Many hours later it struck me that maybe it was asking for the log on password? though doing that via a DOS promt is hardly the way to win over users from windows..
TalJechin wrote on 03/15/10 at 19:52:27:
I'm also considering Ubuntu - if there is a free 64 bit version then why spend dough on Windows 7?!
What linux programs for chess should I install if the only purpose is to use it for analysis?
Is Scid the best for that or is there an alternative? How about setting up engine matches, shoot-outs and similar - is that possible in the Linux chess world too?
Is it easy to install engines in linux? One thing I didn't like with Linux last time I tried it, is that you don't get to choose to which folder you want to download stuff - so how do you find the files when installing?
Is there an easy to use compilator in the ubuntu basic installation? I've got the impression that many engines don't come compilated for ubuntu.
I have little doubt that Scid is the best chess database that runs on Linux. Development is ongoing, and there is a very active list server to which I subscribe (the list concerns Scid in all its forms, not only on Linux). I will vouch for DeepShredder12 and I assume plain Shredder12 would work fine as well. I can't vouch for any other chess software.
While I love Linux and really hate Windows, there are of course many reasons to prefer Windows 7. One is that it comes pre-installed; another is that if your focus is multi-media, there is a lot more software for Windows that Just Works. While distros like Ubuntu try to take the work out of it, with Linux you sometimes have to spend time configuring. If multimedia is not your thing, that is all the more reason to prefer Linux, which is free, can be installed to run just fine on small or obsolete machines, and unlike Windows, actually works.
My pet complaint against windows is the perpetually rebooting that the system demands. With Linux, the only time you need to reboot is when you've installed a new kernel. Indeed, I keep my Linux machine on for weeks on end with absolutely no ill effects. The only time I have to reboot is when I suffer a power failure.
Then there is that Windows is perpetually under attack by hackers, requiring everyone to run expensive and cpu-draining anti-intrusion software. There is a threat to anyone connected to the internet, of course, but so far Linux has not been a target, partly because it's more difficult to take control of a moderately-well-defended Linux machine.
Then there is that Windows always wants the lion's share of your cpu for its d--m widgets, 3-D effects and whatnot. With Linux if you want a minimalist window manager, you can have a nice interface that doesn't make any significant demands on your processors, saving them for your own work.
P.S. TalJechin: of course you get to choose where you download files. This however is not an operating system property but a property of whatever software you use to download files. If for example you use Firefox, my standard tool, you can change the download destination from the options menu. This applies to Firefox both on Windows and Linux. If you're using an ftp client, there too you have full control of where you download files.
Of course on Linux, which directories you can write to depends on your permissions. You can read up on that in any good Linux book. Normally I download to my home directory, which of course I have permission to write to.
Well, a few years ago I had a friend who was a Linux-fanatic, so I had/have Red Hat on my oldest computer, though the only use I found for it was playing Sokoban.
In windows I'm of course using FireFox, but it always allows me to choose where to save every file I download. I can't imagine why one would want to save everything in the same folder...
The safety of linux is a good 'selling point' as well as it is not expecting to be online all the time like windows.
Though it's annoying having to log in first as user and then as root. Since I'm the only one using my computer, I'd rather be able to start at once.