Ubuntu better than windows - WHY?

TheDoc · 01-04-2011 06:39PM

I do get your point, like I said I think its just being pulled away from the point, the gaming aspect is a major drawback from why I'd throw linux as my main OS. Its a major drawback.

But from my research and diving into the world of various OS's and server and the likes, a linux distro looks my main man when it comes to setting up a centralised server to do stuff like stream video to other machines, store files, download torrents and host web stuff aswell as remote access.

In saying that I've been having nightmares installing Ubuntu onto my laptop, gives me some gpu error which is annoying, considering the laptop isnt really that old.

I've had 3 six month stints at linux throughout the years and this is yet another return so hopefully this time, with the things I want to do, I can find some use for it.

Johnboy1951 · 01-04-2011 06:51PM

TheDoc wrote: »

I do get your point, like I said I think its just being pulled away from the point, the gaming aspect is a major drawback from why I'd throw linux as my main OS. Its a major drawback.

That is a far cry from your previous statement on this, and I am glad to see you have corrected it.

But from my research and diving into the world of various OS's and server and the likes, a linux distro looks my main man when it comes to setting up a centralised server to do stuff like stream video to other machines, store files, download torrents and host web stuff aswell as remote access.

In saying that I've been having nightmares installing Ubuntu onto my laptop, gives me some gpu error which is annoying, considering the laptop isnt really that old.

Simple answer to that one ..... use a different server distro, such as CentOS etc etc ..... or a different Desktop distro if that is what is giving trouble.

I've had 3 six month stints at linux throughout the years and this is yet another return so hopefully this time, with the things I want to do, I can find some use for it.

Success or otherwise is almost totally dependent on yourself. The OS is capable .....

Pygmalion · 01-04-2011 09:15PM

It's pretty awkward trying to play Nethack on Windows.

Windows sucks and I can't see why anyone uses it.

k.p.h · 03-04-2011 01:30AM

This is a mental thread :rolleyes:

Im a Ubuntu user and I must say it is way better than windows for almost everything. Gaming being the exception and thats just because the games are not designed for it. Who wants to be selling their soul to MS and alike for a buggy dodge ridden expensive exprience when they can have a free OS that dose everything as well as or better than the big commercial paid version.

I reccomend having both op systems on a machine anyway and booting withever you need at startup. Windows for gaming and software constraints. And Ubuntu if you are doing any serious work that you want to be able to find when you need it. I'm studying computer science at the moment and I would not write line of code in windows for fear of it going bollox up.

So in conclusion
Windows good for Games, everyone is conditioned to use it, some software only available for it, really good for virus's and malware

Ubuntu
Good for working and being really reliable

Naikon · 03-04-2011 09:29PM

Pygmalion wrote: »

It's pretty awkward trying to play Nethack on Windows.

Windows sucks and I can't see why anyone uses it.

Ah Nethack. Probably the only game you wlll ever need if you actually like the game:D

Groinshot · 05-04-2011 11:09PM

My god, cut the guy some slack, all you've done is give out to him about his questions...

evercloserunion · 06-04-2011 07:42PM

Groinshot wrote: »

My god, cut the guy some slack, all you've done is give out to him about his questions...

OP wrote:

So, I have been playing around with Ubuntu for a while and after using it can't really understand why people go on about how good it is.

1. It's very slow - Even on machine that runs windows 7 without any problems I found Ubuntu 10.04 is very slow.

2. It's not too pretty to look at - It looked very pretty when I first installed it but after a while you start noticing how it's actually not. E.g. Skype on Ubuntu looks uber ugly + the video function doesn't work right (ok, thats not an actual Ubuntu but I'd say it's to do with the graphics API's).

3. It's not even that reliable - it froze plenty of times on me and good few minor bugs.

4. You can't play any proper games on it...

Ok, it's free but still, saying that it's better than Windows for a typical user would be wrong.

Anyway, everybody has their opinion and I have outlined mine above.

If somebody has some opinion on Ubuntu it would be nice to hear it.

Not one question mark in that entire post.

Groinshot · 07-04-2011 09:47AM

evercloserunion wrote: »

Not one question mark in that entire post.

My point was that noone tried to be helpful, you all just insulted back. Lovely community you've got there.

PrzemoF · 07-04-2011 10:45AM

Groinshot wrote: »

My point was that noone tried to be helpful, you all just insulted back. Lovely community you've got there.

He wasn't looking for help - he was looking for an opinion. I can guarantee you that if he was looking for help he'd get it.
Try to ask a question - no matter how basic/awkward/silly about linux - you'll get an answer. Try to tell "I can't play proper games" and "I don't like the way skype(*) looks on linux" and you'll get what we have in this thread.

(*) skype is closed source and the community don't have any influence on how it looks.

Groinshot · 07-04-2011 06:53PM

PrzemoF wrote: »

He wasn't looking for help - he was looking for an opinion. I can guarantee you that if he was looking for help he'd get it.
Try to ask a question - no matter how basic/awkward/silly about linux - you'll get an answer. Try to tell "I can't play proper games" and "I don't like the way skype(*) looks on linux" and you'll get what we have in this thread.

(*) skype is closed source and the community don't have any influence on how it looks.

Again with the hostility.....

evercloserunion · 07-04-2011 07:25PM

Groinshot wrote: »

Again with the hostility.....

His post wasn't hostile at all, I suspect you are here to troll.

(And yes that was hostile, but that's only because you are adding nothing to the thread)

Groinshot · 08-04-2011 01:40AM

evercloserunion wrote: »

His post wasn't hostile at all, I suspect you are here to troll.

(And yes that was hostile, but that's only because you are adding nothing to the thread)

No, I'm no troll. I just think that people can come on strongly sometime and deserve a chance, but I think he wasn't give one. Surely it wouldn't have hurt to have worded a reply a little lighter to him. I don't agree at all- I love the Unix layout(mac user here) and love the flexibility it leaves me, and do think his post was slightly arrogant, but surely the "community" should try and lead him a bit better than he has been

Dozen Wicked Words · 11-04-2011 10:13PM

Very disappointed that my old Laptop I was trying to resurrect with Linux just doesn't seem to like it. Overheating and fan not kicking in at all. I loved Ubuntu for the short time it was on, fun, and actually great to mess with a different layout and way of doing things.

I also tried Mint to no avail. Its on a bucket of an Acer 5315. Scouring various forums gave a couple of fixes but my attempts failed. More of a problem with the manufacturer relying on windows to fill in the blanks in its system as far as I can work out anyway! (disclaimer: I am computer illiterate)

Ended up with Windows XP on it

.

PrzemoF · 12-04-2011 10:53AM

dooferoaks wrote: »

Very disappointed that my old Laptop I was trying to resurrect with Linux just doesn't seem to like it. Overheating and fan not kicking in at all. I loved Ubuntu for the short time it was on, fun, and actually great to mess with a different layout and way of doing things.

I also tried Mint to no avail. Its on a bucket of an Acer 5315. Scouring various forums gave a couple of fixes but my attempts failed. More of a problem with the manufacturer relying on windows to fill in the blanks in its system as far as I can work out anyway! (disclaimer: I am computer illiterate)

Ended up with Windows XP on it .

See this: http://hsnewman.freeshell.org/acr5315.htm

Dozen Wicked Words · 12-04-2011 09:35PM

PrzemoF wrote: »

See this: http://hsnewman.freeshell.org/acr5315.htm

Thanks, I will have a crack at it again, not sure its going to address the overheat issue but nothing ventured.....

PrzemoF · 13-04-2011 08:48AM

If you have that overheating problems again try to gather some info about the system.
That saves detailed info about installed hardware to a text file in your home directory:

lshw > ~/hw_info.txt

Messages from kernel:

dmesg > ~/dmesginfo.txt

More info here:
http://linux.die.net/man/1/lshw
http://linux.die.net/man/1/dmesg

Let me know if you're not sure how to use those commands.

krish61 · 22-04-2011 09:11PM

Been working with different distros (starting with Mandrake many,many years ago through Damn Small Linux and FreeBSD [which is little bit different than regular other linux distros since it closer to System V init] to BackTrack linux lately]) and have to admit, i would have never used windows if i had not have to sometimes) and the one that worked the best for me up till now was Slackware. IMHO the best is to stick with what suits you the best - one person may like Windows and that would be just perfect for him/her another - more eager to learn something about computers etc - will definitely go for *nix system one day. It is much better since it has multiuser and multitasking features since the very beggining, actualy it was designed for this purpose - quite diferent than Windows where networking,multitasking and multiuser were features added through years. I remember years ago Gates pronounced internet would not be very popular - this is why Microsoft developed their internet browser so late comparing to other browsers years ago. Even networking features were added to windows relatively late - i think it was with Windows 3.11 - there was a special feature, an add-on for connecting to outside world

I think it was called Winsock - would have to check that on the internet since it has been ages since that times so i do not remember its name for sure.

I can bet there are people here that remember this

Another issue is - PCs are not for games; the best for gaming is ANY gamin console. Using PC for games is like driving a F1 formule car on country roads and wondering why it is not running fast enough. But on proper roads it has no match. I always say: always use right tool for the job, use it for it was designed for and your live will be much easier.

But anyway - i find it strange that a guy that supposed to work with Web Development is not familiar with any linux distribution; really strange.

Actually - i find all the questions asked here by the guy not really as questions but statements: Linux is worse than Windows (which was to be proved

) )

Sorry for my english - it is my second language

BopNiblets · 02-05-2011 01:36AM

krish61 wrote: »

Another issue is - PCs are not for games; the best for gaming is ANY gamin console. Using PC for games is like driving a F1 formule car on country roads and wondering why it is not running fast enough. But on proper roads it has no match. I always say: always use right tool for the job, use it for it was designed for and your live will be much easier.

Don't be ridiculous, PC is totally fine for games. :rolleyes:
RTS games or MMORPGs for example, a huge section of the gaming world, but none are on consoles, and your analogy doesn't make sense, if you're trying to say PCs aren't fast enough to play games versus consoles, that's simply not true, PCs will be faster and more powerful the week after the latest gen console is released and always will be, more hardware vendors, more leaps in component technology.
There are FPS games on consoles but I prefer mouse & keyboard (aiming with a controller is counter-intuitive for me).

Anyway, this is Unix forum, so Mint ftw! *runs*

tman · 05-05-2011 07:39PM

That's a ridiculously inaccurate analogy if I'm reading it correctly, krish61...
Having a 22" monitor, a GPU and processor as ridiculously beefy as mine and not playing games on it could almost be considered a crime... I own all 3 current consoles and strongly disagree with what you're saying (truth be told, they've barely been turned on since I built this rig a few months ago)

I'm happily running Ubuntu 11.04 as my main OS at the moment, but I'll always keep Windows 7 as a second boot option to fall back on for gaming/music production etc

swordofislam · 11-05-2011 12:44PM

Pros
Viruses are a thing of the past
Great for the hobbyist
Stable as flippers

Cons
The only game is Freecol

Hal Emmerich · 11-05-2011 11:14PM

Why do the "bad guys" not write Viruses for Linux?

Johnboy1951 · 12-05-2011 12:08AM

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Why do the "bad guys" not write Viruses for Linux?

They do ...... but the viruses do not spread, so they are useless to them ......

Hal Emmerich · 12-05-2011 12:45AM

Johnboy1951 wrote: »

They do ...... but the viruses do not spread, so they are useless to them ......

Why don't they?

Johnboy1951 · 12-05-2011 09:28AM

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Why don't they?

Mostly, as I understand it, because for something to execute/run in Linux it must be given explicit permission by the user.

Getting a large number of users to explicitly permit something they should not, is rather difficult it seems.

As far as I am aware, there is no self-replicating virus for Linux ...... that is one which does not need user intervention.

Hal Emmerich · 12-05-2011 10:51PM

Is there not a false sense of Security here though?

When a proper Virus is released that doesn't obviously interfere with the Operating System it'l be free to do it's thing and the User would be none the wiser.

Even if it was only out for a day before it was found it could gather some amount of Info.

BopNiblets · 12-05-2011 11:30PM

A "proper" *nix virus wouldn't have root access the first time it ran, so the user would get a random root password request for access which should be very suspicious if you just downloaded a file from the web or copied over a file to the HD.
Malicious code isn't easily executable on *nix compared to Windows machines as I understand it.

If you run the simple sudo rm -rf /* command however that's a whole different story... :pac:

DO NOT DO THIS THOUGH! ^

Capt'n Midnight · 13-05-2011 01:25AM

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Is there not a false sense of Security here though?

When a proper Virus is released that doesn't obviously interfere with the Operating System it'l be free to do it's thing and the User would be none the wiser.

Even if it was only out for a day before it was found it could gather some amount of Info.

Yeah this is a flaw with every modern OS apart from windows :rolleyes:

Windows still has something like 99.99% of all malware.

windows is still the only OS that has been totally compromised, once upon a time 90% of the unpatched windows SQL servers connected to the internet were infected by the slammer/saphire worm. It took just 15 minutes to achieve that level of infection.

That is the doomsday scenario for windows users.

Windows focuses on backward compatibilty and ease of use. And by that I mean you can still run programs designed to run on Seattle Universities "Quick and Dirty Operating System" ( yes M$ didn't write Dos, they bought it ! - lots of M$ tools and features were bought in , including the team that designed the first version of Windows NT after M$ and IBM parted company on work that led to OS/2 ) Look up microsofts own security releases, it's rare to see two months go by without one secuirty update to prevent an attacker taking complete control of your machine. You just need to have admiin rights for far too many things.

Windows 7 is based on windows NT 4 , a lot of code has been replaced, but there still bits of old code in there and more importantly a lot of the rules are exactly the same. 15 year old holes have been found in windows in the past.

Windows NT4 received a C2 security clearance - but only if setup in a special way http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc767093.aspx (earlier versions were only C2 when standalone !)

Install Windows NT
Restart Windows NT as Administrator
Verify video driver
Install Printer and Tape Drivers
Install Service Pack 6a
Install C2 Update (KB 244599, 243405, 243404, and 241041)
Enable hardware boot protection
Remove the NetBIOS Interface service
Disable unnecessary devices
Disable unnecessary services
Disable Guest account
Remove OS/2 and POSIX subsystems
Secure base objects
Secure additional base named objects
Protect kernel object attributes
Protect files and directories
Protect the registry
Restrict access to public Local Security Authority (LSA) information
Restrict null session access over named pipes
Restrict untrusted users' ability to plant Trojan horse programs
Disable caching of logon information
Allow only Administrators to create shares
Disable direct draw
Restrict printer driver installation to Administrators and Power Users only
Set the paging file to be cleared at system shutdown
Restrict floppy disk drive and CD-ROM drive access to the interactive user only
Enable NetBT to open TCP and UDP ports exclusively
Modify user rights memberships
Set auditing (if enabled) for base objects and for backup and restore
Disable blank passwords
Restrict system shutdown to logged-on users only
Set security log behavior

Many of these settings are the defaults that Unix / Linux had designed into them from day 1

Windows UAC was bloody annoying, (even for people who had were used to having to use the admin password in Linux ) than many people turned it off.

Compare windows to Mac OSX, which is also designed for ease of use. It's used by lots of people who don't want to know how their computers work. And it's only got a tiny fraction of the malware that windows has.

Also malware for one version of Linux/Unix would probably have to be recompiled to run on others so that would also reduce the likelihood of propogation.

Then again Users are Idiots as the GOOD TIMES viruse showed.

G-Money · 13-05-2011 04:33PM

Thought this might be a good thread to post on as I've seen quite a few points made that I relate to.

I'm currently running Windows 7 and I want to test out Linux again. I have a solid state drive in my machine and I'm wondering what flavour of Linux to go for? Like someone mentioned, I'd like a distribution that's pleasing on the eye too if possible.

Suggestions/recommendations?

Zapho · 13-05-2011 05:20PM

Hal Emmerich wrote: »

Why do the "bad guys" not write Viruses for Linux?

Because the bad guys use linux. Ya don't sh!t on your own doorstep :P

(I'm kidding of course, there are other reasons)

Anyway, there really is no point in arguing that windows > linux or linux > windows or any other OS for that matter. An operating system to me is a tool. Some aspects of that tool will be better than others, some will be worse. Its up to the user to weigh up the pros and cons and decide for his or herself.

Personally I find that linux is the superior choice for what I need. Its a much nicer environment for programming/web development and scripting and once I set up a server I almost never need to touch it again for months (no need to upgrade it, no need to have a virus scanner eating my CPU and rummaging through my file system in the hope of finding a virus that it can recognise).

Some other merits that I've come to love - no need to restart the machine when you install updates/programs and often enough, drivers! Also, in the off chance that the GUI crashes, you don't have to restart your computer. You can just restart the GUI. In the off chance keyboard/mouse/display become unresponsive, you can log in remotely using ssh to restart them.

Obviously the big drawback being that gamers will have difficulty playing the latest releases on linux. However, WINE does support a huge amount of games/windows apps and the list is ever increasing. Its rare that I've come across a game that I really want to play that WINE doesn't support and at the moment, I haven't needed to boot into my windows partition at all to play games. But like I say, each to their own - if you want to play the latest COD, play it on windows.

Johnboy1951 · 13-05-2011 07:14PM

G-Money wrote: »

Thought this might be a good thread to post on as I've seen quite a few points made that I relate to.

I'm currently running Windows 7 and I want to test out Linux again. I have a solid state drive in my machine and I'm wondering what flavour of Linux to go for? Like someone mentioned, I'd like a distribution that's pleasing on the eye too if possible.

Suggestions/recommendations?

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder ....... what is pleasing to some looks horrible to me ..... and I am sure the opposite is also true.

If you want to 'pimp' your OS then Linux .... any distro really ..... should be able to accomodate you.
It does not need to look good to you initially

You have the power to change it all to suit your likes.

I find that KDE has many more options than the other desktop environments, available through the GUI, and thus I believe it is the more suitable for someone new to Linux who might like to change the looks to suit themselves.

In the end it is user choice ..... but suggest you look at

PCLinuxOS
Mint
Mepis

as starting points.

regards.

Ubuntu better than windows - WHY?

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