The Computer science and operating systems Megathread!

[sal_vager]

Welcome computer scientists

This thread is for discussion of the many uses of Linux, BSD, Windows, OSX and any other OS in the pursuit of scientific discovery, of software available on these platforms for conducting science at home, of experiments with hardware and software to do interesting and new things, and general chat about how these OS's are for us and our experiences with them.

So tell us what you use and why, how you got started and what things you do with your OS that sets you apart from the mainstream computer users.

Ultimately the software we use and what we do with it is more important than the platform we are on, that's why this thread is open to all, if it's a computer and you can do science on it, you can talk about it here

[gta-man]

I'll get into the Software Engineer carrer next year, i'll keep an eye on this thread for sure.

[Mars90000000]

Well, I'm studying Chemical Engineering. So i find myself doing a lot of simulations using chemicals. Environment simulations (such as water and ethanol mixture at high pressure and low temperature behaves how?) and what not. So for those type of simulations, I'd use a program called Aspen HYSYS.

In terms of "doing science", it's mostly doing science in real life, collecting data, and analyzing the data using software and extrapolate to other situations. If that comes in the category of "doing science" then i'd mostly be using Matlab or Mathworks, or writing my own simulation codes using C++ or C or FORTRAN.

If it's 3D modelling that I want to do. I'd be using Google Sketchup (for quick, crude, models), AutoCAD (for more sophisticated and precise models, also time consuming), or SolidWords (for modelling and animations of models).

[sal_vager]

Sounds very interesting Mars90000000, and yes, that would be "doing science"

Thanks for sharing that.

[Radion]

I use all 4 Windows versions of the 21st Century, XP, Vista, 7, and 8. I also use Linux (Ubuntu). Ultimately, I use XP, 7, and 8 because they're light, fast, and have a variety of software available to them (at risk of sounding like an advert here). Vista I use because I don't feel like upgrading, and its works quickly on my laptop, so I just go with it.

I use my various computers for different things -

XP - Spreadsheets, data storage/creation, classic gaming - I do a lot spreadsheeting that sometimes I don't like putting on Google Drive, so I put it on XP because I can do it quickly and easily, and its as so far safer for the spreadsheets to be there than stored on my laptops or my other desktop, since this little desktop is secluded in a corner of my room, away from my little brothers who might try and break it.

Vista - Gaming. Not so much a unique use, but its one that I enjoy doing. I also use Vista for general internetting and the occasional 3D model. However, since its a laptop, I don't do as many things on it because of its limited hard drive capacity (RAM is perfectly fine, although quickly becoming out of date). I also use this one for school. Since its the 8th grade, I can't say I do much complex science on it, but I try from time to time to run something complex on it.

7 - 3D modeling is a big one on 7. Because its much faster than my Vista machine at starting-up and getting out to go, and it also has a much greater memory capacity than the laptop, I use it for 3D modeling in Blender. This is the only computer I can use effectively with Blender Cycles engine, mostly because it runs quite a bit faster using GPU render than CPU render. Here, I do the majority of my artwork, projects, and models. On occasion, I'll use it for gaming, but since I have the gaming laptop for that, I normally don't tend to. As far computer science goes, does website administration count? This is where I do the majority of that.

8 - Testing. I like testing, its fun, so I often try to test programs on my old laptop running Windows 8 Developer/Consumer preview. The developer preview inexplicably wound up never turning back on again, so I just installed the Consumer preview over it. It's a dual boot with Ubuntu, so I get the best of light and commercial software.

[thermobaric]

I also use(d) a lot of Operating Systems. 1 month ago i tried Ubuntu.. i loved it but there is just allot of things what windows has and ubuntu doesnt. Like.. KSP! And other games. Also programs like Photoshop and Unity.

[sal_vager]

These days I use my Xubuntu laptop to aid my astronomy, using the Stellarium planetarium program which is available on the three major platforms so most people can try it out.

It helps me find what direction to start looking in, and I can match what I see through binoculars or with my naked eyes to what I see on the screen, making it easy to find out what I'm actually looking at

[zerox22x]

on both of my laptops i use windows 7 , however i do have virtual machines running windows xp , windows 8, ReactOs, aswell as an usb drive set up to boot too ubuntu, linux mint and several rescue iso`s

[nhnifong]

I've got a computer science degree, but all it taught me was that academia is 20 years behind the curve and it doesn't matter any more in this field.

[Rich]

First and foremost I use Windows 7 on my laptop, basically something friendly for web browsing and writing. If I need to do any serious work I use whatever distribution of Linux I happen to have on hand, currently I use Fedora in a virtual machine or Debian on various workstations.

It has been a long standing goal of mine to apply computing to science, and it is only recently that I have started to realise this aim. This opportunity came in the form of a learning exercise based around a well established fluid dynamics simulation. The goal of this exercise was to improve the simulation, so that it was amenable to run on multiple cores. When this was completed, the execution of the simulation was reduced from several minutes to under a minute. While this was interesting in its self, the really interesting part is the visualisation of the simulation, which shows the effect of a fluid flowing past a cylinder:

The white areas represent areas of high angular velocity. This effect can in fact be seen in nature, as shown by the following picture from Wikipedia of an air flow past some Chilean islands.

[LukeTim]

Being a Computer Systems Engineer I am sort of half Computer Scientist half Electronic Engineer... so I guess I belong in this thread.

I use Windows 8 on my PC, which I have hooked up to a Monitor in my living room (next pay day I am getting a 40" LCD-LED, though... then I'll really be set up)... the new UI on Win8 really suits the media PC... Plus, programming in VS whilst sitting on my sofa is actually surprisingly comfortable.

I do also have Windows Vista and Win7 installed on separate Hard Disks in my PC, but I suspect they won't get much attention now I have Win8... which I just learned this evening has PowerShell installed by default, which is awesome.

On my little netbook I do have Windows 7 Starter Edition installed but I tend to use Lubuntu because it's so much faster... How they can sell netbooks with Windows 7 installed when the little things can barely boot into it is beyond me... and this is with a 2GB RAM upgrade... plus, with Lubuntu I have stuff like GCC which makes it easy to do some C programming when I get bored... if I tried on Windows the whole thing would probably lock up when trying to compile Hello World. At the moment I am trying to implement my own audio codec... just for fun.

[phoenix_ca]

These days I use my Xubuntu laptop to aid my astronomy, using the Stellarium planetarium program which is available on the three major platforms so most people can try it out.

It helps me find what direction to start looking in, and I can match what I see through binoculars or with my naked eyes to what I see on the screen, making it easy to find out what I'm actually looking at

Ahhhhh, I love Stellarium. It was one of the first programs I tried when I first installed Ubuntu (and then Kubuntu, because having the dock thingy on the left side was driving me crazy). I grew up in a rural area where I could see the stars at night, and it's about the only thing I miss about living in the middle of nowhere now that I live in the city. Stellarium lets me take a gander at what the sky would look like. (It'd be really awesome to project that view on the ceiling at night.)

I'm not a computer scientist by any stretch of the imagination, but I do have my preferences to where I do my "real work". Whenever I need to handle serious business, it isn't done on Windows. I just...can't stand the command-line. Drives me bonkers. Apple's hardware might come at a premium, but for the most-part, forcing some standards on developers when it comes to GUI design results in a much better user experience (or so I've found). That and if someone took away my bash, I'd probably cry like a baby. Most of my "serious work" is multimedia stuff; photographs and some video, which is demanding on myself and the system. I need the OS to work and work well, and Windows' various...quirks, have often been an impediment for me in the past.

Also... <3 Python. Just saying. >.>

[Plaatinum Aerospace]

I really enjoy my Win7 PC..... even thought it is a ThinkPad T60 and is probably not supposed to have Win7, anyway, I'm thinking of getting a new computer soon, one that is a everyday-use kind of thing, but can at least run KSP v0.17 on NORMAL settings... Does anyone have any ideas? Oh, PS, I'd like a Windows PC. Thanks!

[umbra humanus]

Why does windows have a monopoly on the desktop market. Linux is much better, and more secure. If you don't mind being spied on by apple Mac is quite a good, and easy to maintain OS.

[Vanamonde]

It doesn't matter if a thread is old. Stick to the subject, please. "Necromoaning" will be removed. 

[Nuke]

wow thats old.

i want to see new dos games.

the operating system has become the worst part of modern computing, trying to do things i dont need it to do. windows becomes a trojan, linux continues to linux. its improved but many distros are suffering the bloat problem too. remember when proprietary used to be a four letter word? now everything is a code blob and nobody seems to care. reactos released a new version, at this rate it will be ready to run the control software at fusion power plants by the time its in beta. exotic operating system have the same problem that linux does, in that you wont be using cutting edge hardware. im not totally against paid operating systems, so long as the customer calls the shots. would love ms to start selling the ltsc versions to home builders.

Edited Thursday at 09:48 PM by Nuke

[StrandedonEarth]

1 hour ago, Nuke said:

wow thats old.

i want to see new dos games.

the operating system has become the worst part of modern computing, trying to do things i dont need it to do. windows becomes a trojan, linux continues to linux. its improved but many distros are suffering the bloat problem too. remember when proprietary used to be a four letter word? now everything is a code blob and nobody seems to care. reactos released a new version, at this rate it will be ready to run the control software at fusion power plants by the time its in beta. exotic operating system have the same problem that linux does, in that you wont be using cutting edge hardware. im not totally against paid operating systems, so long as the customer calls the shots. would love ms to start selling the ltsc versions to home builders.

Back in the Win98 days I wished for a “GameOS” that would load the necessary drivers for the hardware and a basic GUI and that’s it. All system resources would be devoted to running the game. 

[AckSed]

Honestly, give me a console that could connect a keyboard and run a web browser, and it'd cover a lot of my use-cases. The Steam Deck pretty much is that.

[Nuke]

2 hours ago, StrandedonEarth said:

Back in the Win98 days I wished for a “GameOS” that would load the necessary drivers for the hardware and a basic GUI and that’s it. All system resources would be devoted to running the game. 

thats why dos games used to be so awesome. especially if you had a voodoo card, which i did (ive owned 3). thats the point at which pc really started outdoing consoles. i kind of want to do some dos programming. but the big problem is no real way to take advantage of modern hardware. i dont even think you can allocate more than 4gb of ram in dos, and that requires a memory manager. and no gpu drivers either. freedos 1.4 came out recently (reading some of the utilities, looks like they do have a mm that can do >4gb, looks like there are also usb drivers now). gonna have to mess with that one day. its been a good 20 years since i had a dedicated dos machine.

any purely 64-bit dos-alike is usually designed to run in a vm, which is kind of unfortunate if you want a slim os that works with modern hardware. even a slim linux distro seems overkill if you just want to run some game code.

2 hours ago, AckSed said:

Honestly, give me a console that could connect a keyboard and run a web browser, and it'd cover a lot of my use-cases. The Steam Deck pretty much is that.

the amount of stuff you can do in just a web browser is pretty impressive. though i still prefer local software.