Why Use Linux?

[Outcast]

Linux loads em all !!

 

[tom91x91]

thanks i have it now on disc, will give it a try.

edit: really liked the look of it and was planning a new windows install anyway, ive installed it now but having some issues with my internet always being cut off, it wont let me install linux drivers for my graphics card or change my screen resolution, any tips? everything seems to be a bit sluggish and hanging quite often.

thanks

 

[jack.mitchell]

thanks i have it now on disc, will give it a try.

edit: really liked the look of it and was planning a new windows install anyway, ive installed it now but having some issues with my internet always being cut off, it wont let me install linux drivers for my graphics card or change my screen resolution, any tips? everything seems to be a bit sluggish and hanging quite often.

thanks

Are you sure you're not still running the live CD, those characteristics sounds a LOT like it. What are the errors when you try to install the linux drivers? Remember in Linux you don't directly download to the drivers from the website, you install them through the operating systems own install tools.

edit: A new post might be wise for this instead of cluttering this (daft) debate.

 

[Lakeland]

Tried to run ubuntu and mint and both hung on the install, couldn't be bothered to work out why, win7 works a treat so..

Might go back another day when I've got some spare time and figure out what the problem is.

 

[m4rkw7]

It's open source, and you get abuse if you use Windows in a technical environment!

 

[Fire Wizard]

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.

While the increased physical memory usage in Windows Vista and Windows 7 doesn't mean there is a need to be concerned, it doesn't quite represent what you're referring too. The "Memory" graph in task manager represents the amount of physical memory assigned to processes plus the amount of memory sitting on the modified page list. Pages of memory on the modified page list would have to be written to disk before they can be repurposed. The actual SuperFetch service only has a small impact on the physical memory of the machine.

What you're referring too is memory on the standby page list, which represents cached data. Pages of memory on the standby page list can be given to another process without performing a disk I/O, which is the definition of available memory. Available memory is the sum of the "Free" page list, which will all most always be zero due to the zero page thread, the "Zeroed" page list and the "Standby" page list. If you're interested in the amount of memory sitting on the standby page list, you're going to have to either run the resource monitor, or use a program like RAMMap or Process Explorer. Task manager doesn't display a counter for the standby page list alone.

It's also worth pointing out that memory in Windows XP wasn't necessary sitting there doing nothing. The memory manager still tries to to use it for file cache so a lot of things would be on the standby page list. The difference being is Windows Vista and Windows 7 take a proactive approach and are more intelligent in managing physical memory, due to SuperFetch and the prioritised standby lists, which are awesome improvements to the way in which Windows manages physical memory.

 

[JonJ678]

Tried to run ubuntu and mint and both hung on the install, couldn't be bothered to work out why, win7 works a treat so..

Might go back another day when I've got some spare time and figure out what the problem is.

Open up the bios and change to ahci mode, then retry.

I'm a bit sorrowful to see ubuntu described as lightweight.

 

[MikeHiow]

No OSX is built on Berkeley Unix.

No, OSX is built on Darwin, a flavour of BSD.

Different operating systems measure memory usage in different ways. As it happens, Windows has a far more complex memory model than *nix. This is not a surprise though given that Windows NT was written by the same bunch of guys as VAX and VMS.

Linux does the same* buffering/caching in memory as Windows 7 does, and I believe it has done it for a lot longer, too.
*Term used loosely

Let me give you an example;

mike@storm:~$ free -m
             total       used       free     shared    buffers     cached
Mem:          1002        976         25          0         15        321
-/+ buffers/cache:        639        362
Swap:         1952        207       1745

So out of 1GB here, physical usage is 976MB. It also provides you with the actual memory usage without cache - 639MB.

In general Linux can (and usually does) however have a far lower memory footprint than say Windows 7, but then that depends entirely on how you configure it.

FWIW, I've used Linux, OSX and Windows all as full time desktops - Mostly being Linux from around 1998, up until Windows 7 appeared and when I bought my MBP, where I swapped for only two reasons really - Gaming and Photoshop.

I generally stick to Windows 7 for my desktop these days - my only real annoyance with it is a lack of a decent terminal and POSIX environment, although Cygwin goes a certain way toward alleviating this issue.

My servers, router, media center and the OH's netbook all run on Linux, though

 

[brendan]

Linux does the same* buffering/caching in memory as Windows 7 does, and I believe it has done it for a lot longer, too.

Linux kernel uses free memory to buffer I/O. It's why umount takes some time after writing to a usb stick at unreasonable speeds...

My machine has 3706MB of memory and linux is using 2797MB but actually with all the buffers is using 3337MB.

In general Linux can (and usually does) however have a far lower memory footprint than say Windows 7, but then that depends entirely on how you configure it.

I don't think anyone needs to show how well linux can do in the embedded world...

 

[NathanE]

Linux does the same* buffering/caching in memory as Windows 7 does, and I believe it has done it for a lot longer, too.
*Term used loosely

Of course it does. I didn't really say otherwise. This is about far more than just buffering and caching. Operating system memory models are not all alike. Memory models basically refers to the number of different states that a page of VM can be assigned (not all at the same time of course) and the possible paths of transition between them (see: State machine). NT has *a lot* of different states for different situations. It is the complexity and number of these states that makes it hard to understand the true memory usage of a process on Windows. You often see people talking about how much memory their web browser is using but 99% of the time they are reading the information wrong. It doesn't help that Task Manager until only recently (W7) was actually presenting the information wrong in the first place, which just lead to further confusion.

 

[Le_Petit_Lapin]

Imagine paying £50k for a Mondeo. Imagine paying £100k for a Lexus. Imagine being given a GSXR1000 for free. Or something.

Fast and efficient but doesn't have all the features you're used to?

 

[James_N]

the only thing that bugs me about linux, is it gives me a headache the fonts aren't the same as in windows, despite me installing ms core fonts, but after an hour or so of using linux, i have a major headache, even though its dead easy to use. I have no idea what causes it

 

[mmj_uk]

I gave Ubuntu 10.10 a try yesterday, I usually install it each year and then return to Windows a day later due to problems and this year was no different. It seemed okay for about 20mins but then my internet died... apparently there are problems with Realtek NIC's.

I had to switch off and disconnect my lan cable for 15secs to get my Realtek NIC back working.

EDIT: apparently it's fixed by updating the driver to one off Realtek's website so I might give it another try, I hope flash support in 64bit is better now though it seemed a bit poor last time I tried.

 

[craptakular]

the only thing that bugs me about linux, is it gives me a headache the fonts aren't the same as in windows, despite me installing ms core fonts, but after an hour or so of using linux, i have a major headache, even though its dead easy to use. I have no idea what causes it

drag ur windows fonts out into ubuntu and use them then.

 

[PAz]

Still loving Ubuntu, though I think I might give Linux Mint a try as I need to rebuild anyway to reclaim my old broken Windows volumes.

 

[UncleBensSauce]

the only thing that bugs me about linux, is it gives me a headache the fonts aren't the same as in windows, despite me installing ms core fonts, but after an hour or so of using linux, i have a major headache, even though its dead easy to use. I have no idea what causes it

As above - dump your win7 font folder onto your Linux box and away you go.

Also - get into >display settings>fonts and try enabling sub-pixel/smoothing hinting (depending on your display setup).

Also you got your monitor running at its native res?

 

[mmj_uk]

After installing the latest ATI driver is it normal that "ati/amd proprietary fglrx graphics drivers" in 'additional drivers' isn't activated? that just means I'm not using the recommended Ubuntu driver right?

I installed the latest Realtek lan driver and that shows up as activated in there.

 

[brendan]

After installing the latest ATI driver is it normal that "ati/amd proprietary fglrx graphics drivers" in 'additional drivers' isn't activated? that just means I'm not using the recommended Ubuntu driver right?

I installed the latest Realtek lan driver and that shows up as activated in there.

if fglrxinfo turns up something interesting then you are using the proprietary drivers.

The warning is porbably simply because ubuntu doesn't like that you aren't using the recommended ones.

 

[mmj_uk]

if fglrxinfo turns up something interesting then you are using the proprietary drivers.

The warning is porbably simply because ubuntu doesn't like that you aren't using the recommended ones.

display: :0.0 screen: 0
OpenGL vendor string: ATI Technologies Inc.
OpenGL renderer string: AMD Radeon HD 6900 Series
OpenGL version string: 4.1.10428 Compatibility Profile Context

It's just confusing me that the ATI driver isn't activated in additional drivers like the Realtek is, if I click activate will it try to install the stock driver?

 

[Cleanthes]

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