EPTso things i need to know before i reformat is.
can i run iccup launcher and chaos?
is ubuntu the right distro?
and what about Ipod syncing?
Camera Raw support?
thanks
Help me Switch to LINUX(ubuntu)
| Blogs > gEzUS |
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gEzUS
Canada371 Posts
so things i need to know before i reformat is. can i run iccup launcher and chaos? is ubuntu the right distro? and what about Ipod syncing? Camera Raw support? thanks | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
2. Maybe 3. Yes 4. Yes | ||
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Tonkerchen
680 Posts
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MER
Bulgaria125 Posts
Ubuntu is definitely the right distro for beginners: it is very human friendly, has a large package repository, and lots of users that are Linux beginners too (so you can find the solution to almost any issue you encounter by just searching the Ubuntu forums). Besides its built upon Debian, which is considered one of the most stable and reliable distros. | ||
GHOSTCLAW
United States17042 Posts
Ipod synching is plug and play at this point on ubuntu. Camera raw support is a little tricky. I've never tried it, but I was under the impression that raw was a propriety format, each camera maker had a different one. If this is true, then there's no way that ubuntu supports that format. I haven't tried it though, so it might work | ||
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Cambium
United States16368 Posts
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zatic
Zurich15325 Posts
On February 03 2009 04:59 Cambium wrote: Switch to mac? Then almost all of your problems are solved, and you still get to say, "I use Linux". No you don't. God. | ||
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GHOSTCLAW
United States17042 Posts
Doesn't it end up using...BSD? Custom BSD, and I thought that they called it...XNU? not sure though, I just remember reading something about it. | ||
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Sirakor
Great Britain455 Posts
yes! not natively, but wine will do it. this may be helpful (things probably have gotten a lot easier since, so just try the standard way, and if it doesnt work start trying the ideas in the guide). The only drawback: the bnet chat/lobby area looks screwed up, but is usable, the rest of the game is fine is ubuntu the right distro? linux is about freedom ... about choice ... there is no simple answer, and there is no right distro, although there may well be the right distro for you. having said that, you could certainly do a lot worse than Ubuntu as your first distro, so go for it! If you really don't like it, chances are that you can make it the way you want it, or find a distro that is closer to what you want, but you probably have to find that out by giving it a go .... and what about Ipod syncing? yes, plenty of options and builtin to most of the decent music players Camera Raw support? sure + a lot more If you do start missing certain windows apps (games aside), look a little, chances are that there are plenty of linux equivalents that are free, open source, and equal if not better. If you really can't find anything, Wine or Virtualbox (if you have a windows license around) get you there 99% of the time. Good luck and give us a shout if you need help. | ||
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mahnini
United States6862 Posts
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Navane
Netherlands2748 Posts
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Archaic
United States4024 Posts
On February 03 2009 04:59 Cambium wrote: Switch to mac? Then almost all of your problems are solved, and you still get to say, "I use Linux". You don't get to say you use Linux -_-. OS X is Unix I believe, and unless you want to dual boot, then you aren't going to use Linux. | ||
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RogerRus
Norway87 Posts
There are several ways to sync your ipod in linux, shouldnt be too huge a problem. Unsure about the camera raw support, but think it should be a way to fix it if its not working right out of the box, which it might very well do. And, lastly, Ubuntu is quite a good distro to start out with. Easy to get help if you need it when you use it, since so many others use it. And chance if that if youre having a probmel, 5000 other has asked for it, so a quick search on google will find you a solution. I have never been much a fan of Ubuntu myself tough, I think its too aimed at people who knows nothing about linux for me.(which i guess fits you well=) | ||
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Athos
United States2484 Posts
I used to dual boot into Ubuntu....It was cool at first, but I ended up never using it. I would just saving the hard-drive space and not use it. Having your own cube is kinda cool though. | ||
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MamiyaOtaru
United States1687 Posts
At the time, it was awesome not having to deal with serial numbers and other bullshit proprietery software throws at you. There was a free (in both senses of the word) program for everything! And I could take the code and tweak it if I wasn't happy (I actually did this a fair amount of the time) So why don't I anymore? Time. Linux is free if your time is worth nothing. It's fun to tweak, but I got increasingly sick of hardware not working. Just as an example, I have a hardware RAID 1 card that is driverless. It appears to the motherboard and OS as a single SATA drive. Works fine in Windows, OSX, and Linux pre 2.6.24. After that, it fails. A bugreport to the guy responsible for that section of the kernel gave me a workaround, but now I have to compile my own kernel. That wouldn't happen too often except.. having USB 1.0 and 1.1 devices on a USB 2.0 hub didn't work (in Linux only) until I upgraded to kernel 2.6.28, which meant compiling. yay. Then you get into the less common stuff, like a Razer Deathadder (thanks Razer for sponsoring the TSL!). Works in Linux, but you can only control DPI and stuff by compiling an orphaned program that relies on a deprecated library, and flashing your Deathadder's firmware to an earlier version (from when the program was being worked on) then getting an old version of the driver software to use in Windows with your archaic new/old firmware. More daming (to me anyway) than the hardware situation, which they handle as well as can be expected, is that Linux isn't going anywhere on the desktop. I used KDE for years. It was the DE Linus recommended. Full of options, and not treating users like idiots. Then KDE4 happened. I'd rather use Gnome than KDE4 (as does Linus*). The desktop is made of widgets, and a year after release you can finally have the contents of ~/desktop actually show on your desktop like you could in KDE3. But it is still missing mouse gestures, various printing options and so forth. Then there's the frameworks the DEs build on. Graphics are a disaster. nVidia has long had the best performing graphics, but their drivers are not open. This is OK in a system that is closed, but just introduces problems in an open one (like when I have to get a new kernel). So switch to ATI, who is making efforts at being open and has open drivers? feh. Part of the reason nVidia performs so well is they reimplemented large parts of the stack! All the open drivers lack things like memory management, openGL 2.0, etc, and plans to get that stuff implemented are proceeding glacially.** Then there's sound.. OSS was the standard for forever until they went proprietary. ALSA was developed as a response. Its sound mixing (letting you have more than one sound prog at a time, like Starcraft + Teamspeak) is workable, unless you have programs that still target OSS. And now we have Pulse Audio claiming to be the latest messiah. For it to work though, programs have to target it instead of ALSA (otherwise it's in the same boat as ALSA, only with padsp instead of aoss), leading to more fragmentation. Of course ALSA is still providing the drivers, so we get ridiculous crap like application->phonon->gstreamer->pulseaudio->alsa. *** And all those open, serial-less apps? They tend to wither and die. The important stuff is there, but try to find, say, a binary newsreader for KDE4. There was one for KDE3, but it's been orphaned. Oops! That does me about as much good as an app for which I have no serial. And even if there is an open source app, will likely run on Windows. (this is highly suggested for things like Firefox). And the last straw, especially for someone on this site: Starcraft runs great in Wine (aside from b.net menu weirdness), but the mouse input feels wrong and lowers my APM about 20%. So Linux is no. Seriously, I won't say don't do it, because I did and it was a learning experience. But don't look at it to solve anything. It will replace certain aggravations with other ones, which get more intolerable as time goes by while the aggravations on Windows generally stay about the same Linux is really only usable for people who know their way around a computer, and if you know your way around a computer and the internet and have common sense, you can use Windows perfectly safely, but without the aggravation of finding out what hardware works. _____________________ * http://www.osnews.com/story/20842/Torvalds_on_Filesystems_Netbooks_KDE_4_0 ** http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/06/nitty-gritty-shit-on-open-source.html *** http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-will-not-drink-koolaide.html | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
On February 03 2009 11:01 MamiyaOtaru wrote: This is a bad idea. I used Linux (Debian, on which Ubuntu was originally based) exclusively for a few years. You're not solving anything. At the time, it was awesome not having to deal with serial numbers and other bullshit proprietery software throws at you. There was a free (in both senses of the word) program for everything! And I could take the code and tweak it if I wasn't happy (I actually did this a fair amount of the time) So why don't I anymore? Time. Linux is free if your time is worth nothing. It's fun to tweak, but I got increasingly sick of hardware not working. Just as an example, I have a hardware RAID 1 card that is driverless. It appears to the motherboard and OS as a single SATA drive. Works fine in Windows, OSX, and Linux pre 2.6.24. After that, it fails. A bugreport to the guy responsible for that section of the kernel gave me a workaround, but now I have to compile my own kernel. That wouldn't happen too often except.. having USB 1.0 and 1.1 devices on a USB 2.0 hub didn't work (in Linux only) until I upgraded to kernel 2.6.28, which meant compiling. yay. Then you get into the less common stuff, like a Razer Deathadder (thanks Razer for sponsoring the TSL!). Works in Linux, but you can only control DPI and stuff by compiling an orphaned program that relies on a deprecated library, and flashing your Deathadder's firmware to an earlier version (from when the program was being worked on) then getting an old version of the driver software to use in Windows with your archaic new/old firmware. More daming (to me anyway) than the hardware situation, which they handle as well as can be expected, is that Linux isn't going anywhere on the desktop. I used KDE for years. It was the DE Linus recommended. Full of options, and not treating users like idiots. Then KDE4 happened. I'd rather use Gnome than KDE4 (as does Linus*). The desktop is made of widgets, and a year after release you can finally have the contents of ~/desktop actually show on your desktop like you could in KDE3. But it is still missing mouse gestures, various printing options and so forth. Then there's the frameworks the DEs build on. Graphics are a disaster. nVidia has long had the best performing graphics, but their drivers are not open. This is OK in a system that is closed, but just introduces problems in an open one (like when I have to get a new kernel). So switch to ATI, who is making efforts at being open and has open drivers? feh. Part of the reason nVidia performs so well is they reimplemented large parts of the stack! All the open drivers lack things like memory management, openGL 2.0, etc, and plans to get that stuff implemented are proceeding glacially.** Then there's sound.. OSS was the standard for forever until they went proprietary. ALSA was developed as a response. Its sound mixing (letting you have more than one sound prog at a time, like Starcraft + Teamspeak) is workable, unless you have programs that still target OSS. And now we have Pulse Audio claiming to be the latest messiah. For it to work though, programs have to target it instead of ALSA (otherwise it's in the same boat as ALSA, only with padsp instead of aoss), leading to more fragmentation. Of course ALSA is still providing the drivers, so we get ridiculous crap like application->phonon->gstreamer->pulseaudio->alsa. *** And all those open, serial-less apps? They tend to wither and die. The important stuff is there, but try to find, say, a binary newsreader for KDE4. There was one for KDE3, but it's been orphaned. Oops! That does me about as much good as an app for which I have no serial. And even if there is an open source app, will likely run on Windows. (this is highly suggested for things like Firefox). And the last straw, especially for someone on this site: Starcraft runs great in Wine (aside from b.net menu weirdness), but the mouse input feels wrong and lowers my APM about 20%. So Linux is no. Seriously, I won't say don't do it, because I did and it was a learning experience. But don't look at it to solve anything. It will replace certain aggravations with other ones, which get more intolerable as time goes by while the aggravations on Windows generally stay about the same Linux is really only usable for people who know their way around a computer, and if you know your way around a computer and the internet and have common sense, you can use Windows perfectly safely, but without the aggravation of finding out what hardware works. _____________________ * http://www.osnews.com/story/20842/Torvalds_on_Filesystems_Netbooks_KDE_4_0 ** http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/06/nitty-gritty-shit-on-open-source.html *** http://aseigo.blogspot.com/2009/01/i-will-not-drink-koolaide.html Good post, most of it is true (however there is progress being made, except in the sound area -- I too think sound under Linux is fucked up beyond imagination, and the introduction of PulseAudio actually made things worse because now the sound landscape is even more fragmented and complicated than it was before), I just want to comment on two things which are "solveable": Hardware issues can be solved by checking beforehand if your hardware works with Linux. This can be as simple as googling for "hardwarename linux" (or your distribution name). Then you'll be able to tell whether: a) it works out of the box b) it works with a bit of hassle c) it works with a lot of hassle (generally, this means it will never work for newbies) d) it's almost impossible or impossible to get working (generally, this means even pros will tend to avoid trying to make it work) You absolutely must do that for notebooks, and you should do it for every piece of hardware you intend to use with Linux. You would have to do the same when using any "exotic" operating system. Then, you only buy hardware which works with Linux. If you do that, you will never have hardware problems (or almost never -> if something breaks that worked before, that's a disaster of course, but generally this happens rarely). Windows, on the other hand, has the advantage that all HW makers MUST provide drivers for it because it is the most popular OS. They would shoot themselves in the head if they wouldn't do it. (This also means that a lot of Windows newbies trying out Linux for the first time might experience some of their hardware not working anymore -> they'll immediately think it sucks and uninstall it) OSX has the advantage that Apple hand-picks the hardware which goes into each of their comps (and they also choose which hardware is available additionally), so you don't have to know if something is compatible or not - if it is provided by Apple it will work, period. That's the advantage of having everything come from one source. Also, OSX is more popular than Linux, so that also helps a lot. (This also means that a lot of WIndows newbies trying out OSX for the first time will NEVER have the experience that their hardware won't work anymore because they bought a new computer by Apple which has only guaranteed compatible hardware) However, in 99% of all cases it's not Linux' fault if there are no good drivers for something, because as an operating system which < 2% of the desktop users use, hardware manufacturers simply do not care about it and do not provide drivers for it. So the situation is like this: shiny new hardware gets released -> HW maker releases driver for Win (and maybe OSX) ASAP, but not for Linux -> it doesn't work with Linux -> OSS community creates own driver (which may be hard or take a long time) -> after several months to several years, you can finally use it under Linux. About KDE: I know that KDE 4.0 sucked, and it was a huge disappointment for many people. However, the KDE authors have said even before the release that 4.0 was some kind of Alpha build, 4.1 would be the Beta, and 4.2+ would be "the real .0 version". This obviously was a poor choice as it lead to a lot of false expectations, but they did it on purpose so that more people would try it out and develop apps for it. KDE 4.2 is out now for a while, I haven't tried it yet, but it is said to be a finally working, stable KDE 4 desktop. So in other words: it seems that they managed to hold their promise. If you want to use KDE 4, you need to use 4.2 or later, period. | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
On February 03 2009 04:59 Cambium wrote: Switch to mac? Then almost all of your problems are solved, and you still get to say, "I use Linux". OSX is not based on Linux, but on FreeBSD, which is a "real" Unix (and everything comes from one source because the FreeBSD team provides both kernel and software) while Linux is an "inofficial" Unix clone (and everything in a Linux distribution comes from different sources because the Linux development team only provides the kernel). There are differences. Besides, it's not (legally) possible to use Linux as the kernel for a proprietary, closed operating system: the Linux license (GPL) forces you to open up (and release under the GPL as well) anything that you build using the Linux source code. The *BSD licenses, on the other hand, permit that their code will end up in closed proprietary products. | ||
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MamiyaOtaru
United States1687 Posts
On February 03 2009 15:52 0xDEADBEEF wrote: OSX is not based on Linux, but on FreeBSD This is a bit of a simplification. Darwin (the open source underpinnings of OSX) is a bit of a mishmash of NEXTSTEP and FreeBSD. Its kernel (XNU, for "X is Not Unix") is a blend of the Mach kernel with a BSD subsystem. which means that this: (and everything comes from one source because the FreeBSD team provides both kernel and software) is pretty irrelevant when discussing OSX, esp since OSX layers further proprietary stuff on top of Darwin that is in no way related to FreeBSD. and everything in a Linux distribution comes from different sources because the Linux development team only provides the kernel. Yeah, a Linux distro is pieced together from a lot of places, but it's splitting a pretty fine hair to say BSD does otherwise. FreeBSD does not develop the GCC, Xorg, KDE, Gnome, or any of a large amount of software one would be using with a desktop flavor of BSD. They gather it together and dump it in their tree. Sort of like, say, Debian. With the major difference that they do actually work on their kernel, instead of letting Linus et al do so. (FreeBSD) is a "real" Unix ... while Linux is an "inofficial" Unix clone ... There are differences. The only thing that makes Linux not "official" Unix is Linux distros don't bother applying for the UNIX Certification. Yeah, "Unix or Not" is determined by a test and a piece of paper. FYI, FreeBSD has not applied either. It is also described as a "unix like" system. Besides, it's not (legally) possible to use Linux as the kernel for a proprietary, closed operating system: You mean like Tivo? the Linux license (GPL) forces you to open up (and release under the GPL as well) anything that you build using the Linux source code. Yes, if you distribute Linux you are required to make your changes available. That's it. Linux is the kernel. As you point out above, "the Linux development team only provides the kernel." You can layer all the proprietary stuff on top of the kernel that you want, which is exactly what a lot of smartphone makers do. Some of them are totally open, but many are not and the GPL does not forbid this. If Apple had layered carbon, cocoa, core image, etc etc on top of Linux, they would only have been obligated to release any changes they made to the kernel itself. The proprietary stuff doesn't come under the purview of the GPL. The *BSD licenses, on the other hand, permit that their code will end up in closed proprietary products. This much is correct. And all spectacularly off topic for someone who is contemplating moving away from Windows :D If he can't be talked out of doing so, I would recommend OSX, but such a recommendation has nothing to do with perceived similarities with FreeBSD or levels of unixness. And I'll preemptively mention another difference often brought up between BSD and Linux. You often here how Linux and the way it is packaged in distros leads to fragmentation, while you don't see this in BSD. Well this grows more laughable by the year, as FreeBSD gives rise to PC-BSD, Dragonfly BSD, and so forth. These, along with NetBSD and OpenBSD, while not representing as great a number as the number of different Linux distros, nevertheless represent at least 4 distinct kernels, whereas all Linux distros share the same kernel, and which are all (like the BSDs) source compatible with one another. Many distros, but one kernel. Depending on how one looks at it, this is a lack of fragmentation, in contrast to the many kernels in BSD land. I hope this involved discussion of the finer points of Linux vs BSD, the likes of which I participated in many times over the years, establishes that I am indeed a long time Linux user, which I hope will lend weight to my anti-recommendation a couple posts ago - made not as a Linux hater, but someone who is very familiar with its shortcomings. | ||
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zatic
Zurich15325 Posts
On February 03 2009 11:01 MamiyaOtaru wrote: This is a bad idea. I used Linux (Debian, on which Ubuntu was originally based) exclusively for a few years. You're not solving anything. At the time, it was awesome not having to deal with serial numbers and other bullshit proprietery software throws at you. There was a free (in both senses of the word) program for everything! And I could take the code and tweak it if I wasn't happy (I actually did this a fair amount of the time) So why don't I anymore? Time. Linux is free if your time is worth nothing. It's fun to tweak, but I got increasingly sick of hardware not working. Just as an example, I have a hardware RAID 1 card that is driverless. It appears to the motherboard and OS as a single SATA drive. Works fine in Windows, OSX, and Linux pre 2.6.24. After that, it fails. A bugreport to the guy responsible for that section of the kernel gave me a workaround, but now I have to compile my own kernel. [....] Sounds all true. However, I strongly disagree with this statement: "So why don't I anymore? Time. Linux is free if your time is worth nothing." This is so dependent on what hardware you are running and what you actually do with your computer. If you don't get stuck on exotic hardware or you don't try to get Windows games running Linux is a huge time saver. I actually run Linux just because I value my time. I reinstalled WinXP + Ubuntu on a Samsung X20 last week. Ubuntu takes 3 clicks, 30 minutes, 1 reboot and 1 setting in the software sources and *everything* works perfectly. With WinXP I am still not done installing tons and tons of extra software and drivers and after countless reboots it can do just a small part of what my Linux installation can. Granted, it runs Starcraft perfectly which is why I still have it. OP, if you are serious about running Linux first think about what you want to do with Linux and if it will really help you with it. Then, check your hardware for compatibility. And yes, Ubuntu is definitely the right distro to start with. | ||
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gEzUS
Canada371 Posts
To let people know there is no real reason why i chose Ubuntu it just seemed like they had the most support. And I dont want to dish out cash on a new computer can I actually get OSx to work on my rig? So my thought process went as followed. What do i use my computer for? 30% starcraft 20% teamliquid  40% photo editing (currently using CS4) 10% watching movies tv shows porn..Im not particularly attached to CS4, I could easily get used to any RAW editor and use gIMP I think my hardware is good enough to run Starcraft + Chaos on a Virtual Machine. btw my ipod is an Ipod Touch does that matter because it is not a mass storage device? I will be running it on p5n32sli deluxe c2duo 2.2ghz 2gb ram OCZ platinum nvidia 7950gt 512mb pretty common stuff so i should be fine i think. | ||
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snowbird
Germany2044 Posts
I then tried open office for work and school, and it works okay. But I had huge problems with Japanese language input for a presentation, open office impress just lagged insanely and was that was not really fun to work with. Will do my first presentation with ubuntu in 2 days, let's see how it works (hopefully no problems with the beamer). I will stick with ubuntu, because I see it as a hobby and it's fun to play around with. But it has its frustrating moments and I would not recommend it to someone who just needs something that works and has no time to bother researching in forums. I don't think ubuntu works out of the box for anyone, there's always something that doesn't work and will not be so easy to fix. I like ubuntu's design, I like compiz, I like virtual desktops, I like pidgin (IM-client), I like that everything is free, I like that it's different. But I miss my good old winamp (all Linux players suck imo), miss my KMPlayer (VLC is meh), miss the windows explorer (nautilus is okayish) and miss SUSPEND MODE. | ||
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mahnini
United States6862 Posts
But I miss my good old winamp (all Linux players suck imo) audacious media player is awesome | ||
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zatic
Zurich15325 Posts
On February 03 2009 18:25 snowbird wrote: I don't think ubuntu works out of the box for anyone, there's always something that doesn't work and will not be so easy to fix. It absolutely does work feature complete out of the box with several Samsung and one Toshiba laptop I tried with so far. | ||
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snowbird
Germany2044 Posts
On February 03 2009 21:09 zatic wrote: It absolutely does work feature complete out of the box with several Samsung and one Toshiba laptop I tried with so far. I guess that depends on how you define 'working'. My samsung notebook 'worked' out of the box, but I had flickering videos, no compiz support, no mp3 playback, no xvid playback, no windows fonts (needed for browsing), no rar support, and many more minor things. Most of those things could be fixed easily with the easy to use packet manager, but some things needed more effort. I'm really not a power user, I just perform simple tasks with my computer, browsing, mp3, videos, office, instant messaging. But even to get those simple things to work properly, I had to invest a fair amount of time. I can do a fresh install of Win XP and have it ready for all my needs in about 2 hours. I like ubuntu, that's why I'm using it exclusively right now, but judging from my personal experience, it's not as simple as people always try to make it sound. | ||
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ven
Germany332 Posts
On February 03 2009 22:25 snowbird wrote: I guess that depends on how you define 'working'. My samsung notebook 'worked' out of the box, but I had flickering videos, no compiz support, no mp3 playback, no xvid playback, no windows fonts (needed for browsing), no rar support, and many more minor things. Most of those things could be fixed easily with the easy to use packet manager, but some things needed more effort. The majority of those problems stem from legal issues and not compatability issues anyway and are very very easy to get to work after the initial installation. By the way, neither do most of those things work for Windows out of the box. I'm really not a power user, I just perform simple tasks with my computer, browsing, mp3, videos, office, instant messaging. But even to get those simple things to work properly, I had to invest a fair amount of time. I can do a fresh install of Win XP and have it ready for all my needs in about 2 hours. Only because you already know what you need for your Windows and don't for Ubuntu. | ||
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0xDEADBEEF
Germany1235 Posts
On February 03 2009 16:56 MamiyaOtaru wrote: This is a bit of a simplification. Darwin (the open source underpinnings of OSX) is a bit of a mishmash of NEXTSTEP and FreeBSD. Its kernel (XNU, for "X is Not Unix") is a blend of the Mach kernel with a BSD subsystem. which means that this: is pretty irrelevant when discussing OSX, esp since OSX layers further proprietary stuff on top of Darwin that is in no way related to FreeBSD. Yeah, a Linux distro is pieced together from a lot of places, but it's splitting a pretty fine hair to say BSD does otherwise. FreeBSD does not develop the GCC, Xorg, KDE, Gnome, or any of a large amount of software one would be using with a desktop flavor of BSD. They gather it together and dump it in their tree. Sort of like, say, Debian. With the major difference that they do actually work on their kernel, instead of letting Linus et al do so. The only thing that makes Linux not "official" Unix is Linux distros don't bother applying for the UNIX Certification. Yeah, "Unix or Not" is determined by a test and a piece of paper. FYI, FreeBSD has not applied either. It is also described as a "unix like" system. You mean like Tivo? Yes, if you distribute Linux you are required to make your changes available. That's it. Linux is the kernel. As you point out above, "the Linux development team only provides the kernel." You can layer all the proprietary stuff on top of the kernel that you want, which is exactly what a lot of smartphone makers do. Some of them are totally open, but many are not and the GPL does not forbid this. If Apple had layered carbon, cocoa, core image, etc etc on top of Linux, they would only have been obligated to release any changes they made to the kernel itself. The proprietary stuff doesn't come under the purview of the GPL. This much is correct. And all spectacularly off topic for someone who is contemplating moving away from Windows :D If he can't be talked out of doing so, I would recommend OSX, but such a recommendation has nothing to do with perceived similarities with FreeBSD or levels of unixness. And I'll preemptively mention another difference often brought up between BSD and Linux. You often here how Linux and the way it is packaged in distros leads to fragmentation, while you don't see this in BSD. Well this grows more laughable by the year, as FreeBSD gives rise to PC-BSD, Dragonfly BSD, and so forth. These, along with NetBSD and OpenBSD, while not representing as great a number as the number of different Linux distros, nevertheless represent at least 4 distinct kernels, whereas all Linux distros share the same kernel, and which are all (like the BSDs) source compatible with one another. Many distros, but one kernel. Depending on how one looks at it, this is a lack of fragmentation, in contrast to the many kernels in BSD land. I hope this involved discussion of the finer points of Linux vs BSD, the likes of which I participated in many times over the years, establishes that I am indeed a long time Linux user, which I hope will lend weight to my anti-recommendation a couple posts ago - made not as a Linux hater, but someone who is very familiar with its shortcomings. Yeah you're correct I didn't really go into much detail so it ended up being a bit vague, but I also didn't want to write a book about it since it's rather irrelevant for a Windows user trying out Linux, like you said. Just one thing about the "many kernels" thing: many Linux distributions have the same kernel but patch it like mad, and every distro applies different patches. So in the end it's all fragmented there too. Every BSD has the advantage that they provide you one kernel (which will be the same for all FreeBSD users, for example) and also provide you with the most basic programs (and most of them are not made by GNU (although you can choose to install the GNU tools of course), so that you can actually use the operating system. And this baseline is always the same in every BSD. And the documentation, especially the manpages, are better since they all come from the same source, so they're consistent in style. And if you want to know anything about it, you can look it up in the official manual which contains *A LOT* of info about the whole system, even about configuring X11 which wasn't even created by the *BSD developers. So this is really a place to turn to when you have questions. In many Linux distributions, this is missing - users often have to use Google or check Wikis and forums and then you get different (maybe also bad/wrong) answers, there's often no "standard way" of doing things. Of course, on the Linux side, there are efforts (LSB) to create a good baseline as well, so that you can rely on every LSB-compliant distribution to have certain programs, libs and APIs, and to behave mostly the same. Still, users going from Linux to BSD often say that the system feels more streamlined and consistent. This is a key weakness of Linux - everything is from different sources, and you can feel that in almost every corner. *BSD, Windows and OSX don't have this weakness, or at least they try very hard to integrate stuff in order to not make it so blatantly obvious that not everything comes from the same source. I'll just end this by mentioning some (maybe overlooked) aspects I've learned about the age-old Linux vs. Windows debate, while being both a Windows and Linux user myself: - Linux is important, its mere presence forces MS and Apple to create better products. Without it, they would sell you extreme bullshit for extreme prices - The philosophy etc. behind it is great. MS and Apple both produce "eat or die" products and both have very shady business tactics and abuse their dominant position frequently, and they toy around with your system sometimes (2 recent examples: MS updating Windows Update through a secret "back door" without using the Windows Update program (no message, warning, confirmation, nothing - your system was changed (for the better probably, but still - that's an absolute no-go)), and since very recently MS installs a secret(!) Firefox extension together with .NET 3.5 SP1 which can't be uninstalled the normal way) A lot of things are proprietary, cryptic, confusing or just plain secret (just think of the chaos called the Windows registry). Linux, especially if you use a democratic community distribution like Debian, will never do any sort of shady shit to you - because people aren't driven by lower motives like greed or full control at any cost - they just want to create a good OS, and they don't want to hide stuff from you or restrict your usage in any way - they want to give you full transparency and full control, as it should be. The two things above should make you respect Linux, and not laugh about it even if you don't like it  - If you really value much that you buy a new hardware and it should work, if it really annoys you when you have to spend like 1 hour making it work (even though you will not change hardware often), then use OSX or maybe Windows but only OSX makes this a breeze The above point is probably the most important point against Linux. I've seen countless of "I've used Linux but I didn't like: yadda, yadda, yadda so I've switched back to Win or bought a Mac" and the MAJORITY of these are because users are fed up with certain hardware not working (fully) and searching on the web (maybe in vain) for how to make it work, wasting hours of time. My hardware and peripherals always work with Linux because I only buy it after I made sure that it will work *hint*. - If you want the best possible look and the best possible integration, you need OSX, Windows being the second choice - If you want the best possible compatibility (hardware-side), you need OSX, Windows being the second choice - If you want the best possible compatibility (software-side), you need Windows - If you want to play a lot of new games without hassles, you need Windows - If you need special business-related programs, chances are those will only run on Windows - If you need the usual well-known killer apps (e.g. the Adobe palette) for graphics, video or audio editing, you'll need OSX or Windows because they only run there - If you like tweaking many aspects about your system, you need Linux - If you are interested in the technical background of how an OS works, or if you want to program, then Linux will be no requirement but it'll make things easier and (the important point) much more transparent for you. Linux can even turn people who find computers (Windows) boring into sysadmins or programmers. - If you distrust big US corporations, you need Linux - If you like Unix and/or the commandline, you need either Linux or OSX with some modifications - If you want the best possible security, you need Linux or OSX. Because even though Windows made big advances in that area (especially with Vista and later versions), it is still the main target, and malware authors can rely on certain software always being present, making it easier to infect it or easier to do certain malicious operations. Some common disadvantages of Linux (excess of choice, lack of users) are an advantage here. The fact that you can modify a Linux system to a much bigger extent also makes it easier to harden it against attacks - If you don't really care about any of these situations above, then you can use any OS Here's an advice if you're still unsure whether or not to try Linux: Ask yourself "why not Linux?" instead of "why Linux". Try to use Linux, but if you find out that it won't work out (hardware issues, software compatibility issues, etc.) then simply don't use it. It's perfectly fine to use Windows or OSX because you need or want certain things you can only have with them. It's the reason I still use Windows as well - I simply need it for some things. I'd prefer to use only Linux, but life's not perfect. Why am I suggesting that you should at least TRY Linux (give it a chance)? Simple: for example, if you're a Windows user who *only* does common stuff like browsing, chatting and listening to music, and you're sure that your hardware works with Linux, then you could easily try out Linux just to gain additional freedom, control, security, and no costs except the time you need to learn it. If it works out, you're better off than a Windows user. If it doesn't, you can still fall back to your Windows and troll about how shitty Linux is on the desktop. Damn, this ended up being much longer than originally intended. | ||
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adagdag
United States7 Posts
If you're curious about linux, and you've been using Ubuntu for a while, I think you def. should try other distros at least once | ||
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