I think I just stumbled onto nirvana!

[Cogman]

Right now I am running virtualbox with ubuntu on vista. It is a sight to behold!

It really is nice, finally I get all the benefit of having linux on windows. Seamless mode is great!

Just thought I would share my excitement with virtual machine tech.

 

[Dari]

Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool? I know it's free but is there a compelling reason to run it?

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Cogman
It really is nice, finally I get all the benefit of having linux on windows.[...]

LoL!

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but Windows is the trailer-trash cousin of Linux!

If you want the full experience, you should be running Vista in a VM on Ubu... ;D;

 

[Nothinman]

Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool? I know it's free but is there a compelling reason to run it?

Free (as in freedom and beer) and complete transparency are two of the biggest reasons. You should be looking at it from the opposite direction, i.e. what reasons are compelling enough to use Windows that you're willing to pay for it?

 

[VinDSL]

Originally posted by: Dari
Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool?

Go watch and LISTEN to what this video is saying:

http://chris.pirillo.com/sabayon-linux/ (Chris Pirillo | Sabayon Linux)

It captures what all the Linux excitement is about, in a way that only Chris could convey...

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool? I know it's free but is there a compelling reason to run it?

Free (as in freedom and beer) and complete transparency are two of the biggest reasons. You should be looking at it from the opposite direction, i.e. what reasons are compelling enough to use Windows that you're willing to pay for it?

I can think of many reasons for that. I'm not interested in programming in order to fix problems in my operating system.

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool? I know it's free but is there a compelling reason to run it?

Free (as in freedom and beer) and complete transparency are two of the biggest reasons. You should be looking at it from the opposite direction, i.e. what reasons are compelling enough to use Windows that you're willing to pay for it?

I can think of many reasons for that. I'm not interested in programming in order to fix problems in my operating system.

Ah, well it's good to see there's still people keeping the 1996 view of Linux alive...

 

[1LordEmperor1]

Originally posted by: Nothinmanwhat reasons are compelling enough to use Windows that you're willing to pay for it?

Games =/

If games were written in open GL with cross-platform in mind form the start I'd drop windows in a heartbeat.

Here's hoping a major developer will break away from M$/DX sometime...

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool? I know it's free but is there a compelling reason to run it?

Free (as in freedom and beer) and complete transparency are two of the biggest reasons. You should be looking at it from the opposite direction, i.e. what reasons are compelling enough to use Windows that you're willing to pay for it?

Software. Ease of use. Games.

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: 1LordEmperor1

Originally posted by: Nothinmanwhat reasons are compelling enough to use Windows that you're willing to pay for it?

Games =/

If games were written in open GL with cross-platform in mind form the start I'd drop windows in a heartbeat.

Here's hoping a major developer will break away from M$/DX sometime...

IMO those developers were id and Epic and despide them supporting Linux and OS X no one else followed suit. Luckily the few games that I want to play run in WINE, but it's pretty rare when I bust them out these days.

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: SammyJr

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool? I know it's free but is there a compelling reason to run it?

Free (as in freedom and beer) and complete transparency are two of the biggest reasons. You should be looking at it from the opposite direction, i.e. what reasons are compelling enough to use Windows that you're willing to pay for it?

Software. Ease of use. Games.

1 out of 3 isn't bad. IMO the only thing missing is games and if you really want, you can get most of them working in WINE although the amount of PITA varies wildly.

 

[Dari]

Too bad no one has been able to answer my original question.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Dari
Too bad no one has been able to answer my original question.

I can't think of a reason to dual boot(or use a VM)*, if that's what you're asking. The VM is more understandable, especially if it's for a 1 off application that you're missing from Linux(Windows).

Some people just prefer Linux. I like Ubuntu better than Win7, but not quite as well as Vista. It's all personal preference. I could list the pros and cons of each, but that's been done ad nauseum, and I'm sure you've seen them before. Just pick the O/S that has the pros most applicable to you, and go with it.

*Assuming you aren't doing development work, or other business related activities. Multiple O/Ss make more sense when you're using them to check compatibility, or doing cross platform dev work.

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: Dari
Too bad no one has been able to answer my original question.

I listed a few reasons in my first reply. I can expand on them if you'd like, but you don't seem like you'll be very responsive so why did you even ask?

 

[Cogman]

Why the virtual machine for linux? Why not just duel boot?

There are several reasons really.

1. I develop software. It is nice to be able to seamlessly go from linux to windows and visa-verse without rebooting the computer. If I want to make sure my code works on linux, I can make sure it works on linux.

2. I like to be in the loop . It is just nice to know what is going on in the linux world at the click of a button.

3. Um.. It provides a nice place to hide things . I jest. I don't know, it is just the coolness factor of running one OS in another.

The main reason I'm doing linux on windows and not visa-verse is because I really like my current windows setup, and, lets face it, most people have windows machines. So software generally should be tweaked to windows over linux (IMO).

Did I mention the coolness factor of having two OS's running at the same time , Yeah.

 

[lxskllr]

I had a screenshot of 3 different Windows and 2 Linux running at the same time. I think I deleted it awhile ago. It's fun for the gee whiz factor :^)

 

[Dari]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Originally posted by: Dari
Too bad no one has been able to answer my original question.

I listed a few reasons in my first reply. I can expand on them if you'd like, but you don't seem like you'll be very responsive so why did you even ask?

Your response was vague. OK, I'm not a programmer but I do use Mathematica and Matlab often. Are there any cool engineering software in linux that's free and easy to use and not available for Windows?

 

[TheStu]

Originally posted by: lxskllr
I had a screenshot of 3 different Windows and 2 Linux running at the same time. I think I deleted it awhile ago. It's fun for the gee whiz factor :^)

Running that many OSes and screenshotting it is pretty gee whiz. I remember once trying to run a VM of 2000 inside a VM of XP on OS X. But... didn't exactly work well. Maybe have had to do with my running VMWare Fusion beta, or the lack of power of the host (first gen MacBook).

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: Dari

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Originally posted by: Dari
Too bad no one has been able to answer my original question.

I listed a few reasons in my first reply. I can expand on them if you'd like, but you don't seem like you'll be very responsive so why did you even ask?

Your response was vague. OK, I'm not a programmer but I do use Mathematica and Matlab often. Are there any cool engineering software in linux that's free and easy to use and not available for Windows?

My response was vague because the question was too. I'm not a programmer either, I've done a decent amount of scripting and worked on a couple of small programming projects but nothing large. Octave? Scilab? SciPy and NumPy? I know the last two are getting into programming territory, but everyone's always talking about how easy Python is. There's also a Science/Engineering targetted Debian sub-distro: http://wiki.debian.org/DebianScience/. I've never touched Mathematica or Matlab so I can't really speak to alternatives for them.

IMO the only thing that Windows is better at is gaming so unless that is a requirement I don't see a reason to pay for Windows for a home PC.

And technically just about everything is available for Windows if you extend that to include cygwin, it's just that cygwin's performance sucks. That's one of the nice things about open source software, even if the original author doesn't care about supporting OSes other than his own someone can pick up where he left off.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

IMO the only thing that Windows is better at is gaming so unless that is a requirement I don't see a reason to pay for Windows for a home PC.

...and proprietary business software.

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: Nothinman

IMO the only thing that Windows is better at is gaming so unless that is a requirement I don't see a reason to pay for Windows for a home PC.

...and proprietary business software.

That's why I said home PC, for work you don't usually have a lot of choice.

 

[lxskllr]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: Nothinman

IMO the only thing that Windows is better at is gaming so unless that is a requirement I don't see a reason to pay for Windows for a home PC.

...and proprietary business software.

That's why I said home PC, for work you don't usually have a lot of choice.

I was thinking of work apps you'd use at home, Autocad specifically. I imagine there's others though that people commonly use on their home machines to get work done.

 

[Nothinman]

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Originally posted by: lxskllr

Originally posted by: Nothinman

IMO the only thing that Windows is better at is gaming so unless that is a requirement I don't see a reason to pay for Windows for a home PC.

...and proprietary business software.

That's why I said home PC, for work you don't usually have a lot of choice.

I was thinking of work apps you'd use at home, Autocad specifically. I imagine there's others though that people commonly use on their home machines to get work done.

AutoCAD and the like are pretty niche, I would venture to guess that the majority of those people could get way with connecting to work via TS/Citrix. And more and more people are getting company laptops, which would still count as a work PC.

 

[jobz]

Yeah, any software that doesn't run in Linux is proprietary, LOL.

 

[rchiu]

Originally posted by: Dari
Out of curiosity, what is there to do in Linux that is so cool? I know it's free but is there a compelling reason to run it?

Well if you have to ask, you probably don't have a good reason to run it. But for people who actually use their computer to do any client server type of thing, like file server, fire wall server, ftp server, email server, webserver....etc, not only is all these server comes free with Linux, there is a huge community to answer your question.

For desktop use, not only is Linux free, all app that you can use is pretty much free as well. There are many distro, like certain version of Ubuntu already configure the OS+installed application to be k12 educational oriented with lots of softwares for kid's education need.

And no, you absolutely do not need to know programming to get linux to work....well unless you don't know what you are downloading and got the distro's meant for advanced users that's way over your skill level.