People use Linux because MS and Mac suck as servers. I mean let's face it, would you want the internets backbone servers to run on something that crashes every 24-48 hours.
don't know what you've been doing with windows, but i've had apache and mysql running on my windows 7 home pc as a server, and it has yet to crash within the last year of being up.
I would like to try Ubuntu, but the main reason I can't abandon Windows is Visual Studio, the best C++ IDE. Plus MS doesn't officially support applications runnig under WINE.It seemed his argument to why no-one would use Linux includes not being able to run programs like MS Office. I showed him you can use programs (like) MS Office, thus refuting one of his reasons NOT to use Linux.
Linux can't run everyday programs such as MS office..
Terrible example. See http://www.openoffice.org (Which I use on my Windows machine instead of MS Office BTW)
That doesn't really answer to question... it's not an argument, where you need to come up with counterexamples. He just wants to know. I'd like to know too.
However, I only use Linux at work, and prefer Windows at home, so that's all I can offer.
I would like to try Ubuntu, but the main reason I can't abandon Windows is Visual Studio, the best C++ IDE.
Try QtCreator, which is cross-platform. You can use the same IDE on Windows, Mac, and Linux.
People use Linux because MS and Mac suck as servers. I mean let's face it, would you want the internets backbone servers to run on something that crashes every 24-48 hours.don't know what you've been doing with windows, but i've had apache and mysql running on my windows 7 home pc as a server, and it has yet to crash within the last year of being up.
Silly; we can't let facts get in the way of things now can we ;)
I have a dual boot setup, I usually just run Windows 7, although I run cygwin, GIMP, Blender, OpenOffice, Inkscape, an assortment of gnuw32 tools such as sed, bison, flex, and a lot of other open source programs. I like Linux a lot, my programs are cross compatible most of the time, and I would love to switch to it entirely, but I can't seem to part from Visual C++, even though I do like Code::Blocks and know enough of command line gcc and gdb to defend myself.
One of the big problems as usual is the lack of games, which I hope to see diminished as there is now a Steam for Linux in open beta, and Valve plans to continue to develop and port games for the 3 mayor PC platforms.
The other problem I see is lack of third party hardware support, a lot of the drivers are reverse engineered, and while they work, they are sometimes hard to set up (depending on the distro of course), or lack a lot of optimization, and some of the official drivers are still lacking some features (I still can't get my Official NVidia drivers to get along with vncserver for some reason).
The games I played on Linux run perfectly fine though (mostly id games or games based off id tech and pre UT3 Unreal Engine, Doom3, ETQW, Prey).
I do have a Linux server 24/7 at home though.
I'm using Linux for "everything server" because that's what it's good at. I would wish to use it for "desktop" too, but it's far from being usable for that.
Hate Microsoft, or love them, but they still have undisputably the most usable system (despite Windows 8) and the most usable software (no, OpenOffice is not an alternative). If Apple was what it used to be in the 1990s, it would be an easy decision, but meh...
This seems like a very dumb question, but every laptop, desktop I've seen comes with Windows or Mac pre-installed. Then who cares to switch to Linux?
People who use Linux are those who care to use it; mainly, individuals who know how. It's not hard to add, either as a separate partition or on a secondary drive of some kind. These days you can wedge a lot of them on thumb drives and use those instead.
And yes, I use Linux as my primary development environment and Windows for media related things (movies, games, etc.).
The other problem I see is lack of third party hardware support, a lot of the drivers are reverse engineered, and while they work, they are sometimes hard to set up (depending on the distro of course), or lack a lot of optimization, and some of the official drivers are still lacking some features (I still can't get my Official NVidia drivers to get along with vncserver for some reason).
Agreed. Hardware support on Linux has always been very hit or miss. If you get lucky it's amazing but if you strike out it can be a truly horrible experience.
Also, yes, games on Linux are usually pretty solid if you manage to avoid the various driver-related pitfalls. Wine itself has come a long way.
which I hope to see diminished as there is now a Steam for Linux in open beta, and Valve plans to continue to develop and port games for the 3 mayor PC platforms.
I still don't know how likely this is; not many companies have a Linux backend setup and unless you can convince the big guys to also support it then it could remain a problem.
On a related note when I mentioned the "Valve box" in conversation at work the general consensus was "not worth thinking about right now" as iOS, and to a lesser extent Android, are bigger concerns for our core team (and those are in parallel with the next gen of console hardware) right now and for probably the next year at least.
I use both Linux and Windows (dual-boot) as workstation. I spend most of my time on Linux, though. In a nutshell, for me:
Linux: coding, browsing, multimedia
Windows: cross-platform checking, games and multimedia
Though I agree Linux driver support can be excruciating if you're unlucky. I'm currently not playing any games on my Linux installation because the proprietary ATI drivers are very unstable on my system, but that doesn't bother me, my system wasn't meant for gaming, I've got Windows for that.
I'm going to try to put my Linux fanboyism aside:
For development, I find Linux to be a little easier to get started. You simply install most of the things you need to get started via the package manager and go. And when you do need to compile your own dependency, I find it less of a headache.
I also prefer the idea of Linux. Most distributions like Ubuntu are mostly if not all open source. This allows for the community as a whole to work on things together. The beauty of it is that you can go hack on your favorite Linux application most of the time and get things fixed.
Typically, if you have well supported hardware, Linux is rock solid. Because hardware vendors sometimes don't release specifications for their hardware drives can be a bear. Normally there is some support somewhere but it's hard to reverse engineer other drivers or figure out how to write some from scratch.
I for one am a fan of Kubuntu's latest version 12.10. I find KDE (The desktop environment, like explorer in Windows) to be a good transition from other OSs that doesn't sacrifice customizability. Out of the box, the applications bundled are rock solid as well. If you are a coder, you'll likely love KDevelop or even just Kate.
I do keep a windows box around for gaming and some media in general hooked up to my TV but that is it. And with Steam beta being out for Linux, and Netflix at least working for now, that Windows Box may not survive much longer.
My suggestion to you is to go out and download Kubuntu 12.10 and put it on a USB Drive to test it. You don't have to install it to test it out. The experience won't be as good running from a USB Drive but you can at least test some of your system compatibility.
Here's a link: http://www.kubuntu.org/
