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  • #91
    Originally posted by darkfires View Post
    I have to agree, I used Linux as my desktop from 1995 until 2012... and for a desktop it just plain sucks. Always something not working right or got screwed up by updates, not to mention most X environments are huge ram hogs except maybe Xfce. I still use Linux on my servers and would not use anything else... but for a desktop I'm sticking with Windows, for the most part everything just works and I don't miss spending hours or a day messing around with something or arguing with wine just to say it works on Linux too.
    As long as you understand that your experience is not universal. In my experience Linux problems are usually much easier and quicker to solve, and less frequent than those on Windows. One anecdote in support of this is that the relatives and friends who are running Windows desktops need help with their systems maybe three times more often than those I've converted to (mostly Xfce-based) Linux desktops over the years. Also when the Linux users do have problems, they are pretty much always easy for me to solve. And blaming Linux for problems with Wine? Heh, right. If you depend on Windows software, use Windows. That should be obvious.

    At least for me and my wife, Linux as a desktop OS is a very pragmatic choice. We're not much for philosophy or politics. Well, maybe there's a bit of the former in our choice to run our small business entirely on free and open source software for the last seven years. Not that we feel hindered or inconvenienced in any way.

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    • #92
      Originally posted by tuubi View Post
      As long as you understand that your experience is not universal. In my experience Linux problems are usually much easier and quicker to solve, and less frequent than those on Windows. One anecdote in support of this is that the relatives and friends who are running Windows desktops need help with their systems maybe three times more often than those I've converted to (mostly Xfce-based) Linux desktops over the years. Also when the Linux users do have problems, they are pretty much always easy for me to solve. And blaming Linux for problems with Wine? Heh, right. If you depend on Windows software, use Windows. That should be obvious.

      At least for me and my wife, Linux as a desktop OS is a very pragmatic choice. We're not much for philosophy or politics. Well, maybe there's a bit of the former in our choice to run our small business entirely on free and open source software for the last seven years. Not that we feel hindered or inconvenienced in any way.
      Indeed. When I have to deal with Windows, I always find it very lacking and very annoying. To make a Windows 8 installation usable, you have to dedicate at least a few days to it (especially when it comes with vendor bloat preinstalled). And it's been a growing trend in Windows, really. Windows 95 didn't need any configuration (and it didn't really have any to begin with), it was usable out of the box. Windows XP added hiding file extensions, hiding the contents of C: and other places, added bloat like MSN messenger etc. Windows Vista added UAC and all its configuration and compatibility problems that come with it, as well as policy issues with regards to driver installation etc. And now Windows 8 threw the whole "ModernUI" with its normally impossible to uninstall apps, privacy problems, lack of a Start menu etc. on top of all that. It just keeps getting worse and worse. And then you have the mainstay problems of updates happening arbitrarily and requiring reboots that involve long periods when activity is impossible (extremely frustrating in time-critical situations, for instance in my case I need to write down notes as soon as I can start my tablet, and if it takes ten minutes to install updates, then I lose a chunk of my notes), abysmal security (on Linux: Anti-virus? What's that?), chaotic and conflict-prone program installation (made worse with the whole UAC thing) and a terminal that lacks even the most basic of tools. So thanks, but no thanks. It's just much better to use Linux, even if looking just pragmatically.

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      • #93
        Originally posted by erendorn View Post
        Which is pretty much as stupid as being surprised that there would be car users on a cyclist website. Being unable to conceive that people could be interested in Linux and yet still use windows is certainly not logical. Not conceiving that others might think differently than oneself is precisely extremism.
        The equivalent of your example with the cyclists would be valid if we had assumed that everyone here uses Linux and I say "we" because I was surprised as well when I read that almost 40% use windows. I just found the percentage too high for my estimates. If it was half of that I wouldn't be surprised at all. And this is not extremism or zealotry, just personal opinion that proves to be wrong. That's how surprises work after all...
        Now, to react with words like "religion" and "zealotry" while using extremistic examples like the one above, seems to me just a try to prove the fanatism of free software users.

        Nope, "could" is not enough. But if Linux was best suited for all my use cases, yes, I would use it exclusively. But it's not, so I use different tools. I don't think that's too controversial.
        Controversial no. Comfortable yes. So, even if you are able to work totally with free software you would still choose proprietary because it is just "better", if it is at all. So everything has to do with what is the best tool in each case. To be free software is not a feature at all, or even if we consider it as a feature, it is not so important to just give a shit for it.

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        • #94
          You could say 40% surf this website from work, as I do

          Why Windows as client OS at work? Active Directory and software deployment solutions readily available and group policies*.

          * nearly forgot

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          • #95
            Originally posted by Apopas View Post
            The equivalent of your example with the cyclists would be valid if we had assumed that everyone here uses Linux and I say "we" because I was surprised as well when I read that almost 40% use windows. I just found the percentage too high for my estimates. If it was half of that I wouldn't be surprised at all. And this is not extremism or zealotry, just personal opinion that proves to be wrong. That's how surprises work after all...
            Now, to react with words like "religion" and "zealotry" while using extremistic examples like the one above, seems to me just a try to prove the fanatism of free software users.
            The guy put users in categories "Mices", "they", "them", like there is no in between. "You're one of us or you're one of them". That's extremism to me.
            I'm pretty sure 90+% of phoronix reader use Linux (actively, not just because it's in their router ), just not all the time. Really, same as 90+% of cyclist website readers use bike, just not all of the time (example: me again).

            It's perfectly fine to be surprised. What he expressed was that the world was separated in sealed categories, and that anybody using Windows had no business whatsoever being interested in Linux.

            Originally posted by Apopas View Post
            Controversial no. Comfortable yes. So, even if you are able to work totally with free software you would still choose proprietary because it is just "better", if it is at all. So everything has to do with what is the best tool in each case. To be free software is not a feature at all, or even if we consider it as a feature, it is not so important to just give a shit for it.
            We all have our reason to prefer OSS.
            I value OSS in itself for ease of managing license as a user (well, it's free), cost and durability, among other. These are cold hard features that come with open source.

            Then, I also value what the software bring to society. A proprietary program brings value in itself, but OSS brings more, as it reduces duplicated efforts.
            But because of that (value to society), the risk of vendor lock-in is actually what impacts most my choice of programs. Yet it is not always linked to source availability. It's more linked to the use of standard/documented formats and protocol. So I have no issue using Visual Studio for development because C++ is a standard (while at the same time I despise the use of specific C extensions in the Linux kernel), and I refrain from using C# (but I'm glad for mono). The Android platform is fully open source, but is completely locked by google with their services (the store + their core apps). On the other hand, Office 2003 and its predecessors were an incredible pain, and that I considered as a huge problem. But now, there are many platforms that compete with desktop windows, and microsoft office documents use a standard format, so it's ok for me.

            So yes, an OSS license is a "feature" in my eyes, but it's not an absolute, the shit I give for it depends on the context

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            • #96
              Originally posted by GreatEmerald View Post
              Indeed. When I have to deal with Windows, I always find it very lacking and very annoying. To make a Windows 8 installation usable, you have to dedicate at least a few days to it (especially when it comes with vendor bloat preinstalled). And it's been a growing trend in Windows, really. Windows 95 didn't need any configuration (and it didn't really have any to begin with), it was usable out of the box. Windows XP added hiding file extensions, hiding the contents of C: and other places, added bloat like MSN messenger etc. Windows Vista added UAC and all its configuration and compatibility problems that come with it, as well as policy issues with regards to driver installation etc. And now Windows 8 threw the whole "ModernUI" with its normally impossible to uninstall apps, privacy problems, lack of a Start menu etc. on top of all that. It just keeps getting worse and worse. And then you have the mainstay problems of updates happening arbitrarily and requiring reboots that involve long periods when activity is impossible (extremely frustrating in time-critical situations, for instance in my case I need to write down notes as soon as I can start my tablet, and if it takes ten minutes to install updates, then I lose a chunk of my notes), abysmal security (on Linux: Anti-virus? What's that?), chaotic and conflict-prone program installation (made worse with the whole UAC thing) and a terminal that lacks even the most basic of tools. So thanks, but no thanks. It's just much better to use Linux, even if looking just pragmatically.
              A few days? 2-3 hours, maybe.

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              • #97
                Originally posted by gamerk2 View Post
                A few days? 2-3 hours, maybe.
                You must be quite efficient, then. It takes that much merely to install updates and find the drivers, not even talking about configuration.

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                • #98
                  Originally posted by GreatEmerald View Post
                  You must be quite efficient, then. It takes that much merely to install updates and find the drivers, not even talking about configuration.
                  I let my father in law install windows on his computer himself last month, and it indeed took him a couple hours (with ssd and high end CPU, so updates goes a bit faster).
                  But I do remember the time when it took at least a good day (drivers, office, mail, 50 thousand programs not distributed with windows, etc..).

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                  • #99
                    Originally posted by gamerk2 View Post
                    A few days? 2-3 hours, maybe.
                    Just tracking down all the hidden configuration options in every new version of Windows normally takes 2-3 hours.

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                    • Originally posted by movieman View Post
                      Just tracking down all the hidden configuration options in every new version of Windows normally takes 2-3 hours.
                      Good thing that never happens with Ubuntu or other Linux distros.

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