Re: Linux - why?
- From: "J.O. Aho" <user@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 24 Mar 2007 20:44:13 +0100
Don H wrote:
I'd often heard of Linux, but never investigated until recently. What is
its advantage over eg. MS Windows - except being free?
It gives the user who wants a lot more freedom to do what they want with their
computer and specially the software (you aren't allowed to bugfix things in
microsoft).
Ironically, the system I tried to load, was purchased, for Aus$60,
($59.95) as "Linux Starter Kit", with a DVD of SUSE Linux 10.1 from a City
retail store. Which is somewhat of a Catch 22 situation for Linux
generally - if it is free, why should retails stores want to "sell" it? And
as any Linux system involves lots of files, downloading from the Internet
can be a problem.
Not everyone has broadband with fixed rates, so it can be cheaper and faster
to buy yourself a copy. You may get printed documentation and some free
support from the maintainer of the distribution. Of course the reseller earns
a few buck on each sold Linux kit.
That leaves those CD/DVDs attached to computer magazines - where many now
offer a "live" version (where you load Linux from the disk, viewing and
using it from such disk, without actually loading it onto your hard drive).
You still pay for that free CD/DVD, but you get less support and just one
article describing how to install it.
All of which brings us to the main question - is Linux worth while using
by the home individual? What can it offer which, say, WindowsXP can't do as
well or better?
- More secure, specially with just default settings.
- Fast updates, while you may have to wait 18 months or more for a new SP for
microsoft, you generally have an update for your GNU/Linux with in two days.
- You can scale the OS after your hardware (try to get VISTA to run on a i386)
- Freedom to configure your system after your wishes
- You get a real multiuser environment
- If you have an x86_64 machine, you can get the OS and all application as
64bit (most stuff for VISTA is still just 32bit stuff)
- You get a stable system
- You aren't locked to use only x86/x86_64 architecture, you can use Sparc,
PowerPC, Mips, Alpha and so on
The list could keep on going....
From what brief encounter I've had with Linux, I can understand businesses
using it; as its root directory is secure, and it has multi-user potential.
But this facility is already available by use of LAN (Local Area Network).
You don't get multiuser support by hooking a single user operating system to a
LAN, you get a "single user operating system connected to a network".
To a home user, having to type in a password to access the root directory -
is merely a pain.
Of course you could disable the need of password, but then you get the same
lousy security you have on a microsoft box, where anyone who is connected to
it can do what every they want, say re-slice the hard driva and make all data
stored lost.
Is Linux's file system superior? I can't see how. According to one
computer magazine there are about 20 different possible file systems
available for Linux. Which should anyone choose?
Yes, the general file systems for Linux are a lot better than those provided
by microsoft, for starters the need to defragment hard drives aren't part of
the "Linux" file systems. Most of the file systems are faster than microsofts.
The "Linux" file systems supports quota, which can be handy in a multi user
environment.
The choice of file system is all up to you, depending on what you are going to
do, xfs is excellent for streaming video, reiserfs handles crashes
exceptionally (good in testing environments). Most commonly people uses ext3
which is an okey file system.
I believe MS Windows Vista uses only NTFS (not FAT32, ext3) as its hard
disk file basis - can Linux adapt accordingly?
There are ntfs support if you mean that, but you wouldn't want to run Linux on
a ntfs file system, even if it's possible and nfts is prone to fragmentate.
Linux is moving from text-based, to graphics, so its similarity to MS
Windows is increasing.
In difference to microsoft, Linux has had it's graphical environment more or
less from the beginning, compare that how long microsoft just had a dull dos
environment.
Why should a home computer user switch to Linux, or dual boot with
Windows and Linux? Except for the novelty of it?
I use it for it does what I want, I wouldn't be able to do half of what I do
with a microsoft machine and microsoft is quite unstable, ugly graphical user
interface, and microsoft uses a lot of unnecessary CPU cycles on animations
instead of doing the work it's supposed to do and all the microsoft programs
are unoptimized, so they run slowly and take all too much disk space.
And you can't forget, I don't have to agree on a EULA that makes your a
property of microsoft.
Keep in mind that Linux gives you the option to do what ever YOU want, it
gives you the freedom to choose to use microsoft.
--
//Aho
.
- References:
- Linux - why?
- From: Don H
- Linux - why?
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