Why Use Linux?

I can't believe people actually see OSX as a competitor. It offers nothing over similar unix based OSes and costs an extortionate amount, completely backwards in the world of open source software.
 
Funnily enough my Win 7 install screwed up yesterday and won't boot (fairly common error from what I'm reading), so I installed Ubuntu 10.10 to a seperate partition. Pretty cool (I've used it before so am familiar with the basics), but not really missing anything so far - that said its early days so we will see.
 
I came home from uni for Christmas.
I've been in pain waiting for this PC I left to my sister to load.
Its my old PC, a P4 2.8GHz Prescott, but only 512MB ram.

Problem is somehow my sister has killed it with shareware, adware and god knows what else.

I just grabbed an old HDD and a copy of Fedora, quick to download, quick to install and running so smoothly; happy days for the rest of my Christmas break.

In my experience my windows install does tend to run quicker on my normal PC. Programs open faster and are more responsive. I never really understood why because there isn't a great deal going on.
I've been through ubuntu, fedora and opensuse and I found the same problem with all 3.
 
mortals said:
100% disagree
My linux uses 180-200mb of RAM at desktop with loads of stuff running
My Windows7 uses 1GB of RAM on boot
My linux install is more responsive, loads quicker and runs a lot quicker than my windows7 install

I think people must be using bloated installs of linux or something :eek: :rolleyes:
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People seem to have a fundamental misunderstanding of how Windows 7 utilises available memory. Windows 7 utilises a far greater amount of available memory for Superfetch caching only when there is no other demand for that memory. Therefore the amount of memory reported as being 'in use' will always be high, although in fact Windows is being more efficient as it's making best use of the available memory.

http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/behind-the-windows-7-memory-usage-scaremongering.ars

This is by design, so usage comparisons between linux and Windows are worthless and do not indicate OS bloat.

In my experience Windows 7 performs better on modern hardware than linux (Ubuntu), although linux will wring better performance out of older hardware. I've also always found Windows to be a more straightforward install with fewer hardware incompatibilities (multiple distros of linux completely failed to install on a friend's Fujitsu laptop, while Windows went on first time).

The key advantages of linux are of course cost and customisability, however for productivity on a modern PC, in my opinion Windows 7 is the better choice.
 
i dual boot a fairly modern pc with win7 and ubuntu10.10. Ubuntu is faster to boot and feels slightly more responsive. Win7 seems to load applications quicker. Overall there isnt much in it.

The quantity of free memory is irrelevant.

In the past I've had hardware refuse to work on both windows and linux. On ubuntu 10.10 my pc was fully working, but windows required a driver to make the SPDIF audio work so linux has a slight edge there. Both systems required a nvidia driver update to get decent graphics performance, but on ubuntu it told me about a driver update and it took a couple of clicks to download and install it. This was slightly easier than on windows.

Windows has the edge as I need MSOffice, but I installed MSoffice on my ubuntu install by installing wine and then running the install cd the same as windows. I havent seen any incompatibility there yet. So windows has the edge there.
The updating and application install mechanism on ubuntu is *fantastic*. This is a BIG plus for linux. BUT the quality of applications in the repositorys is varied and range from brilliant to unusable.

Windows has gaming. Linux gaming is limited.
 
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Superewza said:
I can't believe people actually see OSX as a competitor. It offers nothing over similar unix based OSes and costs an extortionate amount, completely backwards in the world of open source software.
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Yeah, what kind of pillock appreciates good design in their OS and applications?

The only thing worth paying money for number crunching capacity.
 
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Superewza said:
I can't believe people actually see OSX as a competitor. It offers nothing over similar unix based OSes and costs an extortionate amount, completely backwards in the world of open source software.
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OSX costs an extortionate amount? Thats funny, last time I checked it was £26.

I only use linux on cli for development/live servers, my everyday computers are either windows or mac.
 
Put an Apple sticker on your PC case, and it's now an Apple badged computer. Ergo, you are now allowed to run OSX on it.
 
The thing about serious driver issues in windows, is that to fix it you often have to find, install or rename some obscure file.
On Linux you often have to start messing with configuration files, make files and kernel files. Even worse is when some solutions work for some people and not others due to obscure things people have installed on their system or came installed which they don't necessarily know about.

2 of my friends have had issues with their wireless adapters on linux.
One just gave up on Linux entirely because of that.
The other I'm helping him build the new kernel today. I had to search the net for a long while to find a solution and he doesn't understand how to do it (a lot of text on linux assumes prior knowledge in this case manually editing a make file, as a novice I often find myself having to look up how to solve problems I'm having with the original solution)

If hardware is having driver incompatibility problems on windows it either shouldn't be on the market on your lost the disk.
 
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Just re installed Lucid Lynix (10.4) to my laptop (wanted to experiment with partitioning the HDD with my own /home partition) . It's not old and not new (MSI GX700) but I had no problems with WiFi etc.

I did have it connected to the net via LAN during the install which seems to help no end. Loaded the current NVidia driver and good to go. Rebooted enabled wireless... bosh... connected! :) Plugged in my 3G Dongle.... bosh.... connected! :)

Must be just lucky with the hardware..... :)
 
I've just wasted a much of my night turning some spare hardware into a firewall. That wouldn't have gone well if I'd started out with windows.
 
Essexraptor said:
Just re installed Lucid Lynix (10.4) to my laptop (wanted to experiment with partitioning the HDD with my own /home partition) . It's not old and not new (MSI GX700) but I had no problems with WiFi etc.

I did have it connected to the net via LAN during the install which seems to help no end. Loaded the current NVidia driver and good to go. Rebooted enabled wireless... bosh... connected! :) Plugged in my 3G Dongle.... bosh.... connected! :)

Must be just lucky with the hardware..... :)
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Same on my netbook - Video, Wireless, Webcam, Sound all working 100% out of the box.
 
Why use Linux?

That's a tricky question to be honest.

As far as I have experimented with Ubuntu though, all I know is that it's not THAT friendly with hardware like windows..

On my acer 5920g Ubuntu 10.10 doesn't want to connect to any WiFi networks, for example..

On my old PC Ubuntu (it was 8.04 I think)didn't like to work with an ati x1650 pro at all.. I had to stick with older/newer versions.

So I'll just go ahead and say that hardware is still an issue for Ubuntu..

Also, I'll agree with all of you that said that it is faster, lightweight etc etc, because that's so true. But in my experience you need some luck with the hardware you got working and the distribution you're using at the time being.

For example I'd so use Ubuntu as a main OS when vista was out (given that I didn't want to stay on XP).

Now though with windows 7 out... I tried it on an athlon 64 3000+ with 1gb ram and it's quite usable and nice. I say it depends on a lot of things if you even decide to use a linux distro.

That's what I've experienced so far! :rolleyes:
 
ive found win 7 to be really speedy and usefull. its turned my thinking about windows on its head. not many problems

however it just feels quicker, lighter more efficient on linux mint. simpler, great update tools, things seem to be where they are supposed to be. i know on my lappy when on the web it wont crash and the HD isnt doing anything and performance is consistent for hours on end with no stutter or stall or temp rise. in a word SOLID.

considering $$$$ billions MS windows VS free/donation open source mint, you just have to applaud the effort. mint,ubuntu are only far behind in support/documentation.

finally when i wanted to transfer some files from one HD to another the only way was e-sata, (both drives were OS drives) as i have slow network and it was a 45gb transfer. after putting the drive that i had copied FROM, back into the win 7 32bit pc it locked up and said not genuine build and removed access to my files :( this was a bummer as it was my work pc with vpn setups and backup information.

this pc now has mint on and acts as a media centre :)

overall i think with super fast cpu`s and SSD`s most of windows flab is being masked so the days of linux might seem numbered, but its strange that people are still flocking to andriod and other open source based platforms, its a generational thing people want apps and to customise with no restriction or real cost and are also getting tired of licences, drm and corporate bull**** that MS and other mega corps foist onto people
 
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Been interested in trying this, what version do i download? Is it possible to try it first and not loose any of my data?

thanks.
 
ok thank you :) giving mint a try first as i like the look of it!

If i like it and decide to change what do i do about drivers? Will my current ones work still? Or are there linux specific ones.
 
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