Linux

[Shadow Gamer]

I've heard about Linux before, and even used Ubuntu once(I am running Amahi on that same computer now, and it's way more reliable, even as a server ) but I don't understand what the whole, "stability", "reliability", "less maintenance", and "portability" things, or what they are. I'm not saying Linux doesn't have these... perks, I'm just asking what they mean. These terms are thrown around, but I'm kind of confused as to what they refer to. 

 

Thanks in Advance,

 

-Shadow

[Enderman]

You can leave your PC on for months with no memory leaks, crashes, etc... because the OS is optimised to use as little resources as possible.

[flibberdipper]

You can leave your PC on for months with no memory leaks, crashes, etc... because the OS is optimised to use as little resources as possible.

This. Not to mention that you never have to defrag, and you can throw it on a LiveCD or flash drive.

[Fred Castellum]

Liinux is a platform that just plain "works" when put into use. Reliable in the sense it does it task and does it well without error, if there are any issues its more likely than not a error made by a person. 

[Sauron]

Stability & reliability- if you've ever had windows bluescreen on you, you knwo how bad that feels. Linux doesn't have that, hence it's more stable and reliable. Windows is also built in such a way that if any of the core services has a problem or is accidentally removed, the whole installaton is now worthless, whereas Linux is more like legos, every part is only dependant on the base (the kernel) and function independently from each other, so if one fails everything else still works.

 

Less maintenance- windows installations tend to "degrade" with time and eventually slow down to the point where a fresh install is the only solution because windows' temporary files management is not very efficient. Manual maintenance can help keep an installation last longer, but eventually you'll need to reinstall. Not so with linux. Linux will act the same as when you installed it for decades if you do nothing to slow it down.

 

Portability- linux installations are notoriously very small compared to windows, Linux can boot from cds and install to usb drives and while that second part is in windows 8 too, it's still not as easy as with linux.

[Shadow Gamer]

Thanks guys, that clears up a lot of my questions. 

[Ciccioo]

Not to mention that you never have to defrag, and you can throw it on a LiveCD or flash drive.

just like windows8.1

 

edit: and i just plain disagree with every point about linux not needing mainteinance, not crashing and being super safe

with linux you have to fiddle a lot with the terminal and system files/commands, which increases a lot the probability of ruining something in the system (if you're not REALLY good with linux)

 

examples:

the computer i'm working on right now has a crash on the window manager every time i power up the pc

last week i was trying to update a library (in a terrible and stupid way, my bad), and this resulted in a kernel panic when trying to turn on the pc

my laptop at home doesn't update many things because there are tons of broken repositories which i couldn't fix in the time i spent trying to solve the problem

my laptop at home gets funky as soon as you plug a second monitor in, especially if the laptop screen is closed

very bad power management on all the laptops i installed linux on

 

i love linux, but i just don't like it when people make it seem like it's perfect and flawless

[ohJey]

just like windows8.1

 

edit: and i just plain disagree with every point about linux not needing mainteinance, not crashing and being super safe

with linux you have to fiddle a lot with the terminal and system files/commands, which increases a lot the probability of ruining something in the system (if you're not REALLY good with linux)

 

examples:

the computer i'm working on right now has a crash on the window manager every time i power up the pc

last week i was trying to update a library (in a terrible and stupid way, my bad), and this resulted in a kernel panic when trying to turn on the pc

my laptop at home doesn't update many things because there are tons of broken repositories which i couldn't fix in the time i spent trying to solve the problem

my laptop at home gets funky as soon as you plug a second monitor in, especially if the laptop screen is closed

very bad power management on all the laptops i installed linux on

 

i love linux, but i just don't like it when people make it seem like it's perfect and flawless

those are either user or driver errors, we know drivers on Linux are bad...we have like 2% market share

[Builder]

examples:

the computer i'm working on right now has a crash on the window manager every time i power up the pc

last week i was trying to update a library (in a terrible and stupid way, my bad), and this resulted in a kernel panic when trying to turn on the pc

my laptop at home doesn't update many things because there are tons of broken repositories which i couldn't fix in the time i spent trying to solve the problem

my laptop at home gets funky as soon as you plug a second monitor in, especially if the laptop screen is closed

very bad power management on all the laptops i installed linux on

 

i love linux, but i just don't like it when people make it seem like it's perfect and flawless

I've never found that to be the case.

 

In my experience Linux has a very solid code base maintained and led by one of the best systems programmers on the planet, Linus Torvalds. It is certainly much more resource efficient than Windows, and if you go with a distro like Ubuntu, odds are unlikely you'll be able to find hardware that doesn't  work with it. It's certainly far more reliable than Windows, in fact I've said many times before that there's almost no reason to use Windows aside from game compatibility.

[Shadow Gamer]

I've never found that to be the case.

 

In my experience Linux has a very solid code base maintained and led by one of the best systems programmers on the planet, Linus Torvalds. It is certainly much more resource efficient than Windows, and if you go with a distro like Ubuntu, odds are unlikely you'll be able to find hardware that doesn't  work with it. It's certainly far more reliable than Windows, in fact I've said many times before that there's almost no reason to use Windows aside from game compatibility.

And if you don't want to go through the hassle of doing all that terminal stuff, and want solid driver support. 

[Ciccioo]

I've never found that to be the case.

 

In my experience Linux has a very solid code base maintained and led by one of the best systems programmers on the planet, Linus Torvalds. It is certainly much more resource efficient than Windows, and if you go with a distro like Ubuntu, odds are unlikely you'll be able to find hardware that doesn't  work with it. It's certainly far more reliable than Windows, in fact I've said many times before that there's almost no reason to use Windows aside from game compatibility.

one thing i can say for sure is that linux is more efficient about ram usage, i did notice and enjoy that

 

but then you open a 100mb spreadsheet with libreoffice, it fills up 3gb or ram, pretty much the whole desktop environment gets swapped on the hard disk and the system goes unresponsive for about a minute. there's another problem: sometimes all the efficiency of the system is not well used by the poorly coded programs

(excel 2010 on windows xp opens that 100mb spreadsheet flawlessly)

youtube (and any web browser in general) stutters on a gtx770 with nvidia proprietary drivers installed on my desktop. works fine on my laptop

 

the lack of programs and drivers is something that must be talked about to someone that asks if a system is reliable and stable

i don't expect a computer with linux to have 100% uptime, i expect to have to spend some time troubleshooting stuff every now and then, more than i would with windows

[Builder]

And if you don't want to go through the hassle of doing all that terminal stuff, and want solid driver support. 

But you don't need to 95% of the time.

[RH00D]

Anyone who thinks Linux "just works" has clearly never used it extensively.

 

I've had most problems surrounding the X Window System which has been quite well known to be problematic, both from a development and user experience perspective.

 

A lot of people's views about stability and whatnot surrounding Linux and Windows are based on false perceptions or are outdated.

 

Of course, the less parts to a system there is the less points of failure you will have and it is very easy to remove unnecessary parts of a Linux distro.

 

Point being, neither Linux nor Windows are perfect and both have strengths and weaknesses in certain areas, people just need to stop acting like Linux is some kind of holy grail of software and stop bashing Windows because it's "cool".

[rashdanml]

Stability - depending on the distribution, software updates are thoroughly tested before it's released. Ubuntu has a standard 6-month release cycle with a 2-year cycle for LTS (long term support) which has much higher stability. Other distributions like Arch linux are rolling-release - updates appear almost right after the software is updated by the developers, and are generally stable even so. I've never had problems with bleeding-edge kernel updates, for starters, whereas a kernel upgrade on Ubuntu could break the system.

 

Portability - you can install and run Linux off of a flash drive. Or even a potato. 

 

Reliability - factors in with stability, as well as much better out-of-the-box security compared to Windows and OS X. That and their currently low market share makes Linux less of a target (even with SteamOS taking off, it'll still be very secure as it's built on a very stable Debian-core). 

 

Less maintenance - updates are periodic or very easy to perform. Arch Linux updates the entire system with "pacman -Syu" automatically handling all updated packages and their respective dependencies. Generally don't need to restart your system either, except for a kernel update; however, there's kexec which bypasses even that requirement. 

 

Terminal is simple and very powerful. The commands take very little time to learn. 

[flibberdipper]

just like windows8.1

 

edit: and i just plain disagree with every point about linux not needing mainteinance, not crashing and being super safe

with linux you have to fiddle a lot with the terminal and system files/commands, which increases a lot the probability of ruining something in the system (if you're not REALLY good with linux)

 

examples:

the computer i'm working on right now has a crash on the window manager every time i power up the pc

last week i was trying to update a library (in a terrible and stupid way, my bad), and this resulted in a kernel panic when trying to turn on the pc

my laptop at home doesn't update many things because there are tons of broken repositories which i couldn't fix in the time i spent trying to solve the problem

my laptop at home gets funky as soon as you plug a second monitor in, especially if the laptop screen is closed

very bad power management on all the laptops i installed linux on

 

i love linux, but i just don't like it when people make it seem like it's perfect and flawless

I've been using Ubuntu-based stuff as a daily driver for a year now and never had any problems other than multi-monitor.

[madcow]

Portability is my favorite feature of Linux

 

Everything is a file and config files are human readable. Replicate configs between systems just by copying the files. Automate the task by having a script write the files.

 

Copy (running) OS just using the common cp -a command to another boot media and have it just work. Target media can be pretty much anything including USB flash drives, VM disks, iSCSI disks, chroot environments, and ramdisk where the disk can be dynamically created and populated by initrd during boot

 

Modular design. I've seen ancient Linux 2.4 systems P2Ved and paired with a 2.6 kernel that booted and ran without issues. Amazing!

[Linus_torvalds]

 in fact I've said many times before that there's almost no reason to use Windows aside from game compatibility.

+1111111111111111111111111

 

I use Ubuntu 14.04 at my work and on my home PC too. For now i have learnt many things in this system I learnt bash scripting and have written many things for my system

I wrote program that does many things automatically 

i wrote these scripts. It's my native language written with english and do not try to read it

 

You may heard about ssh. i have written script that blocks any ip that tries more then 3 time to log in my PC

also i wrote script that takes picture if someone enters wrong password when logging in system  it's nice to have done things like this by yourself

You can do many stuff in LINUX. try it.

[Maxibonbits]

So many positives of Linux, shame the disadvantages render it unusable to anyone but the most determined geek.

 

But you don't need to 95% of the time.

the problem is that 5% of the time is used to setup the system., and often the process is too complex for the average user.

 

The only benefits Linux has is that it is free, and if money was not an issue than Mac OS is a much better system.

[Builder]

So many positives of Linux, shame the disadvantages render it unusable to anyone but the most determined geek.

 

the problem is that 5% of the time is used to setup the system., and often the process is too complex for the average user.

 

The only benefits Linux has is that it is free, and if money was not an issue than Mac OS is a much better system.

Ubuntu is really simple to install. Seriously. It's designed to be as usable as OS X, though I agree with money not being an issue that OS X is better.

[rashdanml]

If you can install a Windows program, installing major distributions of Linux is simpler than that. Major distributions (Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSUSE, etc) come with all of the features that an average consumer would need out of the box. 

[Opcode]

I've heard about Linux before, and even used Ubuntu once(I am running Amahi on that same computer now, and it's way more reliable, even as a server ) but I don't understand what the whole, "stability", "reliability", "less maintenance", and "portability" things, or what they are. I'm not saying Linux doesn't have these... perks, I'm just asking what they mean. These terms are thrown around, but I'm kind of confused as to what they refer to. 

 

Thanks in Advance,

 

-Shadow

Stability

The OS is designed to just run. It receives constant updates to improve both security and stability. It also has far better resource handling than say Windows.

 

Reliability

The previous reason is why it can be more reliable than other operating systems. Especially when something breaks, most often than not there's a way to fix it.

 

Less Maintenance

The operating system receives regular updates to patch security threats. It also runs off its own file system which never becomes fragmented. So you do not need a bunch of tools and to constantly maintain your machine. The OS is safe and secure and will just work as long as you keep it updated.

 

Portability

A unique feature of Linux is being able to place your home directory on a separate partition from the system. So when it comes time to re-install or if you wish to move your data, it's on its own designated partition. You can re-install Linux over the top of a previous installation while retaining everything within your home partition. Not to mention Linux has been able to run on a magnitude of mobile devices from Chromebooks to Cell Phones. You can also boot up a distro right from a live CD or USB drive and do your work without ever installing it.

 

That's only just a few key points, there is a lot of good benefits to running Linux.

[Ruostunut kokis]

Stability - depending on the distribution, software updates are thoroughly tested before it's released. Ubuntu has a standard 6-month release cycle with a 2-year cycle for LTS (long term support) which has much higher stability. Other distributions like Arch linux are rolling-release - updates appear almost right after the software is updated by the developers, and are generally stable even so. I've never had problems with bleeding-edge kernel updates, for starters, whereas a kernel upgrade on Ubuntu could break the system.

 

Portability - you can install and run Linux off of a flash drive. Or even a potato. 

 

Reliability - factors in with stability, as well as much better out-of-the-box security compared to Windows and OS X. That and their currently low market share makes Linux less of a target (even with SteamOS taking off, it'll still be very secure as it's built on a very stable Debian-core). 

 

Less maintenance - updates are periodic or very easy to perform. Arch Linux updates the entire system with "pacman -Syu" automatically handling all updated packages and their respective dependencies. Generally don't need to restart your system either, except for a kernel update; however, there's kexec which bypasses even that requirement. 

 

Terminal is simple and very powerful. The commands take very little time to learn. 

I beg to differ. My first ever laptop (Compaq Evo N800v. Old and slow as f***) can run Windows XP clean install somewhat well (though not after installing service packs) but it barely runs Lubuntu 13.10. Though the amount of RAM could be an issue (128MB or 256MB or RAM, not sure which, but less then 0,5GB for sure).

[rashdanml]

I beg to differ. My first ever laptop (Compaq Evo N800v. Old and slow as f***) can run Windows XP clean install somewhat well (though not after installing service packs) but it barely runs Lubuntu 13.10. Though the amount of RAM could be an issue (128MB or 256MB or RAM, not sure which, but less then 0,5GB for sure).

Depends a lot on which distribution you choose. With most major distributions, low amounts of RAM relies heavily on swap, which automatically slows down the system. Try Arch linux with i3wm and you'll probably have better performance. 

[Darko_Nerivar]

Depends a lot on which distribution you choose. With most major distributions, low amounts of RAM relies heavily on swap, which automatically slows down the system. Try Arch linux with i3wm and you'll probably have better performance. 

 

Or if you don't want overburden yourself with learning unfamiliar distro - try minimal Debian with lightweight wm (awesome, openbox, fluxbox, xmonad).

[rashdanml]

Better get rid of the GUI altogether and stick to the CLI.

Damn Small Linux for fellow potato users (y)