Thinking of switching to Linux.

[LordFerret]

1 minute ago, Kernel Kraken said:

You dang kids with yer fancy windows ten and yer whoosy- what it phones and yer over- restrictive operating systems! Back in my day we manually put punchcards into the computer lab! Bah, disrespectful kids...

 

I have no idea if the statistic is true still today, but at one point in time, as 'popular' and touted as Windows was, nearly every network file server you ran across (on the web as well) was running Linux (or some blend of Unix).

[YNM]

9 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

There was no switch. If anything, the switch was my being 'forced' to work with Windows because that's where everyone went in the process of being led about by the nose.

... which continues to work...

You can still do Windows like it was CP/M.

2 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

but at one point in time, as 'popular' and touted as Windows was, nearly every network file server you ran across (on the web as well) was running Linux (or some blend of Unix).

Still true I think.

It also can be explained by the two's different history - DOS came from microcomputer.

10 minutes ago, Kernel Kraken said:

... yer over- restrictive operating systems! 

... Might be safer than otherwise.

 

[steve_v]

10 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

why did yos guys switch to Linux? What do you think the biggest advantage over windows is?

1) Because I got annoyed with Windows '95/'98 crashing all the time, and someone gave me Slackware.
2) Freedom, flexibility, and the Unix philosophy...

2a)
Choice, both in huge quantities of free software (both kinds), and in how you use it. Modularity everywhere. Access to source code for everything.

Freedom to fix things that irritate you, and to freely share those improvements. Complete lack of the abhorrent "pirate until proven otherwise" and "Microsoft knows best" mentalities found in commercial software.

Powerful automation and a hacker friendly environment - the command line is a full-featured script interpreter, and a compiler, toolchain and documentation are usually installed by default.
As a wise man once said: "Learning to hack on windows is like learning to dance in a straitjacket."

Interoperability and a lack of walled-gardens. Where Windows supports only 2 filesystems, both developed by Microsoft, GNU/Linux supports everything. Microsoft tries to dictate terms, GNU/Linux just tries to make things work.

Transparency. Error messages are plain english, not hex codes that only Microsoft can decipher, system processes are discrete programs that can be run and interrogated individually. No "svchost.exe" chewing on your CPU for no apparent reason while producing no debug output, and "Please wait" is generally accompanied by an explanation as to why.

Package managers that can cleanly uninstall software. No crapware that requires a third-party tools to remove, no registry, no registry cleaners, no "PC-tuneup" no fragile and unreliable MSI. Updates that work.

No crippleware - every GNU/Linux distro can do everything it should do, without paying for the "pro" or "server" editions to have basic functionality like RAID unlocked. A complete toolkit available from day-one, no searching for paid (or adware) solutions for simple tasks like network backups or mounting a CD image.

GNU/Linux runs on everything, from supercomputing clusters to IP cameras and smartwatches. Learn one OS, and use it everywhere.

The GNU coreutils and related tools. Because awesome CLI tools are awesome.

Plenty of other good things that I've become too accustomed to to remember right now.

 

 

4 hours ago, HebaruSan said:

I still pop open a terminal when I need to do something with files

Likewise. I was using GNU/Linux when graphical desktops were a luxury, and on hardware that couldn't afford it. Now I just find the command line faster and easier, especially if I want to automate something.
I have never understood this modern need for a clicky GUI for everything - DOS worked fine, Unix CLI still works fine, yet people react as though text interfaces are some kind of voodoo.

 

Edited April 26, 2018 by steve_v

[Geonovast]

5 hours ago, steve_v said:

I have never understood this modern need for a clicky GUI for everything

I get it.  Up until the last few years, I didn't do anything without a GUI.  Even my first year or so in Linux, the terminal was a little scary.  If you grew up with DOS, I understand where you're coming from.  But growing up with Windows, GUI was just how things were done.

I'm pretty comfortable at the command line now, although still pretty limited on what I can do from lack of schooling/experience.  So while I'm perfectly fine messing around in MySql at the terminal, I'm also pretty glad I have DBeaver sitting around (which lets me manage two MySql servers and an MSSQL server all at the same place.)

[LordFerret]

6 hours ago, steve_v said:

I have never understood this modern need for a clicky GUI for everything - DOS worked fine, Unix CLI still works fine, yet people react as though text interfaces are some kind of voodoo.

Because the mouse, the most counter-productive tool ever invented, became easy to use for those who couldn't type or spell. And despite all the efforts to move away from text anything, here we are in the 21st century using crap like Twitter... which if you take time to examine it, still shows that people can't type and most definitely cannot spell to save their lives (non-native English speakers exempt of course!).

 

[YNM]

9 minutes ago, LordFerret said:

non-native English speakers exempt of course !

 

[Nuke]

On 4/26/2018 at 5:43 AM, LordFerret said:

Because the mouse, the most counter-productive tool ever invented, became easy to use for those who couldn't type or spell. And despite all the efforts to move away from text anything, here we are in the 21st century using crap like Twitter... which if you take time to examine it, still shows that people can't type and most definitely cannot spell to save their lives (non-native English speakers exempt of course!).

 

its better than touch screens. 

[YNM]

5 hours ago, Nuke said:

its better than touch screens. 

Phones are great (still love keypad phones though) but I'll never get behind a touchscreen laptop, unless it's also a tablet or if you're a cartoonist.

[LordFerret]

I wanted this laptop, but I couldn't get it without the touch screen. So I've disabled the screen. It was most annoying; M'Lady would come up and point at something I had on the screen, and invariably touch the screen, and 99% of the time what she touched was a link ..... and you know how the rest of it goes.

[Nuke]

13 hours ago, YNM said:

Phones are great (still love keypad phones though) but I'll never get behind a touchscreen laptop, unless it's also a tablet or if you're a cartoonist.

i think its a mistake to keep calling them that. the odd combination of computer and radio has long since transcended phoneness. even calling it a smart phone doesnt make much sense, when has a computer ever been smart? 

Edited April 28, 2018 by Nuke

[HebaruSan]

On 4/25/2018 at 9:45 PM, HebaruSan said:

• Ability to change the window manager (I use XMonad because I like Haskell)

Update: I have switched to GNOME Shell on a trial basis. The initial lure for me was the "header bars" that started to appear in the GNOME apps I was using in my previous environment, since they seemed to support more modern application design than "File Edit View Window Help" menus, etc. I have come to appreciate the "activities overview" a lot; it crams all the window management functionality I need (workspaces, apps bar, app search, window summary) into one easy to access place that stays out of the way by default. And the animations and other visual effects make it feel complete and polished, with none of the corner-case glitches that I had gotten used to under XMonad.

[Kernel Kraken]

On 4/26/2018 at 1:53 AM, steve_v said:

"Learning to hack on windows is like learning to dance in a straitjacket."

Well shoot, I messed up on trying to learn how to ethically invade foreign devices on principles of software.

I can't figure out how to imbed images, so insert a 'why is the FBI here's meme here.

[steve_v]

14 hours ago, Kernel Kraken said:

invade foreign devices

Wrong definition.

Edited June 4, 2018 by steve_v

[Kernel Kraken]

On 6/4/2018 at 1:37 AM, steve_v said:

Wrong definition.

Wrong Definition.