Getting out of comfort zone of Windows.

I understand some of the commands such as sudo apt-get, mkdir, ls, chown and a few others, but the hard part is getting the syntax right because it has to be exact or it doesn't work (of course same goes for dos). So often there's hyphens, forward slashes, quotations, etc that have to make up the command string, and it's not easy or intuitive for me to know when and where they're used.

Linux advocates are a different breed, imo. They're seem more technically inclined than the average person, at computers anyway, and they just "get" the command line usage better than your average person. It doesn't necessarily make them smarter than others, just that they can grasp technical subject matter better than most. I work with someone like that. He writes scripts for Windows and is overall incredibly smart techncially. When I showed him a live desktop of mint which he had never seen before, he was more interested in bringing up the terminal and running commands from it. The GUI meant nothing to him. The average desktop user doesn't want to do this. They're only interested in running their favorite programs from their desktop as efficiently as possible, without having to run techncial commands to get work done. They want the easiest approach possible.

 

lately i have tried Mint and Ubuntu.

trying to get sounds working in Linux is still not for the faint of heart.

i like Ubuntu, lots of nice eye candies.
i'll try to figure out this sound thing when i get some free times.
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edit:

just tried a file copy/paste test in W7 and Ubuntu:
copying 3 GB of data from a USB key to the Desktop
- Ubuntu: 2 minutes 43 seconnds
- W7: 3 minutes 07 seconds.

based on this test alone i think it's worth looking into Linux more...

 

Good post.Windows is more straight forward out of the gate so to speak but linux can be a pita especially wirelss connectivity.My previous HP laptop I sold had dual boot windows vista and Linux ubuntu and had other distros burn on CD and was a great selling point. Though my experince was limited with linux the challenge was fun and some what annoying at the same time. After some help from the linux folks and making my way around the GUI, I eventually got every thing to work.Very proud moments for me.

I like linux but like windows better My self. If one does not want to learn about any other OS or learn to fix when there broken dont be bothered with Linux or macs because it is more challenge as in all new things.My first learning of computures was DOS for MY job No experience at all but after tranning I learned well from scratch and seemed like the hardest thing I have learned.Not to toot my own horn but I got so good at it that I became support for other company members that got stuck on command promps.My phone rang daily for help.Sorry for long post.Cheers Djohn