Five Reasons Not to Use Linux

UltimaGuy writes "Linux-watch has a humorous article about the top 5 reasons for not using Linux. It does provoke some thought aside from bringing a smile to our lips :)"

Comments

Mirrordot

[Phil246]

Seeing as the linked article is grinding to a crawl, here's the mirrordot
http://www.mirrordot.org/stories/384802a7fdfeda4ae 7ca3f011299d755/index.html

Slash-dud

[jeff_schiller]

One thing the article steps around is the fact that many people like to use their computer for games. In that respect, the availability of Windows titles DOES dwarf Linux availability. So this, a sarcastic and biased rant about Linux being better than Windows, is headline news, whereas a story involving Opera turning 10 years old today and giving away its desktop browser licenses (happening NOW) is rejected by the /. mods.

Re:When was the last time you edited a .conf?

[garcia]

I'm confused:

I have a problem with this (apart from the obvious -- that Windows hasn't been around for the past 15-20 years)

This is 2005. From what I remember Windows 1.0 was released 11/85. Would you have been more satisfied if I had said 15-19.5 years?

Support

[thc69]

From article:

Reason number 5: Linux is more expensive

Are you calling Microsoft a liar? Those nasty Linux companies, like Red Hat or Novell/SUSE charge you a fee for support.

He goes on to describe why Windows is more expensive through purchase cost in your computer and in additional software. He fails to mention that Microsoft charges for support after two calls:

2 support request(s) submitted online or by a phone call are included at no charge. Unlimited installation support is available by phone at no charge.

(866) 234-6020
All additional support requests are $35.00 US per request or use an existing contract

(800) 936-5700
Advanced Issues $245.00 US

(from http://support.microsoft.com/oas/default.aspx?ln=e n-us&x=18&y=6&c1=509&gprid=3221& )

Re:see no evil, hear no evil, talk no evil..

[hypnagogue]

where's the Maya/3DS/LW/Softimage alternative?

Alternative? Maya, Lightwave, Softimage are all available on Linux. No alternative needed: use the real deal. Or is it that you want to compare free-free software with incredibly expensive proprietary software?

dont be a bone head and suggest Blender

Gotcha.

Re:see no evil, hear no evil, talk no evil..

[slashflood]

where's the Maya/3DS/LW/Softimage alternative? It doesn't exist (dont be a bone head and suggest Blender here, its like comaring a 79' VW to a Ferrai).

Are you nuts? Maya, Softimage and Lightwave are all available for Linux and the major studios are using mostly Linux clients and render farms.

Re:The Biggest Reason Not To Use Linux

[eno2001]

Funny you should mention that. My main box at home is a dual PII 450 with 768 Megs of RAM. Bought it in 1997/98. Here's a short list of what it does:

1. Internal DNS
2. DHCP
3. NFS
4. Samba
5. Internal Web Server
6. VoIP Server (Asterisk PBX)
7. Stateful (ie, always where you left off on the desktop) GNOME Desktop Application Server for four users simultaneously via VNC with all the needed apps (web, mail, office, im)
8. NTP server
9. Various emulators for playing DOS and Windows games and VMWare for more serious work stuff.

All I needed to do was a little tweaking to some kernel settings for better desktop performance.

Thanks for asking.

Re:When was the last time you edited a .conf?

[goldspider]

"You know how many times I've had to edit a configuration file on Linux? I just did it 12 times yesterday alone for two different programs. Will editing a .conf file on Linux crash your system? Maybe, maybe not, depends on what you're doing. But the likelihood that someone would have to do that editing is higher on Linux."

Thank you! Thank you!! THANK YOU!! You and I don't always agree, but you're right on the money this time!

This is the ONLY reason why I haven't pursued a switch to Linux (dabbling with Ubuntu a little...) with more enthusiasm. I spent 3 hours modifying .conf files trying to get a USB sound card working, with no success. You know what it took to get it working in Windows? I plugged it in.

Somehow, Windows knows to use the USB sound card when I have it plugged in, and the on-board sound when it's not. Trying several suggested solutions from various Linux forums produced nothing.

Until Linux comes up with some form of Plug-n-Play, the average user is going to stay away. People don't want to risk hosing their systems screwing around with .conf files. Take it from me; I'm one of them.

Apache

[RAMMS EIN]

``Take a look at Apache. A server widely acclaimed for its up-time, and yet you can't even change a single setting without restarting the server!'' /etc/init.d/apache reload

Reloads the configuration without taking the server down. Many Unix daemons do this when you send them a SIGHUP.

Re:Such a sacarstic moron

[mengel]

I saw it.

Just to pick one out-and-out lie from the general confusion of your posting:

Excuse me, but the open-source community wrote Apache from standards they didn't write.

Well, lets see, Apache was based on NCSA httpd, which was a rewrite of the original www consortium httpd, which was written originally by Tim Berners-Lee. (all of which were open source). Now lets look at the original HTTP protocol standard -- what do you know, the authors are Tim Berners-Lee, and R. Fielding, from UC Uvine. And look at the Apache core team -- Roy Fielding!

So, in fact, the open source folks who wrote Apache and its predecesors are the folks who wrote the standards.

So as I posted on your site, the above statment is downright slanderous, and you should retract it.

Re:see no evil, hear no evil, talk no evil..

[TTK Ciar]

Where's the CAD/CAM software?

Well, aside from the 43 CAD packages (some free, some open source, some commercial) trivially accessible through freshmeat.net, there is also BRL-CAD, the recently open-sourced CAD software used by the Army Research Laboratory to model and upgrade the Abrams battletank, and other systems.

There is also CAM software available, CNCsr being one example, used for control of CNC (Computer Numeric Control) devices (lathes, mills, routers, plasma cutters, etc).

There are other, highly valid criticisms of this author's thesis, but the lack of engineering tools isn't one of them. The main source of Linux's strength, IMO, is that it is used by professionals (mainly engineers) to get real work done, and this use drives the direction of its development, and the development of the software running on the platform. In many cases, it is the same engineers using the software that develop the software. This naturally results in software which is highly suited to practical everyday (albeit specialized) use.

-- TTK

Re:Anecdote time

[LittLe3Lue]

its been slashdotted.

Here is a link coral cache link:

http://www.linux-watch.com.nyud.net:8090/news/NS81 24627492.html

Consultants can help

[Prof. Pi]

Some babies require quite a bit of coxing (sp?) before they understand what going on with that thing being shoved in their faces.

And if the mother has trouble with the coaxing, there are consultants who will help. Yes, breastfeeding consultants. My co-worker's wife's health plan explicitly provides coverage for that.

I wonder how someone gets into that line of work...

Re:Anecdote time

[Anonymous Coward]

Here is an anecdote. From this past weekend, in fact.

I have been a MS programmer for 15 years. I have been using Linux consistantly during the last several years - I have a whole stack of distro CDs dating all the way back to redhat 5.2. So I am no n00b, but I am still a Windows guy by my day job.

My small team of developers has been in need some issue tracking software, so I decided to get Bugzilla up and running on a fresh Linux install for the team to look at on Monday. I gave myself the whole weekend to get it done. I chose Slackware 10.1 as my distro. I went though the usual partition, choose packages, etc. with no problem. I chose to install mysql and apache (for Bugzilla) as part of the initial OS install.

First boot, the mysql daemon dies immediately and unexplainedly. Hmmm. Ok, I decided to get X running and then I would deal with that later.

GNOME comes up, CRASH, the configuration manager is puking. I dig through some logs, tweak, reapeat. I do this a dozen times over with no luck fixing the problem.

XFCE is my favorite "small footprint" window manager anyway, so I give up on GNOME and copy the XFCE startup script file over. XFCE comes up fine. Phew!

Ok, back to mysql. Nothing really indicative in the logs, but I find some "post install" instructions on the web so lets try those. Modify some config files, run some scripts, still dies with the same error. Tweak, try, fail, repeat. Then I dig with Google some more help info in the newsgroups. I modify more config settings, run the scripts again, repeat, finally the daemon is up and running.

Now, I want to get the graphical admin app running on the new server so that I can prep the users and permissions it for the bugzilla install. So I download the rpms from mysql.org and install them. Hmm, lots of dependancy errors. I dig through the docs and find a mention to use --nodeps and --force. This makes no sense to me, why have dependancies if you are going to blow past them? But I go ahead and it appears to install just fine.

I run the graphical admin app and it comes up. Then I try to add a user and the admin app dies when I try save the user. Hmmm. I look at the error message. I look at the logs. I search online for help. Tweak, run, die, repeat.

At this point I have wasted most of my free weekend futzing around. I decide to install onto Windows Server 2003 just to "git 'r done" before Monday. The mysql graphical install goes without a hitch, enter my port and root password info in to the nice dialogs, and the service starts right up. Same with the apache install. Same with the Perl install.

The Bugzilla install takes a little more time. There is one config file to modify, some Perl modules to install, some scripts to run. 2 hours later I am looking at Bugzilla in my browser. That was after 10 hours on Linux and I didn't finish step one - the mysql install.

The Point: In the Linux vs MS argument, it aint just about being willing to edit config files with an editor, read man pages, dig aroung online, and get your fingers a little dirty. I gave this little project my whole weekend in order to give Linux a chance. How many more hours should I have given it? 10 hours? 20 hours? This was my own time, but had I been on company time our that of Windows 2003 would have just paid for itself.

This was one anecdote, but I have been through this type of things before with Linux. Sometimes things work on Linux "out of the box", and sometimes they dont. Getting my video card drivers to work was a chore. Getting Open Office to create a document with trashing the formatting unexplainedly was a chore. Sigh.