Because Shiny Things Are Fun - The New New Windows v Linux Thread

@ sycamorex & soppy

Greatly appreciated for the quick replies.

Originally Posted by dv502 @ sycamorex & soppy Greatly appreciated for the quick replies.

No problem!! And I hope everyone had (or is having) a Merry Christmas!

Originally Posted by Larry Webb The main reason I do not use windows is the vulnerability to the malware...My post maybe behind the times though because the latest version of windows I used was XP.

Yes and no. Windows Vista/7 are more secure than XP, but there are usability issues that drive me crazy. Still, on security compared to Linux, Windows loses.

Originally Posted by brianL Originally Posted by TobiSGD You don't need to buy it, Microsoft offers a 90-day evaluation of Windows 7 Enterprise. I'm not even interested enough to try that.

I got a free non-eval disc with Windows Vista Business, and I'm not even interested enough to use that! (In fairness, I booted it once or twice.) Like other geeks, I was used to XP (I even preferred it to some of the first Linux distros I tried over 10 years ago), and I know how to secure my computer, so I didn't mind it as long as I used the "Pro" version. But there's not any reason to use Windows anymore unless you're a gamer, there is a particular app that has no compare (which I think is very rare), or you are forced to use it.

XP > 7

Vista was horrible...

Originally Posted by MTK358 I never say that Linux is like Windows. In fact, I say that you should prepare to relearn using a computer almost from scratch.

I would even say that many people who use Windows at home never learnt about their computer to begin with...and therein lies the problem. They don't know how to use their computer, they just know how to click stuff.

This is the result of a pre-installed operating system with no manual, only instructions to press the button on the front of the computer. No requirement for a password, no explanation of which users (Administrators!) you are about to create during Setup, no fold-out chart of basic security settings and where to find them, no explanation of what the Setup program does, not even a simple glossary telling you what the parts of your computer are.

I don't have to be a mechanic to buy a car, but I still know I need to change the oil, how often, and why. Windows users don't get a manual with their car. They aren't aware the car needs oil changes. In fact, most of them don't even know what oil is! Try to tell them, and they hold up their hands and say, "Oh, don't tell me all that, I'm not a mechanic. If I stick the key in the ignition, the car should 'just work.' Don't try to explain what a filter is, I don't care, I'm not a 'car person.' If the car stalls, I'll just buy a new car!"

Originally Posted by MTK358 That's one of the reasons I'm sticking to Arch. As a brand new distro independent of Debian or Red Hat, it has its own package manager, and it's much better. All it is is just a gzip or xz compressed tar archive of the files, plus a metadata file called .PKGINFO. That's it. No strange archive formats, no archives in archives, no multiple metadata files, just simple. Also, as opposed to Debian's dpkg, dpkg-dep, apt, apt-get, apt-cache, etc. there is just one utility: pacman.

I tried Arch Linux on an older laptop and I wasn't as impressed as I thought I would be from looking at their website. In fairness, this is mainly due to the reasons I tried it in the first place, and also partly due to time constraints.

To wit, I wanted to install certain software with tricky dependencies , so I needed a package manager. I love my Slackware, which has its own pm, too, like your Arch. But the software isn't available as a package except some distros I don't want to use. Mainly, I didn't want to use a distro with many of the package formats you mentioned, for lack of portability (I like compiling from source). I found out I couldn't get an Arch package, either. The software is available for Windows, but that laptop is too slow for Windows, while my main laptop has Slackware (just the way I like it) and not enough room for dual-boot, at least not if I store all my video and audio and development stuff on it!

Unfortunately, I really did not like pacman very much at all. Some of my other reasons for trying Arch were it might be more optimized for this old, slow laptop, and because I didn't want to waste multiple CDs to burn an entire Linux series, but the laptop is so old the drive has problems often with rewriteable DVD-RWs where all my stuff is stored and even my Linux DVD-Rs and discs with Windows Service Packs. I wasted a bunch of CD/DVD-Rs seeing if it liked different media better. I felt Arch would not take as long for a network install as some other distros, but I could be wrong.

Also, with Arch, X would not start by default (I think because I needed to do more research on the exact Intel CPU) and I just didn't have time to deal with it. I may very well try Arch again...it intriguges me and I like its philosophy. If I get X working and so be able to see all the websites, I can experiment with the dependencies for this software compared to Slackware. Or then again, I may try some other distro on the old laptop.

So probably I tried Arch for a combination of good and bad reasons (good: it will probably run faster; bad: the DVD drive can't read my Slackware or other Linux DVDs). Now that I have a new DVD drive, I need to install it and try some other Linux DVDs. I really don't want to network-install every distro just to try it!

But then again, like I said, I really liked the design philosophy of Arch. Maybe if I dual-boot Arch and some other Linux that I hate (can't even fit Windows as a second OS on that old thing), I can use the software for a time on the other distro while I try to work out the Arch Xorg problem again, and then see if I have more luck solving dependency issues on Arch so as to install the software program from source. Otherwise that computer has to keep using Windows for some time...it's slow but I can use the software. It's soooo slow, though! (I suppose I should un-install the firewall and antivirus and never connect it to the Internet for now!)

My main issue was the Xorg and lack of time to fix it. Maybe if I could get X working the package-manager pacman wouldn't annoy me so much. It's been a month, at least, since then...I can't even remember what it was about the package manager I didn't like. Maybe I was just too annoyed at the combination of my problems. The new DVD drive removes one obstacle from the picture, at least!

Probably, I should have worked on this somewhat today. But you know how it is when you're stuffed full of Christmas food! I could have conked out for half the day. That's alright...this big snowstorm is conveniently coming on my days off, so I can sit all warm and cozy in my house , and just hammer away at this stuff!

Originally Posted by easuter Windows has many more remote exploit vulnerabilities, while Linux's exploits ususally require physical access to the machine.

Well, that rules out most people right there. Again, though, it's different in a corporate environment...many people have physical access, servers are running services for the public or at least a large network.

Even so, we are lacking Linux viruses! It's one thing to have a "vulnerability," which is merely potential. It's quite another to spread a virus outside one's own home or lab!

Like another person said, many exploits get patched right away, not weeks or months later as with Micro$oft. That is the beauty of open-source...many people around the world testing alpha or beta software/OS, free to diagnose it, and fix it immediately!

Originally Posted by tiredofbilkyyaforallican MOST computers come with windoze straight from the manufacturers basically because they have to or M$ will raise hell!...Even Dell tried to distribute Linux and M$ got the government to step in and slap a huge surtax on them just for NOT using M$ software!

The government slapped a surtax on Dell? I don't think so. Unless I missed some news, I think you are confusing this with the licensing fees Microsoft charges all computer manufacturers (if they use Windows), but which they charge per computer, and whether Windows is installed on any individual computer or not, because it is a contractual agreement by which the price of Windows to the manufacturer is kept artificially low. Otherwise, the manufacturer pays much more per computer.

No better way to force a backdoor "surcharge" on a company than a contractural agreement...when only the ones who sign the contract get the "discount."

Do I understand the real issue correctly, folks?

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn And how did you *hate* (Microsoft) ME?

Thank God ME went away. I was going to design a new calendar to include an 8th day of the week, "BSODday." Maybe we wouldn't mind BSOD so much if we could depend on it, hmm?

Originally Posted by Kenny_Strawn I better go edit that post to remove the link to the bug.

No, no, I like it!

Originally Posted by leopard I found the ideal laptop for Jeebizz. http://cgi.ebay.com/Toshiba-Satellit...item255f938805 Just kidding, .

Geez, I should have bought a whole new laptop instead of a new DVD drive!

But I got this laptop and it would be a waste to just throw it away if I can make use of it, or sell it to someone else who also doesn't have a need for resource-intensive applications.

I think I have a disease. It's called "don't-throw-away-itis," and for some reason, it spreads more quickly among nerds. Something in the genes, maybe!

Originally Posted by soppy I hate when Windows Updates. I really don't know what it is deciding to install and half of the time the update fails to continue after it installs, asks me to reboot and goes to "Stage 3 of configuring". So it then takes 20 more minutes to reload the Windows Backup and then finally I'm back at my desktop. But oh wait!!! New updates are available!! Let's try again!!!

That made me laugh! Personally, I only rarely had this problem on my home computers (which had XP, mind you), but on the custom-built Dell machines at school, updates caused problems all the time. However, the school machines were running Vista, so maybe that was the problem. I did my internship in the lab, and I can remember a couple days in a row where all I did was run back and forth between 25 computers rebooting, clicking messages, and starting updates over again! (Not to mention we had to track them all on the whiteboard so the next person would know where you were at.)

Originally Posted by MTK358 The only Linux update that require a reboot to take effect is the kernel itself.

That's not strictly true. I know because I had to reboot Linux after installing Apache to get rid of "cannot bind to port" errors, and then after building PHP/installing libphp5.so to get rid of "undefined symbol" errors.

Reboots are pretty darned rare, though!

Originally Posted by ShellyCat That's not strictly true. I know because I had to reboot Linux after installing Apache to get rid of "cannot bind to port" errors, and then after building PHP/installing libphp5.so to get rid of "undefined symbol" errors. Reboots are pretty darned rare, though!

Everything that you cannot restart and unload from RAM must be rebooted for the update to take effect. The only thing I've ever known I can't do that to is the Kernel. You should've been able to unload Apache then reload. Unless the error was in the kernel that was running. Who knows though, its over. I think Ubuntu actually has some service that when you update the kernel you don't need a reboot? I remember reading that somewhere that it replaces the kernel in RAM with the updated version. Maybe I'm just going crazy though. Haha.

As for Arch, I think I am going back to Slackware (ignore the Vista icon for this post. xD) because pacman has been irritating me lately. Plus, I feel I've gotten lazy. I love how with Slackware I had to compile everything, with Arch, it's a simple "sudo pacman -S blah-blah-blah". It's made me install things I've never known were available, but I probably have a lot of cleaning to do (dependencies, ha!). I'll get on Slackware once this blizzard passes and I can get new blank CDs for gParted Live. (We've had 10 inches of snow in the past 4 hours. And it never snows where I live in Virginia...) But Arch is very easy to set-up ShellyCat! Did you follow the guide? (Even though I'm an experienced Linux user, I still used the Beginner's Guide on their Wiki.) At first I had troubles with X, but once I edited my configuration, it worked perfectly.

Anyways, back to Windows vs. Linux, as you can see I'm on Vista (yea, I know...) but frankly I'm happy with it. It does what I need it to do, and for the most part stays out of my way. There are 2 things that bug me the most though...
1. Why can't Microsoft bundle updates together?? When I reinstalled Vista (I need Windows for school sooo...) it defaulted to SP1. To get to SP2, I had to install hundreds of 100-500kb "updates" at a time and restarted my computer like 5 times then finally it offered to install SP2. Seriously Microsoft??? We're in the 21st century. Bundle it and save me some time.
2. Windows Live Mail (I prefer it over Thunderbird and stuff) constantly tells me that it's still running. And I angrily click on the button and scream in my head "I KNOW!!!" I haven't seen a way to turn it off, but when I selected that I wanted it to minimize to tray and then I perform the action, I don't need it to say "Hey! I'm running!!!".

Oh, and who has tried the newest Internet Explorer? I recently did, and it refused to load any webpage. So much for improvements. xD It kept crashing when I tried Google, Yahoo, Facebook, everything. I think I'll stick with Chrome.