Linux

[perspective]

So who here uses it?

I just installed the latest version of xubuntu on my laptop, lots of love for it atm.

So what distros do you guys have? any recommendations for production software?

 

[Naib]

\o
I use it and have been using it for the last 10years

I am running Gentoo on my desktop, Gentoo on my home server, Ubuntu on my lasses laptop, Archlinux on my eeePC, Debian on my NSLU2
and a whole host of other distro's in virtual machines (mainly for testing)

I am surprised you went for Xubuntu (I'm guessing because it is a fairly old laptop with low system specs?), XFCE is a really nice desktop but for someone unfarmiliar to linux the simple aproach can give the user the feeling linux is "primitive"

In Ubuntu (gnome desktop) they have the 3D desktop effects that put Windows-Vista effects to shame enabled (to some extent) by default

 

[perspective]

ah, im not unfamiliar with linux at all, just been using Windows on my main pc for the last ~year because I was tired of spending more time fiddling with portage that actually using it for something productive.

as much as i like gentoo though i went with Xubuntu because Ubuntu is too resource hungry for my old lil lappie and Kubuntu was fun for a while but I use mostly gnomey applications so yea like you say it was mostly based on the system spec and also down to time constraints.

used arch a while back but back then the radeon support was rubbish - my main reason for falling out of love with *nix in the first place.

I got compiz on a kubuntu working a little while back but tbh theres not much point to it imo, i want functionality not pretty interfaces that rape my graphics card

Naib, have you got any experience with any of the BSDs? I used to use NetBSD and FreeBSD on a couple of home servers (Debian on my colo box) but that was a few years ago. I might partition my Inspiron and get back into it, seems to be a lot more bleeding edge packages around for it.

 

[SLow]

Is linux really that much more stable, quicker & simpler to use than windows to warrant switching, bearing in mind the compatibility issues?

I know everything can be run in a windows shell, but that would defeat the benefits of having an efficient & stable OS in the first place?

 

[perspective]

Is linux really that much more stable, quicker & simpler to use than windows to warrant switching, bearing in mind the compatibility issues?

I know everything can be run in a windows shell, but that would defeat the benefits of having an efficient & stable OS in the first place?

depends on what you want to use it for...

For day to day stuff - i.e. going on the net, listening to music & watching videos, msn/aim/yim/irc, spreadsheets/wordprocessing etc, yes it is there now, very stable, very fast, and has been for about a year, my preference is to use linux for that machine that I do most of that stuff on.

Also for programmers i think it is a slightly better OS to work on (unless you are writing windows programs) because i feel there are better productivity tools for that area.

I think the biggest hole right now is support for windows games, while Wine/WineX and Cedega help a lot they are really just emulators and aren't perfect at all which deters a lot of people.

The same applies for a lot of graphics/3d/production/video software as well.

Linux certainly seems a lot more stable in general, it is very very hard to crash the whole system (i.e. equivilent of a windows blue screen), and a lot of distros will run on more varied hardware than XP or Vista.