Comments on: 5 Reasons I Like Linux (And 5 Why I Dislike It)

By: HtH

HtH — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 07:28:11 +0000

Lots of the software projects done by individuals invite user input and actually act on it. My favorite is Gnome-Do, in this regard. Also Mozilla is a non-profit that received part of its funding from many sources, including Google, but still relies on code contribution from regular ole’ hackers. With regards to developers aims, you’re right, but keep in mind that alot of times, most perhaps, they write something that they as a user wanted. So take that developer project times 10,000 and you have alot of interesting things happening(and don’t think that smaller projects don’t get noticed by developers who might be working/interested in the same area).
The Linux repos, BTW, are a huge strength. You like the app store, right? Well, repos are similar except things are free. Also, if you go with a rolling distro, you don’t have to worry about not getting the latest prog backported.
Lastly, the distros make things a BIT confusing, but, not too much since they are mostly spinoffs of Debian or Fedora(thus once a person realizes this, the whole landscape is alot clearer). As for harming the F/OSS movement, I’m not sure why it would. Ideas are put forward in some of these pet distros that later get taken by the larger ones(Mint’s menu being the first thing to come to mind).

By: lolbuntu

lolbuntu — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:19:44 +0000

ubuntu tastes like cheese!!

By: Shantanu Goel

Shantanu Goel — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:08:39 +0000

Thanks for your opinion, Vivek. But I feel that productivity is a subjective term, both in terms of the user as well as specific tasks. e.g. for me many tasks are easier and faster to do in linux because I don’t have to go into menus, click on the app, wait for the gui to start, then click more buttons, etc, it is all done in a single command line. That said, for some tasks it is easier to have GUIs where command line can be a bit too long to remember easily. For someone else, it could be completely opposite.

By: Vivek

Vivek — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:44:55 +0000

A really good comparison of the opposites, by the way What I personally feel is that if you wish to be productive and efficient , then Windows is the Best, only reason being availability of GUI enabled softwares for each and every tasks you can imagine, also drivers etc. are not an issue with it. Whereas linux feels extremely cool with all that flexibility and configurability it provides but I have many a times wasted lots of my time just doing some very basic things , but yes when I complete them the satisfaction is simply great !!

By: Adrian

Adrian — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 15:48:31 +0000

Uhm .. 64bit JRE plugin has been around for a bit. Look up OpenJDK or IcedTea projects. Now with 64bit Flash coming to Linux .. 64bit browsing on Linux is the only “full-experience” platform around. Personally, I think 64bit browsing under Linux truly rocks now.

By: zaine_ridling

zaine_ridling — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 07:53:48 +0000

Great post, Shantanu! I agree with most. One thing that has perplexed me is that even though one can distro-hop as I’ve done, distros are often quite distinct entities, and at times, that famous Linux diversity shows its downside. For example, learning the Ubuntu family is one thing, but while openSUSE is similar in many ways thanks to a shared desktop environment (such as KDE), maintaining openSUSE requires new skills and commands than Ubuntu. Same for Fedora or something like ZenWalk.

This is particularly painful when a new version of Ubuntu no longer works with my hardware. I either have to revert or hop to another distro again.

By: Amit Agarwal » Blog Archive » 5-reasons-i-like-linux-and-5-why-i-dislike-it

Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:47:52 +0000

[...] about it. And since someone has already done that, I will link to them. The first one for today is 5-reasons-i-like-linux-and-5-why-i-dislike-it. This was not in the list that I was planning to write but some thing similar in line was pending [...]

By: Amit Agarwal

Amit Agarwal — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:46:39 +0000

Definately Linux rocks and am on for using it all the time with having to struggle too much.

By: Richard

Richard — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 16:23:14 +0000

chenno,

You are obviously not talking about Linux for the masses. Most people neither have the time or inclination to mess around. they just want to get things done.

Having said that there are any number of Debian Linux derivatives designed for user friendliness that also allow one to get under the hood using the command line or editing configuration files as root. Appealing to these two types of people is not mutually exclusive.

By: BrownieBoy

BrownieBoy — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 02:29:01 +0000

A good article overall, but I don’t get why you have “Getting Software” as your first dislike. Getting software in Linux is heaps easier than Windows (or Mac). You just go to your package manager – Synaptic in Ubuntu – or the Add/Remove Programs tool, as the other poster pointed out.

How is that not better than the Windows world, where you generally have to go trawling through the ‘net to try and find a program you might want, and which you’ll probably have to pay for too? You end up with five versions of every type of program, before you find one that you want to keep. You then have to remember to uninstall the other four, and that’s if you can remember what they’re called, and where they appear on your rapidly mushrooming Start menu; and if they even have an uninstaller that cleans up after itself properly. I used to do a clean reinstall of Windows at least once a year. Because after a year of my doing this, it would get slower and slower, and each piece of crap program left unneeded entries in the registry.

There’s a major security issue here too. Every virus that I’ve ever had in Windows can be traced to my downloading some .exe installer, which turned out to have a hidden payload. The package manager approach avoids this because as long as you’re using a kosher repository – e.g. Canonical’s own repositories for Ubuntu – you can be pretty sure that somebody else has verified the software that’s in there.