haven't heard of linux since i subscribed to LTT

[BCM3152]

I have never heard of linux since I subscribed to LTT last year  Can someone pls enlighten me because i have no idea what linux really is. If linus has a video on linux pls tell me because i haven't found it yet. is linux more of a mac or a windows. is it just for servers or can i use it,and would it be usefull to game on?????? please tell me

[Bananasplit_00]

Linux is more of a windows without any real support for apps, it has a LOOOOOOOOT of customisability and fredom to do whatever but it can be hard to get used to having to fix your own solution for most things, i dont relly like it but its really not bad, its open and flavors like Ubuntu are really nice and most linux variants are free  hope i answered some of your questions with this

[TheGhzGuy]

7 minutes ago, BCM3152 said:

I have never heard of linux since I subscribed to LTT last year  Can someone pls enlighten me because i have no idea what linux really is. If linus has a video on linux pls tell me because i haven't found it yet. is linux more of a mac or a windows. is it just for servers or can i use it,and would it be usefull to game on?????? please tell me

Here's a super in depth writeup http://www.linuxfoundation.org/what-is-linux

[Guest]

GNU/Linux is a free open source operating system. That means anyone can view and change the code and you don't have to pay for it. There are many different version people package together for you called "distros" or "distributions". Linux is very popular in the phone market with android, and also very popular to run on servers. Desktop linux is considered one of it's weaknesses, but it's still pretty awesome. Gaming on it however is another weakness compared to windows. Installing drivers is difficult for beginners and they are often not as good as the windows ones. In addition only a small portion of games support linux without an emulation tool such as virtualbox or wine. Assuming your game runs on linux, it will probably run a bit faster because linux is generally less resource-intensive depending on your setup. There are parts of it that are great however. The command line is awesome, far better than the one in windows. You can make linux look and feel just about however you want. In addition there is a less higher chance of backdoors and malware. Linux is very popular with the more technical groups because it is in certain ways way closer to the hardware. I suppose it's closer to mac because mac is based on unix as well but that's kind of irrelevant. You can use it. If you are interested I suggest you install a distro in virtualbox so that you can try it without the risk of installing it and breaking something in windows.

 

For more information, try youtube. There are some awesome tutorials.

 

Also on youtube, you'll probably see a series called "Linux sucks" however these are more just to highlight what needs work in the linux world. They're great videos but at least watch the whole thing if you're going to watch it.

[Dzzope]

Linux is a group of OS.. It's generally MUCH more powerful than windows or mac (though OSX was built on Open BSD IIRC) but much less user friendly.

 

If you want to check out a distro Mint or Ubuntu is pretty popular for the beginner.

It's not great for games as games tend to be made for windows but it is getting better.

 

Some games that work on both OS wil run better in Linux as it's usually a lighter and more efficient OS. But most games (and last I heard AMD drivers) are just a nightmare // won't work.

[Mikeak172]

Linux is and operating system similar to Android for phones. A lot of customization, a lot of free stuff, but much more tech related. I use a Virtual Machine to run Ubuntu and it is free and not too difficult to use. It can be used by anyone for anything. Gaming, generally, will not have much of a benefit.

[Frosty]

If windows were a  public swimming pool with occasionally annoying patrons that bother you every so often, Linux would be a large lake with dangerous marine wildlife that tries to attack you if you're not careful.

 

But yeah, like other people have said, super powerful with tons of customization options, but a steeper learning curve. A place you could start reading would be http://distrowatch.com/

[Sauron]

The linux kernel is closer in design to the darwin kernel in mac os. However, unlike mac os and windows linux based operating systems are usually completely free and open source. They also give all sorts of control to the user - you have the power to literally do whatever you want with the os, including breaking it if you don't know what you're doing.

 

Generally speaking it is more stable and secure than windows, however since it's not as widespread it can have compatibility issues with some hardware configurations and you need to sacrifice a lot of window's program availability. There usually is a free and open source alternative that works somewere between well enough to exceptionally well for pretty much any program you may want, EXCEPT games and some professional applications that are industry standard.

[Sauron]

16 minutes ago, Dzzope said:

Linux is a group of OS.. It's generally MUCH more powerful than windows or mac (though OSX was built on Open BSD IIRC) but much less user friendly.

Depends on what you mean with "powerful" - the main advantage over mac os is complete customizability, not much else.

[Dzzope]

1 minute ago, Sauron said:

Depends on what you mean with "powerful" - the main advantage over mac os is complete customizability, not much else.

I mean powerful as you can get much more fine grain control over almost anything in the system if you know how.. But that also tends to mean it's dangerous with in-experienced / careless users.

[Nena Trinity]

Linux is magical and full of fun you should give it a try on a extra HDD or a large USB and see if you like it!

[juretrn]

Linux is an OS based on the legendary Unix OS, just like Mac OS (IIRC) so it is most similar to OSX, to answer your question.

[martlart]

Multiple people here have said that it's based on Unix now, which it's not. Linux uses no Unix code. Linux is Unix-like, meaning that it tries to imitate it.

[Gachr]

Linux is an operating system family based on... Linux kernel, which is a very basic part of an operating system. It's very similar to OSX in its technical aspects, but if you didn't like OSX for some reason, it's not likely that you will find it with Linux. Linux has all advantages of OSX (except software availability and dedicated hardware), plus it has many of its own advantages that you won't find in Windows nor OSX.

Its main advantages are customisability, high performance, "closeness" to hardware and the OS itself (it's easier to break it, but you can always fix it) along with very advanced and easy CLI modes. Why would you want to use command line, I'm sure you'll ask. It's just much more efficient than GUI. For example, to copy pictures from last summer you downloaded you just need to type "cp -R ~/Downloads/sumpics/* ~/Pictures/Summer 2015/" instead of browsing through the folders in GUI, selecting all the pictures (especially when you don't use keyboard shortcuts), browsing again and then pasting those pics.

Linux is great for power users, programmers, old computers and people who value their privacy and security. It's also pretty much "the system" in servers and mobile.

[BCM3152]

Thanks all! i dont think ill be trying linux out but this was very helpfull thanks again

[Tallix]

It's unfortunate to hear that you won't be trying out Linux, but if you ever do, here's my 2 cents:

 

Linux has basically taught me everything I know about computers.

 

I started off using Ubuntu and got sick of it after about a year. I somehow managed to switch straight from Ubuntu to Arch. It was hard to figure things out in the beginning, but now I'll never go back. Arch has taught me about hardware, programming, and (most of all) the Linux OS itself, and, by extension, how operating systems work in general. I appreciate my knowledge now so much more than I ever would have been able to if I had just kept using Windows my whole life, because Windows doesn't allow you to observe the elegance of the system itself.

 

If you ever do want to try Linux, I would recommend starting out with Linux Mint. You can install it alongside Windows (your computer will be able to boot up into either Windows or Mint, and you can choose between the two every time you turn your computer on), and the Mint installer makes it very easy to do this (you literally just have to check a box).

 

At any rate, nice question! I hope you got the answers you needed

[JUJUJU655624667]

Linux isn't like  Windows in the sense that they all have different architectures and that they are open source. There are HUNDREDS of different types of Linux. Linux isn't an operating system persay, but a kernel which can be built upon or modified to make a distro. There are many types of distrobutions (Debian and Arch being my favs) that can serve different purposes from being for old hardware, to being for hardcore computer enthusiasts it can be used for practically anything because it's so customizable. And better yet, it's free. If you want gaming than Steam OS is your best bet. Steam OS is like having a console/computer due to the integration of controlers and Steam games. There really is no advantage of having Steam OS over Windows for gaming because the UI takessome getting used to and there is MUCH less compatibility for normal, everyday applications. It CAN be better for gaming because it uses muc less resources than windows which leaves more for your games. Do I reccommend it? NO. For normal people there is no advantage because of compatibility issues and it doesn't have the most user friendly UI BUT  it can be useful for specialised things because it is so customizable.