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  LiveWire / Technical Forums / MacOS vs. Windows vs. Linux / Viewing Topic

why switch to linux?
i'm not familiar with it
Replies: 29Last Post July 5, 2004 2:25pm by mephisto mortis
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( OzX )


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?

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9:55 pm on May 30, 2003 | Joined: Feb. 2003 | Days Active: 610
Join to learn more about OzX Colorado, United States | Straight Male | Posts: 1,520 | Points: 10,370
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AndreBSD

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Well, if you dont know why youd want to switch to it, then dont switch :P...

Now id actualy recommend BSD over Linux/GNU Distros, as BSD is easyer for me and well it still runs Linux/GNU programs anyway. As for why i use it? well I do some software programing, I personaly dont trust windows with any important data as I pretty much grew up with *nix; and non microsoft os's... used amigas for quite some time; so windows was never realy a personal favorite for me.
I do think windows assumes alot (*nix doesnt), I dont realy like that.. I want to say; heres a video card that i just put in.. let me set it to my exact settings, and not have windows assume im useing a monitor that can take 800x600.. if im running it on a tv thats going to look best in 320x240. So yeah, thats pretty much why i use BSD.. linux can do the same stuff ofcourse, i just never found linux to be easy as people say.

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10:35 pm on May 30, 2003 | Joined: April 2003 | Days Active: 73
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XxCrazyDawg69xX


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what is linux?

12:45 am on May 31, 2003 | Joined: Jan. 2003 | Days Active: 788
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AndreBSD

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Linux is a kernel developed by Linus Torvalds. Linux/GNU Distrobutions are then an operating system that works on your computer.

People always just say Linux as the operating system; I still dont realy get why they do that... as if everyone rightaway said, hey.. I use "Mandrake 8.0 [Linux/GNU Distro]" Then you dont get people in chat saying stuff like "Linux 8.0 doesnt exist" (and it doesnt).. or "What Linux/GNU Distro are you using then?"

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11:08 am on May 31, 2003 | Joined: April 2003 | Days Active: 73
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Well it is an Operating system thought isnt it!

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3:23 pm on May 31, 2003 | Joined: Sep. 2002 | Days Active: 1,036
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vidchi


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I seem to find FreeBSD harder than Redhat (obviously because Redhat easily probes and configurates your hardware automatically, thus there isn't much of a learning curve). I like Linux more as a desktop operating system, but most BSDs are not for desktops. Most BSDs are for servers, for the exception of Mac OS X. Mac OS X, an operating system based off the Mach, I prefer it over Linux simply because there is no learning curve and it offers the power of unix. If freebsd was any easier than mac os x i'd probably use it, otherwise i'd stick with linux.

6:47 pm on June 13, 2003 | Joined: June 2003 | Days Active: 2
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AndreBSD

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Quote: from vidchi at 6:47 pm on June 13, 2003

I seem to find FreeBSD harder than Redhat (obviously because Redhat easily probes and configurates your hardware automatically, thus there isn't much of a learning curve). I like Linux more as a desktop operating system, but most BSDs are not for desktops. Most BSDs are for servers, for the exception of Mac OS X. Mac OS X, an operating system based off the Mach, I prefer it over Linux simply because there is no learning curve and it offers the power of unix. If freebsd was any easier than mac os x i'd probably use it, otherwise i'd stick with linux.

Well you mention no learning curve for OSX and offering the power of unix... well inorder to actualy realy use the unix part, your going to have to learn something. Generaly if your sitting there just using the thing, it doesnt mater that unix runs behind it (and simply using the computer, isnt realy using the power of unix, lol); other than being more stable and in some cases quicker.
As for Redhat probing your hardware, well FreeBSD does the same thing, just not as graphical as Redhat.. when you install Redhat itll in a gui ask what you want done. With FreeBSD after the os is installed, and while still in /stand/sysinstall you can configure most anything; but you dont have a mouse to do it with (other than configuring X server, witch does have a gui setup)
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Well it is an Operating system thought isnt it!

Well no, if you just take the linux kernel and slap it on a computer, theres no way thats going to do you any good.. as you cant just boot the kernel itself and bring up a terminal or gui.

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7:34 pm on June 13, 2003 | Joined: April 2003 | Days Active: 73
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Starji


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To the origional question, basically you switch to linux if you want some flexibility on how your comptuer works, than and if you don't like selling your soul to M$ (which isn't horribly far from the truth either).  

As far as your distro is concerned, that's up to you.  Generally if you play around with the linuxes as much as I have you tend to find that some are more restrictive than others (Red Hat for instance and their RPM package management formats can make things VERY restrictive).  

And on the BSD vs Linux thing, FreeBSD makes a great server, but not as good as a desktop OS.  I noticed when running X on FreeBSD it was consistantly using 10% of my processor for no apparent reason, and linux doesn't do that.  Mabye there was a misconfiguration but I thought that was unacceptable.  


10:58 pm on June 17, 2003 | Joined: Dec. 2001 | Days Active: 190
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LOLatMe


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Quote: from OzX at 10:55 pm on May 30, 2003

?

Because you'll be 1337 if you do.  And you'll get to be a part of the community.  (Of pasty white nerds living in their parents' garages).  And you'll get to be "cool" and replace the S in Microsoft with a dollar sign.  Because you're "cool."  And Micro$oft obviously isn't.

I'm sorry.  Well, back to Slashdot I go. :D

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8:51 pm on June 26, 2003 | Joined: Nov. 2002 | Days Active: 260
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doctorcfaz


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the newer versions of mandrake and redhat are really pretty user friendly...there is a learning curve, but if you consider yourself reasonably techie you should be fine...

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11:41 pm on June 26, 2003 | Joined: May 2003 | Days Active: 90
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And they are both real fun to play around with... just stay well out of root.....

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Missing you Clairey xxx

5:43 pm on July 4, 2003 | Joined: Sep. 2002 | Days Active: 1,036
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WhiteDwarf

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I'm a big Linux fan...Linux is an open source Operating system allowing for very nifty configs in the kernal, also all the apps are open source too (GNU license) meaning if you have programming skills you can basically make the OS what you want...the FreeBSD saying "tools, not policy" meaning we provide you with what you want not a set of guidelines...so it's up to you....Windows is a singler user single process kind of OS, while Linux you can have several users logged into your computer running several background processes...it's very different...if you'd like a taste of what running a OS that is great for services, you can login to my FreeBSD shell account....and try it out...depending on your Wind0ze OS i'm assuming you have that...Start>Run>Command or cmd.exe depending on your OS> than whence the black box opens aka DOS (disk-operating-system) type in "telnet m-net.arbornet.org"  Telnet is a old yet useful client/server used for logging into computers..it is insecure though due to the fact if a person set up a packet sniffer on the network they could pick up your password...SSH is much more secure....my login is: whitney Password:andrew    ...there is nothing really on their i believe make sure you make use of the "man" command ;D

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12:49 am on July 15, 2003 | Joined: July 2003 | Days Active: 605
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ajm51987


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huh well it would not let me enter a password. Oh well...

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1:40 pm on July 16, 2003 | Joined: Oct. 2002 | Days Active: 1,751
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WhiteDwarf

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Didn't prompt you for a password?
hmmm, i just logged into it...username is "whitneyz" not sure i have about 100 shell accounts though...if you're interested ;)

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4:16 pm on July 16, 2003 | Joined: July 2003 | Days Active: 605
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pico


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linux is for geeks who like to make things hard on themselves and see MS as 'big brother' -

I admin 50 linux machines.  

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4:14 am on Aug. 9, 2003 | Joined: Aug. 2003 | Days Active: 9
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