What about the 1800 cool things Linux does that Windows doesn't?

[Miszou]

Update every single piece of software on my system with a single action Ok, I can see where this might be useful. This one thing, that is all. But only if you don't have to recompile anything. And you already have all the right libs and packages installed. Otherwise you just end up with massive irreparable failure. Like the time I tried to install a video player under Suse... apparently there's a big difference between 9.1 and 9.2 or whatever it was. Backwards compatibility FTW? Update nearly everything on my computer without a reboot Convenient yes, but hardly a major selling point for people that rarely install stuff or shut their computer down every night anyway. Or just need an excuse to do nothing for 30 seconds. Keep my system secure without software that consumes my system resources, requires my time, and frequently nags me Just because the attack vector for Linux machines is so tiny doesn't mean you're secure. It's what 3% of desktops or something? And if you further break that 3% down into the 200+ different and largely incompatible distributions[^], you're pretty much immune to everything! Run an entire operating system for free without pirating software, and without breaking the law. Most Windows computers come with Windows pre-installed, and already licensed. And for most windows users, that's all they ever use (internet, email, web, IM etc). And for those that do need software to perform their jobs (Quickbooks or whatever), people actually do buy it. Let me know when I can reliably run games requiring DirectX-10 on Linux, and make full use of my Radeon 4850 video card. Take my settings with me where ever I go. Again, useful only on extemely rare occasions, such as when you buy a new computer. Run Internet Explorer 5.0, 5.5, 6.0, and 7.0 on the same desktop. Useful only for web developers. And if you really do need to do this, you can run a couple of VM's, such as Virtual PC or VirtualBox (that also happen to be free, negating the above argument about free software) Understand everything that is going on in my computer. LOL! Just LOL. Customize every aspect of my desktop. Most Windows desktops I've seen are just a mess of icons down the left side. People don't care about customizing their desktop to the extent that it looks completely different

[kinar]

#6 is the only one on that list with merit...and it only has merit for web developers

[John M Drescher]

www.gentoo.org[^] However this is not for those who do not know linux or do not have the the time to learn as all configuration and installation is done from the shell and generally not a GUI. I do not even have X windows on most of those servers. There are two points that I believe gentoo is better than every other distro I have ever tried. The first is you install one single time and update on your schedule. Although there was media in the past there is no 2009.X release an there will not be one. Grab most any linux livecd and in a few commands (+ time everything is built from source) you have a current system. The other advantage is that you can usually install the version of software that you want and this is generally not just one or two versions. I mean there are were 30 or so versions of wine in portage the last time I looked. Speaking of building from source on my Intel Q9550 it takes around 4 hours to rebuild all 1000+ packages I have installed so if you have the right hardware this is not so much of a disadvantage.

John

[Single Step Debugger]

I make money using a high resolution color laser printer.

The narrow specialist in the broad sense of the word is a complete idiot in the narrow sense of the word. Advertise here – minimum three posts per day are guaranteed.

[Lost User]

Updates break audio configurations - bye bye MythTV!

Visit http://www.notreadytogiveup.com/[^] and do something special today.

[John M Drescher]

Trollslayer wrote:

Updates break audio configurations - bye bye MythTV!

I have never had that in the 5+ years I have used MythTV. However I am using gentoo which does not force me to use pulseaudio.

John

[Mustafa Ismail Mustafa]

Interesting. Granted my experience with *nix servers is limited to Fedora, Centos, FreeBSD and Solaris/OpenSolaris, I've not actually ever used Gentoo. What's it like as a server?

If the post was helpful, please vote, eh! Current activities: Book: Devils by Fyodor Dostoyevsky Project: Hospital Automation, final stage Learning: Image analysis, LINQ Now and forever, defiant to the end. What is Multiple Sclerosis[^]?

[John M Drescher]

Mustafa Ismail Mustafa wrote:

What's it like as a server?

After the learning curve (remember everything is done from the shell) I find it easy to maintain dozens of servers with gentoo. One advantage is you that can trim out a lot the unwanted stuff to have a leaner system. A second advantage is you never reinstall (even to upgrade) in gentoo. Well at least I do not reinstall (may have done it once while learning). Over the years I have actually done less machine installs than machines I have installed. How? After installing a server and configuring it to my exact needs I usually copy it (dd,rsync, partimage ...) when I add a new box. As I mentioned in another post gentoo is a source based distribution which means everything is built from source so installs and updates can take some time if you do not tweak your network. I use several methods to do this. One method is to use distributed compiling so that during a build I can make use of 10+ cpu cores to do the building. Also I use ccache (compiler cache) which greatly reduces update times since generally most of the source files of an application will remain the same over a minor update (or bug fix). A third method is to have portage generate binary packages after building on one machine then use these binary packages on the dozens of other machines. I also use a tool called metro to create fully configured up to date installs for my new openvz (www.openvz.org) guests. Since I mentioned openvz... For the last 2 years I have been doing some server consolidation and openvz / linux-vserver has been a big part of this. I will add some later if I get time..

John

modified on Wednesday, September 2, 2009 8:38 AM

[Ed Poore]

John M. Drescher wrote:

Cloning a machine is extremely easy and you generally do not even have to have the same hardware on the new machine.

Do you mean actually cloning the hard-drive or in effect creating a setup-script to install the same configuration? I'm asking because I'd seen an option of saving the setup script in openSUSE (but it failed) because ideally would like to setup an identical system (but on completely different hardware) for a colleague. I mention openSUSE because it's what I used at the time although once my new hard-drives arrive I'll be reverting back to getting Gentoo operational. Let's see how it plays with the wireless card on a net install... Otherwise it's going to be a mammoth move yet again to take the desktop downstairs closer to the router... Or a very long temporary cable, probably an easier solution...

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I doubt it. If it isn't intuitive then we need to fix it. - Chris Maunder

[Ed Poore]

+1 for me, although to be fair I do both, but lately been more on Linux, and more fun to say the least (mainly because it's some awesome hardware I'm running it on)

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I doubt it. If it isn't intuitive then we need to fix it. - Chris Maunder

[Jorgen Sigvardsson]

Then what do you need the extra 1800 things for then? ;)

-- Kein Mitleid Für Die Mehrheit

[John M Drescher]

I mean cloning the hard drive.

John

[Ed Poore]

Ah well, worth a shot.

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I doubt it. If it isn't intuitive then we need to fix it. - Chris Maunder

[Rob V]

To add to John's list, I run Win 2000 Pro, XP, and Win 7, and not only does their performance degrade slowly but sure until I have to reboot (and even Win7 takes 2+ minutes, not 30 seconds before it's running again) but having to close all my apps & reboot after most updates and then try to remember everything I was working on just irks me to this day. Fine at a job if you're getting paid to do busy-work but not for someone who actually wants to get something done with their computers. I also run two Linux boxes: my main "home" machine, behind the firewall, is a Dell Optipex-series Pentium-II 450Mhz running Red Hat 7.3 w/SW RAID. John didn't mention that hardware RAID cards have an inherent flaw (which burned me once and killed a startup company) - if the card goes bad but doesn't die or give warning, it can spew bad data on your drives. Anyway, my point was that you can run SW RAID on a 450Mhz machine built in 1997 and installed in 1998 just fine if you just want to mirror two drives, which has the bonus of taking care of cloning for you! I've been running that Optiplex box for 11 years now, and it's only gone down 4-5 times over the years, always due to power failures that my UPS couldn't outlast. The current uptime is 421 days and counting. Good list John! :thumbsup: Cheers, Rob V.

[John M Drescher]

Rob V. wrote:

John didn't mention that hardware RAID cards have an inherent flaw (which burned me once and killed a startup company) - if the card goes bad but doesn't die or give warning, it can spew bad data on your drives.

I did not think of that at the time. But it happened to us 12 years ago when our data was on a $40K US dual processor 400 Mhz machine (well that was what the IT department charged us for it) that I did not have control over.

Rob V. wrote:

Anyway, my point was that you can run SW RAID on a 450Mhz machine built in 1997 and installed in 1998 just fine if you just want to mirror two drives, which has the bonus of taking care of cloning for you!

For raid 0 or 1 yes. I generally think raid 5 or 6 since I have 20TB on linux software raid (5 and 6). Some of these arrays are using 6 x 120GB ide drives bought in 2003 on a single core athlon xp 2800. Others are using much more powerful systems. I just put another ~3.5TB online last week with 8 x 500GB sata2 drives (I had sitting in boxes for months) on a quad core q9550 desktop.

John

[Mycroft Holmes]

If you find it can you send it over to the Delphi forum, apparently they need it too!

Never underestimate the power of human stupidity RAH

[Mark_Wallace]

John M. Drescher wrote:

1. Every single package is in single update manager / installer. I do not need 50 tool bar icons running to notify me that application X has a new update.

Nor do I. There are freeware apps for Windows that do exactly what you say, but, being Windows apps, they're a lot more configurable and friendly.

John M. Drescher wrote:

2. Performance never degrades over time. I have 64 bit systems running 24/7/365 that I installed 1 time in 2004 and they are still running fine.

The only time I turn my boxes off is when software has been updated (and that's usually because I was too lazy to close everything before updating).

John M. Drescher wrote:

3. Cloning a machine is extremely easy and you generally do not even have to have the same hardware on the new machine.

I tend to use migration to a new box as a chance to clean out all the stuff I've installed but don't use, and/or to use a different OS, so cloning isn't an advantage. 4. Software raid (1, 5,6 ...) works efficiently ... But not as well as hardware raid.

John M. Drescher wrote:

5. There is absolutely no need for anti-spyware or antivirus applications. All applications are installed from the official sources and are digitally signed to prevent tampering with.

Ah, so the only place that viruses come from is from the producers of applications -- not from e-mail, web-pages, etc. I'll have to remember that.

John M. Drescher wrote:

Also users generally do not log in with privileges that allow them to install or touch any part of the system that can cause harm.

Ha! That's a LOL! Windows users are so used to not having to enter their username and password every five minutes (as you have to on Unix/Linux) that they get crazy about having to click a button for the UAC! And it's a nightmare to install Kerberos on Linux; it's pre-installed on Windows.

I wanna be a eunuchs developer! Pass me a bread knife!