As an introduction, ive always been an exclusively windows user. Not for any particular reason; im just not into system administration. The less time I spend on it the better, so that pretty much makes one use a single operating system. Which due to historical reasons, happened to be windows.

Now, that has worked just fine for me up until now, but at my new job I find that many people are using unix stuff, so im going to have to bite the bullet and learn a new paradigm that I dont care about sooner or later, I figured. I was actually kinda looking forward to it. Even though I dont care for knowing all the innards of my operating system, id been told this was optional nowadays with linux; that it has a high 'it just works' factor. Especially respected distributions like Ubuntu.

Lies, I tell you. Installation is smooth; just a few clicks, no problems there. But the first problem turns up soon enough: my linksys wireless network isnt working. Why? Cause they dont make any linux drivers. Well then thats linksys fault you say? Well great, but I couldnt care less whos fault it is: its not working. Some googling informs me that one can make the windows XP driver work on linux. You just need half a day of hacking around the innards of linux; that is, if you are an experienced linux user, which im not. But the most damning thing is of course: if this driver magic is technically possible, then why isnt there some tool included with linux to facilitate the process? Bottom line: it doesnt work, and its not going to work given the amount of time im willing to spend on it.

An hour or so later, after I try to reboot into linux after some windows work, it has already completely died. If any of my hardware broke, windows didnt notice. I didnt change a single setting, didnt download a single driver, exited linux properly. Yet it fails to boot, without any visible excuse. Well, it dumps a ton of jargon on my head, which, if I knew what it meant, might suggest a single-second solution. But I dont, and more importantly, I dont care to find out. Ive got actual work to do. But hey, at least this screen of death isnt blue; I guess that counts for something. For the record: i havnt had windows pull such crap on me since windows 98, and if it did, it was always clearly my own fault, messing around with system drivers or something.

So, to recap: Linux is a lie. In particular the notion that it can even lick windows' boots when it comes to 'just working'. Yeah, im looking at you, GDnet lounge linux fanbois. You had me fooled. I guess im going to shell out for snow leopard and do my unix stuff on that.

Flame on!

I find that many people are using unix stuff,[/quote]Why are you installing Linux when talking about Unix?

An hour or so later, after I try to reboot into linux after some windows work, it has already completely died[/quote]Why not just install it into VirtualBox? Works great, no need to reboot and avoids all the driver issues.

I guess im going to shell out for snow leopard and do my unix stuff on that.[/quote]Again, why are you using Linux if you need Unix?

Linux is a lie.[/quote]No, as you said, you have absolutely no knowledge about Linux, never learned it, and refuse to learn.

You will face exactly the same kind of problems with Unix. Unless you buy a Mac (Leopard doesn't run on non-Macs). And meanwhile, in real world outside of reality distortion field, people encounter plenty of problems with Macs, it just seems to be less popular to bash on them than on Windows or Linux.

I find that many people are using unix stuff,

Why are you installing Linux when talking about Unix?[/quote]
I dont know. A coworker of mine has a codebase involving unix semaphores/threading. He says it compiles under linux and mac; not under windows. Linux and macosx are unix based; windows is not. It seems to add up to me, but indeed, I dont have a clue what im talking about, just going by what other people tell me. Besides, I want to do python development, which is essentially impossible under windows, but I keep hearing good things about linux and mac. But if there is a unix flavor that does actually 'just work', im all ears.

An hour or so later, after I try to reboot into linux after some windows work, it has already completely died[/quote]Why not just install it into VirtualBox? Works great, no need to reboot and avoids all the driver issues.[/quote]
That may be an option. Id have to look into it, if it suits my needs. Ive been told before I wouldnt have any issues, and it was a lie, but who knows, one shouldnt allow oneself to become too cynical. Somehow I have a hard time believing thats not going to be a major pain in the ass when im trying to compile my cuda code.

Linux is a lie.[/quote]No, as you said, you have absolutely no knowledge about Linux, never learned it, and refuse to learn.[/quote]Yes, I believe I made that point quite explicit. I absolutely DONT want to have to learn the inner workings of linux, or any <i>tool</i> for that matter. They are supposed to save time, not suck it up like some black hole.

You will face exactly the same kind of problems with Unix. Unless you buy a Mac (Leopard doesn't run on non-Macs). And meanwhile, in real world outside of reality distortion field, people encounter plenty of problems with Macs, it just seems to be less popular to bash on them than on Windows or Linux.
[/quote]
You are probably right about the mac (I do own one, but with windows), the suggestion was borne more out of desperation than anything else.

But Linux is free, open source, and gives you blowjobs when you sit home alone on a Friday night!

At school they used Fedora Red Hat for all the Linux machines so I installed Fedora Core on my old machine. The current distro at the time didn't have 3D acceleration enabled. You had to get another kernel to get 3D working. Why standard version didn't have the updated kernel in it to begin with I don't understand. I can only assume its because Linux users get some kind of power trip out of being in "complete control" of the computer. My TV tuner card didn't have any Linux drivers either which kind of bummed me out. There wasn't even a solution of trying to use different drivers and hack them up to work, there was just nothing for an ATI TV tuner. While I do realize this was more of a problem because of ATI not releasing any driver specs, its quite annoying when this was a plug and play piece of hardware in Windows. I also suffered the magical "Linux stop working" issue a couple of times. Just one day out of the blue Red Hat would never boot up again until I reinstalled it. The only mucking around in the system I ever did was to get the new kernel working and it would be days or weeks before it would stop booting up again. Not discounting the fact I messed something up from my own inexperience but Gnome seemed to work with no issues until the day it would refuse to boot up.

We have a few Linux machines at work I have to PuTTY in to from time to time to do things with. Good God, I guess Windows has made me lazy, doing most anything from the command line is annoying. I've setup WinSCP so that it will sudo su into the machines so I can use a graphical FTP program instead of having to download and move files around through the command line.

As an introduction, ive always been an exclusively windows user. Not for any particular reason; im just not into system administration. The less time I spend on it the better, so that pretty much makes one use a single operating system. Which due to historical reasons, happened to be windows.

Now, that has worked just fine for me up until now, but at my new job I find that many people are using unix stuff, so im going to have to bite the bullet and learn a new paradigm that I dont care about sooner or later, I figured. I was actually kinda looking forward to it. Even though I dont care for knowing all the innards of my operating system, id been told this was optional nowadays with linux... -

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX

]No, as you said, you have absolutely no knowledge about Linux, never learned it, and refuse to learn.

You will face exactly the same kind of problems with Unix. Unless you buy a Mac (Leopard doesn't run on non-Macs). And meanwhile, in real world outside of reality distortion field, people encounter plenty of problems with Macs, it just seems to be less popular to bash on them than on Windows or Linux.

He was talking about the specific issue of "it just works". i.e how easy it is for a total noob, who doesn't think investing time in learning the OS is valuable. When I bought a MacBook I had never used a Mac before and yet I could figure things out and use it for running applications immediately. His experience is clearly not the same as that, therefore his point appears valid. A typical PC user is in the same boat, and the claim he debates is that Linux is ready for those kind of people.

2/10, trolled enough to get slightly annoyed. Well chosen subject, but execution needs more work.

[quote name='Eelco' timestamp='1299341071' post='4782085']
As an introduction, ive always been an exclusively windows user. Not for any particular reason; im just not into system administration. The less time I spend on it the better, so that pretty much makes one use a single operating system. Which due to historical reasons, happened to be windows.

Now, that has worked just fine for me up until now, but at my new job I find that many people are using unix stuff, so im going to have to bite the bullet and learn a new paradigm that I dont care about sooner or later, I figured. I was actually kinda looking forward to it. Even though I dont care for knowing all the innards of my operating system, id been told this was optional nowadays with linux... -

I'd just like to interject for a moment. What you're referring to as Linux, is in fact, GNU/Linux. Linux is not an operating system unto itself, but rather another free component of a fully functioning GNU system made useful by the GNU corelibs, shell utilities and vital system components comprising a full OS as defined by POSIX
[/quote]

Thanks; thats precisely the kind of knowledge I was hoping to avoid.

I dont know. A coworker of mine has a codebase involving unix semaphores/threading. He says it compiles under linux and mac; not under windows.

Most of code compiles on Windows under MinGW.

Linux and macosx are unix based;[/quote]Both Unix and Linux variants take from POSIX. Linux and unix are not related, Linux was created as anti-Unix, at least in the beginning.

windows is not.[/quote]Windows is not POSIX compliant, but POSIX interface can be used on Windows, some of it natively (pthreads), some via minor modifications (winsock) and some completely from emulated environment (MinGW).

Besides, I want to do python development, which is essentially impossible under windows[/quote]This doesn't make sense. Python is platform agnostic.

but I keep hearing good things about linux and mac. But if there is a unix flavor that does actually 'just work', im all ears.[/quote]Yes, Macs "just work". If your "work" is hanging around StarBucks, sipping coffee while arranging photos and buying next selection from iTunes.

As later mentioned (CUDA), you are not looking for typical work.

trying to compile my cuda code.[/quote]Ah, CUDA. That will be a pain, regardless on which OS you use. Get used to all kinds of kernel-level debugging and even worse, blindly guessing at what went wrong since much of it is black box with no diagnostics.

And no, it doesn't run inside VM.

And before getting a Mac, make sure it actually comes with nVidia card. Apple prefers Radeons these days.



I know, semantics, nitpicking, etc... But broad overreactions don't really accomplish much, when all you need is a CUDA-capable development environment.

A typical PC user is in the same boat, and the claim he debates is that Linux is ready for those kind of people.[/quote]
I would not treat a CUDA developer as "typical PC user".

No, for someone who needs this type of work the complaints stated here, let alone being completely oblivious to *nix is not really excusable.

But I forgive my parents for sticking with Word 2003 and not feeling comfortable learning 2007.