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[Samsonite]

Linux has come a long way since Linus Torvalds wrote his "Unix like" operating system for the personal computer  20, or was it 21, years ago when he was a college student in Finland.
It has developed into a very powerful and secure operating system and has become the OS of choice for the vast majority of companies running servers on the Internet.

There is a desktop for every taste, but the best known are KDE, Gnome and Xfce.  Many in the Linux community think both Gnome and KDE are getting too bloated and "windows like," but KDE does seem to appeal to former ms-windows users and many feel the lastest version, 4.7.4 (4.8 to be released next week) is better looking than win7 and certainly has more bells and whistles.

That old canard, if it is free it isn't worth much, has never been more untrue when it is applied to today's Open Source software. Many of the programs are every bit as good as their commercial counterparts and in some cases, better.

I have found that the md-windows scanning software for my HP scanner, of course, does a better job than Xsane and Sane, but that varies from chipset to chipset (in each scanner), so I run VirtualBox (a virtual machine) on my Linux desktop and in that XP, SP3, and therein, the scanning software. XP runs better in VirtualBox than it does as a "standalone" on the same computer. It, XP, thinks it is running on a standalone box hooked up to a lan (local area network), but, as I said, it is just another application.

I have the entire ms-office suite running perfectly under WINE, just to show people it can be done, as I use LibreOffice for all my word processing, etc.

I haven't had to boot over to ms-windows for over a year.

There are literally hundreds of Linux distributions, but currently the most popular one is Ubuntu and its siblings.

Years ago when I first started using Linux, off and on, Slackware Linux was the most popular distribution. Over the years I've tried many others, but have always gone back to Slackware. It lets you control your computer, is secure, and noticeably faster than some of the others.  It is not just for "geeks," a reputation given to it by those too lazy to do more than point and click. Their loss.

Here is a good site to start to learn more about Linux,

http://www.http://distrowatch.com/

a little history about Linux distributions,

http://www.linux-mag.com/id/7651/1/

Some applications,

Firefox, Thunderbird, Opera, and Chrome are all available for Linux.

HP provides Linux drivers for all their printers and multi-purpose office equipment. Unfortunately they don't do the same for their standalone scanner.

Flash, Adobe Reader and others are available for Linux and are free. There are some commerical version that do charge a fee, e.g., Nero.

K3b, for CD/DVD burning, copying, etc.

LibreOffice, as previously mentioned.

Picasa and GoogleEarth are both available and run perfectly well.

Gwenview, from KDE is an excellent graphics/image viewer.

The GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is not quite Adobe Photo Shop, but it is getting there and does everything I need to do and far more.

Amarok, consider by many to be the best audio player, regardless of platform.

VLC, an excellent video and audio player.

MPlayer, another good video and audio player.

It is a long, long list.

To sum it up, with Linux, especially Slackware Linux, I can accomplish everything I need to do with a computer, both business and personal, and it does well, it does it securely, it does it quickly, and it is as stable as a rock.

Edited by Samsonite, 2012-01-22 11:59:52.

[bkk_mike]

dharmabm, on 2012-01-09 21:44:56, said:

Lannig, on 2012-01-09 18:50:57, said:

dharmabm, on 2012-01-09 00:45:35, said:

bkk_mike, on 2012-01-08 22:51:58, said:

i.e. If your work forces it (like me), you end up with Windows as that's what the office VPN software is for.

vpns are platform independent,  you don't need a windows client to connect to a micrsoft vpn

Not all of them are, by far. Both Checkpoint and Juniper offer VPN solutions for which only Windows and Mac clients exist. Although they're based on standard protocols, they've added enough nonstandard stuff in there to prevent interoperability with open-source clients.These vendors are very popular in corporate environments. Not the whole world runs OpenVPN ... I regret it as much as you do, but that's the sad truth.

hmm, a quick search found an ubuntu client for juniper and tunneling possibilities for checkpoint (although full 'office mode' functionality (whatever that is) is not possible). i suppose anyone can build layers of proprietary code to make accepted industry standards unusable, but why would anyone in their right mind use them? :-)

I work for a bank. The VPN software has additional in-house security checks in addition to the basic VPN connection. And the software is for windows only.

[RKASA]

I run windows in vitualbox with a fixed IP on my LAN just like it is another PC - because linux has up to 16 desk tops you can do that.  It is there running all the time and auto starts when I start the PC.  Things like a modem stupidly designed to only talk to IE6> I can still open the gateway with a simple click.  Most any software that works only on windows outside of highend games is right there all the time..  I can leave the connection to the internet off on that windos OS and use linux for the internet and mail etc plus many of the things it does best like the apache server etc etc etc.

Why linux - why not is the real question or maybe why windows for everything if you can have both anyway.

[volk666]

I just got bored of Win XP and so tried Linux. All my computers have dual boot on them but I rarely use Windows anymore, and when I do I get pestered with updates to Avast, Windows Defender and what not. By comparison, all Linux updates are done as one single task. To make it even easier I open terminal and type "zypper up" in my OpenSuse - that  is really all that is needed to update the OS and every single program on the entire computer. There are, of course, automatic updates, too, but they require slightly more clicks.

Another thing that bothers me about Windows is dealing with pirated Win 7. I've done it a few times myself but there were always some problems with "evaluation period" or "activation" or serial numbers and updating the OS itself. Maybe it's gotten easier, I don't know, Windows that comes preloaded with notebooks here is only marginally more reliable in that regard.

As KDE user I can't give Win7 acknowledgment even for the looks, it's great, yes, but there are many little nifty things in KDE that look even better, and in every other aspect it beats Win 7 hands down.

Recently I gave a try to Gnome 3.2 and I must say it's a refreshingly new approach to desktops. I can see how it might drive old Gnome users nuts and Win users might feel afraid of switching to such a radically different design, but it has its pluses, too. I even got myself Applelike dock as an eye candy. Don't think it's easy to get something like this on Windows. Cheap trick but still nice.

As for software - I've never learned to use Adobe Photoshop like a pro. All I need graphics wise I can do with GIMP. For office documents there's Open/Libre Office, but I've recently migrated to Google Docs in the "cloud". Now it doesn't matter which computer or which OS I'm using, I always work with the same spreadsheet, which I can also share with anyone I want.

Maybe it's not as fancy as Excel but after writing quite a few scripts for my spreadsheets I feel like I'm never going to fully explore the possibilities of Google Docs anyway.

CD/DVD burning - there are free tools for Windows but, like with Photoshop, everyone here lives on pirated Nero, and even if I got a genuine Nero disk with DVD drive I bought once it still doesn't have access to all the capabilities. On Linux these things are fully expected part of the OS.

Image viewing here is also usually done via pirated ACDsee, there are free tools, too, like FastStone, but on Linux image viewers are also part of the OS, no need to search the Internet for "free" software - and that's a major headache in itself.

To be fair, I've used free Linux derived substitutes for many Windows programs for years before I actually made a switch and after the switch to Linux I still use some of Windows based software in Wine. Not all Windows programs work like that but those that do run just like any other regular Linux applications without any visible overhead. I've been thinking about setting up a VirtualBox and running fully blown Windows inside it, but when I think about installation I just shudder - WinXp takes about an hour to install on it's own, Win7 needs tons of free space, and the serial and activations - I don't need this aggravation, really.

Actually, at least two of my Windows installs are perfectly set up to do everything I want and they are quite snappy and nice but not nearly as much fun as I have with Linux. One might say Linux is for those who like to endlessly tweak their system. To this I can answer that most of my guests don't fully realize they are using a completely different OS - the browsers are the same, file managers looks and work the same, music and video play the same and so on.

[kujirasan]

I been using Linux for 10 years, the ones I started with all got eaten up by the corporations, Red Hat , Mandrake, one day I was going home and in front of a News Agency there were this packets left for free! So I took few home!
Linux is difficult system and  there are far  too many distributions, or Distros , if you don't know anything about programming,  C language etc you have to learn a bit otherwise it is frustrating and you will spend lot time in the forums to get help!
It is very easy to use it now,  compared with few years ago! It was hell installing and even worst trying to connect to Internet! When the ADSL game , it was terrible to get Internet going!
It is like a car, many people drive it, but don't know what is under the hood or how to deal with the engine electrical etc! In Linux you got to know how the engine runs!
In some areas there far more software than for Windows! For example Music, Disk Burning , Desktop Environment  etc.
Most large corporation run Linux behind the Windows, Banks completely run on Linux!  I used for Finite Element Analysis, Date Base, Internet and Mathematics!
It is free from hassle of license etc, and no virus, no freezing no slow down! It is horses for courses!

[smiling mantis]

Can you prove that the cryptography used by Apple and Microsoft hasn't been deliberately compromised?

You can on Linux.

/rest case

[justsumhelp]

Please elaborate

smiling mantis, on 2012-03-03 19:33:23, said:

Can you prove that the cryptography used by Apple and Microsoft hasn't been deliberately compromised?

You can on Linux.

/rest case

[smiling mantis]

It's simple really.  With Linux you can inspect the code that makes it all work.  With Apple and Microsoft, you cannot.

What backdoors are in the closed-source OSes?  Installed at the behest of government agencies, and perhaps you really do have nothing to hide from the government, but what about the other criminal organizations that learn of these exploits?  Do you have anything you want to hide from them?

[Crushdepth]

Why attack the encryption algorithm when you can just bugger up the random number generators? A couple of articles that are food for thought:

Lousy random numbers cause insecure public keys.

Did NSA put a secret back door in new encryption standard?

[smiling mantis]

The analysis of /dev/random is mostly FUD designed to scare people off of a reliable source of random bits and onto less secure sources.

There are some good points with respect to OpenWRT/diskless systems, but these were already well understood, and in any case, we're talking about session keys here (transitory).

Meanwhile, nobody knows what's really going on under the hood with Windows or Mac.  Indeed, you are violating your license if you even try to look.

[volk666]

I've been playing with Linux for only five years but haven't felt the need to learn C or C++ or anything, though I did write a couple of one line scripts to run in terminal.

Recently I've been playing with Gnome 3 and I kinda like the simplicity, plus I finally discovered the existence of Docky - Apple like animated dock to launch programs. Now I made Gnome my default desktop for watching movies and surfing the net. When I get tired I might try Ubuntu's unity again.

You don't get such variety on Windows.

[gpdjohn]

Well, as a member of the computer illerate,  and out of sheer boredom, I read up alittle on Linux Mint 12 and not really know what I was getting into, downloaded a livedvd and installed it on a 10 yr old HP P4.
I still do not know what Im doing, but I really like Linux.
Been going strong ever since ( approx 2 weeks ) on Mint 12. Does everything thing they said it would and allot more. Works right outta the box and have had not one problem except for connecting it to my Netgear wireless, which has been solved by a 50 foot ethernet cable. ( wireless adapter now in the dresser drawer underneath my old Oui magazines. )

I am a Linux convert forever