Revolution OS

[Prince of Kitties]

(Because I'm curious! And also because sometimes, the best way to kill a controversial discussion is to introduce a more controversial discussion. )

 

Okay, I know some of you here are Linux users. So...

 

1. Which distro do you use? (Most of the time, if applicable, etc.)

 

2. What keeps you using Linux?

 

3. What do you think is Linux's best point as an OS?

 

4. What do you think is Linux's most frustrating point?

 

5. If Linux did not exist, what would you be using on your desktop?

[keira]

1) Debian!

 

2) It does stuff M$ or Mac can't, it does it better, and it does it for free.

 

3) See above

 

4) Driver issues, because vendors do not release open drivers and usually not even a proprietary linux driver.

 

5) I actually usually use Windows as a desktop, due to number 4. Everything is a dual-boot though, and I only use Debian servers. Honestly, I think Linux is better without a GUI, the gnome suite and the xfce suite seem to be stuck in uncanny valley (again, most likely to crappy hardware and/or vendor driver issues), and text-mode is more powerful anyway.

 

If I may pose my own question, what are y'all's thoughts on whatever Canonical is trying to do with Ubuntu? I only used the distro for a few months, then they did all that funky stuff (i was on the way out anyway, was tired of it just being a dumbed-down Debian).

[Prince of Kitties]

For mine:

 

1. I use SalixOS, a fairly obscure French desktop distribution based on Slackware. Why? Because it has most of the advantages of Slackware, and dependency resolution.

 

2. Security. Small user base, lack of standardization, and poor backwards compatibility all work to prevent the spread of malware! (chroot also helps.)

 

3. It's free and it works for standard desktop stuff.

 

4. "Overdesktopification." Methods for handling power management, disk mounting, and wireless networking are tied too much to huge desktop environments, which is annoying for obsessive-compulsive nerds (like me!) who don't like desktop environments.

 

5. Probably Windows XP. Expensive, but it works (for most things), and the backups fit on one DVD (which is more than can be said of Windows Vista/7).

[Prince of Kitties]

Originally Posted By: Sylae

If I may pose my own question, what are y'all's thoughts on whatever Canonical is trying to do with Ubuntu? I only used the distro for a few months, then they did all that funky stuff (i was on the way out anyway, was tired of it just being a dumbed-down Debian).

I think Unity would be fairly nice if
a) they made it a bit more ergonomic
they ditched some of the absurd eyecandy

Especially (. When a desktop runs sluggish on a Core 2 Duo workstation with 4 GB of RAM, you know something is seriously wrong.

[Khoth]

1. Which distro do you use? (Most of the time, if applicable, etc.)

Debian

 

2. What keeps you using Linux?

It's the only OS that runs on the hardware.

 

3. What do you think is Linux's best point as an OS?

The useful utilities

 

4. What do you think is Linux's most frustrating point?

Configuring the thing

 

5. If Linux did not exist, what would you be using on your desktop?

I actually use Windows 7 on the desktop. I switched from a Mac so I could play games.

[Dintiradan]

1. Ubuntu.

 

2. Bunch of reasons, listed in order of importance:

- All the tools I use are available, sometimes exclusively, for Linux.

- My peers use Linux (or other UNIX variants), and my programming output is expected for those systems.

- Free as in Beer.

- Time cost of switching to a different OS, and finding new tools.

 

3. Free as in Beer.

Don't get me wrong, Free as in Freedom is important. Very important. But personally, I don't do any modification or redistribution of software. Keeping the OS and its tools open is a great means to an end, but it's not the end goal in and of itself -- good, freely available software is.

 

4. When I started (Gutsy Gibbon), I would have said "Getting wireless to work". That's gotten a lot better now, though. No fooling around with ndiswrapper. I'm pretty happy where Linux for the desktop is now. My biggest frustration? Probably central, up to date documentation for the tools I use. A lot of the time when I diagnose and fix bugs, I have to use mailing lists, and often the advice is out-of-date. On the one hand, it's unfair to judge an OS based on the quality of the software available for it. On the other hand, most people judge other OSes by the tools that are included with it.

 

5. Probably some other UNIX variant. Probably one of the BSDs if possible (not very desktop friendly), and Mac OS X otherwise.

 

EDIT: I use Gnome v2. I haven't tried Unity or Gnome v3. I've used KDE half a decade back, and didn't like it. I've taught in a lab that used Xfce, and that seemed fine, but I didn't play around with it much. Of, and fvwm2 for when I'm feeling minimalistic.

[Niemand]

1. Scientific Linux (used to be RHEL)

2. The sysadmins keep installing it on the work computers

3. Generic unix compatibility. It's really nice that stuff just works essentially uniformly across the Macs that most of us in my workgroup use for personal computers, the linux severs, the linux cluster nodes, and even the FreeBSD machines that certain of my colleagues insist on using. The few Windows machines are the weird, incompatible ones that don't run any of the software.

4. I'm very adapted to working on a Mac, and so from my point of view there's no suitable graphical software on Linux for almost any task. I stay inside the command line environment on the linux machines, and it's fine for the work I need to do, but I mostly view and edit my files on my own non-Linux machine.

5. I probably wouldn't notice the difference, as I'd guess that we would just use some BSD variant on our work machines, and I already use Mac OS on my own machines (and hey, that's just a BSD variant too.)

[Dantius]

[someone had to take a stand for the one OS to rule them all, and it might as well be me!]

1. Windows 7 at home, and Win 7 at work. The last work distribution was XP, and I... chose poorly in having Vista on my previous personal computer.

 

2. Autodesk, Inc. Though, to be fair, I am both using their products less, and I've heard that they're releasing/have released Mac versions. So I guess mainly inertia at this point.

 

3. The vast body of every type of program imaginable for the OS. Also, the games.

 

4. "ADMINISTRATOR PERMISSION REQUIRED FOR THIS ACTION" dialog boxes that black out the screen and pop up ever five [censored] minutes.

 

5. A slide rule, drafting kit, typewriter, and a copy of Abramowitz and Stegun.

[keira]

Of course you would like Windows.

[Harehunter]

I for one am ambivalent about Windows. I'm compelled to use it because that is what I have to support at work. I am much happier on my Solaris boxes. I did have a linux box at home, but Ike caused a flood in our house, so scratch one little linux box.

Click to reveal.. (Naughty Rabbit)

On the the other hand Windows is a target rich environment for a PunMeister, but I shall not do that now, and certainly not here.

 

Perhaps one day, when I have to retire my home PC (still running XP) and rebuild it with a linux OS. I've heard good things about Ubuntu.

[A less presumptuous name.]

Originally Posted By: Khoth

5. If Linux did not exist, what would you be using on your desktop?
I actually use Windows 7 on the desktop. I switched from a Mac so I could play games.

Welcome to Spiderweb, where Mac comes first.

[The Ratt]

One of the few companies where they make the mac version first.

 

I am primarily a mac user, but I have my laptop dual booting.

 

1. Linux Mint. Chosen over Ubuntu because Unity wasn't the default, and I've heard bad things about Unity. As far as I know it's vary similar to Ubuntu otherwise.

 

2. My computer science profs mostly. I do think it's good to have experience working with linux, but so far there's only been one assignment that I had to in linux because the Mac version of the assembler used a different syntax.

 

3. Open source.

 

4. Wireless. It inconsistently connects with my school's wireless.

 

5. Like I said, Mac OS.

[Necris Omega]

1. I've used both Ubuntu and CentOS - I prefer Ubuntu

 

2. My experience was mostly through college networking and OS courses, though I have used them as a Live CD to recover data from an HD that was sinking like the Titanic.

 

3. Cost

 

4. Comparably user unfriendly vs. Mac/Windows

 

5. Windows.

 

I was born a snake handle- I mean Windows User, I'll die a Windows User.

[The Mystic]

1. Which distro do you use? (Most of the time, if applicable, etc.)

Ubuntu 11.1, in VirtualBox.

 

2. What keeps you using Linux?

Curiosity, mostly.

 

3. What do you think is Linux's best point as an OS?

It's free.

 

4. What do you think is Linux's most frustrating point?

I really have no idea what the [self-censored] I'm doing, and I'm too cheap to spend $50-100 per book to learn it.

 

5. If Linux did not exist, what would you be using on your desktop?

Same as I've been using, Windows. My current build uses 64-bit Win7.

[Tyranicus]

1. Which distro do you use? (Most of the time, if applicable, etc.)

Over the years, I've experimented with Fedora, Ubuntu, Debian, and Mandriva

 

2. What keeps you using Linux?

Nothing. I don't like it/

 

3. What do you think is Linux's best point as an OS?

It is free and can be infinitely configured.

 

4. What do you think is Linux's most frustrating point?

Everything. I run OS X, and I'm not afraid to use the terminal from time to time, but it seems that Linux users tend to live in the terminal, and I much prefer a functional GUI. Every time I have used Linux, I've had trouble with various things. Often it's a driver issue, or I have trouble installing something, etc. I do tech support for a living, have built and configured my own computers for over 10 years, and my primary desktop is a hackintosh, so I know my way around a computer. Of the three major OS choices, I find Linux to be the most frustrating.

 

5. If Linux did not exist, what would you be using on your desktop?

I use OS X, and will continue to use OS X.