Hi,

May 28th, 2015 by Christine Hall;
Complete Story

I do not agree with the authors open statement in regard to UNIX & BSDs. My reason behind using Slackware is in that it is UNIX-like therefore no need for a paid license for using UNIX. I do like UNIX but I do not wish to pay a license fee.
Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

Nice listing of reasons to use Linux, and I agree with the author for the most part.

Linux is definitely much more of a "do it your own way" OS than most other available operating systems. Having been a Linux user for the last 15 or so, I still prefer it greatly over other operating systems. That said, it's great that we continue to have choices and I think each user should use whatever works best for them. Of course, they'll need to give other operating systems a fair trial to actually know what works best.

In the end, it would be really sad if all computer users should ever be forced to use any certain operating system.

I agree with the all but this one. Comparing apples to oranges. Each one has it's place. None are any more superior than the other, except the BSDs... I'm not entirely sure what they bring that could beat the others.

BSD are complete operating systems compared to Linux which is just a kernel & added software, (& not always the same software).
By this I mean BSD is complete in itself, kernel & userland, a complete system created together.

Playing the devil's advocate:
I don't get that it is a fact that Linux is better on the desktop because it powers the majority of the world's servers.

Furthermore, in her article she mentiones five reasons to support her statements. Although all her reasons are true and valid, desktop users usually couldn't care less. As long as they can interact with Fakebook(*) and they don't have to reinstall their system more than twice a year the average desktop user is not interested in what a good system is.

Maybe I should report this post for moving to the Windows vs Linux megathread

(*) While I write this, I am wondering how long it takes before the first Facebook computer is introduced on the market. In analogy to Chromebook: a computer only able to run Facebook and access evertyhing else only through Facebook,

jlinkels

1 members found this post helpful.

it's not the devil's advocate view, it's just reality. Despite for the craftsman who own a hammer only, so every problem looks like a ... (you know...)

I just spent the last day and a half changing a harddisk in my main laptop.
All bar 2 hours was for Win7 - the rest rearranging the (multiple) Linux distros to my (new) liking. THAT is why I use Linux.

The Win7 escapade was an exercise in frustration - and that was without having to get it re-validated, just backing up and restoring. Sheesh.

Reason #6 to use gnu/linux

I hate using Microsoft products

Here's one for you.

Easier to replace missing and corrupted files after badly written programs, like Adobe Acrobat Reader DC, decide to be a PITA and SOAB and crash the system, namely yesterday.

Just today on my main Windows Server (WS2012R2) I had to edit and change nearly half the permissions in C:\Windows\system32 to restore Taskmgr.exe from my WS2012R2 Installation Disk out of a .wim file that had to be pre-extracted with 7-zip, and then restore back all the permissions. The system file checker utility reported it but couldn't reinstall the application... NOT FUN!!! I'm actually posting this while sfc.exe cleans up the rest of the mess.

So much easier to remove a package and reinstall a package on Linux, especially like with Slackware that I use.

The primary reason for me is the fact that I NEVER have to contend with fixing my OS, or watch out for it being attacked, due to something simple like my daily habits.

The fact that there are zero problems like that is so much bliss that I've literally forgotten how refreshing it is.

It isn't necessarily true that "Linux has no license fees." Red Hat, Inc. charges for their support subscription ... and many corporations quite-willingly pay it. In any case, every operating system has some "cost of doing business," which should be a small fraction of the business-value received.

I suspect that the real "reason to use Linux" is ...that it works for you, on the computer(s) that you choose to run it on, better than any other alternative. The operating system is always the servant of whatever the computer "does for a living," merely existing to make that purpose possible.

Hi,

That is true for the user(s) that select Red Hat as their distribution. While others that choose a different community supported distribution will rely on the free will support of that particular distributions community support. Several distributions have good community support, I am partial to Slackware Gnu/Linux as my distribution. Slackware forum here at LQ is the official forum that provides a very informational forum therefore a helpful community to support user(s) that are in need of assistance.
Hope this helps.
Have fun & enjoy!

Personally, I've been using Linux on my systems for the past decade or so, and now I do things on it which would be difficult (impossible?) to do on windows. My old PC I run as a headless media/file server, which now runs an updated archlinux. I use a tv tuner card on it by running MPlayer and using the display on my laptop, which runs Fedora 21. All audio is networked through pulseaudio, and the PC runs mpd too, for which I have an app on my phone too. Both the systems boot amazingly fast, and run top notch. My laptop gives me 3.5 - 4 hours of battery life, and runs cooler too. Why would I use anything else? Plus I love the fact that the system is complete customizable. I choose what services run on my system, unlike windows. Really Linux is a fantastic operating system, and you can do things with it which would be difficult or impossible to do with any other system.

I found this image a while back... I think it's pretty accurate


[Mod note]Image within violates LQ Rule; Removed link to image for violation of LQ Rule.
[End mod note]

NEWBIE ALERT: That funky-looking string in the top isn't something you should just go around typing into terminals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Forkbomb

Note that by default, on most distros, a fork bomb won't work by default -> ulimit