Linux - your thoughts

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hello there, i am considering switching to Linux(over Windows) on my old Work station once(the pc i am typing from now) once i got my labtop.

so i just wanted to hear if any of you have any experience with it, pros. and cons. in comparison to windows and so on, how difficult compitable material is to find(outside WINE wich allows regular Windows programs to run in linux, it's a long story)?

thx

 

I'm just getting to grips with Linux myself, as part of my Computer Science course, and for one who had only used Windows previously, I initially had a few problems remembering how to do everything. Unlike Windows, Linux is run mainly via its command line, which means there's a big difference between the way they run. For the first few hours, it seems daunting. There are commands to remember for things you'd just right-click for in Windows. But soon you'll remember them.

It's also more secure. This is partly because most people use Windows, so that's what most viruses are written for. Also, since it's open source, any problems found can be quickly fixed. Another big thing: it's either free, or very low cost, especially when compared to Windows.

The number of different distributions means you're certain to be able to find a version to suit exactly what you want to do.

I can't say more than that, since I've only just started using it.

 

I've used Linux for 6 months, and I really liked it, especially the command-line, I used the Gnome environment and mainly worked with the gnome-terminal(the commandline) for everything from writing applications (in Vim) to listening to music.

 

For home, Linux perhaps isn't that good choise. In my case, it seems that they never seem to work like they should and the latest attempt, Ubuntu Linux 5.04, failed to install miserably. So in that sense it seems they still have a lot to do before they can step into the "big" markets. In school and office they are very good, though.

 

okay then thx for all your posting, keep on if you want, and i was mostly gonna do it for fun, on my non gaming computer, to see if i could figure it out, i know a bit about mac aswell, and if i really liked linux, i would go for that on my laptop aswell.

i read about on the internernet, and i read it should be alot faster than windows, is that true? also game wise

 

Well in my experience Linux always reacts faster to my input than Windows when it is busy.

 

If this is the case, just try it then. Maybe you will like it so much that you will forget about windows entirely .

As for what distribution to get, that is a bit more difficult. Maybe it would be wise to get one that is basically as easy to install/use as windows, perhaps Mandrake or SUSE. You just slam in the disc and click the mouse a few times.

[ October 13, 2005, 21:34: Message edited by: Erod ]

 

Just forget about playing games on it. It's not worth the hassle. Otherwise, if you just want to poke around, you can have lots of fun

 

Well, Windows 2000 Pro has worked just fine for me, and luckily I wasn't infected by the damn worm that affects only Win 2000.

Linux sounds interesting though, I'll likely give it a try when I'm done build the comp I'm working on. Time will tell.

 

why no games on it, i read that with WINE( a windows emulator) you could play any game, or programme made for windows

 

WINE isn't very good when it comes to ease of use. If you want to regularly game using WINE, you're going to give yourself far more headaches than it's worth trying to configure it to run properly.

As for command line, if you install SuSE, Mandrake or Ubuntu you're probably never going to have to use it. I don't really recommend SuSE, or Mandrake, as they can be really troublesome (conflicting dependencies - ugh). My experience with Kubuntu (an Ubuntu variant using KDE rather than Gnome) is flawless, and when it comes to easy interfaces it's far more intuitive and simple than Windows could ever dream to be. Not to mention it's a completely different world stability-wise.

My advice is to install both Windows and Linux on different partitions (or better yet, different hard drives if you have them). Game on one, work on the other.

 

My feeble knowledge got from asking the technician who fixes our computer is that Linux is far superior to windows

 

Linux is superior to Windows when it comes to anything else than compatibility, gaming or ease of use.

 

What about a dual boot-up so you can use Windows for Games and Linux for everything else?

 

yes well, i must admit i haven't thought of that, using two partitions, or hard drives, VERY good idea, but well, my old desktop is NOT for gaming, my labtop can handle the most games very well, it would be mostly for downloading

 

2 hard drives, if you use 2 partitions on the same disk and you defrag your windows partition it's buh-bye Linux... ey Taza?

 

Morgoth: whatever gave you that ideea? your Linux partition should be perfectly safe if you defragment the Windows one.

Anyhow, while installing in separate partitions might be advisable in certain cases (if you want to run Win and Linux on the same machine) it seems not to be the case here. You can also try to run Wine (Cedega) for emulation, but I would not count on it working. Some games (Neverwinter Nights, for example) have Linux versions, too. As for other software... typically there are open source variants of many applications you might use under Windows; again, how good they work is open to interpretation, but trying different stuff is half the fun... So I would encourage you to try it, but don't expect wonders

Actually, using Linux for web browsing is a good ideea, since Windows is prone to catching nasty stuff off the web.

 

Actually it works just fine for both compatibility and ease of use. Though both, and particularly the latter, depend on which distribution you're getting.

Gaming is the only reason I still use Windows at all.

As far as I know (and have done) nothing you do in Windows can affect your Linux partition, since Windows doesn't know it exists anyway. Windows will either see it as "unknown" or "raw" (probably unknown), and will not mess with it unless you tell it to.

And as I said before, don't set your hopes high when it comes to Wine. It's a beast to configure (tried it once with StarCraft. Eventually managed to get the sound to work. Without any graphics), and (just like any emulator) it's very slow, meaning you can't run any high-end games. On top of that it doesn't emulate Direct3D, so games that use that API will be unplayably slow, because all the 3D rendering is done by the CPU and is emulated on top of it.

Of course if you're willing to stick to the (not so numerous till now) Windows games that run under Linux, and to Dos games emulated through DosBox ( ) you can get rid of Windows and game as much as you want.