toastywombel Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 Closed source (Microsoft Windows) or open source (Linux kernel) software, which do you think is better and why? go!
JillSwift Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 Open source. Learn from others easily, with working examples. Modify to fit specific needs. Faster closing of security holes. (Usually. ) Outlasts originating entity - no worries if supporting company vanishes, another will take its place. Lighter system resource consumption. I are an Ubuntu geek grrrl.
toastywombel Posted October 20, 2009 Author Posted October 20, 2009 (edited) I totally agree, open source allows a whole community to help build and improve an operating system. I also hate the idea of paying $400 dollars for an operating system. Ubuntu Geek huh. Which distro you running? I'm actually on Jaunty right now, but I have dual boot with Fedora 11 and Xp. I guess it would be called a tri-boot haha. What upsets me the most about Windows is that I understand charging for your product, but they don't even have an open source network in which people can review the windows code and share upgrades/bug-fixes with each other. Instead you have to wait for Microsoft to release upgrades. Plus the security issues in Windows are completely ridiculous. Of course Microsoft's argument is that they have a larger personal computer market and therefore more spy-ware/ad-ware is made to infect windows. But thats a ridiculous point considering that most of the servers in the world use Linux. I have used various Linux systems (fedora, ubuntu, slackware) for server and personal use over about three years, never have I gotten spyware/adware/trojans/mal-ware on the linux systems. XP/Vista on the other hand require reformatting your hard-drive every six-months at least or it slows down, no matter what firewalls or anti-virus you use. Thats no good considering every time you reformat, more sectors on your hard-drive become corrupted. But I am probably preaching to the choir lol. To be fair to Microsoft though, I have not tried Windows 7, it has gotten many good reviews, but then again so did XP (was not too bad) and Vista (probably the biggest OS failure ever relative to its hype). Edited October 20, 2009 by toastywombel wrong spelling
JillSwift Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 I totally agree, open source allows a whole community to help build and improve an operating system. I also hate the idea of paying $400 dollars for an operating system. Ubuntu Geek huh. Which distro you running?Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.Though Karmic is looking so good that I'm thinking of upgrading this time. I'm actually on Jaunty right now, but I have dual boot with Fedora 11 and Xp. I guess it would be called a tri-boot haha.I'm thinking about trying out Fedora. If for no other reason that to gain some familiarity with something other than Debian based distros. How's it treating you? But I am probably preaching to the choir lol. Pretty much == I was able to abandon Windows entirely. I was surprised how often folks that use Linux based OSs dual boot with some flavor of Windows, most for gaming's sake. What keeps a copy on your machine?
Mr Skeptic Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 As we get more and more progress, Open Source will be more and more effective. More developers, more stuff to build on. No losing data when a company goes under. No licensing nightmare. No CD keys, registration, requirement to have CD in tray, none of that bull. No having other people thinking they own your computer. From an economics viewpoint, it's also the more efficient: the marginal cost equals the price (both zero), whereas for non-free, the marginal cost is less than the price. The non-free behave as a monopoly. And things like bittorrent will have an effect.
toastywombel Posted October 20, 2009 Author Posted October 20, 2009 (edited) Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron.Though Karmic is looking so good that I'm thinking of upgrading this time. I'm thinking about trying out Fedora. If for no other reason that to gain some familiarity with something other than Debian based distros. How's it treating you? Pretty much == I was able to abandon Windows entirely. I was surprised how often folks that use Linux based OSs dual boot with some flavor of Windows, most for gaming's sake. What keeps a copy on your machine? I use windows simply for gaming but I really only play Starcraft, plus I like to play on Tetris and for some reason tetrisfriends.com works better on windows, it lags just a little in all the Linux distros I have used. I'm looking forward to Karmic too! I would wait till the full release comes out though. You should upgrade to Jaunty until then though. WARNING: Don't upgrade to Intrepid Ibex (worse Ubuntu distro ever, for me at least). Fedora is okay, a lot of people like it more, but I prefer Ubuntu/Debian. Debian systems use to always have an advantage because their package managing system was far better. Fedora is a little more stable I think, but there is not as much software available as opposed to Ubuntu. It looks just like Ubuntu though, because it runs the same desktop environments (GNU or KDE). If you like Ubuntu though, you wont like Fedora as much. Like you, I started on Ubuntu and I think its far more user-friendly and all around better than Fedora. Essentially Ubuntu can do anything Fedora can do and more. Jill, do you use KDE or GNU? Edited October 20, 2009 by toastywombel
JillSwift Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 I'm looking forward to Karmic too! I would wait till the full release comes out though.I'm running the Karmic beta on my laptop. I leave a partition open on it for testing/playing with other stuff. You should upgrade to Jaunty until then though. WARNING: Don't upgrade to Intrepid Ibex (worse Ubuntu distro ever, for me at least).I tried Intrepid, and I agree. It was a stinker. Fedora is okay, a lot of people like it more, but I prefer Ubuntu/Debian. Debian systems use to always have an advantage because their package managing system was far better. Fedora is a little more stable I think, but there is not as much software available as opposed to Ubuntu. It looks just like Ubuntu though, because it runs the same desktop environments (GNU or KDE).Though I'll still try it just to satisfy curiosity, it's disappointing to hear Fedora has fewer packages on tap. If you like Ubuntu though, you wont like Fedora as much. Like you, I started on Ubuntu and I think its far more user-friendly and all around better than Fedora. Essentially Ubuntu can do anything Fedora can do and more. Jill, do you use KDE or GNU? GNOME, though KDE 4.3 looks very shiny and has fun toys. I may install it, too, and switch between the two as caprice demands. == Do you Compiz-Fusion?
toastywombel Posted October 20, 2009 Author Posted October 20, 2009 Yes I do use compiz-fusion. I love all the desktop effects! KDE is very pretty too! What are the specs on your laptop if you don't mind me asking. Yah, if your really curious no reason not to try fedora, you might end up loving it.
JillSwift Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 What are the specs on your laptop if you don't mind me asking. I don't mind Intel Core Duo T2500 (2.0GHz) ATI Mobility Radeon X1400 (And boy am I bugged that ATI dropped support for these older chips for Xorg 1.6+! Fortunately it runs fine with the open source drivers.) 2GB DDR2 120GB HDD 802.11a/g/b plus an Intel Pro 100 RG45 15.4" WXGA TFT display Its supposed to have bluetooth, but that never worked. (I got this thing used for a song, so I'm not complaining too loudly ) What's in your case?
toastywombel Posted October 20, 2009 Author Posted October 20, 2009 My PC is crap and yours puts mine to shame, its a mix of parts that I cobbled together: Celeron D 1 gig ddr ATI Radeon 128 mb pci-e 80 gig Wester Digital (that just crashed yesterday) My laptop is not so bad though . Sony Vaio NR180E Core2 Duo 1.5 Ghz I gig ddr2 200 GB HD Intel X3100 Video Card (also not supported by compiz, but I just edited the code so it would work.) 15.4 inch display
bascule Posted October 20, 2009 Posted October 20, 2009 Closed source (Microsoft Windows) or open source (Linux kernel) software, which do you think is better and why? go! I like systems that are a hybrid of both, although I'm a sucker for vertically integrated platforms, like OS X or the iPhone.
toastywombel Posted October 21, 2009 Author Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) I am not a big fan of apple, they make a great product but its no better than the linux distros, and it costs infinitely more. Plus proprietary systems are a stinker if something goes wrong, if the company goes under you are screwed or if something breaks the company charges you out the butt because they have a monopoly on all the parts that work for that device. The only advantage of a vertically built system is that the same company makes all the parts for the device so you never have to deal with compatibility problems (as long as you use hard-ware and software from that company). Edited October 21, 2009 by toastywombel
bascule Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 I am not a big fan of apple, they make a great product but its no better than the linux distros, and it costs infinitely more. Well, for starters, it doesn't cost infinitely more, it costs tangibly more. If you pirate it, you lose the vertical integration of the platform. That's a price that some people (possibly myself) have been willing to pay. But yes, there is a cost to it compared to open source platforms, particularly in terms of hardware support. That said, for a desktop operating system the platform itself is substantially better. Beyond the technical advantages of the Cocoa/NeXTSTEP API, the user interface is generally thought out a lot better and easier to use. But, all that said, the main advantage is the large amount of proprietary software available for Mac that is not available for Linux. I can run Photoshop natively. Can you? You don't need it, you have the Gimp, right? What about Final Cut Pro? Avid Xpress? Logic? Reason? I guess it just depends what you want to do with your computer. Macs don't have games... but Linux doesn't either.
JillSwift Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 (edited) MacOS X is amazingly similar to Linux based OSs - in fact the kernel and parts of the extents (Darwin) are open source. Even having to pay for it makes it similar to some enterprise Linux distributions like Red Hat. Third-party software support of the platform is testament to Apple's marketing skills. Mention creativity in digital media and "Macintosh" is the first platform to come to mind for just about anyone. Apple's Logic and Reason (I love those names!) software really drives that home in a very tangible way. The only problem I see with Apple is that they are better at the whole dirty-tricks vendor lock-in game than Microsoft would dare to aspire to. Their constant re-structuring of their data transfer protocols, dedication to DRM, and slow response to third-party device support is infamous. Edited October 21, 2009 by JillSwift
toastywombel Posted October 21, 2009 Author Posted October 21, 2009 Yeah Windows controls the gaming market, but Linux has a bunch of games too, they just aren't as popular because they are not commercialized. And Linux can actually run windows executables through Wine (windows emulator). Several games work great on Linux, and these are games aren't even written for Linux! W.O.W, Half-Life 2, Oblivion, Nearly all Steam Games, Call of Duty 4, Battlefield 2142, Final Fantasy XI: Online Edition, Sims, all have platinum ratings on Linux. They don't just work on Linux, they work great. Wine also runs most Windows applications such as Office and many others. Linux supports much more software than mac, guaranteed, and it's free . Furthermore, have you heard of PearPC its a Macintosh emulator for Linux and it allows the user to run OS X in a shell, inside of Linux. So Linux can actually run nearly all mac applications. Finally when I said Linux is infinitely cheaper, that is technically mathematically correct. Let me explain. Cost of any Linux OS= $0 Cost of OS X SL= $299 Cost of Windows 7= $119 Now lets put it into an equation how many times more expensive is OS X to any Linux Distro 0(x)=299, No matter how big you make the variable value, 0 times anything is 0. This is why it is infinitely cheaper. infinity(0)=0. In a way you could argue its beyond infinitely cheaper lol. But yeah thats kinda a play on numbers your right, it would be more accurate to say that its $299 cheaper than OS X SL, or $119 cheaper than Windows 7. But thats not even counting the cost of the additional software. The only problem with Linux is it requires the user to be a little more tech-suave, but not much more. Especially considering that there are multiple support forums for each specific kind of Linux distro. Don't get me wrong, I like mac much more than windows. I would prefer if they turned their software market into an open source software market. But they make some very innovative and interesting hardware. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedOne more thing, I have a serious disdain for Steve Jobs. He is a total hypocrite. He always complains about how windows is not innovative. Jobs stole the whole GUI and modern personal computer idea from Xerox. Merged post follows: Consecutive posts mergedTo give mac some more credit though, they have moved away from being strictly proprietary throughout the years.
Mr Skeptic Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Finally when I said Linux is infinitely cheaper, that is technically mathematically correct. However, when you factor in total operating costs, the divide by zero disappears.
toastywombel Posted October 21, 2009 Author Posted October 21, 2009 However, when you factor in total operating costs, the divide by zero disappears. Yeah I know, I admitted that I twisted the numbers a bit. Lol kinda like an old saying, "Figures don't lie, but liars figure." I would not call myself a liar though I pointed out that my mathematics were skewed. But you are right Skeptic.
JillSwift Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 However, when you factor in total operating costs, the divide by zero disappears. In which context? That's true for businesses/enterprise computing. Not so much for personal computing.
toastywombel Posted October 21, 2009 Author Posted October 21, 2009 Jill's got my back! lol, You do have a point, the cost of operation for a PC is very minimal compared to operating costs for a business server. I don't know of anyone who budgets there PC operation costs lol.
Mr Skeptic Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 In which context? That's true for businesses/enterprise computing. Not so much for personal computing. Nope, it's true for personal computing too. All systems require some time for maintenance and to learn how to use, and time has value. Yes, even if you don't spend actual money on it, the time you spend on it has an opportunity cost (which means you could have been doing something else with it). However, if you count that as "entertainment" than it looks better.
JillSwift Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Nope, it's true for personal computing too. All systems require some time for maintenance and to learn how to use, and time has value. Yes, even if you don't spend actual money on it, the time you spend on it has an opportunity cost (which means you could have been doing something else with it). However, if you count that as "entertainment" than it looks better. Ah. Well, in that context everything has cost. Like this post. Who should I bill?
Mr Skeptic Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Ah. Well, in that context everything has cost.Like this post. Who should I bill? Yourself, of course. Don't worry though, it won't increase your taxes because the income equals the cost.
A Tripolation Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Ha, I guess I'm the only one here who values a pretty gui over performance. I love me windows. And 7 actually ain't that bad. And I can play ANY game I want.
JillSwift Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Ha, I guess I'm the only one here who values a pretty gui over performance. I love me windows. And 7 actually ain't that bad. And I can play ANY game I want. Not "Tux Racer". Ha ha! That's pure Linux! Besides, Win7's prettiness takes up just as much resource time as my Compiz-Fusion window manager. The question isn't really performance or stability, but freedom to get at the source and make the system your own.
A Tripolation Posted October 21, 2009 Posted October 21, 2009 Hey, I would use linux if it was just as pretty, but not even KDE has graphics on par with Windows Aero (and I was PROMISED it would lol). Meh, I couldn't mod open-source-anything anyways, so I guess windows really is best for me. But can't we all come together and hate on the elitist mac-users? They think they're so great, when in fact, all the cool kids use freeware.
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