Linux benefits over Windows 7

Hello,

I am recently interested in installing Linux, since everyone around me, seems to understand it and think it's *** OS. But i still don't understand the benefits of it?
I sit because it does not get viruses?
because the screen is black?
because you have to program everything yourself?
I want to know first before understanding the installation process.
than you for your responses

What is your requirements for an OS? Once you understand your requirements then you can evaluate which of Linux or Windows will be the best for you

klystron said:

What is your requirements for an OS? Once you understand your requirements then you can evaluate which of Linux or Windows will be the best for you

Click to expand...

I want something fast, virus free, crash free. but actually I wanna try Linux because even in entreprises it is the most used. right?

Fast : Linux is faster than Windows (for the same CPU speed, RAM size and HD space)
Virus free : Linux is not immune to virusses.
I want to try Linux : not realy a user requirement
most use OS : possibly not ; their are many Win users

Linux is a different OS, with different strengths & weaknesses than for example Windows or Mac OSX. In general Linux is well suited for server tasks, embedded systems (Android!), and software development / engineering tasks. But it also has a choice of modern desktop environments that make it easy to use for everyday tasks like web browsing, word processing, playing movies, etc, etc. And it is extremely configurable to suit one's own taste, if you invest time to dig through internals - most users will just grab a pre-configured system, pick a new wallpaper, change a few important settings & be done with it. Probably the weakest area is 3D gaming: many 3D games run under Linux, but if that's your main use you're better off installing some version of Windows.

Sherra said:

I sit because it does not get viruses?

Click to expand...

Often heard but not true, in theory there's no reason why you wouldn't have viruses on Linux like on Windows (or other OS). But due to the way typical Linux distro's are maintained & distributed, and the typical user profile, in practice viruses are a non-issue on Linux.

because the screen is black?

Click to expand...

&%#($*? :?: In case you meant: "looking at a command prompt", then you're living in the dark ages. A modern Linux distro has all the bells & whistles a typical computer user wants & expects. Yeah there's also mini-versions that boot from say, a 64M USB stick. Whatever you like.

because you have to program everything yourself?

Click to expand...

No idea what you mean... I'm a Linux-only user myself & the only 'programming' I've done lately is programmable logic design (logic circuitry, schematics etc). :lol:

I want to know first before understanding the installation process.

Click to expand...

Very wise. May I suggest:

1. First have a look at the Wikipedia page, to get a basic understanding of what Linux is (and is not).
2. Have a look around on Distrowatch, and check what all those different distributions are about. Don't get 'scared' by the sheer number of them, just have a look at a few (say, some popular ones) to get a feel for how they differ & why you might choose one over the other. The ones currently listed as most popular (Linux Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora and OpenSUSE) are all good choices for first-time users.
3. Download a LiveCD (or 2, or 3 if your time/bandwidth allows), boot from that, and just play with it a bit. That way you can try it without installing anything and (important!) see how it works on your hardware.
4. If you're ready to install anything, get some help from those Linux users around you that you mentioned, to guide you through the install process. Installing a modern distro is often easier than installing Windows these days, but if you hit a snag it's good to have help from someone who knows Linux better than you. ;-) If you want, you can install Windows & Linux on the same system (dual boot). Or even inside a virtual machine (if your hardware supports that, and you have suitable software installed).

Like klystron said, whether Linux is something for you mostly depends on your requirements.

klystron said:

Fast : Linux is faster than Windows (for the same CPU speed, RAM size and HD space)
Virus free : Linux is not immune to virusses.
I want to try Linux : not realy a user requirement
most use OS : possibly not ; their are many Win users

Click to expand...

Haha, thx klystron, but actually most of the companies recruiting in school require Linux knowledge...

---------- Post added at 14:27 ---------- Previous post was at 14:23 ----------

Hi RetroTechie

Thank you very much for your detailled explanations. i really appreciate and I am going to follow them and let you know what I do.

Sherra, please read this article **broken link removed**

Hi,
In the my opinion , there are many difference between them.Basically the main aim of the windows7 is to provide the security in the graphical user interface where as the Linux is the command base operating system. As you know that the linux is basically used in the networking i.e it has the more security. I know that the new version of the windows vista i.e windows7 is also more security.
Thanking you .

You could try FreeBSD too or PC-BSD and other deratives.

I find it more straightforward. And it will even run Linux software faster than Linux (through an API translator).

Why not just try it with a dual boot configuration? My machine has Windows XP and Ubuntu installed. When you switch it on, there's a menu choice of which OS to boot. With suitable software, you can even run both at the same time.

winkler said:

Hi,
In the my opinion , there are many difference between them.Basically the main aim of the windows7 is to provide the security in the graphical user interface where as the Linux is the command base operating system.

Click to expand...

Well No... Linux Also have GUI based setup tools for enabling security for firewall , SELinux etc...
Depending on your Distro you can check those GUIs

As you know that the linux is basically used in the networking i.e it has the more security. I know that the new version of the windows vista i.e windows7 is also more security.
Thanking you .

Click to expand...

No again... :shock: I use linux for development PCB design, listn to Music, watch movies and also browsing internet. NB sometimes I write booklets for my business too.

Microsoft just won't produce secure nor stable code. They haven't done it. And is unlikely to do so in the feature. So for any mission critical application use real tools like Unix that can be inspected or dedicated system handlers.

People that say Linux is not immune to viruses are just plain wrong or they don't understand what a virus is. Linux has file permissions so only the user with permissions to access a file can do so. In system file cases that's the root user. A virus has to get root privileges to infect system files. If you install a major distribution the file permissions are set properly. Only if you change the file permissions on system files can a virus attack a Linux system. I have been using Linux from the days it came on a handful of floppies and I have never had a virus. My wife, on the other hand, that uses windows is always having me fix her system after she has opened something that came in and email and infected her system. A few years ago she finally took my advice and switched to Linux. She does music transcription and needs some tools in windows but she dual boots and only uses the tools she needs in windows and then goes back to Linux. As she said "It shuts off when I tell it to shut of, not like windows." Windows is a single user system that has been kludged to death to make it a networked OS.

There are a few, and very few, programs that are not in Linux. Music transcription is one of them. But if you use anything else, even audio file manipulation, you can find it free in Linux. My daughter was given a laptop for her 17th birthday. It came with windows and that's how I gave it to her. After about a month she came to me and asked if I would put Linux on it for her. Of course I did. She hasn't asked me to change it back for almost a year now and I don't expect her to.

There is a learning curve for Linux over windows. If you know windows Linux is not the same. And I believe that is the reason that everybody doesn't use Linux. I find it amazing that so many people refuse to learn something even when it is way better because they have already learned something else. Linux has it's roots in the Unix world. Unix was way better then windows from day one. But it was part of AT&T. When they got broken up AT&T was not allowed to branch out into the OS world. So UNIX floundered for awhile in a legal limbo. Today there is FreeBSD and a few flavors from that. Sun, from Bill Joy, used UNIX to make their OS. But today Linux is the front runner of the Unix Os family.

The only way you will really know how good Linux is over windows is to use it for awhile. And by awhile I mean at least a year or more to learn how it is different from windows. And the main difference is that when I need a new bit of software I get it from really smart people that made it for free. The only software you get for windows for free either came from Linux and was ported or it is crap made by some teenager. Linux is a hole different culture. One of openness and freedom, as in beer and speech. While windows is in closed source and expensive crap that never gets the bugs out.

Linux would not exist if it wasn't for the GNU project. Many years ago some really smart people from MIT realized that our world was going computerized. If the software was closed source we, the US citizen, would lose our freedom because we could not have access to the software that runs our world. To give a good example of this Diebold, the people that make ATM machines, wanted to sell voting machines to the US government. They told congress that it was impossible for them to add a paper tape to the machine, as every cash register has. Then they said that if they were given the contract they would guarantee who would win the election. I am not making this up. Luckily the congress didn't want to have America up to the highest bidder and showed Diebold the door. So in a very real way you are insuring your own freedoms by supporting Linux and the GNU project.

So install it and run it for as long as it takes to use it properly. There are a lot of distributions but for a beginner I would suggest that you checkout Linux Mint Debian Edition. It will have everything you need and then some. All of the programs you use for electronics design are available in Linux. And some that are only available in Linux.