Yup... in fact the native Win NT API even shares many system call names with VMS. (The Win32 which people often mistake for the windows native API was supposed to be just one of many possible APIs including POSIX)
Except of course they don't "just work" under Windows, do they? Until you add the weasel words "with appropriate drivers".
You'd probably be better off with an audio focused linux distribution, not Mint - that's eye candy.
Some distributions of Linux already have appropriate drivers preloaded, just need to choose the right one - or understand how to compile them in (or create as modules) from source. Then you can be happy using any distribution.
Just takes a bit of googling with the hardware IDs (lspci, lsusb) of the equipment you have, and delving deeper. I find tinkering with driver code fun, and have even fixed a few hardware things in the past.
If you are fed up of "restoring boot sectors" investigate virtualization or purchasing an old ex-corporate true dual core desktop, available for less than 100 squids.
Still a darn site better than not working *at all* under any flavour of Linux, no matter what you do, short of writing and compiling a driver package or using the Windows driver with an emulation package, which only works in a small percentage of cases that I've tried.
I've been doing the same with Linux since the days when it came on a pair of floppies, and I've had the same results every time. Install, find it won't work, uninstall it, go back to DOS and Windows. If the compilers use something, it works, if they don't you'd better learn low level programming.
This is the core of the problem. YOU may find it "fun" tinkering around with drivers, compiling source and installing libraries and whatnot, but to most of us, we just want an OS that works out of the box with minimal - if any - issues. For most of us, trying to get an installation set up to be fully compatible with our hardware and to configure it just the way we want is a king-sized PITA. Particularly so in so many cases where you reach the point where you can't justify wasting any further time with it and realise all your efforts up to that point have been in vain. Personally I just want to get some *work* done with a computer - I'll get my "fun" elsewhere.
OH, well that's f***ed it for me, then. I was going to switch to BSD on the basis that because (so I thought) so few people used it no malware writers would be interested in it. Is there no escape? :(
And I've *never* run Windows on my personal computers. Ever. And I never intend to.
I've tried Ubuntu studio and that didn't work either, as the low level support isn't there for the stuff I use. It worked with the motherboard sound, but the best available from the outboard sound was two channels at 16 bits and 44.1 kHz out of the four available at 24 bits and 48 kHz.
I managed to get the phone working by using a script to invoke pppd and other network layers after installing a number of packages. Once.
I don't find it fun, and would rather get on with using the computer.
I'm not so much fed up of restoring the boot sector, that takes a few seconds with a boot CD. What pisses me off is that Linux doesn't work for me, and never has except for the most basic functions. For example, I am using the same mail folders and news folders for Thunderbird on both Mint and XP, and can use either with no problems, and even keep track of read articles when I switch platforms. Similarly, with documents, Libre Office works in exactly the same way on both platforms. Then I connect a video camera and try to edit some video, or connect the USB soundcard, and it doesn't work. It works with the stills as long as I save them as jpegs in camera, but last time I fired the GIMP up, it choked on the RAW format files from the camera as the camera is too new to be supported.
Incidentally, I've been going through this cycle since Linux came on a couple of floppies glued to the front of the magazines. In those days, it was normally the graphics card I couldn't get X to run on, although I did once manage to get a 486 running X while hosting a couple of text terminals, both running under Windows terminal on the other end of some thin ethernet, running adventure on the server.
There's no such thing as a "Totally Proofed Against Malware" OS (but
*nix based distros come a very close second to this ideal).It's not just the "Security by Obscurity" effect at work here but it's the main factor in deflecting interest by the Russian Mafia backed malware efforts whilst Microsoft keep providing them with monocloned targets counted in the billions, 99.9% of which are in the hands of the computer illiterati.
Even if *nix based OSes manage to achieve a 'market penetration' that reaches a double digit percentage share where it might look like a worthwhile challenge for the scamware developers to spend time on, the more secure by design (even that compromised by distros such as Ubuntu and its derivatives) nature will provide a dampening of such interest to all but the cleverest of lone hackers out to prove a point on their own terms rather than to a criminal gang leader's agenda.
If you're prepared to put the effort into learning even just the basic concepts of computers and their OS features, the payback is well worth the effort (even more so for users brave enough to put their trust in MS windows!). Theres on gain without pain. :-)
None of this is anything to do with Linux, per se.
Oh, and I quite happily edit videos with Linux - I bought a Firewire card, 99p on eBay, plug in my camera & copy the video off it. I also have a GoPro, which I just copy the MP4 files from. I have a choice of editors. It all "just worked".
As for editing raw stills, I don't do that, but I get 9,000,000 hits for a Google search for "Linux raw graphics".
I conclude that the error is between keyboard and chair.
So what? Those days are long gone.
Except that IME, the cycle still stays the same. Install, it doesn't do what I want to do, uninstall.
I know that Linux is just the kernel, and what I am using is GNU, and the kernel is nice and stable...
In the same way, most people don't differentiate between the kernel and the UI in Windows or OS X.
Once it's in there, it does "just work". The problem I have is actually getting the stuff onto the computer in the first place.
I can record sound and video on a standalone recorder and copy the files by (sometimes) connecting the recorder or (Almost always when using removable media), but that's not always the way I need to work.
I have seen a question in a forum asking how to transfer RAW files from a camera of the same make as mine. The answer was to install the UFRAW plugin, and all will be well. I get "Unsupported file format", even with the latest version. Apparently, my camera is too new as of a couple of months ago, so it's not yet supported. It works on the older camera I have, but that has died due to a known hardware design fault, and is, effectively, unrepairable.
Conclude all you like. Linux is good for some jobs, and totally useless for what I want to do.
It just worked. Plugged camera in. Typed "dvgrab", away it went.
I don't believe you. Or at least, I suspect you're bitching because your Ford spares won't fit on your Rover car.
More because I keep getting told it's the best thing since sliced bread, and I keep finding out it's not sliced, and isn't real bread anyway.
Proprietary hardware is not the best thing either. But give it time, the seemingly esoteric stuff will eventually be supported.
Don't forget, installing and configuring operating systems was never meant to be an end user job. Some one skilled in that would certainly give you a working system with your hardware if you couldn't. If time is money, then either seek them out or put up with what works.
And if that be Windows for you then so be it. Peace.
Rather that its actually yeast, flour and a sharp knife?
The existence of an app that suits your purpose is enough to bias you towards a given platform on which it runs: Apple macs are still de facto in DTP houses because for a long time that was what you needed to run photoshop illustrator and quark.
All other things being equal, linux is a better underlying OS. If other things are not equal, thats no longer a reason to select.
I was running win 98 on one machine and linux on another for a long while, till I discovered virtualisation, and moved the last windows apps to a VM
That suited me. YMMV
Because that defines you forever more as not being a team player.
That's all very well for hardware with the power to handle it.
Oddly enough the only area which suffered was screen speed.
It was 'adequate' for what I wanted to do. 2D and 3D graphics.
CPU crunching - well windows gets as much as it needs.
It MIGHT be OK for video editing because that is CPU = all CPU and te ability to display moving pictures is in the end just a way to know what you are doing.
What does NOT work is real time games.
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