Linux why?

LCPete

LCPete

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Just got curious after reading through the XP thread what the attraction is of oddball operating systems like Linux for home users is it just for fun to be different from the norm?
Surely the actual operating system just needs to work and allow you to use Lightroom and Photoshop and anything else you want to run as well as go on the internet
I use windows 7 on my desktop and my laptop is a mac they are both great and work well
I'm not very computer savvy but have been using them for a few years now to edit photos and go on the internet etc:):)
 
I see some pro's and cons of Linux from my experience:
  • + Runs better on older, slower computers
  • + Easy to try out lots of free apps via a 1-click, app manager, without clogging up/slowing down.
  • + Choice of GUI and environment. Easy to try out different Distros (live boot)
  • + Fewer security worries
  • - Not all Windows apps run, or run smoothly
  • - Not all hardware is supported flawlessly.
  • - Online support is unnecessarily nerdy.
There are other points, but I wanted to avoid arguments.

Whether Linux suits you depends depends on your particular situation. If you are not sure, you can download a "distro" to a USB stick and give it a try without installing anything or changing anything on your PC. See if you like it. Reboot and it's gone. Or if you have an old PC or spare partition, give it a try there too. It costs nothing.

Reality check: For a beginner, Linux is genuinely slick and easy to install and use. However, if something screws up, it's likely to scare a beginner off forever.

Personally speaking, I use Kubuntu because I like the choices. The file manager (Dolphin) is better, the app manager is better, it's cheaper, and you get new goodies with the frequent upgrades. And you don't have moan about Microsoft or Adobe if they screw things around. What I don't like is the misplaced nerdy support you get online. If Android Linux can get that right, then desktop Linux could do too.
 
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It doesn't offer anything over Windows on a desktop, aside from being free. I know what I'm doing with computers and really have no intention to have my home computers do anything other than just work. I try Linux every now and then, back since the early 90s I guess, but invariably it doesn't work straight away, and usually ditch it as soon as I am forced to use the command line to perform a simple task.

(I develop and work on Linux systems for a living. I'm capable of working on a command line, I just don't want to have to on my home desktops)
 
If you do give up after 10 minutes, formatting is not necessary if you try out the live boot.
Many "gurus" online will tell you you must use the command line. But that is all they know. It it is not necessary and a fallacy. Normal users never need it. The distros have been working hard to make it a slick experience for good reason.

Also 5 or 6 years ago, many Linuxes were difficult to get going and use. In the last few years they have become easy and slick to set up. Many of those who tried it earlier and got their fingers burnt are unlikely to try it again.
 
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Interesting , it does look like its a computer hobby type thing to play around with if you know what you're doing certainly not for someone like myself:)
 
ianp5a said:
Many "gurus" online will tell you you must use the command line. But that is all they know. It it is not necessary and a fallacy. Normal users never need it. The distros have been working hard to make it a slick experience for good reason.
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That is the oft trotted out fallacy. I have never installed a Linux distro and not had to google some command line tasks in order to get it working correctly. There's always some drivers, graphics, scanner, printer or whatever that doesn't work and ends up consuming far more time than is necessary.

If you don't value your time that highly, and are prepared to go through a fair bit of teething problems, and the usual learning curve of a new OS, then Linux may be for you. I wouldn't recommend it, frankly.
 
You see. I did warn you people will insist that. Go online for help and that is all most geeks there know about. There is usually a GUI way to do everything these days. Although sometimes it seems you are required to edit a text file and copy some magic words in it. Pathetic really, but that is getting less and less.
 
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  • I develop linux device drivers on embedded systems (set top boxes) for a living.
  • I prefer the command line to GUI tools
  • I use emacs (and all the associated ctrl-c meta-x etc...) keyboard shortcuts
  • I can, and regularly do, compile kernels from source
  • I run a number of different linux installs at home - mostly debian based but I also run a couple of Fedora boxes
  • I have more *nix installs than Windows installs (I run quite a few - perhaps a dozen - virtual machines that do different things).
  • I also have a number of FreeBSD systems (running servers/firewalls)
  • I spend 10+ hours a day - normally 6 days a week - in front of a computer. This is generally at the command line

Given the above, you may be surprised to find ALL the systems (both work and home) I have keyboards and mice connected to run Windows and have cygwin (which gives a linux-like) command line installed. I see absolutely no reason to install Linux as my main UI. Windows has better and less buggy hardware support and generally has better application support. IMHO of course ;)
 
I have Linux only on a laptop and a desk PC. I got it originally to run some CNC router software which was Linux only. I am now Microsoft free!


Steve.
 
I tried to use Linux again a couple of weeks ago, I was needed to build a squid proxy server to configure a transparent proxy for our guest wireless network.
The Ubuntu install process was going ok and Just as I thought the install was finishing the monitor screen when black with the message Monitor cannot display this video mode. There is no fix for this common problem on the Ubuntu support site, (the site is just a forum so is not real technical support) the forum members were not helpful at all, they tried blaming the issue on the monitor I was using.
 
All scientists will be running Linux based software (that's why so may have macs, not because windows is worst, but osx is very similar to linux, and everything they do is with a terminal, which linux is best suited for). They also don't want the hassle of sorting out computer issues in a linux system, which can be very difficult/time consuming, unless your very proficient with the system (hence the use of macs).... So the point I'm getting at is people who work with raw code, rather than a boxed program, will prefer linux, but only if they can problem solve system issues. I'm not an expert but paraphrasing my wife, so some of what I have said may be complete *hite.
 
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As a desktop, easy to use for all levels of users, then windows wins hands down.
Linux however has a place, for things such as firewall, web servers, file servers, in fact your probably using devices running some sort of linux without realising.


How do you know your using Linux? Drop the keyboard, and if its entered a valid command... :D
 
Thanks everyone really interesting :)
it's not by the looks of it something I'm likely to try but still interesting anyway
I do have an old Dell laptop that I don't use anymore that runs really slow and needs windows reinstalling but think id bugger it up completely if I tried putting Linux on it:D
 
I and my wife both use my laptop, which is dual boot with OpenSUSE and Win7 but with the SUSE operating system as default.

My view is that Windows is only used so much because of the marketing strategy Microsoft were able to make early on in the personal computer revolution. Thus the market share of Windows based computers is high and therefore what people are generally aware of. I hope that makes sense. That's the only reason in my view why so many people think it wins hands down, because it is what everyone is taught, because it is what almost all PCs are sold with.

I don't think Windows itself has better hardware support, remember when you buy a computer there is usually a disk or two with the third party manufacturer's drivers. However on Linux based operating systems they're all built in to the distro. (MS has been getting better at this).

I use Windows 8 at work but would choose a *nix OS any day over a Microsoft one.

I would go with Apple's OSX if it wasn't for their pricing and locking in policies. It seems absurd that it's illegally to install OSX on a non-mac hardware.
 
"All built in to the distro" is a bit misleading, leaving aside the fact that a large portion of Linux drivers for consumer appliances are junk. Something as trivial as getting 3D graphics support on an AMD card was a drawn out command line process on Mint when I tried it last.

Don't forget that most people that say "I only need web and email", actually mean "I only need a browser, email, image editing software, ability to connect my digital camera, printer, scanner, share printer on network with other windows machine" etc etc.

It's possible to get OSX running if you pick your hardware carefully, I've got a VM running it.
 
mid_gen said:
"All built in to the distro" is a bit misleading, leaving aside the fact that a large portion of Linux drivers for consumer appliances are junk. Something as trivial as getting 3D graphics support on an AMD card was a drawn out command line process on Mint when I tried it last.
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There are a lot* of people who run Linux systems who only ever get (or need) to see Firefox and Thunderbird working and claim Linux is the best thing since sliced bread since it "works for them" (in that slightly condescending tone that shifts the blame back to the other person for "being incapable of using such a simple and simplistic system") and is a panacea for everyones computing problems.

They are the same people who have taken the world's supplies of rose-tinted spectacles.....

* by lot, I mean a fair proportion of the small minority of people who have Linux installed as their desktop system ;)

PS. Yes, Linux does have more than it's fair share of pants drivers - AMD and Intel are way behind Nvidia for complete linux drivers for example....
 
Macs are a different beast though. Nice to work on individually, hell to work together in a network with other things.
Linus for me has it's place, but it's in the infrastructure, not on the desktop. Windows isn't just down to marketing strategy, it's easy to work, familiar for many non IT savy people. And MS have a wide range of products that integrate into the usual working of many, many people.
 
LCPete said:
I do have an old Dell laptop that I don't use anymore that runs really slow and needs windows reinstalling but think id bugger it up completely if I tried putting Linux on it:D
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You don't need to risk buggering it up if you boot off a USB or CD. If you are curious, you can give it a try and see what it is like. It will boot up into what looks like a full install with lots of programs ready to go. Put in the wifi password and you are even on the internet. Pick an easy distro like Mint or Ubuntu though. As there are some geeky distros out there. Reboot and and the PC is back to how it was.
 
ianp5a said:
You don't need to risk buggering it up if you boot off a USB or CD. If you are curious, you can give it a try and see what it is like. It will boot up into what looks like a full install with lots of programs ready to go. Put in the wifi password and you are even on the internet. Pick an easy distro like Mint or Ubuntu though. As there are some geeky distros out there. Reboot and and the PC is back to how it was.
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Thanks I may well try that just to see what its like :)
 
You don't need to risk buggering it up if you boot off a USB or CD
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True, the problems start when you install linux to your hard drive.
 
mid_gen said:
"All built in to the distro" is a bit misleading, leaving aside the fact that a large portion of Linux drivers for consumer appliances are junk. Something as trivial as getting 3D graphics support on an AMD card was a drawn out command line process on Mint when I tried it last.

Don't forget that most people that say "I only need web and email", actually mean "I only need a browser, email, image editing software, ability to connect my digital camera, printer, scanner, share printer on network with other windows machine" etc etc.

It's possible to get OSX running if you pick your hardware carefully, I've got a VM running it.
Click to expand...

Driver support. So, what you're saying is, because driver manufacturers provide simple GUI based installation routines for Windows, and not for Linux, installation of 3D graphics on Linux is more difficult. Quelle Supris. Actually, it's suprising that you get 3D drivers for Linux at all. Nvidia were (not sure if they still are) pretty good with driver support (although last time I bothered, you still had to compile the drivers yourself), whereas AMD based drivers were more or less non existant.
That said, when I last tried, I got better framerates on older hardware and cards running Linux & linux ports of RTCW (showing how loong ago it was) than under Windows.

But that said, it's horses for courses.
Linux is great in the data centre (I really wish the Windows boxes I have to support were Linux, so much less downtime for patching).
Linux could be really good for non power users to use as a desktop. Whilst I prefer Debian, I thought I would give Ubuntu 12.04 (so not even the current version) a go on an old EEEPC900 (early notebook) just to see how it's progressed.

Browser - Tick
Email - Tick
Image editing - Tick (the gimp / image magick) - The only reason you don't get Photoshop is that Adobe don't see the market. It wouldn't be that difficult to port the *nix based OSX code to Linux if they wanted to.
Connecting Camera - Well, it reads SD cards, which is exactly how I read the card off my camera. Can't see an issue here.
Printer - Didn't bother, but CUPS always used to do a good job, I'd be suprised if it wasn't better than I remember.
Connection to other Machines - Yup, told it the address of my NAS and credentials. Bosh, straight in.
Huawei Modem. - Blimey, that was a Tick too. Really wasn't expecting that.
Office Software - Came with something that read / wrote docs and xls okay, plus Open Office is out there if you want it.

Gaming is the next biggy to crack. Sure, as I said, you can do it, but really, you currently wouldn't want Linux as your gaming rig of choice. Limited availability, and yes, 3D drivers are not yet out of the box.
But Steam OS will change that.

Don't forget, Windows has a 9 years head start on Linux, and had the might of IBM & VMS programmers working on it (OS/2s code, and MS obtained VMS programmers when producing WNT) - Windows has always been a comercial affair, Linux spent the first couple of years as an experiment in usenet land, you probably wouldn't have wanted to play with it unless you were a coder, until 98 at the earliest. It's amazing how much it has come on, and really, quite shocking that Windows hasn't disappeared off into the distance.

Would I say people should all switch to Linux. Absolutely not.
Would I say that I can see a market share where people could. Absolutely.

For instance, I (and I'm sure most techies) already end up as unpaid Tech Support for parents / grandparents / friends, who really only use their machines for email/browser/camera/skype/java games etc. I loose count of the amount of times I've had to use an RDP session to fix something remotely.
Give them a non root account on a linux desktop, with automatic updates, and I bet I would be fixing less, and when I did have to, I would probably just ssh in and run a terminal session, maybe xforwarding to my desktop. Can't see that it would be any harder, probably actually easier.
 
My Epson 8700 scanner seems to run much better on Xsane on a Linux system than it ever did with any driver on Windows.


Steve.
 
LC2 said:
Browser - Tick
Email - Tick
Image editing - Tick (the gimp / image magick) - The only reason you don't get Photoshop is that Adobe don't see the market. It wouldn't be that difficult to port the *nix based OSX code to Linux if they wanted to.
Connecting Camera - Well, it reads SD cards, which is exactly how I read the card off my camera. Can't see an issue here.
Printer - Didn't bother, but CUPS always used to do a good job, I'd be suprised if it wasn't better than I remember.
Connection to other Machines - Yup, told it the address of my NAS and credentials. Bosh, straight in.
Huawei Modem. - Blimey, that was a Tick too. Really wasn't expecting that.
Office Software - Came with something that read / wrote docs and xls okay, plus Open Office is out there if you want it.
Click to expand...
But the devil is in the detail. And you only find those out as you use the system over days and weeks.

Browser/mail... well, that's a given. Any OS that doesn't have these is just a non-starter.
Image editing - yes, gimp and image magik are supported, but they have limitations for more serious photography uses. Not tried darktable - I have too much invested in Lightroom now...
Camera - it's other stuff like tethered shooting where Linux loses out
Printer - I have a Samsung CLX 2160. I gave up with CUPS and just shared it on a Windows PC - far easier as I wanted the one touch scan capability working too (it's a multi-function printer and you an press a scan-to button and it scans to your Documents folder).
Other machines - yup, *nix is good at that.
Modem - there will be ones that aren't supported :)
Office software - my biggest bugbear. Yes, they read (and write) MS Office files, but they do not present them on screen in the same way. I tried this last 6 or so months back. Just took a Word doc I had here and installed Libre Office. Front page was different, let alone differences throughout the rest of the document. For a WYSIWYG system, that's unacceptable.

Other issues I've had (I run Linux as the basis of my media centres on a number of PCs so these are media centric - I also run a few as servers of different kinds so normally have fewer issues with those as they run headless and run as LAMP servers or similar).
- Plug and play remote controls on Windows need specialist drivers compiled installed under Linux
- Flaky network stack drivers (realtek)
- Wifi cards causing micropauses in video playback (needed to be switched off in the BIOS)
- Poor support of anything but Nvidia for accelerated playback (don't do anything other than video playback)
- Various drivers that are of lower quality/higher CPU load on Linux than Windows

LC2 said:
Linux spent the first couple of years as an experiment in usenet land, you probably wouldn't have wanted to play with it unless you were a coder
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My first Linux install was on kernel 0.99E, which according to Wiki was released Dec 92/Jan 93... It was more stable than Win 3.11 which was the alternative!

I agree with your views though:

LC2 said:
Would I say people should all switch to Linux. Absolutely not.
Would I say that I can see a market share where people could. Absolutely.
Click to expand...

LC2 said:
I would probably just ssh in and run a terminal session
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Don't you do that now? That's how I administer most of the Windows PCs I have here. Install cygwin and get the best of both worlds ;)
 
LCPete said:
Interesting , it does look like its a computer hobby type thing to play around with if you know what you're doing certainly not for someone like myself:)
Click to expand...

Agreed in essence, I think you need to differentiate between those who use computers for fun or as a hobby and those who use them as a tool to complete a task.
 
arad85 said:
But the devil is in the detail. And you only find those out as you use the system over days and weeks.

Browser/mail... well, that's a given. Any OS that doesn't have these is just a non-starter.
Image editing - yes, gimp and image magik are supported, but they have limitations for more serious photography uses. Not tried darktable - I have too much invested in Lightroom now...
Camera - it's other stuff like tethered shooting where Linux loses out
Printer - I have a Samsung CLX 2160. I gave up with CUPS and just shared it on a Windows PC - far easier as I wanted the one touch scan capability working too (it's a multi-function printer and you an press a scan-to button and it scans to your Documents folder).
Other machines - yup, *nix is good at that.
Modem - there will be ones that aren't supported :)
Office software - my biggest bugbear. Yes, they read (and write) MS Office files, but they do not present them on screen in the same way. I tried this last 6 or so months back. Just took a Word doc I had here and installed Libre Office. Front page was different, let alone differences throughout the rest of the document. For a WYSIWYG system, that's unacceptable.

Other issues I've had (I run Linux as the basis of my media centres on a number of PCs so these are media centric - I also run a few as servers of different kinds so normally have fewer issues with those as they run headless and run as LAMP servers or similar).
- Plug and play remote controls on Windows need specialist drivers compiled installed under Linux
- Flaky network stack drivers (realtek)
- Wifi cards causing micropauses in video playback (needed to be switched off in the BIOS)
- Poor support of anything but Nvidia for accelerated playback (don't do anything other than video playback)
- Various drivers that are of lower quality/higher CPU load on Linux than Windows

My first Linux install was on kernel 0.99E, which according to Wiki was released Dec 92/Jan 93... It was more stable than Win 3.11 which was the alternative!

I agree with your views though:



Don't you do that now? That's how I administer most of the Windows PCs I have here. Install cygwin and get the best of both worlds ;)
Click to expand...


I'm not going to disagree with anything you've said. You can usually get things going, and I was suprised at how much easier it was than even a few years ago (light years ahead of my first experiences using the 2.0.something kernel on a 486 as a router, fwadm firewall, mail server keeping my US Robotics 33.6 permenently connected to the net)

But many of the things you've highlighted are because software/hardware vendors just won't supply (and of course, if you were using Debian, you would refuse to use them even if they did ;) ) appropriate drivers.

Oh, and for remote access, I point people at a bit of software called aamyy. Mainly because 1/2 the time I'm asked to help someone, I've never been to their PC before, and wil not have set anything up, so a 1 click download and access solution, letting me see exactly what they are seeing, is really quite useful.
 
LC2 said:
But many of the things you've highlighted are because software/hardware vendors just won't supply (and of course, if you were using Debian, you would refuse to use them even if they did ;) ) appropriate drivers.
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I suspect the reason they are not provided it is due to extra cost in support for a very little extra market share. The fact is tough, they aren't there, so are real problems if you want to do those things. Although the Libre Office incompatibility is a real issue if you want to share documents with people who do use Microsoft products.
 
For the average home environment, Libre and Open office are more than good enough for letters and spreadsheets. Both of which will also round trip to MS formats if there is not too much graphics. I gave up round tripping Powerpoints that were graphics heavy. As they would mess up the objects. My local government went over to Open formats years ago. And other enlightened organisations are following suit.
 
ianp5a said:
For the average home environment, Libre and Open office are more than good enough for letters and spreadsheets.
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They are, but they are not 100% compatible. If you need to share more than a page or two of text, they are not fully compatible with Microsoft Office. That fact alone would stop me from using them.

BTW: I have never come across a commercial organisation that uses Open Office. I believe it is because the volume licensing of MS Office Suite is peanuts to larger organisations (as is the cost of copies for personal use by many employees at a little over media price). The adoption of Linux, or other Open Software, for commercial use is generally very complex though. The costs are not in the licensing, but in support, retraining and entry/exit costs (e.g. translating those old Word docs. so they do work in Open Office). It isn't a simple answer and I definitely wouldn't consider an organisation that moved to Open Software based purely on licensing costs one that is necessarily enlightened or making a mature decision.
 
I suspect that if you select the open xml format for saving MS Office 201* artifacts, rather than the version enhanced by proprietry additions, compatibility would be very good.

As a solution to keeping end of life machines going without upgrading significant components to allow an upgrade from XP to Windows 8 though, actually, something like the ubuntu or mint desktop distros will probably provide sufficient capability for a significant number of people. If you are a windows power user, with significant buy in (money & experience) to specific apps, then an upgrade from XP to something more modern, and supported is the way forward.
 
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arad85 said:
They are, but they are not 100% compatible. If you need to share more than a page or two of text, they are not fully compatible with Microsoft Office. That fact alone would stop me from using them.
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Yes. Although not an issue for most of home users.
arad85 said:
BTW: I have never come across a commercial organisation that uses Open Office. I believe it is because the volume licensing of MS Office Suite is peanuts to larger organisations (as is the cost of copies for personal use by many employees at a little over media price). The adoption of Linux, or other Open Software, for commercial use is generally very complex though. The costs are not in the licensing, but in support, retraining and entry/exit costs (e.g. translating those old Word docs. so they do work in Open Office). It isn't a simple answer and I definitely wouldn't consider an organisation that moved to Open Software based purely on licensing costs one that is necessarily enlightened or making a mature decision.
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Yes. In the case of my local government, back in 2003, they had to plan and test the migration of 10,000 PCs very carefully. They were already planning big investments in new macros and templates. So they had to decide which way to invest. But governments are in the lucky position of not having to be compatible with customers. They can define the format and expect suppliers to be able to read them. However this is all far away from the OP or average users situation..
 
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LC2 said:
I suspect that if you select the open xml format for saving MS Office 201* artifacts, rather than the version enhanced by proprietry additions, compatibility would be very good.
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I always try it on something I've been given by someone else and every time I've tried it, it has failed on the first file I opened. TBH, having to save the file in a different format is yet another case of the tail wagging the dog for Linux.... If Libre Office wants to replace what comes before, you need to be 101% compatible first.
 
ianp5a said:
But governments are in the lucky position of not having to be compatible with customers.
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Yup. Push the problem to someone else and then they just end up paying more when they are charged extra because they have a reduced supplier base and are special cased because they don't follow the Industry Standard... ;)
 
The change period is always like that for a while.
But the alternative is to continue to boost a monopoly forever.
 
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ianp5a said:
The change period is always like that for a while.
But the alternative is to continue to boost a monopoly forever.
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Monopoly? Hardly a monopoly, how may mac users do you think there is?

Then we've got the majority of people access the internet via phones and tablets. Suddenly monopoly seems rather an emotive word.
 
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