Windows is crap

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Linux is 10 times better, faster to boot, more secure from viruses, more easy to use, no rubbish needlessly installed

CHOOSE LINUX!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

Rylan

LINUX is not the commercial success that Windows (tm) is. Less software is created for it, so it is less a target for the hackers. Any popular operating system is going to be hacked sooner or later.

ruveyn

I run Linux Ubuntu on a VM otherwise I Windows 7, as it serves my current needs

I like both. Depends what you actually want to do. Gaming on Linux is somewhat limited. Most distros have 'gotchas' on any given system configuration which will require either some preexisting knowledge of how Linux works or recourse to our friend google - less so than in years past, but I haven't come across one distro aimed at non-technical, desktop users which is foolproof and glitch free. For folk who like Linux, and like tinkering, its all part of the fun. For the average computer user its a pain in the arse.

So your mileage may vary. I do like Linux (using Mint 12 KDE at the moment) and don't mind fannying about with the terminal to fix stuff or the lack of polish on some apps. But I like that most stuff on Windows just works. I'm enjoying getting to know Windows 7 at the moment after utterly despising Vista (yeah I'm a late adopter ) - its not as tweakable as KDE 4 but its still fun.

Linux hasn't really tried to be a commercial success, with a few exceptions like RedHat. But the OS was designed as a hobby/idealistic project of people like Linux Torvalds and Richard Stallman. Many distros are produced on a non-profit basis. Even Ubuntu doesn't have quite the same aggressive business model of Apple and Microsoft.

Less big name software is created for Linux, but there is an astounding amount of free (in the no-charge and the libre sense) available for it that can do all sorts of things, especially when it comes to programming. I would actually say that for programming a Linux system is better to use than Windows. All of the day-to-day stuff that people use a computer for (other than gaming) can be done on Linux. It's only some of the really high-end stuff like graphic design or extensive video editing or drafting blue prints that you might have to go with Windows software. Even then there is a chance that you could run it on Linux through Wine.

You might be right about the reason Linux isn't as prone to viruses. I've certainly made similar comments before. But 60% of servers run Linux (in that market it has been more successful than Windows Server Edition) and they would be a big target to hack. So it may be that some element of the Linux architecture is just more secure.

It seems that in academia Linux is the standard. All of the hardcore work in my university's Physics department is done on Linux servers. Students who are working as research assistants are expected to know how to use the Linux command line and how to write shell scripts. For the purpose of research and data processing Linux really is a much nicer system than Windows.

Last edited by AstroGeek on 28 May 2012, 10:46 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Linux is almost a bigger name in the server space than Windows, or at least if you combine GNU/Linux with the various BSDs and commercial Unices, *nix is definitely bigger in the server space than Windows. I'm in Debian GNU/Linux right now; my old laptop had Ubuntu Linux 11.10, but I didn't care much for Unity, so I decided to give Debian another try. I of course went with the testing release (Wheezy) because the stable release of Debian is usually too stable for home users.

I really don't care which OS I'm using, as long as it isn't a Hackintosh OS.

I tried dual booting with Ubuntu on a couple of computers but it had too many hardware problems (lack of drivers or bugs handling my laptop screen properly) which was a pity, so it got scrubbed, or rather it imploded one day while doing an online update and became unbootable, so I deleted the partition and went back to Windows. Not tried the latest couple of incarnations of Ubuntu and frankly I've lost the will to try them.

I'm running Windows 7 and I quite enjoy it. I find the everyday tasks quite manageable, and I've been quite happy with 7 and XP. On my laptop I got a variety of virtual machines though, with several distributions of Linux as well as OS X Lion (which SUCKS virtual XD). For programming i tunnel my Arch Linux VM because I don't have the option of dual booting (both a bother and because I don't want to mess with the TrueCrypt boot loader).
If I did have to use a different OS it would probably be Arch though. But then I'd have to get a graphical interface, which I think kills some of the charm of something that's already awesome in the terminal. :3

How did you get on with setting that up? I use TrueCrypt for encrypted devices (external hard drives) and encrypted drives (as TrueCrypt files) on the main Vista (spit! ) disk. However, I've always been too nervous to try setting up the operating system on TrueCrypt (C: ) in case the conversion process went tits up.

Last edited by TallyMan on 29 May 2012, 2:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

Here we go again with the Linux superiority argument.

I use Windows. I also use Linux. I hear the same thing, over and over again.

"Linux is more secure. Linux is more efficient. Linux is faster."

How are you getting these results? Care to show benchmarks?

A computer system is only as good as the user. I've seen linux distros reduced to molasses from uneducated users. Likewise, I've yet to see a virus on my main Windows system, because I am careful in what I install and what I click.

I don't think any one OS is intrinsically better than another. Mac OSX isn't "better" for creating content. They just have better marketing. It's all about perception. The perception nowadays is that Macs are for artists, Linux machines are for experts, and Windows machines are for novices who love to get viruses.

rm -rf --no-preserve-root /

Where is your secureness now?

I've used Ubuntu, and I've used consumer versions of most Windows editions between Windows 95 and the Windows 8 Preview Version. While Ubuntu had something going for it, 'twas just temporary. It had less compatability, and the interface did, in fact, annoy me more than the messy, overcrowded interface of several versions of Windows. Currently, I'm using Windows 7 on my main computer, Windows XP on two side computers and the Windows 8 preview on a laptop.

What they say about Windows and viruses is mostly false. You'll need to do something genuinely stupid to be incapacitated by malware. I've only had one virus in the past year, and it was fixed by removing some shady Russian car simulator game and running a routine check-up. Meanwhile, I visit all kinds of poorly-protected websites, and I have a large amount of torrented files, mainly games from the 1990s and television shows not available here.

But first, grasshopper, you must become root...

Which is accomplished by prefixing the above line with either su or sudo and entering your root pw with the former. or your login pw with the latter.

I'd also like to point out that MS actually got Win2000/XP right, everything that the put out previously was crap, and everything put out after is overwrought bloated crap. and I see Win out as essentially a continuation of MS's error in OS design.

Linux is definately an improvement over the MS mindset, but then again I can find fault with every Linux distro that I have used. --But still, it's basically better than Windows.

Last edited by Fogman on 29 May 2012, 9:56 am, edited 2 times in total.

Windows is fine. It does some things well, other things not so well compared to Linux. I personally use both. Linux I use on my laptop for browsing, mail, programming and on my work desktop (computational physics, so plenty of programming there). I use Windows on my home desktop for gaming and photo editing.

I never really got what all these OS-supremacists are about, both OSes are just fine for what they're made for. The aptitude of the user is often more important than the usability of the OS.