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Linux and Open Source software

lebRambo

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Okay, hardcore nerd chat coming up.

I just dual-booted with Ubuntu Feisty (latest distro of ubuntu linux). Anyone else tried it? Is everyone here still suckling at the diseased Microsoft teat? ;)

Something as important as an operating system should be free. I believe in open source, and I want to hear other peoples' opinions and experiences about the open source movement and open source software in general, especially linux and its distributions.

Anyone use any other kind of open source software as a replacement for the crappy, memory-leaking stuff MS keeps putting out? Perhaps OpenOffice?

Post away!
 

Desdinova

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I'm dual-booting with Ubuntu Feisty as well (the studio "flavor"). The JACK audio control blows chunks though, makes the audio sound scratchy. I'm hoping that it gets fixed in the near future so I can almost completely move to Linux. My audio and video editing software is pretty much all that's keeping me in Windows.

Be careful of the 2-6-20-16 kernel upgrade. It didn't work on my PC, so I went back to -15, and I'll probably stay there at least until Gutsy is released.

I've only been on Linux for a few months, and I already installed DSL (Damn Small Linux) on an older PC. It's a nice little 50M distribution.

Have you installed Beryl yet? It completely blows away that Windows Aero 5hit.
 

djSlvt

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Actually, I'm using XP..


I could have used Vista, but some of my software is not compatible with Vista, plus I don't know what kind of crack I'd need with SP1, so I'm waiting for SP1 at least...


With Linux, you have to do things to get this to work. Not only differentely, but it's not straight forward. I have so many program on my XP, and there is no substitude for those in Linux. Such as Borland and MS developer studios, for developing apps for Windows.


Army uses Windows.. Actually, XP is pretty strong operating system.. With server 2003 being even stronger, Vista being stranger than 2003, and 2003 R2 is the strongest. But XP beats those with compatibility..



I only find Linux useful for server, web and e-mail. Beyond that, it's a major pain in the butt.
 

DarthJuan

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I'm a Wings3d, Blender3d, Celtx and Inkscape user.

I don't care much for Linux though. I'd rather use Windows over Linux.

I use OSX now though.
 

So Many Ways

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I have to learn linux for work so when I get a new PC, my old one will become a linux server where I'll load apache, PHP, and mysql to it.

I last used linux 5 years ago and it was such a pain in the ass that I vowed never to touch it again. Now I have to. The linux guys at work tell me things have changed quite a bit since then, we'll see.

For a server environment, the one thing I like about Linux is that it is so much more stable than windows. I was a windows system admin for 3 years and before that, I was a microsoft web/database developer and I have to say that windows is so incredibly unstable, it's not even funny. I experienced multiple blue screens after patching which led to many sleepness nights. Even though Linux is difficult and counter-intuitive, it is lightweight, and stable for the server environment. I wouldn't dream of using it on the desktop, it just isn't practical at the moment.

I'm hearing a lot of noise about Ubuntu. How well and how stable is it as a server? I'm basically going to use it as a development environment for web apps. I probably won't be using the gui, just the command line, since I need to get familiar with that, and editing conf files and the vi editor.
 
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Yeah dude, I'm using a keyboard with a display and running on integrated circuits - it's the latest shyt!!!
 

shaunuk

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I use Linux and FreeBSD a lot.

I need to use word processing apps et al. so I use OpenOffice for that sort of thing. As for development, I just use emacs or vi and gcc/g++.

About what djSlvt said about you having to do things to get it working, that's often true, I agree, but after you've used Linux (or another UNIX-like) for a while, your mentality changes a bit and you think nothing of twiddling around with config files :)

Personally I like Windows XP and Vista as well tho :D

-shaun
 
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lebRambo said:
Okay, hardcore nerd chat coming up.

I just dual-booted with Ubuntu Feisty (latest distro of ubuntu linux). Anyone else tried it? Is everyone here still suckling at the diseased Microsoft teat? ;)

Something as important as an operating system should be free. I believe in open source, and I want to hear other peoples' opinions and experiences about the open source movement and open source software in general, especially linux and its distributions.

Anyone use any other kind of open source software as a replacement for the crappy, memory-leaking stuff MS keeps putting out? Perhaps OpenOffice?

Post away!
Can you explain the pros of linux and open office? Besides that open office is like Microsoft Office but FREE? I really don't get why ppl keep switchin to linux when there's XP, which is still pretty useful and easier to use. Linux is SMALL compared to both Windows and Mac and they don't have ANY useful programs or games. Open Office is fine, but what happens if it breaks? Everyone knows how to use and fix Microsoft Office not Open Office. I do agree though that Vista SUCKS... I hope they keep updating XP!
 

grinder

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I tried Ubuntu a few years ago, didn’t like it. Might try it again. I’ve been dual booting Fedora since 3 came out. I’m at Core 6 now getting ready to try 7.

As an engineer with Microsoft campus licenses sometimes I wonder why I keep messing with Fedora.

With Vista possibly being the last named OS from M I see Linux as the future. So do they, but a Linux they own.

XP is stable and utilitarian. If I want to manage an app on 1000 machines I can’t beat M and Group policies. Folder redirection, for backups, very nice. And for security, sh*t, I have more security patches for Fedora than XP.

I’ve been setting up Linux on old donated boxes for people that can’t afford Microsoft for a few years now. Mostly retirees, you know a few years older than me. HA.
 

lebRambo

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Desdinova said:
Have you installed Beryl yet? It completely blows away that Windows Aero 5hit.
Unfortunately for me, I have an ATI video card. I have used beryl before, and it is nothing short of breathtaking. With the fglrx driver running in an XGL session, its pure beauty :)

Problem is, I tried for a while under edgy and then under feisty to get Beryl working in dual monitor, but couldn't. In the end I said screw it, went back to the ati driver and dual monitor config. Dual monitor is more important to me than shiny effects, mainly for dev work.

Oh, and whoever said they do development in emacs or vi...ARE YOU HIGH? Get Eclipse, brother! Eclipse is probably the single greatest thing to happen ever to developers :)
 

Desdinova

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Can you explain the pros of linux and open office? Besides that open office is like Microsoft Office but FREE?
I have Openoffice installed in both Windows and Linux. I only use it if I need to look at or write a document that works with MS Word. Other than that, I pretty much never use it. I do most of my stuff in plain text files, and there's TONS of good text editors out there.

I really don't get why ppl keep switchin to linux when there's XP, which is still pretty useful and easier to use.
A lot of people (like me) are growing tired of Microsoft's way of doing things. Microsoft seems to be moving toward "renting" out their operating system instead of letting you actually own it. Then there's the whole DRM issue with Vista.

I'm also tired of Microsoft's instability. The only thing they have to offer me is compatibility and DirectX for games, (and I'm not much of a gamer).

Linux is SMALL compared to both Windows and Mac and they don't have ANY useful programs or games.
I beg to differ. A lot of the software I use in Windows (Opera, Thunderbird, Openoffice, Pidgin) is available for linux. And with the stuff that isn't available, there are alternatives (some worse, some better) such as Kopete, Gimp, Amarok, XMMS, Audacity, Hydrogen, and others. The best part is that you don't have to pay for any of it.

Here's a video of Vista vs Ubuntu with Beryl. It's pretty cool:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xC5uEe5OzNQ
 

lebRambo

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PeterNorthisawesome said:
Can you explain the pros of linux and open office? Besides that open office is like Microsoft Office but FREE? I really don't get why ppl keep switchin to linux when there's XP, which is still pretty useful and easier to use. Linux is SMALL compared to both Windows and Mac and they don't have ANY useful programs or games. Open Office is fine, but what happens if it breaks? Everyone knows how to use and fix Microsoft Office not Open Office. I do agree though that Vista SUCKS... I hope they keep updating XP!
- OpenOffice looks almost exactly the same as Microsoft Office 2003 but yes it is completely free and open source.

- Any useful programs? Actually there are MORE useful programs for linux than windows, because if something is needed somebody just writes it, instead of dealing with proprietary APIs that Microsoft makes you put up with to write anything for windows. BY users, FOR users. Thats why open source is the future and always will be.

- who needs games when you have bash scripts? ;)

- "Everyone knows how to use an fix microsoft office". What? The point is that it is closed source, so you literally have no control over what the software actually is capable of. If you know your stuff and you have the time, open source allows you to fix bugs and add functionality yourself. This is why there is such a strong and committed user base for linux.


Desdinova beat me to it. Complete with link to the awesomely awesome video of beryl ;)
 

lebRambo

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DarthJuan said:
I use OSX now though.
which is built on FreeBSD, i believe. A close cousin to linux ;)

heres an interesting fact: Windows 95 didn't originally implement the TCP/IP stack, it used the Trumpet Winsock one. At the last minute, the developers pretty much copied the TCP/IP implementation from FreeBSD, which did implement it at the time. haha! :)
 

Desdinova

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Windows 95 didn't originally implement the TCP/IP stack, it used the Trumpet Winsock one.
Oh man, I haven't heard of Trumpet Winsock in years! From what I remember, it was a bit of a bytch to set up.

Speaking of which, if I were to compare Linux (today) to any Windows OS, it would probably have to be Win3.1. And I don't mean that it's horribly outdated, quite the contrary. I mean the functionality and "friendliness" of it. Back in Win3.1, you had to know some DOS stuff to get it to work for you. Linux is kinda the same. You have to do some stuff in the terminal to get it to work for you.

No offense to anybody, but Microsoft REALLY made computer users stupid. Heaven forbid that anybody learns how to do things manually. And when you do stuff manually, Windows will sometimes undo all the work you did and do it its own way and make it not work again :rolleyes:
 

DarthJuan

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lebRambo said:
which is built on FreeBSD, i believe. A close cousin to linux ;)

heres an interesting fact: Windows 95 didn't originally implement the TCP/IP stack, it used the Trumpet Winsock one. At the last minute, the developers pretty much copied the TCP/IP implementation from FreeBSD, which did implement it at the time. haha! :)
I remember when Apple was considering picking BeOS over FreeBSD.
BeOS - now that was a cool ass little operating system. I was hoping they would have chose that over FreeBSD.

What's nice about Macs being intel-based now, is that I have the option of dual-booting or virtualizing practically any operating system out there, if I have a need for it.
 

SmoothTalker

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From my personal experience, I had to use a bit of Linux (Red Hat EL4 mostly) at my last job, and thought it was brutal! Sure it didn't crash on me, but you couldn't do **** all either.

To all you guys *****ing about Microsoft's instability, what's the last version you've used? Win98? Try XP with service pack 2, or hell even Vista. I honestly can't remember the last time XP crashed on me (and I use it both for pleasure and work/development/school). In all seriousness it's been months if not years. Blue screens of death don't even exist anymore as far as I'm aware.

Yeah, they use to have problems. They addressed them. Now it's stable, compatible, easy to use, and secure. All the free stuff isn't secure. Its just, that who the hell would waste their time finding security holes in something 0.02% of the population uses, when you could attack 90% of the world's computer users? That'd be like saying the military might of Monaco is greater than the US because they're less likely to be attacked.. No, its just that nobody bothers targeting them.

Sorry, but aside from the price, I've never really seen one good argument for Linux.
 

Desdinova

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To all you guys *****ing about Microsoft's instability, what's the last version you've used?
Windows Vista. I have two words to describe that OS: Slow & Chunky. I don't care for WinXP either. For Windows (at home), I'm using Win2k SP4. Yeah, it's old, but it does what I want it to, it's pretty stable, and runs smoothly. I can install it over and over again without the problem of it becoming "not authentic". That OS was IMO Microsoft's best. They've been going downhill ever since.

I believe that I should be the owner of a software package I paid for. Microsoft would rather have you rent their software. That way, they retain the control of the OS and continue to make money. If I use anything beyond Win2k, it's like me selling my house and going back to renting an apartment. The lanlord can kick me out whenever they want, gets pissed off if I hammer a nail in the wall, tells me if I can or can't have pets, etc etc. Microsoft will only let you install "your" copy of Vista TWICE. After that, you have to buy a new license. So if Windows fvcks itself up once and your hard drive dies a month later, you have to essentially buy a new copy of Windows. It's bull5hit, and it's a rip-off.

Blue screens of death don't even exist anymore as far as I'm aware. Yeah, they use to have problems. They addressed them. Now it's stable, compatible, easy to use, and secure.
You'll spend a good day reading this:
http://aspnetresources.com/blog/vista_sucks.aspx

All the free stuff isn't secure.
Can you back this up? As far as I'm aware, Linux (under normal circumstances) won't let users constantly run as root. Windows users have been running as root for years, and it's only now that they're trying to fix that.

Its just, that who the hell would waste their time finding security holes in something 0.02% of the population uses, when you could attack 90% of the world's computer users?
That's not even the issue. The problem is there's many different flavors of linux, it's open source so you can change it to fit your needs, and there's no identical system out there. You can't write a generic trojan for an OS that differs from computer to computer. And even if you could, it wouldn't be able to do much since the user doesn't constantly run as root. You can't change config files unless you have the right permissions to do so. You can't install software unless you have the right permissions to do so.

What really amazes me is back in the 1980s, there were many different types of computers. You had a Commodore 64, a TRS-80 coco, the TI-99/4 (correct me if I'm wrong), the Jupiter Ace, the Apple II, the IBM PC XT, and they were all different. Some were "harder" to learn than others. But people learned how to use them and adapt to different machines.

Is it so bad that we need to have our hand held while using a computer? Whatever happened to that thing called "learning"? Linux is only difficult because you haven't learned how to use it. Driving a car is just as difficult for someone who never learned how to drive. Instead of claiming Linux is "too hard", it would be more appropriate to say "I don't want to learn it".
 

Sir Lancelot

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I'm dual booting with Fedora Core and WinXP. Linux takes a bit longer to setup and takes some serious config file tweaking. But if you know what you're doing, you can get it up and running easily.

Linux has just as much, if not more apps than Windows. A lot of them might not have friendly GUIs, some of them you have to use on the commandline. Nothing wrong with that at all though, the commandline is much more powerful than a user friendly GUI. Take a peek in your /usr/bin directory, there are loads of neat applications sitting in there.

Installing those apps may be a bit more difficult (you have to download the source and run a make on your system to get the most stable version of the app). The only thing WinXP and the like have over Linux is gaming -- a lot of games for the PC aren't compatible with linux.

I don't have any hate for XP though, for the extremely user friendly OS it is, it does its job well. Architecture-wise though, I like the way Linux is setup much more .. especially the way it handles jobs.
 

SmoothTalker

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I haven't had to install Vista more than once yet, but I seriously doubt they would make you buy a new copy after two installs. I know on XP they didn't let you authenticate after about 10 installs, but a 5 minute phone call fixed that.

Personally I feel that a computer is a tool FOR humans, so it should be easy to use. Yeah we could all learn how to use Linux, but why the heck would I waste time when there's something easy and intuitive to use?

Regarding the analogy of learning Linux to learning to drive... well it's not quite the same. A better analogy would be learning Windows is like learning to drive a new Toyota with automatic transmission. Learning Linux is like learning to drive some piece of crap beater car, with a manual transmission that doesn't work, and which you have to spend a few days fixing first.
Sure, you could learn to do either, but which would you rather do, if all you wanted was something to get you form A to B?

Yes, Vista is bloated. However, with a new machine, it runs quite well for me. Hell, lets all install MS-DOS, it's mean, lean, and fast as hell... No?

Desdinova, as for that link, I don't know what kind of Pro that guy is, but what the hell is he doing? BSOD? Like I said, haven't seen one in years. What I find funny, is if you read the comments on that blog, (and I admit I've only read the first 10 or so), most of the users are saying they are not having those problems. Obviously something's a bit messed up with this guys system.
 
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