Linux v. Windows

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What's the difference between Linux and Windows as an O/S? Which do you think is better, and why? Please enlighten me...

 

I know bugger all about linux, BUT I do know that you would have a problem playing a lot of your favourite games if you didn't have Windows.....

 

Well that's all I needed to hear!

 

That's very true. My mate runs Linux on one of his machines. As an OS, it's very stable. You need to be good with computers as you have to set most stuff up by hand (hardware) and i think it's helpful if you can write kernels and stuff.
I don't really understand half the stuff he talks about when it comes to Linux, but then, i don't know much about programing and stuff.
From what i gather, a lot of computing students use it, coz they can, and it doesn't ask annoying questions like Window$ does, like "Are you sure you want to delete that item?" No, i pressed delete to see a stupid message, numbnuts.

 

BTA makes a good point. Linux is definitely the choice OS (or one of the other major UNIX derivitives for that matter, like BSD, etc.) for developers, and just people who want to have absolute control of their OS. Linux IMO is nice because of a few major things:

1. It's by far the most stable OS, I have yet to see it ever crash on me and I don't think it ever will.

2. It is *completely* customizable. If you're a coder, you can always alter, or entirely re-code any element of the software you like.

3. Being that it's open-source and freely distributable, all the software is free (and believe me there is an abundance of it). It's also very easily accessible for the most part.

4. There is a very strong community of people, and though some of them can be rabidly idealistic, most of them can be very helpful if you're in a pinch.

There's plenty of other reasons I could go into, but I'm trying to avoid ranting here. The fact is you choose the right OS for you. If what you mainly do on the computer is browsing, perhaps chatting, doing various office work, gaming, etc. then probably Windows is for you (at least at this point). If you want to perhaps get into programming or just want something to tinker with etc. or are intrigued by the ideals of open-source and such, along with the reasons I listed, then perhaps you ought to look into Linux. Simple as that.

However, I do wanna clear up a common misconception. Linux is not *only* for developers. There are plenty of people I know who just read a few texts, and don't know a lick of programming who use Linux very comfortably. It just depends on what you want and need. There are distributions of it these days that do most of the setup and configuration for you, and with 15 minutes of reading a few tutorials you can be competent to install them.

[ April 29, 2003, 19:18: Message edited by: enjan ]

 

So, what your saying is: If I am just a dumb lawyer interested in sending e-mails, downloading music, the occasionally nudey pic, and playing games...Linux probably isn't for me?

I barely have time to play games, so I don't think I'll be tinkering with the O/S...Thanks everyone for the input!

 

Like i mentioned before, there is only one question you need to ask when deciding which is better,

Does this OS support all the current top ten most wanted games?
1 - yes --> good OS
2 - no --> piece of crap

 

WineX seems to be handling a lot of windows games very well, from what I've seen. Of course, you might have to wait a few months to have a new game running, but they're getting there

Having seen Diablo2 installed and run on a linux machine through use of winex, I am pretty impressed with it, despite the age of the game. Even multiplayer worked

 

Yes, WineX is crazy kind of compatible nowadays.

But Sir B has the right idea. If you aren't looking to fiddle around with it, or you don't have the time to fiddle, then it's not for you. You can do it, I'm not telling you not too. But like BTA was saying, you have to fiddle with it more times than not, just to do all the little mundane tasks that you take for granted in windows.

But I still like Mandrake. Even with all it's quirks.

 

My windows Xp is some good... =/

 

Linux -> Good but hard-to-learn os.
Good if you don't play games (the GUI install is easy)

Windows -> Crashing piece of crap, which (unfortunately) has all the good games.

If you play games -> Windows
If you do not play games -> Linux

I got my Linux to crash 2 times in the first month, and then Windows Defrag destroyed my HD.

No more Linux for me, tho i miss AMOR (Amazing Misuse Of Resources)

 

Now I've yet to see the various incarnations of Windows NT (that I've tested) crash, and my computer is on nearly 24/7 running Windows XP, so you might wanna include exactly what version of Windows you think is a "crashing piece of crap" there Taza.

Crashing windows is a thing of the past for me, at least.

 

Listing:
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.1
Windows 3.11
Windows 95
Windows NT
Windows 98
Windows 2000
Windows ME
Windows XP

And almost any other windows version

 

Especially WinME.

I'm wishing i left a spare small partition on my disk last weekend (when i dualed with 98 and XP) so that i could install Linux as well. I'm not too good with programming and stuff and things, but it would be good to learn, and Linux would probably provide a good oportunity.

 

Taza, I have trouble believing that Linux crashed, in all my years with it, I have NEVER seen this happen.