Ads
Ads
All about Software
 Latest Software articles
Benchmarking Windows 7: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger?

Benchmarking Windows 7: Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger?
Often hailed as the solution to Windows Vista performance problems, we wanted to know just how much better Windows 7 really is. We put one of our most recent test platforms through its paces to find out, benchmarking raw performance and responsiveness. Read More

  • How To: Windows XP Mode In...Ubuntu Linux?
    Windows 7's XP Mode has already convinced many users who sat out for Vista to go out and upgrade. But will they buy the right version of Windows 7 to get XPM? You do know you can get the same XP functionality from a Linux distribution for free, right? Read More
All Software articles

Newsletters


  • Ask your question about IT issues
  • Post

Partners

The Games selection

adventure : Ray Adventure game, South Park style. Pick the way the story goes by picking an answer among those offered.
violent : Interactive Buddy Unwind on your interactive buddy: Do anything you want to him, it will earn you money, and you can buy other stuff to torture him with.
Ads

Sponsored links

QOTD: Do You Use Linux/BSD With a GUI?

Next news
4:11 PM - April 3, 2009 by Tuan Nguyen

Free, powerful, highly customizable, fast, diverse, and constantly developing--what more can you want in an operating system? Linux is definitely the operating of choice for power users and administrators alike.

The biggest factors that affect Linux's adoption rate is hardware support, and user experience. Granted, many distributions now ship with incredibly good GUIs, the core of the operating system still remains very much like it has always been. Although more and more devices ship with Linux as the OS of choice, Linux's market share remains tiny compared to that of Windows and even OS X (based on BSD).

I have a Linux machine at home, that I use for firewalling, file serving, and other things, but it doesn't have a GUI installed. This is primarily because all the box does is serve. It wasn't built to be a desktop machine. Service layers however, remain Linux's primary focus. To access the box, I terminal in using SSH from another machine. The machine can be entirely managed through the terminal.

The question of the day is: Do you use Linux/BSD with a graphics user interface?

Or do you use linux primarily for services?

Source : Tom's Hardware US

Talkback
Add your comment
bornking 04/03/2009 10:39 PM
Hide
-0+

No.

IronRyan21 04/03/2009 10:41 PM
Hide
-2+

Yep, Gnome!

salem80 04/03/2009 10:43 PM
Hide
-0+

i use Linux with graphics user interface ..
i know some new devices sometimes video card you need to shutdown the GUI
to install the driver on it ..
Linux are great OS and it very stable but for unknown reason you can't find drive for your device if Linux Can't detect it ...
i hope they find some utility similar to what windows have(ADD new hardware Wizard)

masterclam 04/03/2009 10:47 PM
Hide
-1+

YES, I have a Vostro 1400 laptop with Vista, but I dual boot to Ubuntu 8.10, which is what I use for almost everything, only switching back when there is a certain feature that windows does that is difficult to use in Ubuntu. I far prefer the customizability and feel of Ubuntu over vista, which is clunky and badly organized. With the plugins I have installed, I can do almost any of the "eye candy" and usability features that a Mac can do, without paying the "Mac tax". This particular version, I will admit, is not quite as fast to boot as windows or OS X, but the next version is slated to release this month and is supposed to be much faster. GIVE IT A TRY!

hellwig 04/03/2009 10:49 PM
Hide
-0+

I used to run FreeBSD with CTWM. I stoppd using FreeBSD when I couldn't get drivers for my NVIDIA 5200FX, never went back.

Right now I'm running gOs/Ubuntu on my netbook.

avenger762 04/03/2009 10:51 PM
Hide
-0+

I have a machine that I keep as a backup and it is only a P3 700MHz. But it is quite fast running Ubuntu.

joex444 04/03/2009 10:54 PM
Hide
-0+

No, I do not. I have one Celeron 1.1GHz running a router distribution.

And I have Fedora installed as a Virtual PC... but I never use it. If I did use it, it would be running a GUI of course.

mcnuggetofdeath 04/03/2009 11:00 PM
Hide
-0+

Yep. Gnome on ubuntu 9.04 beta.

I

kryten42 04/03/2009 11:01 PM
Hide
-0+

Yes, MythDora.

LATTEH 04/03/2009 11:02 PM
Hide
-4+

i boot from a USB device but i cant get it to boot XD im still learning... you got to start from somewhere

Anonymous 04/03/2009 11:14 PM
Hide
-2+

At home, all the times.
My home desktop is a only LINUX machine for 3 years now.

At work.
Its not my decision. Unfortunately.

jhansonxi 04/03/2009 11:15 PM
Hide
-0+

Gnome on most desktops, XFCE on the older ones. Webmin on servers although I often just use the terminal. Compiz is interesting but I don't normally enable it as I don't find it useful. With Live CDs I use whatever they default to.

Mr_Man 04/03/2009 11:19 PM
Hide
-2+

Ubuntu with Gnome. My machine is a dual-boot with XP, and I've found that I do pretty much everything on Linux now except for certain games or if a website requires Internet Exploder... I mean Explorer.

yingwuzhao 04/03/2009 11:20 PM
Hide
-0+

yes, openbox, gnome, kde and even xfce are too bloated.

blazer_123 04/03/2009 11:25 PM
Hide
-0+

xfce(ubuntu) on a acer aspire one and kde(debian) as a dual boot a desktop.

mindless728 04/03/2009 11:34 PM
Hide
-0+

KDE on top of Arch linux, but X doesn't start at boot so, yes and no, depends on the mood

hemelskonijn 04/03/2009 11:42 PM
Hide
-1+

Gnome desktop on nearly all systems running linux/bsd except for my firewall/router but that one does have a nice GUI you can use in your web browser.

Seriously that my system do have a gui installed doesnt mean i cant run without or that it boots in to the gui whenever it boots.
For many tasks command lines are way better.

zelog 04/03/2009 11:51 PM
Hide
-0+

XUbuntu, only thing stopping me from removign vista is Touch screen and wlan

tester3000 04/03/2009 11:52 PM
Hide
-0+

Nope,, no GUI on my Debian netisnt. Using it as a ftp/webserver. IMO that's the kind of stuff linux is good for. Windows is still my main OS. Running debian off vmware.

zelog 04/03/2009 11:52 PM
Hide
-0+

Xubuntu. Will remove vista as soon as I figure out touch screen and wlan

Repelsteeltje 04/04/2009 12:11 PM
Hide
-5+

I've been using Linux since 1998, both on servers and as desktop. I don't even have Windows or any other Microsoft software at home. I'm a Unix system/net administrator and security consultant though... Not quite an average computer user. If you'd have to run some specific graphical/CAD/custom software, you might not have the luxury to choose. Or if you're into mainstream games. I'm not one of those users that tries to convince others the whole time, though I've helped non-technical people transition from Windows to Linux on the desktop successfully. The OS shouldn't matter to people no matter how little they know about computers, if all they do is browse, email, do some office work, play music and watch a movie now and then. Linux is user-friendly, especially when you help people on their way with the hardware setup.

Hardware support shouldn't be an issue to most people either; the only real issue would be the level of support for the latest graphic cards, but it's not as if you're going to be able to play most commercial games in Linux anyway. In fact, I have more faith in the stability of (even minimal) Linux drivers than in the crap some companies dare to ship without any QA review. Let's face it, most of the time it's stuff like drivers that makes your system misbehave and/or crash.

FreeBSD/OpenBSD I've never used as desktop, but at least FreeBSD should do quite well there too, with a bit of luck in hardware choice. Same goes for Solaris really, unless you have the luxury of running it on real Sun hardware of course...

Hardware support for alternative operating systems is often a matter of corporate interest and an economical and often also "political" issue rather than something that Linux (or *BSD) should be directly blamed for. If companies don't provide either drivers or tech specs for their products, it's going to be rather hard to make that hardware work no matter what OS you're in.

bedford10 04/04/2009 12:12 PM
Hide
-1+

Gentoo, gotta love it.

Greatwalrus 04/04/2009 12:14 PM
Hide
-1+

I use both, but primarily a GUI. I spend a lot of time in the console, however.
My primary Linux system is Arch Linux. Just recently, I have moved completely away from Windows.


zelog, I believe I heard better touch/multitouch screen support is coming soon :)

Anonymous 04/04/2009 12:17 PM
Hide
-1+

Yes, OpenSuse 11.1 X_64, KDE 2.2 runs very well on my laptop.Compaq Presario (HP) CQ60-220US with 4 gig ram.
Jack

joseph85 04/04/2009 12:27 PM
Hide
-2+

Yes, I run Ubuntu and arch(although I dual boot with winXP) both have gnome. I'm still waiting for KDE to get a little more stable.

Anonymous 04/04/2009 12:31 PM
Hide
-1+

I run PC-BSD here for my main desktop, and my Wife's as well. It's underlying OS is FreeBSD 7, is running KDE 4.2, and works quite well, even for more novice open-source users.

joefriday 04/04/2009 12:31 PM
Show
ava__ 04/04/2009 12:36 PM
Hide
-1+

openSUSE switching between KDE 4.2, KDE 3.5.10, Gnome 2.26, XFCE 4.6, Openbox, LXDE.

Maybe you should ask if someone is still using console only Linux/BSD ?

SAL-e 04/04/2009 12:38 PM
Hide
-1+

Both, Primary desktop runs under Ubuntu/Gnome. My netbook is running Eeebuntu. All servers and router are managed through command line or web interface. At home I have only one XP machine, just in case, at work I am Windows system administrator so all servers and workstations are running some kind of Windows.

Shadow703793 04/04/2009 12:48 PM
Hide
-3+

IronRyan21 :
Yep, Gnome!


+1. Same here. You can't use GIMP,etc with out a GUI. :P

I'm using:
OpenSUSE 11
Fedora 9 (Yes, I know 10 is out, haven't had time to upgrade)
openSolaris 2008
DSL (Damn Small Linux; on a flash drive)

zedx 04/04/2009 12:49 PM
Hide
-3+

Yesh Arch and Buntu (no windoze). Foss GUI's are much better than windoze GUIs and faster and stabler too. Windoze GUI doesn't even have virtual desktops. And it is not at all configurable like linux. You can easily edit scripts and write etc etc for example you can start a RAM session where the HDD is stored in RAM which makes everything ultrafast (great if you've 4GB + RAM) . You can edit conf files and make it boot ultrafast (at least in Arch). Compiz with Gnome runs full speed in my P4 1.5 / 768 MB / Geforce 6200 and then you can easily compile and fasten everything with foss getting the real performance out of the hardware without overclocking/overvolting. I like KDE 4 but I'm waiting for it to mature. Also XFCE 4.6 runs easily on a celeron 600 having > features than Windoze. And then there's LXDE with it's great file manager....

The only good thing windoze has is DirectX. I wish we could have better OpenGL / XServer.


Comments are closed on this page.

Sponsored links