Linux thoughts

[doc_holiday]

I have gone on record here as saying that Linux is not yet sufficiently mature to oust Windows from my machine, but it is certainly getting there, and in a year or two, who knows? The last 12 months have seen significant improvements, and it is almost implausible that it won't overtake Windows in terms of usability in the next couple of years.

I'm in the same boat.  However, a colleague of mine moved to OpenSUSE yesterday as his main OS. He can now run about 95% of his Windows apps in Linux. Things like Evolution are working well with our Exchange server.

For the remainder of critical apps that he can't run in Linux, he has set up VMWare with XP.  He's running Dreamweaver and a few other things in this XP session and so far is saying it is working fine. He sent me screen shots yesterday and it was impressive.

Anyhow, I'll see how it goes, but when I hear stuff like that, it certainly begins to make running Linux as a main OS plausible.

[john]

But that's the whole point. Linux is already widely used in industry, and the liklihood is that you have used it today whether you intended to or even realised that you had. The Apache servers are the most widespread on the planet, and it's highly unlikely that you haven't passed through one whilst simply browsing the web.

Similarly, an enormous number of devices use embedded linux (mobile phones, DAB radios, freeview, cars etc.), simply because the OS is so customisable and can be scaled to fit the requirements of the end device.

I don't deny that Steve and I'm aware that the Apache servers run Linux but all the cases you have mentioned are using it for a very specific purpose. For example the servers, DAB radios, Freeview, cars etc do not have to run Office applications, databases, document management systems, CAD systems, Software development, Video editing, play games or many of the other apps that Windows is called upon to do. I know Linux can also do many of these things but often not the commercial applications that are used in industry.

However, a colleague of mine moved to OpenSUSE yesterday as his main OS. He can now run about 95% of his Windows apps in Linux. Things like Evolution are working well with our Exchange server.

For the remainder of critical apps that he can't run in Linux, he has set up VMWare with XP.  He's running Dreamweaver and a few other things in this XP session and so far is saying it is working fine. He sent me screen shots yesterday and it was impressive.

I can run 100% of my Windows applications out of the box without having to set up VMWare. I'm sure most (but not all) issues can be overcome but I suspect most home users don't want the hassle of working out how to configure the OS to do so. In fact I imagine that majority of home users when they buy a PC do so so that they can surf the net, send and receive e-mail, write some letters, play some tunes and games and expect it to have everything installed and configured for them before they buy it.

[vitriol]

Just to add my experience of linux, addmitedly very limited.

I downloaded and installed Ubuntu (not the latest release, the one before it), installation was easy enough and all my hardware was correctly idnetified and installed. This is where I hit a brick wall.

I wanted to see what game performance was like so dusted off my old copy of Unreal Tournament 2004.  This game has a linux installer on the disk.

It took me over two and a half hours of reading / googling to get it to install and run.  I admit that is due to my own inexperience of linux.  After running the game and seeing very poor performance, HDD was removed (it was a spare) and my Windows one reconnected to the computer.

I'll be sticking with Windows for the time being, but every now and then I'll drop the latest distro on to see whats happening / changing in the Linux world.

[dysonco]

To be honest, if you want to game, use windows.... Games developers just aren't working with linux unless its on the server side.  To be honest they are having trouble with multiprocessing vista and 64bit computing so linux is not high on the list!

I've been using Linux at home for several years now, mainly as a file server etc.  I've never really considered going to it for my main OS.  For gaming XP is the king.  I've only recently taken the plunge and my main desktop at home now runs Vista 64 ultimate (although it is dual booted with XP for emergencies).

Game of choice at the moment Call of duty 4

On the other hand my file server happily chugs away 24/7 running teamspeak, file shares, azureus for torrent downloads, is often asked to author multiple DVD images at once from various divx/ xvid weird and wonderfully video formats, often remotely while I sit in my office at work.  If I need to upload a huge file for work via ftp from home, I always do it from the file server as its never failed to complete.

I think its a case of whats the best tool for the job?

On most recreational things I still lean towards windows.

Work is often the same, but mainly as the packages I use are on windows, and are the best tools for the job (until Adobe starts developing for Linux)

File serving, ftp'ing, number crunching, web, voip, hosting and encoding-- time for Linux 

M

[john]

....On the other hand my file server happily chugs away 24/7 running teamspeak, file shares, azureus for torrent downloads, is often asked to author multiple DVD images at once from various divx/ xvid weird and wonderfully video formats, often remotely while I sit in my office at work.  If I need to upload a huge file for work via ftp from home, I always do it from the file server as its never failed to complete.

I think its a case of whats the best tool for the job?

On most recreational things I still lean towards windows.

Work is often the same, but mainly as the packages I use are on windows, and are the best tools for the job (until Adobe starts developing for Linux)

File serving, ftp'ing, number crunching, web, voip, hosting and encoding-- time for Linux 

Agreed M, horses for courses as they say.