StarDestroyer.Net BBS

How many of you use Linux? And which distribution do you use?

Also, if you switched from another OS, why?



Personally, I use Linux Ubuntu 10.10. I switched from Windows XP when I got a major virus for the third time and had to reinstall the system.

Also, a tip for users of Ubuntu 10.04: Don't upgrade; do a clean install. Upgrading from 10.04 to 10.10 makes 10.10 very glitchy.

I used Ubuntu pretty much exclusively for a couple of years because Vista just annoyed the piss out of me, but its habit of breaking something new with every release and the eventual corruption of my filesystem when Evolution somehow[1] took the computer down in a way that it took exception to sent me back to Windows. With Windows 7 I no longer feel any particular need to try other OSes despite my general preference for a UNIX-like environment so that's that.

[1] Fuck knows what it was doing given that I didn't use the stupid client, but the Evolution daemon managed to consume all RAM and swap file and then the system hard-crashed.

I ran Win 98 on a non-networked computer originally back in high school, then I used Ubuntu with the occasional XP for programs that I needed and only ran on Windows. When I built my gaming tower I dual booted 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 and haven't looked back.

Why do I use Linux? Primarily cost, but also perceived security and reliability. Also, most of the programming classes at Uni use a *nix environment, so Ubuntu dovetails nicely.

I use Win7 for my school laptop, WinXP for my desktop (which only gets used for video editing these days), and Ubuntu Linux in a virtual machine for last semester's (and probably next semester's) Linux/Unix course. I really like Windows 7 -- it's been almost completely bulletproof for me since I first started using it, last September.

I was an Ubuntu/XP user for a while, apart from a mercifully brief period when I was using Linpus Linux Lite on a netbook. As of a few months ago I'm exclusively an Ubuntu user, having accidentally obliterated XP whilst performing an upgrade from 8.10 to 10.10.

Posted from my Motorola Xoom.

Zaune wrote:As of a few months ago I'm exclusively an Ubuntu user, having accidentally obliterated XP whilst performing an upgrade from 8.10 to 10.10.

Did you do a double update or clean install? Or did it let you go directly from Karmic to Maverick?

I use Ubuntu or WIn7 depending on situation.

Recently upgraded from Vista to 7 on my main computer. The old box runs XP.

fajner1 wrote:Did you do a double update or clean install? Or did it let you go directly from Karmic to Maverick?

Clean install. Must have told it to install to the wrong drive, but I only really used Windows for gaming so it was no great loss.

Windows 7 for gaming, DirectX programming.
Ubuntu for university work.

Started using Linux because it was what I was taught to program on. Its much easier to do so than on Windows (even 7). The terminal takes a bit of time to get used to though especially if you've never touched command line interfaces before. But for general use you don't really need to use it.

Still use both OSs because they excel at different things.

Windows XP, Windows Vista, and iOS. Over the past year I've moved more and more to iOS, as I've begun to use my phone to replace my desktop and laptop for almost all my day-to-day computer needs. Now I only sit at a computer if I need to work on assignments, which have been pretty rare this past semester.

I know Darth Wong has a Linux page on his personal website, but if I want to have a Linux distro as a second OS to go with Windows 7 on a computer I'll be building late this summer, which one should I look at?

e: right now Vista and Android.

Lonestar wrote:Posted from my Motorola Xoom.

Posted from my Cr-48. Yay for ChromeOS (and free netbooks).

My desktop/workstation at home is running Win7x64, while my backup laptop, and all of the systems at school are XP (x86) machines.

I run Windows 7 on this laptop, mainly so I can use MS Office for uni work.

My old laptop runs Ubuntu, and I break it out when I need to edit video.

Windows 7 64-bit on my PC, Android 2.3.3 on my Droid 2.

Qwerty 42 wrote:I know Darth Wong has a Linux page on his personal website, but if I want to have a Linux distro as a second OS to go with Windows 7 on a computer I'll be building late this summer, which one should I look at?

Ubuntu is the most popular desktop edition. There are also Fedora and Debian.

Wong uses Mandriva, which, apparently, is a bit more organized and better designed than Ubuntu. And I think you have to pay for it, but I'm not sure.

TimothyC wrote: Posted from my Cr-48. Yay for ChromeOS (and free netbooks).

I'm not sure if a Web Browser counts as a "OS".

Ubuntu 11.04 here, almost exclusively since all my uni stuff works on Linux and I really really like the command line. I might start using Windows again once Bad Company 3 comes out solely for gaming. Oh, and Android, but that's also Linux

Lonestar wrote:

TimothyC wrote: Posted from my Cr-48. Yay for ChromeOS (and free netbooks).

I'm not sure if a Web Browser counts as a "OS".

It's Chrome and Flash on a linux kernel. It's as much an OS as iOS was back when it came out.

The only reason I boot into XP is to play games. Otherwise, I mainly use Arch linux, mainly because I can't stand some of the configuration choices that Ubuntu has made. I'm better then I was though give that I ran Gentoo for years and years.

Run 10.04 LTS on my home server and on my work servers. Also run a RHEL5/6 derivative.

Win7 on my home desktop, Ubuntu on the laptop, Debian 6 on my home and remote servers.

My home desktop: single-boot Win7 x64 with several different OS in VirtualBox (Gentoo / Suse / IPCop Linux, Win 98 / ME / XP )
My laptop: Dual-boot WinXP and Gentoo Linux

Privately I mostly use Windows for gaming or OpenGL programming.
I got introduced to Gentoo when I started to work for a Linux systems supplier (mostly administrating business networks).
Installing Gentoo is a nightmare - especially if you want it small and really fast, but you get a lot of coffee time while the important stuff is compiling. (networked compiling is awesome if you have to install Gentoo on anything slower than 1GHz)

I'm getting a new computer for my birthday. It will have 8GB of RAM, so I'll probably run Ubuntu as the main OS and run Win7 in Virtualbox, giving it 2-4GB of RAM.