unix vs xp

[imported_xeno]

me and my friend are having a discussion
he keeps flaming MS products
and xp and such
and sayin that unix/linux is better

i like xp because its really easy to do stuff on it and i am not a programer or anything

but wut is the difference between linux/unix and xp
and which is better?

 

[drag]

Linux, duh.
(as in just kidding)

I donno. Everybody has their preference. Somepeople like Windows, other people like other stuff.

I use Linux because I value Freedom and most developers for it value it also, which helps preserve it. I like to control my computer and I don't like my computer to control me. Windows has to much viruses, activation stuff, cd protection this, cd key that. Shareware, nagware, warez-ware. Anti-virus, anti-spyware, bizzare network-breaking firewalls from third parties. All sorts of stuff like that. One game sets up a rootkit that prevents another game from working that prevents me from using a dvd backup tool that refuses to install or work after installing said software. Dealing with special drivers this, buggy thirdparty utilities that expire after 30 days of use for that. Have to use administrator accounts to do obviously non-administor stuff. It's never ending and I just don't want any part of it.

Linux is a bit more difficult and you have to be carefull about what sort of hardware you buy and use for the best experiance. But in the end it's worth it to me.

 

[n0cmonkey]

It's personal preference.

I think unix-like systems are easier than Windows, but that's just me.

Joker Purple pwnz blue.

 

[nweaver]

Yeah, *nix is for the lazy for sure. I love it

 

[Tarrant64]

Personal preference indeed. I would have figured, *nix for the hard working, and Windumb for the lazy. At my job they use *nix mostly for app servers, etc. I stay away from that, too easy to *break* something and configs in *nix. I try to pass on that work.

Windows for just about everything is pretty simple. GUI for everything. Makes it much quicker.

But now I'm on OS X. And I prefer that over anything right now(except for gaming, Windumb FTW)

 

[n0cmonkey]

Originally posted by: Tarrant64
Personal preference indeed. I would have figured, *nix for the hard working, and Windumb for the lazy. At my job they use *nix mostly for app servers, etc. I stay away from that, too easy to *break* something and configs in *nix. I try to pass on that work.

Just as easy as it is to misconfigure a Windows application.

Windows for just about everything is pretty simple. GUI for everything. Makes it much quicker.

For some people, for others it slows things down. Any GUI that requires more than 3 clicks to do anything is asking too much.

 

[Brazen]

Yeah, one of the things I like about linux is it's so much faster and easier getting things done from the CLI once you know how to use it. Plus, for most of our server, I just have to copy one config file and I have everything I need to restore in case of a disaster. At worst it's a few config files and a data directory. If you want to be absolutely sure you have everything you need backed up, just tar up the /var and /etc directories. Re-install your apps (which is super easy with package managers, and usually be done with a singel command) and then copy over the /var and /etc directory and you have a completely identical system.

 

[Nothinman]

I would have figured, *nix for the hard working, and Windumb for the lazy.

If you mean lazy as in 'don't want to learn how their system works' them maybe. But unixes let you easily automate anything once you learn the basics. Sure you can automate things in Windows with VBScript too, but who wants to learn VBScript?

 

[Tarrant64]

All very good points Nothingman, Brazen, monkey...I just personally didn't start off with *nix so it's hard to switch from Windumb to that. I'm not saying that *nix isn't "faster" or anything. Just for me 3 clicks is just fine. Maybe if I used *nix more everyday, maybe even on my desktop daily, it'd be easier and easier. but most apps, etc. that I use are in windows. so that's where I stand.

 

[Nothinman]

And for me the opposite is true. I use Windows very sparingly so whenever I have to do something even remotely complicated it takes me a lot longer because I can't remember where anything is or what hoops I have to jump through to accomplish the task.

 

[dBTelos]

It's all personal. For somepeople you could take one of these posts and replace linux/unix with windows and it would make a true statement, or the other way around. If you know what your doing in windows, everything is quick. If you know what your doing in *nix then everything is quick.

 

[halfadder]

Comparing XP to Unix is like comparing a swiss army knife to a toolbox.

Unix is a blanket term for a bunch of unixish/unix-like operating systems and distributions, each with their strenghts and weaknesses. Even in just the Linux camp, Ubuntu has a far different focus from Slackware. IRIX is quite a bit different from Solaris. Etc...

It's what you're familar with, really.

WinXP has lots of wizards and such. Plug in a memory card from your camera, click on print, and a wizard will help you print out your pictures to your liking.

Unix will let you shot your own foot, but first you have to find the gun.

90% of the software I write is for servers and it's almost always for unix. I'm familar with unix, I can do a lot of work fast with unix, I prefer unix. But for the desktop I prefer Mac OS X (which has unix underpinnings). And when I recommend a computer for my neighbor, I suggest something with XP, as that's what he uses at work and is probably what his son uses in school. For my dad, I suggested a Mac. Safari is a good browser, he can download Firefox if he needs it, comes with Quicken and the whole iLife suite for 95% of the tasks he'll ever need to do. Far fewer virii and spyware for Mac OS X right now too.

 

[Rilex]

VBScript is quite easy to learn and powerful. It is the single language I know.

If you want the UN*X experience in Windows, load up SFU 3.5 or cygwin. With SFU, Microsoft could most likely get UNIX ceritification done...

 

[Nothinman]

VBScript is quite easy to learn and powerful. It is the single language I know.

But it's still overkill for what most people want and Windows doesn't come with a decent editor for it.

If you want the UN*X experience in Windows, load up SFU 3.5 or cygwin. With SFU, Microsoft could most likely get UNIX ceritification done...

I haven't looked at SFU recently but I used to like Cygwin, sadly it's so annoyingly slow so I've switched to CoLinux now.

And I don't know if MS would be able to apply the UNIX trademark to NT, but they could most certainly get POSIX certified. Infact NT was considered POSIX compliant in the 3.x and 4.x days, which just tells you how poor the certification was back then. I remember one of the speakers at LinuxWorld in 2000 (I think he was from usenix, but I'm not sure) talking about POSIX and saying how NT was certified but only because of some huge loopholes in specification texts.

 

[Rilex]

Someone who is talking about scripting in Linux needs more than notepad for VBScript? Come on now!

SFU replaces the pre-existing POSIX subsystem in Windows. It is not like cygwin which was ran on the csrss subsystem.

 

[Nothinman]

Someone who is talking about scripting in Linux needs more than notepad for VBScript? Come on now!

Yes, especially for VBScript because there's no decent interactive shell. How am I supposed to know the names of all of the available objects and their methods? On Linux I have several man pages for bash and at least one more per command on the system so it's easy to figure out what I can use.

 

[Rilex]

WMI Studio or the wmi command shell.

 

[drag]

Originally posted by: Rilex
Someone who is talking about scripting in Linux needs more than notepad for VBScript? Come on now!

Na. Notepad isn't even close to the same catagory as Vim or Emacs.
The difference is similar to a little roofing hatchet/hammer vs a two-grip tree havester

Sure both are used to cut wood, and you could use a roofing hatchet to knock down small trees... but it's not quite the same thing.

 

[Rilex]

Notepad has its uses. I personally do VBS in VS 2005, obviously a much better way than any text editor. But if you need syntax highlighting, there are plenty of free notepad-esque programs out there.

 

[Brazen]

People still use notepad?

 

[halfadder]

Cool, haven't heard of Notepad2 before. I personally use Metapad ( http://www.liquidninja.com/metapad/ ) when I'm in Windows.

 

[Nothinman]

There's no replacement for vim, even on Windows. =)

 

[Rilex]

vim is for those who don't like having an efficent editor or IDE.

 

[Nothinman]

vim is the most effecient editor I've ever used, I'm sorry if you haven't taken the time to learn how to use it.

 

[SleepWalkerX]

I like nano better than vim.