To all linux and windows users, please help me choose the better option.
-
Thanks, linux users are usually heard ravin on how secure the OS is but I don't believe them. I think that the only reason few viruses exist for linux is because many hackers dont find it rewarding to attack an OS thats used by a significantly lower number of people. What do you think?
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)
-
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).
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.
-
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.
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
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
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
-
Thanks, linux users are usually heard ravin on how secure the OS is but I don't believe them. I think that the only reason few viruses exist for linux is because many hackers dont find it rewarding to attack an OS thats used by a significantly lower number of people. What do you think?
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
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
To me, the answer is simple. The better choice is the one that someone's willing to pay you to work on ;) For me, that's been a LOT more on the W7/.net side of things, though I've also done a good bit of Linux stuff. Way too many zealots out there on both sides of this. It's not a good idea to get all personally invested in any technology - in 10 years, they could both be history. I agree with the posters here that it all depends on what you're doing. If you don't see a clear choice for your needs, try out both sides and see which fits better for you. And DON'T sink any anchors into whatever ground you find yourself in.
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
I do NOT recommend Linux to anyone. That said, it sounds like you got into a fanboy flame war with some Linux fanboys and lost. And now you're looking for ammo.
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
I don't see why it even matters. Dual boot. Get the best of both worlds. All my computers are dual-boot Windows 7 and Linux Mint (better than Ubuntu, IMHO). That being said, I use the Windows side more often, because of Visual Studio and general availability of apps. The Linux side is better for Ruby/Rails development, which I do on occasion. And, thanks to JetBrains, I have the exact same dev environment for Web (WebStorm), Rails (RubyMine), Java/Android (IntelliJ), regardless of which OS I use. I've even tried Mono for .NET on Linux, but it's always a few steps behind, and I'm doing MVC3 work right now, so I stick to Visual Studio for the most part. I don't really find either one to be so much 'better' than the other. It depends on what you are using it for, and/or, which game you want to play! ;)
-
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
Absolutely agree with the suggestion to run both either as a dual boot, or run a linux flavor(s) as a virtual from Win7. I would suggest the latter option first. That way you get the best of both worlds, and can try different distros to see which one(s) best suit your needs.
"Go forth into the source" - Neal Morse
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
-
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
John Oxley wrote:
If your girlfriend/mother/sister 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...
Oh, please, give it a break :mad:
It’s not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it’s because we do not dare that things are difficult. ~Seneca
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
-
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.
You can use SharpDevelop, is a free IDE or install wine to run visual studio on linux.
NKS
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
Windows 7 (or, in my case, Vista x64) could jump to a games menu (Steam apps browser?) instead of a desktop and I'd be happy -- at least on my game machine. Any other type of software is up in the air for personal preference choice, especially with Open Source being so prolific. But, if you're a computer gamer, you're going to be missing out unless you go with Windows. The X-Box made it really easy for games to be ported between that game console and Windows, so Windows will always have more games available than any other platform. The only way I see this changing is if we see game consoles take a queue from smart phones and go with a Linux OS core. If lots of Linux-based game consoles started floating around, you can bet that Linux would quickly become the next gaming OS. Until that amazing event comes to pass, I'm going to just stick with Windows as my gaming OS.
-
So today I faced off with some guys who were all in favor of linux and being thoughtless I defended windows 7. Never felt so stupid as they all laughed at another microsoft die hard. Is linux (read ubuntu) so good that windows 7 looks inferior? Come on, its windows 7 we're talking about! What's so good about linux (other than being free) compared to windows? And all windows fans, what's so good about windows compared to linux. Please kindly don't turn this into a hate thread coz my aim is to find which is better in terms of security,programming experience,support, and just anything else you can come up with.
Security? Which flavour of *nix support NTFS or Access Based security than that 'rwx' based security on file? Almost all kernel objects have security attached with them? If you talk about OS security, where no one can attack - that's a different perspective, since not many are attacking Linux systems. And for programming environment and debugging-support, Windows is lightyears ahead of Linux. Windows has WaitForDebugEvent API, surrounded with other APIs that support native debugging. Linux has just a 'ptrace' which doesnt support multithreaded debugging, debugging a UI application, 'Edit-and-continue' feature and things like that. May be companies like Google, have developed their own debugging-system at OS level. I dont understand how programmers can live without a good development environment? Yes, for sure, networking is (probably) better than Windows. Someone said, down there in one of the posts that for Linux programmers there is more material available - I totally disagree. Take a look at pthread_create and CreateThread docs. Entire net would show the same 'man pthread_create' stuff, and just the MSDN doc says much more than for CreateThread, forget more info elsewhere.
-
Don't really know linux, but do know windows. I think part of it depends on what you want. My understanding (and limited experience) is that windows is easier to install and configure, especially when you want to tweak some esoteric parameter or feature. Linux is getting much better in this regard, but I don't think it'll ever really approach the ease-of-use of windows. As for security, both OS's are as full of holes as the other. The reason windows gets so much attention is due to the far greater number of machines running windows. The only real way to tell is to try it out for yourself. There are bootable linux CDs available.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering” - Wernher von BraunIf you are using Ubuntu or SUSE Linux than you have made a good choice in that area. However, as it regards, which is better, there is no real answer. Linux is promoted by academics, scientists and hard-core technical personnel. This is one of the reasons it took so long to define a pleasing desk-top experience, with Ubuntu probably being the top distro available in that regard. Windows on the other hand is promoted by consumers and technical personnel who need to get their jobs done. This is not to say that you cannot do the same implementations with Linux but with Windows there is a lot more available support for what you want to accomplish. Try as it might, right now Linux is dead on the desktop because of too many distros all competing for the same things, most of them not all that good. In terms of security; first off there is no such thing. No matter what os you finally settle on, the attacker has all the advantages simply because he or she is far more focused on succeeding in making a breach compared to the defender who is always concentrating on other tasks. Windows is attacked far more often than Linux for the reasons that most of the posters here have voiced; its simply more prevalent so an attack on Windows gets a "bigger bang for the buck". If Linux suddenly became the dominant os the same thing would happen to it. That being said, Microsoft has done a relatively good job of beefing up Windows security and a number of studies have confirmed this. In addition, if you use high quality anti-virus software (Norton & McAfee are useless junk) you should experience no problems. In terms of development, both platforms practically have the same range of options along with the databases to support them. Java works fine on both operating systems while if you want to use .NET, you can use MONO on Linux, which is the open-source .NET project that is now fairly mature. In the end, make the decision on your own for what you you need to do and what your firm requires. Listening to 3rd party advice on this issue will only to serve to confuse more...
Steve Naidamast Black Falcon Software, Inc. blackfalconsoftware@ix.netcom.com
-
Don't really know linux, but do know windows. I think part of it depends on what you want. My understanding (and limited experience) is that windows is easier to install and configure, especially when you want to tweak some esoteric parameter or feature. Linux is getting much better in this regard, but I don't think it'll ever really approach the ease-of-use of windows. As for security, both OS's are as full of holes as the other. The reason windows gets so much attention is due to the far greater number of machines running windows. The only real way to tell is to try it out for yourself. There are bootable linux CDs available.
If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, do more and become more, you are a leader." - John Quincy Adams
You must accept one of two basic premises: Either we are alone in the universe, or we are not alone in the universe. And either way, the implications are staggering” - Wernher von Braunahmed zahmed wrote:
My understanding (and limited experience) is that windows is easier to install and configure, especially when you want to tweak some esoteric parameter or feature. Linux is getting much better in this regard, but I don't think it'll ever really approach the ease-of-use of windows.
This is not quite true. If you are using a 'modern' Linux distribution (Ubuntu, Fedora, etc.) installation is a snap. Stick in the CD, boot, answer a few questions (similar to what is asked by a Windows installation) and say go. Walk away and come back to a *completely* installed computer -- OS, development tools, etc. Oh, and then you only have to run update *1* time to get everything up to date. Last time I re-installed my Windows machine I had to run updated about 9 times (rebooting each time) before the OS was completely up to date. Then I started installing my apps and updating them. As long as your distributions support the programs you are using, Linux is much easier. On the other hand it can take days to figure out all the dependencies require to install something if the distribution does not provide it ...
-
nice answer. It truly depends with what am doing here's a little bit more info, am more interested in programming. Does linux have nice software like pdf readers, music players/codecs,antivirus,games and others that you can easily get on windows? P.S nice signature,really got me thinking
I have run both an Ubuntu desk top and Windows 7 desk top for a couple years now. As an OS, there is little difference to choose from; - They are different in detail, but both are very competent. - You only do an occasional install, but for me the Linux installations have been faster and on older hardware Linux is less hassle. Windows makes you go searching for old drivers, etc. - Windows has GUI’s for virtually any configuration parameter. You have to use a Terminal window and obscure command line code to fine tune Linux. Think Win 3.1 level with a mix of GUI and DOS. But such fine tuning is rare. - Linux is faster and requires fewer resources – great for extending the life of an older machine. - Updates are equally frequent, but Linux rarely, if ever forces you to reboot after an update. Windows may force you to reboot several times just to finish one set of updates. - Less malware on Linux – not because it is more secure, but because who would waste their time writing malware for an OS with such a small market share? - You can get virtually any application from graphics editing to office suites to audio/video editing or playback, even some cool games. And they are almost all free! So am I a Linux fan boy or use the Linux box all day? Nope, when I need to get something done I use the Windows machine. Even the best applications for Linux simply can’t match the better Windows applications. They lack consistent user interfaces, they fall short in features, etc., etc. The applications seem to be five yrs behind and except for Android app’s I do not see much application development happening.
Melting Away www.deals-house.com www.innovative--concepts.com