Does Linux have an Amiga feel?

[Iggy]

@ commodorejohn

I've had some brutal BSOD experiences under  Win XP.
So no, the NT kernel didn't solve that.
While I am not a big Apple fan, I don't think I've ever seen OSX crash.

[ElPolloDiabl]

@ CommodoreJohn

   I have a 1.6GHz dual core laptop. Windows XP runs perfect. Windows 7, there is a 1 second pause from lag every 30 seconds.
   Also I agree Windows 7 has a great UI and hardly ever crashes. Why it needs a 10GB install and 40 processes running in the background, it is only an OS?

On the same laptop (1.6ghz dual core) Linux KDE with a lot of features is fast except when I run Firefox. Now a web browser is the source of bloat.

[commodorejohn]

I've had some brutal BSOD experiences under  Win XP.
So no, the NT kernel didn't solve that.
While I am not a big Apple fan, I don't think I've ever seen OSX crash.

I'm not going to claim Windows is flawless; I've never had BSODs on XP that weren't driver-related, but it definitely still has issues. What I will have no truck with is this notion that Linux is some godly feat of tech wizardry that is, "by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error." Instead of, you know, a mainframe OS from the '70s that's been progressively kludged into something resembling modernity but mostly on the surface.

(Also, I've had BSOD-analogue crashes on OSX, more often than I have on XP, and I use XP a lot more than I use OSX. But it's still pretty solid. Anyway, OSX is based on BSD and not Linux, and uses its own custom userland, just like Android, the other successful, well-regarded consumer-level Unixoid...)

[Iggy]

I'm not going to claim Windows is flawless; I've never had BSODs on XP that weren't driver-related, but it definitely still has issues. What I will have no truck with is this notion that Linux is some godly feat of tech wizardry that is, "by any practical definition of the words, foolproof and incapable of error." Instead of, you know, a mainframe OS from the '70s that's been progressively kludged into something resembling modernity but mostly on the surface.

(Also, I've had BSOD-analogue crashes on OSX, more often than I have on XP, and I use XP a lot more than I use OSX. But it's still pretty solid. Anyway, OSX is based on BSD and not Linux, and uses its own custom userland, just like Android, the other successful, well-regarded consumer-level Unixoid...)

Actually John, I really agree with you about Linux. I've never found a version I'm completely comfortable with. And personally, I don't really regard Linus Torvalds as being the genius so many think he is.
First of all, all he's really done is create a kernel that essentially just clones the core of UNIX.
And second, he's issued this rather asinine comment downplaying micro kernal OS' that completely disregards the fact that there are many good OS' using this approach (MorphoS being one of them).

Linux has proven the when completely open sourced, the lack of focus defeats any intent to establish direction.

Basically, Linux, is it done yet?

[Mrs Beanbag]

Fixing Linux involves anything from posting on forums asking for help from the much-lauded and oh-so-helpful Linux user community (standard answers: "works for me," "you don't need this broken feature," "this bug was already logged in 1996, please add relevant details to the ticket and wait for a fix," or the ever-popular "you have the source, fix it yourself!") to chasing includes from one /etc shell script to the next looking for any string even vaguely related to the error.

At least you can fix it. Whenever I tried to fix my old XP install I invariably had to resort to re-installing it. The Windows Registry is the work of the devil. Give me human-readable text config files any day. Well I wouldn't call manually editing config files in a text editor "easy" compared to just putting a CD in but it's definitely preferable if you're technically minded enough to feel comfortable doing it, especially since XP didn't seem able to reinstall without deleting everything in Documents and Settings.

Oh and when I had the audacity to upgrade my hard drive. They don't expect you to do that. They expect you to upgrade your entire computer. There is a feature to migrate your files to a new PC, if you happen to have both of them working at once. Migrate from one drive to another in the same PC, sorry never heard of it.

Windows is only easy if you only want to do the things they specifically designed it for.

[Iggy]

I've actually had quite a lot of luck using cloning utilities to copy hard drives under Windows.
But you are right, the Registry IS the work of the devil.
Has anyone examined Bill Gates head for any numeric looking birthmarks?

[nicholas]

Oh FFS John, give it a rest you whiny old queen.

[Blinx123]

Honestly? People who are still flogging the "LOL WinBlow$ BSOD LOL Micro$shaft!" mantra haven't done any serious reevaluation since the days of 95 or Me. 2000 and XP are perfectly reasonable, stable systems with a coherent, modern design that's carefully relegated legacy DOS scariness to emulated support. Vista had plenty of problems, but 7 is even more generally well-regarded than XP (though I prefer XP myself.)

I'm not trying to bash Windows. But the file system is generally less well designed (as others have pointed out before).

Personally, I loath everything before or after Windows 7. Really used to like Windows XP, but now that I've to deal with dozens of systems still running Windows XP every day, I begin to see all the shortcomings and lack of userfriendliness. It just didn't age well.

Whereas Linux piles framework after framework after framework onto the system in an attempt to build a modern desktop OS out of an architecture designed to drive VT-100s from PDP-11s...

You do realize Windows is, essentially, framework driven? Sure, most of them are Microsoft products. But to say Linux piles up frameworks whereas Windows doesn't, is kind of silly.

Every system I've used Linux on has been either only as fast as or noticeably slower than an appropriately-configured Windows/OSX install. Of course, zealots will bleat about this being the fault of proprietary drivers and how it's your problem for not using open hardware and conveniently ignore how they told you that Linux will make sweet wizardly love to all of your hardware no matter how old or obscure...

Can't really follow you there. Linux runs great even on the smallest system. Of course, you shouldn't run stuff like Ubuntu or the likes.

This is true if, by "once you've figured everything out," we mean "once you've memorized The Design and Implementation of the 4.4    BSD Operating System" or something equivalent. In any other case: Bull. Shıt. Fixing Linux involves anything from posting on forums asking for help from the much-lauded and oh-so-helpful Linux user community (standard answers: "works for me," "you don't need this broken feature," "this bug was already logged in 1996, please add relevant details to the ticket and wait for a fix," or the ever-popular "you have the source, fix it yourself!") to chasing includes from one /etc shell script to the next looking for any string even vaguely related to the error.

You have to know something? Tough luck! It was never touted to be a newbie OS.
Linux was, originally, developed for people using computers for the sake of using computers. It's only now that individuals/companies seek to change this. And while this approach isn't perfect yet, distros like Linux Mint or Ubuntu already show great progress.

No need to install or update stuff you'll never even use! You know, like DBus, or PulseAudio, or grandomcryptonerdwanklibrary-effthensa or any of the zillion other packages that are required to install basically any Linux software, from text editors to web browsers, that's been around long enough to attract a dozen developers who each pile on every feature they think the software should have, no matter how esoteric.

Distros != OS

GNU/Linux doesn't require any of that stuff. Only certain distros package stuff like Pulse Audio, while others (such as any lightweight XFCE based distro) use ALSA.

Yes, because what I really want to do on a computer I just want to be able to do stuff on is rebuild the damn kernel.

It's a learning experience. Nothing wrong with rebuilding a kernel.

UI customization, on the other hand, would be great - if it were in any way consistent across any set of programs outside of the megalithic KDE-type desktop application suites (and those, of course, are the absolute worse offenders on point #3.)

I currently run Ubuntu with Unity on my laptop (utilizing a MacOSX theme). Aside of Steam (which is build on top of Chromium and thus no real native application), every application I use is styled consistently.

A community of people who can't be assed to post meaningful information, suggest you "RTFM" no matter what your problem is, and make fun of you for not having memorized the source code. Yes, very very helpful folks.

Dunno which community you are referring to, but people in the newer, more streamlined usergroups generally offer valid support even to people new to Linux/Unix.

A very compatible toolchain, unless of course you want to do something crazy like run a GCC 2-built binary on an OS that expects binaries built with GCC 4. That's just crazy talk, man!

Have you ever actually looked inside Windows/MacOSX development? Plenty of 3rd party Windows applications ask for Net 2.0 when Net 4.5 is already installed. In order to develop MacOSX 10.7 applications that also run on 10.5, you even have to implement workarounds, since XCode 3 isn't really available on MacOSX Lion anymore.


@ElPolloDiabl

It's Mozilla Firefox' plugin-container that's at fault there. I think they fixed it for one of their earlier releases (Firefox 12, possibly), only to have it turn up just a few months later again.

I currently think about compiling my own, Webkit based, browser from scratch. Webkit offers genuinely better performance and stability.

@Mrs Beanbag

It's possible, actually. I don't remember whether Windows XP already offered the option to simply overwrite your existing installation and copy all your documents to a single folder, but with BartPE, it's definitely possible. I accidently did that when I had to re-install Windows XP for a client last Friday.

You basically boot into BartPE, forget about all the formating tools and head right into the Installer. It will then copy the installation files to your existing HDD partition, reboot and install Windows XP to and from that HDD. In the end, I ended up not only with a fresh Windows XP but all the files were still there.

[commodorejohn]

You do realize Windows is, essentially, framework driven? Sure, most of them are Microsoft products. But to say Linux piles up frameworks whereas Windows doesn't, is kind of silly.

Does Windows have additional frameworks? Yes. Are many of them somewhat unnecessary? Yes. (I hate the push to .NET for absolutely everything...) What it doesn't have is a userland made entirely out of separate, single-purpose frameworks tacked onto a core OS originally from 1970 that hasn't seen a serious architectural update since 1983. It doesn't have sound-architecture-du-jour. It doesn't have a massive, kludgy graphical environment.

Can't really follow you there. Linux runs great even on the smallest system. Of course, you shouldn't run stuff like Ubuntu or the likes.

"Linux runs great on everything! As long as you don't run the Linux that doesn't run great."

You have to know something? Tough luck! It was never touted to be a newbie OS.

You yourself were just lauding it as "easy to fix," dingbat.

Distros != OS

GNU/Linux doesn't require any of that stuff. Only certain distros package stuff like Pulse Audio, while others (such as any lightweight XFCE based distro) use ALSA.

If you're going to run with the tired old "it's only a kernel!" mantra, I want to know how you run any useful software on the facilities provided by the kernel.

And you missed my point. Plenty of distros don't install crapware like PulseAudio by default - the problem is all the software that requires eight different libraries to run. (And of course now you're going to bleat about how the problems with Linux software aren't problems with Linux - bull. The Linux developer culture is diseased, and that's why Linux software is as bloated as it is. And anyway I'd like to know what good an OS is if it doesn't have good software to run.)

I currently run Ubuntu with Unity on my laptop (utilizing a MacOSX theme). Aside of Steam (which is build on top of Chromium and thus no real native application), every application I use is styled consistently.

Tell me, when you say "styled," are you merely referring to the look? Because yes, you can get a window manager to consistently apply a look to windows. You can even get an application's controls to match that look (but you better have Qt, WxWidgets, FLTK, Tk, etcetera versions of your theme! And good freaking luck with Motif applications.) But good luck getting everything to behave consistently, outside of the mega-suites like GNOME and KDE.

Dunno which community you are referring to, but people in the newer, more streamlined usergroups generally offer valid support even to people new to Linux/Unix.

I'm referring to anywhere I've ever looked for help. You wanna point me to this wondrous fairyland of actually helpful Linux geeks?

Have you ever actually looked inside Windows/MacOSX development? Plenty of 3rd party Windows applications ask for Net 2.0 when Net 4.5 is already installed.

I'm not going to go to any great lengths to defend .NET because it's a scam to get developers stuck on Microsoft's own tools and I resent having to have it installed - but at least its stupid binary incompatibilities aren't integral to the build of the actual operating system.

[Madshib]

I'm not entirely following the Linux bashing that is preceding this post by several comments. It is a multi-purpose OS that has many different flavors giving the end user options. If you don't like what one offers, try another one. It took me six months to find the right distro for me.

I still don't understand where rebuilding the kernel came from either. I have yet to even attempt that, but LFS looks intriguing as a project.

If anyone looks to Linux for that "One" solution, you may be disappointed. Hell, I don't look to any OS to be "One" solution because none of them are perfect.

[TrevorDick]

I've grown to like using various Power PC linux distros, especially on the AmigaONE X1000 ;-) ...  but it's certainly not the AmigaOS.

TrevorD

[Iggy]

I've grown to like using various Power PC linux distros, especially on the AmigaONE X1000 ;-) ...  but it's certainly not the AmigaOS.

TrevorD

I've used them too.
Although many are no longer mainstream (like Ubuntu many have to be user supported).
And Flash support is still terrible (but as a MorphOS user I'm used to working around that).

BTW - I wish I could afford one of your systems Trevor.
They are only likely to appreciate in value with time.

[psxphill]

Have you ever actually looked inside Windows/MacOSX development? Plenty of 3rd party Windows applications ask for Net 2.0 when Net 4.5 is already installed.

Up until version 3 microsoft kept versions separate so they didn't have to worry about backward compatibility. I believe you can force the app to run on the latest version though, there is a good chance there will be issues though.
 
There are more complaints that they stopped doing this when they got to version 3 than there are about having to install multiple versions.

[stefcep2]

As a newbie, I found the most intuitive OS to be......System 7.  IMO if you just wanted to get the job done, it worked and worked well.

But as a semi newbie that liked tinker, Amiga is the best hands down.  Very easy to access the system files, easy and logical names.

Linux?  90% of the time when I had to fix something I was cutting and pasting without a clue about what any of it did or meant or went.

[commodorejohn]

As a newbie, I found the most intuitive OS to be......System 7.  IMO if you just wanted to get the job done, it worked and worked well.

But as a semi newbie that liked tinker, Amiga is the best hands down.  Very easy to access the system files, easy and logical names.

Heh, indeed...System 7/7.5 was the most tinkerer-friendly Mac OS ever got, but even that doesn't hold a candle to the Amiga's customizability

[stefcep2]

I'm not entirely following the Linux bashing that is preceding this post by several comments. It is a multi-purpose OS that has many different flavors giving the end user options. If you don't like what one offers, try another one. It took me six months to find the right distro for me.

I can agree that an OS can be built so it is more suited in a server environment, or for use in specific devices.

And searching for the right apps for us, yes, we all have to do that.

But if you are going to develop and promote an OS as a desktop OS, its not reasonable that a user should be searching to find the right OS flavour to meet their needs.

The fact it took you 6 MONTHS to find the right OS-if that doesn't scream:"Houston, we have a problem", then I don't know what does!