Lot of people give up on Linux based on past experience, but i do suggest you keep getting back to it and give it a fair go. Just like MS has imporoved so has Linux and other Unix variants.
For all its merit i must admit i never adopted as my main OS. I have used it for gateway/firewall systems. And i keep ubunut virtual image handy, for the odd times i need to run something in linux. Usually to help some student learning C/C++ in Unix/Linux environment. But i never went mainstreem with it. With all its problems Vista, XP, Win2k, Nt4, Nt3.51 have alwasy been my prefered choice. Except for the mad year i ran Win98 (while it was free for a year in beta).
Even now my Dragonfly Planet camera would work much better under Linux. As per Bird's advise, but i still cant bring myself to it. And the underlying reason is convineance. Everyone else i know uses it, and most of my life has been spent in the support of it (one way or another) and i just need to be on top of it. Using it day in day out keeps it real for me to understand user issues. If i had to support Linux (helped a few friends) i just run it up. Thankfully never had to support MACOs. Would not know where to start. But i do like its eycandy. By the way isnt MacOS now built on BSD (another Unix variant). I think that BSD base is part of the reason for it (From what i have heard) greater stability.
Linus and Bill and Steve (Wozniak) brothers, now what a story that would make. But as far as computer geeks go i would say those guys have more in common then not. An OS is an OS afterall, it has the same underlying purpose.
Here are two images that show my system under a moderate load. I can't wait to upgrade to 24GB of memory when it is affordable. If your hardware and software do what you want is does not matter what flavour it is. Loaded up the system still has instant response as no memory swapping has occurred yet. I have prime95 running in the background 24/7 and it does not noticably slow the system down.The third shows core temperatures at idle (min ) and load.
How is Windows 7??. I've heard it's pretty stable and quick, even in beta.
It is a joy to use, and for me at least, rock solid. It has clearly been designed with touch screens in mind, so I can see another expensive purchase coming soon.
It is a joy to use, and for me at least, rock solid. It has clearly been designed with touch screens in mind, so I can see another expensive purchase coming soon.
Nah, go the whole hog and buy yourself one of those integrated HP computers....with the touchscreen built into the computer
Lot of people give up on Linux based on past experience, but i do suggest you keep getting back to it and give it a fair go. Just like MS has imporoved so has Linux and other Unix variants.
For all its merit i must admit i never adopted as my main OS. I have used it for gateway/firewall systems. And i keep ubunut virtual image handy, for the odd times i need to run something in linux. Usually to help some student learning C/C++ in Unix/Linux environment. But i never went mainstreem with it. With all its problems Vista, XP, Win2k, Nt4, Nt3.51 have alwasy been my prefered choice. Except for the mad year i ran Win98 (while it was free for a year in beta).
Even now my Dragonfly Planet camera would work much better under Linux. As per Bird's advise, but i still cant bring myself to it. And the underlying reason is convineance. Everyone else i know uses it, and most of my life has been spent in the support of it (one way or another) and i just need to be on top of it. Using it day in day out keeps it real for me to understand user issues. If i had to support Linux (helped a few friends) i just run it up. Thankfully never had to support MACOs. Would not know where to start. But i do like its eycandy. By the way isnt MacOS now built on BSD (another Unix variant). I think that BSD base is part of the reason for it (From what i have heard) greater stability.
Linus and Bill and Steve (Wozniak) brothers, now what a story that would make. But as far as computer geeks go i would say those guys have more in common then not. An OS is an OS afterall, it has the same underlying purpose.
Dual boot your system, Fahim. Then you can have the best of both worlds. That way too, you can get more practice with supporting a Linux OS. Also, when Windows starts acting up, you can use Linux to get into it and solve your problems
In a family like that, Bill would be getting picked on all the time, even though he'd be the eldest
Steve (Jobs) would be like the sadistic cousin who'd be cheering Linus and Steve (Wozniac) on and Alan (Turing) and John (von Neumann) would be the fathers who'd give the boys a good clip under the ear
Ada (Countess) Lovelace would be the rich auntie that spoiled them rotten
I'd agree with vm's...so much easier. Although, current system is a triple boot (debian amd 64 bit, xp 32 bit, vista ultimate 64 bit). vm allows me to use debian amd64 vm, open solaris vm, openbsd vm when I need them. I mostly use the debian vm. I'm a debian guy, can't stand Ubuntu. I also use Debian pretty much most of the day, every day @ work. I personally think OpenSolaris is a better choice these days, and the support agreements with Sun are cheaper than what Redhat or Suse (Novell) offer too.
Linux has had its chance and it's a dying operating system now imho. OS X is kicking its a$$ big time on the desktop (as well as hurting Microsoft), Windows server is taking back the server side of things too. BSD is a better choice for server setups in many instances imho. Linux has far too many problems for it to ever become mainstream, and these problems are so deeply rooted it isn't funny:
1) far too many package management systems
2) far too many desktop environments
3) libc is broken imho. Very poor compatibility, and it makes Linux a ***** to develop for. That's why the major players won't touch it.
4) far too much choice in applications. You *don't* need 20 different browsers to do the same job. Better to have one uber application with lots of people working on it, than 20 smaller versions. It's diluted application development, and that is bad for the users, and bad for the developers, and ultimately, bad for the software itself.
5) X. Sorry, but it's a p.o.s.
6) far too many distributions. See point 4).
7) just simply unfriendly (to the average user) to use. End of story. All these people who say "yeah but I installed ubuntu for my grandma and she loves it" are full of it. If it breaks, if you're not around, grandma is stuffed. Try and find a Linux expert who you can trust to fix it? Not likely. Far easier to find a windows expert who can do the job.
8) consistenty in UI. Sorry, but it's a mess. An absolute mess.
I've used Linux for a good number of years, and it's gone downhill imho. I'm critical of Linux because it's the only way it's going to get better. It seems that those with the power to make changes won't. And they're the ones that will see Linux, which was a great idea, go slowly down the tube. Linux usage levels (on desktop and server) have been dropping the past 3 years. And they will continue to drop.
haha!
