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

[Snowman58]

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

[wbaxter37]

Don't worry about which is better. You really should get to know your way around both. If you play with a modern Linux distro learn to get around on the command line. You really should get familiar with the Windows command line and PowerShell, too. Whether I use a Windows, Linux, or MAC machine I find myself turning off all the silly crap that reviewers seem to like so much. I find a lot of what gets the buzz in a GUI irritating (JASI pronounced "jazzy" = Just Another S****y Interface). The NAc garbage can raises my blood pressure every time I use it. A reallt useful exercise is to take something you're familiar with, preferably something you've written, and try to do tha same thing on a different platform. Take a Ruby script or class and write it in C#, take a Windows script and do the same thing in bash. I run Win7 at home, where I double as an IT guy for the family. I run WinXP and Win7 at work for manufacturing software development and deployment. I test the code I write (in C#, Ruby, batch, C/C++) on both both OS's using Win7Pro's built-in virtual machine. Our operators only know Windows, so Linux/UNIX would be useless. I also have to interface with a lot of hardware and have libraries availble for Windows but not for Linux. I run Ubuntu in VirtualBox to develop Linux code (bash, Ruby, C/C++) to run in our products, which run a Debian strain of Linux. As far as security, most of the cybercrime these days is not focused on viruses or hacking, but on "social-engineering" attacks. This is a fancy way of saying grifting (con jobs). It's easier to get through people than computer systems. Whatever OS you use keep it up to date. I've started playing with Qt, NetBeans, and Eclipse for cross-platform development. Qt is particularly good (the other two are very slow operators) and also has a cross-platform (Win/Linux/MAC OS X) applications framework. It's the only tool I've found that comes close to VisualStudio in making it easy to put together GUI applications. You can design an app top down and play with it before you get into the nitty-gritty of

[Sterling Camden independent consultant]

Neither. Go with FreeBSD.

Contains coding, but not narcotic.

[ajhampson]

You do know that a huge number of servers run Linux, right? That is one very large attack vector if Linux security is so weak and "full of holes." :-D Just sayin'

[da808wiz]

command line freak! I'm raising my fist in the air, like I'm holding onto something that's invisible there. But based on this guy's questions, I don't think he's ready for BSD. That's like throwing him in the deep end of the pool to teach him to swim, and throwing a few pirannas in there along with him to motivate.

[da808wiz]

I don't know what kind of user you are, but I am a command line freak, of sorts. Although ubuntu does not drive users to the shell aka command prompt, I like the fact that so many tools are made in their raw form (gui-less) and available via apt-get install on ubuntu. You an almost assume they are there, and do an apt-get install [keyword] to find the tool you are looking for, whether it be video file conversion, audio file conversion, or even wifi "tools" Also, I know some of the tools are available on Windows, but they usually aren't the latest releases, and they run slower on Windows. The difference is so much so, that I have resorted to taking my new laptop, wiping the OS, installing ubuntu, then running Windows 7 inside a VM. I recently had to reload my last ubuntu laptop as a Windows PC as a gift. I have since been struggling to do things in Windows and find it very dissatisfying, to a point where I am tempted to buy a new laptop and load ubuntu on it. If you like to fiddle and take control of things to a point where the gui does not satisfy, ubuntu or any linux OS gives you that power. If you want to play minesweeper or solitaire without having to run Windows in a VM, then stick to Windows OS. I do consulting and I have never found a client whom I felt compelled to suggest they run ubuntu, or any linux OS, for that matter. I am busy enough as it is, and I know those free phone calls will kill me as they struggle with linux. I just tell them to be careful tell them, "Do not click on anything that says it can fix the problem, assume it's a hoax, unless you want me to come in and fix it - for a price, of course. Save your money by closing the window and don't even acknowle the question on your screen." I did have a ubuntu PC which got a virus on it, but I was extremely careless to a point where I ran just about anything just to try it and see, something I would never do on a Windows box. Eventually the system became pretty much unresponsive and was running tasks I had not installed. At that point I loaded the latest ubuntu again and it hummed along fine. I am a LITTLE more careful now on ubuntu, and have not had any problems. Well, until I gave away the ubuntu PC as a Windows one, of course.

[Lost User]

No technical fanboi arguments just simple logic on the main reason I continue to be a Windows developer: If I throw 100 rocks in all directions, 95 or more of them will hit Windows machines, 5 or less will hit Linux or other type machines. I'd say that covers it. -Max :D

[Sterling Camden independent consultant]

I think the piranhas belong in the Windows story. FreeBSD is more like finding yourself in the middle of the ocean on a beautiful yacht that is fully stocked, but the engine is completely disassembled. There is, however, a very good manual.

Contains coding, but not narcotic.

[Sterling Camden independent consultant]

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing." --Bertrand Russell

Contains coding, but not narcotic.

[bcw1000]

"other than being free" This is ambiguous - you might be clued up on this, but many aren't, so I want to comment. If you say that you are free, it doesn't mean we can have you for no money - it means we can't lock you up at all. You are Free. It's a recent historical development to equate freedom with price (and I think it's also a nasty comment on what our current societies value). Free Software is software that can't be taken away from people. That's the entire idea - freedom. Some people are willing to donate their work for others to use and license it so that no one can take it away. Some go as far as licensing their code so that anyone that wants to base their work on it must contribute their improvements back to the community as well - otherwise, write your own from scratch, and then you can do as you like with it. I live in a society that wants me to earn and have money and I don't have a problem with that. I code for my living and I'm valued for it. I don't mind working with a group of others (a "Company" of others) to provide something of value we can be paid for. No problem. At the same time, I value building up a body of software anyone can work with as long as they are community-minded. I think this is a good thing and benefits all of us to some extent. I license several projects I have written under free licenses. So keep in mind Freedom != $0 Those are very different. Cheers bcw1000

[Gary Huck]

Ah, I see - that's why he modified his post :)

[Gary Huck]

Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They're all the same only different. It comes down to this: "What will you get paid for?". The arguments are old and tired. Oh, *nix is free? Yeah, until you need something like a database or sorting utility. Windoz, well, we're not running 3.1 any more - even the *nix guys use Win for their workstations. Don't feel stupid - *nix guys are hard-core diehards. They are very proud to still use vi. Best operating system ever is/was VAX/VMS ...

[Lost User]

Sterling Camden / independent consultant wrote:

"If fifty million people say a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."
--Bertrand Russell

Very profound, but I don't think Russell was talking about marketing a product. I guess you're implying that the market is "foolish" for having chosen Windows as it's platform. Either that or you're calling me foolish for capitalizing on it. You are certainly entitled to your opinion. I'm impressed (NOT). -Max

[athenatennis com sg]

I just find it easier to do new things on Windows, and even worse, I'm actually beginning to admire Microsoft now that they are no longer the single most dominant IT company around. Their .net and Visual Studio platform is very productive and I think its overtaken Java now, though in the end, they both allow you to do pretty much the same things if you know how.

[Florin Jurcovici 0]

What I write is from the point of view of a home user. From the point of view of a company, unless you are constrained by legacy applications running only on Windows, and which can't run properly with wine, I think there's no point in using Windows. Both initial and operating costs are much lower with Linux than with Windows on the desktop, as any serious case study demonstrates - please be aware, however, that there are lots of flawed case studies on the 'Net, mostly sponsored by MS or by organizations sponsored by MS. (For instance, a skilled Linux administrator may cost double of what a skilled Windows administrator costs, but can easily administer a network which is maybe ten times as large, without the need to invest into expensive administrative tools.) If you'd know Windows better, you'd know that Windows security is plagued by one essential design flaw, present there since the first versions of Windows, which couldn't be removed due to backwards compatibility. I don't know W7 well enough to know how much of its evil effects are still in place, but the problem is this: since the whole Windows API was designed at a time when there wasn't even a shadow of an access rights system in Windows, there are still many operations which any application needs to perform but which require administrative privileges. This is the backdoor through which all serious security attacks on Windows boxes happen - buffer and stack over-/underflows can cause arbitrary code to be executed in contexts beyond the user's security context. Since Linux had a pretty simple and straightforward access control mechanism in place since its inception, there's no such problem with Linux. I know MS would have you believe that it's just the sheer number of Windows boxes out there that attracts virus writers to Windows, but this is stupid, if you think a little about it. Why would somebody spend significant time developing a virus which needs to get to at least a few tens of thousands of Windows boxes to be heard of, instead of spending the same amount of time on developing a virus which could just target a few hundreds or thousands of essential servers (like for instance an entire Google data center), if Linux and Windows would be equally insecure? (However, most attacks on Windows boxes aren't all that smart, and rely more on user stupidity than on OS faults. So W7 is probably an improvement on previous Windows versions from a security standpoint - can't really judge this.) As for installation and configuration easiness, I'd say this

[Florin Jurcovici 0]

This is stupid. Google has a policy of no windows at all in their entire infrastructure - including workstations - because it is considered a security risk. Several companies, many of them from the IT sector, have adopted Linux on the desktop. Where did you get your opinion from? A MS marketing droid? As for servers, more than half of all Internet hosts are running Linux, and most others run Unix variants. Most computers in the top500 supercomputer list run Linux, as opposed to I think about 1% or less running Windows. Wouldn't you say this means something?

[Florin Jurcovici 0]

The numbers argument is just a lame excuse created by MS marketing droids. Don't fall for it. Use your brain. If you create a virus for Windows, you need to have it infect several tens of thousands of workstations just to get it listed in the news. You may get access to a few mail accounts, and you are unlikely to access any really important information (such as credit card numbers). If you manage to craft an attack against one single important server or datacenter, for instance a google or ebay or amazon datacenter, or even just hacking your local ISP (which probably runs Linux in his datacenter), you could achieve a much higher impact with a lot less effort. If Windows and Linux would be similarly (in)secure, do you really think anybody would bother hacking Windows, as long as more than half the Internet is run on Linux?

[Florin Jurcovici 0]

> 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 ... Right. But then again, with close to 40000 packages in the supported repositories, and with several software providers providing their own repositories, the likelihood of not finding something you need in the repositories is minimal, IMO. At least it never happened to me over the last four versions of Ubuntu.

[Andi Fairhurst]

I use both Ubuntu & Windows. My main OS is Ubuntu and I use VirtualBox to start a VM running Windows if I need to use VisualStudio - Best of both worlds. As to Microsoft Office, I use a product called Crossover from CodeWeavers. This allows me to use Office natively within Ubuntu.

[Florin Jurcovici 0]

I'm using the Eclipse pack created by the guys at Spring - seems to me STS is to Eclipse like Ubuntu is to Debian. Many of my co-workers use VS 2010. Do you know what they curse most about? It simply crashes all the time. Personally, I think VS in its 2010 incarnation, if it weren't for the stability problems, could be brought up to the level of Eclipse by spending probably a few thousand dollars per workstation for various addons (resharper being just one of them).