Why Linux?

[mickb]

Hi There

Someday soon When I don't need the computer for work for a few days, i'll install my new 80gb hdd. If all goes well I will put xp on the 80gb and maybe try linux on my old 40gb.
The question is Why? I mean what is to be gained?
I have heard rave revues about the various versions/ distro's if that is the word. What I need to know is;-
Is it faster
Is it more reliable
Is it easy to learn ( If you've been used to win 95 98 and xp)
Will it run all my programs
I have heard that it is less vulnerable to virus attack for a number of reasons namely it is inherently a more secure system
Is it operated by command lines or is there an interface (gui) on some versions.
I like the sound of mandrake but don't want to have a system which becomes another microsoft os with all the annoying and unhelpful messages. Is mandrake a good system or just for the inexperienced?
As a novice I see linux as a basic functional os perhaps a skeletal system which requires more effort to use but will do the job without all the fuss. Is this a fair assessment?

Michael

[twistedcranium]

Originally Posted by mickb

Hi There

Someday soon When I don't need the computer for work for a few days, i'll install my new 80gb hdd. If all goes well I will put xp on the 80gb and maybe try linux on my old 40gb.
The question is Why? I mean what is to be gained?
I have heard rave revues about the various versions/ distro's if that is the word. What I need to know is;-
Is it faster

In some cases yes! It handles memory access differently and has a more efficient file system, which allows programs to run faster as their code is read from the disk into memory.

Is it more reliable

This is a definite yes! There are well documented cases of linux powered systems running for months without having to be restarted due to corruptions or crashes.

Is it easy to learn ( If you've been used to win 95 98 and xp)

Not if you're used to having everything done for you. It is however easy to learn if you have patience and don't mind reading more documentation and using the command line.

Will it run all my programs

NO!!! This is one of Linux's weak points. At the moment program support is way behind that of windows. While there are many equivalents of Windows applications availabe for linux, there is still a gap here.

I have heard that it is less vulnerable to virus attack for a number of reasons namely it is inherently a more secure system

This is true. Its not immune mind you, but a lot more secure than Windows. One of the keys here in linux as a user based system is that only the root (administrator) and a few special users are allowed to install programs. This keeps malware programs from installing themselves if the current user can't install programs. There are many other advantages here with linux security too.

Is it operated by command lines or is there an interface (gui) on some versions.

There are desktops available that give the system a nice clean GUI to operate in, and if you're not looking to experiment there are several distros that automate so many tasks into gui's that you may never need the command line.

I like the sound of mandrake but don't want to have a system which becomes another microsoft os with all the annoying and unhelpful messages. Is mandrake a good system or just for the inexperienced?

There are many threads in the linux forum where the distros are discussed as well as the best distro website called www.distrowatch.org

As a novice I see linux as a basic functional os perhaps a skeletal system which requires more effort to use but will do the job without all the fuss. Is this a fair assessment?

Pretty close, there are some applications that are so bloated in windows that only do some basic things, this is where the linux excels because these types of apps are written to do one task and do it efficiently.

[twistedcranium]

Linux is a great tool to learn from and to use for a great deal of purposes. To each that use it, there is a different set of desires and goals. Like Windows, and even Macs, and Unixes, Linux is not the BE-ALL-END-ALL solution for anything.

I look at it this way: PCs, no matter what OS are running them, are tools. And we all know that for some jobs you need a philips head screwdriver and for other jobs you use a slotted head screwdriver. If you learn how to use all of your tools...you are a power to be reckoned with. Learn one tool too well and you sit around waiting for someone to build something with the only the type of screws that you know how to use the tools for.

Personally, at home, I have a dual boot system that I use as my main PC. RedHat 9 on one drive, and Windows XP on the other drive. I may spend about 65-70 percent of my time on RH, but I won't negelect experience with Windows though. Actually, the graphics work that I do, still keeps me in Windows since the programs that I learned how to use well are only made for Windows. But in my spare time I'm beginning to learn how to use GIMP in linux.

[bAdWaYz]

I will have to agree with what TC had to say. He made some very nice points as to why Linux is a awesome OS. I have found over the years that the folks who take the time to use Linux and learn its in's and out's just don't go back to windows. The trick is you really have to give it time. Commit to the install don't use windows at all for about a month. Then after that time you should know if you want to stick with it. Chances are if you do then going back to windows for you will seem dull and pointless. I personally find Linux to be far more secure than windows, based on the file system and how "tweakable" one can set up the system wide user permissions. As far as it being more stable that would be a big huge YES! Granted the most stable box in my house is a FBSD box that hasen't been rebooted since Noah built the ark, but thats another story. I once worked for an un-named company that used all Linux servers and they ran 24/7 and we rebooted after 2 months of uptime for gengeral care. When is the last time you heard of any windows machine not being rebooted for months? Anyhow thats my 2 cents hope it helps

[Ruaridh]

Hi Michael

I'm a complete newbie to Linux as of a few weeks ago. I bought a SuSE distro because I wanted to get into LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL and PHP). But why? I've been doing WAMP (Windows, Apache etc.) for 2 years and have had no problems. Well, it's like this - you want to change some aspect of PHP in Windows, it can be difficult. The documentation is usually sparse and often simply incorrect. I wanted to enable XSLT support with the SAXON parser a while back. Could I do it? Nope. However, I did write the code and load it up to my Linux-based hoster and, goodness me, it was working in seconds. If I could compile PHP in Linux, I would have had that problem fixed. Futhermore, if I could get smart with Linux, I could rent a virtual server and set up my hoster exactly as I like. Virtual servers are now available at 10 euros a month - which is little more than you would pay for shared hosting.

Other things - if you do anything on the command line in Windows (a must for WAMP work), then you soon discover that the commands are often exactly the same as the ones that work with Linux - there just aren't nearly as many of them. So if you get good at BASH, then you're going to be good at Windows commands.

Free software - I believe in paying for good software as long as the function and quality justify the price (MS Office is appallingly expensive, but the software is pretty damn good). I simply can't afford Photoshop for the number of times I use it. I am not going to pay $50 for a patchy text editor that is only good at one thing. With Linux, this type of software is there for the taking - GIMP is amazing. Yes, you can now get GIMP for Windows, but it's most at home in Linux. Kate is OK-ish, but it's free and it's good at basic HTML for layout-testing purposes. I haven't tried the other code options yet. My SuSE distro also includes an inbelievably vast array of optional packages covering everything from shoot-em-up games to C++ SDKs.

Enjoy!

Ruaridh

[kjbunete]

Linux is a wounderful system, and as TC did a wounderful job explaining things. As he said, the more "tools" you know the more thing you can do. And as he also said, it is not a "all-in-wounder" tool. It has it's limitation as any OS does. But the nice thing is, there are some super smart people out there that can swerve this. There are a few emulators and programs that will run "SOME" of you current software. Right now I run Mandrake 9.2 and with it I install a program called "WINE". This alows me to run SOME microsoft OS software. Right now I'm running MS Office 2k, Photoshop 7, Pagemaker 7, Macromedia Studio MX. These are the main programs that I run, it can do more. But I do not want to push it. As a newbie as well, I'm still learning. Like Office XP does not work well with my current settings. But I'm learning to fix this issue. There are also emulators for the Mac OS. These are nice because you can keep you favorite MS, and Mac software. But there are REALLY limited, and they can only run indepenent software from the os and simple programs.

Good luck with Linux, once you really look into it. You'll love it! I know I did!

[Trillian]

eh, eh! Tell him that "with a little efford" a whole lot of progs will run in linux. Encourage the lad to become a wine or wineX developer, and then more and more progs will run under linux.