What is special about linux

M

matrixhasyou

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Sep 15, 2006
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I am sort of new to this linux thing and thought I should start to learn about it. I am a freshman majoring in computer science and any information good. What is special about linux. I hear that programmers use it alot or something. Can you explain in full detail how it differs from windows. Also what are the advantages and disadvantages.
 
The primary advantage I think leads most people to try it is....it's free.

It's also not as vulnerable to malware as Windows is. We could debate the reasons behind that....but as of now, Linux users don't worry about malware like Windows users do.
 
I think it also has to do with Linux being open-source and Windows being closed-source. Also people contributing their own software and making better of the programs already out there for Linux. Plus, Linux is generally smaller and not at bloated as Windows.
 
ValeX said:
I like it because it's free, and you don't need to go get cd key cracks and deal with the bullshit of trying to learn about technoligy as you would using propietary software. You can freely download it, burn it, pop it in your drive and you're off.

Also TONS of open source apps, basically anything you could ever need. (except you cant game)
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i'd suggest you remove that cd key crack comment...

linux is apprently more stable than windows..

as other people said.. it's open source...

i fiddle with it.. i didn't like it much..

in my opinion the linux community is full of arrogant fucktards that never want to help you out when you have a realy problem, even when you've read just about all the documentation you could, and nothing has really worked.

I'm too sure what else people use linux for... as a computer science major.. i'm sure you gonna have to become familiar with it...

if you're gonna have at it.. try the ubuntu(sp?) distro of linux
 
Wow, three posts and already we're getting some good ol' fashion down home fud.

1) Linux *can* be smaller and less bloated than windows. Linux is just the kernel, however ( which is in contrast to calling something "windows" ). A lot of distributions are actually quite a bit larger and have more bloat than windows. It can even be argued rather effectively that linux isn't an OS at all; It's merely a kernel. That I leave to wiser folks than I; I just know that the terms "Linux" and "Windows" refer to completely seperate catagories.

2) You can game; Your selection is severely limited. However, the good folks at wine are improving upon that situation on a daily basis almost.

Now, as to the OP question; There are two primary reasons why linux is as popular with the college kids as it is;

1) Cheap. It offers a fully fledged programming platform for free.
2) Versatility. Linux can be cut and pasted into almost any situation where an OS is needed. I work with routers, phones and servers on a daily basis that run linux.

As i said, these are just from a college kid's perspective. From mine, I dig the utilities and it's ability to do just about anything I need it to do in a stable manner. It's performance is consistent, and it's background internals are easy to understand.
 
RancidWAnnaRIot said:
in my opinion the linux community is full of arrogant fucktards that never want to help you out when you have a realy problem, even when you've read just about all the documentation you could, and nothing has really worked.
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Agreed..ask a Linux question, and most likely you will annoy someone just by asking and get the read the docs, search for it, etc type of reply and no help.
 
RancidWAnnaRIot said:
in my opinion the linux community is full of arrogant fucktards that never want to help you out when you have a realy problem,
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Honestly, I have only run into a very small minority of people like this. Primarily on the samba and qmail lists ( that qmail list is full of self important bastards. remember, you heard it here first! ).
even when you've read just about all the documentation you could, and nothing has really worked.
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I suggest you have asked your questions in a manner much like you have posted this; Full of arrogance and annoyance.

As a volunteer on the 6 or so lists I keep current with, I will outright refuse to answer anybody who demands an answer, if I'm not busy toying with arrogant pricks that already know the answers and are posting because the software is "stupid".
 
For the ordinary everday user there are only two advantages:

* It's free, and so are the programs people use with it.
* Because software isn't allowed access deep into the heart of Linux it's more resistant to malicious or troublesome intrusions, and in any event so few people use it that virus/malware writers don't waste their time bothering to create nasty intruders which target it.

The disadvantages can be difficult for many people to come to grips with:

* There are a small number of popular programs which are provided for both Windows and Linux, but for the most part you're looking at an OS which is incompatible with the tools 96.5% of people use.
* Learning to use it is a complete new learning curve, and you're left to your own resources with most of it. Because Linux is Open-source any accompanying documentation is often a jumbled mish-mash of poorly written content. Pogram documentation in particular is often written from the point of view of the developer, rather than from the point of view of the end-user, to a much greater extent than you find for Windows software.
* Sure, there are a few games available which run under Linux but as a general rule if it's gaming you want then forget about Linux!
* There are so many different distributions, desktop graphical user interfaces and whatnot else that simply coming to grips with the basic decision to even try Linux out can be a nightmare in itself, and it's not likely that Linux will settle on established standards for itself unless it becomes a commercial offering.


Linux is a very good OS which is based upon more sensible fundamental concepts than Windows has ever been. It's a very secure OS, and that's why you find its use common in server environments. But for the desktop of the ordinary user it's little more than a curiousity. It's a fine choice for those people who really do need basic computer functionality on a non-existent budget. It's a passion for Open-source zealots. It's wonderful for those people who simply want to sate curiousity and to learn. But for the ordinary, everday user it's simply a rather unattractive alternative and often an intrusion into discussions about computing!



Nope. There's no favouritism or preference inherent in the above. It's simply an honest summation of the current situation, and I can't see that situation changing in the forseeable future.
 
Catweazle said:
For the ordinary everday user there are only two advantages:

* It's free, and so are the programs people use with it.
* Because software isn't allowed access deep into the heart of Linux it's more resistant to malicious or troublesome intrusions, and in any event so few people use it that virus/malware writers don't waste their time bothering to create nasty intruders which target it.

The disadvantages can be difficult for many people to come to grips with:

* There are a small number of popular programs which are provided for both Windows and Linux, but for the most part you're looking at an OS which is incompatible with the tools 96.5% of people use.
* Learning to use it is a complete new learning curve, and you're left to your own resources with most of it. Because Linux is Open-source any accompanying documentation is often a jumbled mish-mash of poorly written content. Pogram documentation in particular is often written from the point of view of the developer, rather than from the point of view of the end-user, to a much greater extent than you find for Windows software.
* Sure, there are a few games available which run under Linux but as a general rule if it's gaming you want then forget about Linux!
* There are so many different distributions, desktop graphical user interfaces and whatnot else that simply coming to grips with the basic decision to even try Linux out can be a nightmare in itself, and it's not likely that Linux will settle on established standards for itself unless it becomes a commercial offering.


Linux is a very good OS which is based upon more sensible fundamental concepts than Windows has ever been. It's a very secure OS, and that's why you find its use common in server environments. But for the desktop of the ordinary user it's little more than a curiousity. It's a fine choice for those people who really do need basic computer functionality on a non-existent budget. It's a passion for Open-source zealots. It's wonderful for those people who simply want to sate curiousity and to learn. But for the ordinary, everday user it's simply a rather unattractive alternative and often an intrusion into discussions about computing!



Nope. There's no favouritism or preference inherent in the above. It's simply an honest summation of the current situation, and I can't see that situation changing in the forseeable future.
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I approve of this post. ^

<-- Xubuntu / Windows User
 
as a CD major if you are going to be taking any OS class(es) you are most likely to work with Linux on changing kernel stuff, because it's easy to change, since the source is available.
 
Catweazle said:
For the ordinary everday user there are only two advantages:

* It's free, and so are the programs people use with it.
* Because software isn't allowed access deep into the heart of Linux it's more resistant to malicious or troublesome intrusions, and in any event so few people use it that virus/malware writers don't waste their time bothering to create nasty intruders which target it.

The disadvantages can be difficult for many people to come to grips with:

* There are a small number of popular programs which are provided for both Windows and Linux, but for the most part you're looking at an OS which is incompatible with the tools 96.5% of people use.
* Learning to use it is a complete new learning curve, and you're left to your own resources with most of it. Because Linux is Open-source any accompanying documentation is often a jumbled mish-mash of poorly written content. Pogram documentation in particular is often written from the point of view of the developer, rather than from the point of view of the end-user, to a much greater extent than you find for Windows software.
* Sure, there are a few games available which run under Linux but as a general rule if it's gaming you want then forget about Linux!
* There are so many different distributions, desktop graphical user interfaces and whatnot else that simply coming to grips with the basic decision to even try Linux out can be a nightmare in itself, and it's not likely that Linux will settle on established standards for itself unless it becomes a commercial offering.


Linux is a very good OS which is based upon more sensible fundamental concepts than Windows has ever been. It's a very secure OS, and that's why you find its use common in server environments. But for the desktop of the ordinary user it's little more than a curiousity. It's a fine choice for those people who really do need basic computer functionality on a non-existent budget. It's a passion for Open-source zealots. It's wonderful for those people who simply want to sate curiousity and to learn. But for the ordinary, everday user it's simply a rather unattractive alternative and often an intrusion into discussions about computing!



Nope. There's no favouritism or preference inherent in the above. It's simply an honest summation of the current situation, and I can't see that situation changing in the forseeable future.
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A rant from the ill-informed, and the careless. The fact is that so far Linux is LIGHT YEARS ahaead of Windows in desktop technology. Just take alook at XGL, or AIGLX......

Windows has absolutely nothing that can compete, except a broken license agreement if you choose to use anything but the default theme....... Think about that simple concept I just mentioned.... A broken agreement if you change the ----theme----.... In XP you are stuck with --blue-- --green-- or --gray-- of the same theme.... That is it. And if you apply the hacks needed to apply a custom theme you are technically breaking the law.

WoW;..... Talk about a company being arogant and conceded..... If anything this in itself calls for a complete and total sanction by the whole of the economic community.

What it biols down to is MONOPOLY..... If it wasnt would this simple concept of being able toi change the default theme even be an issue?
 
^

There's the other downside for the ordinary, everyday user who is contemplating which computing platform to use. I attempted (for reasons of politeness) to avoid mentioning it. But now that it's raised its head I might as well elaborate:

* There is an overabundance of proselytising zealots who will bombard you with mountains of supposed 'information', about the benefits of Linux and the sheer 'evil' of Microsoft products. Whilst they don't represent the 'average' Linux user by any means, their numbers are large enough and their presence so overwhelming that often you will find yourself having spent half your day in attentive entrancement, and realising:

a) That you only wanted a bit of practical information and advice, and...
b) That you didn't receive a single skerrick of it! You received colourful but meaningless propaganda instead!
 
A workable command line is wonderful :)
Not to replace the gui but rather as a complement. Soooooooo nice. Comming from a mixed windows/mac background moving to linux was a bit odd a first, however, once you get used to the feel of it and start using the command line you may find it to be very power user firendly.
 
duby229 said:
..insert typical misguided chip on the shoulder response
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Well first of all, where do you get that it's against the law to use 3rd party themes for XP? I think Microsoft would've dropped the legal hammer on tgtsoft,etc long ago if that were the case. XP was designed to be fully themeable and they even advertise it as such - hell it says so in the ad text during the install routine.

Second, how is the Linux kernel light years ahead of Windows? It has never been redesigned. It is still (although more loosely to date) based around the same fundamental design concepts of BSD from the 70s.

Third, XGL has nothing to do with the Linux kernel or "Linux" and it is certainly nothing new from a design standpoint. Windows has had DirectX rendering since 98. Apple has had OpenGL rendering since Panther. XGL is still in Alpha.
 
Darakian said:
A workable command line is wonderful :)
Not to replace the gui but rather as a complement. ....once you get used to the feel of it and start using the command line you may find it to be very power user friendly.
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That's an interesting line to explore for anybody genuinely looking at the pros and cons of different OS environments. Linux is certainly 'power user friendly' in comparison with Windows. If somebody is a power user then that can be an important factor. But the extent to which it is (or isn't) 'novice friendly' is an equally important factor for consideration.
 
Catweazle said:
That's an interesting line to explore for anybody genuinely looking at the pros and cons of different OS environments. Linux is certainly 'power user friendly' in comparison with Windows. If somebody is a power user then that can be an important factor. But the extent to which it is (or isn't) 'novice friendly' is an equally important factor for consideration.
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Does Cygwin count? I've used it sparingly when I wanted to compiled a W32 binary wihtough having to reboot. But I don't know much else about it.
 
Met-AL said:
Agreed..ask a Linux question, and most likely you will annoy someone just by asking and get the read the docs, search for it, etc type of reply and no help.
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Which do ya prefure? some prik telling you read the docs. Or calling tech support to find out it's gonna cost you like 200$ just to get help over the phone. If the applications and Gaming was as versitile on other OS's like they are on microsoft. i'd quit wasting my money on over priced software that is filling a little thiefs pocket. (i say thief cause bill gates stole a buncha crap from then screwed over steve jobs to get where he is today. )
 
Conano said:
Which do ya prefure? some prik telling you read the docs. Or calling tech support to find out it's gonna cost you like 200$ just to get help over the phone. If the applications and Gaming was as versitile on other OS's like they are on microsoft. i'd quit wasting my money on over priced software that is filling a little thiefs pocket. (i say thief cause bill gates stole a buncha crap from then screwed over steve jobs to get where he is today. )
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Only because Steve Jobs was naive enough to trust the producer of the OS for his competitor.
 
i say thief cause bill gates stole a buncha crap from then screwed over steve jobs to get where he is today. )
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Didn't Steve Jobs steal those ideas from Xerox?
 
If I remember correctly, Xerox basicaaly said all the stuff they innovated was useless in the real world and gave away their rights to it. The folks at Xerox PARC was pissed about that course of action though. Again that is if I remember correctly.
 
I'm a 5th year CS major who administrates a research lab and also does research on a multiplatform distributed system based on python's xmlrpc. For the first 3 and a half or so years as a CS major, most of my development work was done on Windows 2000, using Linux as either a server platform or to test whether our software is working on it or not. January 21st, 2006 (whee for logs) I made the attempt to switch over to Linux full time on my new system full time. So as it stands I guess I've been using it 9 months as my primary system. Here are some things that I've learned...

-The best thing about Linux (well and BSD's too I guess) is the various package management utilities that you have available to you through different distributions. This does not exist in the world of windows, so you can't really compare, but it is an awsome feeling to have an immense amount of software at your fingertips just by typing a few commands. Package managers also usually do a good job of letting you know about updates for software, and in some cases can manage security information (GLSA-Check from Gentoo is a good example).

-You can't game seriously on Linux. There are a few good native games (Quake3/Doom3/Quake4/Unreal 2004?). Thats pretty much it. You can use wine to game, but the last performance numbers I read were basically across the board losses doing it this way. If you want to game, use a spare box (what I do) or just multiboot.

-Linux is not easy to learn, but not hard to use either. Very basic interactions like browsing the web or checking your email are pretty much the same. Changing system information (networking information, etc) is pretty different, but not impossible to learn. Newer distros (*cough ubuntu cough*) have made these things a lot easier. Running multiplatform software (java/python) is pretty much the same in my experience.

-Linux is not perfect, but theres a good community surrounding it. I have rarely ever been the first to encounter a problem, and most of the time the information is either available in some IRC channel (Freenode IRC Network is great btw) or on Google. My Google-Fu has become ninjaesque ever since I installed Linux. Perks of imperfection I suppose.

-Unix is built from the ground up to be a time sharing, multi-user platform. Linux/BSD/OSX/etc all work on this idea... and thankfully they all keep ties to the console instead of going full GUI for everything. This means you can do a lot of work remotely, my personal favorite is links2 for web browsing, nano for text editing, and lots of grep piping for searching. You could put an ex-coworker of mine in front of an ancient Amiga box, but so long as that Amiga could connect over telnet/ssh to one of his Linux systems, there isn't anything he couldn't do. System administration/upkeep, development (non-GUI obviously), even all sorts of crazy pre-rendering with various graphing utilities.

-Linux is still programming/script oriented (why I advocate its usage, or at least some BSD derivative to CS related majors). GCC is a nice free compiler, theres plenty of multiplatform languages (Java in particular is used by a lot of colleges these days in place of C/C++), and theres more scripting/shells than you can shake a stick at (Bash I believe is most common, though theres plenty of other goodies like plan9). At least at my university, I found it much easier developing on Linux (and in some cases, it was completely necessary) with all of these tools. I know very few researchers who use Windows, most use either Linux, BSD, or OSX.

Chances are if you are a CS major, you'll have to use something not Windows eventually. It's best to learn it on your own and be the guy that everybody goes to when they need help rather then the guy struggling with the technology. If you're really all that worried about it, my suggestion is to take an old system and install something on it (OpenBSD, FreeBSD, any Linux distro), and just try to do stuff with it. Setup a LAMP (Linux/Apache/Mysql/Perl.Python.PHP) box, it's a whole lot of fun.
 
I used Ubuntu for quite a while and I concider myself pretty savvy with the programs Linux has. And lemme tell you, 90 percent of them are crap. Since they're not made by professionals working for money.. what can you expect from freeware? They're 20 times worse than Windows freeware... it's mainly newbies making C++ programs and giving them out. Plus you always have to read howto's to install simple stuff like you would press next next finish in windows. Pathetic.
Plus it always has that "generic" feel for some reason, lots of software issues as well because almost no software is made for a specific distrubution... so you'll have coloring issues on menus for example
The only good things about it are the community, at least for ubuntu, you go on their IRC, type out your problem and get 5 people going out of their way to help you, and you pretty much always get the problems solved, no matter what it is. Second is on the same line, every problem you have can be fixed... since it's almost all open source, but for that you would need to understand how the programs code work..
 
I always laugh about these comments like "would you rather have someone give you crap or pay $200 to microsoft to fix your problem?".

I'd rather pay $200 to microsoft to fix my problem. Because all the crap in the whole wide world still doesn't fix problems. Especially in a business environment, i can't sit and take crap for days to find some weird answer from someone who doesn't even try to speak in non geek. I rather spend $200 and let someone figure it out and present me an answer asap. That's actually cheaper, you know....
 
Tylerdurdened said:
I used Ubuntu for quite a while and I concider myself pretty savvy with the programs Linux has. And lemme tell you, 90 percent of them are crap. Since they're not made by professionals working for money.. what can you expect from freeware? They're 20 times worse than Windows freeware... it's mainly newbies making C++ programs and giving them out. Plus you always have to read howto's to install simple stuff like you would press next next finish in windows. Pathetic.
Plus it always has that "generic" feel for some reason, lots of software issues as well because almost no software is made for a specific distrubution... so you'll have coloring issues on menus for example
The only good things about it are the community, at least for ubuntu, you go on their IRC, type out your problem and get 5 people going out of their way to help you, and you pretty much always get the problems solved, no matter what it is. Second is on the same line, every problem you have can be fixed... since it's almost all open source, but for that you would need to understand how the programs code work..
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umm, 90% of the programs are crap? seems like a noob needs to take a linux class :p i really cant say the programs in linux are garbage because they are written by a community, not necessarily an individual. if a single person wrote all that, he'd be a genius. any idea how hard it is to write a single (fairly large) program by yourself?

but anywho....the linux community is extremely helpful for those who are willing to know.
 
Sometimes these discussions are as left and right as democrats and republicans. Where are all the moderates!

I use linux and interestingly I find myself booting into my linux install just to use amaroK heh. Nothing compares to it anywhere --at least in my opinion. At the same time I have already shelled out all the cash for apps like office, and I have to admit.. I wouldn't have ever paid for it if I had used open office first. The sickening part is its even compiled to run on windows :\. However I do think Microsoft's office app is better written.

I am sitting here at my company's office typing this out. I wanted to comment because I've managed something here that I think many admins wish they could achieve. First off I thought I could look at moving our company from using windows to using open source software -- at least for office. However, then I put my attention on the fact we actually buy these pc's, with an oem windows xp pro license, and then we image it with the site licsense. In effect we waste thousands of oem keys. Its like we're throwing money away.

The upper management is older and are scared of big change, which is usually the case in most companies. I knew I couldn't convince them to make the switch, and why would I want to. We had a large windows support team that would basically need replaced entirely. Even if it was a smaller team because of the lowering support possibly needed. The trasnformation would also be such an undertaking for all our different uses. I decided we had to keep windows, but we did stop buying office, and at least lowered the actual number of photoshop licenses we buy (the gimp ftw).

I took a security approach, and we defined a lot of new policies. Users are no longer logging in as admins (even though they have an admin account) and we have documentation on the intranet here on how to use run as if its neccessary or (ctrl+shift+right-click) in the printer options etc etc. Its amazing (in fact we've downsized our support team from this move) how much our support tickets have lowered. Especially for spyware and malware. It has required getting used to dealing with permissions issues sometimes when working with custom apps and the like, however. Sharing files, where someone MOVES a file to a directory on c: rather than copying. Really, overall, its the best thing we've done, and we are saving a LOT of money just buying using SOME open source software. We've also saved money by removing unneccesary support staff since our ticket count has lowered.

I hope eventually linux can be used, especially on our machines that are heavily gpo'd. My largest stumbling block is figuring out how I want to load them, then get the custom c# coded app to run (mono perhaps??). I also need them to be able to authenticate with the domain to login which I believe is also possible. There is one other thing preventing it, which is some QA software that can actually do screen capturing. They spent a crapload on that software, and I don't think I can make it work on linux :\. So for the time being it looks like our current situation will stay the way it is for a while... but its a good start.
 
One of the biggest issue with linux is an unwritten law that gets broken ALL the time in the linux community:

"Thy programmer shall never write the documentation to his own software"
 
KeeganX said:
Didn't Steve Jobs steal those ideas from Xerox?
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Yeppers, which is why all the crap from the Apple cultists about Bill Gates stealing from them is ridiculous. Xerox PARC is the group responsible for the GUI.
 
The way I see it, Linux is a great OS but it's not ready for prime time. It does all the basic things that an end-user would expect would expect them to do, and it does them well. But then try to add another dimension on top of that. Say you have a digital camera and want to plug it in, but your distro freaks out because it doesn't have a driver. Good luck finding a driver from the manufacturer's website!

Linux is a powerful OS that is loved by power users willing to put up with its quirks or who happen to fall into that happy category where Linux will do absolutely everything they want it to. For everyone else, it simply is not feature complete yet. For me, it was the inability to rotate the screen with compiz running. The time before that when I tried Linux, it was the fact that there was *no* AIM client that supported voice chat. And then when people asked about that issue, the community told them to use Skype instead! So all of my friends have to download skype because I switched operating systems? That's inconvenient for everyone involved.
 
Tylerdurdened said:
I used Ubuntu for quite a while and I concider myself pretty savvy with the programs Linux has. And lemme tell you, 90 percent of them are crap. Since they're not made by professionals working for money.. what can you expect from freeware? They're 20 times worse than Windows freeware... it's mainly newbies making C++ programs and giving them out. Plus you always have to read howto's to install simple stuff like you would press next next finish in windows. Pathetic.
Plus it always has that "generic" feel for some reason, lots of software issues as well because almost no software is made for a specific distrubution... so you'll have coloring issues on menus for example
The only good things about it are the community, at least for ubuntu, you go on their IRC, type out your problem and get 5 people going out of their way to help you, and you pretty much always get the problems solved, no matter what it is. Second is on the same line, every problem you have can be fixed... since it's almost all open source, but for that you would need to understand how the programs code work..
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An amazingly uninformed post regarding linux. So much so I'm forced to conclude that this is a purposeful troll.

That or an idiot. I'm prefering to believe it's a troll instead.
 
ScYcS said:
One of the biggest issue with linux is an unwritten law that gets broken ALL the time in the linux community:

"Thy programmer shall never write the documentation to his own software"
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So programmers does write documentations... :)
 
I run Windows XP running in VMWare on Linux and I get almost all the advantages of both operating systems at once. Gaming has never been a big deal to me, but I suppose you could do it if you really wanted to.
 
As someone who admins both Windows and Linux boxes, and likes both, I can tell you my favorite thing about Linux is the flexibility. I mostly use the 'applicance' distros of linux like ClarkConnect and Endian. They are perfect for what we use them for - filtering and proxy - and didn't cost us anything to try. I think they are great for the 'behind the scenes' part of networks because of the strong software availible.

That said, Windows is what I use for primary servers. It is hard to beat 2003 Server/Exchange. Stable, easy to use and good support options.

As for the desktop, I still like Windows, mainly beause the apps I'm insterested in (Photoshop, etc) don't run on Linux (at least not nativley). I do think they have come a long way as far as usibility is concerned, but it just isn't for me. I do know several people that use it and love it.

Which is really the point - having options so you can choose the one that works for you.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
The way I see it, Linux is a great OS but it's not ready for prime time. It does all the basic things that an end-user would expect would expect them to do, and it does them well. But then try to add another dimension on top of that. Say you have a digital camera and want to plug it in, but your distro freaks out because it doesn't have a driver. Good luck finding a driver from the manufacturer's website!
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Wow. I never realized that the value of an OS was judged on its ability to work with consumer electronics. I guess I should switch my mail server, my web server and my Oracle server back to Windows and deal with having to reboot them weekly to keep them functional.



If you read the history of it, Unix is an OS written by programmers for programmers. It's system-call interfaces make sense - the Win32 APIs are a complete joke. Even without any sort of 'development tools', combining a standard shell with the standard command-line tools, you have an -immensely- powerful programming environment. Everything is well documented - you're less likely to find "$FOO for Dummies" or "$FOO in 21 Days" but, once you learn how to read a man page, you won't need that tripe.
 
LstOfTheBrunnenG said:
The way I see it, Linux is a great OS but it's not ready for prime time. It does all the basic things that an end-user would expect would expect them to do, and it does them well. But then try to add another dimension on top of that. Say you have a digital camera and want to plug it in, but your distro freaks out because it doesn't have a driver. Good luck finding a driver from the manufacturer's website!
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This is a moot point becuase it just sees the camera as a usb file system. Regardless of that, nearly every piece of hardware you can think of is supported in one way or another under linux. I'm not debating the fact that Linux isn't for everyone, it's just for those who enjoy that advanced aspect of computing.
 
XOR != OR said:
I suggest you have asked your questions in a manner much like you have posted this; Full of arrogance and annoyance.
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nope.. stop making assumptions.

i never demanded answers.. i was just asking for help... why are you making such assumptions.. you've never even see the posts i've made on linux forums....

and it's not only in my experience.. when i see other people post questions.. and they ask nicely.. they get some fucktarded replies...

so please.. don't make those assumptions.. seriously...

see.. i understand certain replies when the poster of the question/problem.. did zero research into the problem before asking a question..

but many times people have done just about everything they could.. and they're just looking for more suggestions.. they get blown off, and practically called an idiot..

anyways i prefer not spending hours just to install a program on linux..

i'm sure linux has it's advantages (i mean people use it.. so it must have a good reason behind that)

but for the average computer user.. it's no good..
 
ameoba said:
Wow. I never realized that the value of an OS was judged on its ability to work with consumer electronics. I guess I should switch my mail server, my web server and my Oracle server back to Windows and deal with having to reboot them weekly to keep them functional.
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I never said that I was judging its server abilities. I think Linux is great for servers. Notice what I said in my post:

Me said:
It does all the basic things that an end-user would expect would expect them to do, and it does them well.
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I'm not talking about 1337 h4x0rs or server admins, I'm talking about the moderately computer literate people like most people's mom or dad.

Oh, and when I used to use XP x64 (I'm currently running Vista RC1), I rarely had to reboot. You know what problem had the biggest problem running for extended periods of time? Firefox. Had a huge memory leak. But as for my apache or FTP servers? Ran for weeks at a time, only rebooting if I installed a new game or did Windows Updates. With a little work, XP (or, *gasp*, Server 2003) can have just as good uptime as Linux.

When they release a server based on Longhorn, this will only get better. I installed a new graphics driver under Vista and didn't even have to reboot. Is this possible under Linux? Even if it is, I was never brave enough to try it.

Zwitterion said:
This is a moot point becuase it just sees the camera as a usb file system. Regardless of that, nearly every piece of hardware you can think of is supported in one way or another under linux. I'm not debating the fact that Linux isn't for everyone, it's just for those who enjoy that advanced aspect of computing.
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Okay, but I'm sure it wouldn't be too hard to find some manufacturer with a backwards-ass, proprietary implementation who, in the course of adding "extra functionality" to the camera under Windows, broke Linux compatibility.

But, for the sake of argument, let's drop the camera thing. I have a Creative Zen Vision:M. Last time I checked people were having no luck whatsoever getting that to work under Linux. If this has changed, that's good news, but if not, then you have a deal-breaker for all the Zen users out there. Same thing with my scanner. It simply does not work under Linux, and my scanner is mission critical.

Sadly, it's a chicken and the egg sort of thing. Linux won't get stellar hardware & peripheral support until it becomes mainstream, but it won't become mainstream without said support or a lot of potentially illegal reverse-engineering.
 
RancidWAnnaRIot said:
nope.. stop making assumptions.

i never demanded answers.. i was just asking for help... why are you making such assumptions.. you've never even see the posts i've made on linux forums....
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Because your original post was full of piss and vinigar. Asking a question with the same attitude you displayed in that post is the fastest way to get people's backs up.

And chances are quite high that I have seen some of your posts on various linux boards/mailing lists.
 
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