Prefer Windows Or Linux/Unix OS?

Please im in Fire about that problem! im using Windows, and i didnt ever use Lunix/Unix platforms, so here is choice windows os or Lunix! If u have ever used Both or one of the platforms please tell me ur impressions abt it!!!

Edited November 4, 2006 by Aka_Bar (see edit history)

Back when I was 7 (10 years ago) or so. We got our first computer a 386 as my mom says... It had DOS or Windows 3.(?) but don't remember it very good. There after we climbed up with windows version till windows XP Professional SP2 .. I liked windows 98 and windows 2000 the most, since it was low on resources etc. It was all pretty easy and point and click stuff...Since a few years I started buying my own computers. My first one was a Pentium 2 (266 mhz) First few weeks i ran windows 98 on it.. Then windows 2000 .. And it all kinda sucked on that machine .. I had read somethings about Linux so i tried Slackware 10. It was a HUGE difference in all.. Had to work with the command line But as more I used it the more i learned about Linux.Switched to Debian (Sarge if I'm right) to check it out . And well it ran a bit better than Slackware. A few months later I bought a athlon 1400 from a classmate. And installed windows 2000 to play some games.. But i got more into programming and stuff like that and went back to linux... (don't remember really what distro but i think it was archlinux??) .. Well got a bit stressed about that computer. So I bought for the first time some NEW parts for my computer .. And got a AMD Athlon 64 3200+ with 1024mbram dualchannel (bla bla bla (which is my machine now)) and went for Fedora Core 5.. It was all cool but had it's good things and bad things... So I switched to winXP Pro SP2 to play games and stuff like that, and in the meantime so some research on good linux distro's. Then I found out of Gentoo (my current distro) and it a damn good one.. At least for me So...I think Windows isn't good for anyone at all... They don't trust anyone and sneak in nasty tools with windows update and such..But it's also easy to use and you can all the games that exist on it...Linux is the ONE for me... And then I'm talking about every distro .. Just the Linux is awesome already! As distro i currently prefer Gentoo but that can change every time i want :DBut it all comes down on your needs and if you want to learn or not...Windows is for the "lazy" (no offense) people who just want to install and play.Linux is more for the people that want to learn things about linux itself and his/hers own computer... And it's more of a professional platform.I'll list some pro's and con's about windows and linux:Windows Pro's:- Easy to Use- Point & Click- Plug & Play- Games- More available software (i think)- More professional software (like video editing, website editing, etc)Windows Con's:- Bugs .....- Security (but that's more the result of users way of using windows)- No full control - Registry (gets messy and allot of errors)- No open source- Costs $$$ Linux Pro's:- open source- performance- full control (of everything)- CAN be easy- you will learn allot- no registry- Great community- Free for all (except some enterprise disto's)Linux Con's:- CAN be difficult- Most of the time no point & click (depends on the distro of your choice)- No REALLY plug & play (Most hardware will be detected, but some will need some more configuration)- ALOT of configuration files- Most of the time you will work on the command line- (if you use a source distro) LONG compile timesWell there could be more on these lists .. But it's almost 24:00 here ;)Remember that this is MY opinion and everyone's will differ from mine ...It's all really personal.bakr_2k5( PS if this is a crappy post .. Just delete it or so .. It's late and I'm not really waken up )

Hey dont forget that you can run windows apps quite well on linux distros. Somehow i posted in thsi forum but my post is gone, or i guess i forget to save it last night hehe.

@Levis...Yes windows Apps run quite good now in linux with wine but i'm still waiting when they hit version 1.0 ... Don't use much windows apps at the moment, but i have Call of Duty 1 & Call of Duty 1 United Offensive running VERY good. (even better then in windows).But Wine had still some things that don't work very well. Such as Directx 9 support (at least at mine) .. And Wine doesn't support ALSA's Dmix, well maybe it does but i can't get it done. I know that for games there's cedega but it costs $$$ and the drop allot of supported games (i read somewhere).@Aka_BarIf you ask me if you have to use windows or Linux, I would say Linux (any kind of distro since I think it's MUCH better then Windows)But if you ask 100 people in here for example you would get maybe 50 different answers. So it really depends on what YOU want :)bakr_2k5

Thanks Pal its was nice Information for me i think i wll now im thinking to install Lunix and really seriously learn it and who knows may be u are right, i mind to do this experience but i think it wll be hard to use it like i can do it in windows easly, i guess that Windows for beginers and Lunix for more advinceds,bakr_2k5, here is one question to you i have Lunix Install disk and Live CD it is product of UBUNTU i guess that u know this firm, and they have sent me 5 disks what do u think should i install them on my PC and what LUNIX producs better and where can i download them easly?

Nice to hear you have some feeling for Linux

 

UBUNTU is kinda good distro since it's used by a lot of people, you should try out the Live CD first to get a good view of UBUNTU and Linux itself (as desktop environment), don't expect that the Live CD will run *good* .. Since it's from the CD And then decide if you want to install it. Perhaps it would be a good idea to have a second computer or laptop next to your machine so if run into something you could google it or search forums etc. I never used Ubuntu only tried out the live cd once.

 

But i can't really say what's a good or best distro since it really depends on your needs. I self use gentoo but it would be a nightmare for someone without knowing anything about Linux/Unix (not that i'm an expert or something like that )

 

Well I'll try to point you to some distro you MIGHT like.

 

- Fedora Core (http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/)

I used this one quite a while but it's really graphical orientated (point & click), so you won't really learn much about Linux itself since there is for almost every configuration a graphical frontend.

- OpenSuse / Suse (https://en.opensuse.org/Main_Page)

I never used this one so i can't really tell much about it... But i heard a lot of good things about it. It's also graphical orientated, same story as Fedora Core

 

These distro's mentioned above are more of the plug & play kind, if you know what i mean.

There are more of course but i don't know them all

 

- Slackware (http://www.slackware.com/)

This was my first distro ever if i remember it right. It's a really good learning distro and very stable (* it's one of the longest existing distro) Well yeah i learned everything about linux on it, i had to know.

- Debian (http://www.debian.org/)

My second distro.. I liked it more then Slackware ... Since it is a bit better then Slackware (especially the package management system) It's also a good learning distro and has a huge community.

- Archlinux (https://www.archlinux.org/)

Can't remember much about this one.. But it was a good one.. It's really learning orientated, you kinda build the system from the ground up.

- Gentoo (https://www.gentoo.org/)

This one i use now .. and i love it It's perhaps the best learning distro that exists since it's really hard in the beginning. With gentoo you learn almost everything about Linux and everything around it. And it's source based so fully optimized for your system.

 

Slackware, Debian, Archlinux and Gentoo are more of the command line kind of distro (well you can install a desktop environment from cd but it's not what it's meant for, i think!) You would learn much more with these distro's then Fedora Core and Suse. With command line distro i mean, giving command and lots of editing configurations files. Keep in mind that these distro's can have a graphical environment like Fedora Core and Suse ... But you have to install itself instead of letting the install disc do it for you. You don't need to scare away now, once you get the hang of it, it will be so easy. And there are literal millions of people who would like to help you into Linux... I'm pretty sure you will hang out in a lot of IRC channels to get some help, some people will be *****y against you since you're the 10000th person who asks it. And some people like to help you. But that's how it goes on the internet and in the Linux community, we like to help each other out.

 

Oh yes, on last thing. It would be a GREAT idea to know something about your system (like the brands and models and so on, Linux isn't like windows that it search for drivers or so, only if they are implemented in some kind of detection software they will get detected, but there will always be unsupported hardware where you need to get your own modules / drivers)

 

I'll hope you can do something with this post...

 

bakr_2k5

 

EDIT:

Those distros are easy to download from their own websites, and if you have a slow internet connection it would be handy to use a bittorrent client

Edited November 6, 2006 by bakr_2k5 (see edit history)

I use Unix...with a Mach Kernal...also known as Mac OSX. Build on BSD (which is real Unix, not 'unix-like') technology it's the best of all worlds, especially with the new Mactel. You can run just about any Linux application or program (most have already been ported to OSX native) and you can get all your commerical software too like Photoshop and MS Office...and with the new Mactels...you can even load windows...if you really want too...

Thanks Pal its was nice Information for me i think i wll now im thinking to install Lunix and really seriously learn it and who knows may be u are right, i mind to do this experience but i think it wll be hard to use it like i can do it in windows easly, i guess that Windows for beginers and Lunix for more advinceds,bakr_2k5, here is one question to you i have Lunix Install disk and Live CD it is product of UBUNTU i guess that u know this firm, and they have sent me 5 disks what do u think should i install them on my PC and what LUNIX producs better and where can i download them easly?

Umm ubuntu is okay, but i would use kubuntu. They are identical except Kubuntu uses the KDE desktop which looks niced and has more features, while the Ubuntu desktop uses Gnome which kind of looks like the old win 3.1 or mac 9 theme.

If you want to download other packages. All linux distro's give you access to APT. YHou can run it manually, or you can use the provided program. They even tell you what it is. Be careful of what you install, because you might just screw up the whole system.

If you want to install windows apps that use Wine, though once installed, you will have to manually create shorcuts to your menu's. Anyways goods luck. We are waiting to help you.

Thanks Pal its was nice Information for me i think i wll now im thinking to install Lunix and really seriously learn it

You could also simply download the Knoppix LiveCD, you simply boot on this CD and you are on a Linux machine, you can browse the Web, learn Linux commands and Linkux KDE look and feel, and even read/write your Windows disks if useful.No need to install, this is the strongpoint of the LiveCD. You move from one computer to the other one, without having to re-install.

I'm using both Windows and Linux (Slackware 11.0). Even tough I dislike windows because of their bugs and security holes (not that I ever have had any security problem), I do prefer it because of it's simplicity when it comes to installing and using applications. Most apps you find on the net work perfectly on windows without any problems, installing and of you go. Linux is completely different, most applications have to be built first, that means checking dependecies (that's the most annoying part, when something is missing) and compiling (wich is a slow and boring process).What linux realy needs is unicity. Atm there are so many distro's available, all have different apps and libs installed, so you can never be sure whether you'll have everything needed.Speedwise I'd say that linux runs slower, but that is probably because I'm not using the ATI drivers (ow, btw, driver support on linux is a pain in the *** too, especialy ATI drivers, they are as buggy as hell).I'd say, just give it a try, get some live CD's and if you like it, you could install it next to windows (+ you have a good reason to do a full format and get a clean windows)

I use Windows almost exclusively, but I have played a bit with Linux/*nix. I like the idea of Linux/*nix, but it really isn't feasable for me. I need something stable that I can get work done on that is easy to use. Windows does that (it doesn't crash that much on me, I don't do much gaming). I a few years, I would like to try out Ubuntu linux, which is a great mixture of Windows' usability and *nix's fundamental principles.

I like to install Linux (Fedora) on my comp but i cant becose more ppl use my comp :\anyway Linux is better for be cose it will make my work much more easyBUT not all games and softweres will be able to be used on LinuxNoMore

I preffers windows so much, because windows is so good, i can do what i want to do so easyly,although my teacher said to me "use windows will let you follish",i also preffer it ,Lunix has free ware ,but it not very good for me.and linux has so many kinds,it is Debian,Fedora,Gentoo,Mepis,Nitix,Mandrake,Red Hat,SUSE,Slackware,Santa Fe Linux,Yellow Dog ,so many !!! i am a student now ,and may be in 10 years later ,i will preffer linux more.

I have tried some Linux distros like Redhat Fedora Core 4, Core 5, Linspire, Ubuntu 6.06 is the one I am installed on my machine currently.As every beginer I also feels that it is very tough to leran sometimes I think windows is better.I will learn Linux seriously once I fond a way to configure my CDMA phone modem in Linux..

Honestly, I prefer linux, but have been using Windows for most of my life. Why? I mostly game and do occasional graphics work (never had a mac), which Windows satisfies as it's the "norm" of all operating systems. If you're not into things that demand a windows environment, and you like computers, try to learn how to use linux. For a starter, it's challenging and takes a while to set up, but it's worth it. If you mostly use your computer for borwsing, word processing, etc. there's no reason why you can't use linux.