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What Keeps You Off of Windows?
J. J. Ramsey asks: "schnell has already asked the question What's Keeping You On Windows? It seems only fair to ask the opposite question. For those of you who have elected to not use Windows, what keeps you away from it? Concerns about stability? Security? Dislike of Microsoft's business practices? Or are you simply a fan of your chosen platform and just don't care about Windows one way or the other?" Might recent events sway your decision to keep Microsoft's premier software offering off of your computer?
What keeps me off Windows is mainly because I don't want to be
locked-up in some savage immoral decommoditizing scheme.
The practice of scrambling and obfuscating the standards to insure
the failure of the competition is so much a threat to my eyes that
losing some compatibility and some discutable features for not dealing
with this is more then acceptable.
Death to close source, death to DRMs, long live the Open Source.
Sanity
A couple of months ago I finally made the switch off of windows xp and onto Fedora Linux on my home machine. For years now, I have been using my home computer as a thin-client, doing most of my work via VNC and SSH on a remote server connected to a T1. That way, wherever I am my real desktop is available and stable and right how I left it with dozens of my windows open for various applications for months at a time. So I was already using Linux for most things. I would use windows on my home machine only for web surfing (firefox), gaming, digital camera hookup and its ability to suspend. Then I made the mistake of connecting to windows update... Suddenly all my programs started crashing, the windows on the desktop would pick a stacking order and not be convinced to alter it, and the new and improved active-X made all of my favorite games (diablo) unusable. So I said screw it, and made linux my default boot. I no longer game, and only need to reboot to windows when I have to upload pictures from my digital camera. And when I do boot to windows once a month, I make sure I am offline. My next laptop will have linux pre-installed so I guess USB support will be there and my need for windows will be gone. Oh yeah, I occasionally boot windows to see how crappy my various websites render under IE. So final answer: I keep off windows because it sucks. Also I do not want to support an abusive monopoly.
It costs too much in buying it, maintaining it, getting new anti-virus software, fighting with it... I just don't have the money and more importantly time...
Mac OS X.
Are you BioCurious?
Someone mod this article flamebait!
The price, almost absolutely the price....it is just to expensive to keep up with windows releases for a college student. Microsoft is really doing a disservice by selling software for hundreds of dollars and sometimes even thousands.
I find myself much more productive in a Linux / Unix environment. Linux is just much more user friendly for me.
Shoddy business practices, nerve-wracking battles with the Control Panel (I'd much rather deal with /etc thank you) and a long history of instability crises. That and UNIXish environments are much more conducive to development work, I find.
I do know that WinXP is much less crash prone than stuff I was using years ago, before I made the switch, but I just use what works. GNU/Linux is a pretty good power user's desktop platform. And of course, the price is right.
When life gives you lemons, you CLONE those lemons, and make SUPER-LEMONS. -- Dr. Cinnamon Scudworth, Ph.D
GAMES GAMES baby. I'm 32 but I still love to play the games. Yes, I have some games on my MDK9.2 partitions, but they mostly suck (sadly.)
If games came out on Linux at even roughly the same rate as WinXP boxes, I'd NEVER LOOK BACK (except at work where I have to [currently] use XP.)
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What I really like in Windows is the font system. It's simple. Drop a font into the fonts folder in control panel, and it will just work. And it looks good. Unix fonts are a pain in the eyes, and blurring them to death with font aliasing does not please my eyes either. In fact, bad looking fonts are the killer argument that _prevents_ me from running a Unix as my main OS.
The irony in them asking their readers why they use Linux and not Windows? I don't think thats irony, but thanks Alanis.
Not more than you need, just more than you want
my fear of heights and for two my lack of suction cup tipped fingers.
And seriously for 3, it's the stupid license model. I buy an OS for family/non-commerical use and I can only install it on one machine. No thanks, even Apple allows for a family license; sure they still charge you, but at least they give you some break. Maybe MS has changed their stance on this, but I doubt it.
And for 4, I do a serious HW upgrade about every 12-18 months and I'm expected to re-activate. I've heard the MS has made it possible to do this with out a lot of effort, but the fact that any is required or expected of me at all really turns me off from their product(s)
"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat white guy who is threatened by change."
Among the obvious reasons such as security and stability I also like the usability aspect of linux. I know, I know, Bash me all you want. For me, Linux is more user friendly than Windows. I like the command line, the config files in plain text that I can edit, and the choice of window managers (I use BlackBox, I like its simplicity). As someone said, "the only intuitive interface is the nipple, everything else is learned" most people consider Windows user friendly because they were trained to use only windows.
So, I keep on Linux, because I like retaining control over my computer.
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
The biggest problem with Windows is that once it breaks it's really hard to fix. A few times Win2K was left unbootable, and it took me a week to figure out how to get it to install.
Linux, while it may be less intuitive is at least trivial to troubleshoot once you understand how it works. Windows though... it just freezed during the logo screen with the progress bar. You can't really get any less informative than that.
Besides that, stability. Not having to worry about the exploit of the day, spyware, and what every program will do with my registry is also very nice.
Apparently reading the articles is too much to ask, but could you read the post at least?
He's not asking about switching to Linux... he's asking about why Linux users don't switch to Windows!
I am a hardcore Mac user back from the old days, but I gave up on Apple for a few years. OS Lineage for me: Mac->Win3.1->Win98->Debian->Debian->XP->OSX. However, my mac is not perfect and some mundane CPU intensive tasks such as Stock Streamers, just run better on XP. Recently, I got the sasser virus on my XP laptop before I knew what it was, and then, I did a clean install. Because of work (Oracle Programming and Stock Stuff), I am still forced to use windows, but at home, my windows laptop is never even touched.
On the other hand, if you look at Microsoft Software as a whole, there are some great applications. I absolutely love the new office for OSX, and microsoft Project for windows has virtually no competition - even from Oracle. Truly, XP has come a long way from the 98SE crash fest, but the fact that Microsoft leaves the systems wide open is never good.
Im not an M$ fan, but you have to admit, that if they get their act together, we could be in for some trouble. Even from my OSX world.
On a side note, I want to plug a new site that I just made live. If you are interested in Day trading or the stock market check it out: Group Shares.com.
Thanks,
Aj
-------
artlu.net
Ok, the reason I use Linux primarily [at home] is just the options it provides (for free).
- Evolution for getting all of my personal mail and OO-ximian for all of my office needs (very simple at home).
- Gentoo to compile and make my old hardware still useful
- Less chance for viri/worms and it's easier to see what's going on, or what was installed. Same goes for adware and spyware.
- Theme options are much better, much more choices and all for free. All windows themes require clunky third party packages that are slow, and some of them cost money (i.e. the ones you would really want to use).
For a development environment, I don't see a big difference other then that Linux is our production system and developing on Windows just means more testing. There are some nice development tools, but work won't even pay for them so that's not a reason to use linux over windows (or vise versa).
At work, I do use Windows -- because everyone else does, and every time I try to switch (OO, ximian connector, etc).... there are always little wrinkles that I don't have time to deal with. At home, I have more flexibility.
Oh yes, I also now use Xbox for all my gaming so I don't care if linux game support isn't that great.
--------
Free your mind.
My OS desisions are based soley on bang for the buck. I keep a windows box around because I can devop simple data apps in Microsoft access faster than I can with anything on Linux.
I use linux mostly. Because I can't beat the bang for the buck on most every other application. I love using Quanta plus.
All of the other bonuses are nice. I like the freedom to look and figure out how something works. (or doesn't work)
I like the added security of evading the Worms and Viruses that plague Windows. Most of the plagues are avoided with a small amount of expense and a fair amount of common sense, so those are not a determining factor.
I stay off Windows where possible, because it is better for society to have a strong competitor to Microsoft. Without the choice of other OS's Windows would be a poorer and more expensive product.
Furthermore, OSS ensures greater trust is possible. We can verify the source code. With Microsoft, we cannot do this and without a strong competitor they would have less incentive to keep things clean.
I use Linux, in short, because it prevents too much power accumulating with one small group.
Also, it's free and more versatile.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
So what keeps (most) users on Windows? The inability to handle the learning curve needed to use Linux. Don't get me wrong-- I love Linux to death, but it does have its own set of problems. Yes, I can fix most of them on my computer. No, I can't expect my grandmother to fix them by herself.
I run Linux to avoid viruses, keep from having to reboot all the time, have some control over my computer without having to figure out what to click on, and have a choice on my interface. Actually, the last thing is what really keeps me; I like being able to choose KDE over GNOME, or just using the shell. And, for that matter, once I've chosen a GUI, I like to be able to configure it the way I want to. Heck, if I want it to look like a Mac, I can have that, too, or some hybrid.
The biggest thing, though, is the openness. I don't read C code well enough to be able to delve into the bowells of the kernel or the GUI, or even modestly complex applications and have a chance of knowing what's going on. But there are people who can, and I know where to look to find out what they think. There's a certain safety that I feel when I run Linux that I don't feel when I run Windows. It's public safety, and it's maintained by the neighborhood watch.
The Spoon
Updated 6/28/2011
Windows is my primary gaming platform. I have no gaming consoles, so, if you want to play games, you have to go Windows, for better or for worse.
"There is no spoon." - The Matrix
1) Price 2) Viruses that target it 3) Bugs that they delay fixing 4) Anger at their arrogance and refusal to support a company that mistreats their customers 5) Less Hangs on Apple/Linux
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Tasks that are trivial under Unix, have thus far eluded me. I still don't know how to set up DNS under Win2K.
"I know how to do it" does not equal "This is trivial."
Setting up DNS on UNIX is quite complex. Whole books have been written on the subject.
Setting up DNS on Windows Server is no more complex than it is on UNIX. Whether it's simpler is a matter for argument. Personally, I think it's much simpler. But at the very least, it's no more complex. Just different.
But let's not talk about things like setting up DNS, a task that one person in a hundred thousand will have to do once every five years. Let's talk about things like sending and receiving instant messages.
I write in my journal
Every time I start windows I'm helping an evil corporation that has been proven to use anti-competitive business practices maintain it's monopoly. Not to mention you really don't know what's in windows. Frankly, I feel safer using opensource software, because people with a practiced eye can peek into what I'm using and tell me if I have any backdoors open for the NSA/CIA/LEP.
The Yasashii Syndicate ||
Really? I use linux, but only as a server. I'd use it as my desktop, but the fact that I can't get my expensive $3,000 LCD monitor to work on it and can't play videogames on it is preventing me from switching to it on my desktop.
If I could at least get the monitor working, that would be enough for me to switch. It just really sucks having a $3,000 1920x1600 dpi monitor and a $500 video card but only get a 1024x768 resolution in linux.
Honestly, who at Microsoft thought this was a good idea: "Start / Settings / Control Panel / Add/Remove Hardware / Next / Uninstall/Unplug a device / Next / Unplug/Eject a device / Next / Select device / Next"
1. Reasonably low cost
2. Part of Open Source Movement
3. More Stable then Windows
4. Different from Windows
5. More flexible then Windows
6. Cutting edge software
7. OpenMosix
8. Faster than Windows
9. Better Security then Windows
10. More transparent More understandable
11. Does not profit Bill Gates
I like an easy life. Free from Application errors, licence numbers, bugfix delays, unexplained crashes and unpredictability. Linux, BSD, Darwin and Inferno behave as they should, as one would expect, and according to the manual. If they don't, then it's a bug and it gets fixed.
I like knowing my systems are going to stay up, and if they should ever fail, which in general they don't, I'd like to know they'll be fixed asap without me having to take the blame and pay.
Open source makes the world a better place.
but its for the GUI that I keep away from Windows, the so-called ease of use of Windows is easy to use coz its been fed to most users since they started to use computers.
I prefer to use fluxbox with an easily configurable menu that I get by clicking at on the background of my screen.
All the icons and systrays items and taskbar are pretty useless to me.
Also lets not forget the mention the ease of use of multiple desktops something windows hasnt even been able to put in yet.
- lack of cross platform compatibility
- OS lockin through products or development languages (SQL Server, C#, etc)
- poor security
- poor stability
- code bloat/ excessive functionality
- lack of choice; choices are forced down your throat on install
- no built in firewall or other security features
- closed environment that cannot be modified
- want to do everything for you
I like choice and Microsoft doesn't. That's pretty much it.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
Thats because Linux/Unix admin is usually:
/etc/conf/somefile
:)
man "something"
vi
restart daemon or reboot and then check the logs.
While Windows is:
Search microsoft.com, if your luck
Otherwise, buy a Book.
Go to Control Panel, Click, Open, check, click, click, open, open, open, click, tab, type something in, reboot, Go to Control Panel, Click, Open, check, check. Reboot
And "Pray" everything works!
If God intended use to use GUI, the bible would have had Icons.
I would choose either the 'All of the Above' option, or CowboyNeal as a saftey guess...
I'm not really 'off' Windows. I use Windows PCs and manage Windows networks daily. Linux systems as well. Most of my actual work, however, is done on a Macintosh. Even my Windows-related work is typically accomplished from my Mac using standard VPN tools in combination with Windows Terminal Services and/or VNC.
It is the solution that works best for me personally. I am rarely in the office which means that portability is a key factor and I enjoy the portability options of Mac OS X over those of Windows or Linux while maintaining a fantastic 'middle ground' to communicate with and manage these other platforms.
My favorite, albeit tired, phrase is "Use the right tool for the right job." For my job, a PowerBook running Mac OS X is that tool. But, like any good carpenter or mechanic, I have more than one tool in my toolbox. I just happen to use some more than others.
Its most definately not price for me. I shell out the $$ for each distribution because I believe in supporting them (SuSE in this case). I use it because:
1) It works great on older hardware saving me money and upgrade pains.
2) Unlike Windoze when I install a distribution I'm not only getting an OS and desktop platform I'm getting 99% of all the applications I need all at once.
3) Its reliable with uptimes in the months (I do stupid things occasionally otherwise it would be longer).
4) Its secure. My email is not my enemy and there is nothing on the system running that I haven't turned on myself.
5) Its multipurpose; desktop, server, dev environment, games machine, network monitor, firewall, you name it.
6) It can be modified/configured to do things the way =I= want to do them. Not the way I'm forced to do them.
7) Choice!!!
S'njit
...today (back fives years ago when I switched I was just annoyed by Win98 and curious):
Windows...
I know almost all features I miss on Windows can be "upgraded" with some tools, like an X server for Windows or SSH daemon for Windows. But it's not always working like it should. For example, since Windows has no native support for virtual desktops like X Window has all virtual desktop tools I've seen under Windows had some flaws and didn't satisfy me.
A few years ago I really hated Windows. Now I just don't care ;-) I don't have to use it, only rarely at work, so I really don't care what Windows can or can't. I've become a real fan of the Linux/UNIX architecture and acquired very intimate knowledge, so I don't think Windows will ever start to appeal to me again as everything I need is present in Linux/FreeBSD. Especially since KDE 3.2 is really good now and OpenOffice as well.
My reasons:
- Slow bloated feel
- Awkward UI
- Buggy
- Insecure, always virus concerns
- Expensive
- Everything takes 10 clicks.
Mac OS X showed me how great an OS can feel
- Smooth slim feel
- UI feels right (can't explain it much better than that)
- never crashed
- software update is nice and elequent, pretty secure.
- inexpensive ($129 isn't to bad)
- minimal clicks.
Overall: Higher quality, gets my vote every time. Windows is just an inferior product.
If you count on Windows, you are at the mercy of Microsoft and thier business model. They will try to make you and your business so depandant on them that you can't go in any direction but that which they tell you - you become thier cash cow.
Concientiously deploying thier solutions, however, means that they become just another vendor - who you can turf at any time for something better, if and when it comes along.
Realising what amount of control you give a vendor ultimately keeps control of your business where it belongs - with you.
There are probably more than a few businesses that woke up to the fact that Microsoft had an inordinate amount of control over them when they introduced Licensing 6.0. Once it sunk in that Microsoft was actually capable of exacting an annual tribute from them (and actually willing to attempt this), the ultimate damage was done. IMHO, Microsoft's huberis is killing Windows, not the worms.
*goes back to finishing the deployment of 2 brand new Linux servers...
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
sure they exist for other platforms, but they're not as prevalent as on windows.
before windows XP, I would have said stability, but that is getting better, no matter how much we hate to think so. perhaps once windows is stable to a workable level, they will work on security, but I'm not holding my breath.
I've always been a linux/unix geek, and after trying OSX 2 years ago, I haven't looked back.
The reason girls and Windows users don't understand UNIX is because all the documentation is in Man files.
Drivers. Strange as it may seem, it's a lot eaiser to get things working in Linux (provided it's actually supported).
Infinite flexibility. I have a D-Link USB radio jobbie. My computer is set to turn on at 5:50 every morning in the BIOS. In my crontab I have the following commands record Jono and Harriet's breakfast show on Heart 106.2 (great show - listen to it!)
- tune the radio,
- unmute the line in,
- start recording at 5:55
- stop recording at 9:05
- shutdown the computer at 9:10
I can't even imagine how to do that in Windows.Better looking fonts. All my apps have AA fonts. The web looks so much more prettier in Linux.
Allergy advice: Contains eggs.
The trick with linux is knowing what that "something" is. I have spent many hours searching the web and my manuals looking for a simple command in linux just because I didn't know the correct command to use or even the linux terminology for it.
However in windows I have always been able to "Click, Open, check, click, click, etc" until I find what I am looking for. It usually takes less than a half an hour the first time I do it.
I am now somewhat proficient as a linux user, but I am still lacking as an administrator.
-the Hun
I'm a Tasty-vore. If it's Tasty, I'll eat it.
I would say that I'm cheap (or perhaps I just hate wasting money) and I don't believe in pirating software. Most people that I know who are loyally committed to Windows pirate a great deal of their software. It bothers me that someone would dismiss Linux and praise Windows but will not pay for Windows or Windows apps. Also, if a "free" application is just as good as a "non free" application its logical to pick the free version. Even when the "free' version is not as good it still makes sense to pick it if it meets your needs. Let face it, I eat more ground beef than filet mignon even though the filet mignon is better. It is simple economic logic. I bet if someone could end all pirating of software it would not be long before the majority of people where using Linux.
I think that hits the nail on the head (it's Washington, by the way, not Oregon). Something as fundamental as an operating system shouldn't cost anything. It is a requisite for computing.
How would you react if you walked into a car dealership and the dealer told you you had to pay extra for the car battery, that it didn't just come with the car? It would be ridiculous. You can't use a car without a battery, and you can't use a computer without an OS. Charging for it as if it were a seperate product, a seperate application, is simple highway robbery.
Yes, what I'm advocating here is tighter integration of the OS into the hardware. When you buy computer components, they shouldn't just sit around useless until you pay out even more money for an OS. It should be built in. Upgradeable, interchangeable, yes, but built in.
Microsoft argues that the price of their operating system reflects its true value, that an OS is really very valuable because it is required to make the system work. Yet a car battery is also required to make a car work, and it is one of the cheapest components of the car! So clearly, whether something is a requirement or not does not reflect on its value in any direct way.
People are beginning to wake up to this deficient argument, so now Microsoft's strategy is to bundle as much extraneous software as possible with the OS, and then claim that the extra value lies in the bundled software. But this is like selling a car battery than comes with, say, a matching riding lawn mower. Nevermind the fact that you don't need a riding mower, it's simply a way to get you to agree to pay much much more than what the product is actually worth. And of course you don't have the option of refusing the lawn mower -- you're going to pay for it anyway.
So the reason I don't use Windows is because I refuse to be forced to buy a riding lawn mower when all I really want is a car battery. Yeah, I'm forced to use a battery that most people are unfamiliar with, and which is somewhat persnickety, and doesn't work in as many types of cars as the Microsoft battery (in case you hadn't guessed, I'm talking about Linux here), but now I'm getting what I really want, instead of what some corporation in Redmond thinks I want.
well here's the reasons i can come up with in 5 minutes:
;-)
;-)
1. scripting: i LOVE scripting! without some nice bash/perl/python scripts and the heavy usage of piping, bash variables, etc. an operating system would be more of a hindrance than a help!
1b. automation: automation together with scriptability is just the greatest. schedule some event for tomorrow, start anything in a screen session and connect from somewhere else lateron, convert all your filenames into something else, schedule backups, schedule reboots, *you name it*.
1c. remote access: any OS that doesn't allow remote access which differs in no way from local access is crap (hmm, hopefully remote sound support comes soon for X). windows incapability to allow transparent and easy remote access is one of the main reasons of not using it for anything but desktop. having a windows server and being responsible for administrating it remotely (as you most likely will, if sitting in some basement ain't your thang) is the most horrible nightmare imagineable!
2. transparency: i just trashed one of my file-systems (i WAS actually my fault). but linux/unix allowed me to repair what was left and most of all give me the CHANCE to spend as much time as i wanted! with proprietary systems you often have to rely on shoddy support (if you have any).
3. community: this has actually little to do with a specific system, but the open-ness of linux/bsd produces a better community. in free/open software there is so much know-how available on the internet with most of your questions already answered, and if not capable individuals in forums, IRC, newsgroups!
4. fixeability: windows give little choice when it comes to fixing bugs. the little you can do in the registry is most likely to trash your whole system (which you then will have no chance of reviving!). you CAN very well destroy a linux system, but much of the configuration files can be saved.
5. security: windows just sucks when it comes to securing against trojans, virii, worms! with A LOT of effort you can clamp everything down to a state where a w2k/wxp system can be called secure, but with stringent (it could be better) user separation of unix, compromising one service does not necessarily mean compromise of the whole system, as it does in most cases under windows.
6. extendability: in non-windows OSs (i.e. linux/bsd) you always have the chance to go further. if the system isn't secure enough, configure SELinux. if you would like some additional feature in the kernel, patch it. if you want perfectly configured mutt/exim/fetchmail/apache/cyrus spend hours over hours and get it the way you want!
7. choice: having the choice of several programs for one job is often a nuissance and will likely take you a while to figure out which one is best suited. but this inconveniance still beats having less choice (as you DO under windows!).
8. price
9. modularity: nobody is forcing you to update to such and such, update your operating system to install an office suite or anything like that. with the compile-from-source approach, almost any program should run under almost any posix-compatible OS (if written with compatibility in mind) and therefore put no pressure on the users as to what OS to use!
9. freedom: the certainty that you will NEVER have to do with anything less than you have today. the good feeling that a free-software community is building software for the future which will not be obliterated in a 5-year-cycle. sure, the bazaar model has its drawbacks, but the freedom from monopolistic enterprises which try to force you into dependencies (i.e. the MS Office format) should clearly be more important than the little comfort you gain over free alternatives (with notable exceptions of course).
i surely have forgotton many reasons (as well as not mention some drawbacks of not using windows), but the above should cover it for now
Ahhh, so you are evaluating your software based on looks of the people in the company? Wow. Can it get any more closed minded than that?
My motherboard!
No, seriously. Earlier this year the hdd controler took a dump to the point where windows wouldn't run. I've tried: 98SE, ME, 2k and XP. Not a single version runs. I end up with "Hardware failure: contact your vendor for support" or something similar. On safe startups it dies immediately after MUP.SYS. I've been through new ram, video cards, hard disks, bios flashes, network cards, and HDD low level formats.
Anyway, I had a gentoo partition on it for a while, and I run mandrake/debian/redhat on various servers so I'm not quite jumping in the deep end here. The reason I was running windows was really for games and the 'it just works' factor. I know if I get a device somewhere, or a game, or some app I know it runs on windows.
Now, I know the arguments against all the above... if you want to game, get a console. Buy only hardware from linux-friendly manufacturers.. and I agree although the reality is that it doesn't always work that way.
Now, to get my computer functional, I installed several distros (all of which seem to work flawlessly despite windows claims of hardware inadequacy). I didn't feel like installing gentoo all week (I'm not knocking gentoo! I ran it for a year or so and liked it), and fedora lasted almost half an hour before me getting mad at it, so I went back to my old standby... Mandrake 10. I booted knoppix and saved the community iso to my ramdrive, burned it, and installed from the ftp official sources. An hour later I had a copy of Mandrake and it was my new desktop - permenantly. Albeit by force.
Now, I tried to go back to windows a few times on another partition with no success (and yes I mapped the partitions around with grub to be windows-friendly).. And it failed.
So I had a choice.. stick with linux (by force) and learn to love it in a desktop environment or shell out for a new motherboard.
Setting up the system was simple. Sound, mice, usb printers, nvidia graphics drivers etc... All that went well. The next task was clear - getting games to work.
Now, I have a collection of several hundred cd's and numerous floppies dating back to the days of the original Mechwarrior and Starflt (and I still have the code wheel). After a weekend of wine and compiling the winex cvs several different ways, I ended up with a grand total of 0 working games. This was very disappointing.
I struggled for about another two weeks with some mmorpg's I played and had just about finished with the withdrawl pains since I was unable to play them. Still no luck.
I was hard-set against paying $15 for a transgaming subscription, mostly because of the lack of it being free (in either sence of the word).
At one weak point I threw out my cc# and ended up with a nice little minty-fresh RPM. The installation was easy.. no config files needed to be setup (although I tweaked them later) and it made all the directories I needed. The interesting part was... most of my games actually worked. I've been going through KOTOR for the last week on linux, and aside from some mouse irritations it mostly works.
Now, I'm not an advocate for Transgaming, and I recommend using wine/x if at all possible, but for anyone thrown into the deep end it can ease some of the pains.
And now, my home system is linux and its staying that way.
Karma: SELECT `karma` FROM `users` WHERE `userid`=138474;
I prefer Linux because I can do more with it.
I like KDE better than Windows XP. It's a better desktop with more features that are easier to tweak and fix if something goes wrong.
I'm starting to play with XFCE. I like that too.
The command line actually has real unadulterated power under Linux!
I like the fact that there isn't a central monolithic registry that can take the entire system down.
I prefer Mozilla to IE. Always have.
My kids like the games that come with KDE and GNOME. They're colorful and fun, and they whine when I tell them they have to use the XP box in the other room for homework.
I like the fact that my nine year old can't break it... no matter how hard she tries...
I like the fact that my wife can't install software on my desktop when she's not logged in as me.
I like Linux because I never have to worry about the status of my license, or installing it on multiple machines.
I like the fact that I can set up a grid or a series of thin clients throughout my house without much real work.
I like the fact that my internet connection is faster under Linux than it was under Windows XP. It's a real kick. If you have both running side by side, try comparing them sometime.
It's nice that Linux will run (granted with a little work) on my prehistoric 486dx2.
It's nice that Linux doesn't have 19 system processes that report to the Microsoft mother-ship for no good reason at all, that can't be turned off.
It's nice that there's so much useful documentation on Linux out there. No matter what problem I'm having, the Linux community has documented just about everything incredibly well. And they never ask how helpful they were when they were no help at all. That's nice too.
Linus is slightly less evil than Gates.
And the fact that it's free, or at least mostly free doesn't hurt either.
This signature has Super Cow Powers
A lot has already been written about various reasons for not using Windows - stability issues, control, viruses, cost, customization, and so on. I agree with all these reasons, but I'll add another which I don't think has been stated: I stay away from Windows and use Linux because it's more fun.
I have fun tinkering with my OS. You can't do a lot of that with Windows, but you can with Linux. I'm not a developer, but I can still get a kick out of compiling my own kernel, editing a config file, or trying out a different window manager. I know a lot of people don't find fun in these things, but I do. This isn't my only reason for not using Windows, but it's important to me.
Pretty much my story too. I've used MS since DOS3. Never really got into *nix, as for a long time I had no way to try it out (no internet) and once I did get a chance to try it out on a Solaris machine, I found it sorely disappointing (CDE annoyed the heck out of me and I didn't know any of the CLI commands).
Then about 18 months ago I had to work on a Redhat desktop for a couple of months. I took some time to learn to use the CLI commands and eventually got hooked.
When I installed Mandrake at home, I set the machine up to boot into Windows by default. After only two weeks or so I noticed that I pretty much always chose to boot linux instead, so that became the default. Stayed that way ever since.
Why do I keep away from Windows? Two things mainly.
1) Pretty much everything I do except playing games and making PowerPoint presentations (OO.org is great, but Impress presentations don't always look perfect in PowerPoint, which I have to use for the actual presentation) can be done just as easily or more easily under linux.
2) I'm in charge of linux. Linux doesn't try to dictate how I should use my computer. If I don't like the windows manager, I can choose another one. If I would like to have feature X in program Y, I can file a wishlist or make the modifications myself if I can. If I want to get rid of some program I dislike, linux won't try to stop me. Etc. etc.
And of course the price is really nice too, but that's not as big a selling point to me as those other 2 points, since I can get cheap/free copies of Windows programs for most things that I need to do (student license for MS-Office, eclipse, JDK, MiKTeX, etc.)
Actually, what ticks me off is that Windows makes it easier to unplug a device incorrectly than it does to do so correctly.
On Windows, if I want to eject my iPod or my camera, I have to click unplug device. Then I have to click the device i want to unplug. Then I have to select the device. Then it tells me I'll also be turning off the filesystem on the drive (duh). Then is asks if I'm sure. Then it tells me it ejected okay.
That's 4 windows opened. If I just pull the cable, I only get one window. Guess which one I do?
On Mac OSX, if I jack the plug on my iPod or my camera, I get a single message telling me I did something stupid and probably screwed my file system (whcih, on the camera, i probably did). If I drag it to the trash, or click the eject button over the volume in the finder, and i'm not using a file on the drive, it ejects and doesn't even give me a window. It becomes LESS of a hassle to do it right!
Hey freaks: now you're ju
I use it because Windows is completely closed. I love programming and Linux makes it easy to screw around with (screw up?) anything.
Heck, Windows doesn't even ship with QuickBasic anymore. They've certainly made it clear you aren't welcome to explore (unless you have several hundred for VS.NET).
Too bad too; I think a lot of youth are missing out on the excitment of programming because of this too. I don't think MS is really interested in fostering more programmers. They have the ones they feel they need.
So anyways - like I said before I started rambling. I love to program and I'll never run out of possibilities with Linux so I love it. I'm like a kid in a candy store.
It motivates me to participate and grow.
BTW - I can relate to 'easier to diagnose problems' argument too.
Wrong.
.NET, and Windows Server than I ever was with Linux, MySQL, vi, and gdb. I don't have to waste time worrying about which toolkit to code for, or how to hack around some mind-numbingly bad design (like X).
I used Linux exclusively (starting with Slackware, running kernel 1.2.3) over a five year period from 1996 until 2000.
The quality/stability of Windows 2000 won me over.
I switched to Windows 2000, and never looked back. Gone are the installation headaches, poor user interfaces, lack of integrated features, poor documentation, and politics of free software. I'm more productive with Visual Studio, SQL Server,
The cost of software licenses is not something I care about: even Microsoft's retail prices add up to far less than 1% of revenue at my company. And if I didn't have their software, I'd be much less productive than I am now. So their stuff pays for itself.
I don't use Windows anymore because Linux is more fun.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
Microsoft refuses to allow me to run MS Windows. This is because I can't agree to their EULA.
I "went free" a long time ago. I first used UNIX as an 8th grader and was running linux .98 when i was in 10th grade. I stopped using MS products as of Win 3.1 (and after dabbling with OS/2 2.1/2.11) switched completely to linux.
:) A friend gave me her old p166mmx machine. I bought two $10 ethernet cards and put openbsd on it. That machine is still my openbsd firewall/filter/"stuff" machine. In march of that year i bought a $400 machine and put win2k RC on it to compete in a windows CE development contest. (note i hadn't used any MS stuff in years, apart from a friends machine or the occasional lab computer).
:)
For a year or two.
Then i bought a sparc IPX with sol 2.4, then an SS10 with 2.5.1. Then i went off to college.
With these two real machines i had no need for linux, so i stopped caring about PCs in general. I had real hardware and a real OS that ran basically as long as i left the things turned on. At college i had 2 sparcstations but no PCs.
My junior year of school i bought an SGI i^2 high impact (i wanted a fast 24bit gfx console, and sun didn't have any available unless you got an ffb, which were very expensive and UPA only, or a ZX, which i bought, and was dirt slow)
Finally, in my senior year of college, i got a PC again. Why ? my sgi got rooted
In may of the same year (2 months later), i started work full time at Microsoft.
Not much changed at home - my main box was still my SGI for a number of years, with my ss10 doing web and mail hosting, the obsd box doing all firewall duties. I sold the sparc IPX back in college.
I built a duron 600 file server and put obsd on it. This was when UDMA 100 drives were fairly new; i put two in that machine and discovered a bug in the oBSD IDE driver, which i submitted a minor patch for (and which was subsequently re-written, but im in the comments somewhere
At work obviously i was using w2k, xp, server 2k3, etc. I had a linux box in the corner for some occasional tasks that were actually faster to do in unix even with the penalty of moving data over and back again (i am something of a fan of awk)
I found that W2k was refreshingly nice compared to 3.1, 95, and NT4. I'd say that W2k was the first real OS MS released. Usable enough to not get in the way. Certainly no more than dicking with linux sound modules got in the way.
Curretly, that duron 600 is my main xp workstation, the p166 still runs openbsd, and the ss10 has been powered off for 6 months. The $400 w2k machine still runs w2k as a dedicated machine that has daemontools images of the various car-repair and parts-db stuff i use (via terminal server).
The point of all this long windedness ?
everything post w2k is good enough to use as a workstation, IMO. For a given task, there's a number of tools that can accomplish it. In my case, i screw with computers enough at work that i'm just not interested in hassling with them at home. That means that my home technology choices tend to revolve around "easiest", where easiest caters to my current skillset and world view.
That means i use an XP machine for all of my web surfing and emailing, and putty from there to a unix machine to irc (i hate graphical irc clients). The oBSD machine hosts email and web (because both are super easy to setup there, and i have no fears about making an obsd machine internet-facing.. it just works like it's supposed to)
What's the point of all of this ?
I could really care less what OS i'm using. It either meets my requirments or it doesn't. I'll use the one that meets the operational profile for what i'll use the box for with the least amount of my effort. If i gave a crap about spending lots of time at home computing, i'd probably have something more modern than a duron 600 as my primary workstation.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
What keeps you dual-booting your system? I have some software that simply isn't available to run with Linux or requires a long delay from the release of the Windows version, so I have a Windows boot. I can't stand the security risk of Windows so I have a Linux boot. When I am gaming or handling CAD/CAM stuff, I log in to Windows. When I am surfing the net or checking email, I log in to Linux.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
Why not chocolate, or some other flavor? ...it's about the same question unless you really have a reason. I use Linux because, as a student, I needed a lot of the things that it gave me, and now, I just find it more convenient. What keeps me off of Windows is the fact that I use Linux, and that I'd have to buy a license for my computer. ...since I'm going to graduate school in the fall, I'll be skipping that license.
You guys have painted yourself in a corner. You say that Linux is cheaper than windows, but when you consider the time spent trying to get broken libraries, drivers, and programs to work, you're wrong. I paid $90 for my OEM copy of Windows XP, and that was three years ago. That averages to nine cents per day.
Now, as far as a *server* is concerned, Linux is usually a better choice. Until Linux is easier to use than Windows, it's not going to put a dent in desktop marketshare. So, if you *really* want that marketshare, you'll stop being ricers and start developing a UI on top of the kernel that
1) makes it easy to install/remove programs, and provides an easy way to run Windows executables.
2) makes it easy to install/remove web plugins, like flash.
3) makes it easy to install/remove drivers.
4) provides a sane way to manage libraries.
If you can't manage these simple tasks that are the basis for the existence of an operating system, then how in the hell do you expect to get any customers?
There are probably more, but that is sufficient to keep me off Windows for the foreseeable future.
-l
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And spare me the short list of supported commercial games with linux clients, spare me WineX, and spare me lesser games people made for linux...Im playing Lineage 2 today, and perhaps an RTS game in the next couple of months, and undoubtedly a FPS that may or may not have linux support. It doesnt have *enough* of the games *I* want to play....unfortunately, as I like Linux much more than windows any day of the week.
By and large, language is a tool for concealing the truth. -- George Carlin
It's as simple as that.
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
If Microsoft had CRUSHED Apple years ago, that wide-open market wouldn't be there for Microsoft to grab... they'd have to have thought of it themselves, implemented it, gotten it to sell.
The advantage of competitors is that your competitors do some of the foot-work for you, take some of the risks for you. What you want to do is wait until the copmetitor has made a new product work, then beat their product.
Of course, that's what Microsoft is so good at...
Having worked for an ISP for some time now, I have grown accustomed to using vim, sed, awk, grep, and a variety of other tools. I utilize command shells for practically everything (force of habit,) and I am actually more error prone in a drag/drop environment than using a command line. I'm extremely unhappy with the quality of the Windows 'cmd' command line interface. At this point, the only use I have for Windows is to play the everpopular first person shooters, for which I dual boot. I dislike the lack of remote control in windows. I'd really like to be able to SSH in and do everything from a command prompt that I could do with the normal interface, but the Windows XP Telnet interface is crippling. There is something quite inflexible about Windows, and I find it disturbing. When I leave home, I must check to make sure my dual booting system is running in Linux (the default,) or I won't be able to access it from elsewhere. Diverse filesystem access is also lacking, as I can access my NTFS partition read-only from Linux, but I cannot access my EXT3 partition at all from Windows. I think that just about sums it up.
I've been off of windows for 3 years. I have 3 Redhat machines and just bought a PowerBook last week. The main reason for me to not swtich from Windows was that I couldn't give up all of the games. These days I have one windows machine that I use for Battlefield.
The main thing keeping me from going back to windows is that I realize that I don't need windows to do what I want. I'm happy coding java in vim and NOT having lockups. The alternative software is getting better, and for most everyone OpenOffice or AbiWord will do whatever they want. Evolution is one of the best email apps I've used, except for Mail.app now. But, it's just that I know I don't have to use windows that's keeping me away from it.
I bet there's a lot of people here who would seriously switch completely to Mac or Linux if they could give up their games, or get different games. Frozen Bubble is only really entertaining for the first few weeks. As far as doing real work like websites and java, anything BUT windows is the way to go.
Maybe no looks but it's a metaphor. Balmer, Gates, Alchin etc are very slimy people who run a slimy company that does slimy things.
To me the fact that MS paid ADTI to write a book sliming Linus and open source is reason enough to shun them. Add to that funding SCO, paying the likes of Enderlee and DiDio to publish bogus research and the thousands of other sleazy tactics.
To me It's important to support companies who act ethically. I realize that every dollar I spend can either make the world a better place or a worse one. I don't buy GM modified food, I don't buy Microsoft.
evil is as evil does
I am with you on this one. I still have a windows PC, but it rearly gets used. I have to use one at work, but that is changing. MacOSX is right on, I am not going to say bad things about MS, I am not going to go and tell you they crash and suck, I just like MacOSX more, and that is all I have to say about that.
David Vasta iSeries(AS/400) Admin & Junkie
Rather than ask amongst Slashdot users "What keeps you off of Windows?", perhaps we should ask the rest of the computing public a much more interesting question.
What keeps you off of Linux?
The first question merely allows us to puff out our collective chests and bleat for the rest of the assmbled throng. Then we nod appreciatively at our confirmation of the "obvious". Tell it brother!
But why don't more people use Linux or BSD (and their collective assortment of redheaded step-children)? What aren't we doing right that there isn't greater acknowlegement of the beneifts outlined in countless posts here. The question is not that far removed from the ease with which some snake oil salesman from the land of de Tocqueville is able to con the masses about Linux and Open Source.
Open Source and Linux need a really good PR guru that can get our voice heard. A few shouts in the wilderness ain't doing the job.
Then again, maybe we need to spend more time on improving this mouse trap so the world will beat a path to our door.
For me its simple:
.NET. Soon all apps will be running off of a global app server that Microsoft owns. If you don't pay, then you cannot access the data in your files because the data is in a proprietary format that only a Microsoft has an app to read and display. Open-Source writes a parser/reader? No problem, change the app on the global server to slightly tweak the format.
I want to own my data. Now and in 5 years.
Look at XAML. Look at
Pay to access MY data?!?
Never.
I prefer Linux because I can do more with it.
Quantify?
I like KDE better than Windows XP. It's a better desktop with more features that are easier to tweak and fix if something goes wrong.
Something goes wrong enough to where this is a feature?
The command line actually has real unadulterated power under Linux!
I like the fact that there isn't a central monolithic registry that can take the entire system down.
Unlike when your RPM database gets corrupted or when RedHat inadvertantly puts the wrong information on glibc and everyone upgrades and is left with a machine that you can only reinstall the OS on (the shortest path).
I prefer Mozilla to IE. Always have.
Objectively? or subjectively?
My kids like the games that come with KDE and GNOME. They're colorful and fun, and they whine when I tell them they have to use the XP box in the other room for homework.
As opposed to the 1000s of games on the Windows box that all their friends are playing. Could be that you have only the default 5 games installed on the Windows box and they are tired of them and that's why they don't want to use those?
I like the fact that my nine year old can't break it... no matter how hard she tries...
Nothing that a good glass of water can't fix... but that is just a general hazard to the machine. Also, don't leave yourself logged in as root.
I like the fact that my wife can't install software on my desktop when she's not logged in as me.
Heh... you like the fact that your wife can't do what she wants unless it's with your permission...
I like the fact that my internet connection is faster under Linux than it was under Windows XP. It's a real kick. If you have both running side by side, try comparing them sometime.
I have... objectively and with real benchmarks. They are so close to the same it doesn't matter. In fact, on some HPC problems, using I/O Completion ports, Windows was markedly faster than Linux. Since then, the stacks have improved on Linux and they are about equal.
It's nice that Linux will run (granted with a little work) on my prehistoric 486dx2.
Why? I guess it's nice to be nostalgic but I replaced all of those machines with machines that are a bit faster. As far as creep, Linux suffers it as much as Windows, just a couple years behind. One time, back in the day, Linux could be installed on my Pentium 60 with as little as 8M of RAM. Today, minimum recommended is 128M with 256M being "better" (see SuSE web pages, since I was just there earlier today actually *buying* a 9.1 distribution from them, for this example).
It's nice that Linux doesn't have 19 system processes that report to the Microsoft mother-ship for no good reason at all, that can't be turned off.
Proof of that which exists today? or are you still living in 1995?
It's nice that there's so much useful documentation on Linux out there. No matter what problem I'm having, the Linux community has documented just about everything incredibly well. And they never ask how helpful they were when they were no help at all. That's nice too.
Heh, yeah... those wonderful 'man' pages. When there is documentation, it is completely dry when having simply one example of a very common use would answer 90% of all questions about it. Linux documentation (and even Unix documentation for the most part) is seriously lacking. It's written by engineers for engineers. No examples, just lists of the 200+ command line options for every program with almost no direction of which ones are useful together.
Linus is slightly less evil than Gates.
Who cares, neither of them kill babies and eat them raw. I don't idolize either of them, they are just humans like me, not a god, and not worthy of religion.
I've been using Unix since around 1986. I started using Linux back in the pre-1
do not give me the batch file crap, batch does not do regex or any of that stuff, nor can I pipe my outputs and inputs
Actually, you can pipe inputs and outputs in batch. However, batch is in fact dead. Years ago, Microsoft devised the Windows Scripting Host to replace it, and it is very very nice. You can run it in GUI mode or command line. It supports RegEx as well as any scripting-enabled COM component (including a lot of standard Windows calls).
"Every consumer decision is a political statement."
Says it all.
--Rick "If it isn't broken, take it apart and find out why."
I was at a LAN recently.. brought along an old Linux box to fiddle with, like I normally do. Got a chance to play a lot of fun games on other boxes though, like BF1942, Diablo, etc.
/etc, and so forth.
Anyway.. I started musing about going back to Windows after seeing everyone else's tricked out Windows-basesd gaming rigs. I realized just how -nice- a good desktop OS like win2k can feel. (I despise the eye candy in XP, and most people don't know how/why to turn it off.
First off, I think Firefox looks nice in Windows than Linux. I could never get anti-aliasing to work right, and for some reasons my fonts usually look crappy, even when I install the Windows TTF fonts.
Windows is, I still think, a good OS for a few things -- word processing (I use OpenOffice, and it's good... but I wouldn't want to have to do more than a few papers here and there with it), games -- no question there. As well as using p2p software.. just download eMule, your favorite BT client, Kazaa Lite. (Yea, there are equivalents in Linux. ) Put everything you want in the quickstart bar, maybe add some skins.. etc. And it will all look quite nice, and behave responsibly. You won't ever have to worry about hacking around text files to get a program to compile, messing with dependencies. gpoing through a 20 step process to get binary-only drivers fron Nvidia/ATI to work so that you can play a few games like UT natively, or a handful under Wine. Don't even get me started on Wine.
Having said all that.. I'm still on Linux. Here's why. First of all, I don't mind messing around a bit in Linux to get stuff to work. It's educational. I feel like I'm really learning stuff when I set up Apache the way I want it. On that note, I think Windows is a terrible choice if you're thinking of running an FTP server, web server, etc. I honestly have no clue how I would go about setting up IIS, although I imagine it's probably easy. I honestly don't know much about the guts of windows, because you're not encouraged to. On the other hand.. Linux encourages you to be able to mess with stuff like init.d config, all the config files in
And here's another point. I can only begin to imagine how many Windows users have spyware and other crap installed. Any sane Linux user would consider this a serious problem.. it's essentialy a root-exploit from installing malicious software as root (i.e. Admin).
The free software paradigm in Linux works wonders. I trust every open source program I download, even though I'm not going to personally check the source. Yea, I'm sure it could be possible for some knucklehead to hide some malicious code in a program, but I can't remember the last time (ever?) an OSS project had that happen.
In Windows.. it's easy to do things the wrong way. Click on those popup ads telling you your computer is broadcasting an IP address, accidentally clicking "Yes" when some popup ad asks you if you want to trust software from Foo Company. Having a hole in IE exploited, and your browswer homepage changed. Being constantly forced to revert to Administrator, if you're smart enough to be running as an unpriveleged user. In Mandrake, when I made the mistake of logging into KDE as root, I was reminded many times, both by KDE and the programs (i.e. xchat) that I was doing the wrong thing.
A final note. I think every "power" Windows user needs to pirate many hundreds of dollars of software in order to have a working system -- FlashFXP, WinRAR, Newsbin, maybe AdAware/ZoneAlarm Pro,BPFtp server, CloneCD, Nero, the latest games, etc. In Linux.. you actually feel good about just using the software that some kind soul has made for you.
http://cltracker.net -- powerful craigslist multi-city search
Actually, what I find is that it is harder to become an "expert" in Windows, and even when you do, Windows is so user-friendly that it is actually expert-hostile. Add to that the fact that so few administrative tasks are automatable, and any single one of those tasks takes more mouse clicks than it would take keystrokes to write a program to do it. Well, that's how *I* define expert-hostile.
Of course, now that I sometimes use Windows for work, I can't even imagine running Windows without either ActivePerl or a complete CygWin.
RHCE; are you certified? Karma: ambiguous.
As if we don't get enough of this on a daily basis already.
Never argue with a man carrying a water buffalo
Granted, thats the short list. Ultimately though, for me, I have realized that Windows simply restricts what I can do.
Using basic tools found on *nix, I have been able to create lots of very useful utilities that interact with me via email. Its great as I routinely check email so it makes sense to have as much information delivered via email as possible. Virtually everything can be redirected to email which is very nice -- how bout Windows? Seems like I have to check a handful of different application GUIs to collect the information.
Bottom line -- the flexibility is the key point. Granted, I'm sure if I spent a few hundred more on development tools, I could probably do many of the same things on Windows, but why?
As much as some people like might to whine about the theoretical security problems of Linux, the fact still remains that it is WinDOS boxes that get rooted and turned into spam gateways.
End users shouldn't have to be neurotic about applying security patches and they shouldn't have to fear email attachments.
This is strictly the Microsoft engineering mentality at work.
Fortunately, we have Linux and Apple.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Confusing and distorting stardands so that only M$ products work. I refuse to purchase applications that will only work with IE. I will tell any ISV who does this that they are automatically cut from the selection process because they aren't following open standards. There are web standards - follow them. Don't like them - change them officially so we can all use them.
All the security holes that M$ has known for over a year and have yet to fix
All the spyware that I get due to ActiveX
All the viruses
The licensing extortion.
The phone-home spyware installed by M$
Requirement to be an administrator to do anything useful. On a Linux box, I rarely run as root. Keeps my machine totally stable. With Windows, I need to reinstall every 2-3 months because something has corrupted my machine. I have better things to do than constantly having to reinstall the OS.
Making money. M$ has pretty much taken the oxygen out of the Windows market. They leave no money on the table for their ISVs. If an ISV does have a big hit on their hands, they buy them or they release their own crappy version that competes with the ISV. Within a short period of time, that ISV is dead. Being a M$ partner is deadly to your health.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Wow, I haven't even bothered to read any of the other comments, and I'm sure I'm going to add nothing new here, but the reasons keep growing by the day.
//c, an incredibly open archetecture, and I just got used to being able to twiddle with things any way I wanted. I still remember a few of the hex codes for assembly lang. instructions (Ex: 0x20 = JSR, 0x60 = RTS,...)
I started my computing career on an Apple
My Apple broke and for a few years, I didn't have a home computer (gasp!) Of course, at the time I was working as a programmer, so I got plenty of computer time. I quit my job and went back to grad school and decided I wanted a computer. By this point I had heard about the *BSDs and this thing called Linux, and since I decided I loved Unix so much, I thought that I would give Linux a spin.
Of course, I had a dual boot machine at this point. I liked playing with Photoshop (this was in the days before GIMP) and a few other Windows apps, but I couldn't help the feeling of being... restrained. W95 was fun to play with at first, but I was frustrated by the fact that there was only so much you could tinker with. I was a math grad student, and so the fact that TeX was installed by default helped me to stay in the Linux environment most of the time. I played a few games in Windows, but for the most part, Linux was my choice. Viri were around at that point, but they were a relatively minor nuisance, compared to today. And spam? Hadn't really been invented yet. Ahhh, to be able to go back to those days....
Well, to cut a long, rambling post shor.... well, never mind, way too late for that. (Note: Quantity of single malt scotch is directly proportional to length of posts/e-mails.) At this point, it works like this: Every time I turn around, I find another reason not to use Windows. At the end of the day, as much as I love Linux, I'm still not one to slobber over it and denounce Windows; it just seems so childish to do so. On the other hand, I love Unix/Linux so much, and administering said systems, that I've decided to make a career switch to system administration, despite all the outsourcing/bad economy/whatever.
Linux is great technology, and it isn't just the technical part that is great. It's the people. The people I know who are into Linux and Unix are , by and large, enthusiastic about what they do, and that just makes it so much more fun for me. There are of course Windows admins/users like this, but I've met so many pissed off/frustrated ones that it just brings me down.
Oh well, that's my 2 cents (ok, more like four bucks) worth.
At work:
Engineers with mucho WinXX expertice who do not want to start over at the bottom.
Masive installed base of WinXX C++/C/TCL/VB code.
At home:
Confusing installs.
Lack of hardware support.
Lack of turn-key support of the major PC sellers.
(I have installed Red Hat three times, and I still have not figured out how to surf the net[USB WiFi]. SBC does not support Linux yet.)
I use Linux for three main reasons:
- Flexibility: I can configure my computer to work exactly how I want. In addition, I use Gentoo, which allows further control. Yes, this adds complexity; it doesn't work "out of the box", so to speak, but that's fine with me. No one dictates how it looks or feels. For the record, I use parts of GNOME with Enlightenment.
- Freedom: I am a programmer. If I can't make a program do something I want it to, I can always open the source (another advantage of source-based distros, by the way: it's easier to modify the source for programs than with binary distros, because you have the headers for everything). To date, I have patched 4 programs, and submitted the patches for 2 of them.
- Philosophy: I can't explain why, but the whole philosophy behind the open source movement appeals to me.
I would say "price" as an advantage, but that's really a non-issue, since *ahem* I have never bought a copy of Windows (Microsoft tax excluded).
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0 Whoops, silly middle mouse button...
in windows 2000 and windows xp, logging in as administrator is not the same as logging in as root. you cannot kill certain processes, you cannot delete certain files, you cannot do certain things. the main issue with most viruses that exist for windows is not that they have admin access, but that they propogate. the majority of "viruses" do not even fit the classic definition of "virus" in that they don't harm a computer. they're worms, they're designed to spread fast, causing only harm to the network because of all the traffic, not the computer itself. also, the security issues that microsoft tends to address are those that allow a remote attacker to gain admin access. this is the same issue that many popular pieces of software for linux have dealt with (ssh is a good example). no matter how you look at it, you have to keep a linux box patched and up-to-date or else you'll eventually run into some sort of issue, unless you're behind a good firewall. see my example in my last post for reasons. i'm not saying windows is better, but i'm definitely not about to say linux is better either. the fact remains that in order to have a truly secure system, you need to keep up-to-date with patches. i'm sure more holes exist in linux than we know about because there are far fewer people using linux than use windows. as an operating system itself, windows is no less secure than linux.
please me, have no regrets.
I've read all the 4/5 posts so far, and I haven't seen anyone comment directly about this, but I've seen it stated emotionally:
Under MS, people have a loss of controlling free and independent programs that they've chosen, written or can wrap their minds around. The NT kernel is documented (not freely), but the services, runtime dependencies and so on, are still a mystery to people. Most of them cannot be replaced with a better version you or some other smart programmer changed and released.
Under Linux, due somewhat to the novel time we're living in, there is a wealth of question/answer documentation about many daemons, programs aor options. Config files can be hacked and rehacked. This doesn't mean there's less complexity, but I think the complexity is more componentized under Linux. Linux may be a monolithic Kernel, but if you look through the history of MS's OS progression, you'll find many many things going into the "OS" that simply don't need to be there (culminating, famously, with a simple web browser being "an integral part of the operating system").
Today, MS strives to have one of the most "approachable" OS's on the market. They provide a platform for market dynamics with their OS. This is to allow endless vendors to install and provide additional services - some before you know it. They suffer, however, from a chosen userbase that then doesn't know what is on their box or how to manipulate it. So one of the myraid of issues is the "install", "play nice with..", "uninstall cleanly" cycle that MS leaves up to the user and vendor. Some past endeavors (think "plug and play database") have tried to cure this, but wrapping your arms across an entire living market is a moving target.
Linux, coming from a technical birth, strives to be approachable, but in the end it caters to the tinkerer in each of us. Even finding the "ps" command in a manual can be a world of discovery for the newbie tinkerer. Even without knowing how the guts work, one can ps for processes and look them up by name. In this way, it harkens back to "computer as tool" instead of "computer as appliance".
MS wants to sell you an appliance that has the largest set of behaviors to provide this market: Vendors selling goods / users consuming services / playing games / advertising channels sold to the market / digital rights management to allow any set a procedures to deliver content. MS wants to build the market and decide how users/businesses participate in it.
Linux provides none of this. It relies on its users to participate in the market by writing free tools, but not really define such a market. PGP didn't make a revolution, nor PNG images, nor any pretty desktop display. However, they are all great tools to allow people to get stuff done - without succumbing to a vendor-decided ruleset. The Linux movement strives to allow people or businesses to participate in the market without any vendor acting on their behalf.
No, he don't have it backwards, jack. He's got a little historical perspective, is all.
When "corporations" were originally being invented, they would be set up with "charters", which said what the corporation's primary and secondary goals and mission were.
Corporations still have charters. But it's in fact a relatively recent development that the profit goal is popularly considered to override all other stated goals (as opposed to being one among them, and not the primary - of course profit is necessary, but do you live to eat, or eat to live?).
Some corporations retain this (Apple, arguably, among them; possibly Ford now that a Ford is back in charge and the silly Frenchman - with views like yours - who brought it to the brink of disaster by moving into fields unrelated to cars, intending to increase profits, is out.)
Look into a little history sometime. (Why this change - conceptual, ideological, and legal - is an interesting question.)
So, stop mistaking concepts for reality.
heh, those are the same complaints I have for linux.
Mozilla always hanging, having to restart X (the bad ctrl-alt-backspace way) every 6 hours or so, getting java to even do anything at all, lack of plugins for mozilla (come on, no shockwave? weak!)
Plus, the apps don't make the OS. XP has been just as stable as my Linux box was. Last time the machine rebooted was due to power failure two weeks ago (UPS kicked in and shut it down after 5 minutes since i wasn't there). 3 weeks before that, it crashed due to a classmate's mistake (we were in a group project for a programming class and he put an endless loop in on accident).
Hell, XP is more dependable than my cable box!
"Huh? If everything is running so smoothly why do you have to reinstall it every 6 months?"
The fundamental back breaking flaw in Windows is the registry. Every few months, it gets so bloated that even simple tasks take a long time to get through. Why? Because Windows has to scan through it, find the data it wwants, and load it in. It eventually becomes such a tangled mess you MUST start over with it.
Even the most dedicated MS Fan boy will acknowledge that.
"Derp de derp."
I use BSD on my servers, and WinXP on my desktops. BSD does a better job of hosting my domain names and web sites, handling my email, and securing my perimeter. XP provides a dead easy to use desktop, with wider peripheral support (and game support).
Nothing I've read in this thread has convinced me that Windows would do a better job on my servers, nor that BSD would do a better job on my desktop. That's for today, who knows about tomorrow.
I think I'm fairly typical of tech-literate computer users. What makes me atypical of /. users is that I can't get sufficient rabid about one platform or the other.
No-one twists your arm to religiously stick to a PS/2 or GameCube or PC for your gaming needs. Why then do we have to choose a single platform to host our other applications and services. Horses for courses.
OSS OSes, Linux in my case, are free, open, stable, secure and allways give you the possibility to solve problems. We all know that. Yet there is one thing that comes with OSS that lots of people don't think of conciously, one which I think weighs in bigger than all the rest. Linux is open and thus there is no comercial interest in making it obsolete. On the contrary.
Entry: The single biggest reason for embracing OSS/Linux and never touching Windows again:
I never again will have to learn a new OS and how to handle it.
I repeat:
I will never again - in my entire life - have to learn a new OS and it's wayabouts.
Or the other way around:
All I learn now on Linux will most likely never become obsolete.
Just think about that one for a minute.
Thinking about it, this could be a reason why MickeySofts death may even be inevitable in the end.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Oh, I'm not saying that Linux sucks or anything, I really like it. However, I was pointing out that some complaints about Windows can be made about Linux, too.
And the shockwave thing, it's not a deal breaker. However, I do use shockwave from time to time.
One thing that sucks about windows is a lack of a cron-type app. Windows scheduler or whatever it's called is weak.
Another thing is the lack of a viable, native, free scripting language that is actually being worked on. I hate having to install python or perl on every Win machine I work on.