231–240 of 390 posts
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Depending on the type of user you are, but Linux is miles ahead of Windows for research.
Which way is Linux miles ahead ? This is not a rhetorical question, I really want to understand. What features and functionality of Linux are missing in Windows that sets them miles apart ?
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What carrots does Windows have that Linux doesn't besides a larger variety of software? Linux is used in far more circumstances than Windows and is just as capable as windows when it comes to 99% of tasks. Buy Linux on an Ubuntu certified pc and you will have zero issues. In reality most consumers don't use more than a web browser.
Mostly the fact that people already know it and are too lazy to learn anything else. To take an example: building a Mame box. On Windows it's a major PITA because replacing the windows shell to start directly Mame is a big hack, because you need to configure Mame in command line / editing text file which is a pain on Windows, because you can't just ssh to edit config files from a regular laptop, etc. On Linux it's mu…
But that's hardly a carrot when it comes to learning CS/Programming. Whether you were to learn on Windows or *NIX it takes a lot of non-intuitive steps too get going.
When I started to learn python I used notepad on Windows and ran it on the command line, I soon switched to Linux and wrote my scripts in gedit and ran the programs on the command line.
The learning curve was about the same. It seems to me that a lot of the skills you learn on Linux when it comes to programming can be applied to windows (you just have to learn their GUI), but methods learned in windows generally can't be applied to other OSs.
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> It's in Microsoft interest to keep kids in their ecosystem Yep, which is also why they purchased Minecraft. It was more like purchasing the community of Minecraft users, which has a lot of children as well. I really wished there were a Micronix or something - combining the best of both worlds (Microsoft's extensive resources and reach coupled with GNU/Linux freedom and open-source development) - and that probably i…
Bill Gates can't continue espousing the ideas that everyone should have access to healthcare/technology/internet and be on the board of a company that charges way too much for an OS that --let's be honest-- isn't really miles ahead of any other OS... I did like the fact that he posted a picture of kids using Ubuntu on his FB page though.
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But is Linux about teaching kids to code? I don't think it is. I spent more time on RH6.2 attempting to learn how the system worked and how the heck to make my rubbish graphics card run X than running egcs or g++ back in the day. There was terse documentation for all the GTK stuff, and it was particularly daunting if you had not written any advanced C or C++ (like me). I did manage to write some rubbish programs unde…
It sounds like you were running Linux on hardware that wasn't Ubuntu certified. This is like complaining about how hard it is to get OS X up and running when installing on a Dell, but I see where you're coming from and realize this wasn't you whole point. Anywho.. I would say it's easier to take skills learned from using Linux and apply them to the Windows OS than the other way around.
Admittedly, I did learn many skills with the command line but this DIDN'T translate to me being a wizard with the DOS prompt on Windows 98 back then - I didn't use the DOS prompt. Task manager didn't show a hierarchy of processes like pstree does now, and pstree didn't come (or even exist?) with RedHat 5.0 or 6.0. This was RedHat, not RHEL.
I got OSX up and running on my Acer Aspire :-)
You're right though, that was difficult.
I think the skills for the different OSes are only mainly applicable to their OS, despite how we think and how easily you and I can use the different platforms.
Using a keyboard and a mouse translates, but nothing else does really. Getting my wife to use OSX is frustrating for her, my brother gets angry using OSX too, my brother is lost under Linux, my mum gets lost under Windows (she's fine with iOS mostly now) and my dad is fine with Windows 7 and before but hates Windows 8. My wife gets lost under Android after using iOS for years.
Don't even think about programming for any of them on any of the platforms!
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Depending on the type of user you are, but Linux is miles ahead of Windows for research.
Which way is Linux miles ahead ? This is not a rhetorical question, I really want to understand. What features and functionality of Linux are missing in Windows that sets them miles apart ?
The 9926 build is the first I've noticed that the started Windows 7 "Search Program and Files" has been replaced with "Search the computer and web". Apparently you can't turn it off. I could not find a group policy or regedit tweak to turn it off. A Microsoft support article said you cannot, period. Everything you do is a search. This default behaviour, even in Ubuntu, was what helped me switch distros.
The problem with this default behaviour is that it won't fly in corporate and government environments. Any place that does a security audit will have to redo a security audit every single time a new system is placed onto their network.
Microsoft seems to be moving towards the trend of easy use rather than productivity.
Trying to make a child's first impression of computing being tied to Windows makes sense. But aren't there going to be issues with blatantly monitoring kids like this?
Somewhat surprised that there are around 20 comments and all of the seem to be from more or less a consumer perspective. The Raspberry Pi is one of the few embedded devices with aspires to be used as a desktop computer and on top of that as a way to learn computers. Embedded systems is also one of the few threats to Windows, but this hasn't really materialized yet since most devices only comes with android drivers. A…
Once you consider that the version for the Rpi2 is an 'IoT' system, and not a desktop OS, this comment becomes irrelevant.
http://image.slidesharecdn.com/iot-whatisit-140607104402-php...
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So basically, you can set the example for kids to not give a crap about IP and that it is OK to study/do whatever they want with something they find online. Nevermind that because they have not signed the MS agreement it is basically stolen property. I see somebody mirrored it already.
That benefit doesn't seem like enough to offset the fact that they'll be running an OS which is very difficult or impossible to actually modify for use. Any changes made would amount to a fork with one of the worst possible merge workflows; for beginners an open-source environment is much easier to start modifying, and for the more experienced it's much more productive to modify an environment that has a responsive u…
It hasn't been as common for a while, but I remember using a litestep ui in the win2k era... actually like the Windows 7 desktop/menu/toolbar interface a lot.
Beyond the UI on top of the underlying OS... I'd say that most software development is business processes, which can be handled in pretty much any operating system and higher level language on modern hardware/software that costs a lot less than the time used to develop said software. Yes, performance matters. Yes, there is a need for open platforms. However, good enough gets the job done most of the time.
I mention this as someone who really doesn't want to deal with the underlying hardware any more than I need to. I have no interest in writing or debugging drivers or system libraries. I do like writing useful, and sometimes not so useful things on top of other tools. If I can do that in node.js, c#, go or other languages that makes me happy. It also makes me frustrated when I need to do something in Windows that's far easier in Linux.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's in Microsoft interest to keep kids in their ecosystem Yep, which is also why they purchased Minecraft. It was more like purchasing the community of Minecraft users, which has a lot of children as well. I really wished there were a Micronix or something - combining the best of both worlds (Microsoft's extensive resources and reach coupled with GNU/Linux freedom and open-source development) - and that probably i…
Bill Gates can't continue espousing the ideas that everyone should have access to healthcare/technology/internet and be on the board of a company that charges way too much for an OS that --let's be honest-- isn't really miles ahead of any other OS... I did like the fact that he posted a picture of kids using Ubuntu on his FB page though.
I think the only place where Windows is still pricey is the enterprise, but Apple has made it a point to give away their OS completely free to everyone. Apple got out of the server game mostly because Linux has and will take over in the long run (especially with platforms like docker which should make it easier to deploy apps).
Shot over the bridge in some spat with intel?
