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The REAL Reason We Use Linux
Vlad Dolezal writes "We tell people we use Linux because it's secure. Or because it's free, because it's customizable, because it has excellent community support... But all of that is just marketing BS. We tell that to non-Linux users because they wouldn't understand the REAL reason." The answer to his question probably won't surprise you.
If the editors didn't strip away the story link from the article when they posted it, yes?
Check out Treesandthings.com for offbeat news
Ok, this is Slashdot, but still...
http://blog.anamazingmind.com/2008/03/real-reason-we-use-linux.html
Is there a link missing?
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Here it is in all it's glory:
Liberty.
Is an understatement
Penguins?
If "disco" means "I learn" in Latin, does "discothèque" mean "I learn technology"?
Story Link
We use it because it will run on a fleet of lower end boxes to fool around with networking.
Ten years ago that was why I was running it on a bunch of old 386sx boxes anyway.
Now I run freenixes on hardware so old and obscure that Linux doesn't even run (well) on them.
because it gives me a feeling of belonging, Window's cant belong to me but Linux can! It helps to make you feel somewhat important in some small but significant way. The dreams and possibilities are never far from reality either.
We use it because it's ours.
David
...in many circles, anyway. I have no desire to tinker. I want it to "just work". I tried using Linux multiple times from when I downloaded my first copy of Red Hat in 1999 or so, through some attempts with Mandrake and SuSe. None of them "just worked" - driver support was missing, programs didn't work as expected (or work at all), etc, etc. So I stuck with Windows. Finally, Ubuntu came about and I saw that someone was taking seriously the notion that people wanted things to "just work" (I would say that Red Hat and SuSe didn't take that notion seriously until recently - they were making OS's for business use, after all, so a trained IT tech would be setting things up and maintaining them - they didn't have to "just work" for your average user, because someone else would be taking care of most of the tough stuff). Even so, the early versions of Ubuntu weren't the best (and there are still many problems with wireless support - ndiswrapper is a poor substitute for a native driver, sad to say). The 6.x series was almost there, and finally I feel like the 7.x series is something I can actually use full time (and indeed I am - I built a new system last November and for the first time didn't bother to install Windows on it). I didn't install Ubuntu because it was fun to tinker. I installed it because it was free, easy to use, and not crippled by DRM. That's it, plain and simple.
Check out Treesandthings.com for offbeat news
but I use Linux because I don't want to pay MS for anything. ever. again.
Sure, I pay donations to those software projects that I use, but it's affordable, and upgrades are free of DRM, spyware, and other nasties that I don't want to have to pay for. For me and my family, Linux works just as good if not better than MS products. That is why we use Linux.
Fun? The Internet is fun no matter what OS is on the machine you are using. Paying to use a program seems rather ignorant at the prices MS charges. On Linux I never get a genuine advantage check BS window. Thats fun.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
I don't know about all this fun stuff. I use Linux because it does the job I need it to. More to the point though, when something goes wrong it is pretty simple to track it down and fix it. Heck, I have repaired systems that have become seriously mangled where with Windows you wouldn't have much choice but to start over.
;-)
I switched to Linux from UNIX (Irix at that time) and did so because that is the environment I need for my work. These days I use OS X for much the same reason. Whatever MS does to Windows, it is still a very closed system. If closed floats your boat, fine, but don't try and say that closed gets you a more reliable and cost effective system.
Actually, UNIX is fun I guess
"I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"
- Automatic logout when left alone for more than x minutes
- Colored prompt, allowing me to spot the output between previous and next command fast
- Aliases like 'printcode' that calls a2ps with all the right options
- Fancy PROMPT_COMMAND variable that sets the xterm title just right
- Limiting the history
- Ignoring things like 'ls -l' in the history
- Expanding the tab-completion possibilities
And lots of more options, the list gets too long already8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
I find Linux to be a congenial programming environment, where I can noodle together scripts and programs to get things done. It provides lots of sharp tools that make things easy.
It doesn't get in the way like certain other OSs I could mention. It doesn't squander system resources on non-essentials (ditto), and I can tune it to allocate resources where they are needed. Oh, and did I mention? It just plain works!
...laura
Most people can't even spell command line. While I was in China, I was fixing a friend's computer and her boyfriend said, "You must be a computer expert, you are using a dos window." He didn't even say DOS in upper case.
You know you are a real programmer when you speak in UPPER CASE. http://www.sorehands.com/humor/real1.htm
Fight Spammers!
Girls keep telling Linux users that they (Linux users) are nice, caring and entertaining, but that they (girls) have no free time at the moment. But all of that is just a marketing BS told to Linux users because they wouldn't understand the REAL reason for girls using non-Linux users.
Ezekiel 23:20
I use linux because it is more convenient for programming assignments (CS undergrad). Getting compilers/interpreters/devtools etc. is a snap.
Also because the UI is easier to use and more powerful.
Insensitive clods.
its not the penguins, its the `linux chicks`. get with the program.
I can tell you the real reason why I DON'T use Linuzz or OZX: Because i'm perfectly happy with Windows. Well, of course not *perfectly*, but almost. And yes, it's a locked platform, it cost, it's not free, etc. But i don't care, i also payed for my Nissan and my bacon... And ideology? I don't care for idealistic ideologies. I'm a happy Windows user, yes, and proud of it.
It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
True, I agree, complete control IS why I use Linux. I'm happy to know I can convert any format of anything into anything else. All applications will talk to my file formats. I can use data from one application in another if I really want to, even if it isn't built-in. I have peace of mind in knowing that if I really wanted to, I would be able to use this exact set of software and be just as productive in the future because it will be available... whether in an emulated virtual instance, or whatever... because it is under the GPL and/or BSD and will simply just be available. No nags, no system tray icons trying to vie(sp?) for my attention, no time limits, no applications installing themselves under the company's name in my menu... Oh it's just so much nicer.
Twinstiq, game news
Yes, and I've also had Linux do the same thing. It didn't give an error, but no matter how many times I "kill -9"ed it the process never paid attention to the command and carried on churning away. I guess that's the process rather than the OS, but it's still not always "all-powerful root".
I think a more accurate list (from my view at least) is:
1. Linux gives you complete control
2. Linux is free (as-in-speech)
3. Software install is easy
4. It has less potential problems with web dev for a Linux server
5. No DRM! You own the hardware, you own the software, you own the data.
Oh, and the penguin is more cuddly than some flag or some annoying animated critter
I use linux because the software I use: emacs, LaTeX, gcc, is unavailable on Windows, at least without hacking or using some emulator that never quite works right: also, wow, file management is a pain in the arse using a mouse and how do people manage without grep, sed and awk?
Heck, I wish those guys at Apple and Microsoft would catch up and add support for the command line....
& you tell people *BSD is dead cause you don't know any better? :)
We hate the guts of MS and we are still bitter about the MS share in Apple.
Knowledge is power. Knowledge shared is power lost.
Because I can't exactly afford the latest and greatest in computer hardware just to run the latest version of Windows. I kinda got tired of looking at XP. It is a good OS and it suited my needs but after 7 years, it was time for an upgrade.Vista was totally out of the question and I have been tooling-around with various distros throughout the years.
I finally settled on Gentoo due to the fact that it can be as bloated or as light-weight as I wanted it to be. Also, I could run as little or as much **bling** as I wanted depending on the load on the CPU and GPU. Linux suits my needs as well as XP did and was quite a learning experience in the total switchover process.
The game.
Granted I'm a FreeBSD guy [insert comment about why BSD is dying here] but I think the arguments are basically the same as for Linux. I agree with most of TFA, but I enjoy using FreeBSD and other Free software for another important reason: the people.
Despite the fact commercial products can cost hundreds or thousands of dollars, their technical support services nearly always suck: they're slow, obscure, vague, answered by people who don't know what they're talking about or are reading off a sheet of paper that assumes everyone they reply to is an idiot, or at the very worst you don't get an answer at all. Just speaking from my own experience.
Now granted there are plenty of jackarses on forums for Free software and the like, but on the whole I can post a question and generally get a useful response and in a fraction of the time. Plus if it's for a particular piece of ported software, generally I can either contact the port maintainer or the creator of the software directly and get helpful answers. I've NEVER got that from commercial software vendors. That's what makes the difference.
Cheers, ~ Ruben
I can test networked applications on a single VMWare box without having to shell out for multiple copies of Windows. There. I'm a cheapskate. But why do I have to pay full rate for an OS that is used maybe eight hours a month, and consumes maybe 10% of processor time?
From scarped cliff or quarried stone she cries "A thousand types are gone, I care for nothing, no not one."
Sure, it's fun, got an easy to customize UI, I can do tons of security and network tweaks, and it has a well integrated set of developer tools, but the real reason why I was never able to turn back is the package management. Package management issues were also the core reason I switched from slackware to debian in 2001, debian to gentoo in 2003, and gentoo to ubuntu in 2007.
It is ridiculous to me that even today, tools for Microsoft package management are completely archaic. Microsoft has MSI files, but still the difference in add/remove programs between windows 95 and vista is minimal. Imagine if they allowed users to import catalogues of software, and search for software within the add/remove programs interface (which most distros have been able to do in some sense for 10 years or so). Hell, they could even deal with licence subscriptions right in the interface. It would allow them to better integrate their software with third party vendors, while at the same time making sure effective QA is happening (they could threaten key revocation), and also protecting the users, making sure that all software that gets installed gets downloaded from reliable sources, and does not have the chance to get infected by malicious warez kiddies.
I use Linux because it has all the software I want. Since I use a Debian-type distro, that SW is all available with a click. Securely, with subscribed upgrades. And those upgrades come frequently, whenever anyone works on it, while many others test it for security and performance.
And since it's Linux, it doesn't have all the software I don't want. Viruses, sure, but all that crap SW that clutters Windows, like that crap bundled with the OS, or all the workarounds and utilities for dealing with a closed, broken OS.
Along the same lines, I use an x86 because it runs Linux. If it didn't, I wouldn't bother, because it wouldn't run my SW.
--
make install -not war
Kwisatz Haderach
Sell the spice to CHOAM
This Mahdi took Shaddam's Throne
"because we are bored"
same thing... Its the same thing if you were to tinker with a car, practice guitar, or play some basketball. Although the latter would at least get that bean burrito butt out of its chair.
I thought only commenters could troll, not submitters.
I use linux because, in certain instances, it's the right tool for the job. I'm busy. I don't have time to play around tinkering anymore ( and yes, I do have grey hair, thank you very much ). So when I want something that'll "just work", I analyse all the tools at my disposal, and choose one based on merits.
Quite often that's linux. Sometimes that's windows. But regardless of the choice, the end result is hopefully the same: A system that just works without me needing to constantly hold it's hand.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
The real value behind Linux (to take one example) is the notion that knowledge (and in this example, code) should be public domain and should not just be held back by any one organisation, especially one bent on just making a heap of cash from it.
With OSS we all benefit from the sharing of ideas and code, and this is a good thing(tm).
That said, I still prefer working in Microsoft tech at the time of writing (you could say); I still find overall they have the best eco-system for what I want to do.....but I fully respect the ideas and philosophies of OSS.
Good on you all.
throw new NoSignatureException();
Boss: Why should we switch to Linux?
Me: Because it's fun!
Boss: Thanks for your input. You can go now.
Boss (to the secretary): Please get me HR on the line. I think we're over-paying some staff.
This is possibly the lamest story I've ever seen on slashdot. The article then lists THREE other reasons - plural with an 's' - (not one) why the author uses Linux. By 'we' I think he's referring to himself, his blow up sex doll and his imaginary friends.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
One of my favorite things about Free software in general is that the programmers and the people who write the documentation don't feel like they have to keep this "professional" face on their work.
For example, you'll never find George W. Bush's face for the "unsharp filter" icon (Cinelerra) in a closed source program. That would indicate that the programmers were having fun, and that obviously makes the program of lower quality.
Personally, I think that if the developers are having fun, and are in a positive frame of mind, they'll make better software.
I can relate to this. Linux not being widely used.
Some years ago, I was in engineering and involved in 'fixing' a system built by our IT department. They had sunk about $300 million into a system that was just barely functional. We (engineering and manufacturing) were supposed to supply them with appropriate requirements so IT could start over (yet again) building another piece of crap.
We convinced our management that we should hammer out requirements by building a functioning prototype. As our IT department maintained a stranglehold over all things Windows, we chose to build on Linux and a few surplus Sun desktops with Perl, Apache and a few COTS packages. Keeping the IT dept. and Windows out of the picture allowed us to get a working demo of the shop floor interface up and running within a few weeks and half a dozen people completed the 'prototype' in about 6 months.
When our system was up and running, it actually outperformed the one running on the Windows backend. When management saw it, they just gave the order to pull the plug on the legacy Windows system and place ours into production.
Part of my job after the project completion (about 10% of my time) was to administrate 6 hosts that made up the new system. When our IT department made a pitch to management to take over administration, they quoted an recurring maintenance cost for their proposal of $50,000 per host per month. Management fell off their chairs laughing and I suggested that they pay me 6 * $50,000 per month.
Have gnu, will travel.
It's fun to tinker with your system. It's fun to change all the settings, break the system, then have to go to recovery mode to repair it.
I actually find it easier to tinker with the system and break it with Windows.
If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
Most of the time, I'm an OS X user. I love my MacBook, but when I use my PC at home, I run Ubuntu, and it's not because it's 'fun' - I use it for work, so it's not 'fun' by any stretch of the imagination - it's because of the same reason I like my Mac - because it just works. The computer came with Vista, and I genuinely tried to like it, and I will admit that, when it works properly, I do like Vista. I don't champion it, I don't think it's anything special, but I've nothing really against it either. It's never kicked in my door and raped my dog like the grudges some /.'ers have against it would suggest, it just doesn't 'just work':
/. stereotype sysadmin or guru programmer either, and I'd take Linux over Windows all day long.
* My Belkin wireless adapters never worked properly with it and required several reinstalls to work as they should.
* The Aero Glass effects make a perfectly servicable computer with 1Gb of RAM and a reasonably fast processor stutter if I dare have more than half a dozen windows open at once (I know it's Aero doing it, because it chugs along just fine if I run the same apps in the same state with the thing turned off).
* Niggly little 'features' like the Windows Sidebar reactivating itself whenever it damn well pleases and the 'You have disabled startup programs, would you like to view them?' (No I fucking wouldn't, that's why I disabled the bloody things!).
On the other hand, Linux (well, Ubuntu - your mileage with different distros may vary), when installed, automatically configured my wireless adapter and all I had to do was put in my network password and I was away. I don't know if it's using ndiswrapper to do that, because I'm not a techy and it never told me, it just worked. I'd assume it isn't seeing as I was never prompted to locate a Windows driver, but I couldn't tell you for sure - all I know is that my wifi works.
I can also have my computer look easily as good as Aero Glass with the automatically-installed-and-configured Desktop Effects and a swift set of clicks around gnome-look.org - the only qualm I have is that the default window decorations take up a few pixels' more room than the 'Windows Classic' ones, but with the resolution I have, that's not really an issue. I also don't get any annoying pop-ups whenever I start my machine asking if I want to start the programs I asked it not to start (I asked you not to for a reason, ffs) or re-activating 'Ubuntu Sidebar' modules.
In short, maybe I'm strange, maybe I'm not the typical Linux user, but I don't use Linux because I love tinkering with the command line - I don't. I use Linux because it's fast, does what I want it to, is shiny without compromising performance and doesn't bug me about things I've no intention of looking at. A couple of years ago when I first checked it out it didn't do that, and kicked up all sorts of hassles about all sorts of hardware issues, etc, but it's really come on since then. I'm not the 'granny wanting to surf the internet for pictures of the grandkids', I'm a twentysomething screenwriter, but I'm not the
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
Depends on the usage. As a decision maker for a corporation I had the servers moved to Linux to cut support, security, system administration and licensing costs. On my work laptop I use it for the same reason other people use windows, I am used to it. At home I use it for the games.... all right, you caught me, It's because I am a huge geek.
moi
My main reason is it doesn't support any of the conglomerates. It's free, and legal.
Below that main reason you have the stuff like more resource efficient ( most of the time ), friendlier to more platforms for consistency.. etc etc.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Is it even possible for an article frontpaging on /. to be less original and more fluffy?
Blearf. Blearf, I say.
There are several reasons. Sure, it's fun, but more importantly, it's not NOT-fun. Regularly having to reboot the machine, trying to solve system crashes (where your only choices are quite often reinstall the driver (or whatever) or finally reinstall the OS), limitations on how customizable the GUI is, updates that hose the system, uncertainty over the invasiveness of the OS, slow boot times, etc...etc...
That's Windows, to me. For my needs, Linux is simply much better, and (once configured) I never seem to have problems creeping into the system. Once it's set up, I don't have to hold my OS's hand to keep it in working order. Every Windows system I've used tends to degrade after a few months of use, in my experience. It's nice to use my computer the way I want to and not as a computer maintenance hobby machine. YMMV
Because a lot of people were waiting in the 90's for one of the Unix vendors (mostly Sun but also SGI and SCO) to stop ignoring the home user / hobbyist market, so when the first usable Linux distros started to come out it was like, "Thanks, it's about f*cking time."
:)
Also, the overall "feel" of Linux reflects the fact that there is no vendor telling you what you can or can't do with it. It lets you be in control. There's nothing in the user experience that reflects corporate arrogance. It lets *me* be arrogant.
the author of the blog wants to make big news with the idea that Linux gives you a lot of fun? Hm ... that's what it all about since the beginning... as the title of Linus' autobiography said already years ago :-)
I switched to Linux because I read the MSWind2000 EULA.
That was, in and of itself, sufficient. That I chose Linux was to avoid buying a new computer. (At that time the Apple Mac had, or I believed it had, a reasonable EULA...even if it wasn't the GPL. This has since changed, and I no longer consider the Mac a viable choice. [I noticed the change last year. Perhaps it wasn't new then.])
Another option that I considered was Unix (BSD). Linux had the reputation of being friendlier and of supporting more hardware. Also, for awhile I needed to double-boot, and this was easier for me with Linux...or at least it looked easier before attempting to install Unix. (And it still looks easier, as I've never yet tried to dual-boot with Unix.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Simply put, I can see what is going on on my system.
Windows is a fecking black hole where all manner of shite can happen without me knowing. Until Microsoft gives the average user a complete view and complete control over processes, they're crap.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
"It's fun to change all the settings, break the system, then have to go to recovery mode to repair it."
That's not how I'd define fun.. no, it's really more of a different word.. what would that be?
A PAIN IN THE ASS.
Maybe this is why I've never really been into Linux..
I am the maverick of Slashdot
so you can mentally and verbally masturbate about it to all of your other geeky computer friends. That's what this thread is all about, after all. If you are gonna be a zealot about it, at least be honest about your reasons.
Linux users hate Microsoft.
FreeBSD users hate Linux.
OpenBSD users love UNIX.
I don't like having to recover a system after I screwed something up. That's really not fun in my book (although I do enjoy using the command line)
By the author's argument, wouldn't it be 'fun' for the hardcore linux community to write a single fool-proof distro? Why is there no version of Linux that is dumbed down and easy to use for the masses? Include a command line if you want, but don't force the user to use it!
The average consumer isn't going to adopt Linux exactly because of all of the factors that the author claims makes it fun. If we really want to topple Microsoft's hold on the OS market (and I know there are a number of you who want this pretty badly), then there needs to be a user-friendlier Linux distro. I've seen my fair share of distros (including scientific CERN linux, which comes with OpenOffice 1.0 and does not come with apps that are used in science), and somehow none of them are quite as easy to use as Windows or OS X (and I actually really hate OS X to boot).
I know I'll get crucified for suggesting this, but someone is going to have to write a bloated distro. Once installed, it needs to just work (so you'll have to include a million and one drivers). It needs to come with programs like Open Office and GIMP. It needs to come with VLC.
The point of suggesting a new Linux distro is NOT to force people to 'have fun' while fixing their computer. There are already countless distros that let users do that. If something breaks, most users won't know how to fix it or where to go for help, so they'll get frustrated and go back to using Windows.
Most users don't want to learn Linux, so let's create a Linux that they won't have to learn.
That is the reason most people use it. To show off that they are somehow superior to troggledites (who actually get work done!!). Imagine how the world would be if all car driving experts drove with nitro-methane fuel (assuming all cars supported it) just to show off that they are great in driving. People, wisen up, operating systems are just means to an end. They are not the end themselves.
Primarily I use linux because it is safer.
I had dual boot since the beginning, but for a long time i didn't even dare to browse the net from M$ win (for a while i even plugged the network cable, but it got worn out, so i just removed the network services). This was the time of Code Red/Sasser, etc.
On the other hand:
It was really fun when i had to edit some kernel files just to make it compile, though it was fun only the first time. Same about the manual upgrading of packages.
Linux is also less resource hungry, at least compared to Vista.
I still keep XP, just for the games, so, i'm sure i don't use Linux just for the fun. I keep XP just for the fun (uhm, ok, and for MSVC 6).
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
I use Linux because proprietary apps suck to high heaven, and if you want to run OSS (desktop) apps, Linux is by far the best system.
There's a horribly perverse system of incentives pervading the economics of proprietary apps. A user buying a proprietary GUI app typically has no way of knowing whether it's slow and/or buggy until he's already bought it. Performance is hard to judge until you have it loaded on your own system, and bugginess is hard to judge because the vendor does their best to keep bugs secret, and generally succeeds very well. Because buyers can't make decisions based on performance and quality, they tend to buy based on features. So vendors have a huge economic incentive to bloat their feature list, and push slow, buggy products out the door.
Two experiences that helped to sour me completely on proprietary software:
I teach physics at a community college. Recently I started working on a project to clean up the horribly messed up software situation in our student computer labs. Perfect example of what a mistake it can be to hitch your wagon to proprietary software. We have all these proprietary Windows apps. Every app has a different licensing scheme, and some of them have no explicitly stated licensing scheme at all (e.g., CD-ROMs that came with textbooks). Nobody can find half the original disks and licenses. Some software was bought to run on DOS or Windows 95, and isn't compatible with Windows XP. Some software is abandonware. In one case, faculty are downloading a particular piece of DOS abandonware/shareware from an untrusted third-party site every time they need to teach a particular activity -- can't ask IT to permanently install it, because the vendor is gone, so random people are just posting the .EXE on their web sites, without so much as a checksum. The whole thing is a nightmare.
Find free books.
If computers are your hobby then great, but computers should work. You shouldn't need to tinker and spend hours getting them useable.
Moved from Linux to Mac for this reason alone, I wanted a computer to use, not a hobby.
Seriously, that's the main reason I use it. After having used various 'nix flavors at university (no, not a single public terminal had Windows), I finally switched one day when I tried running a web and database server on my dorm Windows computer.
Turned out, Win2K (and later XP Pro) couldn't run a web server and a database server and still provide a usable computer. Sure, my system wasn't exactly fast back then (a lowly 700MHz K7 with just half a gig of memory). Still, even when I wasn't using the web server, my system had slowed to a crawl.
Since I was developing websites at the time, a web server was a huge advantage. I tried installing Linux (SuSE, I think) on a spare drive and everything just worked.
That's why I use Linux. And, no, being "exclusive" doesn't play into it. Heck, I use Ubuntu today, not exactly the most "exclusive" distro around... again, because it works.
In all honesty, I actually have XP installed on my primary system as well (dual-boot), but I haven't booted into it yet this year. I keep thinking I might have to do it, just to get it patched up-to-date, but I haven't gotten around to it yet.
No. We use Linux, because it's better.
By leaps and bounds. The terminal user interface paradigm beats the GUI any day. VIM beats Visual Studio. mutt beats outlook. zsh beats the shit out of "explorer.exe".
Editing a config file beats configuring your "web server" via buttons and animated gadgets. Deal with it.
we discovered a new way to think.
Linux has evolved past the "you have to tinker with it to make it work" stage. Toss in an Ubuntu CD and you have a system so easy, so usable, so reliable, so superior to Windows that the only thing the incumbents have on their side is the momentum behind their incumbency.
It's easy to use. It gets its job done without calling to attention to itself.
But ... we can rest assured that the power of a full blown unix system is under the hood -- when we need it.
Tired of FB/Google censorship? Visit UNCENSORED!
...because it works. Endless uptime. Tools that do the basics correctly, and the advanced stuff with a little extra effort. State-of-the-art scripting. Mysterious problems fixed with one quick Google search. It just works.
Personally I use it first because it's Free - libre. Lots of other people use it because they think it's functionally better. Some people probably use it because they think Tux is cute. *shrug*
Years ago my Windows got hosed and I couldn't find an extra copy quickly, Mandrake happened to be laying around somewhere. It was a practical thing.
::shrug::
Once I found it filled all my needs (I'm not a gamer), I decided it was easier to just go with FOSS than deal with the hassle of pirate fservs and sketchy crack sites.
Nowadays I'm just plain more comfortable navigating KDE and managing Linux than Win or OSX. My friends must look at me and see a computer dork, because they're always asking me how to manage their Win boxes. The truth is I'm just a Linux Dork, so I don't know how to fix their silly problems. From the sounds of it though, the Windows world is still a headache... lately it seems my friends lost some of their music to DRM or something, it may have just been a glitch... either way, I'm feeling pretty happy and cozy in my Linux surroundings.
Tautologies, they are what they are.
I do appreciate the article, and the author's sentiment. But, for me... Linux is not fun. It's useful.
I'm not a programmer, but I can script a little. I'm not one of those who want a customized desktop, but if something isn't behaving like how I want, I'll look into how to fix it. I don't sit down on my linux machine because I want to tweak it, I sit down and use it because it can do what I need it to how I want it to.
Now... why do I use windows? Because it's fun... well, actually, no... I use windows because it runs the games which I have fun playing. I could spend my time tweaking Wine to run most of my games, but I'm not having fun doing the tweaking. So, Windows it is for now.
--Pathway
This was written by someone from the "I'm so l33t because I can do system administration" crowd. Or worse, "I'm so l33t because I can type command line commands". (Visualize a fat guy in a "Got Root" T-shirt.) Wake up, people. It's 2008, not 1978.
If a system needs much administration, it's badly designed. You should never have to tell the computer something it already knows. Everything that needs "tuning" should self-tune. That's the way of progress. TVs through the 1960s had dozens of screwdriver adjustments. Todays's TVs have none. That's progress. When was the last time you saw a vertical hold control?
One of the strengths of the original Mac was that it didn't have a command line. This forced designers to think through these issues and solve the problems, instead of shoving them back in the user's face. (The original MacOS had serious problems, but they came mostly from the fact that, down at the bottom, it was an OS at about the level of the DOS resident, with no process management. It was supposed to fit in 64K, remember, and it did fit in 128K, painfully.)
We really should be doing Linux/UNIX system administration with a real database (maybe SQLite) at the bottom, rather than text files. Many of the system administration troubles with UNIX and Linux come from trying to use text files to do a database's job. With a database, you get consistency checks, locking, security controls, standardized record structure, and indexing. Without one, you get unreliable hacks (lock files, "vipw", all-or-nothing security, and the messes inside DNS and Sendmail).
Once you've gotten away from text files, it's much easier to do automated and remote adminsitration, or to put a real GUI client on something. Too many UNIX GUI clients are kludges on top of a command line program. You see this when the GUI program doesn't really understand what's coming back from the lower level, and just blithers low-level text at the user.
I think it's not necessarily the making something break and then fixing it, what I enjoy about linux. It's the ease of trying out new stuff, and making it work. Try a new window manager, compiz ... and you always have to set things up, because it does not work like you want it to work. Linux, or free software in general is perfect for this. There's a universe (even a multiverse if you're using ubuntu) of software around to tinker with it's easy to install and remove. I find myself reading over the projects on freshmeat, for example to see if something catches my interest. The strange thing is, many windows users are exactly the same. They have just not realised how much of a hassle it is to do this stuff on windows compared to linux. i know quite a few people who install all kinds of crap on windows just to try it out. Then they have to find other crappy software to actually get rid of the crap they installed because of the lousy install/uninstall routines. However these guys often are so ingrained in their ways of doing this stuff in windows they often discard linux, because stuff doesn't work the same way. Mind you they still download new linux distros all the time, and actually look at them (all part of that trying out new software tick)
One of the main reasons I use Linux is that I actually believe in the idea of Free (as in speech) software. Telling people "don't copy that floppy!" really is ridiculous as far as I'm concerned. I want nothing to do with that philosophy. There is nothing special about Linux itself for me; if Herd or any other GPL OS was practical, I might very well choose it instead. Obviously, a completely Free system is not an option for most of us, but I will take Ubuntu with a few proprietary pieces over Windows any day.
http://fu3.org/the/perpetual/crusade/
and here I thought it was so you could act all smug towards non-linux users...
It takes longer to get Linux set up and working the way you want, though the discrepancy is smaller in that regard than just a couple years ago. But once you get it working right, you almost never have to dork with it.
I just recently gave up on a contract supporting a Windows shop because it was an endless goat rope. Between desktops and servers, something stopped working every week. Once a month it would be something major. I had to reinstall VisualStudio more than once. It took constant tweaking to keep the application pool running right.
When I come home there's none of that. Once I get an app stable, it generally keeps working. If I need capacity, I just stand it up. No problem. It's a much less stressful environment.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Points 1 and 2 are spot on for me. I like the power of using Linux. Linux doesn't assume I'm clueless and don't know what I'm doing. When I tell Linux to delete a file, it doesn't argue with me, it just deletes the file. Windows, on the other hand, tries to protect you from yourself...a characteristic that drives me absolutely insane. And yes, there is a bit of ego-stroking to use an operating system that many other people consider "too hard".
What I find ironic, though, is that despite the initial learning curve that you have to get past to use Linux (or any other *nix, for that matter), once you get past that initial hurdle, I think Linux really is *easier* to use than Windows. I was trying to help a coworker figure out how to convert MP3s to 8-bit 8kHz wav files to upload to a PBX the other day. After finally figuring out how to get WinAmp, Lame and Sox installed on his Windows machine, I had to figure out a way to let him convert a number of files in a batch. Eventually, I got it to work, but Windows is geared towards the GUI. Getting a command line script to work -- and getting a user who is only used to using the GUI -- was far more painful than it would have been in Linux.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
And this is why I use Linux for Tux Racer!
>it gives us a feeling of being a special clique.
For too many users, especially those who spend the most time bashing Windows and Microsoft, this seems like the primary reason they use Linux.
>If Linux becomes widely used, we'll probably switch to something else.
>Or at least develop an obscure distro that only we will use.
>Because, let's face it, we want to feel special.
In my mind, these are exactly the kind of users that Linux doesn't need, and the kind that the Linux community has let run the show far too often.
For Linux to succeed, it needs to be good software, and not just an opinionated and overbearing culture.
Now watch while those same people mod me as "troll."
"The ONLY reason I still use windows at all is because the workplace wont let me use Linux on my desktop"
Apparently you don't agree.
That Ubuntu can go from "probably the most user-friendly" of the distros to idiot-proof, in all of what, 2 years?, shows just how wickedly fast Linux is developing...woot! -
damaged by dogma
While I had a good laugh at the article, I think the really real reason people use Linux is even more obvious. Or, much rather, it is obvious that there isn't _one_ such reason. Different people use Linux for different reasons.
I started with Linux out of curiosity. I suppose that goes in the fun department. Nowadays, I use Linux because it is the most efficient: with Debian, I spend very little time on maintenance, and the system keeps working. No other system I have used has come close to Debian in the low-maintenance department. Yet other people use Linux because they think it's cool. Some people use Linux because their boss tells them to. Or because it comes with the system. Or because they can relatively easily customive it to run on whatever outlandish hardware they have. Or because it has already been so customized. I know someone who uses Linux because benchmarks have shown him that, of all OSes, Linux most efficiently takes advantage of his multi-core hardware. Finally, some people use Linux because they think it is in the public domain and they can do whatever they want with it.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Now a stance that would upset penguins a bit more would be pro-orca or pro-leopard-seal...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Atleast -I- use open source because the other options are much, much more agonizing.
Example: You are given a choice between unanesthetized face-surgery with pair of rusty scissors by some guy with Parkinson's disease (Microsoft Word); or a slice of cheesecake (LaTeX). What do you choose?
Even though cheesecakes hold no intrinsic value to me, if those two are the options, I'd much rather have a cheesecake than the painful face-surgery.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I call bullshit. That may be the reason he, and many slashdotters, use linux, but I don't think it is universal at all.
For instance, the main reason why I and many of my friends, relatives, etc, all use linux, is that it is plain simpler to install than Windows. Sure, Windows comes with many (most) PCs, so that's great. Once the HDs bit the dust, or Windows slows down to a crawl, or the PC is infected with viruses, or [insert any reason] and you need to rebuild a PC, it is infinitely faster and less painful to install Ubuntu than Windows -- especially now that only Vista is mostly available, and many peripherals don't work with it.
Windows used to have the advantage, but no more. I installed Ubuntu for relatives, friends, including people whose knowledge of CS is zero and they hate the command line. It is plain simpler. Takes about 20 minutes, then all just works -- printers, internet, openoffice, firefox -- most people's needs, if you take out gamers and the like (and they are a small percentage of real users) are pretty basic, really.
It is actually amazing how much the balance between Linux and Windows changed in the last couple of years -- in part thanks to Ubuntu, and in part thanks to Vista.
Imagine Linux with all the tools which say "you should never have to use the command line." Such a distro would be pretty bad for most of us who currently use Linux because a command-line is fundamentally superior to a GUI for a lot of tasks we use it for. I always have at least three terminal windows open in addition to any GUI apps.
Similarly, I find that OS X (which is almost but not entirely unlike BSD) has a number of shortcomigns that make Linux and BSD better choices for me. My sister uses OSX however because it matches what she needs.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
The reason Linux is used on these devices is nothing to do with fun (the typical user never sees Linux). Free is important, but the most important bit is that it is very easy and fast to do development in Linux relative to just about anything competitive.
Linux has accessible, readable source that is pretty well documented. The development tools are excellent quality and highly productive. There's a huge variety of different drivers, file systems, connectivity & debugging methoods.
I've done a lot of development in both Linux and Windows CE and the Linux development is many times more productive.
These things really matter when you're trying to get a product shipped on time. For most vendors, time to market is the most important measure.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
to troll bullshit.
that is cheaper than dating and many times, more entertaining and educational.
Slashdot jumped the shark. This is news? Go ahead, mod me down, I am maxed out. Oh Noes, if I am modded down too far I won't be able to MetaModerate or something. We need to stand up and reclaim this site as the old /., when it was relevant.
You have to accept that for various reasons, a number of companies aren't willing to do OSS and that includes drivers. You also have to accept that Linux is by far the minority OS out there. Well, given that, you need to make it easy for a company to release a driver for Linux, in binary form, that will then continue to work for a long time. The problem is that the ABI isn't stable, it gets changed all the time so people who want to do binary drivers of various types have to change them all the time. The best example is graphics drivers. Every time there's a minor kernel update or a minor X update, that necessitates a new video driver. Fortunately, ATi and nVidia seem to be willing to do that, but you can see how companies might get a little sick of it. A graphics driver released for XP when it first came out still works just fine today, and will still work fine after the upcoming SP3.
So I can see why companies may not be so willing to support Linux. It isn't going to be high priority anyhow since there are simply way less Linux users than Windows users. However if it is going to end up occupying a whole bunch more resources, because you have to release new versions all the time, well then you just say "screw it" and don't have support.
Speaking as a relative newb, I found that Linux (Fedora) was a bear to set up,
Just out of curiosity, have you ever tried to install XP (or -- gahhh -- Vista) on a bare machine, just to compare it against Fedora?
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
One hint: Starts with "M", and ends with "icrosoft" :P
Joke aside, I wrote in my journal the reasons I kept Linux. All my Windows headaches are gone since I switched.
I love linux because its so transparent. Im an avid Windows user and work mostly with Windows machines but i cant stop admiring the complete transparacy of Linux. While an error in Windows usually demands a reinstall and the logs tell me absolutely nothing in Linux i can actually find the culprit and mend the error in a very short time.
HTTP/1.1 400
One of the biggie things to tell your boss that seems to be missed.
It's much less a legal risk.
http://www.news.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html
Having nothing to do with the BSA, WGA, DRM, and a whole alphabet soup of legal problems is a good reason to tell your boss.
The truth shall set you free!
Uh...it's called Ubuntu. It's already out there. It just does not seem so bloated.
From TFA:
I don't know about you, but I get this feeling that this guy was on LSD or something. I mean, what kind of pitch for Linux is this? "Woah, man, you should try this new Linux thing, it's awesome. Dude, have you checked out the command line? Blinking cursor, white on black... pretty trippy, man.... Oh dude, check out what I did the other day -- I typed "rm -rf /" and -- get this -- I LOST EVERYTHING. Duuuuude. Is that not awesome?? I like wasted a whole week getting all my stuff back and in order, but -- aw man, IT WAS SO WORTH IT, DUDE!!"
Thanks, but I think I'll pass.
So let's try this again. The reason why I love Linux is because it costs $0, it's opensource and it gets out of my way. Being able to tinker with it is nice, but it's not the best thing since sliced bread as this druggie thinks it is, and it sure isn't #1 on my list of fun activities. For me, the real fun is accomplishing something -- Getting Things Done. And for the most part, Linux lets me do this, but it only happens -- and this will probably blow you away -- when I don't mess with the system.
BUT. Contrary to what TFA conveys, Linux actually has some pretty fugly blemishes, and this is one of them: to a certain level you have to mess with the system, you have to make kludges, even if you really don't feel like it. That's just the way things are, and I guess I've learned to live with it, but sometimes it can be pretty annoying. For instance:
Anyway. I could go on but you get my point. Linux isn't perfect, because tinkerability isn't always good. F/OSS isn't perfect, everyone has their idea of how to solve Problem X, and so you have a bajillion and one projects that are in a questionable state, and are probably of inferior quality to their closed-source counterparts, which doesn't do any justice whatsoever to opensource.
And, of course, you have the "most people don't use Linux because it isn't supported because most people don't use Linux" paradox, which is pretty frustrating for everybody, users and developers alike.
I don't think you could call these things "fun".
Just telling it like it is...
Newbies think it's "fun" because they're having fun dicking around with the OS. They're not really using it to get work done like someone with experience.
I use Linux as my primary OS but not because it's fun. It just sucks slightly less than the alternatives.
I have never found an OS that is truly fun; something that works exactly the way I want it to and doesn't break. Linux isn't there but it's better than Windows and OSX (both of which I use all the time because I'm a cross-platform developer).
Yes, that's about it, really.
I've been using Linux for more than ten YEARS. In my first years using it, I loved the "it's unlike Windows" thing, I learnt the command line...
Now? I use KDE (been using it for five years), have a terminal open, know about the X clipboard mouse shortcuts (you'll never see me do C-c, C-x, C-v), use vim daily... Heck, I can even view the calendar from KDE's clock without being an admin by default! (don't believe me? Try and click on the clock in a default WinXP install with a "limited" user account)
I've been doing so for so long that getting "back" to Windows is a huge setback: no vim, no "middle click is paste", feeble command line (no pipes, no job control and whatnot). All things that I've been using for so long that I just cannot do without them.
Just like other people can't do without Windows+e, C-c, C-v and whatnot.
Linux just is my work environment. I'm just not at ease with any other work environment now. Just like many people out there won't be at ease with anything else than Windows.
Anyone can speculate how that one small page of foolish ideas could become a Slashdot story. This is my guess:
Vlad Dolezal: I've written 481 words that I think are just wonderful! [Actual count]
CmdrTaco: Good. I'm not such a good writer myself. I just like to play games.
Vlad: I want you to make what I wrote a Slashdot story.
CmdrTaco: We try to run stories of real significance, not just something someone wrote.
Vlad: But I will give you this whole box of Twinkies!
CmdrTaco: We're not supposed to run stories because someone paid us.
Vlad: But it's a whole box! And it is less than a month old!
CmdrTaco: Okay, I'll run the story.
Some Slashdot stories, like this one, try not to involve themselves with facts. Linux is popular because:
1) It is stable. Window XP SP2 sometimes has problems that re-installing over the original installation won't fix. Those problems happen often enough that the total cost of ownership of computers using Windows XP is significantly higher.
2) When you buy a computer, you are partnering with a technology company. Microsoft is commonly adversarial. With Linux, you have a true partner, not a company that plays sneaky games.
3) With Linux, you will always have a reasonably easy upgrade path. With Microsoft products, apparently each new version of Microsoft Windows is designed to require new hardware. That makes money for the computer manufacturers, who are Microsoft's biggest customers.
I'd say that doing certain things with linux are more fun, but that's not really apparent before you try those things on linux and on alternatives. What I really like is that it's really a good environment and target for programmers. The system just makes sense from the perspective of programmers, and the tools are almost always there. The system calls make more sense then what I've seen from windows, and most anything I'm curious about I can find pretty easily. There's a compiler or interpreter for most any language I've ever been interested in using, and installing a new language isn't usually gonna screw something up later. It's just so open and it makes sense to me. That's why I like to use it.
I don't really think it needs an explanation or anything, I simply use Linux because it is better. Whether the mainstream uses it or not is not something I care much about as long as it has the development rate and user base it has now.
I think I heard this spiel in 1997? 1996? A long time ago anyway. Boring. Use Linux. Use Windows. Use MacOS. Use two sticks and a pile of pebbles if you like.
because it's not Windows.
Some years ago, in the late 1980s if I remember right, someone explained something to me that I've remembered ever since: Everything on a computer, especially the programming languages, can be best understood as a video game. The way the game works is that when the computer does what you intended, you get a point. When it finds some way to misinterpret your command (or find it impossible for some internal, unexplained reason) and do something other than what you intended, the people who build the software get a point. A good programmer or an experienced user wins if they get more than half the points. When I first stumbled across unix systems, I found that I was winning overwhelmingly within only a few days of first cracking open "The C Programming Language". I'd never had that experience before, and I never have since on any non-unix computer system.
I heard this sometime after I'd been using unix systems for a few years, and it made a lot of sense. I could explain very simply why I preferred unix to all the other computer systems I'd ever used: On a unix systems, I usually won. When I told it to do something, it almost always did what I wanted it to do. Granted, there were occasional problems with running out of resources, and no OS can prevent that. But even then, it happened at a much later stage than on other systems, because unix tools were mostly small and sleek, and didn't hog resources.
Linux is just the current favorite in a long chain of unix-like system that let me win in both the programming and computer-user games.
I've used OSX a bunch, and in fact I'm typing this on a Mac Powerbook. I like to work on different computers occasionally, to keep up to date on what they do well or poorly. But I don't win nearly as often on OSX as I do on linux, for a lot of reasons. It's always doing something bizarre, and when I investigate, I usually find that the bizarreness was intentional in the design. And it's full of little time-wasting gotchas that aren't nearly as common in linux apps.
Of course, as with any system, you do have to learn its basic tools to get anything done. Most of the non-linux users I know use this as their excuse. They "know" Windows or Macs, and they aren't about to learn some other system. So they're stuck forever in a computer game that's designed to lower their score at every opportunity. When I watch over their shoulders, I have to keep my mouth shut about how painful it is to watch them laboriously fighting with their computer to do the simplest tasks. But I generally don't say anything unless they ask, because I don't want to insult them. And telling them how much easier it could be would be an insult, because I'd be telling them how much of their lives they've wasted on zillions of little time-wasting design snafus.
The only reason I'd even bother mentioning it here is to see the reaction of other linux (or solaris or whatever) users. How many of you have heard this video-game model applied to all computer use and programming? Does it really have the explanatory power that it seems to have, or do you really have some other basic motivation to use what you do?
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
Not so much because it's fun, but because the things that are fun are easier than in other platforms, and the things that are not fun can more easily be avoided... and "fun" rarely means "being able to break it in interesting ways", usually it's something largely unrelated to the operating system itself, but the operating system makes it easier to get there.
Linux, like any other UNIX variant, scratches this itch in proportion to the quality of its UNIX implementation, and inversely in proportion to the places where it fails to be a quality UNIX implementation. I don't care so much whether the UNIX environment I'm using is labeled Linux, BSD, SunOS, Solaris, OS X, Cygwin, Interix, BeOS, SCO Xenix, Microsoft Xenix, AIX, HPUX, OpenVMS, or Eunice. I care about how much un-fun stuff I have to go through to get to the fun stuff.
What took my windows dislike to critical mass was the fact windows XP was beginning to require a lot of maintenance from me, since there were too many USB flash disk viruses around and no anti virus was helping me against them (It is a shared computer, so my brother kept bringing those) So, I decided that it was easier to get used to ubuntu than to find your system unusable after a virus hit it and you have to spend a couple of hours cleaning the darn virus instead of doing urgent tasks.
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
And it's fun. They like it, it's like assembling a toy that wórks. Learning linux is discovering that you are smart, that you can solve things, that google ís your friend, that it's not the computers fault, there are no faults, just fun puzzles to be solved.
In a few weeks I'll try to create a beowulf cluster with them, it might work. Or not. But it will be fun!
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain. Time to die.
"If Linux becomes widely used, we'll probably switch to something else. Or at least develop an obscure distro that only we will use. Because, let's face it, we want to feel special." Welcome to Debian, we were wondering when you would join us.
Actually the reason I use Linux is that it doesn't piss me off. The does article touch on this, when it mentions unkillable processes and files that won't go away.
It seems everytime I have to use Windows, it frustrates me to no end. Some of this is caused by just knowing Linux better than other OS as it also happens to some degree with HP-UX and Solaris, which I have to use for work. However Windows surely takes the price, I feel so limited whenever I have to click through a bunch of windows/popup menus just to find out in the end that there is no option for making it do exactly what I want.
Resistance is not futile - www.gnu.org
The article says linux is "free as in speech"; I think what was meant was "free as in beer".
On the other hand, there are times when it seems like a better description would be "free as in kitten".
Ummm, I don't know where to start with this post... I'll just sum it up in a thought; you need to run Slackware once or twice to understand why *nix is *nix. I'm not just saying that because I'm a Slackware fanboy, but rather, because you seem to miss the elegance and simplicity of text files for configs.
/etc/ that can be edited over SSH, and has a man 5 page, is superior to any other kind of scheme. There are a million reasons why a GUI interface for maintenance is a nightmare (and how would you like to set it up without a command line?) as compared to SSH. If you want to know why I say this, you'll first have to understand why *nix is *nix.
There are a million reasons why a single text file in
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Parent was obviously an anecdotal discussion of computing environments and what worked for him. It was on-topic, interesting and mildly amusing.
In short, wtf?
For the record, I've also started running Linux as my primary desktop OS. I have a Linux desktop, Linux server, and Mac laptop that also runs Vista. I get all my work done just fine.
+++ATH0
Before I read the article, I guessed the real reason is elitism.. Technology savvy people want to use technology in such a way so as to set ourselves apart from people who need their hands held. But, alas, I am wrong. Using Linux is simply fun.
A witty saying proves you are wittier than the next guy.
I work with computers, I don't want to work with them when I get home. Ubuntu just works, no questions asked. At work I use Linux because its so damn easy. I don't get involved with the windows servers or desktops we have, and I'm so glad. I barely touch my Mac laptop, I don't have time to learn a new interface. Linux just works.
That's great, but the buck has to stop somewhere. It's been a dozen years now, if companies like Creative still aren't willing to work with the open source movement to create up-to-date drivers, maybe it's time for the open source movement to start thinking about what they're doing wrong when engaging companies like Creative.
Buck-passing gets nobody anything.
Comment of the year
After working with Windows servers and Linux servers, with the same level of experience, personally I find Linux easier to configure, more documentation and easier to make your own hacks to get done what you want.
:)
No crappy applications where you can't find the right button to turn off a frature, but simple text files with settings. Nice. I like it.
AND Linux it's fun to play with
Privacy is terrorism.
Reason 1: getting software to work on Linux can involve compiling it from the source (this is obviously not a requirement nowadays, but you're not required to have fun by all means). What is a better way to feel the adrenaline rush than watching 'configure; make -j8; make install' output fly on in the terminal window? This is the only way we can convince ourselves we have a fast computer, and that it's doing something useful.
Reason 2: tired of mundane things? Try to solve the mysteriously convoluted dependency puzzle. Your reward of accomplishment is by having software that eventually works and stays working until the next software update. Then you get to experience the joy again.
Reason 3: when you download a source tarball, chances are it won't work, and you have to edit some source code to make it work for you. What is a better ego boost than thinking that you've outsmarted those who can do CVS/SVN commit and can't get it right?
Reason 4: it's the only operating system where you can use a filesystem designed and implemented by a suspect murderer. What character!
Reason 5: for the ex-warez addicts, it gives us a peace of mind to be able to rip off software legally.
I once had a signature.
Bull.
I use Linux because:The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
Floccinoccinilihilipilification.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
You write a driver for the device that you want, then you write a shim or an abstraction layer for the kernel API. Or you write the driver for a hypervisor and write dummy drivers for the kernel. Or you write user-mode drivers that work through the kernel. Or, in the case of mice, keyboards and graphics cards, you code for GGI. Or you use a driver-development package to insert the kernel-specific code. Or a million other options.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I was too lazy to re-install Windows. ...honestly. One day, I said, "That's it. I'm done." The rest is history.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
"Most people who pass on the opportunity to use Microsoft's software usually have an irrational hate for Microsoft itself and put that above what would be the best tool for the job."
People started using MS products when they were not the King of the Hill for the same reason many (don't claim to know about most) people use linux on the desktop: It does everything they need it to do. Why would I pay money for constant upgrades and only get an O/S in the deal? Buy extra software for burning a DVD!? Resizing and cropping photos!? You want some Adware with your free trials? WTF???
My real reason: lazyness. Nothing changes very much, if you dont like. During the times while i was essentially doing my productive work with a nearly unchanged desktop configuration, windows users had to change OS 4 times completely. MS changed menu configurations, introduced senseless feature, made their own products incompatible with themself (Im remember funny effects when loading coduments containing Formulas into Word 97). Everytime i administrate a windows machine (now Vista) i am stunned that one can be so stupid and make new icons for the configuration panel each 4 years. My configuration was unchanged over 6 Personal computers at home and at work, and on the Solaris workstations. Networking also did not change very much. It always "just worked".
The second reason is a very simple one: Installing a system with everything you need (and more) takes 30 Minutes. And there are no license Issues. There is some expensive software i love to use (e.g Matlab, Mathematica), but i find that the "license" issue and "making myself to a slave by writing code for a sytem only sold by one company" shifts my feeling each year more and more to free variants. Mathematica i do not use any more when it is not needed for that reason, and in matlab i try to be compatible to octave. Since i do that, i am considerably more happy, even if i still use matlab (but i can now run anything on any lab computer, if graphical output does not have to be so fanvy).
Actually, i have to admit that i sometimes change something. in 1999 i switched to pine and in 2005 i switched to evolution. I consider the second switch was a mistake. i also switched after using ctwm from 1995 to 2003 to gnome (or icewm for my Thinkpad X24 which i bought used). I dont regret that change. And i think i dont care which UNIX os i am working on, so maybe i'll also change that sometimes again.
I prefer FreeBSD. I saw /etc/rc.conf and that alone converted me to BSD. As a Unix, FreeBSD is just SO much nicer than the Linux kernel, which I really really hate and which pisses me off lots.
Then my wife came home from visiting a friend and asked if I could put Ubuntu 4.10 on her laptop. Because her friend's machine had ... Frozen Bubble. Yes: Frozen Bubble is why I first tried Ubuntu.
Now I have an Ubuntu laptop because Linux supports the hardware less worse than FreeBSD. And the Debian-based packaging system is really pretty smooth, I must admit.
Damn you, Frozen Bubble!
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Because...
I hate command lines. Command lines mean I have to remember command names and 47 different switches for each one. Can't even do that in DOS.
Tinkering is NOT fun. The computer's a tool. I just want it to work, do what I want, and don't want to have to * with it any more than I want to have to gap the plugs in my car before I start it.
I want to use Eudora.
Having been a Windows NT/2000 Developer up to 2000, and having made the nice switch to Linux, I feel as though I have a good insight on both systems.
With Linux, I can download and compile the kernel, and play around with kernel-level features. Can't do that with Windows.
With Windows, I had to sign up with MSDN to get anything done. With Linux, I can Google most answers I need. Now to be fair, Google simply was not around for most of my Windows days, but hey, most of the popular Linux applications -- like MySQL and Apache -- are extremely well documented. The rest I can usually find some examples or just explore to see what happens!
Scripting under Linux is very complete -- you almost don't have to do any C or C++ programming at all unless you are writing device drivers or compute-intensive applications. Even for the compute-intensive stuff, you could get by with Java these days.
Where I work, when all of my Windows colleagues get hit with spyware and trojan horses, I smile knowing that I am invunerable to such exploits.
I also like having the choice of many distros. Currently, Ubuntu has my eye, and I like it better than Fedora.
These days, the only reason I have Windows installed anywhere at all is because there are a few applications that aren't available for Linux yet -- though that list is shrinking fast.
So I do Linux because Linux is wicked cool, and lets me get as close to bare metal as I like are abstract as far from as I like too.
Ruby Neural Evolution of Augmenting Topologies
Linux vs Windows flame wars always remind me of a quote I heard once:
:)
:)
"Remember, amatures built the Ark, professionals built the Titanic!"
I always think of that as "Remember, amatures built Linux, professionals built the Ark"
I've been using Linux for the past year and a half because it actually runs perfectly, and is very fun to experiment with
I could NEVER run a complete server on a Windows PC, but on Linux I can run Apache, MySQL, and PHP, which are SO much better than the $1,000+ Windows Server, Microsoft SQL Server, and Microsoft ASP.NET.
Yeah, it's fun getting to rewrite/recode pretty much anything within the OS. It's even more fun when it works the way you want an OS to run. It seems more and more I'm spending most of the time playing eve online on Linux so I'm pretty happy about that. :)
I run linux because it is fast.
It's that it's *EASY* to get that control. Just start at init, and follow the trail. You don't have to be a programmer to be able to really customize linux to your heart's content. I do most of my stuff with perl and shell. That, to me, is the beauty of it.
/proc, for one example.
Many of the things I do easily with some trivial scripting in linux would take a lot more effort to accomplish on other platforms. Being able to use stuff in
I would love it if linux "did the job" for me, but at home (I use linux and unix at work), when I am doing music production (electronic music) which in windows has a slight edge over mac (mac has been getting better, but is still limited) for what I do, but linux is not anywhere near functional in any way shape or form. no decent live performance apps- no compositional tools with the precision or flexibility of anything m$ or apple can do, and no hosting support for either vst, rtas or dx plugins which means no external softsynths, no effects- nothing.
I mean it is bad enough that vista doen't support a lot of this functionality out of the box, so one bad on m$ and I won't switch at any time in the forseeable future until it is waaaaay patched, but at least they said "we need to do some support for musicians" wheras whenever I talk to linux heads about it their response to ppl like me is always down their nose and some off color comment.
Because we're cheap bastards.
Steve's Computer Service, Hobbs, NM
Thats why I tried it.
Not to mention back in 1998 there were no free c/c++ compilers for Windows and the only affordable ones were crippled.
WIth Linux I didn't have to worry about gnu c being crippled not to mention I had apache, php, java, perl, python, and tons and tons of api's.
Today most of these things have been ported to Windows but for many years Windows just sucked as a web development platform. I wanted a community as well and Linux provided that.
http://saveie6.com/
Linux allows easy creation of powerful shell scripts that I rely on daily.
Availability of most source code has made it possible to modify and/or fix some programs.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The REAL reason that I use Linux is... 42.
I run desktop Linux (Debian testing/unstable) because I use this box for making a living and I can not afford downtime or to have to screw around with keeping waves of malware off my computer for hours every week. Even the W98SE installation on VMware Server for running legacy Windows apps is far more reliable with Linux to do the heavy lifting than it ever was in native mode.
Tech Public Policy stuff
Can I have my blog entries posted on slashdot too?
Go to http://www.debian-multimedia.org/ and add the right entry starting with deb to your sources.list file.
Debian is far more about freedom of choice than about purity, that's why non-free / contrib / restricted sections of repositories are available.
You can even get vendor repositories, I download Opera from the Opera Debian repository, for instance. The same for Skype.
Tech Public Policy stuff
provider goes out of business, where are you left with respect to the content you paid for?
Tech Public Policy stuff
I have generally thought that a lot of high-end 3d graphics and CAD programs could use a system like that.
The big disadvantage is that there is a pretty steep learning curve (steeper than the command-line because input/output is separated in different windows)
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
...that security, freedom, tweakability, tinkerosity, and community support are false reasons and that the only real reason is that it's fun.
.gif files too. so you just ^C and edit the line like so:
for me, there is no one reason i use linux. all of the above and more are reasons why i use it. and my reasons have grown over the years - my original reasons way back in 1993 was that unix on a cheap home computer was cool and uucp actually worked on linux whereas it sucked badly on OS/2. they're all still REAL reasons, not false ones.
i do agree, however, that using the command line is fun. it's also extremely productive.
one of the interesting comments in the blog was "Saying the GUI has inherent disadvantages simply means that the GUIs that exist are not GOOD enough.". that's simply not true. there are many things which are possible - even easy - from a CLI which are impossible (or would be so complicated to achieve that no one would ever do it) from a GUI.
for example how do you make a GUI do the following:
find all files in the current directory and beneath it which have been modified less than 3 months ago, exclude all jpg and png files, then search them for the string 'foobar'. open all matching files in my favourite editor.
in bash, it's something like this:
vi $( find . -mtime -90 -print0 | egrep -zZi '\.(png|jpe?g)$' | xargs -0r grep -l foobar )
and then you realise you should have excluded
vi $( find . -mtime -90 -print0 | egrep -zZi '\.(gif|png|jpe?g)$' | xargs -0r grep -l foobar )
and that's only a very simple example of what you can do with standard tools and pipes from a CLI. there is no way that that could be implemented in a GUI in a manner that was actually usable, let alone easy to use....and the more complicated the pipeline, the more baroque and unwieldy the GUI would become.
and yes, i do stuff like this all the time. e.g. finding all CGI scripts or PHP pages that send mail or open a connection to a particular database or whatever. it's the computer's job to find files matching my criteria, not mine to manually search every one of them and manually construct a list of files to edit. that's what computers are for, for doing tedious stuff that would otherwise be prone to operator error.
Microsoft stopped finding Linux funny years ago. I would expect that the increasing number of major vendors selling PCs with Linux pre-installed (e.g. the eeePC) is even less funny to them.
With respect to hardware driver issues, if you want a troublefree Linux install and setup, research the hardware you plan to use it with to make sure that the drivers exist and they are actually usable.
Just like you do if you want a Vista installation to work on your box... given MS's admission that the Vista-compatible sticker means nothing in particular in the recent class-action suit.
Tech Public Policy stuff
This is essentially the same system in terms of look and feel as it was when I started out with Linux... my Debian Lenny/Sid desktop is practically identical to the one I ran on Fedora Core 3 and does exactly the same job. I did wind up changing the base distro, and had to replace the Win4Lin 9.x virtualization software with VMware Server.
Though I'll admit that changing distros (no suitable nvidia driver in FC6 for the new motherboard) took a hairy 3 days.
The only real difference between the current desktop and my FC3 desktop is that the current one is easier to use and maintain than it was 3 years ago.
But I don't change things just for the sake of change. I have a Windows directory tree on this box that's almost old enough to vote.
Tech Public Policy stuff
We use Linux because we think we're smarter than most people. We can't demonstrate that doing things the same way everyone else does, so we pick things that are unusual, even if we'd be better served with what everyone else has.
... it's secure. And because it's free, because it's customizable, because it's free (the other meaning), because it has excellent community support. What is the REAL reason it is fun? That is the question.My main reason for using Linux is that I don't need it to be shiny if I don't want it to. It may seem a bit strange, but sometimes I like to be able to just sit back and stare at the white text, rather than spend an hour making a new style for XFCE, or looking through my images for the perfect background. More important than that, with a GUI, it's hard to display (verbose) information without someone crying 'bloat'; in a CLI, it's only going to push some old text up which you can request again at any time.
Close behind this (but probably more important than my freakish love of text) is the ability to share a single machine among multiple users at the same time, without even having to be near the machine, thus (potentially) getting much more use out of that single machine. Oh, and logfiles for when one of these multiple users screws something up, or when I just want to know if anyone's still using the OpenArena server.
Speaking of maximizing use, there are plenty of tools for setting up a cluster of Linux boxes to handle anything from rendering a short film to compiling in record time.
tl;dr - I'm crazy for minimalist interfaces, want to keep my machines loaded down when in use, I want to know when and how everything screws up, and I want my strange side-projects to be over quickly.
I just read Slashdot for the articles.
I stated to use Linux at desktop because I don't want to steal. It was not easy for average user to pay for software in former USSR countries and I decided that free software if OK for me.
:)
Well, "right tool for the right job"... I stated to avoid Windows at late 90 and it was not easy to accomplish office tasks, other usual work with Linux. Linux was good for servers, programming, math but not for everyday use. Now I boot windows once per few month for an half of hour if I can not convert some graphics document or need some very specific win proggy.
Linux is still weak with vector graphics, video editing, real-world music apps but I can do simple tasks with Incscape, Kino and Rosegarden or Audacity. Linux today is much better today in games. Linux is better in office tasks. So I hope I will not boot Win anymore in 2-3 years.
Can you speak English without knowing Latin?
Sure.
Will Latin ever disappear?
Unlikely.
People that know or understand Latin are superior in their understanding
of languages and history of languages and etymology.
Using this analogy, people that use, understand Linux/Unix, are superior
in their understanding of computer programs
and computer architecture.
Recent surveys show that IT professionals and Developers with strong Unix/Linux background
pull highest income.
BTW, I am a developer.
E pluribus Unum.
- these are not the droids you are looking for -
I am currently typing this from Windows, but other than games, there is nothing that Linux can't do. I occasionally boot to Linux, must in both systems I usually use the same tools (Firefox, Thunderbird, gcc, etc).
I am not using the command line much. I don't find it fun to use; if there is a GUI way to achieve the task, I prefer that. But KDE and Gnome have come a long way and they are far superior, as window managers, than Windows.
I really, naively thought the answer would be "freedom". Sorry dude, but some of us do think about the political backdrop of our actions, and I definitely choose free software for the freedom. Free software, in general, is also better and more fun than the proprietary alternatives, but the reason those things are true is intimately linked with the freedom it provides and protects.
Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone.-rms
I started using Linux in 96 (Slackware with kernel 2.0.27) which I installed it with floppy disks (not just boot/root, but the whole thing on floppy). The reason was purely exploration. I can't insist how much I learned about computing/OS networking by hacking around linux and reading its source code. I later on used it at work as an embedded OS in several occasions. Right now, as a non-embedded developer, there are several applications that I will only code in linux (anything with multiple processes, IPC, sockets etc.). It is not because Windows doesn't have the alternative for the aforementioned. It does, and they are comparable and I honestly wont argue with anyone who claims they are superior because of this and that, I couldn't care less. I choose linux for these occasions because it is following a standard open API (POSIX) and my knowledge is transferable to a variety of platforms without that much effort.
... a 4 CPU, 512 Mword, vector computer, it came with a Cray engineer on site(and cost the Dutch tax payer 50 million Dutch guilders - 22 million Euro's ~ 35 million $).
Nowadays, it's simply a 1000 dollar offering from one of the obvious "media PC" providers.
Luckily, I can still compute what I need to compute with these ersatz TV's as long as I install Debian testing !
I also like to tinker with my system.
I spent five minutes stealing cool sigs and all I got was this.
I work looking after a website running on Linux boxes and running Linux on my desktop makes my life much easier. Not only can I run scripts on my workstation for testing but connectivity via SSH is leagues ahead of using FTP on a Windows box. The real kicker is that the one Windows server I deal with is easier to manage from a Linux box: Remote desktops work just as well, thanks to Samba I can mount drives straight into my file system so I can use tools like awk, grep and tail and deploying cross platform from Linux to Windows is significantly less problematic than versa-vice.
Stupid flounders!
I don't agree with anything he said other than to admit that using Linux is a stark contrast to the boring Windoze. Windows puts you to sleep. It isn't highly configurable and in many ways Windows was designed to limit you. The Windows registry is a nightmare and is highly manipulated by spyware/malware criminals. Their modifying the registry, modifying permissions of sections in the registry, and many other things having to do with obscure sections of the registry all help them to gain control and maintain control of the windows box.
If this guy had said that Linux was being used because primarily it was fun I would have agreed with him, but he's actually disrespecting Linux. He's attempting to thwart the efforts we all have made in getting others to look at the product by lying and saying that all those things we hold dear about Linux are lies.
One of the most important reasons I use Linux day in and day out is that I will be ensured that my privacy is not violated by Microsoft (or the US government) with programs such as WGA, WGN, DRM, and any potential back door set up to assist the government. In the Linux world thousands of eyes see that kernel and see all the code going into it. Not only that millions see it world wide, so not just one corporation highly protected by our government organizations has control.
Also, it is clear that Open Source is the way of the future. It essentially eliminates the hopes any one corporation (whether it is Microsoft or any other) to control our content, control our progress in computer science, and it helps to ensure that by creating prior art before the big corporations do (before they have a chance to extort the rest of the world of money better used to help raise our children, fund our schools, better our research after the education has taken place, get those innovations as a result of children's progress, our schools advancements, and our research, before the corporations lock them down) in order to raise the costs of things such as the cost of drugs, health care, etc.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.
I use Linux because I heard that it's the only platform thet Duke Nukem Forever will run on!
Fuck focus following the mouse, how about NOT ALLOWING APPS TO STEAL FOCUS!!!
How about letting each user decide how they want focus to work?
The multiplicity of window managers in Linux allows us exactly that freedom. For example, in icewm I use ClickToFocus=1 and RaiseOnFocus=0, so that you can type in one window while another app is covering all but the small portion of the window where you're typing.
And that's what makes Linux great: not "fun" like the article claims, but individual control.
When you use MS products you support a company that has broken the law in several legal circumscriptions (including the EU and the US) and that is not shy to use pseudo legal, unethical threats (like patent litigation based in bogus, unsubstantiated claims).
Many people would not deal with a company or individual that followed such behaviour consistently, as MS does, but for some reason there are people in this website and elsewhere that are willing to rewrite history, use kind words towards this company, all in the name of I don't really know what exactly.
Allow me to be emotional about a company with such track record. I despise crooks of all stripes, so your pleas for leniency in this case should, fortunately, fall in many deaf ears.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
My mum is 70 and can use Ubuntu, she would not recognize a CLI if it hit her.
Lo and behold, she can install packages and say yes to the machine when new software needs to be installed.
It revolts me to hear other people whining about the CLI...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
In a previous job we have people checking some parts in Linux important for our internal operations.
The release fixes and improvements.
That is the whole point of Linux and FOSS.
With Windows (or Solaris before it was opened and other OSes , I have tales about NFS and NIS+ regarding this) if something does not work, you are screwed and in a weakened negotiating position with your software provider.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Many people are cool with the limited availability of hardware for Apple machines, or with stickers or labels saying if a device is ready for XP, Vista or OSX.
,that attacks against Linux capabilities are based on biased blind critiques which give a free pass to other OSes while demanding the highest of standards from Linux.
Many people live resigned that the hardware that was working with older versions of Windows may not work with newer versions, and when going to manufacturers' websites to be told that their perfectly able devices will never be supported in the latest bloatware from Redmond.
But when Linux supporters refer somebody to a hardware compatibility list, it is a great debacle, an excuse, a failure.
Nice to see, as usual,
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
... don't require the overhead of a database to be handled.
You are trying to use a gigantic hammer to crack a very small nut.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Very good article.
Linux is different and people should not expect free replacement of Windows.
I use Linux because it is _not_ Windows. I understand it better. It's mine.
ps. Linux is user friendly - it's just picky about its friends :)
Windows User: Windows is fun. I can use a command line for everything. I can use the GUI for everything, too, so I don't have to use the command line. Having a choice, therefore, is fun.
Linux User: Linux is fun. I can use a command line for everything. I can't use the GUI for everything, so I have no choice but to use the command line. Having no choice is, therefore, fun.
Or maybe the article is full of it. Give it another 5-10 years and Linux will be ready for the desktop, once fanaticists realise the general public, and even most administrators don't actually want to use a command line unless they have no other choice.
The command line is a good and useful tool, but in this century, the command line should never be the only user interface option available to a user/administrator.
I use linux cuz I like penguins. Quite funny birds.
Then stay with the 2.4.x series. It is stable, and I still use it on my main system, though I may switch to 2.6.x soon.
The problem is Linus changed from having the even numbered series rock solid stable to being essentially expermiental releases. I think the even numbered patchlevels (or whatever they are called now--the third number) are supposed to be stable, but they have so much experimental stuff going in it is hard to say. I also find the new numbering system a bit confusing.
I think you will have to wait for 2.7 or 2.8 to come out before 2.6 will remotely be considered stable.
Nobody is giving free passes to anyone.
I'm looking at this from a business point of view. The way I see it, lack of hardware support is a weakness. It's a weakness for Apple, it's a weakness for Microsoft and it's a weakness for Linux.
Some Linux users honestly don't give a rats ass if Linux adoption increases. Fine. All the power to them. But assuming for one minute that it's a "goal" then we start looking at ways to increase adoption. Saying "it's not the distribution's fault that hardware manufacturer's don't write Linux drivers" does absolutely nothing to achieve that goal. It's like saying "Ah well. Nothing we can do. C'est la vie. Anyone want to go get a beer ?".
I started with it in 1998 because I hated getting viruses and putting up with win98 crashing all the time. I bought RedHat 5.0, Debian 2.i_can't_remember and Slackware 3.5. I wound up using Slackware because RedHat reminded me too much of windows and I had trouble with Debian's package manager after the initial install.
Slackware was daunting at first, I hosed my computer for a week before I could get it to boot. I kept windows around for about a year then decided "enough was enough" and have spent 99% of my time in Linux since then. I keep a windows partition on one machine for my Morrowind game, but I refuse to get email or download anything in windows. It took me a while to get the hang of it, but I found it wonderful to be able to download a small utility that doesn't cost $30+. If I can't find what I'm looking for, I can write my own and not have to pay hundreds or thousands for a compiler. My Mom runs Slackware too, I've gotten several of my co-workers to try it.
I find windows cumbersome and the UI difficult to do simple tasks with. Linux just makes more sense.
I wish it were as least as popular as Mac. Things like playing DVDs would "just work".
Scott
©20014 angrykeyboarder & Elmer Fudd. All Wights Wesewved
All the reasons for using Linux given in the article are true, but the author left out the MOST important reason: Because I like using an OS that was written by people like me, for people like me - but most of all because I know the f*cking bloodsucking unethical leeches in Redmond won't make one copper plated zinc cent whenever I install and use Linux!
Even if Windows were as user friendly and easy to use as Linux, I would avoid it for the latter reason alone.
[Note: Although I've never contributed to a Linux distro, I have written many small special purpose preemptive multi-tasking operating systems and many other innumerable really fun projects during my 35 year career in computers, which I now look back on from retirement with fondness. I can also say that I had a career that I truly enjoyed (most of the time)]
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
I create a new OpenOffice document, and when I rename it I dont have to deal with the extension, it doesnt write over that Ditto on recent versions of Windows. Copy and paste without having to right click C-c C-v? My file format does not get fragmented (NTFS- Nice Try at a File System) If someone told you that, they're lying. Ext and ext3 are not magic, and they get fragmented just as any other filesystem does -- though they're well-designed enough that there's typically no measurable performance hit from fragmentation until a disk is 75-90% full. Both ext2/3 and NTFS share a number of techniques for minimising fragmentation, though the implementations usually differ slightly. For instance, both use fairly aggressive preallocation algorithms, except that on Windows, preallocation in implemented at the file-system level through the use of NTFS Extents; on Linux, ext2/3 doesn't support file-system extents, but preallocation is done by the kernel, so the result is much the same. Certainly, ext2/3 has some advantages over NTFS, but the converse is also true (transparent compression or file-system level encryption?). If I choose to use a shell, it has a history and real tab completion and color coding Maybe not color-coding, but cmd's always had history and tab-completion. When a file with a simular name and type is copied in the directory I get an option to view the metadata, see the picture, or hear the song to make an informed decision about what I should do, and it offers to automatically rename the file Ditto on recent versions of Windows (example). I can leave all my windows open and shut down the computer, and they open back up automatically Windows had hibernation *before* Linux did (before swsusp anyway, I don't know of any other implementations).
For reference, I *am* an Ubuntu fan, and in fact, am typing this on Ubuntu (though I dual boot with Vista and like and use both OSes; make of that what you will...)
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
BTW, if anyone tells you that the "Screens and Graphics" utility in Ubuntu lets you have painless dual-screens, they're lying. In my experience, the only thing it's good for is introducing you to the "Bulletproof X" feature, which Ubuntu invariably drops into after you try and use it...
The only way I got dual screens to work was using the ATi binary drivers and their aticonfig utility, which worked, except that the cursor, which looks fine in the primary screen, looks like a large square of random noise in the secondary screen. This is fixed if you enable the SW_CURSOR flag in xorg.conf, only then you get huge artifacts whenever you try to move or click on anything. I'd try enabling Compiz to see if they fixes it, only it apparently doesn't work the the ATi proprietry drivers. Fun...
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Actually, in my experience the Word 2007 maths editor is more than a rival for Openoffice's one (they've redone the maths engine with a syntax heavily 'influenced' by LaTeX) -- though I would still use LaTeX proper for a long project, if only because of the ability to use text-bases versioning tools.
Example quadratic equation comparison:
Word 2007: (-b+-\sqrt(b^2-4ac))/(2a)
Openoffice Math: {-b+-sqrt{b^2-4ac}}over{2a}
LaTeX: \frac{-b\pm\sqrt{b^2-4ac}}{2a}
would all produce the same output (though LaTeX's would naturally look a bit prettier than the other two).
Not incomparable, as you can see (though the differences start getting greater when you get more complicated things). The main difference is that Office 2007's equation editing is 'in-place' -- e.g. "\alpha" is replaced as you type by the alpha unicode symbol by Word's autocorrect engine -- wheras both Openoffice and LaTeX have a much more rigid seperation of input from result.
What's purple and commutes? An Abelian grape.
Yesterday I decided to create a VMware partition and install Linux. It's something I've been meaning to do for quite some time, but just never seemed to have made the time. The install was pretty easy, but I was surprised at how many different versions of Linux there are available. There are different versions for every conceivable processor, including some old relics which I thought have been relegated to museums. It's amazing how much support there is for the development of this O/S and how many organizations have some form of distribution. I settled on Ubuntu, mainly because it was easy to download and burn onto a CD. Then as I mentioned, the install was went perfectly. I'm going to spend some time playing with Linux and deciding if everything I keep hearing is true. I'd like to know what versions of Linux others are using, so feel free to comment in response. Christosterone
Go Canucks!!
[shrug] It happens.
Tech Public Policy stuff
How much time did I spend supporting a small home network running Windows? Approximately 40% of the time I was on the computer at home was spent maintaining Windows security issues including "attacks" from within. How much of a performance hit did I suffer with the resident sniffers and snoopers running in the background? How often did I have to provide a work-around due to an aging infrastructure?
:-D)
Faster, leaner, more secure: Linux saves me time. (And it's fun, too!
Bottom line, although I could probably lock down Windows to achieve the same effect, Linux makes it easy to let the children go on the computer and on to the Internet and not have to worry about them trashing the installation because they wanted to punch the monkey!
insert pithy comment here
That's the awfull true... the human beeing is such a animal that he prefers to feel superior to others than to help them...