Linux / Ubuntu / Open Source

Who runs open source OS? Why?

How's the functionality of it? Is it better /faster?

I have heard of people running parallel OS... what's the point?

Is it basically just a time waster for coders?

Discuss.

I used to run ubuntu when i was doing a lot of programming topics at uni.
I would have kept using it, but compatibility was an issue, particularly due to shit ati drivers.
Apart from that it ran like a dream, had all my other hardware functioning correctly, including my wireless carrd (damn vista). Internet speeds were blazingly fast too, especially torrenting.

I'd get it again now if I had time to reformat my computer and mess around with it, but for now shitty vista will suffice. If you want to jump in and try linux I'd definitely recommend ubuntu; extremely user friendly, and so much software available to download at a click of the button.

Without going into an OS-War, what fucks me off is that you can't buy PCs like Lenovo,HP,Dell,etc with no OS anymore. You are paying for a XP/Vista license that you may never even use.

Open Source is great because you can freely view (or even alter) the source code. You know exactly what is going on inside your software. The price can't be beaten either.

I've used several different Linux distributions but Ubuntu took the least effort to get going.

I use Linux extensively for my business. I run it on servers only because as a desktop environment I feel OS X is better. For the server tasks that I need Linux works better for me because it's stable, fast, reliable, and the support via forums and online guides is excellent. Plus it doesn't require a reboot for nearly every little software update...

I run Fedora 9 on one server at home, Fedora 8 on another (haven't got around to upgrading it yet). These two boxes aren't super important so the occasional down time for upgrades (Fedora gets a new release every 6 months) is no big deal. I have another server at home running CentOS 5 which is basically a free version of Redhat's Enterprise Linux (built from their source code) only without their support arrangements. The CentOS box is doing remote backups for family business so that one is relatively important.

I also run CentOS within a virtual machine using VMWare Fusion on my Mac. It's just so I can make use of the webserver features in case I am working offline...

I also look after another CentOS box at a Flagstaff Hill office, another in the US (hired from ServerPronto) and two running in a VPS environment. One with Net Logistics and another with Web 24. I occasionally do service work on a few others running in businesses around Adelaide that I setup when I worked for another company who I deployed some servers for.

That said I don't think many small IT shops like deploying Linux servers in small to medium sized businesses because a) there aren't as many Linux techs as Microsoft ones about and b) they break less often so there's far less service work (and in turn income)  involved. For example, I deployed a mail filtering server at a big sales company's head office years ago and it basically ran without a single hitch until a fan in the system died which caused it to overheat and crash. They moved the hardware to another machine with working fans and I was in a few months ago for a 1.5 hour service to reconfigure a few things then they were up and going... The Microsoft servers on the other hand need ongoing service just to ensure they keep running, there basically needs to be a tech on hand on a near quarterly basis (at least) just to keep things running relatively smoothly. It's also harder to do remote support and maintenance on Windows servers than it is on Linux machines, in my experience.

PS. This site is hosted on a Linux VPS.  Linux is a very important platform and I think you'll find by far the majority of websites you visit on a daily basis are hosted on open source solutions like Apache (web server) with Linux or other open source software as the server!

cool info, thanks guys! i am going to set myself up with a lil desktop at home, and try my hand at running linux and open source on it...but, how would games and other things run on it, if I did go with linux? i need to read up more on it all

You know it's actually possible to run linux from a usb stick if your computer allows it, might be worth a shot if you wanna check it out.

I've never done it though, I think maybe Bezz has? Not sure.

Ive run a cd bootable linux before & also Mandrake on a very old p2 which i used to write code on.  Worked well for me back then (>3 years ago), I'm sure they've come a long way since then tho.  Id run ubuntu in a flash if it supported some of my music software. 

I think Knoppix is your best bet Anna, if you want to give it a trial without touching the existing data on your disk.

I wouldn't bother if you wanted to play games though to be completely honest...

cool, thanks for the advice

I think you'll find that contrary to Linux users belief there is a serious lack of demand for Vendors such as the ones listed above to ship their systems with out an OS or with a particular Distro of Linux instead of Windows.

Additionally the OEM cost to these manufacturers to install Windows on their systems is quite minimal compared to the price it costs your every day computer store to do so, AND because of the mass volume that they sell they also get marketing funds etc for using the particular product.

We have had the option to bring a few systems into Australia with Linux distro's installed but the demand has been so low it is not worth the risk.

Ubuntu has a similar set up and as far as I'm aware is a much more popular version of Linux for the "Home" user.

Fair enough. I honestly haven't touched Linux as a desktop OS for years. Last time I did I recall Knoppix being the only major boot-CD distribution but it appears that now every major distribution has that option...

All my Linux machines don't even have GUIs installed. CLI all the way!

*looks up GUI and CLI*

graphical user interface and command line interface

one's for geeks and one's for everyone normal...

take a guess which one is for geeks.

you could use WINE to run windows programs on ubuntu, however there isn't too much point as you can dual boot if need be, and most programs (except games, recording software etc) have excellent free alternatives in the linux world. That and there are literally thousands of free games in the repositories you can download and try

Most ISPs have downloadable linux distros for you to try that dont count toward your downloads and as has been mentioned most are bootable off of cd for you to try before installing/reformatting.

Also for the ultimate in geekery you can run beryl on ubuntu and a few other linux distros, makes vista aero look like shit (I never went this far, I'm not that much of a geek, honest!)
[video: www.youtube.com]

edit: wow sorry for the shit music on that video haha

Pretty much sums up Linux and Open Source for me.

Windows Vista FTW

Pretty much all the major distributions are as easy to install as Windows XP and Vista, if not easier. If you've got fairly standard hardware then the amount of work involved to get it all running once installed (driver installations etc...) with Windows often far outweighs the work involved with Linux, where most shit just works out of the box.

Nothing works with Linux.

Ever tried to plug in a camera, or your iPod?

It's fucked

Buy a Mac.

This site wouldn't work without Linux.

Anyway, a Mac is a better option for a desktop machine I reckon. Like I said I run a Mac as my primary computer and Linux across all the servers...

Linux for servers is ok. Plenty of losers with no life to sit there and compile kernels *waves to Oli

Honestly I have been using Redhat based distributions for at least 6 years so I have not compiled a kernel once in that time. I just don't buy hardware that isn't supported out of the box so that I never have to do that.

So am I the only one here using Linux on a daily basis (regardless of whether it's on a server or desktop system)?

**waves to Nigel**

looks like you're alone

Hehe...

My dedicated server in the US (which khem uses to store a lot of mixes relating to this site, amongst other things) will have been running without any downtime for 150 days in about 4 hours. Woohoo for the stability of Linux!

I use a couple of Linux boxes daily, one hosts out proxy server and the other hosts our Nagios system.

Using squid I am guessing?

Is it for 50+ users? If so what storage system are you using for caching?

There's a bunch of little desktop style games included with Knoppix that aren't too bad. Real games though, I think you're out of luck unless you run that Wine dealio.


I got a question for Linux people. I have hardly used it at all but I burnt a couple of bootable Knoppix distros (Security Tools & Full Release) to test out. I wanted to try using it for the internets however I can never get the wireless to detect. I've tried a couple of different lappys, mine is a Lenovo with an Intel WLAN chipset, no go there. I've tried 2 different Acer lappys with 2 different Atheros chipsets, one detected something in the Wireless setup app (forget the name) the other was like my Lenovo. On the one that found a card I picked a wireless connection nearby, it seemed like it was ok, but no internet was working. I used the madwifi driver I believe. This was a few months ago, I can't remember all the details but I'm sure there was some other config that I couldn't get to work.

I basically want to get this going to access secure sites, ie. banking. My laptop is dead and these other laptops that I have access to are owned by people that have no idea about PC security. As such they are frequently riddled with spyware, keyloggers and the like, I regularly clean them and keep everything under control but there's still a risk.The only other option is internet cafes - same problem. So you can see why I'd like to be able to pop in a CD that lets me leave no trace of my activities on these system...

Boot into Linux go to the terminal and type "lspci" (as root). That should tell you exactly what wi-fi chip you've got. Based on that you can go on and do some googling to help get it going with whatever bootable distro you're using.

So I shouldn't need any extra drivers? I assumed these bootable covered all the bases on that one!

You need to get out of the Windows mindset about hardware requiring 'drivers'. It's usually a matter of the kernel supporting hardware rather than loading a driver on top of the operating system to make a hardware item work.

The bootables are meant to cover a range of the most common hardware, but they can't cover everything. It's really hard for Linux developers to keep up with hardware compatibility because most hardware manufacturers don't share the information about their hardware in a way that is required to build solid support into the kernel.

Basically if you can find out what chipset your wi-fi card is then you can use Google or the forum for whatever bootable distro you're trying to use to get support.

Righto. I just found it hard to believe my Lenovo wasn't supported. It's an Intel wifi chipset, surely there'd be support for something as common as that! It's old too so it's not a question of the developers keeping up. I'll keep trying I guess.

So have you found out what chipset it is? "Intel wifi chipset" means nothing because Intel has probably released 50+ different revisions of at least a dozen different chipsets.

Yeah man I know exactly what one it is but I can't remember off the top of my head. It's of no consequence anyway, my laptop is fucked atm. My main aim in asking that question was determining why I couldn't even get the one that did work going!

Fair enough. I can't really answer your question but usually if something doesn't work out of the box a google search and browse of a few forums for whatever distro gives answers pretty quickly.

I'd say that's better than Windows where you ALWAYS have to load up drivers for pretty much all your hardware!