Indicate your OS!
Are you happy with your choice, or planning to change?
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Indicate your OS!
Are you happy with your choice, or planning to change?
Operating System
Thanks!
I work in IT, so I normally just say "OS".
The only reasons I use Windows XP and cannot switch full time to Ubuntu are:
Skype client for Windows is a lot better than the Skype client for Ubuntu.
Pokerstars plays in Wine (just loaded Ubuntu 10.04 and have not tried it yet) but not full screen.
Other than that I use Ubuntu.
Scott
I use Linux, Ubuntu 10.04
I think, this system is more userfriendly, than Windows. And this system is free. I mustn't to pay.
So, i have Windows too. (Legal copy,of course. I swear! :roll: )
I don't think so. This advertising... It makes me cry :mosking:Quote:
Skype client for Windows is a lot better than the Skype client for Ubuntu.
And Skype for Linux can all. Call, use web-camera and chat. I needn't more. (And i heedn't advertising :D )
You can use VirtualBox. Just install VBox, and install Windows in VBox. And you will mustn't reboot your PC. VBox can be in full screen mode.Quote:
Pokerstars plays in Wine (just loaded Ubuntu 10.04 and have not tried it yet) but not full screen.
I'm lost. I'm using all of them except Mac OS.
I've 2 comps, one on Ubuntu and Windows XP running on VirtualPC, the second runs on Windows 7 and several OSs on VMware: MS-DOS 6.22+Windows for Workgroups (don't ask why :) ), Xubuntu, Windows XP SP2, Windows XP SP3 (separately for testing), and Windows Vista Home, also I'm maintaining an image of OS/2 Warp.
Also I've a DOSBox for running old games (I was unable to make decent SB emulation on MS-DOS :( ).
Also I've an empty virtual machine for different Linux distributions.
I use Win7 (legally, licensed by MSDNAA :-) ) as main OS.
Also installed Ubuntu, for testing cross-platform application & simply for soul :-) (я правильно выразил русское словосочетание "просто для души"?)
OS/2 Wow! I used to run that and loved it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
I don't really need it, but deleting it would be like betraying an old friend. It was a shame IBM had abandoned it. It looked very promising. Well it was re-incarnated in NT 3.51 (or at least some of its parts).Quote:
Originally Posted by fortheether
I read rumors lately that IBM may bring OS/2 back. I hope they are not rumors.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Gentoo Linux at work, almost legal copy (licensed for my organization) XP, illegal Mac OS on hackintosh, Gentoo Linux at home...
Very interesting to see how many Linuxes are here. I am using Xubuntu 10.04 at home on my desktop, Ubuntu 9.04 on my notebook (no need to change a running system) and still have a legal install of XP in the notebook which I need once a year for my tax declaration. I've been working in IT for 20 years, and that has taught me not to trust Windows farther than I can throw it. Except when it comes to causing trouble of course. You can't beat it at that.
At work I have also converted as much of my work as possible to Linux, so I am using Ubuntu 10.04 there, with XP in a VirtualBox environment for the Windows-based programs I still have to use there. And I have already switched two colleagues to the same setup.
Reading the replies here I have to wonder whether the market share of Linux is really still anywhere as low as they always say in the news...
Robin
I am not very good with Linux and I don't use it at home for that reason. But I PRINCIPLE I'd prefer to use it over Window$...
My first computer was a Mac though.
Some day I may ditch Windows for good and start using some nice Linux distribution. In the meantime I am using Windows 7, courtesy of Pirate Bay.
Re: Everyone using Linux... We'll I guess that's settled then, we're all a bunch of geeks on this forum! :D
To the users of Windows XP: Windows 7 is much prettier!!
To the users of Vista: Windows 7 is faster and a bit nicer.
When have you last used Linux? It is much easier to use these days than Windows. And I'm saying that after having set up four computers last week: a notebook with Win XP, and three hardware-wise identical desktops with Win XP, Win 7, and Ubuntu with a Virtual Box with XP inside. Only Ubuntu was fast and hassle-free to set up, though I confess that Win 7 was almost as fast by itself, it's just the huge amount of applications it does not include... ;)
I can agree that Win 7 is a step forward compared to XP, while Vista was a leap back. But it is still light years behind Linux with no hope of catching up.
Robin
Oh, I see there's a holywar brewing up. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by bitpicker
I 'use' two Linuxes - Ubuntu and Xubuntu and test some other distributions from time to time. Ubuntu 10 was the first Linux distribution I saw that was at least close to Windows in terms of usability. Before that the hardware support was poor and GUI unattractive. The problem with Linux is that it won't work immediately 'out of the box'. There's always some things that require configuration (or re-configuration). You should be careful when selecting hardware for your system and specifically check if there are drivers for it, will they work on your distribution, etc. When an average user faces all that he/she installs Windows and forgets about Linux. To sum it all up - Linux has no future in the desktop PC sector. Linux users comprise 1-2% of their overall number and I doubt this will change in the nearest future.
Also, as a programmer, I should confess that I've never had so powerful and convenient a tool as MS Visual Studio IDE. No Linux-based IDEs can be compared to it.
The only place where Linux could beat Windows is server segment, but then again, there is FreeBSD (it's not Linux, for those who doesn't know that), also IBM and Sun.
P.S. OS is a platform where your software will work, not a program cache for every possible purpose. OS should control the hardware, perform resource management, provide protection and means for launching applications. That's about all an OS 'must have' everything else is optional. If a user wants he/she will always install additional applications (and yes, there are MANY freeware programs for MS Windows, probably more than there are for Linux).
My experience is exactly opposite. Install a modern Windows and lose compatibility with old hardware for good. Plug in a printer and you need a third party driver because Windows doesn't react (sometimes; I know it recognizes many more pieces of hardware today than it used to). I have to use three different ways of configuring our various office printers with Windows, which sometimes work this way and sometimes that way for no apparent reason, whereas I simply point Linux at them and print. Windows frequently develops strange behaviour in our network, forgetting about shares, forgetting about users, finding the domain, not finding the domain, etc.Quote:
Originally Posted by Ramil
Linux only fails to work out of the box where proprietary drivers are necessary or where you happen to have unsupported hardware, which I only encounter very rarely. I can see how an average user might be stumped when a notebook needs a proprietary driver for example for a Broadcom WLAN chip which it can only get via the internet, so it needs to be connected by cable at first to properly install the driver. But I think that average users are always stumped when installing any operating system. No actual average user ever had to install Windows, you buy it with the computer and then ask your resident geek to set it up again when it breaks if you're an average user. Remember how you had to press F6 during the very first stages of a Win XP install to install SATA drivers from a floppy you never had years after such drives had become commonplace? And worse: computers no longer even had floppy drives? That's a Catch 22 situation which can really stump anyone...
If Linux came preinstalled no average user would have any problem. In fact, a whole lot of average and even substandard :spiteful: users around me have received computers with preinstalled Linux from me, and for those of them I switched from Windows it has greatly reduced the need for support by me. Those who never used Windows before they got Linux had it even easier because they never had to unlearn Windows modes of operation.
But as always YMMV. I'm too old for flame wars. ;)
Robin
So am I. Besides I used to be one of those 'local geeks'. Fortunately, I simply started to ask money for support one day and all requests miraculously stopped. :D What concerns me personally I'd rather use Windows 7 than anything else. It appears MS has finally gotten around into making something good. I still use Linux for my home server though.Quote:
Originally Posted by bitpicker
Okay, so we all know that I am the technically challenged one here. Years ago, and I do mean years ago, I used to understand all this stuff. I'm talking long before when things ran before there was such a thing as Windows... the good old days of DOS and CPM. Now days, I am lost. I have never seen Linux and never even heard of a Virtual Box or Ubuntu... :wacko: I feel old...
I have a certain professional insight into this, and I'd say that unless you are a VERY good poker player, do not play poker online! PokerStars is particularly devious at finding new and clever ways of parting you from your money. I work with some people who used to work there and I have heard all about their unscrupulous methods which are notiorious... Btw, I believe the owners are Russian-Israelis.Quote:
Pokerstars plays in Win
The thing is Robin, I know Windows inside out, from my days as a programmer. I feel in total control and there is nothing I can't do. But on Linux I would be a real noob!
If something went wrong I wouldn't know how to quickly fix it. But you are right, I haven't used it for five years or so.
I love pretty GUIs... what's the best looking Linux available? Can I make it super pretty and customise everything? I use Stardock on my Windows 7 and it looks great.
Today, I migrate from ubuntu to Kubuntu. I think, KDE is looks more pretty and it's more comfortable, than Gnome.
http://img594.imageshack.us/img594/8473/scr.th.png
Really, not bad :) Though, Windows Aero is little better.
Windows 7 pirated of course! I would be using Ubuntu if it was supported by America's Army 2 game.
KDE vs. Gnome - another holywar :) But I use XFCE (Xubuntu) so I don't participate.Quote:
Originally Posted by zzc
Really? Total control? This is the first time I have heard (or read) anyone say that. I mean, the last time I felt in control was with Windows 3.11 where there still were only text files like win.ini and system.ini to worry about. The moment they introduced the registry I knew that control was being wrested away from me, and it's been going downhill ever since.Quote:
Originally Posted by Johanna
Here's an example: how would you solve that? One XP computer in our company suddenly lost the ability to display the graphical login manager. Repair installations from the CD would not help. There was no way at all to log into the computer because even logins to the shell only required going through the graphical login manager. We were reduced to reinstalling. I feel that 'control' in Windows increasingly reduces to 'restart, reboot, reinstall' as the only sequence of steps for finding solutions.
Now with Linux, I still agree there is a whole lot I don't know about the system. But I get the impression that I can find that information if I need it. And that's the difference for me: if I encounter a hard Windows problem I get the impression that Windows keeps me from solving it. If I encounter a hard Linux problem I know it's just my lack of knowledge which keeps me from solving it. I can do something against my ignorance, but I can't make Microsoft create an administrable operating system.
I also was a total Linux noob in 2003 with 13 years of Windows experience under my belt back then. And it was frustrating initially, though most problems I had back then no longer even exist today. Linux develops much faster than Windows. Today I know more about Linux than about Windows, and I get the impression that I even know more about Linux than there is to know about Windows. Administering Linux is like ruling a country, administering Windows is like controlling the inside of a cage. ;)
You can use almost any GUI and customize it so it looks nothing like what you started out with. And it has more eye candy than Windows and Apple combined if that's what you like. Windows that burn down on closing or fold themselves like a paper plane and fly off? Can be done. Just search for 'compiz' on youtube and you can see many of the possible effects.Quote:
I love pretty GUIs... what's the best looking Linux available? Can I make it super pretty and customise everything? I use Stardock on my Windows 7 and it looks great.
But I agree that the choice of GUI is more fodder for flame wars ;) I personally prefer XFce because it is less bloated than Gnome. But I like Gnome better than KDE (3 or 4). Enlightenment also looks nice. And you can add any GUIs you like to any distribution and for example use Enlightenment only on Fridays.
One of the things I love about Linux is the lack of restrictions. :) I used to run a Gentoo system, which is a distribution which is highly comparable and gives you the option to compile everything specifically for your system, but the time spent compiling and tweaking became too much for me, so these days I just take (X)Ubuntu and tweak that.
Robin
Last time I was compiling Gentoo it took me nearly 26 hours. It was like compile... wait for EBuilds... compile... wait for EBuilds... ))) but I know 1 thing that Linux lacks and will never have - Windows PowerShell. Dear Gods, I love this thing!Quote:
Originally Posted by bitpicker
P.S. And about reinstalling Windows - I've never re-installed it after the initial install. My old XP was installed in 2004 and it runs still.
I took three days or so setting up my original Gentoo. :)
But don't let any Windows user hear that you are praising it for having a command line again! I don't know what's good in Power Shell what's missing in bash (as in: "I really don't know because I never looked at it", not as in "it puzzles me"), but if I had a penny for each Windows user who said "I'd use Linux if it weren't for the command line, it's a good thing you don't need that in Windows!" I could pay someone else to learn Russian for me! ;)
And here's an article which I found in my RSS feeds today which sums up some things about Windows nicely in my opinion:
http://linuxcritic.wordpress.com/2010/0 ... seriously/
My pet peeves are the first and the last. Especially the last. I give lectures on IT security, and of my four or five hours talk I could make a single hour if Windows were designed securely. But it is and always will be a single-user, single-computer, single-task operating system with user management, networking and multi-tasking tacked on much later. A FrankenOS. Like no matter what car parts you weld onto a bicycle, it'll always be a rikshaw at best, never a car.
Robin
The pipeline of Bash transfers only strings while the pipeline of Powershell transfers objects. And you have the whole might of .Net Framework to process them as you see fit. I can even script a GUI with it. These are the main differences.Quote:
Originally Posted by bitpicker
While I'm not sure I understand the benefits of objects here, scripting a GUI is possible with bash as well. Not in-built, but .NET isn't exactly an in-built feature either. And then there's PERL.
Robin
The main advantage of objects is that when you use DIR command (or LS for those who feels more accustomed to *nix commands) you receive not merely a text list of files, but a collection of IO.FileInfo objects and you can access any property of each.Quote:
Originally Posted by bitpicker
For process list you also receive a collection of System.Diagnostics.Process objects, not merely process names and you can also access any property (and you can sort/filter by any property value even if it won't be shown on screen).
I find this particularly convenient.
Would that be something like editing info in /proc and /sys? Like for instance I can switch off swapping by setting swappiness to 0?
I'm no bash guru at all, but I think you can access files and their properties and I/O, processes etc.using bash as well. They might not come in object-oriented notation, but as in *Nix everything is essentially a file I should think that's possible.
Unless of course I just don't understand what you mean there, which is entirely possible. :)
What I used to find confusing when I worked with Linux last time were those subtle changes between the distros. Like, you look up a recipe for doing something, and try to apply that in your distro, but it turns out it always should've been done slightly differently. Perhaps, it's not the same now with the modern distros, not sure.. :unknown:
Oh, that is still possible. All the distros have specific things they do like only they do them. Some are even outright alien if you come from a relatively standard compliant distro. But that's a good thing, too. If distro X does not work well with your computer there's always another one to try.
Robin
Please do tell.Quote:
Originally Posted by Johanna
Scott
[...]
Thank you for the response. I don't get why a poker site would have to cheat. Poker is played against other players, not against the house. They get money for every hand dealt. Right now I play there with free money but if I venture back to playing with real money I'll keep your post in mind.Quote:
Originally Posted by Hanna
Scott
I am not kidding Scott; if you are going to be involved in that business, work for the house and do not gamble yourself. As business ethics and morals go, these businesses score VERY low, although a few are strictly regulated and work like normal businesses.
I am not saying they cheat in the games, they don't. But they get money from every game you play. Most of their money in Poker, they make is from "side games" the games you see next to the "main" games. Keep track of what you spend and you will see how you lose, lose and lose. Any winnings are marginal and that's how these sites are set up to be.
Gambling is addictive and can really ruin people. There are good reasons it's banned in many countries. Those countries that allow it do it because they can tax the businesses to kingdom come.. and that's an opportunity that is too good to miss. Or they are just corrupt countries. The providers respond by registering the main companies in places like Malta, Alderney, Gibraltar and Curacao.
The house ALWAYS wins. I done a contract for a company like that in the past, and I may or may not be involved in that business right now.
The only way you could make any money was if you found a fool-proof way of cheating the house (this is very unlikely and would soon be detected anyway) or you got incredibly lucky your first time on the site and then never gambled again.
That said, the technology is VERY cool; these types of sites and the software behind them are very cool and the business logic surrounding the operations is very interesting. The industry pays their operational staff as well as banks for equivalent jobs, but require only minumum formality and BS that you can expect at a bank.
But make no mistake, these companies are in it for one reason only: To get as much money off you as they can before you realise you need to quit gaming.
Finally, PokerStars is an Israeli company and their biz in the US is in a very grey area and probably is not legal at all. They should not be allowing Americans to play on their site since it breaks US laws.
Gambling is prohibited in Russia either. BTW, Johanna, why have you changed your nick? I'm not saying I don't like the current version of your name, but I'm rather accustomed to the old one :) .
http://masterrussian.net/mforum/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=21147Quote:
Originally Posted by Basil77
Quote:
Originally Posted by Basil77
You meant that it IS prohibited, right?Quote:
Originally Posted by Basil77
That's a good thing, I think. That will keep some people away from it.
But I heard about a large European gaming house that wanted to establish itself in Russia ca 2000 or so... The director went there to look into it, but ran into some real gangsters who told him to clear off and never return to Moscow!
If you ask me, Russia ought to ban it (seriously) or tax these business really harshly.
Plus; many of the major gaming software houses do their software development partly in Ukraine and Russia.