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Why Linux?  

post #1 of 104
3/17/04 at 3:50am
Thread Starter 
I'm new to Linux, and I'm interested in learning more about this open-source OS. What makes it desirable over Windows? Any performance gains? In other words, what makes Linux special, besides being free? And why should I install it?
post #2 of 104
3/17/04 at 4:00am
I think the biggest advantage is that Linux is written by community of computer programmers and it is open source code. So even you can modify it if you want to...
It has less security holes as well.

By the way what is your laptop, it it the one made by hypersonic/cyberpower? I am looking for the one with simular config but I want widescreen
post #3 of 104
3/17/04 at 4:05am
Thread Starter 
Yeah, it's from Cyberpower. I ordered it last week, and it should come in around the end of the month. I wanted widescreen too, but I also wanted something remotely portable.
post #4 of 104
3/17/04 at 9:54pm
For me Linux is a brain drain from supporting MS products all day. I like the ability to look under the hood and craft the app to what I want not what some all knowing all seeing being thinks I need/want. With linux you can pick and choose your apps that you want to run. Linux can be as simple or as hard you want to make it. I prefer the more complex end of the spectrum but to each their own. You have the choice. So I would assume that's what it's all about. Choice.
Bill
post #5 of 104
3/18/04 at 3:54pm
Well i have been using linux for almost a year now. Sometimes i ask myself the same question about windows. "What makes MS so special? Games? rebooting every 4 minutes?".
After using linux you do not switch back.

Why don't you just grab yourself a knoppix cd, burn that and pop it into your cdrom, reboot... and give yourself a quick demo. BTW the knoppix cd will run slow as hell, just because of the cdrom.. It does not write to your drive at all, runs all off the cd.
post #6 of 104
4/10/04 at 12:22pm
I don't know if there really IS a huge advantage anymore.

It used to be that networks running linux/unix were more stable, but since 2000/XP that hasn't been my experience. It used to be that the driver databases that windows used took up too much space unnecessarily. Now hardrives are so big, I don't care. Same thing with memory. It used to be that windows was a horrible memory hog... now I can just cheaply buy more, and not care.

Maybe there are other advantages, but these days it seems like most people who use linux do so either out of inertia or out of hatred for MS. For the latter, I'd just suggest Mac. How many end users really need to customize their OS?

These days I just run XP on my personal stuff, and use PUTTY or cygwin when I need to.
post #7 of 104
4/10/04 at 1:32pm
My reasons, in a nutshell:

1. Linux is free (in several different senses of the word): MS has enough money, and I don't.

2. Stability: Win2K and XP are a lot more stable than previous versions of Windows, but neither can compare yet to my Linux uptimes.

3. Security: IE and Outlook alone have had more major security holes than any of my Linux systems ever have.

4. Hackability: I'm a former coder, and now a network security consultant. I like tinkering with stuff. Linux is infinitely more tinkerable than Windows.

5. It's Unixy: I'm a Unix guy from way back, having started programming mainframes when I was about 7 at my dad's office. I'm used to doing things the Unix way, so Linux is very comfortable for me.

6. Blue screens suck (see stability).

7. Reboots suck, too, and it's nice (especially on a server used by a few thousand people) not to have to do one just to patch a file for the latest security hole.

I could probably come up with a bunch more reasons if I didn't have to head out the door right now.
post #8 of 104
4/10/04 at 8:57pm
Quote:
7. Reboots suck, too, and it's nice (especially on a server used by a few thousand people) not to have to do one just to patch a file for the latest security hole.
I agree with this one, to be sure. I wouldn't run a server on anything else.
post #9 of 104
4/10/04 at 11:38pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by IntgrSpin
I agree with this one, to be sure. I wouldn't run a server on anything else.

Anything else?

Not even Unix?

I had an old HP Apollo running HPUX which gave me updates all the way up to HPUX 10.20. Unfortunately, I don't have the hardware to run it on anymore.
post #10 of 104
4/11/04 at 12:16am
In my amateur mind, linux and Unix are variations of the same thing.
post #11 of 104
4/11/04 at 12:27pm
Actually, UNIX is the granddaddy of them all. I believe, IIRC, that UNIX has been around in its most elemental form since the mid-50s, early 60s. Linux is based on Minix which is based on UNIX. *BSD is a descendant of UNIX. Basically anything that uses that same filesystem structure (/, /root, /usr, /var, etc) could be considered a UNIX. Linux is basically just the most prominent fighter from the UNIX corner. And of course, even it has some subdivisions, which we know as "distros."
post #12 of 104
4/11/04 at 3:37pm
ok i have a linux question what is the difference between linux mandrake redhat............and suse ? thanks in advance
post #13 of 104
4/11/04 at 3:48pm
The difference between the distributions is basically the packages they deliver, some difference in setup and the support they offer. You can make all distributions complete the same task.
Here is a rough difference between the major distributions:

Redhat. For a long time the biggest distro around. It´s major advantage was that it was fairly easy to install and is aimed at the desktop. Nowadays the free edition is maintained by fedora, and redhat is aimed at the enterprise market.

Mandrake. Based of Redhat but has come along way since. Aimed for very easy installation and administration. Nice distro, but if you want to let out your inner geek, there are major limitations because of all the automation scripts.

Debian: My personal favourite. Many see it as a hard distro, but not in my opinion. The installer can be a little rough (has been updated in the forthcoming version). It´s major advantage is that it has apt-get. A package system wich handles dependencies very good. Far superior to RPM which Redhat, mandrake and many others use.

Check out www.distrowatch.com for more in depth look.
post #14 of 104
4/11/04 at 7:14pm
And not to forget Gentoo - a great distro for learning and optimization as everything is compiled from source and you build the system from the ground up. Meanwhile, it is not as masochistic as some other build-from-scratch distros. I cant believe how much I have learned by installing Gentoo on my machine (I was a total Linux newbie before I did it).

Mikhail
post #15 of 104
4/11/04 at 8:43pm
I started with RH 5.2 I think. Played with it through 7.2 got bored with it, Like aliensub said severly hamstrung by RH's ideas of what I neeed. Although at one point I had 7.2 so tweaked that all I was using was the base packages and the init scripts. I then went total geek and did, an LFS. Ran that for several months and then lost the hard drive it was on. Tried RH on my old work provided Compaq laptop. Not much fun there, gave up for a while. Then got my Sager and decided I wanted something I built but not as geeked out as LFS. Enter Gentoo. I've been running it since last may. Of course my day job used to mandate that I know and support *nix. I've played at being a sysadmin/Techy for going on 14 years. I've had to support AIX, HPUX, Solaris, Sun OS for you old timers, Debian, BSDs, SCO Openserver, Unixware, Linux most major distros, Windows, Mac upto and including OSX, Novell, etc, etc. So I think it all boils down to this. If it works for you and you can support it run with it. Enterprise is all about the uptime.
post #16 of 104
4/14/04 at 1:39pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by knx2
Well i have been using linux for almost a year now. Sometimes i ask myself the same question about windows. "What makes MS so special? Games? rebooting every 4 minutes?".
After using linux you do not switch back.
Rebooting every 4 minutes is rather extreme. My machine runs for weeks. The only time i reboot is to reset my memory due to apps like Photoshop and its mem leaks. Perhaps you havent tried windows since the 98 ages =p. While i'm no supporter of M$, and i do hate them a lot, one would have to admit that win xp and even better win2000 are pretty damn good OS's, with a much bigger software library than linux.
post #17 of 104
4/15/04 at 12:35pm
Ya, we have 18 windows 2K machines, each running a detector element on our 2 ADSC Q315's. In two years of 24/7 use, we have never had a single windows-related hangup.

I think that's pretty good.

For personal users who just hate MS for some reason, and don't play games, I'd suggest apple.
post #18 of 104
4/15/04 at 12:45pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by codex
one would have to admit that win xp and even better win2000 are pretty damn good OS's, with a much bigger software library than linux.
Hello all, new to the forums...I'm sorry but I would have to disagree with this statement. In what sense are you using the phrase "software library"?
I just don't get it, there is an Open Source community developing hundreds of different types of software for Linux everyday. Even if Microsoft actually did have a larger software library, it's software that can only be patched by Microsoft.

On another note, I prefer *BSD, while I feel that Linux is barely organized chaos. Given, it's chaos with a mission, but it least it doesn't have an agenda..(Microsoft).
Stability and security are the two most important factors in choosing _and_ _maintaining_ an OS of your choice in my book, because in all reality a system is as stable & secure as its Admin wants it to be. But *NIX are clearly more stable and secure out of the box than Windows.

Hell, the sheer number of viruses Windows is subjected and vulnerable to _alone_ makes me scoff at the comparison.
post #19 of 104
4/15/04 at 12:46pm
I have no problems with Windows XP-Professional...I think it is a very good OS

No matter what people may say - Linux is too problematic to be the only OS on my system. I love Linux...I think it is cool and I enjoy working with it...

But Windows will always have its 40GB
post #20 of 104
4/15/04 at 1:36pm
Talking about security, dont you just love how Windows passwords are case insensitive? As an experiment, I cracked all the passwords on my family desktop XP Pro system; the longest password - a 12-character alphanumeric password - took me around 3 hours to brute force (dictionary search revealed bits of the password as well as its length and thus I was able to limit my further brute force search).

Mikhail
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