Why Linux?

[Techx]

I have very little experience with linux other than coding in a shell on a linux box at school. So i'm interested in putting together my own linux box but I was wondering what the benefit is over windows and what it is that you like most about it?

Thx

[nonsequitur]

learning how an os works, allowing you to think and plan more of your computer's setup

less worries about spyware/adware/virii

flexibility in putting what i want onto a box

[cjcox]

Flexibility, large friendly community (mostly), can be made to do just about anything. Mostly follows KISS principles.... and it just plain sounds neato!

Nobody tries to take money out of your pocket every time you power the machine on either.

[ameoba]

Basically, it's that Unix rocks and Linux is just as good (in most ways) as having a Unix.

If you want to run Linux, you want to; there's no real point in trying to convince you of it. You -do- score extra geek points for running Linux, however.

[blackedge]

Personally, I just like it better. More variety, and mostly it's free. I'm doing 95% of what I could do on my Windows box with this Linux box, and all it cost me was the hardware.

Plus, I prefer the UNIX-based environments over Windows, since Windows is primarily GUI, where as Linux could be completely text-based if you wanted it to. I'm a command-line junkie, and often have four or five console sessions open at the same time. Tried it with Windows, and it just wasn't the same.

But, it's all a matter of choice really. Linux is not for everyone, but for many people, it's a damn good alternative.

[RancidWAnnaRIot]

LOL.. more geek points.. how true... but if you want to hear a good example of why i pick linux over windows sometimes is because of DVDs. I get so many problems running DVD movies in windows.. when i play then through linux, no problems at all.. though i rememebr reading that technically playing a DVD through linux is illegal LOL.. something about DVD encoding and stuff like that.. but obviously no one will prosecute you..

[Huan]

Lol, donno about that. Give the record companys and hollywood time.. They'll get bored enough to try anything :-) Specially if microsoft were to accidently drop some funding to prevent unauthorized players :rolleyes:

Anything to slow down the competition.. Though I'm a one sided bastard when it comes to stuff like this.. I can admit it.

[Minishark]

I just feel a lot cooler using Linux, plus it's funny when your friends come over and try to mess around with your computer but get frustrated and confused when they can't figure out how to do anything.
Seriously, though, Linux is better for some things and Windows is better for some things. I use my Windows machine for pretty much just gaming and burning CDs (which never works very well in Linux for some reason I can't figure out). I use my Linux machine for my general computing like browsing the web, IM, word processing, playing DVDs (which I agree does work much better than in Windows), playing music, etc.
My advice, if you're not sure about trying Linux, would be to try something like Knoppix first and if you like it then go for a permanent distro.

[NewBlackDak]

The first time I tried it was in college. I couldn't afford to go out and buy anything to develop in windows. We did have broadband and CD burners though. I installed linux, and only used it for coding/compiling for awhile. The first time I got DRI working on my voodoo3 though, I never looked back.

[AchTuNG!]

I just love the rock solid stability (except for today when i borrowed my mouse elsewhere and gentoo crapped itself, but aannyywwaayyy...)

I also love the flexibilty and performance. mulitple sessions is just genious. can't get by with out it. um... the fact the my box is completely unique. why? coz i built exactly how i wanted it with bits of this and bits of that. my current gui KDE 3.1 is much funkier, (not the smelly meaning) than I can ever seem to get crappy xp themes to be and the fact that i never bother worrying about spyware etc is great!

installing apps with emerge is FANTASTIC. I don't even have to find them anywhere, just work out the name of it and set emerge to work. BRILLIANT. :) :)

oh and did anyone mention that you pay nudda for it??

[kronchev]

if you have a lot of time to learn it and make it do what you want, go for it

otherwise theres nothing wrong with windows if youre not an idiot

[NewBlackDak]

if you have a lot of time to learn it and make it do what you want, go for it

otherwise theres nothing wrong with windows if youre not an idiot
If you're an idiot, you surely won't be able to run Linux though

[Silent1]

i love the stability of it. Especially debian, rock solid stable. I also find linux better looking, as far as gui goes. Running gnome 2.6 with flubox and it looks great. I used to play alot of games but i just don't have the hdd space now. But i could get most games working, take a look at transgaming.com and you'll see a list of games and how well they work.

[cl0ckw0rk]

If you're an idiot, you surely won't be able to run Linux though

i dunno, my buddy who still has problems with simple xp usage can find his way around gnome2.6 and internet/watch movies/listen to music on my box without any problems, using whatever limited skills he learnt in windows (menu, point, click :) )

most people though would struggle to install and configure some distros, but there are also distros that are no harder to get running than windows.

[Jebus]

Free.

[Archer75]

i love the stability of it. Especially debian, rock solid stable. I also find linux better looking, as far as gui goes. Running gnome 2.6 with flubox and it looks great. I used to play alot of games but i just don't have the hdd space now. But i could get most games working, take a look at transgaming.com and you'll see a list of games and how well they work.

I have to disagree here. The look and feel of linux is rather behind the times. One of the biggest gripes i've had with it is the look.

And it's no more stable than Windows XP. Less so in my experience. I have run the following distros on various computers:

SuSE
Mandrake
Redhat
Lycoris
Libranet
Debian
Yoper
Knoppix
Gentoo
Lindows
Xandros

I don't like the look of any of them. Of course you can completely customize the GUI but I haven't had much luck getting it to look better.

[NewBlackDak]

Linux is just like XP in the respect that if it's not configged right, or compiled too aggressively then it won't be stable. I have to disagree that they're the same though. I have a mailserver that' was up for 462 days before an extended power outage made us shut it down . I don't have a single windows server that has more than a 3 month uptime.

[Merc248]

stability, overall structure of everything in *nix, the fact that it can be used for just about everything (text based server, GUI based workstation, headless firewall/router, etc.), the ability to customize functionality extremely well, its free, there isn't anything that is pulled over your eyes to keep you away from system configuration files, it can be ran on nearly everything, updating anything (except for maybe the kernel) can be done without restarting, and the list goes on.

i don't use linux because i like the geek points or because every other geek is using it. i use it because i like *nix, and also because i can depend on it in mission critical settings.

[Xipher]

stability, overall structure of everything in *nix, the fact that it can be used for just about everything (text based server, GUI based workstation, headless firewall/router, etc.), the ability to customize functionality extremely well, its free, there isn't anything that is pulled over your eyes to keep you away from system configuration files, it can be ran on nearly everything, updating anything (except for maybe the kernel) can be done without restarting, and the list goes on.

i don't use linux because i like the geek points or because every other geek is using it. i use it because i like *nix, and also because i can depend on it in mission critical settings.
and recently some one has made a patch so you can basicly reload a new kernel and update it without completly rebooting. Although you still need to bring it down to the point where the services are off line and / is mounted ro, then reload and bring every thing back online. But it can be done.

[NewBlackDak]

I've seen this. Kernel hackers are using it for testing. My question though, is after you get get to the low runlevel, and remount /. How much longer would it have take for a full HW reset? 10 seconds at the most?

[Xipher]

Well, you could automate this and make a new runlevel, like say use 7, then just do a telinit 7, it runs the script to take it to single usermode, umount all the filesystems, remount / as ro, load the new kernel, then bring it back into multiuser, in very little time. this whole process could probably be pulled of in as little as 20 seconds I would think.