What's better, Linux or Windows?

I've used Windows all my life, and I have no idea about any other operating systems. I was thinking about Linux, and I want to know a few things, to see whether I should install it or not.

Here's the things I want to know:
Does it run Windows programs?
Does the OS itself use up as much RAM as windows?
What actually makes it better all up?
Which is the best version?
Roughly how much does it cost?

 

ok i will answer a few of your questions
yes linux can run windows programs with wine(windows emulator)
idk about ram
it is better for some things but a pain in the ass for some it will be hard to adjust from windows to linux at first
i would suggest you use ubuntu it is very easy
most versions of linux are free

P.S. you can have both linux and windows installed on a computer

 

you can run basic windows program using wine. you will not be able to play any windows games or other big software. linux is alot better with ram. it can use as little as a few mb. most of the time is uses around 150mb to 200mb in a normal distro. Debian is one of the best distros out there and i would recommend trying that. and 99.999% of software for linux is free.

 

Wine can actually run a lot of Windows games if configured correctly (GTA series etc), check out http://appdb.winehq.org/ for a list of programs and their compatabilities. Also be aware that a lot of Windows utilities have a free native equivalent, ie K3B vs Nero, OpenOffice vs MS Office etc, so Wine is generally not needed. There are also a couple of subscription based programs that specialise in running Windows games, for what these groups are doing the price is pretty reasonable.

If you want to be eased in, grab yourself an Ubuntu Live CD. Just set the computer to boot from CD (if not already that way in your BIOS), throw the disc in and boot it up. It is slower to boot and a bit slower to use off the disc, so don't think that it will be that slow when installed, but it doesn't write a thing to your hard drive unless you confirm that you want to install it, so don't worry about that. Should give you a good idea of whether your hardware is all supported out of the box.

Have a look at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZD7QraljRfM for some of the stuff you can do with Beryl installed. As far as I'm concerned, it's better than Aero. Being open source, it's still a work in progress (Beryl is now merged with Compiz/Fusion), but fully usable on a desktop if you disable it for games.

What makes it better? The price! For giggles have a look for the price of a full version of Vista (not a student version, OEM, upgrade or gimped out one) plus MS Office (again, not student or upgrade). You'll be shocked. Sure you can get the cheaper ones, but your legal rights to use the software are limited (OEM can only be installed on one motherboard, student versions can't be used in a business, upgrade implies you already own a copy, and if you want to virtualise it is generally a breech of licencing too).

Just give it a couple of weeks, be patient, and if you have any problems, don't be afraid to hit the forums for whatever distro you choose. Ubuntu has a massive, incredibly healthy forum and are eager to please, if you have a problem with a particular piece of hardware chances are others do to, so if they know about it they can fix it in the future for everyone.

 

OzMick.. where have you been?

I can give you a bit of info about ram usage with linux.. Most distros seem to need about 100MB for everything.. any more is used as a live disk cache, so free memory will generally report used up to a reserved 5% which seems to be saved for read/write to the swap area.

True debian is now a lot improved. etch seems to have solved most of the annoying issues. It's to be preferred over ubuntu for a couple of reasons.

1. It's not too "done for you already"
2. It's not trying to be windows
3. There are more options with what you install or don't (my smallest debian GUI desktop system runs at 14MB ram with fluxbox and rox plus a few apps.. the problem on a 32MB machine is lack of a good small css capable browser, but I'm working on it.)
4. You will learn to use the terminal quickly and pretty painlessly

there are some drawbacks too..

1. The debian community expect a certain level of competency with computers
2. It isn't all done for you
3. Some things are still a pain.. wine for one, flash and alsa for another.

I have used it for ages, but it still breaks from time to time.

The one comment I will make is about 64 bit hardware... ubuntu and debian 64 editions seem to give people a lot of problems. If you want to try a 64 bit OS on the right hardware I'd try sabayon.

 

Is that a "where have you been" as a stranger, or I'm a lunatic for still recommending Ubuntu? I'll agree with you that Ubuntu is far from ideal for a power user, but it is good for newbies (if you have to ask how much Linux costs I think you qualify). I prefer to think of it as a nice easy way of easing into Linux before deciding you want something more powerful or configurable, or want to contribute something back to the community. Personally I am using Gentoo, but wouldn't hesitate to recommend Ubuntu as a demonstration at least.

 

Hi Mick.. I just haven't seen you post in ages.

I agree totally with the ubuntu road as a taster intro. Live it works well, but installed it's a risk still. My main disagreement with it is the lack of a real root user which leads newbies into very bad habits and assumptions about what does and does not need write access and the like.

I wish I had more time to experiment with gentoo. I think it's probably the best from a power user side, and plugging sab to the 64bit community like I do I really should get to grips with it. Trouble is.. I need this old dual core to have maximum uptime. I can't afford a few days to change over to a different way of doing things.

Suppose we are lucky here having the varied collection of users we do. Haven't found a slackware user yet.. but there must be one eh?

/me returns to working out what the problem is with the windows version of MAME

 

Yeah, the compile times pretty much relegate Gentoo to being a hobby distro, must admit I'm about ready to give it up and sacrifice a bit of speed for convenience, thinking of giving Arch a run...

 

I run a triple boot system on my PC. I have AMD64 bit processor and 1 GB Ram. triple boot is with XP (ugh), Ubuntu 64 and Sabayon 64. Sabayon is one of those distros that out of the box it just works, no f**kin about trying to get flash going etc (unlike noob) hoewever the one complaint i have is when you install anything it takes a long time (but it is a gentoo based distro). The desktop effects in it work out of the box an absolute treat (unlike noob where they work when they want to) however i can do without window wobbles and desktop flipping. I have another distro that i have yet to put onto disk to try out and that is 64Studio. This is a deb based distro so I will see how that fairs in comparison to the other 2 64bit distros i have (i feel a quad boot coming on).

If you are 32bit, another decent distro i tried was LinuxMint, deb/ubuntu based but seems pretty stable for the length of time i had it on my system.

I am still a noobie myself, however deadlove is my mentor for *nix and i really want to know more than point and click (Bill has us all programmed this way, he must have been a fan of the Stepford Wives as a younger man).

 

Ahhh Windows of course because it is the most used os but i like linux more... most of the time

 

Just because it is the most used, does not make it the better OS. Remember ME anyone??

 

Holy $hit forgot bout that one...

 

hahaha.. that made me laugh... It's like saying "McDonalds sell the most food from the most outlets so it's the best" It's BS and we know it....

Windows is great if you want to do what M$ will allow you to do, with their permission you can do most things... but not all by a long way. It's proprietary and doesn't fully implement industry and international standards in many cases. The simple fact is this... Unless you want to write software that complies with M$ view of what software should do.. and very probably use M$ tools to make it you haven't got a hope of getting anywhere. Is there a reason for that? Yup.. commercial greed, plain and simple. Currently they are trying to force the implementation of a non standard and closed document format on everybody.. furthering the M$ or nothing lock-in. It's wrong, and they will not get away with it.. so far there are more objections than supporters.

The tide is turning because vista certainly isn't the best, the hardware support is appalling, and the drm is intolerable.. not by a long way is it the best..

http://www.globalisation.eu/briefings/competition-policy/unbundling-microsoft-windows-200709231241/

remember os/2 and sco-unix anyone?

 

ive heard of os/2 warp is that the same? On a diffirent question: M$ has used unix in of there os's havent they?

 

Still looking for an answer on the best version.

 

There is no "best version". Everything is permitted.. It all depends what you want to do with it.

The question is as invalid as "what's the best car"

You have 5 kids then buy a people carrier.. a Ferrari isn't going to take you on holiday is it?.

Just try a few and see what suits. Very few people stay with the same linux they started with. 10 years ago I was using slackware, now I run debian. Even that isn't fixed.. I may change when I want to do something and debian doesn't want to work properly.
I hate this fixation with "what's the best"... nothing is "the best" it is all subjective.

As to the unix question earlier.. there are similarities with everything M$ have done and certain parts of the berkley-unix implementation. Some commands at a very base level are the same (cp, mv, cat) and others come straight from IBM-dos.
Windows itself is originally a unix GUI.. Gates and co just took the idea and used it.. That's why they don't really dare to try implementing any of the so called patents they hold.
I can remember using a one button mouse to select items on a blue desktop from a pull down menu system when I first started back in 79.
Did M$ exist then in any real form? I know they had something that fired up off a floppy and you had to type everything from a command line. Then they came out with this... which is so similar to the unix GUI we used years before that I'm surprised they got away with it.



yup.. my windows1 is a japanese version..

 

As you may be a tad confused by the many different distributions of linux, and as you can see here, you will get 100s of different recommendations if you really want them...

ubuntu, it is probably the best linux distro for people who want to see if linux can compete with windows. The reason is not because it is the best in itself, but it is the easiest to find help with. Basically if you type
your question ubuntu
into google you have a really good chance of finding a good answer. For instance I recently decided I wanted to install something like peerguardian, so I typed peerguardian ubuntu into google and within a short while I had moblock running on my system.

But your question, I am guessing your really interested in "is it easy?" and "can it run my software?". Well it is fairly easy (my 5yr old son has no problems and neither does my 60 yr old mum), as for the other question, just type your software and ubuntu into google and find out if there is a way to run it, or, if there is a free alternative.

Every piece of software on my mums PC is upto date, at 60 she knows how to keep it all up to date and, without much worry, she can surf without fear of virus and spyware. With windows she would have to update every bit of software manually (which often means going to the makers website and seeing if there is an update) and there is no way she would know if clicking that "your computer is infected" warning is safe or not.

 

Kondor, tyvm. You cleared things up a lot.

Also, I do know a fair bit about computers, I want to learn more about other OS's though.

I got another question though.

My wireless network runs off a computer which is running Windows, once I install Linux, can I still use this network?