Thread: Anyone else use Linux

Just curious. Been using Fedora 15. Just installed "Oneiric Ocelot" (beta). Nice, once I got rid of Unity.

Yeah, I use OS X

But I am a command-line geek...

I had the chance to use Ubuntu for a brief while. It was a rather cool experience, considering I'm a Windows guy ever since I first used a computer.

I like to use the command line as well.

I keep Windows around for gaming and the odd Netflix movie, but I prefer Linux.

I work with Windows, Unix (Ubuntu) and OS X on a daily basis. Save for a few annoyances I prefer windows over the other two.

I work with Windows, Unix and OS X on a daily basis, when I get home the first computer (of many on offer) I reach for is my Mac.

I agree that OS X as an office OS is a PITA to manage... great as a personal OS, though.

Puppy One Bone, pure command line, runs on one elderly Pentium dual boot machine along with Windows ME. Most of the time I yield to the fast and easy appeal of Windows XP and 7.

Back when memory was measured in kilobytes and cpu speed in megahertz I avoided Windows and used apps that ran barefoot in dos. Today memory and speed are cheap so the Windows bulk is not an issue. I look on using Linux as a continuing education programme.

I see no point in using a Linux distro with a gui. I've tried a few and they look and feel like wannabe-Windows, but without the ease of use of Windows, and without continually improving apps such as Microsoft Office.

On this subject:

RIP Dennis MacAlistair Ritchie - the creator of Unix and the C programming language has passed away today, aged 70.

Arguably the most ground-breaking contributor to personal computing since Robert Noyce invented the microchip.

Dennis Ritchie the designer and original developer of both the C programming language, and co-creator of Unix has died at age 71 after a prolonged illness.
It seems incredible from today's perspective that two people, motivated mainly by enthusiasm, should develop both an operating system and a programming language but that's exactly what Dennis Ritchie and Kenneth Thompson achieved.
They met and started working together at Bell Laboratories around 1968. At the time the Bell Labs (now Alcatel-Lucent) were famous as the home of the transistor and many other basic research projects. Ritchie and Thompson were given the brief to "investigate interesting problems in computer science".
Like all good teams, Ritchie and Thompson had different but complementary qualities. Dennis Ritchie had studied physics and then moved on to pure computer science via maths. His PhD thesis was on recursive functions, but he got bored with it and never submitted it. Ken Thompson was an electronics enthusiast. It would be too much of a simplification to say that Ritchie was the theoretician and Thompson the practician but the difference in their backgrounds must have helped rather then hindered their working together.
Ritchie and Thompson set out to implement an operating system but because Bell had just had a bad experience with the Multics operating system and it not the ideal time to look for official resources and so they started work with an obsolete PDP 7. The story of how the Unix project expanded and eventually saw the light of day is told in our history article, Ritchie & Thompson.

Linux GUIs (Ubuntu, Mint, Fedora, and others) are very easy to use these days, and there's lots of good software that is developed and improved over time. The distros have come a long way from a decade ago.

Mac OS is my least favorite of Linux, Windows, and Mac. I doubt I'll ever buy another Mac.

Having started with a Commodore Pet, with a huge 1k memory and built in cassette drive, and worked my way through Apple IIe and a couple of BBC "B" computers with an amazing 64k of memory and 2 floppy drives which cost me the best part of £200, quite frankly I will use whatever works with the most efficiency and least effort. I have a Mac Mini and 3 Windows machines, which, if you are not a geek, are far more accessible and easier to use than Apples (I find Apple's arrogance towards its customers off-putting, not to mention their refusal to alter their keyboard for our market - Then there's the price, I could buy 3 Lenovos with i3, 6Gb memory and a 640Gb hard disc and dedicated 1Gb graphics for less than the price of a 15" MacBook Pro with smaller memory and HD - Macs are good, but not that good), no hassle printing across mixed networks, easy to wander through as many levels as you feel confident to access. I don't want to write routines, set up my own structures etc., my computer is an electronic "screwdriver", I just want to pick it up and use it.

If you handed me a laptop with which I can start working intuitively within 2 minutes, I wouldn't care if it was running Ubuntu or The Red Red Robin, just give me a decent WP and an easy to understand and use filing system and I'm happy...

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

...not to mention their refusal to alter their keyboard for our market

What do you mean? I have three Apple keyboards - all with £ & € symbols. Other than that, what's the difference between your market and the rest of the world?

The position of the " and @ keys

I've worked with Linux off and on for about three years now - mostly flavors of Ubuntu. I like the concept of it, but I never got used to the system itself. Compatibility and usability are two things I appreciate most in my OS, and Linux offers neither.

Originally Posted by Bloggsworth

The position of the " and @ keys

I don't know what you're talking about. They are in the same place as any other qwerty keyboard. If anything, I like apple keyboard layouts better because they have less clutter; laptop manufactures seem to agree with this as well.

The only downside to apple keyboards is that you will have to map a delete key to a shortcut if you expect to use it on windows (there is no delete key, only backspace). That can easily be solved by using an utility called AutoHotkey.

EDIT = Wait, I get it now, different region keyboard. Forget I said anything.

Originally Posted by elite

EDIT = Wait, I get it now, different region keyboard. Forget I said anything.

More to the point, Apple refuse to supply a different region keyboard. Buy a Windows computer in America and you get the Apple layout, by one in Europe and you get the @ on the same key as the ' and the " on the same key as the 2; it's not a cost thing, they told me to "Get used to it" Why? I use 5 or 6 Windows computers to every 1 Apple; so not an attitude that's going to get me to buy another Apple any time soon.

Apples are jewels of the personal computing world, beautifully designed, well crafted, the perfect lifestyle accessory, but I don't wear jewellery and don't use only Apples.