My opinion, observations and experiences...

[MkIII_Supra]

Observations and opinions:

This is my written observations and opinions on Linux in general. I already know I am going to tick off quite a few people. I don't really care if I do or not, I am finally expressing my 8 years of experiences and observations of Linux. If you don't agree, that's fine. But don't come bashing me for my opinions and observations and experiences with Linux.

I started with Linux back in 1999, when my Windows 98 crashed hard and took a larger Word document with it. I was in the Navy at the time working on a 300+ page document for my upper chain of command... due of course the next morning after the crash! Long story short, I was introduced to then German SuSE 6.3 (maybe it was 6.2...) that my neighbor was using. So I went to Fry's to purchase SuSE Linux and go from there. I wasn't savvy enough to download and install from the internet at the time.

Fry's didn't have SuSE so I got Mandrake 6.5 instead. It wasn't until 2001 that I was actually able to run a Linux system 100% without Microsoft, but that only lasted until about 2003 when I had to dual boot due to work needs. I learned a ton of things about PC's and Operating Systems back then, because of Linux. I started to understand how PC's worked and how to diagnose a PC that was dead or dying. I started to get comfortable with command line and re-compiling kernels and such. In a nut shell I was becoming a pretty savvy Linux user back then. Things changed and Linux got easier to use. I found myself not in the command line as much (hallelujah for that!) and I found that the GUI and applications were improving. I still use the command line on occasion, just because I want to keep some of my skills but I am finding I don't really need it anymore with modern Linux systems.

BUT, there is always that evil but! And that is I also found that Linux was and still is sorely lacking in many areas and still difficult to use in others. Like most normal people that have personal relationships (I have a daughter which I get partial custody of and a girlfriend) and other hobbies (bicycling, backpacking, camping...), I did not (and still don't really) want to be tied to a computer trying to get something that should work, to work! I found that consistency between distributions was non-existent. KDE would look and feel one way under Mandrake (now Mandriva), SuSE, Mepis... so on. There was no consistency or standard between distributions using the same Window Manager! The consistency I am speaking of is the look, feel and application function / usability of KDE from one system to another. The ability to compile / install tarballs between systems as well. The other lack of consistency was and still is with hardware as well. Sure they all detect the hardware and for the most part, get it right. But on many occasions that is where the systems diverge. Some would pick up a scanner (with quite a bit of effort) and I could use it, some would load the same scanner with no effort on my part (how it should be!) and others no matter what, I could see the scanner but it would never work, no matter what I did or what file I tweaked. I only pick a scanner as one of many examples.

Case in point, I moved to SuSE 9.0 after Mandriva started to get flaky and act like Windows in the sense that it would randomly lock up or crash. At first I thought it was hardware failing since historically that had been the case with a flaky Linux system, but after a thorough inspection and testing and of course loading different distributions, I came to the realization it was Mandriva. Lo and behold! Hardware that didn't work with Mandriva (scanners, printers and web cams... which I still have and use) worked with SuSE. Only thing changed was the distribution. SuSE was also faster and it didn't crash (kernel panic) or lock up! Well that is until the 10.0 series. And for the first time I was able to use proprietary nVidia drivers and get full 3D from my video cards! But SuSE had a dark side as well. Having compiled several kernels in my earlier days I was very comfortable doing so and in order to speed the system up a bit, I felt it necessary. But not one single kernel I recompiled for any of the SuSE distributions ever works. They all panicked. I searched all over and tried every solution I could find. Same results. After two years of trying, I finally quit trying to recompile kernels and just lived with whatever was installed.

Then the software nightmare with SuSE! Man what a headache that became! If it wasn't an RPM from SuSE (Novell) I was in for a fight to install it. 90% of the time I would succeed but of that about 20% ended with a system that was unstable and flaky as all get out. And don't even TRY to compile a tarball! I had a 100% failure rate with those as well. As in not one single tarball installed. Every single one of them failed and all the searching of the error codes never resolved that issue either. So I just finally gave up and accepted what software came with SuSE as what I could use. End of headache.

The OpenSuSE (still SuSE but now under Novell... of sorts) 10. series came out and wow! What a leap in everything except for speed... what!? Yup that's right, my systems started to slow to a crawl. Then to top it off networking and printer sharing and such broke. I couldn't share my printer out to my other systems in the house anymore, I had to go back to SuSE 9.2 to get that function back again. Then the wireless card issue... over a year I fought to get my wireless card to work (my posts on it are here...) to no avail. Meanwhile I am trying other distributions out. Kubuntu, Ubuntu, Mepis... on and on, trying to find that one distribution that would fulfill my needs and wants without consuming my time to set-up and maintain. You see that is the key here. My time is precious and I don't want to spend my precious time that I could be using my PC or doing other things trying to get something simple to frigging work.

7+ years I had fought with and cajoled Linux along. And until recently, I have always been disappointed with the end result, it never was what or how I wanted... no matter how hard I tried and how many hours I put into it. But even under threat of abandoning Linux, I stuck it out. Right now PCLinuxOS seems (let me emphasize the word SEEMS) to be working out. My wireless card, the same one that I fought with tooth and nail under OpenSuSE, worked with 5 minutes of setting it up... and it still works. But the sleep functions and other laptop features that did work with SuSE, don't seem to be working with PCLinuxOS. But that is not as important to me at this moment (that will change I am sure). So here I am in year 8 and PCLinuxOS seems (again emphasis SEEMS) to be footing the bill. Hopefully it continues to do so.

I for the first time in my 8 years of using Linux have been able to mount Windows drives as part of my system without having to open Konqueror and type smb\\192.168.0.1\C$ it was in my file system and it mounts at boot time. All the directions I had read and the failed attempts with SuSE and Mandriva (ironic too because PCLinuxOS is a Mandriva off shoot!), it took me 10 minutes to set up with PCLinuxOS and Webmin... and it works great. My PC's, 2 desktops and 1 laptop all NOW haul booty. My 1.2GHz Duron system fly's as fast as it did with Windows 98 and even Windows 2000 Pro 7 years ago, it just doesn't crash! My dual core AMD 3800+ screams along with PCLinuxOS compared to OpenSuSE it's a Ferrari instead of a Lada. It was painfully slow with OpenSuSE and the other pro for PCLinuxOS, it seems to use memory MUCH BETTER than any of the other distributions I have tried.

Linux has made some massive strides in the last few years in ease of use and look and feel. I will acknowledge this and agree that they are good steps. BUT Linux still is too inconsistent and disjointed for non-technical users, this is my honest opinion again based on my experiences with various Linux distributions and hardware. And maybe so long as it is pre-installed for the average user and they are trained, it can possibly be a good desktop. But the inconsistent way application run or don't run, install or don't install is still an Achilles heel the Linux coders need to address. Having tried at least 9 distributions in the last 2 years (and that is a lot of time I wish I could have back!) I have found that Linux really isn't ready for the masses yet, it's not consistent in look, feel and application functionality. Until the inconsistent feel and menu layouts and application installation and compiling are cleaned and consistent through all the major distributions, Linux will continue to be a “geeks” OS and a curiosity at best on the desktop.

Sure I have succeeded and managed to stay 100% Linux since 2005 ( I had to dual boot for a while because I had several applications that I needed for work that had no Linux equivalent and wouldn't work with wine or crossover). But that has been at a huge price of time and inability to enjoy some things that my Windows using counter-part could enjoy. I don't know how many videos I was not able to watch or how many web sites I couldn't fully enjoy because of the limitations of Linux. Granted these are rapidly changing now, and it's about time. But there is still the multi-media inconsistency throughout the distributions as to how various media files are handled. And yes I have managed to get most of them to work. But that is time I would have rather spent enjoying the video.

I will continue to use Linux in the hopes that one day it gains hardware vendor support and that some of the Windows only and even Macintosh only formats and applications become available. But until then I will live with the shortcomings and continue to use the various work arounds I have learned to do what I want to do. But the truth is Linux is still not quite ready for the general masses. And so long as an update doesn't fudge things up, I am able to use my Linux with more efficiency than Windows.

Right now PCLinuxOS seems to be on the right track. Once key thing is at least when the kernel is updated PCLinuxOS will also update my proprietary nVidia driver, OpenSuSE would crash X and I would have to manually re-run the nVidia installer to get X back. This is just one example of what I mean. Mom and Dad average do not want to deal with that... they want it to just work, like a toaster or a microwave. It's getting there... maybe next year.

Me, I am just a power user that doesn't want to be bothered with getting under the hood to make something simple work. As I get older I find I have less patience and my desire to get under the hood wanes. I am finding that I have other things I would rather do. Like my car, I just want my PC to work. And yes I can do the maintenance on my car, I can rebuild the entire power train should I need too... but why? I'll pay a mechanic to do that while I am out doing something else more fun. And that is how I am starting to view my PC. I don't want to futz with it... like about 80% (a guess but I would say relatively accurate) of the other PC users out there, we just want to use it not work on it.

[stumbles]

That was a very good read and have no issues with what you said.

[boxxertrumps]

I've actually never tried to compile a tarball before.
What do i have to do?

[stumbles]

I've actually never tried to compile a tarball before.
What do i have to do?

Well that depends on what the tarball is and what dependencies it may have. The process is quite easy once you have all the pieces in place. Most it will be one of two ways;

./configure && make
and logged in a root; make install

Well there is a lot more to it than that. If you just run with the defaults of ./configure it almost always will set things up to be installed into /usr/local. If that is not where you want it then you have to say;

./configure --prefix=/usr

Some tarballs you have to diddle with a Makefile in lieu of ./configure. But the rest is the same, make && make install (mostly).

Also depending on what it is you really have to know what your doing else you could seriously hose things, like totally break your toolchain. You know, things like glibc and gcc.

Again it really depends on what the tarball is.

[crow2icedearth]

It wasn't until 2001 that I was actually able to run a Linux system 100%

wow that shocks me because i started with linux in 1997. at that time it was such a pain to install . had to install from floppys because cd burners wernet common back then..... a install would take a long time if one floppy failed. using dd or rawrite to write it to a floppy was a pain and the ***.......

i was glad that over time burners became norm and iso images were used which are much easier. i used linux from 1997 - 99 off and on then became fulltime around 99

[MkIII_Supra]

Okay, I went back and read the parent post... pretty much covered all bases. But there are a couple things I want to clarify and add.

1. My old AMD Duron PC is now at the office (UC Santa Cruz) and is my development / internet workstation. Here are the specifications for that:

MONITOR: 17" Sony Trinitron
MOTHER BOARD: ASUS A7V8X-X
CPU: AMD Duron 1.2GHz Cache = 64MB
RAM: 1.25GB PC-2700
HARD DRIVE: 20GB 7200RPM Quantum Fireball
HARD DRIVE: 40GB 7200RPM Maxtor
HARD DRIVE: 80GB 7200RPM Western Digital
I am guessing on the drives since the system is at work... I will correct it tomorrow
OPTICAL DRIVE(S): AOpen 5224 CD-RW 52x24x52x / Generic USB 16X DVD RW
VIDEO: NV18 GeForce4 MX440 AGP 8x 64MB RAM
SOUND: Creative Ensoniq CT5880
MODEM: N/A
NETWORK: 3-Com 3c905 100BaseTX [Boomerang]
INPUT: Dell keyboard / Inland 5 button with scroll wheel trackball
PRINTER(S): HP 4250 LaserJet via network connection.
SCANNER: N/A
OS: PCLinuxOS TR4

I have a total of 7 Windows systems mapped into my Linux system so I have full access with all my applications! This may seem trivial to some, but to me it's massive in that after many years of trying with other distributions and having sporadic and limited success, this is awesome. And it was effortless, like I said earlier. I have the proprietary nVidia drivers installed and another nice thing, a GUI tool for postgresql. I was going to use MySQL but that nasty thing reared it's head and I can't get MySQL to function properly on this box. But it works fine on my home system! Go figure!

2. My laptop, this is a system that I travel with for both work and personal use.

System Manufacture: Toshiba
Make / Model: Satelite A15-S129
Hard Drive: Toshiba 80GB 7200RPM IDE
CPU Manufacture: Celeron
CPU Type/Speed: 2.4GHz
RAM Specs: 1GB PC-PC2100 SDRAM
Video Card: Intel 855GM AGP 4X
Optical Drives: 8X DVD / 24X CD/CD-R - 10X CD-RW
NIC: Intel GM855
Modem: Intel 56K
NIC: Intel / WPC54G Ver. 3 Notebook Adapter
Sound Card: Intel
monitor: 15 in. XGA TFT Active Matrix
Mouse: Inland 5 button trackball / Touchpad
Operating System: PCLinuxOS TR4

Under SuSE and OpenSuSE, all the ACPI functions worked flawlessly. But under PCLinuxOS, it doesn't appear to be the case. I will futz with it a little bit this weekend and see what I can get going. But the bonus is wireless works great. Although I have to reload the ndiswrapper driver anytime I move to a new location. Minor irritant but one I can live with for now. I am just happy the stupid thing finally works!

3. And the main system I have at home. This is my main system that I use to create DVD projects of family photos and such. I also use it for e-mail, finance tracking and other general use things. I don't program on this system since I don't want to mess with the set up now that I have every thing that I want and need working 99%. I still have a couple small minor things to iron out, which I will in due time.

MONITOR: Avidav LCD 17” Flat Panel
CPU: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ 2GHz dual core 640kb + 640kb cache
POWER SUPPLY: Coolmax 80mm ATX 450W
HARD DRIVE: Seagate 80GB SATA-II / 8MB cache / SATA-300
HARD DRIVE: Seagate 160GB SATA-II / 8MB cache / SATA-3G
VIDEO CARD: MSI NX7300LE PCI-E 128MB DDR2 nVidia GeForce 7 Series
MOTHERBOARD: ASUS M2V <GREEN> Socket AM2, VIA K8T890/VT8237A, HT2000, DDR2 800, PCI-e x16 Green ASUS
RAM: DDR2 Kingston matched 2GB 800MHz
SOUND: Creative SoundBlaster AudioPCI 128
OPTICAL DRIVE: Generic 16x DVD RW/R
SCANNER: Canon LiDE 35
PRINTER: HP Photosmart 8250
OS: PCLinuxOS 64bit TR4

So far this system has been 100% reliable. No major issues yet and I have been able to install from source tarballs with no issues arising. kind of nice! The only issue I have run into is my old Civilization CivCTP will not load the patches. But that could be because of the 64bit architecture and it was written a couple years ago. No real big loss. So far everything I have tried works. The next test is to print a photo onto photo paper from the Gimp. I tried with OpenSuSE several times and all I got was a bunch of text and no image and even then it would print a character or two then cycle through all the paper in the queue. I never did find out why that was.

So there, that is what I am running currently for hardware. I am in the process of looking to upgrade the Duron system in the next 6 moths, but I may hold off indefinitely so long as PCLinuxOS continues to perform reliably and fast.

PS: All three of these systems used to run OpenSuSE... all three performed like dogs. I was especially surprised by the dual core Athlon! It would take almost a minute to open OpenOffice, even with the OpenOffice quickstarter running! On my PCLinuxOS system it takes about 3-5 seconds to start. I think I may keep this going, I think it's about time people admit that Linux has issues. It's one thing I never see real Linux users admit. But I will, and there are some on this board that have known me for a while... and you know I will speak my mind regardless who it offends. I am not what you call "PC". Guess I am old school like that. A spade is a spade and a heart a heart. May your Linux experiences be far more pleasant then some of mine have been! Just don't quit without a fight... after all, just because I am admitting faults with the system, I still use it.

Corrected hardware on Work station.

[MkIII_Supra]

wow that shocks me because i started with linux in 1997. at that time it was such a pain to install . had to install from floppys because cd burners wernet common back then..... a install would take a long time if one floppy failed. using dd or rawrite to write it to a floppy was a pain and the ***.......

i was glad that over time burners became norm and iso images were used which are much easier. i used linux from 1997 - 99 off and on then became fulltime around 99

It wasn't until about 2002 that I downloaded and tried to burn my first ISO. But I continued to pay for my CD's until 2004... yeah, I think it was 2004 when I bought my last Linux distribution and started to download ISO's and baking my own.

[Parcival]

Me, I am just a power user that doesn't want to be bothered with getting under the hood to make something simple work. As I get older I find I have less patience and my desire to get under the hood wanes.

That's why I privately use only Mac computers with OS X as desktops after having made similar experiences. However, Linux still runs on my servers and I can't think of anything better for that purpose (well, *BSD, but I don't wanna dig into that either).

[mrBen]

I don't have issue with what you've said at all.

Personally, (and I offer this simply as an experience, rather than as a counter-argument, or anything like that) I am still really impressed with Ubuntu, not necessarily because it has got everything right, but because it appears to be going in the right direction, and going there quickly.

Case in point - videos on the internet. When you go to watch them in Totem (the default media player), if it can't find the codec, it now searches for an appropriate (gstreamer) codec, and offers to install. It's the little things like this that are gradually making it a desktop experience to be reckoned with.

I guess there are 2 sides to the coin. On the one hand, in your 7 years, things _still_ aren't "fixed", but on the other, look at all the progress that has been made in those 7 years.

[trilarian]

All valid points... really. I shared some of the same views when I started out - I remember it took me nearly a week to get sound to work on my first Linux install - until I just accepted my main desktop (which usually gets annual upgrades) will have to be a dual-boot as the new hardware will not always work with Linux right away. I was 18 at the time of my first Linux install, so the extra time wasn't as hard to come by as it is now. While I like the sense of accomplishment, I'd rather feel that from writing a program or something else significant instead of doing something simple like getting my NIC card to work.

Only suggestion I have for you, is if you don't mind making an initial investment of time to learn a different distro, try a distro that doesn't use RPMs. It's not a holy grail of a change, but I do find it MUCH easier to maintain my Debian servers (that use DEBs over RPMs) at the house over the SuSe servers at work. Apt-get, dselect, or aptitude - whichever you prefer - just seem so much easier in my eyes.

apt-get install x : install program x
apt-get dist-upgrade : upgrade all software

It doesn't get much easier than that. However, the initial install may take some time to do and learn the small differences. Also, once you configure a system, make a backup of your /etc and /home directories to keep your config files. A new install for me requires hardly any configuration as I just reuse the archived config files.

One thing I would really like to see happen, is the community as a whole understand the value of the dollar (or whatever money unit in the respective country) to business. Let me clarify here. What I mean is it is very hard to impossible for a "for profit" company to get board approval with their share holders to pay high amounts of money to programmers to write open source code when they can show $0 net gain in return(can't sell the code written). Yes, they can save money on not paying for a windows install. Yes, they can gain a market if they integrate Linux into their products. Yes, they can sell support on their products using Linux. However, where does that leave a 100% software company that has a piece of software they have been working on for 10 years? Don't get me wrong, I love the idealism of Linux and will most likely take it to the grave with me. I never want to see Linux become a paid licensing OS, nor do I want to see it go closed source. I just think to grab a large portion of the non-technical users and to have Linux able to work out-of-the-box with the newest technologies, there is going to have to be company programmer support and/or cooperation. And the only way I see the biggest companies that could affect that start to play nice, is for them to have an incentive to do so...

[IsaacKuo]

Until the inconsistent feel and menu layouts and application installation and compiling are cleaned and consistent through all the major distributions, Linux will continue to be a “geeks” OS and a curiosity at best on the desktop.

The inconsistent feel and menu layouts and application installation in Windows hasn't prevented Windows from being used by "normal" users on the desktop. (And compiling? On Windows?)

The feel and menu layouts in various Linux distributions are leaps and bounds ahead of the non-organized mish-mash of Windows.

Still, there's obviously room for improvement. There needs to be some sort of special "meta-package" file type which is little more than a package name plus perhaps some links to related files. The purpose of this "meta-package" file is so that you can make a generic link to a package on a web page. Thus, a user can simply click on that "meta-package" file and the distribution's package management system can take care of the rest to install the package. This file can either be on a local filesystem (e.g. e-mailed or on a thumbdrive), or it can be on a web page.

This gives the advantages of a universal method of installing software without sacrificing the advantages of having a variety of package management systems. Gentoo fans don't have to give up compiler optimizations. Debian fans don't have to give up the Stable/Testing/Unstable options. Arch fans don't have to give up the flexible package creation/sharing options.

Even better, this generic "meta-package" link file could be used for different operating systems--the same web page link could be used for Linux, BSD, Solaric, Mac, Windows...anything.

[blackbelt_jones]

My milage may vary

I'll say it again; I'm convinced the problem is cultural, not technical. When users can get preinstalled, preconfigured Linux on a decent computer and support at their local computer shop, and when everybody knows someone they can ask for simple answers, Linux will be ready for the "nontechnical users".

As so often happens, I am confronted with a user whose experience differs from mine, and I can only shrug. I used SUSE for two years, and I didn't have any of the problems you mentioned. I didn't notice any difference in speed between 10.0 and 10.2, and I certainly managed to compile tarballs without incident (the secret may be to install all the development packages right away, including tons of stuff I never used.) But having set up the guru and and packman repositories in YAST, I rarely needed to compile anything.

I have recently switched back to Debian, not because of any performance issues but because I like to use apt-get, because I had learned enough to solve the problems I used to have with Debian, and because I respect Richard Stallman enough to use an operating system that remembers to keep the "GNU" in it's official title. Plus all those packages!

[trilarian]

Very true... but that goes back to my statement on we need company(s) backing if you want the common person that only checks emails, looks at video clips online, etc. crowd(at least in the areas with a standing windows saturation). To them, even installing windows is scary. However, even with a pre-installed Linux, I've seen hesitation because they can't just ask their neighbor how to solve a problem - they have to call someone specialized with Linux.

The other point to that is you get the power user that has some techincal saviness to them(burns DVDs, rips MP3s, etc.) that will have the latest and greatest hardware and want it to work without any major setup. If the hardware vendors start providing offical Linux packages on the install CD then you would see more of these users that are satisfied. After all, they could put there money into better hardware instead of wasting it on a crappy OS.

It has come a long way, as I now recommend Linux to people I never would have before(mainly because I didn't want 24/7 tech support calls), and some companies are starting to catch on. Many printer and ups companies offer linux install files now. However, I don't think I could convince my parents just yet to give it a whirl...

[blackbelt_jones]

The truth is that Linux is ready for the "nontechnical user" who knows what he or she is in for. Learning Linux is easier than learning the guitar or a foreign language, and a lot less scary than learning how to drive.

No one was more "nontechnical" than me when I started. I was the last person in my family to get an online computer, and that includes both my parents. It took a lot of time, effort and frustration for me to learn Linux. (I'd argue that much of that was unnecessary, that more user-oriented documentation would have helped immensely, and great strides have been made in that area in the past few years, and I still intend to write my own book one day. )

But it was doable, and I did it (to the extent that I can now do everything I want from the linux desktop, usually faster and more conveniently than in Windows) and it was completely worth it. If Linux never achieves a desktop that is as dumbed-down as Windows, it will always be available to those who want to make the effort. Those who don't can go ahead and use whatever Steve Ballmer tells them to use, but anyone who is forty or younger (and I'm almost fifty) who expects to use a computer for an hour a day for the rest of their life can expect the time and effort invested in learning linux to be rewarded abundantly over a computer lifetime.

Nontechnical people can learn if they want to. Learning is good, not bad. Anyone who has IQ above 90 can take some time away from their gaming and porn and learn about the most exciting and culturally significant technology since Gutenberg. If you don't want to make the effort, that's valid, but you are invited.

[The Coder]

I am not arguing just stating my opinion. I agree, i also have ran into frustrating problems with Linux. For example I am still having problems getting my HP Laserjet 1012 printer working properly and reliably in Linux(Got it to work in one release and stoped working in another). It is atleast 3 years old, but am having problems. I have been using Linux, various distros etc since about 97, when I first started with Redhat 5.1. Here are some of my comments/observations...

• If you want a distro where you just put it in and it installs and configures easily, I would choose *buntu. I was using Ubuntu when it first started and I was impressed even back then. I have used Redhat, Slackware and SUSE and I love Ubuntu in many respects.

• I give a lot of credit to the open source community/developers. I think the biggest thing holding further progress back is the lack of company cooperation in relation to creation of drivers. The first company that comes to mind is Creative. Neither do these companies release good drivers themselves nor do they release the source code or the way the hardware works for the open source developers to write a driver. Even with these hurdles, there have been many reverse engineered drivers etc that work pretty good. The reason Windows and Mac seem so "easy" is that they deal directly with a lot of companies and these companies write drivers specifically for their OS. If this situation improves, which it has, Linux will be easier to use than Mac or Windows. It has a larger community looking at the code and fixes come much quicker than any of the other OSs I know.

• A lot of your satisfaction of Linux depends on the particular use that you have for it and the hardware you are using. For example, most all my hardware is fully supported in Linux and so I am quite happy with it. But if I had a wireless network setup I might not be so happy.

• I think Linux is pretty good for the desktop for a basic user today. My definition of a basic user is someone who uses the PC for Wordprocessing, Internet surfing and email. I think linux has pretty stable apps for all these purposes.