Windows Or Linux. Undecided Now! Help Me. At a cross-road between them.

[odomike 0]

I am at a situation now where by I am undecided whether continue using windows. I have always been a Windows Fan all my life until some months back when I started delving into the Linux world and wat I found in there was quite very impressing. When you talk about 3-D desktop environments and security and some real col stuffs like widgets and things like that, Linux has got it all.But for a few softwares, I would have said bye bye to windows months back. I need help here in making this decision.Is there any software in Linux that conviniently replace MS Encarta? or Encyclopaedia Britannica? And I also wanna know if there is a software out there that can replace Imesh (bearshare) under Linux. And then, my iLumina Bible is also another software that is stoping me from waving a goodbye to windows.Somebody help me please.Thanks for all your anticipated help in here.

[rayzoredge 2]

I'm not sure what it's called, but there is a feature in Linux that is similar to Add/Remove Programs that gives you a buttload of options for programs to install, which include most equivalents for Windows-only software.Also, for those programs that you absolutely have to have, you can always utilize the Windows environment emulators (Wine and Cadega, I believe).If the encyclopedia is all that you're wanting to keep, why not just go online?

[delivi 0]

I'd say one thing that never ever say that Linux is more secure. It seems to be more secure because it is not targeted by the Hackers and other malicious coders. And windows seems more insecure because it is the world's most attacked OS, so the hackers study windows to uncover the exploits in it, but no one is looking for such in Linux and other Linux based OSes. The famous Mac OS built on the BSD was supposed to be secure too, until when hackers easily managed to break into it. Do you now what those hackers said, even Windows XP would have be a lot more difficult to hack than the Mac OS. This was done and tested by real hackers. See no one has ever managed to port the Windows work on Power-PC platform, but they've managed to make Mac OS work on X86 platform, even before Apple shifted to use Intel processors to power their Macintosh machines. This doesn't mean that Windows is superior to Linux or Mac OS or any other OS, but it is not bad as others are. No human has ever created a software that is practically impossible to hack or crack or didn't have an exploit Linux has its own advantages, Windows has its own advantages and Mac OS has its own advantages. There best advantage of Linux is that being developed as open source, if one of the developers made a mistake or created a code that can be used to exploit the OS, then other developers would check it and correct the problems, this would be easier because there are several thousands of developers working on it, whereas in Windows this s not possible. I use both Windows and Linux, so don't think that I'm a MS guy a few links to learn more on this topic,

 

http://www.newsfactor.com/

 

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

Edited November 18, 2016 by OpaQue (see edit history)

[truefusion 3]

Is there any software in Linux that conviniently replace MS Encarta? or Encyclopaedia Britannica? And I also wanna know if there is a software out there that can replace Imesh (bearshare) under Linux. And then, my iLumina Bible is also another software that is stoping me from waving a goodbye to windows.

On my computer i have a Dictionary server which i use with Kdict, it allows me to look up terms without having to access the internet, since i have it set for localhost, and you can install different languages, too. For an Encyclopedia, you can install WikipediaFS, i suppose, or do what rayzoredge said and run MS Encarta or Encyclopedia Britannica through WINE. It may not be as good as iLumina Bible, but there is BibleTime; i recommend version 1.63b, 1.64 seems a little buggy. You can use Bibledit to make a Bible for Bibletime if you want. As for peer-to-peer programs, there are popular ones for Linux.

[mc05w37 0]

why don't just use both OS. i use double OS in my PC and it works fine. the things that make me hard to leave windows os are games and softwares.. if only linux can provide emulator, a perfect emulator which can run windows program perfectly..

[truefusion 3]

the things that make me hard to leave windows os are games and softwares.. if only linux can provide emulator, a perfect emulator which can run windows program perfectly..

Cedega has more game support than WINE, because its main goal is Linux gaming. And you could use a virtual machine to run Windows and its software like VMware Server.

[mc05w37 0]

thanx buddy. i'll give it a shot.

[Saint_Michael 3]

Odo are using this on your new computer that you posted earlier about it, if so just dual boot like mc05w37 mention since you have ample power and room to do it, heck if you wanted to you could triple boot the system with vista or Windows 9x/Me.

[odomike 0]

Actually, I am multibooting my computer currently.

Odo are using this on your new computer that you posted earlier about it, if so just dual boot like mc05w37 mention since you have ample power and room to do it, heck if you wanted to you could triple boot the system with vista or Windows 9x/Me.

I havent bought the new PC yet even though I am making serious plans towards purchasing it. I am runing these OSes on my Laptop and the basic config is: Core 2 Duo T5500 1.67GHz, 1.0GB DDR2 667, Intel 945GM Nortbridge and 80GB HDD.

So as you can see, dont have much space to play around with and come to think of it that Windows Vista is sitting on a 45GB partition when the Linux OSes can do very well with jUst 10GB. I kinda dont like the way Windows utilize my HDD. Apart from that, Windows creates swap space per OS while I am using one swap space for me PCLinuxOS 2007 and Granular Linux 0.9 And also consider the fact that I only need less than 1/4 of what Windows Uses as its swap space.

BTW, I have also noticed that on EXT2, with which I have formatted my Linux partitions, my HDD performs better in the sense that data transfer is much faster. On Windows, the transfer rate (judging from Windows Vista's calculations) is generally between 7 - 10MB/s because of the NTFS file and folder compression which I have enabled on my backup partition (I am saying this based on the transfer speed of this particular partition) while on Linux, it can go up tp 18 - 19MB/s. This is a lot of improvement compared to what Windows has to offer.

If only I can get everything I need on Linux, I would wave a goodbye to Windows. For now, I am gonna continue triple booting my laptop. Might even go to a quad boot.

[masugidsk8r 0]

why don't just use both OS. i use double OS in my PC and it works fine. the things that make me hard to leave windows os are games and softwares.. if only linux can provide emulator, a perfect emulator which can run windows program perfectly..

In his case, I believe you can completely transfer 100% to linux! Here's your solutions:

1. MS Encarta -> Wikipedia.org
2. iMesh -> FrostWire for linux (so much faster)
3. iLumina Bible -> BibleGateway.com

There you go. now move to linux! LOL

[dre 0]

some real col stuffs like widgets and things like that

Windows has widgets, you just have to download them. I personally enjoy having both Windows XP and Ubuntu running, they come together as a great pair.

[headstrongbrian 0]

Linux is a lot better than windows if you like to do websites. It can act as a server and you don't have to worry about buying extra copies and CAL license for other computers in your network. You don't need to spend 1231234234 amount of dollars when you only need to buy a couple of hundred dollars worth of things.

[Saint_Michael 3]

Again some linux users are missing the point though, not all just some, the only reason linux is great as a operating system is that Windows is the bigger target for hackers, crackers, phreakers, and phrackers. The major flaw for linux operating system is the open source software, and every knows that open source software can lead into big problems if the bad guys spent some time with the operating system and a few of the big name open source software and create the damage that is possible. I am surprise the european core of hackers and crackers have not spent the time going after linux users there because of the major use of open source there. It will be a matter of time before they start turning their eyes on linux, but of course for that to happen microsoft would have to go out of business in order to do that.

[michaeln 0]

I reckon you should get Fedora Redhat. Even though its costs money, and a friend of mine, really good at computers, recommends Kubuntu, Fedora just looks better. Kubuntu looks...Squarish while Fedora looks more modernish. But don't get windows. You should see my old windows computer *Will you stop that racket! Oops, its my computer*

[rvalkass 5]

Again some linux users are missing the point though, not all just some, the only reason linux is great as a operating system is that Windows is the bigger target for hackers, crackers, phreakers, and phrackers.

On desktop and laptop machines, yes, Windows is a lot more popular. People always seem to forget all those servers running billions of websites, and the backend systems being used by major corporations. Apache on Linux is far more popular for web servers than Apache on Windows and IIS on Windows combined. Attempts are therefore often made to cause problems with Linux-based systems and they very rarely succeed. Most often, the problems are with the websites or Apache, so would appear on Windows and Linux.

The major flaw for linux operating system is the open source software, and every knows that open source software can lead into big problems if the bad guys spent some time with the operating system and a few of the big name open source software and create the damage that is possible.

Open source, if anything, is more secure. Before code is released to the public, everyone can read it. This means that bugs and problems are found way before the software is ever used on production machines. With closed source software, the public and hackers start equal, and quite often the software vendors make people pay for updates or the latest version to fix problems that they caused. Since when did that make sense?

I am surprise the european core of hackers and crackers have not spent the time going after linux users there because of the major use of open source there. It will be a matter of time before they start turning their eyes on linux, but of course for that to happen microsoft would have to go out of business in order to do that.

Like I said earlier, they are already looking at Linux, and not getting very far. You can't assume Linux is ultimately secure on its own (firewalls, both hardware and software, are vital) but it is infinitely more secure than Windows. On Windows, everyone has access to every file - so a virus or even the growing number of malicious companies (Sony, EA, etc.) have control over every file. They can pt what they like where they like, and delete files too. On Linux, they can't. Simple as that. Linux has far better permissions and access control, and that is what makes the difference.

If security is what you want, you can't really choose anything other than Linux/UNIX.