system (you have to authorize it). Windows XP in particular had many, many security holes which had to have patches issued every few days to fix. Linux has also needed patches, but far fewer. Having antivirus and firewall protection is great, but I run without either on my Linux system and have had no problems.

(2) Viruses. In addition to the security barriers against the installation of malware mentioned above, so many more systems use Windows than Linux that virus makers target Windows more. Viruses designed for Windows are ineffective on Linux.

(3) Efficiency. It's good that you have such a smokin' hot system, but to get the same work done on a Linux machine requires a much smaller computer. A 3-to-1 efficiency gain is not impossible.

(4) Support. In this respect, the two are about the same. There is NO official support for Linux; it's up to user groups to help each other out. Microsoft has a support department, but they don't take calls from users who buy OEM boxes with Windows pre-installed on it -- unless you pay them. (I've had no experience with that, but I suspect they will simply read to you what is already known about your particular problem. They won't investigate beyond matching your symptoms to their existing database.) There are also Windows user groups of people helping each other out, so that puts it on a par with Linux. While Microsoft does have a user-searchable knowledge base, they also have so many more problems than Linux does that that sort of takes away that advantage.

(5) Reliability. It's not uncommon for a Linux server, for example, to run for years without rebooting or other intervention as long as the power doesn't go out, or something like that. Windows had a tendency to freeze up and require reboots. If this is okay with you, by all means don't worry about it.

(6) Cost. Not only do you pay for Windows (and Office, etc), Microsoft has ways of making it necessary for you to upgrade every few years.

(7) Interoperability. Windows has the advantage here; there are files and web sites that Windows can understand that Linux chokes on. And why is that? It's because Microsoft comes out with bells and whistles that only Windows can understand -- without regards to standards set by industry groups. By encouraging the use of proprietary formats, they are effectively sabotaging the competition. (I still can't get Skype to work, which incidentally, is now owned by Microsoft.)

(8) Integrity. The main reason I switched to Linux is that I just don't trust Microsoft. They do things that make me wonder. There's a lot I can say about this, but this guy says it so much better: http://www.vanwensveen.nl/rants/microsoft/IhateMS.html .

Nonetheless, if you're happy with the system you have, stick with it. What you want to do, how much you're willing to pay, and how much effort you're willing to put into it is everything.

Jennifer

I've always liked to use KDiskFree. It gives me a beautiful visual list of mount points and will mount and open any particular one of them. When mounted it visually shows how big and how much is being used. Gives a percentage also.

One other thing to remember is that you can open a root Konsole/Terminal session from Dolphin as su from the Tools menu.

This whole thread has reminded me that Linux is a 'black box' to those who are starting out with it. Windows became the 'kleenex' of the OS world and just ruined our perception of what using a computer should be like.
It also reminded me of the time I found myself with a dead disk drive and no Windows installation disk. I had some LiveCDs laying around that I had taken a look at. Just in passing. Long story short is that for the next two years I didn't boot Windows, didn't own Windows, didn't use Windows. So I know what the frustration is like. Not to be able to do something that seems so easy when I think of what I used to do to do that.
I can't recommend my 'immersion' method. I can just tell you that it works.

You might try Jitsi ( https://jitsi.org/ ) open source and muliti-platform ( and oh, not Microsoft ).

It worked OOB on my Mepis 11 laptop. Of course, like many other new solutions, you would have to educate and promote those you would like to communicate with.

I've only used it in Mepis and have heard it works OK on Windows.

Good luck

jennifer says it very well.

I might add that if you've ever tried to remove something like Norton Utilities from Windows XP, it'll let you know exactly how much control you have over your own machine when using Microsoft OS software.
I'll always choose Linux/Unix due to the fact that it's my machine, not theirs.