Whichever suits you. There's no better OS. It's like football teams, car models, hair colors or drinks.




You are looking with the wrong lenses. So called "experts" use ALL the tools available, depending on which is the most adequate for a particular task. It's not strange that, in addition to graphical tools, they can also use text based ones when they are better suited for a given task, or simply the graphical alternatives are not available. Isn't it? Otherwise I don't see how could we call them "experts" if they are lost when a given tool fails and they know no alternative.

It's not a matter of being "GUI-phobic", it's a matter of using the best tool for a given purpose, that most times happens to be a command line based solution, might it be a command line program or a shell construct.

Why would anyone bother to search the pointer, move it, and click when two key presses (hint, aliases) are enough to do the same task is also beyond me. Not to speak about the possibility of a missclick, which will open the wrong window or menu making us lose our time.

Also, you might be surprised that some of us use the screen to watch at the open programs, and not to a desktop. I never see the background of my wm, except when it's booting. Once it loads and all the apps are loaded I don't see my wallpaper again until I close the wm to shut off my box). I know we could put this all into a panel, except that I don't use panels because I prefer to use the available space for something else.

As you see, it's not that trivial. Each one has his way to do the things, and there's no better way. Knowing how things work is never a bad thing, but you are not enforced to. You can use graphical desktops and no one stops you from doing so. But no one should stop me from using the command line if that's what I want. In Windows the functionality of the available shell is soooo limited that it's useless unless it's for very specific administration tasks.

In the mouse environment this would be translated into missclicks, except that you can prevent most of the typos by conveniently using the TAB completion.

That entirely depends on the application, and not in it being graphics or text based...




That's my view of the thing as well.

A tipical example of task that's much better done in a shell is batch processing. If I need to change a word on my whole web site, I just use something like

Or to make thumbnails:

Let me know how many thousands of clicks would you need (besides editing text boxes with sizes and numbers) in the gimp to do this.

For web browsing I use a mixed approach in firefox, where I can use the keyboard for many things (i'd like to use it a bit more by the way, but I don't stand vimperator).

If I was using a binary distro that'd probably be my choice as well, since I need an easy way to deal with source packages like ABS.

1 members found this post helpful.

Posted by Ann O'Nimuss:

Lakedude = Registered: Jun 2005

Quakeboy = Registered: Nov 2006

Not only have I been a member longer, I've been using Linux casually for years.

The latest version of Puppy (4.1) is just so fantastic it is worth being excited about. All kinds of new stuff in there, including DVD ripping/shrinking tools that were not there before.

That's right, Puppy, puppy, puppy. Puppy is the bees' bollocks. Let's hear it for Barry Kauler (he who is responsible for Puppy). Puppy does tell you what is going on, treats you like an intelligent person, yet without assuming that you understand tech-speak.

I think Linux is better than Windows, although it takes getting used to. Apart from Puppy, Fedora 9 is great. But, unfortunately, it's horses for courses. Some versions of Linux won't run on your computer, you might try a Linux version that other people say is brilliant and then it does not even get past first base with your PC. If you decide to use Linux, it is likely that there will be teething problems.

Well, well, Well

What I would say. The question itself is flawed! Linux & Windows? I don't understand how does Windows even come closer to the Linux or any Unix based OS, u talk about desktop applications or running low-high end servers!

Oh .... second thought!

Someone tell me, what the hell is WINDUHS!

It sure is! But lets make it better and "Popular"!

Date of forum registration means nothing. I only registered on the forum recently, yet I've been using Linux on and off since Red Hat 5 (i.e. before the split into RHEL and Fedora) and have been using different distros as my main OS since 2002.

This will answer your question.

Anyway, if you don't know what to get, buy a cat. Or a bike. Or something else. Seriously, why would anyone want to waste their time with computer? If you don't know what to pick - linux or windows, then you don't need both of them.

There were already several "gui vs. cli" threads. And people did provide arguments similar to yours. So what's the point in starting another similar discussion?

0 members found this post helpful.

you really reinstall that much? ive seens some windows 98 "workstation" pc's arround here /w no scandisk logs for over 2000 days.... (no it was not slow as hell :P)
plus on my windows xp sp3 install... i just run registery mechanic once in a while, yet i do have to admit, the restart needed for most updates... its succage :P

"U see... linux is far far more better than windows"
---this statement calls 4 a long debate.


if u are a hardcore gamer...if u have thousands of dollars ready to buy new cutting edge games
...have plenty of time to do nothing than play games
then i will strongly suggest u to be with windows..

otherwise 4 all other reasons i guess linux is way ahead of windows

i dont want to go in depth
plz visit this site http://www.whylinuxisbetter.net/

Well, then; that's different! Why didn't you say so in the first place? So, exactly which new things does it do that I can't do with Debian?

awesome website!!!

linux for life...

I have no idea since I don't run Debian. My guess would be that since Debian is a full size distro, nothing, or not much anyhow.

That said there are some things Puppy might do better or faster.

Puppy boots very fast, I'd bet faster than Debian but I'm not sure.

Puppy has great support for wireless making it easy to set up for a wireless network. My guess is your are smart enough to get wireless working with Debian but I'm not that smart. A good fraction of the reason I run Puppy and Sabayon is that they both worked perfectly with my hardware out of the box with no need to manually configure anything.

Being that Puppy is so lite and loads completely to RAM it may well be faster than Debian, but I can't be sure of that either.

I'm not trying to talk you out of your favorite distro. If Debian works for you great. If you think it would be better for me please explain why and I'll most likely try it.

It is totally relevant in this case because I was made to look like a noob who just discovered Linux.

This is not the case. I've been playing with Linux for many years.

Mandrake was the first distro I ever tried back in 2000 or so. Not wanting to leave the familiarity of Windows I abandoned Mandrake and gave up on Linux till I discovered the Live CD.

Knoppix 3.7 from CD and eventually from USB made it easy to try Linux with no hard drive commitment. I used 3.7 for years till I happened upon Puppy.

*At some point in here I converted 2 systems over to permanent Sabayon systems.

Puppy 3 was cool but I couldn't easily figure out how to install it to a USB key in spite of the Universal Installer.

Puppy 4 changed the wording the Universal Installer used making it easier to understand. I got Puppy 4 running from USB easy.

I used Puppy 4 for a while but it lacked DVD ripping/shrinking software and the ISO burner would only hit about 1.8x due to a buffer issue (evidently).

Enter Puppy 4.1.1 which is fast, easy to use, small to download, includes ripping shrinking software, and has the ISO burn speed bug fixed. It runs great from CD, USB or hard drive.


Now I'm excited and can't help but to want to spread the word.

The point being that Puppy 4.1.1 is the new thing (as of Nov 03, 2008), I'm not new at all.