Is Linux worth the switch?

A day in the life of Linux:

Boot computer. Not connected to wireless network. Odd. Test on another computer, it's fine. Boot back into Windows, it's fine. Back into Linux, no connection. Network Manager still shows my settings, but the card is no longer listed under hardware. ra0 is completely missing from ifconfig. Card still shows up in lspci. Set up a shared connection from my brother's desktop. 52 updates from the last 4 days. Run updates, restart required (whoever says Linux never requires rebooting is talking bullshit). Reboot, and wifi is working again :?
 
^ lol

Day in the life for me (when it works):
Start it up. do shit. yay

Day in the life, when it doesn't work:
- fuck, kernel update made sound choppy. switch back to previous kernel
OR
- fuck, kernel update means vmware no longer works. time to recompile the vmware module

Luckily all my hardware works with it, since I chose my laptop carefully since I knew I'd be running only linux on it.

Anyhow, linux and windows are both about the same wrt. rebooting. They'll both go pretty much forever without rebooting required, unless you do an update to something major like the kernel. Then you need to restart, regardless of what os you use (that is commonly used these days).

The reason windows has a history for needing reboots (I'm talking about XP onwards) is because stupid apps want you to restart after installing, pointlessly. Whereas in linux it's just a matter of restarting that app, and not the whole system. Unless you updated the kernel or a device driver, in which case of course you need to reboot.
 
?
 
A simpler OS with no issues? What you want is called OpenBSD.
 
Sorry for the thread hijack, but I have a question regarding Linux-type systems. I'm studying computer engineering and programming and I'm thinking of installing some kind of Linux-esque system on my PC, since the workstations in our laboratory work on xUbuntu (as far as I know). Is it worth switching to this kind of system if I plan to use the laptop especially for university work (in terms of programming)?
 
Well, to have the same system at home as you have to use at uni is always beneficial regarding uni work. I always get annoyed at CS students who can't work with the Linux/UNIX computers because they only know Windows. It can be a considerable waste of time bringing those people up to speed.
Xubuntu is Ubuntu with the very sleek XFCE desktop environment, nothing wrong with that. Check if your laptop works with Linux first by trying out a Live-CD system (Ubuntu/Xubuntu/Kubuntu for instance). If you don't want to lose Windows, think about dual-boot or virtual machines.
 
I'm thinking of dual-booting. We're currently using Codeblocks IDE as a programming interface, and apparently that works better in Linux-type systems.


EDIT: Tried the Live CD option and it works, and I can also see the HDD normally from under Ubuntu. What am I supposed to do now, if I haven't partitioned the disk and I want to dual-boot?
 
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vikiradTG2007 said:
EDIT: Tried the Live CD option and it works, and I can also see the HDD normally from under Ubuntu. What am I supposed to do now, if I haven't partitioned the disk and I want to dual-boot?
Click to expand...

Double-click on the "install ubuntu" icon on the desktop or chose "install ubuntu" in the live cd's boot menu. When it comes to chosing a partition on which to install ubuntu, you'll get the option to resize your windows partition(s) to make room for ubuntu on your hard disk. after the install is done, you'll get a boot menu when starting your pc that gives you some fifteen seconds to boot into windows before defaulting to ubuntu.
 
lv2xlr8 said:
Is Linux worth the switch?
Click to expand...

I'm an IT professional. I've been using Linux in some form or another for years now, as well as Unix. In my opinion Linux isn't a good desktop OS for the average user, or even the rare power user. I'm not sure what your tech level is, but an "intermediate" techie should be able to install and configure one of the major Linux desktop distributions well enough. For me the problem is compatibility, ease of use (as in, a lack thereof) and a small software library. Yes, I know there are ways around the software issue but for me none of them are ideal.

Linux is a powerful OS and for server side functions I love it - for the desktop, not so much. That's just my opinion though.
 
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Castle said:
the problem is [...] ease of use (as in, a lack thereof) and a small software library.
Click to expand...
Ease of use is entirely dependant on what you're used to. I'm using Linux (Debian and Kubuntu) for about four or five years now, first with XFCE, and then KDE as Desktop environment. It's totally easy to use. In contrast to that, in my opinion Windows definitely lacks usability. The two systems are simply different.
And the software library you can choose from for a Linux system is in fact very large and built right into the distributions, except for typical commercial-grade desktop applications like picture or video editing, which are the classical use cases for a Mac anyway.
 
Well, that's your opinion and you're welcome to it. I generally don't agree. As I said, I've been using it for years and years and don't prefer it for what I do desktop wise. :)
 
Obviously this is completely a matter of preference, but I have been an almost exclusive Linux user for several years now, and I find Windows difficult to use and feature-anemic. For me, doing what I do (systems administration, programming, IRC, browsing the net, email, watching video, listening to music, IM (in about that order)), Linux is a huge time-saver, and a vastly superior user-experience. Of course, this has a lot to do with the superior command-line environment and better support for vim, but it is also because of the vast software library, incredibly strong development tools, and clean, powerful GUI.

I almost never try to switch people over to linux, except for when they have a specific need (media computer, home server), and even more rarely on their primary computer, but for some it really is the best solution. For most people though, the learning curve is simply not worth it (and the same is true for Win->OSX).

Incidentally, I have OSX installed on my laptop too, and while it is certainly better than Windows, it still loses out to Linux for me.
 
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