I am an experienced MS Windows user who has tried four different flavors of Linux: Mandriva, Centos, Debian, and Ubantu---each on a different PC. (I always used a dual-boot configuration with Grub and Win XP or Win 7). Each time, I encountered the following two problems:
- While resuming from sleep mode, I always found that the screen was blank. I had to press Ctrl-Alt-Del and restart the PC.
- The OS would always work fine for about 15-20 minutes. Then, with no warning, it would freeze up. I had to press Ctrl-Alt-Del and restart the PC.
After experimenting with various recommended configuration tweaks, I could not resolve these problems. According to comments from other users, who complained about the same thing, the problem is related to the video card. Here is the alleged problem:
NVIDIA and other video card manufacturers do not release all information about their software and firmware to non-commercial groups. Therefore, Linux software can never be fully compatible with any video card. In each build of Linux, there is an "unknown" factor, which causes video-related performance problems.
I lost interest in Linux for this reason. Now, however, I am growing even more tired of MS Windows, and I am wondering---is UNIX immune to these two problems (since UNIX is still a commercial product)?
Can anybody give me an opinion on this?
Thanks.