Why do you use Linux?

thehitmen

thehitmen

thehitmen

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Joined
27 Mar 2009
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Crewe, Cheshire
Hi guys, just wondering what you use Linux for apart from the fact it is free?

I see it as hacking stuff? or server based things?

Im just used to using Mac OSX and Windows?

Any reasons why i should switch/use linux?

cheers
 
I use it on my laptop as its rather underpowered and windo$e just churns along at a snails pace. I have it on a pc which runs as a torrent client, fileserver and media centre running mythtv.
 
Well it runs on my NAS drive by default, and because it does this I can tweak it and basically do anything I want with it.
 
I use debian on my homeserver as its stable, free and err great!

Linux is cool aqnd has improved so much over recent years, it can do anything os x or windows can do and abit more.

You are actually using *nix ny using os x.
 
I got given an aging Dell laptop that only has a 1.2ghz processor and 256mb ram recently so I decided to put a distro of Linux on to mess about with, instead of adding a dual boot to my main computer. Installed Fedora on it and it runs well, much better than XP would have done once anti virus software was installed. Think I'll put some more memory in if I can find it cheap enough.
 
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Used here as a file and web development server, and as an experiment just to learn with. I'd never use it on my main desktop (Games, photo tools) though.
 
Personally I run Linux on EVERYTHING, starting from my servers (over 40 in total), my work desktop and laptop, through my mobile phone to my firewalls and routers.

Few reasons:
0) flexibility and stability above all else
1) security.
2) full control over processes and FS. You will never see a message like "you can't delete the file because 'someome' is using it"
3) memory and IO management. On Windows even with 4GB of RAM, system allocates swap. WTF?!
4) community/developer support. If you UI lacks some feature, you can request it from it's developer and if it's sane, it will be implemented. Often happens, that devs can give you a patch for some small features within 10 minutes!
5) you are NOT locked to UI vision of some closed minded lunatic, who dictates you how you should use your PC and what's the best for you.
6) freedom
7) usability
7) linux is __much__ faster on the same hardware.
8) linux looks much better nowadays

I'm not saying that because I'm FSF member or Linux developer. Don't get me wrong - I've been using Windows since 3.1 days till XP and I know this system upside down from every possible angle.

As long as you don't try something else, you can't really see how limited Windows is.
 
Using this as my web/nfs server, media player (its connected to monitor and "tv" monitor), music player and a generic use pc to do anything I want. Serves great except it doesn't like flash much. But for that I have my "gaming" pc that runs windows and is only ever turned on when I am watching top gear/other flash videos or want to play some old game (the pc has very old specs now :p)

There are reasons to use linux, and there are reasons to use windows. Personally I love how linux can be configured to suite you, how if I want to do something, 98% of the time. it is faster for me to do it via a $TERM, without the need to wait for some gui to load, how you can change your window manager to anything you like. And most of what queen13 said.

Would probably agree on the speed, my box is just a 1.2ghz with 1gb of ram (maxed), and it handles everything outside ram/cpu heavy tasks (and even the letter is fine, just leave nice -15 and you can still go and do other things while its happening). Saying that, my box copes even with playing back 720p videos (after re-encoding them to remove heavy compression), have yet to test it out with 1080p streams, but have not had a chance to look for them.

The way I see it, some linux distros are just not as bloated as windows oses. If you spend time and can cut out lots of things that you do not need in windows, then chances are, performance would probably be quiet similar, or at least similar enough that a user would not notice, just with linux it is much easier to do and free.
 
Got it on my Eee as the performance is immeaasurably better than that of Windows.

I would run it full time on my desktop as well, but for the fact that I need Windows for games.
 
I use it cause its leet :p

Also great for coding, network analysis, security, debugging, virtuliaztion etc which im regularly involved in. To be honest the way the whole OS is structured just seems much more logical to me than Windows, hence its much easier to work with on a day to day basis.

The one and only downside for me is gaming support.
 
I dual boot on my desktop and am fully linux on my laptop for the following reasong:
* when i want to just go online, im not waiting for long boot times or half a ton of anti virus process to run. I can nearly from login run firefox from boot.
* It's light weight, so i get a longer battery live.
*it's very quite. i.e it dosnt make my harddrive go mad or have my fans running at full peak when running flash based websites.
*It's custumisable, Login screens, backgroud, mouse themes, emerald themes,
* the number of free application's let me get my work done. such as open office, gimp etc
* the fact i dont have to worry about virus too much and can laugh at the spoof sites that try to download virus to program files but canyt find it.
*The ablity to change, i can switch distro's and not have the issue of product keys expiring.
*i get to be a geek with it, solving problem's is fun also most linux forums are very helpfull which is a lot better than windows.
* the updates, , I've found linux updates are a lot quicker than most mac and windows theirfore bringing in new services and designs to the front. That coupled with the ope source allows a massive amount of progression and customisation.

But the main reason is when im sat on the train with all the bussiness men with their windows machines complaining about being slow i can go in full sadistic mode.
 
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I use it on my fileserver (Ubuntu 8.04) as it's free and does everything I need it to, but although I like fiddling around with new distros I don't expect to be switching to Linux on the desktop any time soon.

I don't have any ideological preference one way or the other, and I certainly don't see the use of any particular OS as an end in itself - the way I look at things, it's the *applications* which are important, and beyond providing me with a means to launch those apps, the OS should just stay out of the way, not lose my data and not crash. The major Linux distros and Windows all do the job well enough these days, but Linux still doesn't have the same breadth and quality of available apps, at least for my purposes, so apart from the cash factor I don't yet see any compelling reason to switch.

That said, the days when I'd try a new Linux desktop distro only to boot back into Windows fifteen minutes later with a sigh of relief are long gone, and if I *had* to use, say, Fedora 11 or Ubuntu 9.04 as my one and only OS it certainly wouldn't be a complete disaster. :)
 
  • Total freedom i.e. no artificial restrictions - pretty much limited only by your skills
  • No cost/easy to acquire
  • Don't have to think so much about malware
  • To learn Linux administration/increase my knowledge
 
theheyes said:
  • Total freedom i.e. no artificial restrictions - pretty much limited only by your skills
  • No cost/easy to acquire
  • Don't have to think so much about malware
  • To learn Linux administration/increase my knowledge
Click to expand...

1. How does Windows limit you?
2. Torrents, they're the future.
3. I'll give you the malware point... however i've run windows all my pc-life and have never had these problems everyone else seems to have :/

I got a copy of windows with my netbook... after a bit of nliting its 10x faster than any linux distro... plus its compatible with everything.

As for great with coding... what? :/
 
steve-h said:
I got a copy of windows with my netbook... after a bit of nliting its 10x faster than any linux distro... plus its compatible with everything.
Click to expand...

That's a hell of a claim, got any benchmarks to prove it? I would like to see some facts stating a non-bulked-up distro (Ubuntu) i.e Arch is 10x slower than Windows.

steve-h said:
As for great with coding... what? :/
Click to expand...

Anything you want? There are no limits. Also with easy access to things like Bash, Python and Perl, scripting is very powerful right from desktop shell.


Also, torrents are certainly not the future...
 
steve-h said:
1. How does Windows limit you?
2. Torrents, they're the future.
3. I'll give you the malware point... however i've run windows all my pc-life and have never had these problems everyone else seems to have :/

I got a copy of windows with my netbook... after a bit of nliting its 10x faster than any linux distro... plus its compatible with everything.

As for great with coding... what? :/
Click to expand...

1. Your joking right? Linux is free, in that you have access to the SOURCE CODE, you can change in ANY way you like. For example - unhappy with the way the password security is handled - you can change it. Windoze - ops no sorry can't do that it's closed source.
2. Promoting illegal activity is against forum rules read the FAQ.
3. Well your the exception not the rule. Though malware does affect Linux machines too, and in fact certain security elements of an NT kernel are slightly better security wise than in linux.

Personally I use Linux because it's the best platform for development by a country mile.
 
tntcoder said:
That's a hell of a claim, got any benchmarks to prove it? I would like to see some facts stating a non-bulked-up distro (Ubuntu) i.e Arch is 10x slower than Windows.
Click to expand...

Try it

tntcoder said:
Anything you want? There are no limits. Also with easy access to things like Bash, Python and Perl, scripting is very powerful right from desktop shell.
Click to expand...

winapi :(

tntcoder said:
Also, torrents are certainly not the future...
Click to expand...

I'll stick with the private sites, amazing speeds - couldn't ask for anymore ;)


dangerstat said:
1. Your joking right? Linux is free, in that you have access to the SOURCE CODE, you can change in ANY way you like. For example - unhappy with the way the password security is handled - you can change it. Windoze - ops no sorry can't do that it's closed source.
Click to expand...

whats the problem with the password security handling exactly?
 
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