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quote:
Everyone wondered WTF when Nwist, Baby wrote:
I've been debating with myself on wether or not to buy Linux. Can someone give me the advantages or disadvantages of Linux over Windows?
Disadvantages: Less games.
Advantages: Everything else!
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Khyron had this to say about Pirotess:
Running two PC's side by side. Both PC's are absolutely identical hardware-wise.
One running Win2k, playing Quake 2.One running Linux, with Wine running as a winblows emulator, playing Quake 2.
Guess which one ran smoother, with better framerates?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------There are three kinds of lies: lies, damn lies, and benchmarks. Never trust any side-by-side demonstration of one product to another. The results can easily and subtly be slanted in either direction.
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Khyron had this to say about Pirotess:
And when playing the Linux port of Quake 2, it blew both of them out of the water.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Obviously on a custom-tuned kernel since Linus's stock Linux kernel, and the Linux kernel included in all the major distributions doesn't support low-latency or real time processing, which makes multimedia and highly interactive applications (such as games) run horribly.
Yes, there is a third-party (beta) kernel patch you can apply for low latency processing, and one for real time preemption, but most users want to use their systems, not have to reboot with a custom kernel just to play MP3s or games without skipping and slow response times.
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Khyron had this to say about Pirotess:
Oh yeah. How many Windows users can fit the entire OS Kernel AND the GUI on a single floppy disk?
Yes, it's been done. My CS teacher at the DATC was a Linux freak, and yes, he managed to fit the Linux kernel and X on a single 3 1/2 floppy diskette.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Wonderful. Now tell me, what'd he do with it? I still have a DOS boot disk with Desqview on it. Want to know how much use it gets?
Linux will never move into general mainstream (desktop) use for a few major reasons:
* Linux offers no compelling benefit to the average user over Windows.
Cost is not a concern to an average user, the average user gets Windows with their new PC, and while not having Windows pre-bundled cuts the cost of the PC by $80 or so, that's hardly enough to blink an eye at. And in corporate environments, Windows is actually cheaper than Linux when it comes to TCO because the employees already know how to use Windows, and it's cheaper and easier to find people to support it. Businesses live and die by TCO, not by the upfront license cost that most Linuxheads think is the handwriting on the wall.
Having the source code available is not a concern to an average use because the average user doesn't care about source code; hell the average user doesn't even know what source code is.
Reliability and uptime is not important enough on its own to be a driving force behind an upgrade. Ever since Windows NT 3.51, a well managed Windows server could provide enough nines of uptime for even the most demanding tasks, and that came out years ago, with the successive releases of NT4, 2000, and now XP, the reliability factor has gone up further to where seven nines of uptime is well within expectations. And as far as on desktops, XP eliminates the crashes that were sometimes commonplace on Win9x boxen.... how many nines of uptime a system can get doesn't matter on the desktop since most users power down when they leave at 5 anyhow.
* Linux brings nothing new to the technology or design table. The kernel design of Linux is straight out of college OS design courses (no surprise considering its primary architect started doing it as a side project while in University). It's a very old-school monolithic kernel design with some more modern "module" thinking tacked on as an afterthought. It's a very fun kernel for a hacker to play around with, but as far as the end user is concerned, it's a step backward in many ways.
Linux has not pioneered any aspect of innovation in its entire lifespan. The kernel itself is a poorly thought-out design, the environment is based on Unix, so we're talking 1960's cutting edge stuff there, the applications are ALL ripoffs or clones of other successful (usually commercial) products. Name one killer Linux application that isn't a knockoff of something else.
(And in most cases, a cheap knockoff as well. There are a couple exceptions there, Apache is top of the line, Perl is grade-A material ------- but OH WAIT, neither of them are part of Linux, and in fact, both run quite well on Windows and BSD! And its worth noting that despite what some blinded Linux zealots may think, the success of Apache and Perl is not a result of the Open Source development style, it's a result of good management by their project leaders... the exact same factor that makes some commercial, closed-source products good, and makes other commercial, closed-source products bad.)
* Linux has no accepted standards and is fragmenting the same way UNIX did back through the 70's and 80's. A project maintainer has to take pains to make sure his product will work on Redhat Linux, Mandrake, Slackware, and every other distribution out there, since files are all stored in different places, and available modules differ between the offerings.
Open source zealots often whine and cry and point to the fact that Windows developers have to write and test for a few different distributions as well, Win95, 98, NT, 2K, XP; but there's one major different their tunnel-vision overlooks: Win95, 98, NT, 2K, XP; they all have a very well-documented common API, and aside from 95 which is starting to show its age, they all support addons to bring them all up to the same API support level.)
The lack of accepted standards keeps Linux from the desktop in another, less technological based, but much, much, much more important manner: THERE IS NO STANDARD DESKTOP. End users don't think its "cool" to have to deal with differences between Gnome and KDE. End users don't think its "cool" that every application looks and functions different. End users don't think its "cool" that text copied from one application can only sometimes be pasted into another application, and end users certainly don't think its "cool" that if you want to copy and paste anything MORE than just plain text between applications, you better know a good priest because you'll need all the divine help you can get.
Users like the fact that Ctrl-X always cuts. They like the fact that Ctrl-V always pastes. They like the fact that they can copy an image from one application to another without worrying about incompatibilities. They like the fact that they can drag and drop files around from application to application and it just works. Linux doesn't have that. Linux isn't even close to having it. Linux may never have that because Linux has no strong standards for their desktop, they have thousands of very strongly opinionated developers who all believe that their way is THE ONE TRUE WAY, and that if other applications don't play well, then it's the other app's fault.
Users hate that.
Users use their computers.
You can't use Linux. You can play with Linux. With enough elbow grease, some expensive CPU time on the gray squishy computers, and a little bit of black magic, it makes a decent server OS for small to medium sized servers, but it is decades away from even holding a candle to what Microsoft offers on the desktop today in the places where it matters.
Don't use Linux in any form as your main OS. Maybe repartition your hard drive, and have a Windows and Linux partition. Play around with Linux, get comfortable with it, start to understand it and if you find that you can use it as your main OS, feel free.
Me, I played with linux, I got frustrated after 3 hours when I COULD NOT get the box that was running it to network with my other Windows boxes and threw Windows XP on it instead... Heh.
Pros for Linux:
=Very stable, can go a full year or more without a reboot.
=Free
=Some free applications that do the same as standard windows (but not all functions)
Cons for Linux:
=Dearth of many mainstream applications
=Not many of the recent games
=Can be hard to get drivers for new types of hardware
Pros for Windows:
=LOTS of applications.
=Standard platform, thus easy to get support
=Drivers always appear for Windows first
Cons for Windows:
=INSTABILITY. MS has made some good strides here, especially with Windows 2003 .Net Server RC1, but still no where near the stability of a UNIX like OS.
=Reboots STILL necessary for many common sysadmin tasks. (Personally, I find this very annoying)
=Cost
=Software activation that tracks hardware changes to see if you are "authorized" to re-install your software.
Just a few of the basics I can think of off the top of my head.
This ceased to be an issue when XP was released.
See above post.
Just make a new partition for your linux distro, and install windows and your choice of linux distros.
The advantages of linux are:
A huge number of UI's. Choose the one that you like best, or make your own.
A ton of supported filesystems
Rock-solid desktop and server stability
it is much more secure than windows.
Great for development work
a lot of third party free software.
Now the downsides:
Limited 3D acceleration support.
almost no games
So, if you're going to be doing any server duty or software development, try linux. If you want something to play around with, try linux. If you want something extremely powerful in the traditional sense, try linux.
However, for ease of use, gaming performance, and universal support, go with windows.
No, Really. Bite me.
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Delphi Aegis spewed forth this undeniable truth:
Wait, stability?This ceased to be an issue when XP was released.
See above post.
XP can still die. It takes a WHOLE lot more effort to crash Linux. 
quote:
Kegwen was naked while typing this:
XP can still die.
If you do things that almost nobody does during normal use.
quote:
Delphi Aegis probably says this to all the girls:
Wait, stability?This ceased to be an issue when XP was released.
See above post.
Actually, from supporting XP and it's server equivalent in the field (server version still in beta though, so can't really make a true opinion on it yet, supposed to be unstable at the moment), I still say Windows has a ways to go to get to Linux's level of stability.
Windows has come a long was in stability, with NT4 being better than NT3.51, and 2000 beating them, but they still have problems with not protecting the memory space of the kernel well enough, allowing user processes to take up so much CPU the kernel will crash, and a number of other issues.
That being said, I will admit, I use Win XP pro as my main desktop machine, with my linux box for server type tasks now.
(EDIT: made sure it was stating I was saying server version of XP (2003 Server) was in beta, not desktop)) [ 02-02-2003: Message edited by: Cherveny ]
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ACES! Another post by Maradon XP:
If you do things that almost nobody does during normal use.
Or when there's any driver conflict whatsoever...
quote:
Everyone wondered WTF when Suddar wrote:
You'd need a crack team of FBI analysts, 20 years of intensive research and the pope trapped in a snowglobe to intentionally crash Linux.
wahahahahahaha
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A sleep deprived Kegwen stammered:
Or when there's any driver conflict whatsoever...
Eh, XP hasn't actually crashed in 6 months for me.
Programs have crashed, sure, but not XP.
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Suddar wrote this then went back to looking for porn:
Eh, XP hasn't actually crashed in 6 months for me.Programs have crashed, sure, but not XP.
I haven't had any crashes on my computer, but my dad's however...
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Suddar had this to say about dark elf butts:
You'd need a crack team of FBI analysts, 20 years of intensive research and the pope trapped in a snowglobe to intentionally crash Linux.
Heh, not quite.
Linux may be more stable than Windows, but it still has a number of holes, especially if the admin hasn't kept up with the latest security patches on their apps.
Main problems these days are apps people will run with root privledges that have a buffer overflow exploit. Usually mostly preventable if people will not give every system process that doesn't really need it root access.
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Kegwen got all f'ed up on Angel Dust and wrote:
Or when there's any driver conflict whatsoever...
Ah, which of course isn't an issue in Linux because all the drivers are eleven years old...
For that reason, I would love to make my second machine (which is the main one I IRC/Webbrowse and ICQ from) a Linux box, but the machine itself is too unstable to install Linux on. :< (Mouse hasn't worked for years and it has a nasty habit of freezing. I think it overheated once and hasn't been good ever sinec).
Once I do get a new machine though, my current Game machine (which I EQ on and other games) will become a Linux box one way or another. 
I just have to figure out how to afford the parts for the new machine.
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ACES! Another post by Suddar:
You'd need a crack team of FBI analysts, 20 years of intensive research and the pope trapped in a snowglobe to intentionally crash Linux.
I guarantee you that if Linux was the mainstream OS of choice, it would crash every bit as often as Windows does... the reason being that Windows suffers from having to deal with a much larger range of device drivers -- and device drivers are what crash a system; they run in an unprotected mode on the CPU and can literally do whatever the hell they want.
The funny thing is that my old post, which was pasted above, is pretty much still exactly true, however many years later it is since I originally wrote it.
Nwist, if you don't know whether you want to use Linux or not, the answer is almost definately "no, you don't". Running Linux on your desktop is not for the feint of heart, or for someone who's timid about having to muck directly with configuration files that could potentially render their system unbootable.
If you must play with it, set up a multiboot system and familiarize yourself with it while still having a safety net of being able to have Windows around.
quote:And absolutely definitely not for those faint of heart, too.
The logic train ran off the tracks when Drysart said:
Running Linux on your desktop is not for the feint of heart
[ 02-03-2003: Message edited by: Black Mage ]
The games aspect being seriously disminished, I'm starting to be seduced by the dark side... 
quote:
Black Mage was listening to Cher while typing:
And absolutely definitely not for those faint of heart, too.
A typo like that on Linux will format your hard drive!
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Tier had this to say about Pirotess:
On a side note... I've been reading up on WineX. Seems like the great majority of mainstream games work on Linux with it.
They also work on windows.
What's your point?
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Check out the big brain on Drysart!
A typo like that on Linux will format your hard drive!
probably not, but it can seriously fuck things up.
If what you don't like about linux is that to configure something you need to edit a text file, then you're a little out of date. Most major distros have a configuration suite that will allow you to edit your settings from a nice comfortable menu system. And if you think that making a typo in windows is any better, try editing the registry and being fat-fingered, you'll screw something proper.
Yes, it's possible to change your configs by just editing a text file on a linux box, but you don't have to.
No, Really. Bite me.
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Maradon XP had this to say about Robocop:
They also work on windows.What's your point?
She has no point. She often has no point. It's part of her charm. We're outta here. Thank you.
No, Really. Bite me.
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Drysart had this to say about the Spice Girls:
A typo like that on Linux will format your hard drive!
lmao
Make it your main machine? Hell no. Some people make Linux out be the Holy Grail of the computer industry, the panacea cure all that will make your computer immortal forever and ever. It won't. Computers are computers. There will always be bugs. Always. In another universe, Windows might have been the holy grail and Linux the OS of choice, but here in this universe? Windows is the mainstream, for better or worse, it works, and everything you got will run on it. Linux you have to tinker with.
That's why it's useful (not necessarily fun) to play with Linux if you can afford to: It's an education.
sigpic courtesy of This Guy, original modified by me
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Drysart had this to say about Cuba:
The funny thing is that my old post, which was pasted above, is pretty much still exactly true, however many years later it is since I originally wrote it.
Hence, why I saved it, Mr. 'Sart!
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The Burger probably says this to all the girls:
She has no point. She often has no point. It's part of her charm. We're outta here. Thank you.
Tier is a guy, last time I checked.
And I DO NOT want to check again.
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Verily, Delphi Aegis doth proclaim:
Tier is a guy, last time I checked.And I DO NOT want to check again.
sorry, it was a direct quotation from "A Few Good Men" spoken by Lieutenant J.G. Daniel Kaffee played by Tom Cruise.
No, Really. Bite me.
quote:
The Burger obviously shouldn't have said:
Yes, it's possible to change your configs by just editing a text file on a linux box, but you don't have to.
Let's see how successful Tier is installing WineX to run the games he wants without editing a config file or two or twenty.
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Drysart thought this was the Ricky Martin Fan Club Forum and wrote:
Let's see how successful Tier is installing WineX to run the games he wants without editing a config file or two or twenty.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
If he's seriously trying to game on a linux box, i laugh at him.
That is not the purpose of having a linux box.
No, Really. Bite me.
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The Burger had this to say about Punky Brewster:
BWAHAHAHAHAHA!!!If he's seriously trying to game on a linux box, i laugh at him.
That is not the purpose of having a linux box.
I beleive he was trying to argue the fact that you can play games on a Linux box, even though it takes some doing, so the whole "Omg u cnnut ply gaems on linux n00b!!!" argument was moot, but it isn't.
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The Burger's account was hax0red to write:
If he's seriously trying to game on a linux box, i laugh at him.That is not the purpose of having a linux box.
And so therefore Linux has no place on the home desktop system of a gamer. QED.
