Anyone else thinking of Linux? Comparison here.

I believe that Barry is going to retire from puppy linux development.
Puppy Linux 4 might be usable for next few years if it is bug free.

Yeah, apparently the other three developers are going to continue in conjunction with the community too. Still the OP that I quoted should try AntiX, Fluxbuntu or D*mn Small Linux.

Linux is a good solution.

Works well and it's free.

You don't run call of duty or any other major games in a snap but for people who look forward to find a machine to work with then it can become a very good solution. Some also say that the best thing to do is email the software developers to also release linux compatible versions and there has been a good progress of available software.

I ditched Vista some months ago on my new laptop and installed Ubuntu instead.

Can't say I miss Vista one bit. Still run XP under Virtual Box for windows specific needs and even Wine is capable of running under linux a lot of windows programs.

My work desktop has stunning visual effects and the apps I use the most like firefox and open office already come bundled inside.

It's a different world indeed, but it's not so difficult as it was a few years ago when the internet was not so easily available to most people.

If I don't know how to do something, I just google for answers or ask them in the forums.

So far, my machine only uses 384Mb of the available 2Gb RAM and programs do start much faster than Vista ever did, no reason to ever go back.

Try out Ubuntu for a few months and you'll probably like it too.

@Nuno Brito

Linux works well in certain scenarios. Wifi support is still abysmal compared to Windows-based systems (WPA doesn't work most of the time, let alone WPA2). Open source software is not always compatible with the "equivalent" Windows-based version. There are times that I wish I could do something the way they're done in Linux (I've become fairly proficient in bash lately), but in the end, I find Windows far easier to use. Also - when something goes wrong, I've ALWAYS found that you have to drop to terminal to figure out what's wrong, and then fix the problem. Linux graphics and audio support are also horrible... the ALSA model is ugly and has too many glitches to count.

I'm not meaning to bash Linux here, but people who say that it's the best thing since sliced bread aren't showing both sides of the coin. The fact that the various developers in the Linux community are so tunnel-visioned makes it difficult for Linux to move forward with proper development.

The OP I quoted is talking about an unattended Windows 98 with drives over 137Gb, files over 2Gb and USB support. In this scenario, Linux pwns Win98. Wireless support out of the box is superior and the EULA isn't so restrictive that a moderator would have to remove the custom download he posted here.
Linux does have deficiences like graphics and ALSA but I like the support for readable text files to configure settings where a GUI just won't do.

True, but that's exactly like saying your car is nicer than a Pinto...

You'd be surprised how things are working so well lately.

Both Ubuntu and Mandriva are striving as projects capable of recognizing most of the hardware available today and to be honest I still haven't stumbled on a single machine (mostly laptops, I admit) to which the graphics display or sound drivers didn't worked well over the past year.

I have no complaints regarding ALSA because all works as expected except for codecs and DVD playback which needs to be installed separately because of copyright restrictions in some countries so it seems.

Graphic issues?!? hehe.. they're simply light years away from anything to be built on windows. Pure magic and beauty to see compiz in action when your OS is still using less than 375Mb to run without any type of limitations..

WPA also functions well where I work, it is however needed to use windows drivers with NDISwrapper for hardware support on a couple of occasions but I'm fairly happy with the result. It's nothing unusual for any Mac user and luckily for Ubuntu users there is a wealthy source of informations that can be retrieved from the from their forum community.

On my case, I use them a lot to read about the ubuntu/linux support for a given machine and see what is needed to get things working.





Oh well.. the best thing about something like this is that everyone has the right to an opinion and better yet: you get the chance to implement your ideas in real software solutions that are used by other people.

If some idea is popular enough than it might surely become mainstream inside the OS kernel itself.

This is a concept that doesn't exist in Windows or Mac where you are limited to third party solutions or EULA restrictions regarding what you can or cannot do.

So the concept of a linux moving forward is not applicable, it does indeed move a lot at each day that passes but besides moving forward it can also move sideways, up, down or even backwards as people desire it to go..

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I'd say that it's a good experience for those who like computers enough to care about their own freedom.

Yes, workspaces + Compiz Fusion is WORLDS ahead of what even Vista's Aero has to offer (Aero is pretty deceiving really), but you're guilty of exactly what Zxian was saying (also quoted above): it's amazing, when it actually works! Just get my old ati x800 (with flglx) working without crashing the box 4x/day (working hardware video decoding would be nice too, and never having to edit the xorg.conf either, but anyways), then it should be light years away and you wouldn't be only showing one side of the coin.

Freedom or not, to be honest, I couldn't care less. And I'm not going to start messing with the source either, nor do I care if it runs on the absolute very least amount of resources (Vista SP1 Ultimate boots on 365MB of RAM here BTW). I just want an OS that works well, and runs the software I need.

Eye candy is great, and having lots of app choices is nice too (and an easy way to acquire them is great, aka apt). However, I've not found a use for Linux that I can't also use Windows for, and to me I'm less interested in price (free or paid) or said eye candy (Beryl/Compiz vs Vista Aero) as I am with software and hardware compatibility, and although getting better, video chipset support is still pretty rough under a Linux OS.

I find Linux to make a fine general-purpose server OS, and as a workstation (if the hardware is well supported with good drivers) it's also a fine experience. I used to use Unix and BSD exclusively, and still use Debian quite regularly, but for my main PC I find that Vista + VS + Office meets my needs 100%. Which really is the point, isn't it? Use the tool that meets your needs, rather than trying to make your needs fit the tool?

I tried Compiz in OpenSUSE 11 on my spare laptop, with a nVidia 7950GTX Go, and it was a complete mess. It couldn't even properly figure out where I was clicking on the desktop. I ended up putting XP64 on it.

You can always find reasons to support or disagree from whatever OS a person can use to work but difficulties are felt on both worlds regarding hardware or commercial software support.

One good thing about linux is that if a driver is not well designed or needs to be modified, the source code is available for someone else to improve it.

You might not be a developer and this wouldn't interest you one bit but it is important because it means that amongst millions of users, at least someone has a chance to make a difference

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Where I work, we moved on full time to Ubuntu as the work OS for all client machines (around 60 machines) and at the beginning I would hear all sort of comments regarding the same things that you mention above but after a while it's funny how people actually like working with linux and now even ask to install it on their personal laptops.

I also edited xorg.conf a few years back in despair when my own video display didn't worked well. But to be honest, it's rare the times when I really have to use a command line to setup anything on the system as most hardware is easily configurable on UI nowadays. I do enjoy using the command line quite often to debug my work network and check if everything is well - I like to ping from command line, what else can I say..

There will always be hardware that doesn't run by default - I find with experience that it helps to be cautions and get machines from popular brands as you'll find more support and informations available to guide you. It also helps to find out if Ubuntu (for example) has is well supported by your machine by default prior to actually attempt installing.


Some of the initial complaints were:

- Open Office wouldn't open correctly their documents - well after correcting them once, they work flawlessly well under both MS/open office
- Open Office looks ugly and opens slowly - installing the new java version from SUN and customizing the icons sorted out this issue, now people even enjoy the fact of less worries to install Office 2007 to open XLSX or being to directly save a file as PDF whenever they wish.
- Firefox has different buttons than Internet Explorer

Now some of the things people around here enjoy

- No virus and no Anti-Virus

- No more boring window themes, some might say that eye candy is unnecessary but in good truth I believe that it will improve your work quality if you like the way how your machine looks, it's funny how people suddenly became proud of their desktops and go around showcasing them. (some will surely argue that this is not productive at all, but in Europe most people still believe in life quality vs working like a factory robot.. )

- Windows programs run with wine and if necessary, full windows compatibility is achieved by using Virtual Box under seamless integration mode when running an emulated XP image underneath.

- No graphic driver or sound issues to report - all machines worked well, except for a toshiba laptop that for some reasons displays some movies as if the codec is broken or something, eye candy works still good thought.

- It's free, meaning that no licenses need to be bought for anything and I can even share copies of Ubuntu with my friends


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Seriously, linux is not supported (or rarely supported to be more accurate) by mainstream developers of hardware/software but it is without doubt a mature OS that is both prepared for the past and the future.

It's so much easier to work inside network servers based on debian when you're working at home with a linux machine. As time passes you also learn more about the OS.

I can talk with experience when I say that I know a world of things about windows (just look on my work portfolio at my personal site) and linux is simply different. My own learning process had to start nearly from scratch to get the advanced things going but it's well worth the effort.

You can also sit tight and cross your arms complaining that some things don't work or you can take some initiative and find solutions by yourself, sometimes it won't work and you won't know how to solve it but at least you try.

One thing that also helps is sending an email to the developers of your favorite software apps, lately, more and more of companies started supporting linux versions of their programs so the gap between the programs you need to work and this OS is getting thinner.

If you don't like OpenOffice at all, install Office 2003 under Wine and it will work perfectly.

Whatever you do, it's also a matter of personal preferences.

I like stunning eye-candy effects and enjoy using a modern OS without being forced to use Vista or MS Office 2007.

This is MSFN where non-MS talks are surely targeted to place a lot of negative posts but do take a look on the ubuntu forums and you'll find a community of people just like yourselves that also have fun trying out things nowhere to be imagined under an MS environment.

Your choice.

Not to nitpick, but there are still binary-only drivers out there for major hardware (nvidia?). If it doesn't work, you can't easily fix it without help from the vendor (and it's not readily available, either - I've tried).

As long as Linux continues to occupy less than 10% marketshare, you will likely still have this going for you. It's the same reason the Win9x folks can get by without antivirus or antispyware software - it doesn't pay to target a small market, no matter how easy it is to attack. I know linux has more security, but it's not perfect and until it becomes feasible to target that userbase, you'll be clean.

Be careful though, it's not entirely free. The open development model works well to patch issues most of the time, I would think, but it's not as if I can call Apache if my production webserver goes down (but I can call Microsoft and create a critsit for downtime if my IIS box goes down, for instance). Again, risk vs reward - you take the risk of running production machines and software on open source, and you get the reward of free pricing.

Ultimately, yes. It is, and should be.

If you're comparing Apache to IIS then be assured that a production web site should definitively run more reliably from an apache server, especially when it becomes necessary to depart to other machines when hardware is replaced.

I've been running Apache for years without any issues (except when I start to tinker too much with the configuration and try out things just to see what they do but it's not exactly apache's fault.. )

With win2003 I remember all the hard times I had to setup a web server just to run a few web pages on a Active Directory domain and dig my way through the system policies, let alone the troubles with prices in licenses and required seats.

It was just so much easier to download the xamp package and run a portable apache version right there on my XP client or whatever other machine required web services with just two clicks: http://www.apachefriends.org/en/xampp.html

What support is needed?

All websites I needed to manage work flawlessly and Apache/xampp are excellent pieces of software, no reasons to complain about them.

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Have you tried envy?
http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html

On my case it worked several times with very different laptops using either ATI or NVIDIA even though to be honest by default it wasn't needed since ubuntu already recognized them well after the first update.




Uh.. I guess that the wrath of the dark forces shall descend like a course upon those who dare to do such evil action..

If a vulnerability is found on the OS, one can quickly update the fixes rather than waiting for someone from MS to even recognize it exists.

I can only remember the limitations imposed on XP SP2 to restrict more than 10 logged users to avoid p2p connections and restrict the use of XP as a home server while in true reality they keep ignoring simple security risks like the autorun.inf that is automatically executed when a person double clicks at an infected pendisk from the explorer window.

Does it help to complain to MS about this and hope that your words will be taken into consideration?

---

Was it worth the wait for a SP1 that also cut away the functioning of the previously working USB hardware like the 3G internet boxes from vodafone and such?

Are we really owners of our machine when someone else decides that you can't change the visual themes on your windows or install certain features without buying a server license?

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How long can one continue a victim to data loss, virus attacks and loss of privacy?

That's some of the reasons that convinced me to take over my machine and enjoy it differently. I had Vista installed on my laptop and it was dead slow even thought it was a dual core machine with a 2Gb RAM.

--

The first thing I noticed when I first installed Ubuntu was the fact that my machine was so much faster than before, the eye-candy is real worth trying and best of all - I still run XP inside a box at my disposal to be infected and trash away when necessary, not that I use XP that much anyway.

No more reasons to reinstall the OS because it got infected and wake up one day with my machine saying "NTLDR is missing"..

That's why I think about linux and either good or bad, still a far better option for me than using Vista Home/Premium/Business/Ultimate/Whatever..

From a performance perspective, IIS still wins over Apache. I'm seeing more and more sites (especially vendor sites) move over to IIS for their backend. NCIX.com, a popular online vendor here in Canada, looks like it's coded in php, but the underlying web applications are running ASP.NET (I've seen their site throw out errors once or twice - it's definitely not PHP). You'll start noticing more large websites move over to IIS because the server performance is much higher than what you get from running Apache.

On the flip side, the vulnerability can be exploited until a patch is released. Adding to that, most users don't know how to compile the patch themselves, so they wait until their apt or yum repositories are up to date before the patch gets put through. This can be several days, if not weeks before fixes are released. As an example, there's a known bug with NFS performance in the kernel that's released with the current version of RHEL and CentOS. Write speeds are abysmal, and the only way to get the patch is to either recompile the kernel yourself, or setup an alternative repository for the kernel packages.

XP SP2 restricts the number of half-open connections, not users. Up until recently, running XP as a server hasn't really been a concern either, since most households rarely hit the limit of 10 inbound connections to a Windows XP box. However, you can now purchase Windows Home Server, which has the same "core" as Server 2003, but is targeted towards larger households with multiple devices.

Also - the infected flash drive "vulnerability" that you're talking about... it's a very rare scenario. I doubt someone would be walking around infecting computers with a USB key...


Visual themes - yep, you've got us there. However, there are options for that as well - WindowBlinds can skin the interface of your desktop. Yes, it's not free, but it's an option. That's what we're talking about here, right?

I think you hit the nail on the head in this discussion. "Enjoy it differently." What most users face when starting to work with Linux is that it "should be like Windows". It's not. It's a completely different way of using your computer. I personally love scripting in Linux, since I find the "building block" approach to scripting simple and easy to understand:That being said, there are a lot more things that I find myself missing or wishing I could have back from Windows. Most people praise the *nix style directory tree, but I find it a royal pain in the rear when setting up systems with multiple hard drives or volumes. I guess it's part of the way I was "brought up" with computers - each new drive is it's own tree.

I find Vista plenty quick for my tastes, and it's faster than XP was on my laptop. Most of Vista's slowdowns are due to the crap that OEM's throw onto their systems, and poor or out of date drivers.

Until grub decides that it's going to have a hairday... I've had a couple of systems do that to me so far.

I'll repeat my above statement - it lets you enjoy it differently. I think one of Linux's strongest selling points is that it's a choice. It's an available alternative to Windows. No, it's not a direct replacement for Windows (software and hardware might not work, different way of doing things, etc etc), but it's there for people to try out and possibly use.

When you run a website (pick a very large vendor) and some bug in apache causes the site not to render or run properly, resulting in lost revenue (millions a day), who do you go to for support to fix the bug?

This is why large corporations probably choose an OS that is supported by Red Hat, Novell, IBM, etc - and then it becomes non-free. Open, but not free. Yes, support *does* matter, and it's one of the reasons some companies choose IIS over an open-source web server like Apache.

Neither is "right" or "wrong", but a business decision. For those of us not large or medium sized businesses this is less an issue, but you still have to understand that this thinking exists, and is necessary.


I am not really touching on any of the rest of your response, because those are mostly either personal opinions which are correct to you, or typical "oh no Microsoft is insecure or I'll get a virus or lose my data if I run Windows" FUD, which I also am not going to touch.

I only talked about Apache because cluberti had mentioned it first.

From a performance perspective I'd use lighttpd -> http://www.lighttpd.net and this one alone surpasses any other possible competition on this field when it comes to truly large sized websites.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lighttpd




I can only talk for Ubuntu repositories because they're the ones I follow on daily basis and they're fast. I remember a notorious bug on the SSH password generation hash (if I'm not mistaken) and the update was available at the day after in the morning when I arrived to work.

It was a serious situation and urgency was a must for this particular case but it's also fun to notice that so many updates get available so often. It's the community that submits all these fixes to the repositories and it is kind of fun to go around and check what has been added or fixed since the previous version. Ubuntu has a good user base and repositories get updated on a very satisfactory rate if you follow them closely.



Large corporations have their own IT staff that includes engineers perfectly capable to modify and customize open source code to fit their needs.

The biggest hosting company on earth (dreamhost) uses Apache and shares the same OS as google - debian.

If size matters, how bigger than these two companies can it get? (and I can name many others if needed)

Support over a phone line is dramatic to say the least.





I do understand this concept very well but it seems you don't understand the costs involved in licenses, support and long term maintenance. I've been working since my youth days on a organization with over 5000 client machines connected during the daytime and guess which OS we're all starting to adopt because it's free and can be customized to run on both older and newer machines?





Are my answers typical and only based on personal opinion?

You're right, I can only speak for the things that I work and use everyday.

I wouldn't dare to criticize an OS for things that I knew little about like many others do..





rare scenario?!?

Where the heck is this a rare scenario?

Schools, companies and public places where people exchange files through pendisks are incredibly filled with the viruses. Just google to see how many people damage their machines because of these menaces.

It was so far out of control where I work that I even made a lite program keep my client machines running windows safe from them because windows wouldn't do anything about it.

You're welcome to try it out: http://nunobrito.eu/ninja/


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A shareware solution to be more accurate.

It will force people spend more money in extra licenses when some gem like compiz comes absolutely for free..



I'm not a rich person.

First I have to buy a windowblinds license and now I'll have to get a Windows home server license, these are not good news.



Funny but did you know that windows manages hard drives and volumes in a very similar fashion as unix underneath the hood?

Are you're telling me that you prefer to limit yourself to the alphabet letters even thought windows itself knows better?

I'd rather find my work files under the /home folder and know that all my storage related devices can be found under the /media folder than being deceived by an optical illusion (I'm just kidding here.. )

Do you even notice that windows itself is getting more and more look-alike linux and mac at each version that is released?

Just take a quick look to try Nautilus and then look back again to the "innovations" introduced by Vista's explorer.

Beware that windows 7 threatens to introduce a dreaded command line without any GUI support for people who enjoy command line administration..





It's been "there" for longer than windows or mac have ever been and it's nearly everywhere a computer can ever be, from rocket science machines to wristwatch's: linux, you'll know it's "there"..

Really? I must find this company and work there, because I haven't found it yet.

To be fair, it seems you lack the insight into a fortune 100 or even 500 company. I can say that 5000 machines is definitely NOT a lot, and not having a support contract for *any* piece of software, open or closed, is NOT acceptable.

You mean, like 2008 Server Core, where all the admin tools are installed on a non-Core 2008 server or a Vista SP1 box? Honestly, that's preferable for a server, as long as Microsoft can get .NET working without the shell, I'm all for it on the server.

And if you think Microsoft will release a client without GUI admin tools, you're *crazy* .

Really? Linux released (first) in 1991 - Windows in 1985. In 1991, Windows was already at 3.0, with 3.1 to release in a year. Linux 1.0 didn't release until March 1995, right around the time Win95 released (August 24, 1995). I'm all for using Linux or Windows, whichever works best for *you*, the end-user, but don't spout incorrect facts.

(By the way, the first Apple Macintosh was released back in 1984...)

That's good from a ideology standpoint. But look at reality, like my x800 that doesn't work worth s***. How does that help me now? Feeling warm and fuzzy about being some open source code that could possibly, perhaps, eventually, maybe be made to work with it in a few years just doesn't help me at all. I need it to work now (and thankfully there are several dozens of versions of ATI drivers that work fine in Windows).


I hate to say it, but I always found this kind of way to advocate Linux ironic. Use an OS that doesn't run your apps -- because you can actually use them, in your same old OS, but only emulated (with extra overhead)... No thanks? I'll just stick to running the apps I need on the OS they require, skipping the VM altogether.


People don't want to have to "find solutions" (as in "fix the driver yourself", or "buy hardware that's supported"), they just want something that works. I don't think they're being unreasonable.


And if I complain about something in Linux, then Richard Stallman himself will fix the next version of Ubuntu? Ya right. More like you'll get flamed to death by all the fanboys.


I'm not even sure what you're referring to here. That's borderline FUD. Data loss? Platform doesn't make a change here (besides, you should have backups). Virus are only an issue if you go opening strange email attachments from strangers, while running as admin, blindly clicking on all the warning popups an such. I don't even know how people manage to get these things nowaday. Loss of privacy? Are you trying to say Bill Gates himself keeps track of all the p0*n I've been watching or something? Seriously...


Yet, it runs just fine here on that much. No slower than XP at all. And that's without using vlite or anything like that.


Funny you say that, because I almost never had the "NTLDR missing" issue with Windows before (like perhaps twice since NT 3.1), except like 3 or 4 times lately -- all because of grub.


That's not always the case, at all. Most large corporations these days also stretch their IT budget pretty thin (and even outsouce a lot). I've worked for such places before, and we were nowhere near having those kind of resources.


Surprising a company whose business model is offering dirt cheap hosting (for blogs and forums) runs Linux/Apache... not. Also, Google doesn't use a standard version of Debian either. Try looking outside of the blog/forum hosting business, and you'll see other solutions are very popular too.


Yet, I don't recall ever seeing a single machine infected like this. And places like you describe shouldn't actually be affected at all, unless they have incompetent admins that give everyone unrestricted admin rights on everything to everyone AND also run with no AV.

I'd hope that SSH security bugs are solved quickly... it's SSH afterall. I've seen several other serious bugs left untouched for months because the security need or the demand isn't high enough. My NFS bug above is an example of such a problem - NFS write speeds of 1.3MB/s on gigabit is pretty sad.

The point that you're missing is that time is money to these companies. They'll gladly pay the licensing and support fees since it means they don't have to pay the IT staff to work to fix the code. Depending on the situation, it often ends up being cheaper to pay for the developer's support than do it yourself.

If there are 5000 client machines, you're highly eligible for volume licensing, which drops prices dramatically. A company that uses 5000 computers also should be looking at the whole cost scenario of licensing vs IT workload when it comes to cost effectiveness.

How did the pendrives get the infection in the first place? It seems like network and system security wasn't quite up to par to begin with. Blaming Windows for the breach of security... that's not right.


You have to buy the computer that's going to act as the server... $100 for a rock solid OS. The time I spend not fiddling with the system settings is worth that $100 to me (it's time I can spend working to earn more than $100).


It seems like you've never used NTFS mount points...

Erm... what exactly are you talking about? Nautilus is a file manager - not a window manager or desktop environment. Nautilus on it's own is extremely rudimentary comapred to Vista's explorer - no breadcrumbs, no intergrated search, limited metadata information, etc etc.

How is Vista starting to look more like OSX? I missed that one...

I almost missed this, and wanted to comment:


Again, FUD. Apache being more reliable than IIS6 or IIS7 (especially) is somewhat bunk.

First, look up the security issues documented for IIS6 and IIS7 vs Apache 2.x, and I believe at last count it is 6 vs 44, respectively, over their lifetime. Security with IIS6 or IIS7 is fine.
Next, IIS6 and IIS7 can run FastCGI (add-on for IIS6, built-into IIS7) to solve the PHP performance problems on IIS (which it does), so apache is no longer the de-facto PHP platform.
Third, IIS uses a per-process and per-site isolation model, resulting in quite good security and performance.


Again, I'm not sure that either apache or IIS is more or less secure or performant than the other, nor would I say one is more or less reliable than the other. Use the one that suits your needs - for example, I'd use IIS for a .net or asp site, and Apache for something like PHP (maybe) or java. In fact, I've found (like you) that lighthttpd does most everything I need from a web server, but so does IIS (and I already have Server 2008 boxes, so it makes sense to use IIS on those as well).

Wow.. so many replies back.

Guess you're all getting really upset..

But to be honest. I'm spending a heck lot of time to reply back to every post that was made since yesterday evening so please excuse if some of parts of our conversation here are left away from the discussion (at least temporarily)

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One thing good about linux technology is that it is derived from the unix environment that goes back to the 70's with the emphasis of being completely open source and this happens well far beyond in time before Mac's or Windows have ever been imagined to exist one day: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unix

Funny thing because Microsoft itself has also sold for many years a true unix OS derivative called Xenix: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xenix well before windows 1.0 made any debut and only made the extremely limited MSDOS available for domestic users..

Did you know that unix already worked in multitasking-multiuser environment well before MS DOS 3.30 has been released (which is a lousy copy cat of the unix environment in the first place because domestic users weren't taken in consideration as needing multiuser or multitasking features?)


So Linux can be seen as a the true equivalent of ReactOS compared back to the Windows world with the difference that linux/bsd has by far outgrow the proprietary unix derivatives considerably in terms of development and ROS itself is still left abandoned after 10 years of hard work since it has been proven to be nearly an impossible task to mimic all the proprietary obstacles imposed by MS to possible competitors.

GUI Programs that run on a linux OS machine will run inside a unix one. Do GUI programs made for vista run inside windows 3.11 or MSDOS?

Unix derivative OS enjoy from a far more stable and mature technology that no windows platform will ever reach with the MS exclusive Windows API/.NET framework.

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To be honest, I'm not someone responsible for any decisions regarding matter and I can talk about the differences from using windows vs linux.

Our direction never bought any licenses to save money, in our country the local law has always closed their eyes to this sort of matter and as end result some years ago (when I first arrived here), everyone was pretty much addicted to Nero Burning Rom, Internet Explorer, Microsoft Office, Winzip/WinRar and Adobe's suit of applications.

There was no support other than the support from the senior IT staff that would handle punctual network issues like organizing the domain users/machines inside the WAN/LAN's (I'm responsible for a LAN integrated on a country spread WAN) and the client machines were pretty much left ignored with the standard XP PRO machines using pirated serial keys.

As you can imagine, this is a situation that many of us complained about because it was simply wrong to use these tools without respecting the licenses and there was a saturation point that culminated with an inspection from outside the organization that forced the direction to either seek free alternatives or license everything according to the law/EULA.

Meetings, talks and discussions took place with several opinions pro/against but we all ended up agreeing on one topic - one should not be enslaved by the need to acquire licenses and bound to the will of a corporation such as MS that could swiftly change things around like it did with Office 2007 XLSX/DOCX format or the SP2 restrictions and more recently the hardware requisites limitations to run a decent version of Vista to allow upgrading the oldish XP.

Ubuntu was elected as pattern OS in late 2007 and full transition is expected to last in 5~10 years time line where both windows and linux machines should coexist and be replaced by open source counterparts.

Cost = $000

This OS works well out of the box and all the software required for office productivity is good. I mentioned earlier "What support?" because I was raised in the belief that an administrator should be an active person with capabilities to evolve by himself and seek solutions. "There are no heroes" is a word commonly heard around here, meaning that whenever in doubt about something one should ask around and seek for deeper informations on the web to educate himself.

This is why the concept of web community is so important to encourage rather than relying on support from an out-sourced company or over the phone line that would surely keep you "dumb" or blind without knowing the reasons why something is not right in most cases.

It's also an intellectual value earn for the IT staff. If you notice the job vacancies for top spots as network administrators they all require some sort of experience/certification with Solaris/CISCO and the "Microsoft certified" skills are worth next to nothing.

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They get infections from all sort of sources, email is the most common one.

Usually some friend sends to another friend a cool presentation (that has a filename .exe) with a suggestive name like "Britney suxx" or "Hot teen" and the other person will quickly double click just to get some action going on - what he isn't expecting is that the executable will infect the system with a dreaded ctfmon.exe file on every possible start up location on windows and propagate itself to each removable media inserted on the machine through the innocent autorun.inf

I can't put enough emphasis that the worst threat to any computer is the user himself that needs to be educated to avoid such risks but nevertheless you know that older people for example aren't really very worried about such things and will double click the darn executable anyways just to see a few pics.

Regardless of the used antivirus used or restrictions imposed on work accounts, they always find a way to spread themselves around the intranet.

Everytime a person double clicks on the explorer windows to view what is inside a drive it will run autorun.inf by default.

If the machine gets infected, oh well.. It's the administrator for letting it happen, so let it clean it up..

Also, P2P networks also provide all sort of warez filled with these sort of menaces.

I don't know which sort of experience you have with computers but dealing with them at work and also solving the issues from my friends machine's one can get quite annoyed by these constant vulnerabilities that should be solved without resort to third party solutions because they are so darn obvious that it's wrong and Microsoft should allow this to exist, but does anyone care at MS?

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Multiply $100 for 10 machines and you end up with a cost of $1000, also need to add extra hardware to run Vista in some cases, need to handle each license for each machine and not neglecting the risk of falling in temptation and go back to the old ways to skip register anything at all which will wind up labeling you as a "Pirate"..

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I prefer to spend no money to use a rock solid OS such as Ubuntu, fiddle the system settings once, remaster the system and burn to a DVD/USB Pendisk that is later quickly installed on the client machines all perfectly customized the way I like without requiring any licenses at all.

No need for nLite, post-install worries or anything alike.




I'm looking at the reality and I see that you're wrong because ATI support x800 is already available out of the box with Ubuntu.

Try out the latest version to see what I mean, more information about your ATI card can be found here: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/RadeonDriver

Take a quick look on the "Accelerated 3D support" chapter.



There's some confusion here and it's like comparing oranges to apples.

Windows NT platforms use this structure since the 3.5 version even when the NT platform runs from a FAT32 file system.

So where would your NTFS mount points exist inside the FAT32 partition?!?

I'm talking about the fact that drive "C:" is internally referred on windows as \\.\PhysicalDrive0 and use this sort of designations for every other devices/partitions found on the system (wish I could detail more but I'm certainly no guru on this matter) - and would can noticed that they are mounted in a similar way as linux and the C: drive is only included for legacy reasons.

It has no sense in arrays where you need to add several volumes at once and surpass the available alphabet letters.

So I hope you can see that it has little to nothing related with NTFS mount points.



I'm talking about the file manager feature of explorer naturally, sorry if this wasn't obvious - will try to write more clearly next time.

Compare things like the zoom feature on displayed icons, the navigation bar functioning and automated search (type on box to begin searching right away), these are just a few examples.

I've been a gnome user since a few years back and I instinctively noticed them right on the first time I used Vista. It is without doubt getting more and more features "borrowed" from things that have been created years ago in other OS's, it's a shame you don't see it as well.

Here's a nice read from another software engineer:
http://www.robbywalker.name/1/post/2007/05...ista-vista.html





Well, guess you should take more attention on the usual talks from the MS developers. Especially when it comes to design important portions of the UI look&feel - even they admit to repeatedly use other OS's as "inspiration" for their work.

You have to be blind to skip all of this..

Here's a nice snippet from a developer involved in Vista's Start/Orb menu:

http://moishelettvin.blogspot.com/2006/11/...n-crapfest.html




And yet, this little "ninja" program gets downloaded from the original site over 100 times per day, not counting alone the other major software distribution sites..



It's not ironic - it's safe!

You wind screwing up your windows emulated machine - no worries - just restore back the previous snapshot.

Not much extra overhead, try it out for yourself at least once.

Wine is also very capable and will natively run a lot of windows apps, except the ones based on .NET for some strange reason..

There are cases where a software or hardware component will need to run under windows and virtual box is a good solution for these cases.

It also helps to keep your OS tidy and clean. Let people browse all the p0rn sites they like and in the end it will be easier to clean the dirty emulated box than restoring the whole system back again.



That's just another way to call people as "lazy".

Look on your example with the x800, it's working well out of the box with ubuntu, can you say the same for Vista or XP?

It's your decision to make a difference and let the software vendors know that you're using linux and would like support for their hardware on this OS.

Are you going to cross your arms and wait for someone else to solve all your life troubles?



Do you really want a list of companies using Linux?
http://mtechit.com/linux-biz/
http://www.aaxnet.com/design/linux2.html
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/tsearch/large+compa...using+linux.htm
http://www.ntlug.org/Main/Business
http://www.linux.com/articles/22473



Why are so sure to say that I lack insight about fortune 100 or fortune 500?

Have you even googled to see how many companies out there use linux in the first place?

Check out the global 2000 companies instead, 75% of them are using linux..
http://news.cnet.com/2100-1016_3-1001609.html

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Gee... what a long thread.

Sorry for all the write up but I hope this clears out some confusions going on those heads..

I did look at your list, and other than Northrup and Boeing, none of these companies are Fortune 100 or 500 companies. Also, some of them did have writeups on what Linux was used for, and the majority of these is supercomputers or web servers, which is what Linux is traditionally used for.

Where are the domain controllers, the application servers, the large scale file servers? Also, note that Boeing has had what you could term as "mixed success" with Linux, and are using wind-river's Linux more often than not (meaning, support from a vendor). They were using IBM for supporting their other Linux platforms like the supercomputer from AMD, not using "in-house" talent.

Also note the other big Linux user is Amazon.com, but they are using Red Hat and Cognos (analytics), not off-the-shelf stuff and they most definitely went with Red Hat Enterprise Linux because Red Hat will support it.


I understand your enthusiasm for the platform, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it - but you really need to get out more and see how the larger companies do it. I have lots of experience with companies large and small, and my current employer has 5000 machines *on this floor*, with close to 500,000 machines on this continent and even more worldwide. I've also worked at startups of 3 people with 7 machines, and at small and mid-sized businesses in-between. I think I know what I'm talking about.

Most of your posts is just pro-Linux babbling, with some kind of attempt at a history lesson or something (sorry, it gets old), so I won't bother replying to most of it.


I'm wrong? Yeah, whatever. Tell that to my box that crashes 4x/day (thanks to fglrx), X that restarts all the time with no warnings, and messed up graphics (namely in supertux), and glitches with various window decorators (like the app border missing altogether quite often) then. Glad to know they consider that as "working well" -- perhaps I shouldn't bother with a dedicated Linux box then, if that's what they define as "well supported"! You just might have changed my mind, thanks for the eye opener.


Which proves absolutely nothing. 100 people (which is really nothing at all when you look at the big picture) semi-randomly downloading some obscure app, probably just to try it out... There's people that run as admins, with no AV, blindly click everything and all that, all within IE, on a totally unpatched box, and then they wonder why they have problems. It's the computer equivalent to speeding, disregarding road signs, being drunk, not wearing your seatbelt and driving through a minefield, while using a car with no brakes, all at once. Of course bad things will happen when they try this hard. Just wait till they try Linux, they'll have just as many issues then.


What's the point? You shouldn't screw up your OS anyways. Should I run Linux inside a VM too? In case I screw up my Linux install, then I can restore it quickly too! It just adds an extra layer for absolutely nothing.


And you keep somehow thinking everyone is mentally retarded or something (that condescending tone), and that none of us actually ever tried Linux, that we don't know about the drivers for our hardware, that we never heard of VMware and stuff like that. I've used plenty of distros before (BSD too, and Solaris as well), and I've had a dedicated VMware Server box for quite a while, I've been using VMware workstation for just about forever and all that. And guess what? It still doesn't make any more sense to run the apps you need, inside an OS on emulated hardware, on top of an OS that doesn't run any of your apps (versus just using what you need in the first place). As for WINE, it doesn't actually run any of the apps I've tried, yes: NONE.


Yes, people that don't want to write their own drivers are just lazy. No bias at all there! I thought that 99.99999% of users were completely unable to do things like this, but it turns out they're just lazy Seriously, you should hear yourself talking... Some of the stuff you say is just ludicrous. No offense, but are you actually this detached from reality? If you want, we can open a new poll, asking if people don't mind having to write or fix their own drivers themselves for their hardware to actually work.


Out of the box on Ubuntu it doesn't exactly work great no, nor with any other driver I tried. On a XP stock install (with no other drivers -- mind you that's completely irrelevant as far as I'm concerned), it works just fine, just not with all the bells and whistles, and with an updated driver (like Windows Update will fetch), it runs 1000000000000000% more reliably than any Linux driver does. On Vista, everything works out of the box with it.


Yes, call vendors, and tell them "I willingly chose to run a minority OS with a market share of less than 1% that doesn't support any of the software I need, so could you please port your app just for me?", that'll go over just great I'm sure!

Cross my arms? What? My apps work, on the OS they're intended to run onto. I have no complaints. Life troubles? Everything's peachy.

I don't see much of a point replying to these kinds of threads any further, it's just a complete waste of time. The next post will keep on harping how Linux is the best thing ever, probably try to teach some kind of history about OS'es, and then more of the same stuff like we've seen in all of the previous posts... I officially give up!

@cluberti: half a million boxes? Wow. The max I've worked with is a site with 2000 or so (~60000 across all sites).

Hi again.

Don't really see the point of so much anger in your writings, sorry if your experience with Linux is unfortunate and that you consider some computer history boring.



Well, isn't this post called "Anyone thinking about Linux?"

Maybe you should bother to save your words for the "Anyone thinking about Windows" thread..

If you follow my work you'll quickly discover that I'm simultaneously pro-linux and pro-windows. I use both OS's since a few years and sometimes it is sad to see people confusing the reality of linux today.

Both OS's have their strengths and weakness.



This is a clear sign that your graphic driver is not loaded. Please try the latest Ubuntu distribution as I've mentioned.

The latest graphic drivers are working well for me in all cases that I've stumbled upon, even on older laptops that weren't running compiz before.

On the community forums of Ubuntu there's also a lot of feedback, no need for dedicated box. I only use a dedicated box on my home laptop mostly because I wanted to use all the available disk space and had no reason to keep two OS's in dual boot since I'm happy with Ubuntu.



Eheh.. This is the good part, they're already trying linux and the .exe/.scr viruses don't run when people double click them and since it's Firefox or Opera that is used as default we also don't worry about IE exploits.



The value of nothing is sometimes very important.

Nothing means no traces, no browsing history, no hidden cookies or left over cache.
Nothing means that outside attackers would be trying to hack an emulated machine with absolutely nothing important inside

And I could also name an interesting example like the case where one of my bosses kept browsing a massive amount of sites and this always led to the occasional reimaging of the OS on his machine to clean up or fix whatever got broken since the machine got infected quite often. His wife also visited him quite regularly and there were (loud) complaints from her regarding his browsing habits..

Using an emulated machine ensures that he leaves no traces on his work environment (nothing), his wife doesn't complain (thinks this his husband is well behaved now..) and the machine has been running for a full year non-stop which leaves me quite happy to see it working so well.

So in your case it's not worth the extra layer - that's fine - but remember that it can be quite useful for others.




Why did you tried a lot of distros?

If you ended up just using one popular distribution that you like and looking for solutions to your hardware difficulties it might have been much easier.

Which programs don't run under wine?

I'm also a developer and I work across windows and linux all the time, my favorite programming compiler is Delphi 7 - a bit old but produces win32 apps that can run very well over all windows versions (win9x all the way up to NT6) and most of my apps run quite well in Wine.

With .NET there is sadly no hope - MS ensured that it would be difficult to make things work well. (mono is no option, believe me)

Who said anything about Vmware? have you ever heard about Virtual Box?

It's open source and you can run windows using the seamless integration mode (very cool feature that you should try one day) to run the exclusive windows apps. Good to enjoy your favorite OS and still run your work apps using XP underneath - http://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Screenshots

Another good thing is that your work environment becomes "portable". You can copy the virtual disk image to anywhere else needed and run from any other machine regardless of the OS used and without need to reinstall things again or lose time to customize them to your liking. These are some of the things that I find myself enjoying these days, I'm not worried anymore about working under Mac, Linux or Windows.



You're the one who said "fix the driver yourself", or "buy hardware that's supported".

I never did such thing myself nor would know how to write a driver for linux in the first place, yet, the machines in which I install linux do work well in most cases and whenever some special features like finger print / touch screens or something alike doesn't work, then I do have to see if someone else has found what can be done to solve it.




Most open source solutions already work well regardless of the OS, and hardware vendors are starting to provide a lot of support for their hardware to work in other platforms, you'd notice this if you used linux more often.

The more people requesting support for linux, the better.

Unfortunately, a lot of closed source apps or programs developed by MS do take time and substantial effort to run inside another OS, the only solution for the moment is either relying on virtualization or moving to open source developments.

Other professional categories also rely on this sort of methods to use their work tools like AutoCad, GIS software and such.

Also note that many "vendors" (I'd prefer calling them as software developing companies) only produce software exclusively for linux with only a few windows counterparts produced occasionally. This is the case for a lot of scientific calculation tools, industry control software, universities and many other public/military organizations.

There is also some good progress that one can notice. For example, Huawei made available some wireless 3G USB internet connect boxes that became very popular in Europe and the native software only run from windows so Vodafone sponsored the open source development of the linux support so that we could use it easily.

Also look on the newer EEC, Acer one or other small sized laptops coming up - linux is showing up more and more as a default choice because of the obvious performance and flexibility, would they choose a resource hungry Vista or an outdated XP?




This is just plain unpolite.

If you feel that your time is wasted then please refrain yourself from confusing your personal experience with the feedback from the members on this forum that use linux on regular basis or as a their work OS, otherwise I'll just consider your replies as immature.

In true honesty I wonder how can a network/computer administrator have success in his career and evolve to a more important position without trying to learn more about unix and showcasing such closed perspective on computers.

If you think that I'm wrong, I suggest you show us your CV that include your previous work experience to prove otherwise.

Foxconn, who is one of the largest if not the largest motherboard manufacturer, has absolutely abysmal Linux support. I was having on my G965 based Foxconn motherboard where lm_sensors was reporting my E2160 as running at 1.4V (and looking at the temperatures, I could believe it). After contacting their support, they told me that they couldn't help me unless XP or Vista was installed. FYI, Foxconn is the major OEM of motherboards for Dell, HP, IBM, and other major distributors

You're also making an unfair comparison here. Honestly, the Atom has very limited crunching power, and I doubt that compiz would run as smoothly as you think on that mobile 945 graphics chipset. Their versions of Linux are also crippled beyond all belief, and anyone who appreciates Linux for what it is would install a fresh copy of Fedora or Ubuntu on there (or whatever flavor suits your desire).

It's not so much that there's "hatred" towards Linux - it's just that your previous posts pointed towards it as the solution to the world's problems. No corporate environment would survive very long without proper support, and the cost-benefit ratio of working in the nitty-gritty of code isn't really worth it - unless it's your code that you're selling.

Yes, sometimes this happens and it can be upsetting to hear such reply at times.

This also happens with other products, I remember some time ago asking DriveImageXML company to support Windows PE 2.x and the only reply back that I got was that it this software was only supported under XP based PE - http://www.boot-land.net/forums/index.php?...ost&p=25784

At the time all that I really needed was an option to disable Volume Shadow Services because they weren't needed/working under VistaPE (WinPE 2.x) and should be disabled whenever NT6 was detected as launch platform. The tool nevertheless worked well in VistaPE and performed backup/restore of the local partitions.

Also notice that Sony has also the same habits, they release a driver and name it as Vista exclusive even thought it may still work with XP, but since their laptops no longer ship with XP then the support line also replies back with the same sort of answer - please install Vista..

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Yes, I know this. Please note that I never mentioned running compiz on these machines, my intention was mentioning that drivers for linux already come available from the manufacturer itself and this is good news to solve the hardware support complaints and being able to run a perfectly modern OS with an excellent performance - somehow I didn't wrote up this clearly yesterday - please excuse me.




Sorry about this, not my intention to advocate an open source OS as the solution for the world's problems.

I work with both windows and linux on a "corporate" environment (we're more of an organization) where both OS's coexist and linux has solved a lot of our own structural issues like I've mentioned in previous posts and we're moving to use it as pattern on all desktop machines.

The latest Ubuntu releases are really good when compared to their distributions a few years back and has become a very positive solution to skip any licensing needs or external support. (we already have the staff to support our own software anyways).

And if some years ago I would share the same opinion as crahak and only see windows as a viable work platform, nowadays I see this sort of development as leading the future in terms of desktop UI and safety which ends up being a very strong reason for more people to use it.

Personally, I can't imagine myself going back to Vista or XP again without being disappointed, my machine runs incredible fast and you know how easy it gets to apt-get apps or even how