Linux vs. Windows
And BAM, we turned another harmless thread in "OMG Linux is better/OMG Windows is better".
Please don't put these ideas on me.
I used linux for an entire year, and I didn't like.
And don't abuse me when I say...
Let this thread die.
This argument isn't the purpose of this thread.
You like Linux, You stay on Linux.
I like Windows, I stay on Windows.
And if this can help you, it's two entire years I'm without antivirus, and I'm on Windows.
I've even disabled Windows Firewall/Windows Updater/... services.
As I said: Viruses can only come from 3rd party unchecked applications.
Not my fault if you ran that "MS Office 2k18 activator 13G17!!!" program.
Once again, I'm out.
Keeping this discussion inside this topic, will get the post reported.
Go make another topic if you want to discuss further.
| All you have to do is try linux out for 6 months and you will see the results yourself. Once you go linux, you dont go back. |
Please don't put these ideas on me.
I used linux for an entire year, and I didn't like.
And don't abuse me when I say...
| EssGeEich wrote: |
|---|
| As i'm not a X vs Y fanboy, my answers will stop here. |
Let this thread die.
This argument isn't the purpose of this thread.
You like Linux, You stay on Linux.
I like Windows, I stay on Windows.
And if this can help you, it's two entire years I'm without antivirus, and I'm on Windows.
I've even disabled Windows Firewall/Windows Updater/... services.
As I said: Viruses can only come from 3rd party unchecked applications.
Not my fault if you ran that "MS Office 2k18 activator 13G17!!!" program.
Once again, I'm out.
Keeping this discussion inside this topic, will get the post reported.
Go make another topic if you want to discuss further.
| EssGeEich wrote: |
|---|
| And BAM, we turned another harmless thread in "OMG Linux is better/OMG Windows is better". |
i wasnt referring to you, i was referring to the OP. I was just jumping off your comments to help explain to the OP some differences in switching to linux. They are on topic with the OP. I do agree however they are biased against windows as that was my intention.
| DTSCode wrote: |
|---|
| im not even going to waste my time reading the rest of your post because its obvious from your thesis that it will be just as bad |
So don't. It wasnt meant for you either. It was meant for the OP
The OP stated:
| Are there any complications with Linux that a newbie should know about? |
I was just adding the fact that it is rather the opposite
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closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
i dont care who it was meant for. your assumptions/statements were wrong and needed to be addressed. linux is good for somethings but it is an answer to all os issues as much as c++ is an answer to all programming problems
| linux is good for somethings but it is an answer to all os issues as much as c++ is an answer to all programming problems |
??
I find your response to my statements futile to disregard them.
closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
what the hell are you talking about? you are making statements that are/were completely wrong. i disregarded your last paragraph because i didnt have much faith that it was going to be any better
were you really born in 1996? That would explain a lot. because then i am just arguing with a kid.
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closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
| were you really born in 1996? That would explain a lot. because then i am just arguing with a kid. |
when i was 17 i thought i knew it all too.
I defaulted on your age as it explained the reason why you act in this manner. You had a fit because i called linux superior.
I defaulted on your age as it explained the reason why you act in this manner. You had a fit because i called linux superior.
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closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
| when i was 17 i thought i knew it all too. |
obviuosly you still do, thought being the operative word. youve made many statements, i said they were wrong and all youve done to address them is say the post wasnt meant for me, my age makes me wrong, and that your older and wiser
closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
ah your 23... that explains it. you think now that youve passed that 18 gate you now know more than me. i am sad that you are a programmer, because its obvious how little you know, which seems to be less than me which is saying something. but you know what, we are done. you are trolling and its plain to see that you are a linux fanboy and know shit about what your talking about. once again your just wasting my time
closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
i agree LB, however thats not the discussion. he made a lot of statements that were wrong and i called him on it, and his defence was that im 17 so he knows better
@metulburr: ALL of your points were perfectly valid and on-topic. Your opinion is your own to give. This is an open forum not to be censored by people who think they're God's gift to programming. Why you had to look up DTS's age is a mystery however. Lazy punctuation and grammar, poor spelling and communication skills, undeserved supercilious attitude and desire to put others down to make themselves appear superior all indicate an "I'm a know-it-all college student!". Ignore them. I do.
BTW, my first PC was based on a Zilog-80 CPU and I built it myself so I'm way older than both of you. 8^P
BTW, my first PC was based on a Zilog-80 CPU and I built it myself so I'm way older than both of you. 8^P
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closed account (Dy7SLyTq)
no im not a know it all. punctuation had nothing to do with these posts. let me know when you actually want to argue your points instead of me. its a tactic that i used with my siblings when i was 12. you are wrong. i told you why. either respond with a real argument or stop acting like your twelve, because attacking my grammar and my age is what twelve year olds with no arguments do
Some of his points were OFF-topic instead.
Most of the points are hateful comments against the Windows OS family - Which isn't related to the OP's questions:
The exact points I am talking about are, mainly:
You may agree with me, your points were unrelated to the OP's specific question:
Switching from Linux to Windows, what are the issues I may encounter on my way?
The points listed above do not answer or help answer the question given above.
Instead they just show how close-minded you are to alternatives, and the hate you give to such alternatives.
In case you wonder, I didn't report any post just because they weren't a direct "flame".
But "im done with you child." doesn't make you any honor.
Most of the points are hateful comments against the Windows OS family - Which isn't related to the OP's questions:
| OP wrote: |
|---|
| If I switch over, will I still be able to access all of my current installed programs including the Windows ones? Are there any complications with Linux that a newbie should know about? |
The exact points I am talking about are, mainly:
Linux is by far superior in so many ways. --- Linux is open source whereas windows is closed source. --- I have been running numerous distros of linux for over 3 years now. Since making the switch, i have never once had a harmful program execute. --- Linux users tend to know more than windows users, even newbies to linux start to understand it than long time windows users. --- You can modify, edit, any part of the operating system to suit your needs. You want it to boot up faster, mod some files, change some lines, download a light weight desktop, etc. --- I generally find that doing anything in linux is so much more easier than windows. Someone gives you a command to do something[...] |
You may agree with me, your points were unrelated to the OP's specific question:
Switching from Linux to Windows, what are the issues I may encounter on my way?
The points listed above do not answer or help answer the question given above.
Instead they just show how close-minded you are to alternatives, and the hate you give to such alternatives.
In case you wonder, I didn't report any post just because they weren't a direct "flame".
But "im done with you child." doesn't make you any honor.
I am also a big fan of Linux. There are only two software titles that cause me to use Windows, one is CAD software for work (Civil3D by AutoDesk specific to Civil Design, about $10,000 worth), the other which I use only occasionally is for my Car Navigation - so I can download topo maps into it, for 4WD trips.
With the CAD software, I will soon buy a pretty good looking Linux CAD (BrisCAD) for about $400-$700. It looks really good in terms of a general CAD program, it does not have the specialised stuff for Civil Design, but it does seem to have way more capability than AutoCAD Lite which is a similar price.
I like Linux because there is so much stuff for free. Fedora has about 20,000 free apps available for download. There is lots of free apps for other OS's too, but Linux really shines in terms of Computer Science - just having the shell alone was enough to convince me initially, plus I like the way the whole thing is organised.
The UNIX / Linux paradigm is different, configuration files are human readable - changes are made by editing those files , whereas Windows tends to keep configuration data in binary files and provides software to change things.
On Linux, knowing where to find the configuration files, and what the contents mean, can be tricky. But sometimes Windows can be quite tricky to configure as well.
In terms of things to look out for when new to Linux, be careful if trying to alter configuration - do plenty of research via google & it will probably pay to ask on a forum as well. Don't mess with it if it is not broken, as you could spend days figuring out why things aren't right later.
With doing stuff using the shell or scripts (as opposed to just using software), it can be quite hard to figure stuff out by yourself - Linux is an example of a system that is complex but unlimited in what you can do, as opposed to simple but limited. The complexity means a bit of education is worthwhile - investigate getting a good book that shows some concepts and potential of things that can be done.
It's the lack of knowledge about concepts & potential, that makes it hard to learn things yourself. It might even be worth doing a course at a Polytechnic (Tertiary School) or a course at Uni, but the Uni course might be tricky to get into because it doesn't fit with your program i.e it is not in first or second year say.
I first discovered UNIX in 1987, but I struggled a lot - it was before the days when the Internet was widely used (at least here anyway), all I had was the man (manual) pages, anda the C programming book by K&R. I spent many a late night after work trying to suss things out. I still much preferred using UNIX over DOS 3.0 - no contest really. When the first versions of Windows came out, the only thing of interest was Excel & Word which seemed to be better than Lotus123.
In terms of who prefers what OS or software, I think the professional thing to do is get comfortable with all of them if possible. If you start or try to get work, it is a big plus to be seen as being flexible & adaptable. You might have a favourite IDE - lets say code::blocks on Windows, when you start work, they might have some other system on UNIX & they might not use an IDE at all. You might be expected to do everything from the shell & use makefiles. Hell, your brand new job might not involve C++ at all - you could be using Fortran on a CRAY to model weather systems, or blood flow for heart pumps say.
So try to learn as much as possible, and remember all the different systems (OS, software, languages) have their good & bad points - and which one should be used varies form job to job.
Hope all is well at your end :+) .
Also hope I haven't given a big lecture on a whole lot of stuff you already know - not sure where you are at, at least it might be useful for others reading this.
With the CAD software, I will soon buy a pretty good looking Linux CAD (BrisCAD) for about $400-$700. It looks really good in terms of a general CAD program, it does not have the specialised stuff for Civil Design, but it does seem to have way more capability than AutoCAD Lite which is a similar price.
I like Linux because there is so much stuff for free. Fedora has about 20,000 free apps available for download. There is lots of free apps for other OS's too, but Linux really shines in terms of Computer Science - just having the shell alone was enough to convince me initially, plus I like the way the whole thing is organised.
The UNIX / Linux paradigm is different, configuration files are human readable - changes are made by editing those files , whereas Windows tends to keep configuration data in binary files and provides software to change things.
On Linux, knowing where to find the configuration files, and what the contents mean, can be tricky. But sometimes Windows can be quite tricky to configure as well.
In terms of things to look out for when new to Linux, be careful if trying to alter configuration - do plenty of research via google & it will probably pay to ask on a forum as well. Don't mess with it if it is not broken, as you could spend days figuring out why things aren't right later.
With doing stuff using the shell or scripts (as opposed to just using software), it can be quite hard to figure stuff out by yourself - Linux is an example of a system that is complex but unlimited in what you can do, as opposed to simple but limited. The complexity means a bit of education is worthwhile - investigate getting a good book that shows some concepts and potential of things that can be done.
It's the lack of knowledge about concepts & potential, that makes it hard to learn things yourself. It might even be worth doing a course at a Polytechnic (Tertiary School) or a course at Uni, but the Uni course might be tricky to get into because it doesn't fit with your program i.e it is not in first or second year say.
I first discovered UNIX in 1987, but I struggled a lot - it was before the days when the Internet was widely used (at least here anyway), all I had was the man (manual) pages, and
In terms of who prefers what OS or software, I think the professional thing to do is get comfortable with all of them if possible. If you start or try to get work, it is a big plus to be seen as being flexible & adaptable. You might have a favourite IDE - lets say code::blocks on Windows, when you start work, they might have some other system on UNIX & they might not use an IDE at all. You might be expected to do everything from the shell & use makefiles. Hell, your brand new job might not involve C++ at all - you could be using Fortran on a CRAY to model weather systems, or blood flow for heart pumps say.
So try to learn as much as possible, and remember all the different systems (OS, software, languages) have their good & bad points - and which one should be used varies form job to job.
Hope all is well at your end :+) .
Also hope I haven't given a big lecture on a whole lot of stuff you already know - not sure where you are at, at least it might be useful for others reading this.
Well I will not enter in the windows vs Linux discussion.
However, if you think to switch to linux this is the kind of problems you could encounter
1) Linux Distro
In order to start it is better to start with a user-friendly distro like Ubuntu. This becouse it is easier to add new applications and it doesn't force you to use to use too much the terminal from the beginning (bash is powerfull, but can be not easy for advanced things).
Ubuntu (that it is "open" also to "closed source applications") increase the chances that your hardware could be used correctly.
When you become more expert you can also try to use other kind of distros (like Slackware, gentoo or Arch) that are less easy to use, but can offer other advantages in exchange.
Take mind: it doesn't exist a perfect distro. Any distro have its own philosophy and advantages/disadvantages.
2) Harware compatibility
Not all hardware can be properly managed under linux. It is not a fault of linux, it happens becouse a lot of hardware don't provide a driver for linux nor the driver sources.... so you can count only on the great work made by 3rd party person.... but it will be not 100% working.
Take a look, for example, at your graphic card. My old laptop uses a SIS card driver.... so I cannot set up some parameters..... and my 3D acceleration cannot work in any linux distro.
3) Win Only software
Wine can execute serveral .exe files, but, seeing also it is not an emulator, you cannot count of WINE to run ALL KIND of .exe files
There are a lot free-software alternatives to replace some famous win program
LibreOffice or OpenOffice (they are quite similar) can be used instead of Wold, Excel, Powerpoint and other programs contained in Windows Office suite
Gimp can replace somehow Photoshop (Gimp misses a lot of things, however)
in order to listen music / watch videos you can use vlc or mplayer (both are better than windows media player, imho.... i use vlc on windows)
evince can replace Adobe PDF
4) Developing
Linux is better for developing than windows.
Under windows, usually, you need more work-around to prepare your build enviroment while linux itself USUALLY (*) is a build enviroment itself that can be improved in a standard way.
However, while building applications under windows can be a real pain (most depends of library used, compiler choosed, directory interactions and building tools used), a windows binary is more "redistribuible".
Every linux distro, infact, have its own package system. Even if, USUALLY, a linux binary can be exported also in another linux distro, you should'nt do it. This is related of the differences of shared libraries settings that could be encountered from a distro to another.
So we can say that you can make a windows binary (being sure it will work) while under linux you must choose if to release only the souces (and delegate user to compile it inside his own system) or provide a binary package for every single distro you want to support.
5) Developing - IDE
VS is a strange application that, obliouvsly, doesn't have a real alternate version under linux (also becouse VS uses internally a lot of windows-specific calls).... while under linux you will find more "general-purpose" compilers like gcc.
Gcc however is a command-line tool, like most of tools under linux.
You can search the gui you could need.
A gui, before, suggested you to take a look at Qt framework.... I am a Qt fun so I will agree with his suggestion..... Qt is not too hard to use, it is multi-plaform, and offer you also a lot of very good classes to use that will help you a lot to develop your own applications.
------------
Hope I answered to your question
However, if you think to switch to linux this is the kind of problems you could encounter
1) Linux Distro
In order to start it is better to start with a user-friendly distro like Ubuntu. This becouse it is easier to add new applications and it doesn't force you to use to use too much the terminal from the beginning (bash is powerfull, but can be not easy for advanced things).
Ubuntu (that it is "open" also to "closed source applications") increase the chances that your hardware could be used correctly.
When you become more expert you can also try to use other kind of distros (like Slackware, gentoo or Arch) that are less easy to use, but can offer other advantages in exchange.
Take mind: it doesn't exist a perfect distro. Any distro have its own philosophy and advantages/disadvantages.
2) Harware compatibility
Not all hardware can be properly managed under linux. It is not a fault of linux, it happens becouse a lot of hardware don't provide a driver for linux nor the driver sources.... so you can count only on the great work made by 3rd party person.... but it will be not 100% working.
Take a look, for example, at your graphic card. My old laptop uses a SIS card driver.... so I cannot set up some parameters..... and my 3D acceleration cannot work in any linux distro.
3) Win Only software
Wine can execute serveral .exe files, but, seeing also it is not an emulator, you cannot count of WINE to run ALL KIND of .exe files
There are a lot free-software alternatives to replace some famous win program
LibreOffice or OpenOffice (they are quite similar) can be used instead of Wold, Excel, Powerpoint and other programs contained in Windows Office suite
Gimp can replace somehow Photoshop (Gimp misses a lot of things, however)
in order to listen music / watch videos you can use vlc or mplayer (both are better than windows media player, imho.... i use vlc on windows)
evince can replace Adobe PDF
4) Developing
Linux is better for developing than windows.
Under windows, usually, you need more work-around to prepare your build enviroment while linux itself USUALLY (*) is a build enviroment itself that can be improved in a standard way.
However, while building applications under windows can be a real pain (most depends of library used, compiler choosed, directory interactions and building tools used), a windows binary is more "redistribuible".
Every linux distro, infact, have its own package system. Even if, USUALLY, a linux binary can be exported also in another linux distro, you should'nt do it. This is related of the differences of shared libraries settings that could be encountered from a distro to another.
So we can say that you can make a windows binary (being sure it will work) while under linux you must choose if to release only the souces (and delegate user to compile it inside his own system) or provide a binary package for every single distro you want to support.
5) Developing - IDE
VS is a strange application that, obliouvsly, doesn't have a real alternate version under linux (also becouse VS uses internally a lot of windows-specific calls).... while under linux you will find more "general-purpose" compilers like gcc.
Gcc however is a command-line tool, like most of tools under linux.
You can search the gui you could need.
A gui, before, suggested you to take a look at Qt framework.... I am a Qt fun so I will agree with his suggestion..... Qt is not too hard to use, it is multi-plaform, and offer you also a lot of very good classes to use that will help you a lot to develop your own applications.
------------
Hope I answered to your question
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closed account (S6k9GNh0)
Ubuntu adds no other hardware compatibility than the distro next to it. Actually, in some cases, Ubuntu patches hardware drivers itself, then lets it bit rot until it starts causing problems. Ubuntu itself doesn't make things easy just because it's the most used. For instance, OpenSUSE has a philosophy to try and remove the need for a terminal. It even has a one-click installation. It's probably the most used in commercial desktops (or RedHat).
Production software of most genres exist on Linux, though it has little commercial support. Things like GIMP and Blender often can completely replace the commercial alternatives (albeit, GIMP's interface is balls). The biggest dip here is audio. Some commercial audio libraries that claim cross-platform capability won't support Linux cause the idea that the Linux audio stack is garbage. It's not quite that bad as its made out to be, but it could certainly be better.
As far as programming general, Linux is much more robust and convenient. Package management makes this as simple as possible and debugging for pre-built packages could never be easier.
Production software of most genres exist on Linux, though it has little commercial support. Things like GIMP and Blender often can completely replace the commercial alternatives (albeit, GIMP's interface is balls). The biggest dip here is audio. Some commercial audio libraries that claim cross-platform capability won't support Linux cause the idea that the Linux audio stack is garbage. It's not quite that bad as its made out to be, but it could certainly be better.
As far as programming general, Linux is much more robust and convenient. Package management makes this as simple as possible and debugging for pre-built packages could never be easier.
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