Should I make the switch?

Yes. Switch. Then you can decide which you like better. It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks anyway.

Your major complaint about Windows is how the registry is designed?

Other threads ask the same question. The most frustrating part about linux are hardware drivers. Before you delve in, print this out. It will save you headaches when you end up in the terminal in safe mode. When it works, its beautiful but the initiation process can get rough.

If you're going to be installing Linux on "countless computers at work" and you don't have much experience with it, expect this to be a major undertaking, and probably a real headache. If it's just your own computer, go for it.

That said, I use Linux more than Windows myself. My reason: ever since I learned how to use Vi, I hate using any other text editor and there isn't a Vi for Windows that works quite as well as the Linux version.

What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?

I use Linux for research, and it's great for program development. Linux is overflowing with helpful tools and editors to make a programmer's life easier (for fairly obvious reasons). I also use LaTeX a lot and it also works very well with Linux.

I also like working on the command line a lot, and a Unix-like shell has a lot more power than Windows MS-DOS command prompt.

Another useful feature are the Linux distros that run off CDs or DVDs; if you only need to run Linux occasionally they work a treat, and they're a great way to test Linux on a computer.

What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?

For me, the biggest flaw is that Linux just doesn't seem to run on my desktop. I've tried a number of distros but they all hang on boot-up. There's something with my hardware that they just don't like.

Most Linux distros I've tried are also a right pain to administrate. They're fine if you just use them as is, but if you want to tweak something it can be very troublesome. This is compounded by open source software typically having extremely poor documentation.

There's also the snag that many programs expect you to have an open connection to the internet, which isn't always the case. This is especially annoying if you plan to download software on a different computer and transfer across to your internet-less computer, only to find that it depends on a bunch of additional libraries that you also need to download (which in turn, also depend on a bunch of additional libraries, and so on).

Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

Linux for my academic work. Windows for game development, although that's partly due to the aforementioned difficulties with Linux installation and partly because I've spent years building up a good selection of Windows dev tools. I'm also now starting to use Mac OS X for dev work, which has a lot of the benefits of both Linux and Windows.

What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

Since I use Linux at my research lab, whatever the techs make available. Usually Mozilla Firefox, although I occasionally use Konqueror.

What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?

What Windows counterparts are you interested in?

In my case, I tend to use free software for most of my needs, and they tend to have both a Linux and a Windows version. I'm pretty happy coding with any word processor with code-specific formating. For documentation I tend to use plain text, HTML and LaTeX, so that's pretty platform independent. For art I use Inkscape and the GIMP, both multi-platform open source projeects. Audacity is a multi-platform audio editor. The only piece of dev software I haven't found a decent multi-platform equivalent for is ModPlug Tracker, which I use for music.

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What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?

Linux is a much more stable and secure operating system.

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What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?

Linux's management is terrible, the community constantly fights with itself and makes things difficult that shouldn't be difficult.

There are way too many flavors and variations which make things very confusing.

Things dont just work. You have to tweak everything to get games, media and modern software to work on linux. (Setting and tweaking wine for 24 hours to play WoW is definitely shittier then just getting WoW to work on windows. That's also after the 3 days of getting your vid card drives to work).

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Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

I prefer an advanced ide to work on(yes i like guis), and since LInux doesn't have MS visual studio, i prefer windows.

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What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

Firefox.

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What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?

There are thousands(of very varying quality), you need to be more specific.

General Comments:
The major thing about being a software developer is that with windows it's much easier for me to make money. I love programming and it's my passion. If I stuck to linux then I probably wouldn't have a job right now and would have to be doing some lame IT job or something.

I think that's the major difference, linux users dont embrace capitalism. I'm all for free software and information but when it comes to getting a paycheck and making software and not getting a paycheck and making software, I would chose the former.

The fact is that a majority of software consumers use PCs.

I say stick with xp as long things are working. Then when XP is no longer supported make the switch to Vista. Vista sucks but it's a hella of a lot better for the person who values their time because they dont have to spend days and days every year getting linux to work.

If you are going to try linux, save your self a lot of pain and try ubuntu first. It has the best support I've seen, and other then driver issues with top of the line or exotic hardware, things work pretty well. I would personally suggest getting vmware and trying that out with ubuntu first.

GL

I run FreeBSD, but I'll still answer.

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Original post by Crypter What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?

Stability. Windows occasionally crashes on me for no particular reason. It doesn't need to reboot all the time - only if you need to update the kernel. Easy access to a huge library of software, with source code available. You can build your own kernel and tweak it however you want.

Actually, I found that FreeBSD has BETTER driver support than windows xp (x64 edition). FreeBSD automagically detected my SATA RAID array (and could boot from it!), automagically set up my network cards, recognized my printer, video card, and sound device without too much mucking around.

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What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?

My biggest gripe about FreeBSD is that there isn't a native flash plugin. There is one for Linux however.

Obviously, Linux doesn't quite have the selection of games that Windows has. You can run things through WINE, but it won't work with anything and it's tricky to set up.

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Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

Depends what I'm working on. Windows for game development, BSD for scientific or research stuff.

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What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

Firefox. Sometimes lynx when X isn't running for whatever reason.

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What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?

Depends. There are alternatives for pretty much anything. Some of them aren't the quality of their windows counterparts, but you can get by.


If you're going to try Linux, I wouldn't recommend a total switch. Set up a dual boot and figure out what you like. The bottom line is Linux is better for some things, and windows for others. I use them both when appropriate.

I've used it as a secondary option for several years now and it has become very usable. Tough sometimes it will surprise you with how difficult something easy can get. Often times because red tape still has sway in Linux world. Like crazy stuff where its legal to watch a DVD on windows but illegal to watch the same DVD on the same computer just because your running Linux.

Hands down what I like best is not getting pounded with every kind of commercialized perversion you can imagine. I honestly think a lot of what makes it run so well is that it doesn't have all that random crap weighing it down and picking fights with other crapware. It just makes for a nicer experience.

That being said I spend a lot of time in Windows just because thats where what I need is. At other times I spend lots of time in Linux. Invariably I end up flip flopping between the two because they each do somethings the other doesn't. I also run the major aps available on both. Making heavy use of the GIMP, OpenOffice and FireFox. Which lets me have a similar experiance wherever I boot.

It may not be worth "Switching to" but you sure can do most anything your doing now just as easily. Try first before switching.

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Original post by Crypter What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?

The command prompt, some of the tools, some of the arcane technical hinkery that it throws in your face and forces you to listen to. MonoDevelop.

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What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?

I can't parse that sentence.

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Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

Depends on the toolkit and language. Windows has really bad support for a lot of functional language stuff, but Linux has really terrible IDEs. I like OS X because it has a nice mix of the two (also: TextMate).

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What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

For Web browsing, I use Firefox or Opera.

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What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?

Uh, there's a lot. For anything.

I don't think you should switch everything at once, maybe dual boot with it for awhile and see if you like it. It's made huge, huge strides in user friendliness lately, but it's still Linux inside and you might get frustrated even with the wonderful Ubuntu Guide.

My advice, as always, is to buy a Mac.

I still think with proper file management, Windows XP is still very stable for normal usage (well, for me it is, mine has been working for 5 years and it's only been REALLY crashing a few times). Using reliable hardware parts also helps (especially when performance becomes slow... it's a sign for an upgrade).

If you're used to doing things on Windows you may find the jump to Linux, well, a bit like doing the same things in a different way, with some extra hassles. Plus you'll miss the Windows-based IDEs. (Move over Visual Studio, hello vi, emacs and eclipse. Oh, and Mono too.)

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On the other hand, if you wish to try things out I'd recommend trying a Linux "live" CD such as Knoppix, and see if it picks up all your current hardware.

If it does, then your computer is right for Linux. Popular linux distributions today include Ubuntu, Fedora 7, OpenSUSE etc. I'd say Ubuntu may offer a smaller learning curve than the others.

Better still, try dual-boot - That way you can load Linux for work, and Windows for games. That's what I'll do when I upgrade my machine next month. I think I'll go with ubuntu/Windows XP pair.

[Edited by - llama9000 on June 28, 2007 11:10:48 PM]

Stealing Trapper Zoid's post

What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?
The interface, I love XFCE with beryl to death, makes me sad when it's not available in windows. I also like how the configuration of Arch(the distro I use most often) is really simple, it's a set it and forget it kind of thing, while still offering loads of customization. I also like how applications are properly separated so when one eats a lot of cpu the rest are still responsive. I also enjoy the majority of the proper package managers in linux for finding/adding/removing software, without having to hit next a lot of times, I find it to be way more intuitive and it takes me away from the hassles of checking for new versions of my programs.
What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?
The way it reacts to undocumented/unsupported hardware, many distos will not run and some that do run inexplicably slow on my laptop(never had an issue on my desktop). Another thing is the big lack for commercial software, and windows emulation has been shoddy as long as I've used Linux.
Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?
If Flash 8, Sound Club, anim8or, Lithunwrap and possibly visual studio ran in Linux properly I would prefer Linux, but since it doesn't I prefer windows.
What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?
Mostly firefox
What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?
Click here to see

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Original post by Crypter I personally dont have much experience with Linux. The only experience I have is through Cygwin--which is a Linux emulator for Windows.

Cygwin is a set of tools and libraries which provide a Unix-like environment for Windows. It is not a Linux emulator.

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What's better about Linux compared to Windows?

1. It's cheap. Vista Ultimate would cost me £370 (US$768). Downloading a featureful Linux system costs me about 5 pence. I know in certain circles you're not meant to mention the price, but if it wasn't (virtually) free I wouldn't be using it, simple as that.

2. It works. Many people have horror stories about how none of their hardware at all ever works under Linux. I find the opposite: many of the random widgets I have laying about need their very own drivers installed to work in Windows (which is troublesome if you've lost the CD), whilst Linux has drivers for them built in. In particular, most distros come with the drivers needed for my graphics card, and many of them will install them automatically. In Windows, it takes a driver CD and a couple of reboots to get my graphics card working.

3. It works. Almost without variation, something goes hugely wrong when installing Windows and some apparently important part of the system throws up error messages the first time I boot into it. (This before even installing the drivers for my USB ethernet dongle (which Linux recognises automatically, I might note), so I know it isn't some worm pretending to be an important part of the system.) These tend to fix themselves as I install the rest of the programs I want, but the very notion that a freshly installed Windows system containing only the software that Microsoft planned for installation would throw up errors about missing libraries or unregistered components is baffling.

4. It works. In the past, a fresh Windows 98 and 2k box has been infected with worms in the time between first configuring the network and downloading ZoneAlarm: probably just a few minutes. My Linux systems have been virus-free even when I didn't have a firewall.

5. It does everything. The average Linux distro has thousands of packages covering, for example, programming (in tens of languages), graphics, typesetting, databases and web services. Many of these are professional quality programs which would cost thousands of dollars or more in site licensing fees if they were commercial products.

6. It's well-behaved. On my system, windows never randomly pop up over the top of a window I'm interacting with. Games aren't allowed to take exclusive control of the keyboard and mouse, refuse to allow me to switch to another program, or change the video mode (but they don't run in a window: they're still full-screen, they just don't get to be rude about it).

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What's worse about Linux compared to Windows?

1. Support for running Windows programs is patchy. For me this is only a problem with games: Linux alternatives are not usually available, although there are rare exceptions (such as the mighty ID Software); and games tend to be where Wine has the most trouble, in my experience.

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Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

Linux.

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What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

Almost exclusively Firefox. Sometimes I use links.

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What are Linux equivalents to their Windows counterparts?

You want me to list them all? Gentoo has nearly 12,000 packages just in the standard repository. I think you need to list some Windows programs you want Linux versions of. Also bare in mind you may be able to run them in Wine, which might be better unless you really want to switch every computer to Linux and convert all your data at the same time.

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Original post by chessnut Setting and tweaking wine for 24 hours to play WoW is definitely shittier then just getting WoW to work on windows. That's also after the 3 days of getting your vid card drives to work.

WoW worked first time for me. I didn't expect it to, though.

What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?

Pretty much everything. Especially stability.

What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?

Dual monitor setup with a laptop screen and an external monitor.

Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

Linux.

What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

Iceweasel (firefox)

What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?

That's a loooong list. Google is your friend.

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Original post by Crypter What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?

Absolutely nothing. I could go into why, but then there'd be an argument and gunfire and sirens... and blood, lots of blood. I blame video games and Ravuya.

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Original post by Crypter What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?

But in all seriousness, the main thing I hate about linux is not the operating system itself... no, actually it's very well done and in several respects it's superior to windows, and in my estimation they're fairly equal but in widely differing areas. No, it's the idiotic morons in the linux/oss/gpl/rms/123/abc community. They're likely a minority of users (I'd really like to believe this), but they're also the loudest and unfortunately one bad apple... They tend to live at slashdot.org, give them a kick in the balls for me if you go there.

A lot of the complaints about windows that I see here have never really happened to me in my usage of Windows since 2000 (anything pre-2000 was ass, except Millenium Edition, which was post 2000, but we'll continue to neglect that ugly step child, I did and I've never installed it). Maybe I've been lucky with my hardware... maybe I'm blessed by a +5 to stability for Windows? Who knows. However I do tend to keep my system clean, and I watch whatever goes into my system like a hawk. And I don't care if you're using Linux, FreeBSD, OSX, etc.. in my opinion, this is a good practice. Anyway because of this I haven't seen a blue screen in something like 2-3 years (and then only because I had put some bad drivers on my system, breaking my own rules and such). Virus? I haven't seen a virus in years. Spyware? Same. And I'm not the only person using this machine. However, to be fair, I have seen -plenty- of other windows boxes infiltrated by spyware+viruii. I do not run anything to protect my system. I sit behind a router with nothing protecting my system except windows defender, and that sits idle. My fiance uses this machine quite a bit, but I've given her enough grief about watching what she's doing that it's not a problem. A lot of problems are due to carelessness in my opinion.

Despite claims to the contrary, I feel the equivalent open source packages are not as refined as their commerical counterparts. The only exception to this was firefox. However, it should be noted I'm not talking about exclusively linux open source projects, there's a ton of open source ports to windows, or windows only open source projects. I won't say they're badly designed/written/etc.. Just they could use a little more spit and polish in several cases. And really stuff like this is a matter of personal taste, unless we're talking bugs, and no software is ever free of those. But for example, if you're accustomed to The Gimp as opposed to photoshop, go mad, use it and be happy. Frankly I've become a fan of Paint.NET, not as full featured as photoshop, but still quite handy, and like many other open source apps, it contains 1 or 2 features that photoshop lacks (e.g. decent alpha channel manipulation). But I digress...

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Original post by Crypter Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

Windows hands down. Anything other than Visual Studio makes me cry blood. I still haven't quite gotten over the horror of using Anjuta several moons ago.

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Original post by Crypter What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

Since I don't use linux, I'll say Internet Explorer. Just to be evil you see.

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Original post by Crypter What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?

As the rest of the world pointed out, google is your friend. There are many decent programs that come packaged with the various linux distributions so you can always just poke through a listing on a distribution website (I assume they still list this info? It is quite large now). Regardless there's a billion + 1 projects, some great, some just horrible, and no real way to tell until you use them :D FUN!

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Original post by Ravuya Quote: Original post by Crypter What do you like better about Linux then on Windows? The command prompt, some of the tools, some of the arcane technical hinkery that it throws in your face and forces you to listen to. MonoDevelop. Quote: What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt? I can't parse that sentence. Quote: Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development? Depends on the toolkit and language. Windows has really bad support for a lot of functional language stuff, but Linux has really terrible IDEs. I like OS X because it has a nice mix of the two (also: TextMate). Quote: What Internet Browser do you use on Linux? For Web browsing, I use Firefox or Opera. Quote: What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts? Uh, there's a lot. For anything. I don't think you should switch everything at once, maybe dual boot with it for awhile and see if you like it. It's made huge, huge strides in user friendliness lately, but it's still Linux inside and you might get frustrated even with the wonderful Ubuntu Guide. My advice, as always, is to buy a Mac.

I second getting a Mac if it is for personal use since I never get mad,frustrated or tired of using it unlike Windows;)
p.s. If you are getting mad at Windows you might blow your top if you are a Linux newbie if you run into the following which is not uncommon:
choosing a Linux distro to install is a frustrating as picking a version of Vista to buy-LOL
get black screen instead of a login screen after going through all the trouble
cannot get onto internet since your "enter hardware device here" in my case wireless wireless usb not supported
find out you cannot play dvd's by default in most distro's
end up having to dualboot or reinstall windows since game is only supported under windows
etc.
I've been running different linux distro's since like Suse 6 and Redhat 5 and still do but not as my primary OS mainly due to the fact that I play alot of games on my main system and don't care to be dualbooting all the time just for that. So to avoid the dualboot hassle I usually just run them from VirtualPC now that Microsoft is giving it away although you have to tweak like most of the Linux distro's to run/install correctly in VPC.
The only compelling reason now to dualboot Linux is to check out Beryl but it pretty much look similar to what I already get under MacOSX and Vista.
The latest distro's have come along way from when I first used them, you had to manually hand edit config files for just about anything you wanted to do, you pretty much had to be a rocket scientist to get 3D acceleration,your soundcard,internet to work back in the day but not anymore.
Anyways i suggest downloading virtualpc, which is free now, and testing out as many distro's in windows before you take the plunge.

Download Ubuntu and burn it to a cd or dvd. The install disc is also a live-cd, which means that you can try Ubuntu by just booting from the disc. Nothing will change on your computer, but you will be able to test linux and see if you like it.

Of course, it won't be a full linux system, but you will at least be able to try some of the more popular programs.

Both. With VMware.

Running Linux in a VM is bliss. Or an open ssh connection to another machine in my house.

Since pretty much any software that I use that isn't a commercial game or Windows is open source, I find myself at home on either OS. I dislike software that limits me to using one OS or another.

I detest dual booting, it takes too long.

At work I use a Windows desktop to interact with many Linux servers (most of which are virtualised anyway).

I have plans to virtualise some of our other PCs at home, they're sitting idle most of the time anyway.

As for distros I find Ubuntu (Ubuntu server for most of my VMs, I rarely need a GUI on them) is very easy to use. I love the package manager and it installs without problems. The biggest headache is when I used to dual boot, one wireless card I had (the only connection to the internet for the computer in question). It was very difficult to figure out how to set it up with ndiswrapper without google.

From what I've been hearing, Wine's DirectX support has improved vastly recently and can now run many modern and old games. If you heard a year ago that Wine can't run this and that game, it's worth at least rechecking the current status from Wine's application database. Given its rapid development speed I wouldn't be surprised if it started supporting DX10 in a reasonable timeframe.

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Original post by CrypterWhat do you like better about Linux then on Windows?

Remote admin. Windows sucks for that, linux is easy.

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What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?

Decent console support.

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Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?

Windows - better tools.

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What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?

Lynx (I don't use linux on the desktop).

What do you like better about Linux then on Windows?
Well first of all the access to all that BSD-style utility together with sh-like console, the functional package system (I use Debian), the high security and the possibility to recompile nearly everything.

What do you find worse that Linux has that Windows doesnt?
Lack of drivers

Do you prefer Linux or Windows for development?
Well now I prefer XCode (gcc4) on Mac. But I like a lot KDevelop (also gcc). Anyway if I need to make a comparison between the 2 I will say that I prefer Linux

What Internet Browser do you use on Linux?
Firefox and khtml

What are Linux equivelants to their Windows counterparts?
Way to long list