What causes a person to use linux?

[AMD64Blondie]

What the fuck?

I'm confused.

 

[Maximilian]

This clusterfuck right here:

Its fun to try something new as well

 

[Red Squirrel]

This clusterfuck right here:

Its fun to try something new as well

But but, it's new and shiny! You should adapt to newer technology!

 

[Murloc]

I don't know anyone who uses linux for no particular reason, they're always programmers or nerds.
I used it for a while for a programming class.

Maybe it would be useful to learn some command line stuff but I cba, there's always more critical stuff I have to do.

 

[SOFTengCOMPelec]

What causes a person to use linux?

It is generally agreed, that it is caused by a medical condition, affecting the Larynx Organ, sometimes referred to, as the Larinux or Linux gland/organ.

It causes the parts of the brain, controlling Autistic/Aspergers, to go hay-wire. Often causing hallucinations, where they imagine seeing the all powerful GNU god.

Dr Ducklandson (Dr Quack for short), of the Microsoft medical institution, while researching any medical conditions which can adversely affect Windows/Microsoft's profit margins, discovered and named this condition.

There are some similar medical conditions, such as Free Brain Synapse Degenerative disease (Or FreeBSD for short), and Ulcerated Nucleotide Idiopathic X-linked Disease (or UNIX for short).

The best cures are to minimize potentially bad air (so close all WINDOWS), and keep away from all infections, especially viruses (by using various forms of Linux, rather than potentially virus prone Windows).

 

[John Connor]

I recently started to play with Ubuntu LTS in Vmware and what a pain in the ass it is to install stuff. I found the .deb packages are like Windows .exe's. Just double click and it installs. I even found out about Ubuntu Alien which will create a .deb package from a tar ball, etc. However I was getting all kinds of root permission errors and crap and never could create a .deb package. When I installed Ubuntu (not LTS) in VMware it didn't install VMware tools. So I read how to install VMware tools with a shit load of commands. I entered a command and got an error. Googled the error and solved that problem only to get another error. In all it took me 8 freaking hours to install VMware tools! I even have a text document with all the bloody commands I need to remember. I guess it would help to know what each command means. I forgot what sudo means. I like Nautilus, but that's the mighty GUI with root privileges and they say be very, very careful. WHAT EVER! I just want to edit a damn file without typing a boat load of commands.

I wanted to learn Linux because every damn hacker app I have came across runs in Linux. Plus I'd like to move from a shared host to a VPS and Linux would be a lot more secure and my host doesn't offer Windows server. I have read that you can get a type of RDP UI with Linux. Didn't read about it when I saw it on the net.


All in all I'm in Windows mainly for gaming and other purposes. Linux is just dorkware IMO. It's handy for hacking though that much is for certain. In fact, Untangle runs Linux and I plan on deploying that soon. My router is flashed with Linux DD-WRT and I have IPtables in there.

 

[John Connor]

This clusterfuck right here:

Its fun to try something new as well

:thumbsup:

 

[lxskllr]

I recently started to play with Ubuntu LTS in Vmware and what a pain in the ass it is to install stuff. I found the .deb packages are like Windows .exe's. Just double click and it installs. I even found out about Ubuntu Alien which will create a .deb package from a tar ball, etc. However I was getting all kinds of root permission errors and crap and never could create a .deb package. When I installed Ubuntu (not LTS) in VMware it didn't install VMware tools. So I read how to install VMware tools with a shit load of commands. I entered a command and got an error. Googled the error and solved that problem only to get another error. In all it took me 8 freaking hours to install VMware tools! I even have a text document with all the bloody commands I need to remember. I guess it would help to know what each command means. I forgot what sudo means. I like Nautilus, but that's the mighty GUI with root privileges and they say be very, very careful. WHAT EVER! I just want to edit a damn file without typing a boat load of commands.

I wanted to learn Linux because every damn hacker app I have came across runs in Linux. Plus I'd like to move from a shared host to a VPS and Linux would be a lot more secure and my host doesn't offer Windows server. I have read that you can get a type of RDP UI with Linux. Didn't read about it when I saw it on the net.


All in all I'm in Windows mainly for gaming and other purposes. Linux is just dorkware IMO. It's handy for hacking though that much is for certain. In fact, Untangle runs Linux and I plan on deploying that soon. My router is flashed with Linux DD-WRT and I have IPtables in there.

If you're installing .debs, you're probably doing it wrong. You should be using the repos first. You also shouldn't be using proprietary software(vmware) and complaining that the inscrutable blackbox operates according to its nature.

An old woman was walking down the road when she saw a gang of thugs
beating a poisonous snake. She screamed at the thugs and rescued the
snake, taking it back to her home where she nursed it back to health.

One day on their way into town, the woman picked up the snake and he
bit her repeatedly. “Oh God,” she screamed, “I am dying. I am dying!”
She turned to the snake and looked it in the eyes. “I saved your life.
I was your friend. I trusted you. Why did you bite me?”

The snake turned to face her as she drew he final breath and hissed,

“What did you expect? You knew I was a snake when you took me home.”

 

[John Connor]

Linux is a snake bastard, that is for sure! :awe:

 

[FelixDeCat]

To be fair, many of the recent distros may have fairly uninspired UIs, but they do make it very much possible to never touch the command line if you do not wish to get your hands dirty. Linux Mint and Ubuntu both make it very easy to ignore anything but GUI, unless you want to do something that is not part of the mindset of the developers of those distros. Which is not at all different from any other OS: if you follow their guidelines and/or submit to the will of the developer of said OS, you adapt and make do with what you can. If you wish to try to break free from those rules, you usually can, with some work, or at least you better know how to accomplish some magical feats regardless of the type of interface.

However, I do agree, a modern GNU/Linux distro will not become a runaway desktop hit that even so much as steps on the heels of OS X market share, let alone Windows.

However, take the Linux kernel, fork it (really, give it a good ol' forking, make it forget where it came from! ), and incorporate it into a new OS that, while sharing basic tenets, is really wholly unlike all other variations.

Basically, take Linux and make a new Mac OS X out of it. Darwin is basically a fork of FreeBSD, and that's just the kernel - Apple then heavily develops the heck out of the rest of the OS to make it quite unlike any other *nix OS out there, once you ignore the basic tenets of its ancestry. Which is to say, it still has the X Server (or similar) and Bash and *nix permission scheme and etc etc etc, but using it on a daily basis does not lead to the head-banging that daily desktop use of other *nix systems would be, at least for those who aren't at all familiar with those.

A typical user can jump into OS X with cold feet and, eventually, warm up to it and adapt. Said typical user would probably drown with any other typical *nix distro, regardless of the choice of GUI.

Google is basically taking a Linux fork (I don't think it's the same Android kernel, it could be) and combining that with Chrome to produce ChromeOS. It isn't that much of a stretch to take the modern design tenets of a comfortable user experience, develop a strong developer ecosystem and make it easy to install these apps, remove the barrier of confusing dependency chains, package managers, and repositories, and create a dependable but user-friendly OS.

But there is little motivation to truly do this. Google would be the only one to truly take the next step with ChromeOS and make it a more fully-functional desktop OS. In truth, the only other player even interested in making Linux easier to use is Valve with the SteamOS, which I believe is a Debian/Ubuntu distro that is heavily customized, with the ultimate goal of keeping the user out of the general Gnome GUI, as I think they'll put applications entirely within the Steam UI to accomplish what most users of SteamOS would want to do. That obviously is not the gateway to Linux as a common desktop, that's a very specialized use case, but it does demonstrate the point: a company needs a financial motivation to truly get their very specific Linux or Linux-based OS to become widely adapted. Canonical and the like try with easier-to-use GNU/Linux, but, frankly, I don't believe that approach will ever take the world by storm.

That's why Unix as a whole never went anywhere until Apple and NeXT found a strong purpose with a specific way of doing things (can't remember who truly did it first...). OS X remains entrenched in the creative design world very much due to the core tenets of the platform, no other platform brings printing and color matching to the very front of the operation. The entire desktop management/window server of the OS was always wrapped around PostScript for early print matching requirements, and how they treat color profiles remains the best of all modern OSes, which is actually disappointing.

It's that kind of focus, that type of drive, that will determine whether any other *nix-based OS becomes a hit with any niche outside of the Admin or down-with-proprietary crowds, neither of which can sustain a company to the point that they have the revenue of the major corporations.
RedHat is probably the biggest Linux developer by revenue. They made $1.5 billion in revenue last year, netting $178 million. Canonical, by comparison, brought in $30 million in revenue (no idea regarding income).
[these facts provided by Wiki and Google]

Only groups like Oracle can push *nix to the forefront and bring in serious money, but they, again, have a very specific business and niche to serve.

None of these companies really see a need to get their product to major market share of the desktop, because there isn't much money in it. Microsoft has it dominated and most businesses buy into the model. This is where Microsoft makes their income; consumer computing is an extra bonus, and most simply follow what they use at work because it makes things easy.

GNU/Linux cannot be sold by convention, so a company like Red Hat makes money solely through official support/warranty services. Microsoft, on the other hand, usually gets a double cut: they get the revenue from PC makers who sell a Windows-loaded machine to other companies, and then they get the additional revenue from the CALs needed to utilize those desktops on a business domain, and heck, some more with ongoing support schemes of different structures. Plus they also have the Office suite with the strongest feature set and, due to strength in numbers, is the most compatible. I still cannot stand working with the free Office suites because they cannot render my Microsoft Office files correctly, and Microsoft Office is what the industry has set as standard in the workplace.

Companies simply aren't truly itching for market share of the desktop, other than Apple, and they have a physical product to sell. The OS doesn't even much matter. Because of that, all we will likely ever see is companies like Canonical who care for the niche user groups, those who hate corporations (oh, fancy that, Canonical is a corporation! lulz... yes, not all Linux distros are backed by corporations, but Debian sure as hell ain't gunning for the casual user), hate proprietary standards, or simply like to demonstrate their 1337ness and use the stuff that most users look at and run away scared, or at least force eyes to glaze over.

I think it really is only a company like Google that could make it happen, because they have a financial incentive to take over the casual user's lives: more advertising dollars, as the casual users will just take the product and run, not digging into privacy settings. I use Google products, but I don't use them when I care to hide anything from the world, so I don't care much. The convenience and free services are worth it, it is an acknowledged price for said free services. Google could very well make it happen to further their reach and increase both user data prices and ad prices due to increased advertising reach.

Which all of a sudden really brings me back to the whole "do no evil" thing. They may truly do no evil, depending on who you ask (certainly not the privacy advocate groups!), but they may very well become the corporate big brother who basically oversees our lives like various sci-fi stories have promised. They'll have the data and also be everywhere and, as a consequence of wanting to increase revenues (thanks, shareholders!), they'll have motive to penetrate us our lives more than ever.

tl;dr

 

[ch33zw1z]

Because they think different. Funny how that works.

 

[Leros]

Windows is not good to use if you're a developer. The tools are lacking and the command line is poor. This leaves me with the options of Linux or OSX.

Linux laptops are quite a bit cheaper. Let's compare System 76 (they make high quality Linux laptops) and Apple.

For $1250, I can get the System 76 Galago Linux laptop with the following specs:
2.2 GHz i7 quad core
16GB RAM
256GB SSD
Source: https://system76.com/laptops/galago

A $1299 MacBook is half the specs:
2.7 GHz i5 dual core
8GB RAM
128GB SSD
Source: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

To get the equivalent of the $1250 Linux Laptop, I have to get the $1999 MacBook. If I was willing to get a lower quality laptop (e.g. Dell or Asus), I bet I could the equivalent performance for $600-800. I could get 3 laptops for the price of one equivalent MacBook Pro.

My work recently gave me a MacBook Pro and I've been more than happily using it, but I probably wouldn't justify the cost and buy the MacBook myself when there are cheaper Linux options.

 

[Red Squirrel]

One nice thing with Linux is that it's generally more snappy too. For Windows to feel snappy you need a core i7, a Linux system on a core i3 or even lower will be just as fast. Heck, I can't believe how fast and usable it is on the Raspberry Pi.

 

[Leros]

One nice thing with Linux is that it's generally more snappy too. For Windows to feel snappy you need a core i7, a Linux system on a core i3 or even lower will be just as fast. Heck, I can't believe how fast and usable it is on the Raspberry Pi.

That's very true. I have a 3GHz quad core i5 with 16GB of RAM. Ubuntu feels very responsive. Windows 7 feels sluggish.

I also have an old 1.6Ghz dual core with 2GB of RAM that runs Ubuntu quite well.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

One nice thing with Linux is that it's generally more snappy too. For Windows to feel snappy you need a core i7, a Linux system on a core i3 or even lower will be just as fast. Heck, I can't believe how fast and usable it is on the Raspberry Pi.

there's nothing wrong with win 7's speed overall speed on my i3. i think the only situation where i'd notice more power is when generating thumbnails in a big folder.

 

[Red Squirrel]

there's nothing wrong with win 7's speed overall speed on my i3. i think the only situation where i'd notice more power is when generating thumbnails in a big folder.

To be fair 7 actually is pretty decent especially compared to Vista.

 

[shortylickens]

I'm only on Windows because of the games.

Otherwise I'd have switched to linux a LONG time ago.

 

[Rakehellion]

Apple has been doing this for a little while now. I always laugh though when I see a Mac in the corporate world that's still running Lion or Mountain Lion. Happens more often than not. I really have to restrain myself not to just go in there and upgrade them all.

The sad part is that Yosemite patches several critical security flaws.

Thing is, you have to buy a Mac to get Mac OS X, so it isn't free. Microsoft can't cut you that same deal.

 

[Rakehellion]

Windows is not good to use if you're a developer. The tools are lacking and the command line is poor. This leaves me with the options of Linux or OSX.

Linux laptops are quite a bit cheaper. Let's compare System 76 (they make high quality Linux laptops) and Apple.

For $1250, I can get the System 76 Galago Linux laptop with the following specs:
2.2 GHz i7 quad core
16GB RAM
256GB SSD
Source: https://system76.com/laptops/galago

A $1299 MacBook is half the specs:
2.7 GHz i5 dual core
8GB RAM
128GB SSD
Source: http://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/specs-retina/

To get the equivalent of the $1250 Linux Laptop, I have to get the $1999 MacBook. If I was willing to get a lower quality laptop (e.g. Dell or Asus), I bet I could the equivalent performance for $600-800. I could get 3 laptops for the price of one equivalent MacBook Pro.

My work recently gave me a MacBook Pro and I've been more than happily using it, but I probably wouldn't justify the cost and buy the MacBook myself when there are cheaper Linux options.

The MacBook has a high res display. But yeah, if you only care about how a computer looks on paper, then a Mac probably isn't for you.

 

[bbhaag]

What causes a person to use Linux?

For me it was curiosity. The ability too learn something beyond the "norm" has a certain appeal.
I've learned that the Linux kernel and the OS's built on top of it are not very glamorous. Hours searching remote forums and desperately trying terminal commands only to find they don't solve the problem wear on the average user.

 

[Ken g6]

I've been using Linux as my main desktop OS since 2009. I'd been working with it piecemeal for some time, I was putting together a computer for ~$400, and I didn't want to pay $100 for Vista. (Would you?)

I've gotten the games I care about to work in Linux. About the only thing I really miss is something called AviSynth for video editing work.

Windows is not good to use if you're a developer. The tools are lacking and the command line is poor. This leaves me with the options of Linux or OSX.

Well, yes, and no. There's Cygwin for emulating Linux in Windows. There's also MinGW, which is even more Windows-native. There's also lots of open-source apps that are compiled for Windows. But I have heard of problems, e.g. with Ruby, and I haven't used Windows much in years.

 

[destrekor]

To be fair 7 actually is pretty decent especially compared to Vista.

This is an understatement.

Vista was a great leap from XP at the core level, but it was unrefined in terms of resource efficiency (I had zero problems with Vista once I had stable drivers). Windows 7 brought the needed refinement. Windows 8, for all the hate it garnered with the interface, leapfrogged Windows 7.

 

[quikah]

Well, yes, and no. There's Cygwin for emulating Linux in Windows. There's also MinGW, which is even more Windows-native. There's also lots of open-source apps that are compiled for Windows. But I have heard of problems, e.g. with Ruby, and I haven't used Windows much in years.

Powershell is pretty awesome, haven't really needed to use cygwin in a while.

 

[Carson Dyle]

I'm more likely to just open up bash and do everything using cli if I had a linux desktop with Gnome or whatever X terminal.

Really? You're going to browse the internet, work on a spreadsheet, edit some video files ... all from the shell?

I'm not even sure this is a serious question. You use a GUI for exactly the same reasons you use a GUI on any other OS.

 

[destrekor]

Really? You're going to browse the internet, work on a spreadsheet, edit some video files ... all from the shell?

I'm not even sure this is a serious question. You use a GUI for exactly the same reasons you use a GUI on any other OS.

Does everyone do those things?

Some people actually DO get by with limited GUI. Plenty of people work with only shell-based text editors, I think GRRM uses such a text editor for his writing (no thanks, nope, I couldn't stand that limited of an environment!).

I rarely work with spreadsheets and definitely don't edit video.

I do, however, work with photos from time to time. I usually prefer to do everything within GUI - I'm a visual learner, I struggle to remember commands unless I use them a thousand times. I frankly couldn't stand to use CLI to move, copy, or cut files and directories all the time. Nope, I am SO much faster with mouse and keyboard combined as opposed to keyboard only.