How to make linux feel like windows

Anyone missing windows ? Not me, but sometimes is good to go back to windows just to see how it was in the old days when nothing worked well and you would have a crash every few minutes or reinstall once a week.

Do that and you'll realize how privileged you are for using a Unix like os and be thankful to those that develop and contribute to it.

Don't want to reinstall it ? Well here's a little script inspired by the author of random lines ( a program that reads lines from a file or stdin, randomizes them and then outputs them ) that will make your linux system feel like windows:

  1. span style="color: #ff0000;">'{print $1}'

I recommend running the script as root and only if you understand completely what it does. You may not see immediate results, have confidence and let it run for some time like an hour or more. If you want to see results faster you can replace 3600 with 360 or even 36 or less.

You will need random lines ( rl ) installed if you want this script to run or you can modify it and replace every occurrence of "rl --count=" with "shuf -n " if you have shuf (should be there if you have coreutils and most distros have it )

Feel free to let me know how your "back to windows experience" affected you 🙂 ...

23 thoughts on “How to make linux feel like windows

  1. If your Windows crashed so often it’s because of you, I reinstall it about twice a year, and even if you would be surprised Linux crashes too…

    I wonder if there are any patches “How to make Windows feel like Linux” that minimizes the chance of finding a proper driver.

  2. wohoo slow down … No flame war intended … but yeah it was my fault because windows crashed, and I know what the problem was. I was actually using it intensively and you’re not supposed to do that. Linux never really crashed in about 8 years since I’m using it.
    And btw there are patches for “How to make Windows feel like Linux” they are called Vista

  3. I just realized I said something that’s not true. I take back the >> And btw there are patches for “How to make Windows feel like Linux” they are called Vista

  4. The pros that are using intensively Windows (I use it just for Solitaire) complain often about crashes? I think that most complains come from beginners that don’t use it right, if all of them would use Linux I think you wouldn’t be so sure that your OS is so crash free.

    If you love Linux so much that doesn’t mean it’s the best option for everybody.

  5. ok, so I was a beginner, let’s assume that… and let’s assume that everybody is a beginner and this is why worms spread very well on windows even with all those firewalls and antivirus programs.
    But you are missing one point, most of us are Linux or Unix users, you are too, this blog is hosted on a FreeBSD server, when you comment on it you’re using FreeBSD. Ever used google,yahoo, youtube,digg? what do you think they run? how many times have you used live.com instead of google ?
    The chances are you’re more a unix user then you are a windows user…more then 60 percent of the webservers out there run apache, and most of them run some form of unix.
    This post was not written as an advocate to Linux, it was more like “here’s a fun way to use your computer … does this remind you of anything …?”

  6. Worms spread by fooling users into something or by exploiting vulnerabilities in operating systems, and my opinion is that Linux users are harder to fool and vulnerabilities in Linux don’t give much interest because it’s not such a popular OS for the home users. Where Linux is popular (webservers), it’s not that perfect, I’ve heard about Windows based servers being safer than others in some cases.

    The user can choose witch OS suites best for him, by that I’m saying that all have advantages and disadvantages.

  7. In other words you are saying “windows users are fools” and “no one cares about cracking the big players they just want to read that dude’s email” .

    “Windows based servers being safer than others in some cases” of course they are … in the exact cases where microsoft pays a statistics firm to do a “survey”. But you know what they say that there are three types of lies: “Lies, damn lies and statistics”. Wake up and smell the facts. In the e commerce and business world you don’t use something because it’s popular, you use it because it’s safe, stable and reliable.

  8. It’s like tennis here, the ball bounces from one court to another, but you are more like a wall. You’re just a Windows hater and don’t admit that in some cases Windows is better.
    It’s not like Windows users are fools, but they are a lot more than Linux users, so if you want to do some damage, you want to affect a large number of computers.

  9. This is getting funny 🙂
    I’m not a windows hater. Again, my purpose was not to show the good parts of windows or Linux. The purpose was just to make your linux box behave like windows behaves sometimes or for some users. Happy now ? I use what I use and I like what I like and you are free to do the same.

    I didn’t say windows users are fools, you did (“by fooling users into something” …. ” Linux users are harder to fool” ), I don’t agree with this. I think there are smart users and less smart users in both camps. Not all Linux users are l33t, a lot use it because they are l33t wannabes or because of the buzz around it.

    I think you can’t argue if you don’t use both on a regular basis, I stopped doing this ( using both ) years ago, and you never really used Linux (like you said in a previous comment in another post ).
    One thing is for sure, I use Linux for everything, and I never felt limited in some way, but when I go back to windows from time to time I do feel like that.
    You would probably feel the same if you start using Linux, if all you want is to see what this buzz is all about. And you’ll probably drop it again once some small and insignificant detail is not how you want it or how it was on windows, but remember Linux is not supposed to be like windows, that’s the whole point of using it.

  10. You can’t compare the users of the two OSs, maybe you didn’t meet persons that use computers and are a mess, you don’t even know where to begin to explain something to them. If you managed to install Linux you’re a master compared to these folks.

    I argued from the Windows side of view, I haven’t said something wrong about Linux without seeing it first, and yeah, thats the perfect word to describe my feelings using Linux “limited”.

  11. You’re basically saying what I did. You said you’ve seen Linux. You don’t see an Os you have to use it. For how long did you use it ?

  12. I’ve tried using it often to see how it goes, also for the AI project but it didn’t clicked for me, so I haven’t used it that much.

    I mainly hated wasting half an hour searching forums do do some basic stuff.

  13. Like I said before, Linux is not Windows and it shouldn’t be. Just because you don’t know how to use it because it’s not like windows it doesn’t mean it’s not better then windows.
    and we are back to “who’s better” 🙂 … we could go on like this forever… This post will be the most commented post. Too bad others don’t join the conversation.

  14. I haven’t said Windows is better, but that it suites me:

    “The user can choose witch OS suites best for him, by that I’m saying that all have advantages and disadvantages.”

    Probably if you reach a level of knowledge in Linux it’s better, but the beginning sucks big time. And there is also the fault of the hardware manufacturers, who don’t offer much support for Linux.

    This will keep on going till I get my top commentator award 8)

  15. I installed Ubuntu on a dell inspiron laptop for someone with zero computing background ( http://patchlog.com/linux/the-ubuntu-buzz/ ) and that person has no problems with it, so the level of Linux knowledge was 0, but she can use it for the exact things she would have used windows.
    You could say that she has no problems because she didn’t have to install it, but the install was pretty straight forward and anyway in a close future more and more computers will have Linux preinstalled.
    More and more hardware manufacturers are starting to realize they have to provide support or at least open their specs so that the open source community can write drivers.

  16. She is using Linux only because of you, and you are saying that she didn’t complained at all? If she is using it for office, internet, movies and music (if you are satisfied with half of what your soundboard can do) it’s the same thing, but don’t tell me that she is installing new programs or that she fully understands the file system. If she does that you’re a lucky dude :mrgreen:

  17. “She is using Linux only because of you”… I’m proud of this :), she did ask me how she can burn a cd, but she didn’t know how to do that on windows either … I took me about 1 hour to show her everything she needed to do.
    “if you are satisfied with half of what your soundboard can do” … I think you know this is just an empty statement and even if that would be the case a) this isn’t really a linux problem and b) not every user is a DJ and not everyone needs the sound effects from matrix
    She wouldn’t be installing new programs on windows either. but she can install programs from a repository of thousands of such programs with one click.

    And why would anyone need to “fully understand” the filesystem in order to use a computer ? Can you tell me that you fully understand windows’s filesystem? Can you tell me that you know the format of FAT32 or NTFS or that you know what every file in the windows folder is for ? I bet not!

  18. I installed something and it didn’t made a shortcut, and then where the **** is that software, anyway the file system kinda confused me, the general look not the detailed one (re:this is not Windows…), the deal with the soundboard is that what’s the point of having some over 50$ board if you don’t have the software to configure it, my onboard even sounds better (my bad if there is software, didn’t try that hard to find it)

    About software like Synaptic… it’s one of the best things about Linux.

  19. if the something you installed didn’t make a shortcut that’s not Linux’s fault it’s the “something”‘s fault. If you install some crappy software on windows and it doesn’t crate a shortcut is that windows fault ?
    The solution to your soundcard problem is this: buy a soundcard that is supported. You spend time looking for your soundcard anyway ( I assume you do this if you are wiling to pay $50 for it, my on board card is just fine for me ) so why not look for one that is supported. But really with alsa, what sound card didn’t work ?

  20. Creative Audigy, don’t remember now the exact name of the model, the problem were not the drivers, but the software to configure it, yeah, and my Logitech mouse

  21. What do you mean there is “no software to configure” your Audigy? I have an Audigy 2 Platinum and it works just fine in Linux using kmix or rexima.

    As far as your mouse goes, the configuration software is called either XF86config-4 or xorg.conf depending on your system build.

  22. kmix is so light, and it didn’t work either, my headphones sounded quite ok, but the speakers sounded terrible, anyway it’s in tha past, I will use Linux only if it’s absolutely necessary.

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