Why not Linux?

BlackPig said:
DaveRo;
What laptop is it? The computer is an Acer aspire 7000

Does it suspend (sleep) and recover OK? Yes...

How is wifi management - does it connect from boot and recover from suspend? Don't know, don't care, it works I switch it on and it is conected to the house modem even after sleep/suspended....
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That's encouraging; these things have historically been problematic. I've been recommending Mint for beginners. I'll carry on doing so.
 
charles_reed said:
........
The reasons I still have a Win OS is due to one programme - Adobe Photoshop.
..........
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Have you actually tried Gimp recently?

I know a lot of PhotoShop people detest it, but the truth is that I have never come across anything that can be done on PhotoShop that cannot be done in Gimp. Okay, sometimes you have to tweak things and the actual methodology can be quite different, but the end result is the same. In general, I find that PhotoShop tutorials are very applicable to the Gimp and, by the way, although an amateur, I do do a lot of image processing for both photography and 3D animation, (Blender.)

Recently, over the last couple of years, the Gimp has become much more consumer friendly with the inclusion of "industry like" focus groups into the long term planning process. They have also started to take, [tentative.] steps towards sorting out their code base, something that is widely recognized as being long overdue.
 
I have been using Linux on my laptop since I had one, so it is about 20 years. But I am a geek.

For end users I recommend Ubuntu distribution that has the latest features, good support and it is backed by commercial investors. On my home servers I use CentOS which is an open build of the less bleeding edge RedHat Enterprise, but it is reliable and suitable to run 24/7 virtualized environments.

I would stay away from less popular distributions ("mint" what?) because they tend to appear and disappear and then once you are left without updates you are kind of forced to re-build the system with a more popular distro, right when you got used to the one you had ... I know something about it because once I have built and maintained a Linux distro myself for fun. It is a big unpaid job which I gave up after a while and thus I have discontinued it (the same happened to several other distros over the course of the years).
 
Irvine_himself said:
Have you actually tried Gimp recently?

I know a lot of PhotoShop people detest it, but the truth is that I have never come across anything that can be done on PhotoShop that cannot be done in Gimp. Okay, sometimes you have to tweak things and the actual methodology can be quite different, but the end result is the same. In general, I find that PhotoShop tutorials are very applicable to the Gimp and, by the way, although an amateur, I do do a lot of image processing for both photography and 3D animation, (Blender.)

Recently, over the last couple of years, the Gimp has become much more consumer friendly with the inclusion of "industry like" focus groups into the long term planning process. They have also started to take, [tentative.] steps towards sorting out their code base, something that is widely recognized as being long overdue.
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I'm a GIMP user. There is a variant called Gimpshop designed to have a similar interface to Adobe.

With the recent hack of Adobe CC I can't see any reason to trust them. The only issue I have with Gimp is the 8 bit channels. But the 3.0 roadmap shows this being fixed.
 
Mint uses Ubuntu packages but with a different user interface. Provided Ubuntu remains in opetration , you'll be fine.
 
haydude said:
I have been using Linux on my laptop since I had one, so it is about 20 years. But I am a geek.

For end users I recommend Ubuntu distribution that has the latest features, good support and it is backed by commercial investors. On my home servers I use CentOS which is an open build of the less bleeding edge RedHat Enterprise, but it is reliable and suitable to run 24/7 virtualized environments.

I would stay away from less popular distributions ("mint" what?) because they tend to appear and disappear and then once you are left without updates you are kind of forced to re-build the system with a more popular distro, right when you got used to the one you had ... I know something about it because once I have built and maintained a Linux distro myself for fun. It is a big unpaid job which I gave up after a while and thus I have discontinued it (the same happened to several other distros over the course of the years).
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+1 for Ubuntu. The 12.10 LTS has guaranteed support for the next few years. In this game it pays to stay a little way behind the curve.

Oh for the days of unix shell script ...
 
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wizard said:
+1 for Ubuntu. The 12.04 has guaranteed support for the next few years. In this game it pays to stay a little way behind the curve.
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I too tend to stick with the Long Term Support versions. When Gnome 3 came along I moved to Lubuntu, but then I got a second monitor and LXDE can't handle twin displays; it thinks they are one big display, so "maximise" puts windows across both screens and panels are stretched across both as well. So I moved to Xubuntu, which handles twin screens beautifully, though I have stuck to Lubuntu for a couple of netbooks.
 
chal said:
Interestingly (well, ever so slightly):

Linux is a unix clone that shares none of the original codebase and is not allowed to use the name, but works in the same way and achieves much the same level of stability. FreeBSD (my O/S of choice, both at home and work) does have a connection with the original unix codebase but is not allowed to use name either. Both have "unix-ish" names that make the connection obvious.

Mac OS X is mostly FreeBSD code and has full unix certification, Apple just don't advertise the fact. Almost anything that will run on Linux will run on a Mac too, but might have to be compiled from source.

The point is that it comes down to what is supported: Word for example clearly runs on a Mac and could just as easily run on Linux but Microsoft don't want it to. Linux will run on old and slow machines, and so could Mac OS X, but Apple don't want it to.

It often surprises me what customers will put up with from computer companies - nobody would buy at tv that wouldn't work with BBC, say.
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More interestingly, Windows has been POSIX compliant since NT days and will run quite a lot of UNIX stuff with similar stability. Linux shares very little with UNIX other than design methodology. UNIX is considered considerably less stable and secure by modern standards than UNIX when properly configured. Unfortunately most people are insufficiently informed on the subject so don't understand any of these things. Updates for instance are one of the reasons Windows 2012 R2 is vastly more secure than most UNIX systems since almost none of the UNIX systems I have come across in the corporate world have ever been updated including 8 year old SunOS boxes which were publicly accessible (with telnet no less) yet had not had a single update applied despite hundreds of publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. Windows also has a local firewall by default where most UNIX do not, although many Linux do now.
Microsoft don't need to port Word to Linux, and commercially it doesn't make sense since the market share is negligible. If they could make money, they would do it trust me!
 
Irvine_himself said:
I know a lot of PhotoShop people detest it, but the truth is that I have never come across anything that can be done on PhotoShop that cannot be done in Gimp.
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Wow, I assume you're a real power user then?
Irvine_himself said:
although an amateur
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Ah, so you may as well not have posted this. People who need photoshop can point you at quite a lot of reasons why GIMP is not good enough, and they would also explain why a piece of software cheaper than their cheapest lens is an insignificant cost to them which is worth every penny.
 
lustyd said:
More interestingly, Windows has been POSIX compliant since NT days and will run quite a lot of UNIX stuff with similar stability. Linux shares very little with UNIX other than design methodology. UNIX is considered considerably less stable and secure by modern standards than UNIX when properly configured. Unfortunately most people are insufficiently informed on the subject so don't understand any of these things. Updates for instance are one of the reasons Windows 2012 R2 is vastly more secure than most UNIX systems since almost none of the UNIX systems I have come across in the corporate world have ever been updated including 8 year old SunOS boxes which were publicly accessible (with telnet no less) yet had not had a single update applied despite hundreds of publicly disclosed vulnerabilities. Windows also has a local firewall by default where most UNIX do not, although many Linux do now.
Microsoft don't need to port Word to Linux, and commercially it doesn't make sense since the market share is negligible. If they could make money, they would do it trust me!
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No system is secure if the admin doesn't know what they are doing.. Taken to extremes the only way to be 100% secure is to switch off the server, encase it in concrete and sink it into a deep trench in the ocean.. As soon as it's running and more so connected to a network there are immediate security risk factors that a good admins will do there best to mitigate and can never guarantee the security 100%..

Architecturally Windows (all versions) is less secure than any of the *unix systems but as your experience shows a bad admin leaving telnet running on a public interface with people actually logging into it will make that system very insecure.. That's not the fault of the OS..

Back to the original topic I am surprised Linux based systems took so long to get any real traction.. Of course everyone that has used the internet has essentially used Linux on a daily basis when accessing email or visiting websites.. I have used Linux on servers and desktops for well over a decade and even back then it was a viable desktop.. It's only with the advent of tablet computers and smart phones that Linux (Android) or any unix derivative (IOS) have really penetrated the consumer market in a massive way..
 
wipe_out said:
No system is secure if the admin doesn't know what they are doing.. Taken to extremes the only way to be 100% secure is to switch off the server, encase it in concrete and sink it into a deep trench in the ocean.. As soon as it's running and more so connected to a network there are immediate security risk factors that a good admins will do there best to mitigate and can never guarantee the security 100%..

Architecturally Windows (all versions) is less secure than any of the *unix systems but as your experience shows a bad admin leaving telnet running on a public interface with people actually logging into it will make that system very insecure.. That's not the fault of the OS..

Back to the original topic I am surprised Linux based systems took so long to get any real traction.. Of course everyone that has used the internet has essentially used Linux on a daily basis when accessing email or visiting websites.. I have used Linux on servers and desktops for well over a decade and even back then it was a viable desktop.. It's only with the advent of tablet computers and smart phones that Linux (Android) or any unix derivative (IOS) have really penetrated the consumer market in a massive way..
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Architecturally Windows is every bit as secure as UNIX. There is simply more benefit to breaking Windows publicly and so that is the target. UNIX is actually nowhere near as secure as modern Windows by design, useless admin or not.

The fact that Linux not catching on surprises you says a lot - I've found the lack of traction obvious going back to Red Hat 5 days when I started using Linux. It's a hobby OS and the nature of its development means it probably always will be even if it is more fun for us geeks to use.
 
BlackPig said:
I don't see any advantage in running Linux from within windows, you still have all the updates and windows problems then any Linux anomalies.
For boat use, I would think the main points would be:
Quick boot up
No updates (using up data allowance on phone)
Run quickly on an old computer (less concern if damaged/lost)
Reliable, no hassle.

Usage on board (me):
Contact emails
Get weather
Back up video and pics

(Others)
Navigation
Music
Video Player
Internet.
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If thats all you want it for then the answer is an android tablet. Much quicker boot than any lappy I have had, 10 hour battery life, no rotating shock sensitive hdd, built in gps, and no need to have updates if you dont want. No need to learn a new system - it just works.
 
Bosun Higgs said:
If thats all you want it for then the answer is an android tablet. Much quicker boot than any lappy I have had, 10 hour battery life, no rotating shock sensitive hdd, built in gps, and no need to have updates if you dont want. No need to learn a new system - it just works.
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My iPad and my MacBook both boot faster than my Android tablet and both have better than 10 hour battery life.
 
Sorry I need to feed the troll as this post is a little biased to say the least.

lustyd said:
More interestingly, Windows has been POSIX compliant since NT days and will run quite a lot of UNIX stuff with similar stability.Linux shares very little with UNIX other than design methodology.
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Kernel wise true - but everything else is very similar (system utilities/commands) or the same - DB / Web servers / Java App servers etc...

lustyd said:
UNIX is considered considerably less stable and secure by modern standards than UNIX when properly configured.
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Not sure what you mean there.

lustyd said:
Unfortunately most people are insufficiently informed on the subject so don't understand any of these things. Updates for instance are one of the reasons Windows 2012 R2 is vastly more secure than most UNIX systems since almost none of the UNIX systems I have come across in the corporate world have ever been updated including 8 year old SunOS boxes which were publicly accessible (with telnet no less) yet had not had a single update applied despite hundreds of publicly disclosed vulnerabilities.
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Really?
Really????

I could invert your whole post and it would still make sense. You use a poor example of old insecure systems and compare it to something very recent.

Sorry, this argument is bogus.

lustyd said:
Windows also has a local firewall by default where most UNIX do not, although many Linux do now.
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I cannot remember not having an firewall, usually on by default, on Linux hosts for 15 years or so. Which beats Windows by around 7 years or so.
 
lustyd said:
Wow, I assume you're a real power user then?

Ah, so you may as well not have posted this. People who need photoshop can point you at quite a lot of reasons why GIMP is not good enough, and they would also explain why a piece of software cheaper than their cheapest lens is an insignificant cost to them which is worth every penny.
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I am not going to feed the TROLL, I am simply going to invite PhotoShop users who are genuinely interested in the Gimp to have a look at this article on About.com

http://opensource.about.com/b/2013/03/25/gimp-vs-adobe-photoshop-an-unbiased-comparison.htm
 
lustyd said:
Architecturally Windows is every bit as secure as UNIX. There is simply more benefit to breaking Windows publicly and so that is the target. UNIX is actually nowhere near as secure as modern Windows by design, useless admin or not.

The fact that Linux not catching on surprises you says a lot - I've found the lack of traction obvious going back to Red Hat 5 days when I started using Linux. It's a hobby OS and the nature of its development means it probably always will be even if it is more fun for us geeks to use.
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Haha.. Very funny.. At least I'm kinda hoping you are trying to be funny.. :)
 
Irvine_himself said:
I am not going to feed the TROLL, I am simply going to invite PhotoShop users who are genuinely interested in the Gimp to have a look at this article on About.com

http://opensource.about.com/b/2013/03/25/gimp-vs-adobe-photoshop-an-unbiased-comparison.htm
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GIMP is a fantastic package..

Others of similar merit are..

Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/en/) for vector based graphics editing - I use it a lot to create all my marketing materials from small print adds to posters..

Scrubus (http://scribus.net/canvas/Scribus) for publishing type work - I use it to create books, manuals and other promotional materials that need multiple pages..

Like anything there is a learning curve but the results you can achieve are amazing, reproduction ready and the software is all free and open..
 
wipe_out said:
GIMP is a fantastic package..

Others of similar merit are..

Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/en/) for vector based graphics editing - I use it a lot to create all my marketing materials from small print adds to posters..

Scrubus (http://scribus.net/canvas/Scribus) for publishing type work - I use it to create books, manuals and other promotional materials that need multiple pages..

Like anything there is a learning curve but the results you can achieve are amazing, reproduction ready and the software is all free and open..
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You are speaking to the converted mate, but unfortunately you are only going to encourage the ugly, brutish TROLL hunting on this thread.

I would say about InkScape that although it is quite usable, it is not as well developed as the Gimp. As a result, if you are looking for a fully functional vector graphics package, there is a better argument in favour of Illustrator than in a straight PhotoShop/Gimp comparison. Having said that though, Inkscape would still work for most users.
 
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