[Completed] iSwitched from Windows to Linux for 30 days

[Damikiller37]

 

This is my personal review/daily blog that is presenting you with my personal experiences as well as comparisons/observations

that I have made as a noob when it comes to Linux compared to Windows. I have used Windows ever since I've got a computer

and now I have decided to give Linux a go. I've been inspired to do this because of a unit that I have to do for my college

course and since I always wanted to give a really good go at Linux, now seemed like an appropriate time.

As you can see in the image above I will be switching from Windows 8 to Elementary OS Luna. I will be dual booting both

operating systems and only use Windows for games during the 30 days, everything else will be done one Elementary OS. I will

report back each day with all of the things that I have found out and compare as well as give pros and cons about different

aspects that I will be faced with once using Elementary OS. I hope you will enjoy your lecture for the following 30 days. Make

sure to follow this topic so that you get the updates!

 

 

 

So before doing anything I had to make some space for Elementary OS and this is what I saw...

 

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SOOOO yeah... I'll get rid of some files from my Windows 8 partition later. Since I had a lot of free space on ma 'Data' partition,

I've took some space from it (116gb) that I could allocate as the Elementary OS and swap space. To do this I have used the

MiniTool Partition Wizard. As I started to shrink my 'Data' partition it disappeared giving me a small heart attack since that is

where I store all of my valuable data. Thankfully it all came back to normal after it was done.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

After I have finished doing the partitioning part this is what I had as a result.

 

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Then I have ripped the ISO onto a CD using PowerISO. Restarted my computer and allowed Elementary OS to boot up.

In the installation setup I have picked both the updates and 3rd party applications to install. I have then got onto the partition

screen as following the guide and did everything the same (different sized partitions) except of making the /home partition since

I already have a partition where I store all my data on separately. Also I had to create the BIOS Boot Partition which I made to be

100mb so that GRUB would install correctly.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

After the installation I restarted my computer and it booted into Windows 8 giving me no GRUB or Windows Boot Manager

in between. So after a few minutes of research I realized that I have installed my Windows 8 in UEFI mode and it was ignoring

Elementary OS. I've found a simple way to fix it though being that I have to set either the UEFI partition first in my UEFI BIOS to

boot into Windows 8 or set the partition that I have Elementary OS on it to boot it up. If anyone knows how to work around it so

that I get to pick my OS using GRUB or Windows Boot Manager that would be great.

 

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Elementary OS successfully installed!

 

Links used today:

Elementary OS: LINK

Minitool Partition Wizard: LINK

PowerISO: LINK

The Guide to DualBoot Windows and Elementary OS: LINK

 

 

 

First thing after installing Elementary OS I have installed the latest beta drivers for my graphics card since it popped up on my screen not long

after the system booted. The installation required a restart so I did… wow were the animations smoother after it restarted. Also all of the

other drivers such as the sound and network (using cable) worked right out of the box. To test the sound I’ve played the new

AdhesiveWombat - Symphony Of A Forgotten Sprite WAV file which ran as expected. Next up I’ve headed to the Software Center and

grabbed some of the programs that I knew I will need being: Chromium, Dropbox, VLC, Synergy, GIMP and Wine. Next I grabbed a few things

to customise the look of the system. I've downloaded Elementary Tweaks using the terminal with commands that I've found on the internet.

 

(Click on the image to see the gallery of other settings that I have changed)

 

Secondly, as per usual I headed to DeviantArt to get myself a nice wallpaper and other things to customise the system. I came across a nice

set of icons and a theme for Plank (Dock) called Numix. If you follow the guides for each one you can use the gallery above to set them up.

Here is how I got my desktop to look like so far.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Lastly, to add onto the fact that I have downloaded Wine, I also downloaded the Microsoft Windows Compatibility Layer (meta-package) from

the Software Centre. I will be attempting to install some programs that I had on windows today and see how it goes. I will report back either

late today or tomorrow.

 

Links used today:

Elementary Tweak: LINK

Numix uTouch Linux Desktop Icon Theme: LINK

Numix Theme for Plank: LINK

Wallpaper: LINK

 

 

 

 

First thing today that I have done was that I've got Indicator Synapse downloaded and installed. At the same time I've found a bug that when

you click on the 'Applications' and the menu pops up and you click away somewhere else such as a window that you have open the

applications menu will stay open and to close it you have to click Applications again. Secondly I have installed the newest kernel that

Ubuntu uses so that I get the best hardware support and stability. Here on the image below you can see I have the 3.8.0-31 kernel being

the latest stable kernel there is now for Ubuntu and Elementary OS since it's based on Ubuntu.

 

 

Then as I were surfing the web I wanted to sync my Chromium with my Chrome that I had on Windows but it would only sync the bookmarks.

So I trashed Chromium and downloaded Google Chrome which strangely enough fixed the problem. Funny enough I already got bored of

the wallpaper I had so I got a new one.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

I don't think I will get bored of this one any time soon. Lastly I played around with Wine for a while and this is what I got figured:

Programs that partially worked: MAL Updater-worked fine but wouldn't detect the VLC installed on Linux or VLC for windows (Installed via

WINE), Media Player Classic Home Cinema & CCCP-installed correctly but wouldn't play a video, VLC for Windows worked perfectly fine and

ran videos as it should, ReNamer worked perfectly.

Installed new programs: Thunderbird Email, Deluge, Brasero Disc Burner, LibreOffice and Main Menu from Software Center. As mentioned

before Google Chrome instead of Chromium because things didn't want to sync. I will be trying more programs with time but I've found out

that Office 2013 doesn't work with Wine.

 

Links used today:

Indicator Synapse: LINK

The bug I've found already reported here: LINK

Kernel update tutorial: LINK

Google Chrome (download the Ubuntu one): LINK

New wallpaper: LINK

 

 

 

 

So to kick of the day today I got myself Steam form the Software Centre however I had to make an Ubuntu One account because Steam is

connected to it. Nothing changed here as you can see. Looks exactly the same as on Windows.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Also I forgot to add this yesterday but my YouTube seemed to go extremely pixelated when going into full screen mode in Chrome a bit like

if you tried to full screen 800x600 on a 1080p screen. This also reduced the quality of the videos no matter what quality I tried to watch it at.

So to fix it I already knew what to do, so I typed about:plugins into the address bar and clicked enter to see this.

 

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Then I went down to where it said Adobe Flash Player and disabled the one that was located in Google Chrome's directory as you can see in

the image and left the one that was installed with my 3rd party apps when installing Elementary OS. I read that it is a problem to do with

hardware acceleration that Chrome has and/or that 2 different versions of Flash could clash together and cause problems like creating

crashes just like I had on windows and I did the same thing to fix it here. I have also researched and by disabling the feature 'Sync to Vblank'

in my Nvidia Settings as you can see on the image below the animations became bit smoother and less choppy at times.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Then came time to test a game on Steam. I ran Dota 2 as suggested by @needmorewood and after playing through the tutorial

which took me about 17 min I have to say the game ran butter smooth. When I turned off vsync I would get between 80-100 FPS and with

vsync on I would get constant 60 fps no matter what.

 

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Also here is what kind of temperature my GPU was at instantly after finishing the tutorial game. Not too bad... I'd say it's about the same as I

would get on Windows after gaming.

 

 

Another thing tested today was the NVIDIA 2013 Press Conference on Twitch that Linus and PC Perspective were streaming earlier and that

worked nice and smooth. Just for your information I were watching it a High and my internet speed isn't a barrier so it was all up to Chrome

and the OS to do the job. Lastly, as silly as it may seem I also installed SMPlayer from the Software centre to replace VLC since I never

really liked it and it doesn't have the simple feature of left clicking the video to play/pause that I always use everywhere. Also because it has

a theme that makes it look like Media Player Classic that I used to use on Windows and loved it!

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Links used today:

NONE!

 

 

 

 

So today I were quite busy so I didn't get to do much on Elementary OS since I had a lot of course work to do for college and were watching

the 2nd day coverage of the Nvidia conference streamed by Linus which pretty much took all of my day. But one way or the other I do have

a few things to share with you guys. So to begin with I had to get some work done for college so I thought I would try to use Libre Office to

get my work finished off (that was previously saved from Office 2013) and as soon as I opened my documents and a Powerpoint all of the

layout and themes were either missing or not in the right order. Since I didn't have time to waste I had to got to Windows and use Office there

since I had to upload the work by the end of today for it to be marked. As a result I spent all of my day doing the work, mostly watching the

stream and researching the topics I had to write about.

 

So from the things I managed to do on Elementary OS today apart from writing this is that I've downloaded Skype of their website and

installed it. I must say it looks a bit 'empty' I guess in terms of the design. Maybe simple is a better word. Before anyone asks I did

blur out all of the names.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Also I wanted to cover more about Synergy which I have installed on Day 1. For those of you that don't know what this program does, then

it basically allows you to use the computer which is set as the server in the program to be the one that you use the mouse and keyboard of

with the client computer which in my case is my netbook that sits under my monitor like this. Yeah I used my HTC Desire to take the

picture so it doesn't look too good but you get the idea.

 

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Obviously you are required to have the program installed on both computers and it supports Windows (I have Windows 7 on my netbook),

Linux and Mac OSX. The program streams the mouse and keyboard input through the internet and allows you to access the other computer

in the same way as you would if you had a multi monitor setup. You also have the ability to copy and paste between the computers (text only

as far as I know). Any how this is how I have it setup.

 

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And also this is what my screen placement and names are. Quite simple and understandable.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

I mainly use this setup to write bits of each days log on a netbook as I do stuff on the desktop. I also use it when I watch stuff in bed and

I need a mouse and keyboard so instead of unplugging everything I just use my netbook so I can control my desktop from bed without moving,

since my bed is on the right hand side of the desk that you can see in the image above. Also during the WAN Show or any other twitch stream I

use the netbook as a chat screen which is cool since I can have my desktop showing the steam in full screen, the netbook to display the chat

and work as a controller for the desktop. Really handy application, I highly recommend it.

 

So yeah that's all I really have for today. Sorry guys I will try and get something more interesting done tomorrow. Feel free to suggest things

for me to do, whether it is a program alternative that you think is better or a program in general that you could recommend. Anything will be

cool I'm off to watch some WAN Show! See you guys there.

 

Links used today:

Skype: LINK

Synergy: LINK

 

 

 

 

So today I have done quite a bit more than yesterday. I've installed Xpad from Software Centre so that I can have all of my notes on the

desktop just like I had them on Windows. The cool thing about Xpad is that you can change the colour of the notes and fonts to whatever

you desire to and also you can change the font and it's size. I've made mine so that they are matching the wallpaper as you can see

below.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Second thing down the line was Wingpanel Slim from Software centre as well. I didn't really like the look of it so I deleted it. You will need

Elementary Tweak (look in Day 1 for link for it) to change the settings of the Wingpanel. Anyhow here's how it looks like.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

After that I installed 32-bit Libraries for the sake of compatibility using the Terminal and this command: sudo apt-get install ia32-libs

I've also found out about Kingsoft Office that is in a way a clone of Microsoft Office. It took ages to download since I did it via the Terminal

(guide in the links below) but it was totally worth it. Feels, looks and operates like Microsoft Office and it is compatible with the newest version

of documents (2013). Above all it's FREE!!! Here how it looks with some of my college work.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Just to keep myself sage I installed a very simple and apparently affective firewall called gufw. In Software Centre it's under a name of

'Firewall Configuration' Not much to say about it so here is a picture of how it looks.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

...and the last 2 things I did were: I updated Xorg (Xorg is basically the X window system used in Linux. It's the base of the graphical

environment for your computer.) as well as I have found a fix for the microphone not being picked up in Skype by using the tutorial below.

 

Links used today:

How to get Kingsoft Office: LINK

Xorg Update; use the commands under number one: LINK

How to fix the microphone in Skype: LINK

 

 

 

 

So today I didn't get to do anything of value to log here since I were out for most of the day. Sorry!

 

 

 

Today I have spent most of the day watching films. One thing I have noticed is that after some time the film would occasionally stutter. I have

no idea what could have been the problem, it could have been the fact that the films were 1080p, something to do with the Nvidia drivers,

the SMPlayer or what. One way or the other it wasn't too significant so I didn't care as much. Next on using Winetricks (you can get it from the

Software Centre) I have installed Steam so that I could try to get some of my Windows Steam games to work.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Also I have realised that all of my apps installed via Wine are in the Applications tab but none of them work so I have to go to the directory

and open apps that way. The game I have tried first was Borderlands 2. Trying to run the game via Steam would just show that I'm in game

and instantly go back to just online and the game won't launch at all.

 

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...and this is what I got when I've put the command into the terminal that I have opened in the folder. Both shown below.

 

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First I thought it wasn't working so I went to Winetricks then "Select the default Wineprefix" then "Install a Windows DLL or component"

and then selected all of the DirectX files just to be sure as you can see below.

 

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Then I did the command part again after restarting my computer and nothing came up and my resolution messed up as you can see below so

I clicked the Wine icon in the dock and the game popped up on my screen. So I have no idea if all of the DirectX stuff were needed since Steam

installed all of the stuff for the game when I installed it. Before I did anything, I moved all of my saves for that game from Windows to see

how the game will work.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

It did! Slightly laggy but I guess there are a few limitations such as the drivers not being optimised and Wine but if I turned all of the settings

down it would be smooth otherwise you get a few frame drops but I guess you can call the game playable since everything works as it should.

If any of you guys know how to get the game to launch from Steam that would be cool. Apart from that I will try more games in the days to

come.

 

Links used today:

NONE !

 

 

 

 

Right so Day 8 wasn't too productive since I had a friend over. I have changed my Plank settings a little as you can see below and now in

my opinion it fits the overall look better and looks more like the top bar.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Then I also have gotten a new wallpaper which you can get in the link below.

 

Links used today:

Wallpaper: LINK

 

 

 

 

Ok so I kicked of Day 9 with 2 nice commands: sudo apt-get upgrade and sudo apt-get update. Then I went on to Software Center and

downloaded Virtualbox. So i got Virtual box mainly to try out the beta version of Elementary OS 0.3 when it's out. Here is how I've set things up.

 

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So I will be installing the x64 version and since it is an Ubuntu based OS I picked the appropriate options. Then I allocated 4GB of RAM for it.

 

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...and finally made a virtual disk image (Dynamically allocated) of 40gb.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Then I mounted a test ISO (a random unstable I downloaded to test if I set up the VM right) so I right clicked on the VM and here I added

the ISO...

 

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As I tried to run the VM as a test I've got this popup. Making me realize that have I have disabled it in my BIOS.

 

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So to fix it I had to go to my BIOS and enable the feature as you can see below.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

I will be changing all of the graphical settings and all the other jazz when I will actually use it but for now I just wanted to get it set up and ready.

So to prove it here is it working after changing the BIOS option.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Next thing that I did is I finally looked for a replacement for MAL Updater and I've found one called wMAL. Pretty much the same thing but it

works on Linux and written in Python. You can obtain it in the link below. So I extracted it to ar random destination and ran the command as

you can see below to run it. I ran the command to open the GTK version so that it is simple to use an an eye candy... it's all about the

eye candy!

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

...and lastly here is how I've got it set up so that it scans my SMPlayer to see if I'm watching anime so that it can automaticaly update MAL for

me.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Links used today:

wMAL: LINK

 

 

 

 

Sorry nothing done worth recording.

 

 

 

Sorry nothing done worth recording. Had to do some of my college work for most of the day so

 

 

 

Alright so for not doing anything for two days here comes a nice long lecture. So I've been struggling to get my steamapps linked

between both Elementary OS and Windows so I don't have to redownload and reinstall all of my games to play them via Steam (WINE version)

in Elementary OS. I've been trying to figure this out ever since the first days on Linux. So I tried the guide below (look in today's links) and had

to modify it so that I can link my Program Files x86 but even when I eventually got all the commands to work, Steam (WINE version) wouldn't

detect the games. So I reversed all of the things that the commands did and look for another way. After looking for a solution on the web,

I finally figured a way to do it on my own and here is how I did it. First of all you have to go to Wine configuration then into the drives tab.

Then click Add... and select a letter of your choice. Now in the path clear the text box and put in: /media/*name of your partition here*

(you can find out the name of the partition in the file manager on the left side bar) and change the Type: to Local hard disk. The reason for

all of this is to add the partitions you want to WINE so that all of the applications such as Steam can access those partitions that you will add.

As you can see in the image bellow I have added 2 partitions: 'D:' which is my Windows 8 partition and 'E:' which is my data partition. You can

see how your drive mapping should look like and as you can see the names of the partitions correspond to the ones in the files manager.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Now your Steam (WINE version) can access those partitions and effectively you can add the steam games you have on Windows to the

Steam that is ran in WINE. Now here is how you should add the partition/s to Steam (WINE Version). Open your Steam (WINE version) go to

the Settings, Downloads tab and click on STEAM LIBRARY FOLDERS. Now click ADD LIBRARY FOLDER. Using the menu that pops up direct

to the partition that your Windows Steam is on (I mean the Steam that you have installed on your Windows partition) and add it. I have added 2

partitions since I have some games on a separate partition not in the Steam folder. Make sure that you select the folder that contains

'steamapps' and not steamapps itself. On the image below you can see 2 of my partitions added and the default partition in the list. You can

also see in the image that the games lit white not grey are all of the games I now have in the Steam (WINE version) and are also all of

the games I had on Windows.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Now the rest is for you to research on if the games you had on Windows now you have in the WINE version of Steam will work on Linux.

I will include a link below for you to see if your games will work and what you may need to do to get them to work. Also make sure you enable

Steam Cloud on both Windows and the WINE version of Steam so that you can have your game saves from the games that support the Steam

Cloud which should be all of the new games if not all of the games that are on Steam. Also a reminder for the games to show up in Steam

(WINE version) as installed you have to make sure that the drives that the game is stored on eg. your Windows partition is mounted. So before

launching Steam (WINE version) make sure that you go to the file manager and randomly click on the partitions so that the system mounts

them and then open up Steam otherwise if you don't do this the games won't show up as installed. To make sure that the drives are mounted

you will see the eject icon next to the partition as you can see in the image below.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Lastly I've downloaded Banshee from the Software Centre to replace the default music player. Mainly switched to it from the default Music

app because this one detects my iPod and I can move all of my music on to it and the UI is still quite nice as well as you get the controls in the

sound icon at the top bar.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Links used today:

Guide for Steam on Linux (the part about sharing games between OS is at "Save space on dual-boot machines": LINK

Which Windows games work with WINE: LINK

 

 

 

 

Sorry nothing done worth recording.

 

 

 

I have tested some Steam games today since I though I might as well give some of them a go. So starting off with Burnoun Paradise: The
Ultimate Box it would turn on and work if you turn off the anti-analysing however the whole screen would shake a bit like everything that is
being displayed is constantly going up and down a few pixels at a fast pace. Also there would be some invisible textures such as the whole
helmet of the bike wouldn't even be there and some textures on his feet wouldn't totally show up. The game did run smoothly though and if
not of the problems it would be perfectly playable with very smooth framerate. Next up I've tried Planetside 2. It didn't even manage to open
the launcher before it came up with and error that had to close the launcher. To be honest I didn't expect it to work since it runs awfully on
Windows as it is because of the optimisation. Then I've tried Dead Island and the game would turn on but the resolution wouldn't go above
1440x900 and it was quite laggy even on low settings. Also there was no sound at all. Both Saint's Row 3 and 4 won't even turn on and
the rest of the games I have are converted to Linux already.

 
 

 

So to begin with today I have kicked off with an insanely long command to get possibly every codec I will ever need the SMPlayer doesn't
have. I'm including a txt file in the link below because of the length of the command and since I didn't want to damage my centred design
here or the code.

So I though that since it's been 2 weeks so far I will give you my deeper thoughts on how I've been finding Elementary OS. Considering
that this is my first serious attempt at trying to use a Linux operating system as a daily driver, especially at a reasonably fresh distribution,
I must say that I'm satisfied with it overall but there are places for improvements. So to start of with I thought I'll talk about the overall fluidity
of the animations and overall design of this operating system. All of the animations feel very much on place and seem to make all of the
tasks much more enjoyable, however despite the fact that I have reduced the time of each animation by half the animations are fluid,
but I do quite often find myself having some stutters once in a while. I'm not entirely convinced if it is a problem on the graphical drivers
optimisation side or something to do with the systems code but I do wish that it will be resolved in the next alliteration of this system since it
can be quite disrupting.

Second of all, I would like to mention the lack of functionality in some of the applications. Mostly I have found this
to be a issue with the default files manager and the default music player. Both are very well designed and carefully layed out, sadly there
are some aspects of customisation missing or in some places it all seems to be too simple and oriented around design. For example in the
files manager there isn't a 'My Computer' alternative but all we have is the sidebar with all of the devices plugged in that aren't very
informative and for example just to find out the amount of space I have on the given drive I have to go and click inside of the window once
opening the drive to then go and right click and go to the Properties and find it there, whereas instead they could at least have had the
properties in the menu once right clicking on the drive in the side bar instead of having the need to go into the drive and right click in that
window which would make it much more intuitive. Next aspect I wish to address is the stability. I'am aware that I have updated the kernel
and it could have influenced this but the system can be quite unstable at times. Sometimes I found myself browsing my files and the
files manager would spontaneously close down on me without warning. This also occurred to some other applications such as
SMPlayer, Banshee and even Plank (dock). As the functionality of the system goes there are again places for improvements.

The most frustrating once that I have found were both major aspects of this system, Plank and the Applications menu. They are
both very blank when it comes to basic functionality or any customisation, at least from the side of the Applications tab. There is no way
to remove any of the icons in the Applications tab even if I use the Main Menu (program) it usually fails to remove the icons I set to
not appear anymore. A basic 'X' next to each icon would fix it in such a simple way. Then there is the small cheeky bug that makes
the Applications menu stay on screen even if you are using a different window and the only way to get rid of it is to click on the
Applications tab.

Lastly to conclude, I know that many of these points are very subjective and may seem like a rant but they are things that I consider as
essentials when it comes to everyday operations. I honestly love the look and feel of Elementary but sometimes it just seems as if the
creators tried to implement a lot of features and design ideas from other systems especially Mac OSX and without giving them
many unique features that would distinguish them from the alternative solutions. Either way I am still planning to try out different
desktop environments on Elementary. So far I have Cinnamon on my mind, but feel free to suggest which ones you would recommend
and what you wish to see me review in them.

 

Links used today:

The mega long command for codecs: LINK

 
 

 

Sorry nothing done worth recording.

 

 

So since we are just gone past half way through the 30 day switch I thought  it's about time I start comparing things between both operating
systems both in tems of the core functionality of the systems and also the applications that I use as alternatives compared to what I used to
use on Windows. So as it seems the most appropriate I will begin with the core of both systems. Right so just incase you haven't seen the
previous days here is how I got my Elementary OS to look like.

 

As you can see Elementary OS is striking to be a very elegant operating system yet despite of the fact that it is heavily based of Gnome
and Mac OSX (at least I assume so) it still effectively manages to look very unique and definitely be an eye candy for us guys that like when
things look nice. The newcomers to this particular Linux distribution will be presented with a much different look than what they were
used to; the Windows users mostly. So out of the things that you can see on the desktop:

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Wingpanel (top bar) is very simple and is divided into 3 sectors. The far left area has the Applications menu button which gives you
access to Slingshot which is in a way similar to what you would normally find on Windows known as the Start menu or maybe more
like the Modern UI since it only includes icons for your applications. The centre area gives you the date and time... not much to
explain here and on the far right hand side we have notification area which functions quite similarly to how the Windows one does
apart from the fact that some applications have integration with the core functions such as the sound can be used by music
player applications to allow the user to use it as quick media keys. Obviously at the far right end there is the power button
which gives you the choice of: Log out, suspend or shutdown which in my opinion is a much nicer way and place to put those
functions compared to where Windows has them and especially where Windows 8 has them.

 

As you can see my desktop is clean with no icons... unlike my windows one that is full of them. This is because you can't place
any icons on the desktop in Elementary OS because it was designed to be as clean as possible therefore all of your shortcuts will
have to be somewhere on your drive, the Slingshot or most reasonably in Plank. Plank is the dock that Elementary uses as default
and as you may have seen in previous days it can be quite nicely customised just like I have done. It also functions as a minimisation are
so all of your applications will minimise to either the icons that are already pinned to the dock or at the end of it as new icons; very much
like it happens in Windows 7 & 8. Under the icon that the given application is open you will have an indicator, single dot, beneath to
show you that the particular application is open and two dots to show that there are 2 or more 'windows' of that application open. This
was quite easy to grasp since it is very similar to what windows does in a way.

 

Now some not so good things about Plank and Slingshot. They both are lacking in options, customisation and basic functionality. So in
Plank the folders pop up as a menu that you would expect to pop up if you right clicked on something, instead of doing something that
you would see in Mac OSX where you get a popup showing all of the icons in the folder. Thankfully this is being worked on and in the
next version of Elementary os it will be fixed. Also you need to install a separate application called elementary tweaks just to change the
basic things in the dock such as the size of the icons, skins, placement of the dock, etc. If there was no elementary tweaker this would
have really bugged me and it would most likely be a pain to change since it will probably require you to alter system files. Slingshot
is in many ways the same as Plank, it lack basic aspects that should have been in there from the start. The once that bugged me the
most so far are the fact that you can end up getting a lot of 'trash' shortcuts from applications installed in Wine and since there is no folders
for the given application (such as having all of the Wine shortcuts in one folder) just like you would find on Windows' start menu, Slingshot
becomes quite disorganised. Even though there is an option to categorise shortcuts I personally prefer to have them all out but a control
over the content in there would be nice. Then there is the fact that you can't remove the shortcuts with an 'x' or another simple solution is
just upsetting. Even though I have tried to use an application called main menu to get rid of the shortcuts, not all of them disappeared even if I
unticked them in the program. I could ramble on about the lack of options and customisation in other core applications such as Files
(the default files manager) or in Music (the default files manager), but it would all come down to one thing... These functions should have
been there from the start and yes elementary tweaker addresses many of them, however in my eyes they should be in each application
separately without the need of using another one to alter things.

 

This also shows that this distribution still has a lot of space for improvements but to not be all that negative it has most of the basic
functionality most users will need. I will compare separate applications across both systems in the upcoming days. Make sure to leave
any kind of suggestions in the comments below on which kind of things you would like me to try out and/or expand upon.

 

 

Right so today I will be comparing a slightly different aspect of the system, the music player also known as just Music. Right so just to clarify

from the start I’m currently using Banshee as my music player on Elementary OS mainly because of the looks and the way my library is

organised in it. On windows I use Winamp with a custom skin. Despite the fact that I love my music and I have all of it in 320kbps MP3 (don’t

hate for not using FLAC since I don’t have so much space to store it). I’m not an audiophile in any way mainly since I haven really got to

upgrade all of the things to do with audio on my system but I do love my music and value it so I will do it as soon as I have the money to.

 

So in terms of comparisons I will first compare the default music player with Banshee. I don’t really use many features in music players

until I can have my library nicely laid out so I can easily navigate around it then that is really all I need. All of the additional integrations such

as integrating with Last.FM or other services isn’t really what I use so it doesn’t bother me but in terms of integration Banshee is definitely a

winner here. I don’t use equalisers in music players so that isn’t required by me but both players have it which is nice to see. In terms of

aesthetics as you can see Music aims to look a lot like iTunes at least in my eyes however it does lack many features that can be found

on Banshee and I not sure if it is because of the software being new and still being improved and worked upon or if they just wanted to

create a clean and lightweight music player. One way or the other they both play the same quality of sound to me and do the job well but I

just didn’t like the way my library is laid out in Music so I got Banshee apart from that Music did all I needed from it.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

Now comparing Music to Winamp is a little bit irrelevant since Winamp has been around for years and had time to get all of the feature

arsenal in there where Music is fresh and still being worked upon. So if I were to pick between the two then I would for sure go with Winamp,

however I can see potential in Music since it’s very new the lack of features can be forgiven. Lastly all three managed to get all of my music

library together with all of the CD artwork and order it as it should have been. I didn’t see any speed improvements in between the speed

of importing all of the songs into the player, but then again it’s irrelevant to me since you only have to do it once.

 

 

 

Sorry nothing done worth recording.

 

 

So I haven’t really mentioned it before but I have installed Deluge as a torrent client alternative to uTorrent that I used to use on Windows.

Deluge kept crashing on em and wouldn’t work so I have uninstalled and done some research and found out about Transmission and not until

long ago it has started to corrupt my downloads and not work properly so I were bound to uninstall it as well. Now finally I have settled with

qBittorrent (you can get it in the Software Centre as well as the other two) and so far it seems to be the best out of the 3. It downloads the

fastest, gets all of the peers up and done in seconds and it is nearly identical in terms of aesthetic when comparing it to uTorrent.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

I guess there isn’t much to say about a torrent client. It downloads stuff for you... But honestly I just values the fact that it looks like uTorrent

meaning that it is simple clear to understand and it works.

 

Also today I would like to share my experience with using Mozilla Thunderbird. I have never used any mail clients in my life since it was too

much of a hassle or I just didn’t mind going to the website directly. But now I must say having Thunderbird sure is quite handy. It quite nicely

integrates with the mail icon that is in the notifications area and glows blue and makes a sound once I receive a new mail which is quite hand

and lets me instantly know about the content of the mail. I value this since sometimes I miss live streams on Twitch or important mails because

there is nothing to notify me and I don’t always have my phone near by to hear it notifying me. Again not much to say about Thunderbird from

me apart from the fact that it works as I want it to, I can use 2 mails at the same time and it looks simple as you can see below.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

 

 

So to firstly clarify, I have no material that would be of any use for the remaining 8 days because I didn't have much time to spare to do

anything worth your time or to be of any use so yeah....

 

Right so now since the 30 days came to an end I would like to give you my final impressions and opinions about the whole iSwitched.

Right so kicking of from the beginning I have gone through a lot of setting up and exploring my ways around Elementary OS which was an

interesting and educating experience throughout. I have most importantly changed my personal views about Linux and I must say that I

were shocked how good in some places it is, however there were also the bad sides. I have no extended experience with other distributions so 

my opinions will be subjective towards Elementary OS so keep that in mind. Elementary OS is a well equipped operating system mainly

because of the fact that it is based of Ubuntu being one of the most developed distributions out there. Exactly because of this fact I

were able to find an alternative for all of the programs that I have previously used on a daily basis on Windows and quite honestly most of

them didn't come short to the once I use on Windows. I guess I have struggled a little with getting used to some mainly because with the past

years I've become dependent to certain programs such as MPC-HC, Winamp (R.I.P 1997-2013) or especially Paint.NET. They were just so

natural for me to use that the alternatives on Linux didn't appear to me as much. This doesn't mean that they were bad just that I didn't

like the change as much; found it difficult to get used to.

 

Now about the good points about Elementary OS. I can definitely recommend it to someone who is thinking about using it. Mainly because

I personally liked the simple look to it and all of the different and nice transitions as well as options it offers such as hot corners, a dock and

obviously a significantly different design to anything a Windows user would have ever seen. I like how the Elementary team worked with other

companies to get programs made to their liking such as Music or Plank.

 

Then the bad points... yeah there are a few but all of it I excuse with the fact that it is a very fresh distribution and that it will be addressed

in it's next version. So for me at least, pretty much all of the animations/transitions would stutter once in a while and like I mentioned before

in the previous days I'm not too sure if it's caused by the graphics drivers or the OS itself, nevertheless it still in a small degree made the

experience slightly irritating at times but not completely destroying. Referring to the software arsenal, again there are alternatives but

I personally feel that there aren't enough solid and professionally built once mainly since lets be honest Linux is quite small compared to

Windows or OSX. Without a doubt for every day use for basic operations that you would expect a OS to be able to do it sure is already

installed in the OS or easily obtainable from the Software Center. 

 

To not go on for too long, overall I would give Elementary OS in general about 7/10 mainly because it still needs working on and polishing.

Another factor, important for me and most definitely for you guys is gaming. There are close to no AAA titles made natively for Linux at

the current time and trying to run games via WINE really didn't allow me to play a single title from my Steam library that was made for windows

smoothly enough for me to say that it is worth using. I honestly do hope though that with the upcoming Steam OS, Valve can bring more life to

Linux and open eyes of developers to this exact platform. I think that if Steam OS kicks off well enough we may find ourselves being able to

confidently have the ability to chose between Windows and Linux as a gaming operating system. Hopefully this will also open eyes of software

developers so that it will let Linux grow to a much larger stat that it's at and seriously rival Windows in all areas for every type of user.

They need to work more on making Linux user friendly much like what Windows has over the years and hopefully get the terminal to be

much more like CMD in Windows where you can stull use it to do certain tasks but you can equaly as well do them with GUI based

alternatives that are already embedded inside of the system.

 

At last thank you all for following this topic and reading my updates. Hopefully I didn't bore you to death I will still do a lot of longer article on

the forum from time to time so stay tuned Next up will be my review of the Ducky Shine III Tenkeyless (Cherry MX Brown + Blue LEDs) which

hopefully should arrive tomorrow or by the end of the week and then I will do a detailed unboxing and review with a bunch of pictures.

 

Feel free to express your opinions about my conclusion I will be more than happy to discuss it with you all.

 

 

 

 

 

Since I’m a college student, being able to do all of my Powerpoints and endless Word documents is a must on a weekly basis so I had to get

some kind of alternative for Microsoft Office 2013 that I have been using on Windows. So I started off with the obvious choice being the Libre

Office. Sadly I have never liked it and it also turned out that I have ran into quite a few compatibility issues to do with the layouts and looks of

the work previously saved using Microsoft’s Office software. So after some time researching I have found the Kingsoft Office. Just as the name

suggests... It is a clone of Microsoft’s Office but quite honestly I must say it is a very good clone. Both in terms of looks and compatibility it is

spotless and looks, feels and is able to save in the formats that the standard Microsoft Office suit can. I guess the only disadvantage is that it

only comes with alternatives for Word, Powerpoint and Excel but for me personally that is enough since I will never need to use any other

software from the Office suit apart from the main three. As you can see in the image below it looks identically to the Office 2013 at least

with the skin I use since you can also make it look like the 2007 and 2003 version if you wish to do so.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

In terms of comparison... I can’t really do much since they are nearly identical and Kingsoft’s Office suit 100% compatible with the formats that

Microsoft’s Office produces so there has been absolutely no problems for me to us the documents and edit them. Note that you can also save

in the standard Microsoft Office formats so that the documents will work on it. I guess this is the best alternative until some day Microsoft ports

Office to Linux and it really isn’t too bad considering that it is FREE!

 

 

 

Alright so carrying on with the comparison today I will say a thing or two about the SMPlayer compared to Media Player Classic - Home

Cinema. But wait what about the default movie player? To be honest I didn’t even bother using it any longer as soon as I realised that MKV

formats don’t play then I instantly downloaded VLC despite the fact I didn’t like it on Windows before. Again without surprise I didn’t like VLC

because of how it managed the subtitles in my anime and a lack of simple functions such as click to pause/play. After some minutes of

research I have found SMPlayer and instantly installed it. All of the formats that I have played so far which are: MP4, AVI and MKV worked

out of the box; assuming that the 3rd party software that I have installed after installing the system contained the required codecs. Note that

I have later on installed the latest codes separately just to make sure I have the latest once.

 

So to the comparison... After using SMPlayer for a longer period of time I can say full heartedly that in my eyes it is the MPC-HC but for Linux.

It has all of the functionality that you would expect from a media player and more. A feature that popped out to me was the ability to change

the skin of the player which I instantly changed to the one found on MPC-HC because of the simplicity as pictured below.

 

(Click on the image to see it in full size)

 

I also love the fact that you can click the screen to pause/play... YES I KNOW it is like the lamest of features someone could possibly be

excited about when using a media player but I really got used to it on Windows and I valued it so yeah... The interface highly resembles the

one that is in MPC-HC so I surely felt home here and found it easy to navigate around with. One thing that I have notice and mentioned before

is that I do very rarely get slight stutter every 10 minutes or so and I think that the cause is either on the players side or the graphics driver. One

way or the other it’s nothing major or disrupting to a level that I would notice it as much so it isn’t much of a deal. Just to lastly mention I did throw

different types of videos at it starting with some 720p anime and ending with 1080p Bluray films and both ran as you would expect. Perfectly fine.

 

 

[Prince32780]

Why elementaryOS?

[Hyydrah]

Looking forward to the results.

[Damikiller37]

Why elementaryOS?

Because it is based of Ubuntu and as far as I'm aware it is the most commercially known distribution with the most applications for it. I've picked Elementary OS mainly because prefer the way it looks over Ubuntu

[Prince32780]

Is this on a laptop or a desktop?

[Damikiller37]

Is this on a laptop or a desktop?

A desktop. It's specs are in my signature

[Wolfur]

 

 

 

This is my personal review/daily blog that is presenting you with my personal experiences as well as comparisons/observations that I have made

as a noob when it comes to Linux compared to Windows. I have used Windows ever since I've got a computer and now I have decided to give

Linux a go. I've been inspired to do this because of a unit that I have to do for my college course and since I always wanted to give a really

good go at Linux, now seemed like an appropriate time.

As you can see in the image above I will be switching from Windows 8 to Elementary OS Luna. I will report back each day with all of the things

that I have found out and compare as well as give pros and cons about different aspects that I will be faced with once using Elementary OS.

I hope you will enjoy your lecture for the following 30 days Make sure to follow this topic so that you get the updates!

 

 

Coming soon!

 

 

You aren't much of a gamer, are you? Switching to Linux basically destroys your rig's capabilities as far as gaming goes because there aren't many games that could utilize your gaming rig on Linux side of things. Here's hoping Valve can change this with SteamOS, Steam Machines and all that noise.

[Damikiller37]

You aren't much of a gamer, are you? Switching to Linux basically destroys your rig's capabilities as far as gaming goes because there aren't many games that could utilize your gaming rig on Linux side of things. Here's hoping Valve can change this with SteamOS, Steam Machines and all that noise.

 

Are you installing it alongside windows, or is it in a virtual machine?

Edited the introduction, check it again and it should answer your questions 

[Prince32780]

Are you installing it alongside windows, or is it in a virtual machine?

 

nvm, its in the intro now

[Prince32780]

I don't think you should switch back to windows for games. It won't be a true "iSwitched".

Try using wine, or running native games for linux, like SuperTuxKart or java and flash based games, like Minecraft.

And TF2 via steam for linux.

[TheSLSAMG]

I don't think you should switch back to windows for games. It won't be a true "iSwitched".

Try using wine, or running native games for linux, like SuperTuxKart or java and flash based games, like Minecraft.

And TF2 via steam for linux.

 

To be fair, Linus still used his iP4 during the Android iSwitched.

[SteepGnomeKing]

I don't think you should switch back to windows for games. It won't be a true "iSwitched".

Try using wine, or running native games for linux, like SuperTuxKart or java and flash based games, like Minecraft.

And TF2 via steam for linux.

 

I somewhat agree.

In the sense of, try and do everything you can first to get something running on Linux. Run wine, run anything to try and get it working on Linux.

Than if it doesn't you can use Windows and report that you either had low/higher performance while running it in linux, it was extremely difficult to get running, or wouldn't run. That way people can get a batter idea of the troubles and benefits of using Linux over Windows.

[Samdb]

Man, Elementary OS looks good. I might run it on a VM to see what it's like.

[bradscoolio]

I use linux on my laptop God speed!

[Damikiller37]

I somewhat agree.

In the sense of, try and do everything you can first to get something running on Linux. Run wine, run anything to try and get it working on Linux.

Than if it doesn't you can use Windows and report that you either had low/higher performance while running it in linux, it was extremely difficult to get running, or wouldn't run. That way people can get a batter idea of the troubles and benefits of using Linux over Windows.

Absolutely will! I will definitely want to install my Office 2013 and some smaller applications so I will keep in mind to include them and how hard it was for me to get them running I guess including guides that I potentially will use would be helpful for some so I will do that too.

[orangecat]

I don't see a point in making this post because everybody knows what Linux is currently capable of and yes its a more powerful OS under the hood but software is not always widely available. until gaming makes it way to Linux and it becomes mainstream Linux is always going to be a crappy OS. Not to say that Linux doesn't have its advantages but right now like 90% of PC users are running Windows so there is always going to be more software written for Windows. one more people start running Linux I will consider doing something like this but SteamOS hasn't come out and driver support on Linux is not that great.

[SteepGnomeKing]

I don't see a point in making this post because everybody knows what Linux is currently capable of and yes its a more powerful OS under the hood but software is not always widely available. until gaming makes it way to Linux and it becomes mainstream Linux is always going to be a crappy OS. Not to say that Linux doesn't have its advantages but right now like 90% of PC users are running Windows so there is always going to be more software written for Windows. one more people start running Linux I will consider doing something like this but SteamOS hasn't come out and driver support on Linux is not that great.

 

I disagree, not everyone knows a lot about tech. Some people are new, and some people find this forum just by googeling a question. This is a way for people who haven't tried Linux because they hear it is bad to get a better understanding of why and in what ways.

This will bring people to the site and inform a lot of people.

[Damikiller37]

I don't see a point in making this post because everybody knows what Linux is currently capable of and yes its a more powerful OS under the hood but software is not always widely available. until gaming makes it way to Linux and it becomes mainstream Linux is always going to be a crappy OS. Not to say that Linux doesn't have its advantages but right now like 90% of PC users are running Windows so there is always going to be more software written for Windows. one more people start running Linux I will consider doing something like this but SteamOS hasn't come out and driver support on Linux is not that great.

To be perfectly honest I'm doing this to challenge myself and to see if I can 'survive' without the operating system and the applications that I've been used to. One way or the other I will need to make a report of some kind for my college unit so I asked a question earlier today if people would want to read this and a lot of people wanted to so I made this thread. One way or the other I would be doing this so I might as well share my experience as a noob when it comes to Linux.

[orangecat]

I disagree, not everyone knows a lot about tech. Some people are new, and some people find this forum just by googeling a question. This is a way for people who haven't tried Linux because they hear it is bad to get a better understanding of why and in what ways.

This will bring people to the site and inform a lot of people.

True that it might bring people to the site but I was saying from the end user who is actually switching to the Linux distro it might not be worth it.

[Giddyguy]

I don't see a point in making this post because everybody knows what Linux is currently capable of and yes its a more powerful OS under the hood but software is not always widely available. until gaming makes it way to Linux and it becomes mainstream Linux is always going to be a crappy OS. Not to say that Linux doesn't have its advantages but right now like 90% of PC users are running Windows so there is always going to be more software written for Windows. one more people start running Linux I will consider doing something like this but SteamOS hasn't come out and driver support on Linux is not that great.

I actually don't know squat about Linux, what its limitations are, and why its much more powerful "under the hood". I am interested in this iSwitched because the OP is also a Linux noob and will educate us all on what Linux is like to a newcomer. However your point is also valid, most PC's run Windows and i really don't see Linux being too prominent in the near future. No reason not to try it though!

[Damikiller37]

Update: Day 0 has now been updated

[Rekhyt]

This looks promising, I'm interested. I second those who said it would be interesting if you tried gaming onLinux, be it with Wine or native games, to see what your experience is. Which isn't to say you shouldn't go play windows games if it doesn't turn out great

[Damikiller37]

This looks promising, I'm interested. I second those who said it would be interesting if you tried gaming onLinux, be it with Wine or native games, to see what your experience is. Which isn't to say you shouldn't go play windows games if it doesn't turn out great

Well we'll see how it goes I'm going to play around with it now and tomorrow give some feedback on things I did.

[Purple]

Because it is based of Ubuntu and as far as I'm aware it is the most commercially known distribution with the most applications for it. I've picked Elementary OS mainly because prefer the way it looks over Ubuntu.

You can customize and 'Linux' distro to look however you want it, but okay..

[3DDude]

Dude, you still need to watch Death Note?

Shame on you!