Switching to Windows: Not as easy as you think

[Jack2000]

i just want a nice and easy to use
98 with the xp's task management and an open source...
that is it no need to go further ... but ...noooooooooo
you just can't win!

[Orethrius]

You *DO* realise that 2k is open-source, right?  

[piratePenguin]

You *DO* realise that 2k is open-source, right?  

No wonder it kicks the balls of Windows XP :p

[Aloone_Jonez]

Hmm, I wonder if some of the Windows 2000 source code has found its way into WINE.

[WMD]

I doubt it.  The coding styles are so much different that it would look odd (and probably act that way, too).  Good luck actually finding something that would really fit into WINE properly.

Same goes for Samba.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

You *DO* realise that 2k is open-source, right?  

Wait a minute ... if Window$ 2k is open-source ... why isn't it free ?

[WMD]

He's kidding.  He's referring the source code leak that happened a while back.  I don't think the leaked tree will even compile.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Oh yeah that ... well then it would be 'leaked-source" not really open-source.

[Pathos]

Man, I've been using windows less and less in the last year and I'm finding it harder and harder to find how to change all the stupid little settings hidden all over the place.

Linux is by no means harder to use than windows. If you want to change a setting it'll be in /etc /home/user/.* /usr/share/ or /opt/

[WMD]

Since when were there settings in /usr/share or /opt?

[worker201]

There are settings in /usr/share, but nothing I would ever want to mess with.  For example, you can reconfigure the behavior of gedit by editing the xml file that controls its operations.  That's beyond reasonable customization, if you ask me.  Also, a lot of programs store their icons and system images there.  If you want to redesign Opera's logo, and replace it across the board (as opposed to just changing the icon), there seems to be a way to do that in /usr/share too.

No /opt in my FC4, so can't comment on that one.  Probably similar stuff though - opt is used for non-system programs, which I tend to store in /usr/local.  So /opt will have share folders as well.

[piratePenguin]

/opt would have etc or */etc subdirs which would store settings.
Menu information is stored in /usr/share/applications on GNOME and KDE in .desktop files. There's also sample configuration files stored in /usr/share for certain packages.

[Calum]

that's not how i would use /opt - i would have anything which installs into a normal directory structure (with lib, usr, bin and so on) into /usr/local (if not installing from rpm) but i would put anything with its own directory (like opera, openoffice.org and dillo - all of which can be had as rpms or some other different packaged thing) into /opt. so i would have a path like /opt/OpenOffice.org1.0/Program/ooffice but i would still put symlinks into /usr/local/bin to avoid all the $PATH related agony i would have to go through regarding the executables.

[worker201]

I have read about people who complain that putting everything in /usr/local is too BSD-ish, and prefer /opt.  Of course, in reality, the filesystem heirarchy is your toy to play with - as it should be.

[piratePenguin]

I have /usr/local symlinked to '.' (i.e. /usr). Genius idea IMO. Debian GNU/Hurd symlinks /usr to '.' (i.e. '/'), that's where I got it from. I don't usually put anything in /opt (everything in /usr), except older GCC versions which I sometimes need and don't want to fuck with my proper GCC.