Gotta Love Linux
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Personally I don't care what the OS is called as long as I can use it to accomplish what I need to do. Brand loyalty is the worst BS and not worth anyone's time. I've run Dos from 3.0, 'all' versions of windows, OS/2 3-4,
and a bunch of different Linux Distros. I've been the Systems Administrator for most Engineering departments that I've work in.
I've been using Linux in different versions for about three years and seriously (Mepis/Debian) for the last year. So far I don't see it, at least for my needs, as a viable replacement for W2K. That said, I'm amazed at the progress that Linux has made in the last year. Linux also has a number of problems related to the standardization of distro/app installation and updates. Many in the Linux community are dedicating their time , skill, and effort in correcting problems and developing and enhancing all areas of Linux. That's a lot more than can be expected form M$ who will let a flaw exist until public outrage 'forces them' to do something about it. I won't even get into the long list of scams that Bill$ M$ has perpetrated on it's customers. Linux at least allows 'you' to take control of 'your' system.
The gap between Window$ and Linux is rapidly closing and I expect parity in their functionality within the next year. Actually if it weren't for some of the database and specialized Engineering apps, I might already be running Linux exclusively.
IMO W2k is the high water mark for M$ operating systems. It has the stability, speed, and functionality of NT without the disastrously cumbersome interface that bloats XP and future purposed M$ products. Having seen 'Longhorn', I for one don't want to go there. I'm just hoping that Linux will give me a viable alternative.
and a bunch of different Linux Distros. I've been the Systems Administrator for most Engineering departments that I've work in.
I've been using Linux in different versions for about three years and seriously (Mepis/Debian) for the last year. So far I don't see it, at least for my needs, as a viable replacement for W2K. That said, I'm amazed at the progress that Linux has made in the last year. Linux also has a number of problems related to the standardization of distro/app installation and updates. Many in the Linux community are dedicating their time , skill, and effort in correcting problems and developing and enhancing all areas of Linux. That's a lot more than can be expected form M$ who will let a flaw exist until public outrage 'forces them' to do something about it. I won't even get into the long list of scams that Bill$ M$ has perpetrated on it's customers. Linux at least allows 'you' to take control of 'your' system.
The gap between Window$ and Linux is rapidly closing and I expect parity in their functionality within the next year. Actually if it weren't for some of the database and specialized Engineering apps, I might already be running Linux exclusively.
IMO W2k is the high water mark for M$ operating systems. It has the stability, speed, and functionality of NT without the disastrously cumbersome interface that bloats XP and future purposed M$ products. Having seen 'Longhorn', I for one don't want to go there. I'm just hoping that Linux will give me a viable alternative.
I think someone above said it already. What is the point. Linux is still pretty well reserved for advanced users/admins. I have yet to see one 'general' business run their company on anything but a MS based OS.
I have the same excuse that lots of people do.
"I would use Linux BUT..."
But, A LOT of the programs that I use DON'T run on Linux. If they did, it is because of a 3rd party emulator. Which CAN be very buggy. An you pretty much got to compile certain portions of the code in a few of those. Who the h@ll has time for that?
Find me a distro that works out of the box with the following programs (without alternate programs) and I will switch NOW.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Avid Studio
Adobe Photoshop
Pinnacle Studio
Ulead DVD Factory
ALL MS products (including Office, Viso, Visual Studio, excluding OSes)
ACT!
Battlefield 1942, Desert Combat
Call of Duty
Half-Life2 beta (don't ask)
I have the same excuse that lots of people do.
"I would use Linux BUT..."
But, A LOT of the programs that I use DON'T run on Linux. If they did, it is because of a 3rd party emulator. Which CAN be very buggy. An you pretty much got to compile certain portions of the code in a few of those. Who the h@ll has time for that?
Find me a distro that works out of the box with the following programs (without alternate programs) and I will switch NOW.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Avid Studio
Adobe Photoshop
Pinnacle Studio
Ulead DVD Factory
ALL MS products (including Office, Viso, Visual Studio, excluding OSes)
ACT!
Battlefield 1942, Desert Combat
Call of Duty
Half-Life2 beta (don't ask)
I have been at a Microsoft MVP Summit in Seattle/Redmond over the last week, and didn't have much time to check out the forum (not to mention how hard it is to find new posts, but that's another story... ). I have been a fan of Linux and Windows, and earlier I stated I was a fan of Apple over Windows as well. Now, here's another new wrinkle for the Linux fans.
If you note, Microsoft has had several lawsuits over the years for all kinds of things. Software patents, monopolistic behavior, Java, etc. have all been in court with various companies and settled by MS. During these times, you have never seen anything from the companies suing MS stating that you, the user, are infringing upon someone else's rights. This is how it should be.
However, with Linux, this is not the case. In addition, major patent holders (such as Novell, with SuSe) are sitting in the path of lawsuits by SCO and will be offering *limited* (if any) protection from their company to their userbase. IBM will probably be an exception, but we'll have to see what comes of this. The major problem is that SCO is *also* threatening end users of Linux products in the corporate environment. We have received letters from SCO (I'm a contractor for the US Army in Active Directory) in various departments, and there is now a widespread directive to hand off all communications from them to the Army's attorneys. Funny, we never got anything from Sun for using Microsoft's version of Java...
But, it gets worse. While we have the services of legal staff to deal with this, but Linux is being pitched to the small companies as an "affordable" alternative to Microsoft since the core OS is free. Well, SCO is not differentiating between them and large corporations, and will come after them as well. And, since there are no real companies backing ownership of the kernel and core functions, there's nobody to defend the users that have purchased the OS and support from the vendors.
Now, we have SCO suing both distributors AND users of Linux combined with the XFree86 chief-cook-and-bottle-washer jacking with his licensing requirements that effectively render the ubiquitous X-Server GPL incompatible, and make backers of it (such as nVidia and ATi, along with most distributions) question what they will use in the future (and thus, who will support older, GPL-compliant versions of XFree86 and where to move to next). Does this combination of issues make Linux more or less desirable for the enterprise?
Bottom line, I feel that Linux is an excellent OS for appliance and admin use. It's great as a server for dedicated apps (ERP, DB apps, webservers, etc) and nice to use for troubleshooting various systems (networks, other OSs) since it has a vast array of utilities and can be made to run optimally on very old and slow hardware (and is fantastic on new hardware). As a desktop, it leaves me wanting for more. As a laptop OS, it doesn't even rank anymore. I use Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition on my laptop, and I have no problems with using Apple's OSX when I can get my hands on one (fav *nix client, as it has a wonderful interface and I believe that Apple will stand up to whatever lawsuit comes at it). I really hope Linux pulls out of this downward spin, and builds a stronger community because of it. It's just that right now I don't feel that it's the right choice for most situations anymore.
If you note, Microsoft has had several lawsuits over the years for all kinds of things. Software patents, monopolistic behavior, Java, etc. have all been in court with various companies and settled by MS. During these times, you have never seen anything from the companies suing MS stating that you, the user, are infringing upon someone else's rights. This is how it should be.
However, with Linux, this is not the case. In addition, major patent holders (such as Novell, with SuSe) are sitting in the path of lawsuits by SCO and will be offering *limited* (if any) protection from their company to their userbase. IBM will probably be an exception, but we'll have to see what comes of this. The major problem is that SCO is *also* threatening end users of Linux products in the corporate environment. We have received letters from SCO (I'm a contractor for the US Army in Active Directory) in various departments, and there is now a widespread directive to hand off all communications from them to the Army's attorneys. Funny, we never got anything from Sun for using Microsoft's version of Java...
But, it gets worse. While we have the services of legal staff to deal with this, but Linux is being pitched to the small companies as an "affordable" alternative to Microsoft since the core OS is free. Well, SCO is not differentiating between them and large corporations, and will come after them as well. And, since there are no real companies backing ownership of the kernel and core functions, there's nobody to defend the users that have purchased the OS and support from the vendors.
Now, we have SCO suing both distributors AND users of Linux combined with the XFree86 chief-cook-and-bottle-washer jacking with his licensing requirements that effectively render the ubiquitous X-Server GPL incompatible, and make backers of it (such as nVidia and ATi, along with most distributions) question what they will use in the future (and thus, who will support older, GPL-compliant versions of XFree86 and where to move to next). Does this combination of issues make Linux more or less desirable for the enterprise?
Bottom line, I feel that Linux is an excellent OS for appliance and admin use. It's great as a server for dedicated apps (ERP, DB apps, webservers, etc) and nice to use for troubleshooting various systems (networks, other OSs) since it has a vast array of utilities and can be made to run optimally on very old and slow hardware (and is fantastic on new hardware). As a desktop, it leaves me wanting for more. As a laptop OS, it doesn't even rank anymore. I use Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition on my laptop, and I have no problems with using Apple's OSX when I can get my hands on one (fav *nix client, as it has a wonderful interface and I believe that Apple will stand up to whatever lawsuit comes at it). I really hope Linux pulls out of this downward spin, and builds a stronger community because of it. It's just that right now I don't feel that it's the right choice for most situations anymore.
Originally posted by cybergenx:
Quote:I think someone above said it already. What is the point. Linux is still pretty well reserved for advanced users/admins. I have yet to see one 'general' business run their company on anything but a MS based OS.
I have the same excuse that lots of people do.
"I would use Linux BUT..."
But, A LOT of the programs that I use DON'T run on Linux. If they did, it is because of a 3rd party emulator. Which CAN be very buggy. An you pretty much got to compile certain portions of the code in a few of those. Who the h@ll has time for that?
Find me a distro that works out of the box with the following programs (without alternate programs) and I will switch NOW.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Avid Studio
Adobe Photoshop
Pinnacle Studio
Ulead DVD Factory
ALL MS products (including Office, Viso, Visual Studio, excluding OSes)
ACT!
Battlefield 1942, Desert Combat
Call of Duty
Half-Life2 beta (don't ask)
That is not an entirely fair comparison. I used Linux exclusively at home and as my client OS at work for more than a year, and found it to be quite reliable and suited *most* of my needs (well, a high number of them anyway). The big problem for me was a lack of nice font support across all of the libraries (simple X display with fluxbox, along with stuff running on GTk, GTk2, and Qt) and a good office and development platform. The one OS that *can* cover this, however, is Apple's OSX. They have a nice development environment from what I have read for their OS (similar in respect to VS.NET supporting Windows operating systems) and Apple has fantastic graphics and video support, including dedicated versions of some of those apps, plus other apps that would be superior to others listed.
The other stuff, such as "all MS apps" is a rather loaded questions, as they were designed to only run on MS products and may not have directly ported versions for any other OS (with the exception of Office, as it does have a very nice version for OSX). I am not sure about the games, as I know some have been ported to the Apple OS. But I use an Xbox anyway, so I don't worry about these sorts of things .
With OSX, you can get a very nice OS with a wonderful UI and on some nice hardware, provided you are ready to buy a new machine to get the OS. Apple has successfully put a nice and easy to use *nix (well, BSD) OS out there that soccer moms can burn DVDs and plug their camcorders into with little fuss. This same OS can answer almost all of your requests in spades, and do it even faster (in many cases) thanks to the new Apple hardware.
So, there is a *nix OS that can do pretty much what you want, but do you want to pay the price of admission?
For those of you that are leaning either way, I strongly advise that you dabble in as many OSs as you can. It's a great way to learn more and to widen your knowledge about computers in general. With that said, there are many cool new things coming from MS in the next year that will make admins lives much easier, and are slam-dunk responses to things that Linux has had for years. One thing that I can hint about (because of NDA stuff) is the new MS command shell and command interface. Try running a search for "msh" and "monad" and you'll see what I mean. If you can, hit up http://beta.micrsoft.com (formerly www.betaplace.com) and see if you can get in on this beta. Also, if you are a server user and want to tell MS what you thing about their server OS (please, be kind http://www.windowsserverfeedback.com and tell 'em what's up.
Quote:I think someone above said it already. What is the point. Linux is still pretty well reserved for advanced users/admins. I have yet to see one 'general' business run their company on anything but a MS based OS.
I have the same excuse that lots of people do.
"I would use Linux BUT..."
But, A LOT of the programs that I use DON'T run on Linux. If they did, it is because of a 3rd party emulator. Which CAN be very buggy. An you pretty much got to compile certain portions of the code in a few of those. Who the h@ll has time for that?
Find me a distro that works out of the box with the following programs (without alternate programs) and I will switch NOW.
Adobe Premiere Pro
Avid Studio
Adobe Photoshop
Pinnacle Studio
Ulead DVD Factory
ALL MS products (including Office, Viso, Visual Studio, excluding OSes)
ACT!
Battlefield 1942, Desert Combat
Call of Duty
Half-Life2 beta (don't ask)
That is not an entirely fair comparison. I used Linux exclusively at home and as my client OS at work for more than a year, and found it to be quite reliable and suited *most* of my needs (well, a high number of them anyway). The big problem for me was a lack of nice font support across all of the libraries (simple X display with fluxbox, along with stuff running on GTk, GTk2, and Qt) and a good office and development platform. The one OS that *can* cover this, however, is Apple's OSX. They have a nice development environment from what I have read for their OS (similar in respect to VS.NET supporting Windows operating systems) and Apple has fantastic graphics and video support, including dedicated versions of some of those apps, plus other apps that would be superior to others listed.
The other stuff, such as "all MS apps" is a rather loaded questions, as they were designed to only run on MS products and may not have directly ported versions for any other OS (with the exception of Office, as it does have a very nice version for OSX). I am not sure about the games, as I know some have been ported to the Apple OS. But I use an Xbox anyway, so I don't worry about these sorts of things .
With OSX, you can get a very nice OS with a wonderful UI and on some nice hardware, provided you are ready to buy a new machine to get the OS. Apple has successfully put a nice and easy to use *nix (well, BSD) OS out there that soccer moms can burn DVDs and plug their camcorders into with little fuss. This same OS can answer almost all of your requests in spades, and do it even faster (in many cases) thanks to the new Apple hardware.
So, there is a *nix OS that can do pretty much what you want, but do you want to pay the price of admission?
For those of you that are leaning either way, I strongly advise that you dabble in as many OSs as you can. It's a great way to learn more and to widen your knowledge about computers in general. With that said, there are many cool new things coming from MS in the next year that will make admins lives much easier, and are slam-dunk responses to things that Linux has had for years. One thing that I can hint about (because of NDA stuff) is the new MS command shell and command interface. Try running a search for "msh" and "monad" and you'll see what I mean. If you can, hit up http://beta.micrsoft.com (formerly www.betaplace.com) and see if you can get in on this beta. Also, if you are a server user and want to tell MS what you thing about their server OS (please, be kind http://www.windowsserverfeedback.com and tell 'em what's up.
