-Linux vs Windows- - Page 2

Give gentoo a try, especially if performance is important to you, you can compile everything (and i mean EVERYTHING) 64bit with custom CFLAGS just for your proc.

Gentoo is my personal favorite because of the USE flags. It allows you to easily customize how packages are built without haveing to do "./configure, etc...". And when you want to update to all the most recent packages just run "./emerge --sync && emerge -uDN world" it configures and recompiles everything for you.

If you like bleeding edge gentoo packages are usually availabe the same day that that the source code is released upstream.

The install process can be a little tricky, but there is lots of help available in the forums and bugtraq. Even if you don't like it I bet you'll learn alot about linux just by installing it, I did.

I'd like to add a few things...
- most distros are not compiled for i686; the packages are compiled for i586, and the kernel can be compiled for i686 - it is the most critical piece of performance but can at least be easily replaced with a i586 version. For that, fully 64-bit compiled systems have a definite advantage: i686+MMX+SSE are used too. If you want a perfectly optimized system, take a few days off and install Gentoo from sources.
- 64-bit Linux systems have built-in 32-bit emulation: I've noticed absolutely NO performance hit. On the contrary, 64-bit subsystems will usually lead to increased performance.
- AMD64 processors get a huge boost when switching to 64-bit; Core2 get less of a boost, but they lead clock for clock over AMD64 anyway. P4 sucks.
- Wine can be made to run Photoshop, or you can get CrossOver Office to reduce the hassle.
- While Linux doesn't do prefetching, its hard disk accesses and caching subsystem are so much better than Windows' that it doesn't really need SuperFetch nor ReadyBoost.
- There is a Free VM: I use it to run XP and do web browser tests, it runs very fast when properly configured: qemu (and kqemu just got freed).
- one of the leading 3D softwares, Blender, runs natively on Linux.

Ive tried to use blender so many times, after a while i just get pissed and try to break my keyboard, but i have to stop myself because breaking my keyboard would mean breaking my macbook. I mean, its an awesome peice of software, but i just cant use it...and it makes me cry....:cry:...tears of blood.

Blender has a very steep learning curve at the beginning but once you get to master the basics it's smooth like silk, the fastest 3D software ever put in your hand, so I strongly advice you to try again; I hate it but a step-by-step approach is a must at the very beginning because at first, the strangely placed buttons and outlandish look alienate you to death, but as you use it, you understand that the buttons are placed that way to operate as fast as you can and free as much your 3D field (not like most, stone-like interfaces of 3DS MAx etc), there's a lot of script support, fast rendering and support for external renderers and many more other things.

If you need OpenGL then 64-bit Vista is not an option currently. I know that's not what you asked, but it is relevant to the discussion.
Provided with the video card drivers

Well, Linux uses less RAM than Windows for the most part. Most Windows XP 32-bit installations I've worked around use about 250-300 MB RAM just to boot (although that generally includes a resident AV program.) My laptop's 32-bit Gentoo install with a standard KDE installation consumes about 90 MB RAM at bootup and my desktop's 64-bit Gentoo with a standard KDE desktop takes about 130 MB RAM at bootup. Linux also handles multitasking better than Windows, especially on single-core CPUs. It's more that Linux is a little smoother and works better under load than "snappier."

P.S. You can also prelink applications in Linux so that they load quicker. Also, often-used data gets cached in RAM so there is no "free RAM" in Linux. For example, the first time a big app is opened, it will take a few seconds, but subsequent openings will happen almost instantly if nothing else big was put into RAM to flush it out. But the thing about Linux being smoother rather than snappier is still true.

As you can see from the posts, Linux is a swift piece of software and slick as hell. Well I shouldn't say slick, but powerful.

But there is one reason Bill Gates is the master.

Give me less than a month and I can teach somebody DOS and have them well on their way to mastering windows. How long would it take to have somebody well on their way to mastering Unix and Linux? I rest my case and that is why Microsoft rules.

Double click a file to install it. Device manger to see what hardware is installed or not, and just point to the drivers and install. Easy as pie. Cut and paste anything you want. Control Panel has every option you need. Right click and properties for the display properties and everything you need. It's all so easy. Windows has ease of use down to a science, and as time goes on stability and power keep getting better making Linux even less attractive.

I've used Mac before too and the windowless feature made me almost puke. You have to click on the mac icon to see what programs are open. And when a program actually is open you don't know it cause there is no window. The MAC OS menues change for each program that is open, but it all looks like the mac OS, you can't tell which program is open. And the single mouse button almost had me vomiting.

I which Bill Gates would combine his resources as richest company in the world, his ease of use, with Linus Trovalds and his vision for an OS that just works properly and powerfully without bogdowns. The ease of use and refinement of windows combines with the master programming and core of linux would make for the ultimate OS. Move over MAC cause lindows would rule.

But if you look back at history Linus Trovalds did not invent Linux, he just ripped it off of UNIX and made it residential instead of commercial. The rest is history. Bill Gates however did not rip off DOS....he invented it based on a software he bought from a machinest. He then invented a Windows GUI for DOS. The rest is history. If you look at both cores, UNIX was ultimate and Linus choose well. However it was designed for power and security, not ease of use and Linus opened up Pandora's box. Bill Gates however invented DOS, made it easy to use from the ground up and developed windows over the years based on it. He was not stuck molding an OS like Unix from something he did not know or have control over.

As much as I like the idea behind linux, and as often as I've installed it thinking it would end my windows headaches, I've always come back to my trusty old windows. And since XP I have not had an itch to install Linux.

You should try Linux. It may suit your needs wonderfully and you may love it. But for many moms and pops that need a computer to easily get pictures from their webcam and email them, windows is the only choice.

I have to agree with hergieburbur's points. And to reinforce one, it took my girlfriend all of 30 seconds to figure out how to use Ubuntu, and before that she hadn't used a Linux OS before.

Previously, installing Linux was a big problem, and there are still issues. However, things are moving more towards ease of use (true for Windows as well). My girlfriend is looking at running Ubuntu on her Toshiba M100 laptop. The installation disk also works as a live CD, so we could try things out before installing. Booting from the live CD, everything worked. I was very impressed to see the wireless connection working, as well as the correct monitor resolutions being used by default. I don't know of any Vista live CD/DVD that you can get to try out the OS.

As for task manager and other windows niceties, these types of functions are available in Linux as well. You want to see what's running? Try "top", or if you're a graphical sort, Gnome has a system monitor. What's installed? You can get a complete list of what programs, libraries, etc are installed as well as what's freely available under the package manager.

I think the major drawback to Linux is third-party support. It's harder to get computer illiterate people using even Ubuntu because when they want to hook up to the internet, the ISP ships them a modem with the instructions "hook up to computer and phone line/cable and insert the installation CD". Of course, the CD is for Windows. Getting that modem working with Linux takes knowing what you're doing. The way I see it, this is the ubiquity issue. If 90% of the PCs in the world ran Linux, then the 3rd party support would be there, and there would be no problems running at least the designed-for-humans distros of Linux.

I agree that Windows was here first, and has more market share, therefore everyone supports it. That is a tough thing for Linux to get over.

If you want that brand new bluetooth keyboard, wireless remote soundcard, and mouse to work with all the bells and whistles as it was designed then its no problem for my mother to do under windows. But under linux would be a nightmare.

If Bill Gates wants a logitech keyboard to work properly with windows he just sits back, does nothing, and Logitech will make the software. If Linus Trovalds wants the same keyboard to work under Linux he has to write the software himself, or hope some other univeristy student will do it for him on his spare time for free just for fun and just for spite against windows. Tough thing to conquer.

I admire Linus Trovalds for all that he's done, and for the fact that Linux is still strong today, stronger than ever.

We all wish Windows was as powerful and capable as Linux. Either that or wish Linux was as easy to use as Windows. Until then ease of use wins and hense windows. I just don't see open source ever winning. Programmers need to make money and feed a family like everyone else...and who can make a living making free software? The best programmer swill need money and will get that money by taking a job with a company that sells software for money which means windows and therefore Linux looses.

And with so many different distrobutions how do you write an instructional book on this is everything you need ot know about linux period for dummies. You can't cause another distrobution will be different. With windows you have 1 distrobution and that's it. Everyone i nthe world is the same. You can call your brother on the other end of town and ask him a question about the computer, he jsut needs to log into his windows and tlak you through it. With Linux what are the chances that his desktop will be identical to yours and that he can talk you through it? As far as tech support goes windows has it made. Imagine a call center providing tech support for Linux? Disaster.

I think Linus and a band of Linux programmers should team up and join forces with Microsoft with the aid of a lawyer and contracts that state ideas from the Linux world must be implemented under windows, and fully beta tested by the linux team, and only available to public until the Linux team deems it viable and bug free enough to be ready.

I smell compromise. Until then there will always be a war and Microsoft will win. If anybody can take them over Mac will win and not Linux. Until then we all own intel hardware and Linux is the OS of hcoice if we want to try the alternative. If MAC OS could easily run on Intel hardware I think more people would try that as opposed to Linux.

I say Linux has fre alternatives, not better alternatives. Just tell any torrenter or limewirer that windows software isn't free. gamecopyworld.com? megagames.com? serials.ws? astalavista.com? etc..... Windows software is every bit as free as linux software, maybe not as legal but as free. When piracy takes a dive and free cracked software no longer exists, that's when you'll see people taking the dive into linux cause they don't wanna pay for software. They will force themselves to learn it even though it is not familiar to them, just cause they don't wanna fork out the $500 for office or photoshop, and $60 for DVD software when they can buy a hardware DVD player at the grocery store for $25.

Cut out the piracy and you'll see a lot of crybabies running to Linux and windows will take a hit.

As far as which is better. There is no answer. One is easier, one has more potential. Depends on your environment, knowledge, desires, requirements, etc... YOu cannot ask on a forum if you should switch to Linux. You must try it, learn it, and determine if it is right for you.

I totally agree with this point. It's also been raised before that Asia and Eastern Europe, with their extremely high piracy rates, will not be adopting any software that's actually unusable without a legal license (if that idea is possible). If MS cracks down on piracy, they will be giving up some of their ubiquity, which might just come around to kick them in the ass later. That would be a laugh.

As for Linux support, you can get it. Business and Enterprise Linux providers give you the software for free, and you pay them for support. This is how Novell and RedHat make money. It's totally different than charging people for software. And face it, so much software is so overpriced it's ridiculous.

Even before I heard of OpenOffice, I was wondering when I was going to have to shell out another $200+ for an office suite when my Office 2000 becomes obsolete. Then I realised that Office 2000 does everything I need it to do. What new functions have the spreadsheet and word processing programs got that I need or want? I've been happy with OOO since v.2.0, and I see no reason to turn back from the open-source alternative. The point here is that for some applications, I see a lot of computer programmers demanding to be paid to add features that home users don't need. Maybe things are different for businesses, but it's pretty ridiculous to continue to charge home users for office software. It's an obvious area where open-source projects can work.

It seems to me that Linux has stayed further ahead of the curve in terms of implementing new technologies as well. 64-bit Linux was out first. Linux handles multiple threads better, and has a more intelligent SMP scheduler. In terms of the software community being able to keep up with the proprietary crowd, I don't see a problem.

Where I see the proprietary crowd fitting is in gaming. This industry will never die, and the pace is so fast that you need thousands of full-time programmers. There are open-source games, but it's hard to compare them to the ones you buy. I think the software industry might become more and more like the entertainment content industry, at least from the perspective of the home owner.

To each his own, personally I have had more nightmares getting things to work in windows (i.e. my old digital camera won't work at all in xp). I have all those things for my mythtv box, getting them to work under windows would be a pain, all I have to do in is set some varieables in my make.conf, emerge mythtv, and run the setup scripts. Nothings ever that easy in windows.

*
I hear ya...but usually i just reply to the last post on the thread...more practical...Don't take it personally.

Well paying for support on free software is a good and bad thing. Which home user wants to pay a company to tell them what to do? They want to learn how to do things themselves? For business this is a good thing, but for home use it will never kick in.

As far as technology goes, 64 bit has been around for years...but windows and software does not take advantage of it. As fast as technology moves...why do we still not have 64bit fully implemented...and windows does such a poor job of it. I can't wait till the day Linux has 100% company support, maintains a high quality top performing OS without compromise, and has ease of use or a GUI for all required features and settings. What pisses me off is that all new intel and AMD CPUs being sold are 64-bit...why doesn't microsoft only sell 64-bit version of vista and force all software companies to upgrade to the 64-bit path. Anybody with an older 32-bit cpu could just keep running xp.

As far as mainstream adoption of Linux goes. When piracy hits an end Linux will shine. People want to copy DVDs so they do a search and find DVD decryptor, dvd shrink, clone dvd, dvd fab, etc.... that all work on windows. They download torrents for Nero and Power DVD that only work on windows. All their games only work on windows. Photoshop and office are easily available via piracy. We can easily mount all our pirated images using daemon tools in windows. Its way too easy to have good easy to use software for free on windows. We live with the performance windows offers and know no better. If we want faster we upgrade hardware. Not many people realize how much faster and trouble free computing would be on Linux based systems.

Time will tell. Microsoft jsut needs to slip and produce a bad performing os and people will migrate to linux. Again if Microsoft comes out with an awesome product the rules people will stick with it and never give Linux a thought.

One thing I realize though is that many people still run P3, P4, older 2GHz and slower computers that run the inter, office, XP, and all applications fine. Its mostly gamers that upgrade like made. So VISTA will not run very good at all on those older systems and linux may be a viable alternative for them.

And its mostly the gaming geek kids that are the techno geeks of the windows world and who provide support for friends and family and tend to keep them on track with windows. I wonder if somehow Linux could break into the gaming world somehow? This would surely hurt windows.

But thats the thing, no matter how crappy the OS MS puts out its still going to be used by the other 85%, because OEM builders will still put it in there. People are too scared of Linux because they think that using it involves programming and coding, and they hear about "the lack of support" and all of that. It does, but you can do fine without it. Just look and Ubuntu and its various incarnations. But as long as Windows sells its software to OEMs at dirt cheap prices, and still holds the title as the most "user friendly", well you get the picture.

All things being Equal Linux will be faster and more efficient.
I've done most of my training on SUSE and really like it.

You will want to atleast Dual Boot for a while until you are fully comfortable with Windows and find replacements for any Windows programs you can't get working.

WINE is a tool that will help you get many Windows only apps running in Linux.

Considering where I live, my only option is DOWNLOADING, and I've had a lot of headaches downloading the 5 SUSE CDs

Your modem is something known as a "WinModem".
Linux has added support for "WinModems" and most will now work.

I have no idea if this will work with Linux.

What works with "Wine"?

See Here..........
http://appdb.winehq.org/

There is another emulator similar to Wine but I cant recall its name.
Wine has done what I needed.

Wine Is Not an Emulator

If you can get a windows app running on linux with WINE it will run at full speed. The application itself shouldn't run any faster or slower, but overhead from the OS and other applications on the system should be lower which might give a performance boost vs. a messy windows system with limited resources. While this certainly isn't as good as running a well-coded "native" linux app I just thought that I should point out that WINE runs windows apps just as fast as windows does and running a well-coded windows app under WINE beats the crap out of a lame linux app.

OK, fair enough. Therefore my question is:

Since WINE has been around long enough (so that it's vintage... sorry, I couldn't resist) that it has been widely used for Photoshop, can anyone tell me if there are any reviews/tests/whatevers showing what various Photoshop functions and how quickly they run under Win XP and WINE on identical systems? My understanding (which is probably wrong) was that XP would obliterate the WINE system on Photoshop.

Gotta stop you right there.

Anyone who can even say GIMP and Photoshop in the same paragraph deserves to be taken out back and administered a severe spanking.

Do not believe for one minute anyone, no matter how dedicated they may be to open source or open zippers, that tells you that GIMP is even remotely in the same league as Photoshop. That has to be THE great myth of Linux.

I've been using Photoshop since v1 Mac. And I've also used GIMP. The difference is somewhat along the lines of comparing Word 2007 and WordPad.

There is absolutely zero chance in hell that any professional who earns his money and has his reputation riding on his work is going to even install GIMP on his kid's computer.

GIMP is a toy. Photoshop is a professional tool. If you would like me to give you exactly 1,000 specific reasons why, I'll be happy to. Warning, I'm gonna charge you $25 for each reason, paid in advance.

Word.

I have no doubt that there are some companies that have made the system-wide switch to Linux and thus their graphic artists have no choice but to GIMP along. And I'm sure that for things along the line of internal graphics for company reports, etc. GIMP is adequate. However, I recently billed a client over $12,000 for a single file. I was able to do things in that file that more than warranted the invoice cost and I would not have been able to do in GIMP.

Therefore, no offense intended to any Linux evangelist, but for my work, I will abandon my Photoshop when they pry my cold dead fingers from my mouse!

Just gave a try to SUSE on a spare HDD I had and my impressions are:
1-Does not appear to run blender (though it was a zipped package for Linux i386 and I don't know neither what a 64bit SUSE is nor what the i x86 means)
2-Overall reaction seems slower (but I did no tuning etc)
3-SUSE recognized both of the cores and c'n'q worked, because they were both shown at 1000Mhz idle (though that app was just gambling with the multi because OC-ed as is, it should run ~1100+MHz)
4-RAM consumption was shown @ about 90% 8O , with ~40% taken my the system + few utilities I had opened and ~50% as "HD cache" :?: :!:
5-no way I can make my modem work on that system but I knew it way before.
Overall, the interface experience was pretty pleasing and I had the impression that the 'linux alienation' myth is just that; people very used to windows find themselves a bit lost on a new system but the inverse could happen as well.

Ack... SUSE?

SUSE...

yes this is because portions of the hard drive are cached in memory that currently isn't used for anything else. This speeds up reads/write operations. You weren't using that memory for anything else, why not use it to make your system faster?

Did you use KDE or gnome? Lots of other window managers to try out too, found this link, Fluxbox, enlightenment, and IceWM seem pretty popular.