1. This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. Learn More.
  2. We've had very few donations over the year. I'm going to be short soon as some personal things are keeping me from putting up the money. If you have something small to contribute it's greatly appreciated. Please put your screen name as well so that I can give you credit. Click here: Donations
    Dismiss Notice
Cookies Donations 2021

Why don't you use Linux?

Discussion in 'Tilted Gear' started by ASU2003, Dec 14, 2012.

Page 1 of 3
  1. ASU2003

    ASU2003 Very Tilted

    Location:
    Where ever I roam
    Linux has improved quite a bit over the past decade, although hardware issues still persist, they have fixed a lot of them.

    But I want to know why people still use Windows time after time when they often have more problems than they would have with Linux. Is there some game that won't run? Some accounting software that they need? Outlook or similar program that is only on Windows?

    Any 'free' product usually does really good with Americans. A lot of us are very cheap. I really don't get Android phones, but that OS based on Linux has taken off. Yet on laptops and desktops it lags far behind compared to the numbers using Windows and Mac OS X.

    The big reason I ask this question is because on a different forum, a girl got infected by ransom-ware, and is now paranoid that when she did some on-line shopping these people were able to get her credit card info. Yet, she still wants to fix it, pay someone to install anti-virus software, or to re-install Windows. I really don't understand why someone like that wouldn't get Linux Mint installed and be happy.
     
    ASU2003, Dec 14, 2012
    #1
  2. cynthetiq

    cynthetiq Administrator Staff Member Donor

    Location:
    New York City
    I have no interest in working in a different environment than what I work on in the office. If it was a Linux shop I'd probably go Linux, same with osx.

    I like my tools to be similar so that I can stay efficient. This goes for software like office to hardware like mice. I have the same mice at home and the office that I purchased myself. It's my choice of tool no different than a high end pen or mechanical pencil.
     
    cynthetiq, Dec 14, 2012
    #2
    • Like Like x 3
  3. Charlatan

    Charlatan sous les pavés, la plage

    Location:
    Temasek
    My office supplies me with a MacBook Pro. It's what I use for personal and work.
     
    Charlatan, Dec 14, 2012
    #3
  4. mb99usa

    mb99usa Getting Tilted

    Location:
    Home
    I'm forced to use Windows on my work laptop because that is what my company supports. On my personal laptop I run Linux. I keep one home desktop running Windows so I have iTunes access. My kids laptops run Windows so they more closely match what they have at school although I did install OpenOffice on them instead of paying for MS Office.

    I prefer to use as much freeware and shareware as possible.
     
    mb99usa, Dec 15, 2012
    #4
  5. rogue49

    rogue49 Tech Kung Fu Artist Staff Member

    Location:
    Baltimore/DC
    Home - Windows pro (installed and configured by me)
    Work - Windows server, Linux (multiflavored), Unix (multiflavored), Apple, etc... (whatever the resources and standard is at that environ)

    Eh...at home, I just want to be mindless...it seems to be the most compatible with whatever I want to do...everyone writes for it.

    However, I did create an Oracle cluster on RHEL at home just to keep my hand in. (it isn't always called for on all projects...need to keep in practice)
    If you just playing for functionality, a bare-bones will do just fine. ($300/system)

    I guess it depends on what I'm using it for...whatever.
    My phone is Apple.
     
    rogue49, Dec 15, 2012
    #5
  6. martian

    martian Server Monkey Staff Member

    Location:
    Mars
    Every year the Linux evangelists say it's going to be the year of the Linux desktop. It's never panned out, and unless there's a fundamental shift in the way Linux operates I doubt it ever will.

    Linux as an operating system is awesome for servers, but kind of shitty for desktops. It's problem is it's complexity; the same things that draw nerds and tinkerers is going to turn off Joe Average. There are different distros, each one with it's own quirks, multiple packaging systems, multiple desktop environments. Your average user doesn't want to fuck with that stuff. Windows and OS X are generally consistent across platforms in terms of user experience, so it's easy to pick up, but even two KDE desktops can have wildly different interfaces. And that's not even getting into shell (which you're going to have to use sooner or later if you plan on doing anything more than the absolute basics) or concepts like user permissions. Linux isn't targeted at Joe Average, it never has been, and I'm not entirely sure much of the Linux community knows what Joe Average needs or wants in a desktop OS.

    Speaking of the community, it's not doing itself any favours. There is to date no easy way to "learn Linux." There's not much in the way of coherent instruction for the OS, and the environment itself doesn't do much to train the user. I'll grant that the community has gotten a lot better than when I started, when support came from newsgroups and flaming the noobs was a sport unto itself, but there's still a lot of the RTFM attitude floating about. Whether that's right or wrong, the fact of the matter is that your average Windows user doesn't want to find their own answers. They want their answers handed to them, or better yet, they want to never have to think about how their computer works at all.

    I would never for a second consider using anything other than Linux on my servers. I work with it daily in a professional capacity, and for the type of work I do it makes total sense. As a desktop OS? I can't be bothered. I use a Macbook, because it gives me the tools I need and gets out of my way so I can do my job. For play I use Windows, because Windows 7 is easy to install and run, and I can just install Steam, download my games, and play them. No fuss, no drama, no three hours fiddling with package managers or tracking down dependencies or going through obscure four year old forum threads looking for an answer as to why $daemon is throwing $error. Until Linux can get that kind of easy usability down it's never going to take off as a desktop operating system.
     
    martian, Dec 15, 2012
    #6
    • Like Like x 3
  7. ASU2003

    ASU2003 Very Tilted

    Location:
    Where ever I roam
    I think that is still a fair criticism, but Linux Mint and Ubuntu are getting to the point where they come fully setup and ready to go. I do fault Linux Mint for having too many download choices on their download page. There should be one recommended version for the people who just need to surf the web, have an e-mail client, use Google Earth, and play some games.

    And photo and video organization isn't quite there yet along with other specialized programs not working. iTunes is the biggest one for me. But, it seems like with the Android craze, that there would be a big push by Google to make a version of an App store for Linux, along with improving a music player and mp3 organizer.

    But I don't thin Linux is hard to install. And it is more secure and stable in the vast majority of cases for average computer users.
     
    ASU2003, Dec 15, 2012
    #7
  8. Baraka_Guru

    Baraka_Guru Möderätor Staff Member

    Location:
    Toronto
    I would only consider Linux for one purpose: a Linux laptop with OpenOffice and nothing else. I would use this as a writing machine with no distractions loaded on it.
     
    Baraka_Guru, Dec 15, 2012
    #8
    • Like Like x 1
  9. Lordeden

    Lordeden Part of the Problem

    Location:
    Redneckhell, NC
    Video games. Just as martian said, you can load win7/xp and then start playing video games. I once spent 2 weeks trying to get a new game to run on linux, eventually having to break down and get Martian to help me recompile wine to run the program. Ran kind of crappy, but it ran. I don't want to deal with this. I like linux, I'm thinking about running it as a desktop, but I will have a dual boot for video games just incase I can't get something to work without 3 weeks of fucking around with it.
     
    Lordeden, Dec 15, 2012
    #9
  10. Stan

    Stan Resident Dumbass

    Location:
    Colorado
    Since I work in a technical field, I'm the de facto tech support for my wife, daughters, family, and seemingly everyone else that knows that I can spell Windows. I threw a fit a couple of years ago and refused to support XP, any more. I tossed all my copies and pretty much forced anyone that expects my help to upgrade to Win7. I got away with it; but there isn't a chance in hell I could convert family to Linux. I'm not a server/OS kind of guy, supporting a single OS that I also use is adequately painful for me.
     
    Stan, Dec 15, 2012
    #10
    • Like Like x 1
  11. Craven Morehead

    Craven Morehead Very Tilted

    Location:
    third rock from the sun
    I don't need to. As simple as that. Work laptop with Win 7. Home PC with the same. iPad with IOS6. Don't need the complication of another OS.
     
    Craven Morehead, Dec 15, 2012
    #11
    • Like Like x 3
  12. Innocentmiss

    Innocentmiss Getting Tilted

    Ten years or more ago I spent an entire month messing around with linux, finally got it set up n hdd died taking with it all my effort! I never did get my printer working and was completely fed up with idiots on forums - it was fine for them to ask a question but not when I asked. In the end I stuck a new hdd in and fed it a win 98 cd said yes a few times, changed the resolution and had a working computer. Since then I have always bought cheap computers/laptops n they tend to come with windows and it works so I see no need to change. I have however experimented with a bootable android pen drive on my touch screen laptop - I promptly ended that experiment when my laptop refused to come back on after a low battery warning in android. Laptop wouldn't show any signs of life even with usb stick removed! Eventually fixed it by shorting two jumpers on mb! My new motto is it works leave it alone!
     
    Innocentmiss, Dec 15, 2012
    #12
  13. snowy

    snowy so kawaii Staff Member

    I get steep discounts on what we do purchase from Microsoft, and my husband gets new OS releases for free from them through his university. Additionally, when I turn in documents to my professors, I don't need to worry about whether or not they'll be able to open them.
     
    snowy, Dec 16, 2012
    #13
  14. MSD

    MSD Very Tilted

    Location:
    CT
    Remember when Honda revolutionized motorcycles by building one with an engine that you didn't have to take apart and reassemble every 7500 miles? I don't want to compile shit, I want to click a button and have the wizard do the rest for me. Windows is perfectly stable and I keep it secure through a combination of running Microsoft Security Essentials (a whole 3, maybe 4 clicks to install and it updates automatically and silently,) and having common sense. On top of that, software I use runs on Windows, not Linux. The vast majority of games I play I get through Steam and stuff like Lightroom and Photoshop are available for Windows.
     
    MSD, Dec 20, 2012
    #14
    • Like Like x 1
  15. spindles

    spindles Very Tilted

    Location:
    Sydney, Australia
    I'm probably talking out my arse here, but the reason there are so many virus/hacks/whatever on Windows is because that's where the majority of users are. If the "vast majority" were on linux, I bet that'd be where the majority of hacks would exist too. For a long time people were talking about how "Macs didn't get viruses" - this was exactly the same argument. As the user base became bigger, so did the number of issues.
     
    spindles, Dec 21, 2012
    #15
    • Like Like x 2
  16. Zweiblumen

    Zweiblumen Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    Iceland
    A less known reason why Macs have not been so popular with those that create malware is that they used to be more on the move than Windows machines. For a bot-net it complicates things if availability and network parameters are constantly changing.
     
    Zweiblumen, Dec 21, 2012
    #16
    • Like Like x 1
  17. martian

    martian Server Monkey Staff Member

    Location:
    Mars
    No, Unix-based operating systems (including Linux as well as OS X, thanks to it's BSD heritage) are more secure by design. Linux creates a very clear divide between things the system is doing and things the users are doing, and incorporates protections so that one can't impact the other. Windows had virtually nothing in the way of similar protections until recently, and still doesn't do it properly. On a *nix machine it's not enough to be declared an administrator to be able to make changes to the system, you need to authenticate in order to do so -- that includes installing new software, along with changes to ways the system behaves like adding new processes to be started on boot, modifying network devices or the firewall, etc. All processes are also memory protected, so process A is unable to access memory space allocated to process B, and so forth. In Windows this isn't true. User access control was an attempt to tighten up security to be more Unix-like but it ended up being something of a failure, as most users will blindly click accept or else just disable the feature entirely. Home users are also encouraged to run everything under an administrator account, and software run under their user is granted full administrator access with no questions asked. In short, the Windows team have made a lot of design decisions that simply make the platform more attractive to the folks who write malware, and that would remain true regardless of market share.

    There have been a couple of high profile cases of Mac malware recently, but they either require the user to install an unknown piece of software (and thus would be better classified as trojans, rather than viruses) or else they exploit shortcuts implemented by the Apple team to bypass security restrictions.

    All of this isn't to say that either platform can't be targeted, but it's much harder to do. Linux also doesn't adhere to the same kind of patching schedule Microsoft does (the infamous "patch Tuesday") which frequently means that holes are plugged faster -- it's not uncommon on the mailing lists I subscribe to that a vulnerability will be posted in the morning, with a patch up the same afternoon.
     
    martian, Dec 21, 2012
    #17
    • Like Like x 2
  18. EventHorizon

    EventHorizon assuredly the cause of the angry Economy..

    Location:
    FREEDOM!
    i think i don't use linux (on my main machine) because security isn't a big deal for me. at least not on this computer. that and i really want to spend time learning my way around a linux machine unstead of having it be just a hobby. i plan on that happening this summer
     
    EventHorizon, Dec 21, 2012
    #18
  19. LUCIFER

    Lucifer Slightly Tilted

    Location:
    The Darkside
    The computer I built for Seamaiden (see this thread) is running Ubuntu, cause all she needs her computer for is Facebook, Tumblr and email. I didn't want to put Windows on it, cause it's a fanless build, and who needs all that heat and shit for websurfing? My current computer is running Win7, but the one that I'm building next, which will be mine, hella-fast and powerful, will probably dual-boot Ubuntu and Win7, so I can play with Ubuntu, but still be able to play good games.
     
    Lucifer, Dec 21, 2012
    #19
  20. ASU2003

    ASU2003 Very Tilted

    Location:
    Where ever I roam
    I should have asked, why don't the non-computer experts or non-big gamers use Linux? If all they do is surf the web, play videos, and type up some basic office documents (open office), I would think that it would be fine. Photos and mp3's are the big thing missing I feel right now. My Mom would be just as good with a Linux computer as a Windows computer (which isn't exactly good).
     
    ASU2003, Dec 21, 2012
    #20
    • Like Like x 1
Page 1 of 3