To all linux and windows users, please help me choose the better option.

[Mwanzia_M]

I totally agree, cant imagine getting an equivalent of microsoft tools like visual studio on linux. Mono is cool but lets face it, visual studio is way superior.

[Joan M]

Pmwanzia wrote:

What do you think?

That you are right.

[www.tamelectromecanica.com] Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing.

[Pete OHanlon]

Pmwanzia wrote:

Does linux have nice software like pdf readers, music players/codecs,antivirus,games and others that you can easily get on windows?

Yes, and no. You can get all the software you like in these categories, but you possibly won't get exactly the same games. If you walk into your local game shop, you'll see PS3, Wii, XBox and PC. You won't see Linux - but there are freely available downloads you can get. You could, of course, run both OS on the same box - this is a popular option. As far as programming goes, it really depends what you want to program. If you want to write C# programs, you can target both environments, but the framework is fuller featured on Windows. If you want to write PHP programs, then it doesn't really matter which environment you target. I hope this gives you some food for thought.

Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility

[Tom Delany]

I've used both. I like both. As Pete said below above, it all depends on what you are trying to accomplish. I use Windows 7 every day at the office. I don't have much choice. The O/S is dictated by the company. We are a software company that develops applications for Windows platforms. I am very comfortable with Windows 7. I find it reasonably easy to use. I like it. I have found that Ubuntu is about as good as a Linux distro gets. The current version of Ubuntu is far easier to use than versions of Linux that I have used in the past. I have tinkered with Linux for many years. Ubuntu has made the installation and configuration almost as painless as Windows (unless you have some really, really obscure hardware, or something like that). Personally, at home, I have an iMac set up to triple boot. I can choose from Mac OS/X (Snow Leopard), Windows 7, or Ubuntu Linux. I find myself using OS/X about 85% of the time, Ubuntu about 14% of the time, and Windows 7 about 1%. Just my personal preference. Does that mean I find OS/X to be superior to them all? Not at all. I like all 3 for different reasons. Just depends on what I am doing. Some may find this comment weird, but I find OS/X kind of like a middle ground between Windows 7 and Linux (even though I fully realize it is closer to Linux architecture-wise than Windows). Just my 2 cents worth.

WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.

[Joan M]

I feel that this is always a biased opinion... I've had for years a Linux server and it worked really well. I've used windows for lot's of things and it worked really well also... Both systems work. No problems at all with them. What happens is that like everything each tool has it's reason and it's place. In my case I can't use Linux for work as I'm programming robots and industrial equipments that need softwares that run under Windows. If you are only surfing Internet, editing images and receiving e-mails... then both of them work... Of course if you are a techo-freak then Linux is your choice... being able to run it from a pendrive editing the bones of the OS... My question would be: what if you need to use CATIA? what if you need to put a server to work? I remember I saved 6000€ by using Linux as server in terms of licenses users... Everything depends on your needs... i.e. I can't imagine using Visual Studio in Linux... i.e. Using Linux I've been able to get access to certain robot hard drives in order to get information that was impossible to recover from Windows... Don't get me wrong... I love Linux... I also love Windows... I use them when I need them...

[www.tamelectromecanica.com] Robots, CNC and PLC machines for grinding and polishing.

[Pete OHanlon]

Thanks for that. I try to be reasonable occassionally.

Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility

[Mwanzia_M]

wow, if you lived near me I would have bought you lunch for such a good point. I totally agree, quality comes first,even if it has a price.

[Mwanzia_M]

Your update has been really helpfull coz it all comes down to what you want to accomplish. So do I have to partion my hard disk in order to install more than one OS? I want to install windows 7 and ubuntu but my comp has 2 partions, one with windows and the other contains my backups (bad idea, I know, give me a while to buy an external hard disk).

[Oakman]

You are really letting the mentor thingee get to your head. Just too dam' much good sense coming out of your keyboard these days. :sigh:

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" ~ Patrick Henry, Republican and anti-Federalist

[Tom Delany]

Ubuntu (if you allow it) will split your Windows partition and create a new one to install itself. Standard disclaimer: Just be sure everything is backed-up first. That was how I got all 3 on my Mac. Boot Camp is intended to split the Mac partition so that you can install Windows into the newly created (by Boot Camp) partition. I had Boot Camp give Windows an extra large partition, installed Windows 7, and then I let Ubuntu's install split the Windows partition for itself. You should not have to go through all those shenanigans in your case however. :)

WE ARE DYSLEXIC OF BORG. Refutance is systile. Your a$$ will be laminated. There are 10 kinds of people in the world: People who know binary and people who don't.

[Pete OHanlon]

Don't worry. Sooner or later, the whole facade will come crumbling down and I'll let forth putrid, bile spilled invective again. Order will be restored.

Forgive your enemies - it messes with their heads

My blog | My articles | MoXAML PowerToys | Mole 2010 - debugging made easier - my favourite utility

[Lost User]

I been living under OpenSuse mostly, conveniently with Wine. I love it's reactionspeed, and the way one manages software. Most apps have a relative small footprint, and the harddisk still looks relative empty. Mono and MonoDevelop are a decent experience, but it's not as much a part of the system as .NET is on Windows. As a form of Windows-light, yes, dandy. Then again, why would you want to choose at all? Just install both, and download a dropbox for each OS :)

I are Troll :suss:

[Hired Mind]

As always, it really depends on what you want to do with your operating system. (All opinion here) Security - Linux, definitely. The OS is open for the whole world to see, so more security holes get found and fixed before it gets into a stable/popular distribution. In a security-critical server app, with no dependencies on Windows, I'd definitely go with Linux (or preferably *BSD). Of course this limits you to using a stable/popular distribution. If you run the bleeding-edge revision, you're probably going to have just as many security holes as Windows. Programming Experience - Windows. I've done both Linux and Windows programming, and in years past (with techs like MVC and ATL - bleh!) it really would have been a toss up. But in the last few years, Microsoft has moved ahead with techs like WCF, WPF/Silverlight, EF4, etc. There are analogous tools for Linux, integrated into one platform. I've seen people argue that Visual Studio is "locked down" so you're stuck with what MS gives you, but that isn't true. I've written several extensions for VS to do company-specific things - the platform is very extensible. You can write a tool to do anything that isn't already done by VS (like my favorite, ReSharper). Support - Toss up. Linux has much more online support, but it's spread out all over the place. If you've got some Google-fu skills, you'll find the answer. Microsoft has less support, but it's more centralized. A lot of people make the argument that just being able to call someone for support is necessary, but generally if professional programmers can't figure it out, it's a bug. And it's not like MS is going to fast-track a bug for you unless you routinely write 6 figure checks. Here[^]'s a bug that I've been dealing with for months. Edit: Forgot to add: My personal setup is a Windows 7 Pro PC with gobs of ram and a copy of VirtualBox, for those occasions where Linux is a better choice for a task.

Before .NET 4.0, object Universe = NULL;

modified on Tuesday, April 26, 2011 4:23 PM

[PIEBALDconsult]

Pmwanzia wrote:

other than being free

I got Win 7 Ultimate for free :badger: ... Visual Studio 2010 Pro for free :badger: ...

[dawmail333]

Linux (Ubuntu et al) definitely has its sweet spots. If you don't need to rely on specific Windows software, it's entirely possible you could do better with it than Windows 7. I rely on a LOT of such software, but my laptop dual-boots Win7/Mint (A variant of Ubuntu, but I wanted LXDE, a very lightweight graphics environment that adds hours(!) to battery life). All in all, it depends on whether you need the specific Windows stuff and you're willing to poke around and learn a bit of new stuff. If so, Linux might just be a better fit for you. P.S. I've tried Arch, but I definitely prefer Ubuntu, seeing I don't have to build EVERYTHING from scratch: the modularisation sounds like a good idea, but there's a HELL of a lot of config files just to get a decent (e.g. smooth fonts et al) GUI... P.S.S. I'm really not liking the looks of Unity. On my laptop (netbook), it just seems to obscure everything behind a few extra layers, makes the file-manager impossible to find, and takes three seconds(!) to open the top left menu X| EDIT: Did I mention how impressed I am with Wine? Ooh boy, Wine does a really awesome job. You just want a bit more juice, but it really is impressive.

Don't forget to rate my post if it helped! ;) "He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends." "His mother should have thrown him away, and kept the stork." "There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure." "He loves nature, in spite of what it did to him."

[Member 4138017]

A virus for Linux is a lot harder to write than it was for Windows XP. Because the practise of running as root (administrator) is discouraged. Windows Vista and later doesn't allow one to run everything with administrator priviledges now either so they've caught up. Of course Linux now has MAC and windows doesn't to my knowledge. So again if you want to make a system more secure you can implement MAC rules for common programs so that vulnerabilities in them did not allow the attacker to gain more priviledges than that program needs to be operational. One of the newer Linux distros that is specifically focused on security runs every application in it's own VM (thus every app runs in an isolated environment) - another thing not possible with Windows. Most of the programs you install on Linux you install from a software repository. So technically Linux is still more secure, but it's not that obvious anymore. A more prominent thing (and Windows is catching up here too) is the App Store. That is, all programs being installed from a trusted source. This feature has been available on Linux for ages now. Linux also needs less hacks because of its initial design philosophy being inherited from UNIX and its policies (e.g. the UAC is a hack). And because of that it needs less resources to run. It's not all great though. Linux is not supported by as many device manufacturers as Windows, thus a lot less drivers for it. Less games too. Some obscure software you might not find for it that exists on Windows, most of the software that you use can be replaced with open source alternatives, but you need to relearn to use it and most people don't like to do that. Some proprietary formats are not supported well either (understandable I'd say)

[Rich Koshak]

Every few years I go through the Windows/Linux/Mac question myself. The last time I came up on the side of Windows primarily because I have a good deal of software that I really love that is only available on Windows (OneNote being the most important). You will have to repartition but the Ubuntu installer will do it for you. Once installed, Ubuntu will be able to see your Windows drive, but I don't think Windows will be able to see your Ubuntu drive. https://help.ubuntu.com/community/WindowsDualBoot[^] If dual booting is an issue for you right now, you can always install Linux (or Windows) into a virtual machine. I personally like Virtual Box though have used VMWare and VirtualPC with success. Also, Cygwin can be a happy middle ground. It is basically a Linux stack that runs on Windows. I usually have Cygwin installed where I can on Windows just so I can have a good command line shell.

[Mike Winiberg]

Perhaps it's just me, but I've used many dev tools over the years from full IDEs like Visual Studio, Netbeans, Eclipse, through great editors like Slickedit, MultiEdit and the original Brief. I've used Borland and Zorland/Zortech tools, Parallel C/C++, GNU, Mono, you name it, when it comes to dev environments. Like some other very sensible respondents here, it depends on what you want to do, but I felt I just had to respond to the above comment, because of all the IDEs I've used, VS has got to be one of the worst! I've developed for DOS, Windows, Xenix, Linux in Assembler, Pascal, C, C++, Java, VB; for web in JSP/AJAX, Java and PHP, for embedded systems in 800x, Z80, 6509, 68K Assembler, C, Occam, Transputer assembler (I even had a hand in developing the assembler for the Transputer), Parallel C/C++ etc. In other words I'm a real old git! However, it is all too easy to become so used to and familiar with your main environment (eg Windows/Visual Studio) that you never experience or become aware of the alternatives out there or realise that MS, for all it's good points, is not the only player in town, or even the best one. If you can't imagine anything better than VS, I can only recommend that you get out more :) mike

[diegowald]

Both have pros and cons. You have to try both and decide later. I am Linux user (at home) and I've found that I don't have to maintain my home computer the way I had to maintain it when it had Windows. The maintenance of a Linux computer is easier than a Windows computer, because Linux doesn't have virus, or at least not the ammount of virus that Windows have. Windows is easy to install things, and reinstall also. Linux, is easier. To find a program? In windows you have to google it and buy the program or a free version of it. In Linux you have repositories, which are pre-configured in your installation. It's simple. You access a package manager (yum, in fedora, apt in Ubuntu) and choose the program and it starts downloading and installing it on your computer. Really easy. Regarding applications? There are thousands of applications in those repositories. From Office suites (Open Office, Libre Office, KOffice, etc), video players, games (I don't know which games you can find), development IDES (lot of IDES), 3D design (Blender, or example). All of this, free to use. On the other hand, when you have to do a particular task, you have to read and learn how can you do it in Linux. It is sure you will have to use the command line, and it is hard to start, but you will learn how to use the command line and soon you'll be a command line fan. In my personal experience, I've found that is hard to begin in Linux than Windows, but once you started both OS are usable. Regards, Diego

[John Oxley]

I disagree. There are plenty of hackers looking at Linux. Even taking viruses into consideration, if you run a Windows box without good protection, you deserve every single thing that happens to you. Stop breating my air! Your main vulnerability points I feel (completely unjustified) are the apps you use, in particular your browser. Throwing away the red herring of security, look at the rest. If you either want to play games use Windows. That's it. Btw, wine (Windows Emulator) does not work. Neither does that wine rip off to let you play games. It takes 17 times as long, you have to sacrifice a goat and performance sucks. If you're a Windows or .Net developer, use Windows. And Visual Studio is better than Monodevelop or Vim (Go googling for vim integration into VS2010, it rocks!). (Side note: everything is better than emacs, even notepad. Yes I said it! And I believe it!) If you have an iPhone, use Windows. No itunes on Linux. Yes you can plug it in through Amarok etc, but Apple stuff does not play well with non Apple stuff. Ease of use is simple. If you know Windows, it's a win. If you don't, toss a coin. If you're a networking guru, run Linux. You should be. It's just a gajillion times nicer. If you admin a windows network, run windows. If you admin a *nix network, run Linux. If you admin a mixed network, run Windows and buy SecureCRT. Learn how ssh keys work. Performance wise, yes you can slim Linux down more than Windows, but then you don't get all the features. They're 6 to 1, half a dozen to the other. If you want to get the best possible working environment, use linux. Warning: It will take some years. I've put 14 in so far and am getting close. If you enjoy playing with computers (I guess so cos you're here), run Linux. If your girlfriend/mother/sister non technically competent relationship person has to use the machine, Windows. Yes, in theory you can teach them how to use Linux. Also, in theory, theory is the same as in practice... I've been running Windows since 3.11 in the early nineties and Linux since Slackware 3.5 in the late nineties. Both OSes have improved incredibly in terms of usability, stability, features and getting out of my way so I can get shit done. Windows has a HUGE lead on games, and the edge on Windows development. The rest of it comes down to preference and experience. From a fresh install, it takes about 3 days to get a Windows box the way I like it. As I said earlier, I've been working on my