5 Things Linux does better than Windows

[kmote]

The only reason I continually argued my point in this thread is there seemed to be a couple instances of people dogging Linux when, in my opinion, there seemed to be more to the story. Often times when people say negative things about Linux, I'm finding that it seems a lack of understanding rather than an actual "problem." For example, that girl who got a Dell Ubuntu laptop and tried to run her Verizon DSL setup CD in it. She didn't understand that Ubuntu was not Windows, but as a result she went to the media and complained. It was a lack of understanding on her part and 100% not Ubuntu's fault. It was not Ubuntu's fault that it didn't run that .exe setup file that came on that CD. Yet she took the deliberate stab at Ubuntu anyway. And THAT'S what ****es me off about people who dog Linux when they don't have a clue about it in the first place.

If you have a decent understanding of the platform but still have negative things to say about it, I'll respect the opinion of the user 100% more than somebody who talks badly about it when it's truly an underlying lack of understanding regarding the issue at hand. The exact same goes for Vista too. Somebody may complain Vista doesn't support hardware. Well, no, that's not entirely true. The MANUFACTURER just didn't make a driver. Then it's Creative/Turtle Beach/AMD/Intel/Nvidia/ATI's fault at that point - not Vista. I defend Vista in that department as much as I would defend Ubuntu in the same instance.

And THAT'S the point I've tried to stress. But as I've said, at the end of the day, you gotta do what you gotta do to get your stuff done, regardless of the platform you choose.

It's worth doing, I would say that FUD is the number one reason why linux adoption isn't higher, not by a small margin either, so when poeple like yourself clear up those issues and questions it really does help linux in a very fundamental way.

 

[Jayce]

It's worth doing, I would say that FUD is the number one reason why linux adoption isn't higher, not by a small margin either, so when poeple like yourself clear up those issues and questions it really does help linux in a very fundamental way.

Yeah, I see a lot of people stress that Linux is for everybody. And uh, it's really not. But it's an option that should be absolutely considered as an alternative choice for an operating system.

However, Ubuntu is the distro that has been gaining share in the "grandma approved" category. Some people might shreek at this, but look at the reality. Windows and Ubuntu both offer the simple fundamentals of computing while also offering high end advanced settings and features.

Ubuntu may work for web surfing and email, while I wouldn't advise granny to compile a kernel from source. The same goes for Windows XP... it may work for web surfing and email, while I wouldn't advise granny to manually edit the registry to remove a faulty program. (*cough* Symantec)

 

[SparkMonkeyHellion]

All I want to say is that the very title of this thread is an instigation for a Holy War.

As I pointed out - Linux has some great advantages over windows - being a solid kernel, FREE, smaller footprint, more efficient. But that's beside the point - this thread is a flamewar breeding ground.

What it comes down to is choosing the right tool for the right job. ESX - a Linux distro from VMWare - is the best virtual machine host OS in existance hands down, no questions asked. However, due to the flexibility and universal-ness of Windows - our ESX box is running Windows VM's exclusively.

As our Tier 3 contractor puts it:

Windows is fat, dumb and happy running on an ESX box - it doesn't know the difference. It thinks that it's on it's very own box and no matter what happens on one VM can't ever touch another VM.

 

[zmatt]

All I want to say is that the very title of this thread is an instigation for a Holy War.

As I pointed out - Linux has some great advantages over windows - being a solid kernel, FREE, smaller footprint, more efficient. But that's beside the point - this thread is a flamewar breeding ground.

What it comes down to is choosing the right tool for the right job. ESX - a Linux distro from VMWare - is the best virtual machine host OS in existance hands down, no questions asked. However, due to the flexibility and universal-ness of Windows - our ESX box is running Windows VM's exclusively.

As our Tier 3 contractor puts it:

Isn't ESX the only vm OS around? At the least its the only VMware os.

Anyways, I have to agree its about need and preference. Although some of the points you listed there i would disagree with in regards to linux pros, but nothing good would come of that. You can run linux and have all the free stuff in the world. I'm going to run windows and have good video games.

 

[Jayce]

Isn't ESX the only vm OS around? At the least its the only VMware os.

Anyways, I have to agree its about need and preference. Although some of the points you listed there i would disagree with in regards to linux pros, but nothing good would come of that. You can run linux and have all the free stuff in the world. I'm going to run windows and have good video games.

Which is exactly why I looooove dual booting. I'm not even that big of a gamer, but I prefer a mouse/keyboard 100% over a controller for consoles so that just paints the picture for needing Windows. I'm sure some day down the line this may change for the better, but until then Vista has a home on my computer.

The way I look at it is like this... to play Xbox, you need to buy an Xbox. Well, that costs several hundred dollars - much like Vista. As a result, I just look at Windows OS's as my "xbox for the computer." Plus I like having Vista to be familiar with it and learn it best I can. After all - what good am I if I go to a house to fix a client's computer and they're running Vista and I say "whooooa nelly I only do XP bro!" Gotta know a little bit of everything to get the job done.

 

[SparkMonkeyHellion]

No, ESX isn't the only one around... VMware has at least half a dozen VM OS's that I'm aware of now - they are getting into the Cloud Computing craze with something called VSphere.

But M$ has virtual host things now and Citrix has ZenServer. In terms of efficiency and simplicity and stability ESX takes the cake.

Earlier I posted that we had an old VM bite the dust. We've already restored it's mission critical VMs to the new server. It took about 20 minutes. That is simply not possible on a 100% Windows environment.

But yes because Windows is more universal and standard and flexible (sometimes too flexible) there will be more support for graphics accelerators and subsequently more games. However, did you know that COD4 is now out for OSX? - not that it's a purebread linux, but it still runs on a unix kernel.

Windows certainly has the most tools available - but imo it has the most holes too. You win some and you lose some.

 

[zmatt]

Mac games all have to go through Apple to get certification for their computers. It's like getting a drug approved by the FDA, its a very long and expensive process. It took about 3 years after Halo came out to get it on the mac. It's not because tis hard to do, its because Apple has to approve everything, but after the my Apple experience i wont switch to OSX no matter how many games they release for it. it just not worth it. but I am getting off topic.

I tried dual booting for a very long time, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth it either. I like to have my hard drive, and all of my hard drive available. Grub doesn't always work the way it should. And there aren't very good instructions on how to go back to just one OS. If you want one OS you have to wipe the hard drive. To my knowledge there isn't an easy uninstaller for it.

 

[Jayce]

Mac games all have to go through Apple to get certification for their computers. It's like getting a drug approved by the FDA, its a very long and expensive process. It took about 3 years after Halo came out to get it on the mac. It's not because tis hard to do, its because Apple has to approve everything, but after the my Apple experience i wont switch to OSX no matter how many games they release for it. it just not worth it. but I am getting off topic.

I tried dual booting for a very long time, but in the end I decided it wasn't worth it either. I like to have my hard drive, and all of my hard drive available. Grub doesn't always work the way it should. And there aren't very good instructions on how to go back to just one OS. If you want one OS you have to wipe the hard drive. To my knowledge there isn't an easy uninstaller for it.

It depends what you're trying to do. The rule of thumb is to install Windows first when dual booting with Linux. If you decide later you don't want Linux, pop in GParted LiveCD, wipe Linux, and you'll be left with Vista on say 100gb partition and 400gb unallocated (throwing numbers out as an example). Then, while still in GParted, re-size the Windows partition accordingly. You'll have to do a fixmbr of course, but with the use of SuperGrub LiveCD you'll be able to boot into Windows and run fixmbr from within Windows itself. Gosh aren't Linux utilities great?

I can see if this was 1995 how it'd be a pain considering you'd be allocating space to two operating systems on the same computer, but since hard drive space is ungodly cheap now for what you get, it's hardly a setback when it's all said and done. And this is coming from somebody who buys all hard drives in doubles and sometimes triples, because I use rsync (built in synchronization tool to linux) to synchronize data between drives so I have constant backups. The last thing I want is to lose any data - especially pictures, considering (sadly) I have pictures of people who aren't around anymore... I'm sure some other people here may be in the same boat.

So far I haven't had any issues with Grub since I started on Linux, and in fact thanks to Grub being on LiveCD (SuperGrub I mentioned earlier) it's helped me out countless times at work when the Windows boot loader decides to take a crap. The only time I THOUGHT I was having an issue with Grub was recently when I would boot up and Grub would error out... only to find out my main hard drive, which housed Vista/Ubuntu, was actually starting to fail on me, hence the Grub errors. Luckily I was able to pull an image with Clonezilla LiveCD (yet another Linux based LiveCD piece of software) and image my entire drive before it failed. When I got the replacement in, pushed the image back in an hour, and just like that I had my system back to working order.

I'm definitely with you on the Mac thing. I remember about a year ago I had an interview at a school district with a pretty decent salary. I knew a lot about the district itself since I had friends that went there but one thing I wasn't aware of is that it was 98% Mac. Oh boy, once I found that out in the interview, all interest in the job suddenly were diminished - and I could tell they knew that too. So, ultimately, I didn't get a call for a job offer - thankfully.

Even still, seeing games on Mac is *still* somewhat of a progression towards game makers spanning out beyond the realm of Windows. I'm curious to see what'll come down the road, even if it'll take a decade for Mac to give a thumbs up to certain things.

 

[helix2301]

Apache is the main reason I use linux way more secure then windows iis. Plus the word free when I talk to a customer always sounds good. Not to mention mysql on an apache box runs great. Can take tones of hits with no issues.

 

[SparkMonkeyHellion]

I still need to try out linux...