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Llama
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264 Posts |
 Posted - 01/15/2004 : 5:43:24 PM
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i know this is kind of off subject, but what is the big appeal of Linux, i've never seen or used it before, so i'm wondering why a lot of people seem to like it so much more than windows??  i'm not critisizing it, i just dont know much about it. |
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kronin
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1144 Posts |
Posted - 01/15/2004 : 6:10:07 PM
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Everyone has different reasons, so I'll just explain why I like it and use it, both at work and at home:
1. Security
I use 2 different Linux distributions, RedHat 8 and Gentoo. Both have security patches for any vulnerability out within a matter of days, sometimes hours. I don't have to reboot whenever I install a security update (or an application, for that matter) unless it involves the kernel itself, which is rare.
2. Stability
It's gotten better with Win2000, then XP, but my Linux box rarely, if ever, crashes or needs me to reboot it.
3. Common platform
I write web applications, and I deploy them on Linux servers. Having the exact same environment to develop in is a huge benefit. I can run the exact same software I run on the server on my desktop, without having to buy a license for the server and the desktop (I use Tomcat and PostgreSQL).
4. Availability of needed software
I need a SQL-compliant database (PostgreSQL).
I need an email program that isn't vulnerable to viruses (Sylpheed).
I need a web browser (MozillaFirebird).
I need a text editor (vim).
I need an IDE (Netbeans or Eclipse).
I need a J2EE server (Tomcat or Jboss).
I need an office package that can read/write Word/Excel (OpenOffice).
Here's why my family members don't use it:
1. It's not quite user-friendly enough yet. My systems are very stable, and everything I need to use them for they can do, but it took awhile to get them to that point.
2. Not all software runs on Linux. My mom uses a stock-tracking program, TC2000, that is Windows-only.
This is just the major points... |
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Ziviyr
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Chameleon
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1396 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2004 : 11:17:13 AM
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The reason why I started using Linux exclusively about 2 years ago was because I was tired of stealing software...
In the Microsoft world, the OS & office suite are more expensive than the hardware of a decent computer! I found that I was encouraged by my peers to steal the OS, the office suite, games, utilities, really anything I wanted through warez or burned copies of cracked software.
In Linux land, equivalent software (and so much more) is legitimately free if you (or an associate) have got the bandwidth or a fraction of the cost if you don't or if you just want to support the ogranization that made it available to you.
My wife, for example, just bought a decent laptop preloaded with Linux from Element Computer for just over $800 to run her massage business. The same machine with Microsoft software preloaded would have cost over $1,000. And what about when we determined that she needed to run a webserver from the box to use some business software? Unless the laptop came with XP Pro (unlikely), she would have been unable to do so.
Another reason why I use Linux is because with it I have the freedom to learn and explore programming on my own time. I'm no expert yet, but I have learned a LOT just from browsing the source code and writing scripts... Something I couldn't do under Microsoft's control. I've even contributed back to the community by sending in some small patches to fix minor issues.
See, with Microsoft, they tell you how you can and cannot use your computer.
With Linux, you have the freedom to do as you please without violating the law.
Order Number: 2249 |
Edited by - Chameleon on 01/16/2004 11:18:24 AM |
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Don
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435 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2004 : 11:56:35 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by kronin
2. Stability
It's gotten better with Win2000, then XP, but my Linux box rarely, if ever, crashes or needs me to reboot it.
.
During the pre-release hype for windows 2000, microsoft spokesman Bill Gates let us in on one relative advantage of upgrading. He said that a Windows 98 computer typically needs to be rebooted every day. A Windows NT machine would typically go 3 or 4 days. They had a WIndows 2000 machine that had been running for 2 weeks without a reboot! Wowzer! At the time I had a Unix computer on my desk at work that had been running almost a year without rebooting. The last time it *had* been shutdown was to rearrange the furnature.
edit: My wife's XP machine needs to get rebooted fairly regularly..
virtually every time a program is installed, and or just to get the print queue running.
quote:
Here's why my family members don't use it:
The reason my kids DO use it is so they can't mess with each other's files.
File ownership is a concept only recently introduced to windows.
Reasons to run windows:
1) some web sites are written in non-standards-compliant code, so will only run with IE.
2) in our case, we have a laser printer that will only run on windows 95 or 98 because Canon hasn't released drivers for XP and won't release techinical info so anyone could write Linux drivers. We may just dump this once the toner runs out.
3) some non-Neuros audio players require Windows for synching.
4) WMA isn't supported on Linux (That's a joke)
-Don |
Edited by - Don on 01/16/2004 12:00:52 PM |
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kronin
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1144 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2004 : 12:25:27 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Don
Reasons to run windows:
1) some web sites are written in non-standards-compliant code, so will only run with IE.
You can run IE in Linux using Crossover Office. I use it to make sure the code I write looks OK in IE. Too bad people don't always check Netscape or Mozilla... oh well... |
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charkins
Posting is for Closers
32 Posts |
Posted - 01/16/2004 : 1:27:33 PM
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In addition to everything that's been said so far...
DISCLAIMER:
This is obviously just my opinion, so take it as you wish. :-)
1) Technical Superiority
I strongly believe that the open nature of Linux's development leads to technical superiority.
Professors, grad students and private researchers across the globe are constantly making improvements to existing algorithms and designing completely new ones for performing some of the basic tasks of an operating system.
How many of these improvements and new algorithms make it into a windows patch, or even a service pack. Probably none. How many options does Microsoft test between major version updates, probably very few.
With Linux, anyone can test their new algorithm out if they can hack it into the kernel. There are tons of examples of this on many different levels: process schedulers, i/o schedulers, memory management, filesystems, kernel preemption. These algorithms generally get tested by hundreds or thousands of users before they either lose out to something else or get included in the mainstream kernel.
The bottom line is that more algorithms can be tested, allowing for the best algorithm, and in some cases algorithms (allowing the user to choose which they want to use), to be included in the "main" Linux tree.
2) Community
The community of Linux users and developers, and more generally any community surrounding an open source software project, is generally willing to help each other out whenever they can. On mailing lists and irc, I've seen users and developers dedicating hours on end to helping just one user solve some problems. There are exceptions, I've seen plenty of flame wars and users questions go ignored, but its still orders of magnitude better than what I've seen in the world of proprietary software.
Open source software thrives in a community of users and developers.
User and developer are separated by a huge rift with proprietary software.
Eeek, what on earth am I blathering about. Need sleep....
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Edited by - charkins on 01/16/2004 1:33:12 PM |
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Trig
Posting Profoundly
199 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2004 : 09:21:42 AM
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I wish I could use *nix (I prefer FreeBSD over Linux personally) as my main OS, but unfortunately I've not found it to be very productive for my job (Web/Database Administrator in a Windows/Novell shop) nor my game habit  .
I guess I could use Crossover Office for Dreamweaver & Photoshop, but really the only language(s) I can stand to work in right now is .NET. PHP isn't powerful enough for me and I can't stand developing Java so I guess I'll be stuck rebooting every couple of weeks on my main box while my P120 box with 16mb of ram running FreeBSD and QMail will stay running indefinitely. Heh, I can't even remember the last time I even flipped my KVM over to that box or SSH'd into it. Gotta love server's that require almost literally 0 maintenance.
Customer # 4081 |
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demonbane
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164 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2004 : 1:55:56 PM
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I haven't used any of the .NET tools all that much, but from what I've seen .NET _IS_ Java! :) (C# in particular looks dangerously similar. I wouldn't be surprised that, if one day we can finally get the source to MS products, we'll find that it's got code directly ripped from Java. :)
Coincidentally, which part of .NET is it you like? The actual IDE, the languages, etc? The last time I used any MS IDE it was Visual Studio 6 and I did rather like it. Since then I've found bigger and better tools to work with, but VS6 was a good one for its time. Coincidentally, in the few times I've HAD to use VS.NET, it's driven me up a wall!
(WARNING!!! Rant begins!!!)
Rebuilding a 5 MB data file for each compile? Not allowing you to do ANYTHIGN without opening a project. And, to top it all off with, allowing you to open a source file in a project independently of the project. So any time you try to re-compile, you're compiling old code! ARGH!!! :)
(Rant Ends)
(Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. Long, and extremely annoying story that I won't bore you with. :) |
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demonbane
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164 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2004 : 2:04:05 PM
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Just realized that my previous message was ENTIRELY off-topic for the thread... so, for the ON-TOPIC reply, here we go. :)
I took the initial plunge into Linux for ethical reasons. Having learned more and more about free, as in speech, software and having tried to work with it, I found that I actually felt kind of dirty using Windows to write free software. It was akin to a priest running a prostitution ring in order to pay for the soup kitchen. :)
Once I finally started using Linux, I stayed with it because a) I didn't feel dirty, and b) I found that a lot of the tools available were written by geeks for geeks and that just really feels good. :) I can 'get under the hood' of my computer anytime I want, and do anything I want with it. I'm not FORCED to do things a certain way just because MS thinks I should do them like that.
I also must respectfully disagree with kronin in regards to the non-user-friendlyness of Linux. This most certainly used to be true, but with a well configured system today, it's quite easy and possible to get a newbie to use Linux. Setting up a good Gnome desktop with Nautilus, Galeon, Open Office, and a bunch of trimmings makes for a system that's pretty much on par with XP for user friendlyness.
Coincidentally, I've found that 99% of the 'it's not user-friendly' complaints I get are from Windows users. While I'm not saying anything negative about Windows users (I used to be one too :), I think the user-friendlyness arguments are somewhat flawed because they are coming from people who are used to the Windows way of doing things. So doing something that is intuitive to a new computer user won't be at all intuitive to someone who has used Windows for 10 years, hence the problem. I've seen a number of older people who have never used computers before, quite happily using Linux systems because they don't have a bunch of pre-conceptions about how things SHOULD be on a computer. :) |
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Trig
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199 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2004 : 2:21:51 PM
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Nah, C# is similar to Java, same principle of interpreted code, but its not a direct rip of Java. And C# has advantages over Java that I really don't care to do research on right now because technically I'm supposed to be cleaning the kitchen. (Shh, don't tell my wife)
As far as why I like .NET, as much as I get laughed at for it, I love VB.NET. I know C# pretty well, I just prefer the more complete Intellisense and auto background-compile with instant syntax checking. But besides that, VB.NET just clicks with me (which is weird because I have a C++ background, go figure). I haven't found a Java IDE that I actually enjoy using, whereas I literally have no complaints about VS.NET.
What kind of data file were you having to rebuild for each compile? Was it something that changed every compile? If not why not just exclude it from the build and manually place a copy of it in your assembly folder?
What do you mean you can't open something without a project? I pop open files all the time in VS.NET w/o opening a project.
With the source file, are you talking about having another copy of it open at the same time as you've got the project open in VS.NET? Why would it try to prevent you from doing that? And any time you save something in another application VS.NET will detect the new version and ask you if you want to load the new version of the file.
I dunno, to each his own. I just know that I've never found a better platform for developing web applications, and I like it just as well for WinForms apps too. I just wrapped up a WinForms app this week actually that ended up being pretty impressive considering the scope of the project and how little time it actually took to develop. (Thats another reason I prefer VB.NET, I can throw code like a madman in VB.NET, it brings a whole new meaning to Rapid Application Development which is what my job requires since I consistently have 10-12 projects on my list waiting for me to get to them since I'm the only 'decent' coder at the bank I work for.)
Customer # 4081 |
Edited by - Trig on 01/20/2004 5:12:01 PM |
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Don
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435 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2004 : 5:55:08 PM
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In the end there are some programs available on Windows but not Linux and vice versa.
Linux is a little light on games and such. Windows has no seriously scalable cad software usable on large designs because at this point it does not support any 64 bit hardware, which linux (and unix) does.
-Don |
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demonbane
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164 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2004 : 10:32:13 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Trig
What kind of data file were you having to rebuild for each compile? Was it something that changed every compile? If not why not just exclude it from the build and manually place a copy of it in your assembly folder?
I'm not sure of the specifics, but I know it's a file that gets created by visual studio every time you compile an application. I think it's for various input control and whatnot, but it gets created even when you're just building a console application. Try running and compiling a project directly from a Zip disk and you'll see the delay it causes.quote:
What do you mean you can't open something without a project? I pop open files all the time in VS.NET w/o opening a project.
With the source file, are you talking about having another copy of it open at the same time as you've got the project open in VS.NET? Why would it try to prevent you from doing that? And any time you save something in another application VS.NET will detect the new version and ask you if you want to load the new version of the file.
This is in VS.NET 2003, I don't know if previous versions were different. Basically, if you open a source file in VS.NET and edit it, and then open the project that it's in so that you can recompile, the project will still be using the old version of the source file. Keep in mind that this is in an academic setting though, so we're not dealing with dedicated, pre-configured machines. Students bring in their work on a Zip disk and work from that, while VS.NET is obviously installed on the particular machine they're on. I get at least 2 - 3 instances daily of a student not understanding why their updates aren't working.
Since you mentioned that you can open individual source files outside of a project, is there something special you've had to do? Every time I've ever seen someone try that in VS.NET, the file will open up, and you'll be able to edit it, but in order to compile you'll have to create a project around it. I'm sure that the command line compilers that ship with VS.NET would be able to do individual files, but I can't really expect first-year students to jump in and start using CLI tools right off the bat. :)
I also used to be quite a big fan of VB before I switched to Linux, but since I've switched I've never looked back. Actually, most everything that I WOULD have done in VB in my Windows days I generally do in Java nowadays. I don't know if it has VB support yet, but if you just want a good, full-featured IDE, I'd suggest taking a look at Eclipse (www.eclipse.org). It's a language-agnostic IDE developed by IBM that uses transparent plugins for various tasks. Very impressive stuff.
Personally, I still stick with emacs. I started using it while I was still using Windows in the form of NTEmacs, and then just stuck with it once I ended up switching to Linux. After working with it for a few weeks to get the hang of it, every IDE I've looked at since then has just seemed so terribly lacking. But it does have a rather substantial learning curve associated with it so it tends to discourage people easily. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be of much use for WebForms or VB so it probably won't be of much use to you. As you said, to each his own. :) |
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kronin
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1144 Posts |
Posted - 01/17/2004 : 11:51:23 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by demonbane
I can't really expect first-year students to jump in and start using CLI tools right off the bat. :)
Everything I learned in College started with the command line. You learn how everything works first, then you learn nice fancy IDEs (if you want). That way, if the IDE ever borks out on you, you can still go in and get your stuff edited/compiled/debugged/etc. I guess it depends, though. If it's a 4-year degree, I personally think you should know how to write the tools, whereas if it's a 2-year degree, you should at least know how to use the tools. For example, my senior-year project was writing a compiler for a subset of pascal. Pretty cool stuff. Then after we wrote all the grammar-parsing rules by hand we were shown yacc, but not until we already had the knowledge of what yacc was going to be doing.
quote:
Personally, I still stick with emacs. I started using it while I was still using Windows in the form of NTEmacs, and then just stuck with it once I ended up switching to Linux. After working with it for a few weeks to get the hang of it, every IDE I've looked at since then has just seemed so terribly lacking. But it does have a rather substantial learning curve associated with it so it tends to discourage people easily. Unfortunately, I don't think it'll be of much use for WebForms or VB so it probably won't be of much use to you. As you said, to each his own. :)
vi for me. I used pico and emacs all through college, but never took the time to learn the emacs keybindings. Once I got out in the workforce I was doing coding and sysadmin, and I always seemed to be opening up vi, so I decided I should learn it. It's really very fast and powerful, and I'm sure emacs is too. |
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Chameleon
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1396 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2004 : 11:12:24 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by demonbane
I haven't used any of the .NET tools all that much, but from what I've seen .NET _IS_ Java! :) (C# in particular looks dangerously similar. I wouldn't be surprised that, if one day we can finally get the source to MS products, we'll find that it's got code directly ripped from Java. :)
Coincidentally, which part of .NET is it you like? The actual IDE, the languages, etc? The last time I used any MS IDE it was Visual Studio 6 and I did rather like it. Since then I've found bigger and better tools to work with, but VS6 was a good one for its time. Coincidentally, in the few times I've HAD to use VS.NET, it's driven me up a wall!
I completely agree with your .NET/Java hypothesis.
Anyway, for those that need to use .NET and want to use Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS), check out the Mono project, a FLOSS implementation of .NET for *nix systems.
Order Number: 2249 |
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Chameleon
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1396 Posts |
Posted - 01/19/2004 : 11:14:20 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by demonbane
I also must respectfully disagree with kronin in regards to the non-user-friendlyness of Linux. This most certainly used to be true, but with a well configured system today, it's quite easy and possible to get a newbie to use Linux. Setting up a good Gnome desktop with Nautilus, Galeon, Open Office, and a bunch of trimmings makes for a system that's pretty much on par with XP for user friendlyness.
Coincidentally, I've found that 99% of the 'it's not user-friendly' complaints I get are from Windows users. While I'm not saying anything negative about Windows users (I used to be one too :), I think the user-friendlyness arguments are somewhat flawed because they are coming from people who are used to the Windows way of doing things. So doing something that is intuitive to a new computer user won't be at all intuitive to someone who has used Windows for 10 years, hence the problem. I've seen a number of older people who have never used computers before, quite happily using Linux systems because they don't have a bunch of pre-conceptions about how things SHOULD be on a computer. :)
I agree with and share in your disagreement.
The Linux learning curve is present, but not insurmountable.
The funny thing about learning curves is that they are more difficult if you already have a base preconception about the given subject matter and are learning a new way to go about it. I feel that a person totally new to computers will have the same amount of challenge learning Linux as they would learning Windows or even MacOS.
Order Number: 2249 |
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pimpidy_p
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27 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2004 : 7:22:19 PM
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| i dont like linux because i am a gamer and windows has alot more games, but this is also a little off topic wat if apple linux and windows were all equally compatible games which would be the best for games. |
Edited by - pimpidy_p on 07/27/2004 7:29:06 PM |
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Lou Erickson
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528 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2004 : 9:20:59 PM
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re: linux
What's the big deal? Hmm.
I got in to Linux because I wanted a Unix machine. I'd had a dial-in account on one and it was bliss. A compiler! E-mail! FTP! Archie! Talking to other people with write and talk. Background tasks! Cron events! Seperate user accounts! File permissions!
Wow! It was amazing! It left my Apple //e in the cold.
Eventually, I got a DOS machine, and I missed Unix. I wanted Unix.
Problem: Unix only ran on horribly expensive workstations and cost thousands of dollars. I was a high school kid. Not going to work.
Then came Coherent... I could afford Coherent! $99 and it ran on my 286! And I found Unix-like happiness.
(Mind you, Coherent sucked, and I spent innumerable hours trying to fix it, to the point of rewriting chunks of the OS... but you can do that on a Unix machine if you feel the urge, even a closed-source one.)
Then came Linux. And It Sucked. And the "community" was a bunch of self-important assholes who'd shout "read the FAQ!" and nothing else.
Linux eventually killed Coherent, and finally was actually better than it was. I must admit that the vaunted "community" is, IMO, terrible. If anyone can tell me where and how to find the "linux community" that they all like so much, I'd appreciate it.
In the mean time, I'd given up on actually finding Unix work in Seattle, and taught myself Windows... and thus fell to the Dark Side, from which I only slowly recover.
(I never did sell my soul to the devil. I leased it to him for several two-year contracts at Microsoft, though...)
re: games
Linux should be better for games, because a well-written game could make sure it had the right priorities set to allow the game to behave properly if something else happened on the machine. Linux should manage system resource better, and if the game is well-written allow it to run longer and more stably. (Since many game programmers suck, that won't help much, because the OS can't fix bad code in the game itself.)
Windows is notorious for hanging your game if it has to do anything else, and Linux (partuclarly newer ones) should be able to be better about that.
And I've never accidentally hit the "windows" key and had the desktop come back while I'm playing under Linux... |
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webkid
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1590 Posts |
Posted - 07/27/2004 : 9:21:27 PM
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That's a hard question answer, since they're not, and if they were, they'd all be signifigantly different.
To humor you, I'd say Windows (unfortunately) since Windows has always been the leader in games, hands down. However, I am far more fond of Linux, and I have far too little time to sit around and play computer games. |
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webkid
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Posted - 07/27/2004 : 9:27:36 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Lou Erickson
And I've never accidentally hit the "windows" key and had the desktop come back while I'm playing under Linux...
Argh, I know that pain. I have a PS/2 keyboard from (literally) 1989. It weighs like 20 pounds and I love it. I popped all the keys and now have a Dvorak keyboard layout. And no windows key.
Er, yeah and back onto topic... it's not usually Windows that will hang a game, the game will hang the game. The problem, however, is bad code on both sides of the bus. |
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Lou Erickson
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Posted - 07/28/2004 : 1:17:09 PM
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One of the good old IBM PS/2 keyboards? I used to adore those until I found the Kinesis. Mmm. Kinesis. (Switchable qwerty/dvorak, with both on the keys. Mmm.)
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