Ubuntu-MATE continues to impress
- Thread starter Fritz
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I've been using MATE on Fedora Linux for years, and gnome2 before the gnome3/shell silliness happened. Fedora Linux has been my primary desktop OS since 2008. I keep 1 laptop with Windows on it for those situations where I really need it, but other than that, I've been MS-free for almost a decade.
I think Windows still shines as a desktop OS in 2 areas:
1) Outlook : still seems critical for those in the corporate world. for me, i've gone with thunderbird plus various extensions to sync my contacts and such with Google cloud stuff and i haven't regretted it nor missed anything from my days using Outlook. everyone's use-case is different, so I can see how that might not be sufficient for others.
2) Games : gaming on linux has gotten a lot better, both native games or via wine, etc. but it seems Windows is still the primary OS platform for most PC games. as i'm getting older and priorities shift to family and other things, i don't miss it that much honestly. but i can see how this would be an issue for some.
I mostly use MATE for my desktop environment (+compiz+emerald), especially when I need to be productive. I play with Gnome3 just to see how it's progressing, but I still find it frustrating when I just need to get work done and find myself switching back to MATE. I've switched to KDE a few times in the past, and it is fine and all, but I have a personal preference for MATE now (which use to be the other way, i think MATE/Gnome2 has matured a lot). I occasionally play with Enlightenment, as that was one of my favorites back in the early days of desktop linux, but hasn't stuck with me. My friends keep telling me I'll really love xmonad, but then again those are the same friends that love Gentoo, which I find to be unproductive mental masturbation.
Glad to see others finding Linux as desktop OS usable...
I think Windows still shines as a desktop OS in 2 areas:
1) Outlook : still seems critical for those in the corporate world. for me, i've gone with thunderbird plus various extensions to sync my contacts and such with Google cloud stuff and i haven't regretted it nor missed anything from my days using Outlook. everyone's use-case is different, so I can see how that might not be sufficient for others.
2) Games : gaming on linux has gotten a lot better, both native games or via wine, etc. but it seems Windows is still the primary OS platform for most PC games. as i'm getting older and priorities shift to family and other things, i don't miss it that much honestly. but i can see how this would be an issue for some.
I mostly use MATE for my desktop environment (+compiz+emerald), especially when I need to be productive. I play with Gnome3 just to see how it's progressing, but I still find it frustrating when I just need to get work done and find myself switching back to MATE. I've switched to KDE a few times in the past, and it is fine and all, but I have a personal preference for MATE now (which use to be the other way, i think MATE/Gnome2 has matured a lot). I occasionally play with Enlightenment, as that was one of my favorites back in the early days of desktop linux, but hasn't stuck with me. My friends keep telling me I'll really love xmonad, but then again those are the same friends that love Gentoo, which I find to be unproductive mental masturbation.
Glad to see others finding Linux as desktop OS usable...
I installed Win 7 in a VirtualBox VM for those occasions when I need a windows based program. The main Windows program I use the most is Advanced IP Scanner. ArpScan doesn't list names which I think is kinda stupid. I still need to get my contacts from Outlook into Thunderbird and it would be nice if I could import my old emails but that's no big deal. Starting out fresh is nice. LibreOffice does everything I need it to do so I'm not missing MS Office a bit. There are a few idiosyncrasies I could do without such as having to click once on a icon and then doubleclicking to open/run and the picture viewer not following the sort rules of the picture folder and a feww others but I'll get used to them. Quiting Microsoft feels as good as quitting cigarettes once you get over the hump. 
I don't know if the version of MATE on Ubuntu is similar to MATE on Fedora; I would imagine they are not too different. In my MATE desktop, I can directly double-click on icons without having to click them once first; you might want to check your mouse settings (From Menu: System->Preferences->Hardware->Mouse) and see if maybe you can adjust.There are a few idiosyncrasies I could do without such as having to click once on a icon and then doubleclicking to open/run and the picture viewer not following the sort rules of the picture folder and a feww others but I'll get used to them. Quiting Microsoft feels as good as quitting cigarettes once you get over the hump.
Also, I don't know which picture viewer you are using; you can pretty much choose any program you prefer. For application preferences, From Menu: System->Preferences->Personal->Preferred Applications. Maybe try out a few different image viewers. "Eye of MATE" or "gThumb" are common ones to try with very basic image editing. Although a heavier app, "GIMP" gives you full blown image editing features.
I too have a Windows (10 in my case) VM image for basic Windows applications, but graphics intensive stuff doesn't work well in VM, at least not with KVM that I'm using. Does VirtualBox do well with graphics in a Windows VM? My Windows VM takes up a 40GB disk though, and that just seems so bloated...
As for "office" applications, I honestly just use Google Docs/Sheets/etc. most of the time. If I have to, as a backup, I'll use LibreOffice, but I rarely use it.
Thanks. Still exploring and tweaking but no major issues or problems at this point. Graphics in a VirtualBox sucks really bad. Windows 7 performance rating is 1.0. Not really an issue for me the only gaming I do is FreeCell and Mahjongg and both are excellent in Ubuntu. But when I check 2D and 3D acceleration I get a invalid setting detected error message. But I'm also running on board video so I'm not expecting much. Don't know if a better video card would affect VM graphics or not.