Unix as a desktop

Ronin

Right,

Seen as we've so many experts on the various distro's who actually uses one as there main OS at work and at home.

Personally I run rh on both my desktop in work and at home as well as my laptop. Latest kernel even supports my wireless nic. Have my tv card, dvd and divx all working perfectly.

So who actually has their OS of choice at home and work as non Windows? Or do people just _play_ with their spare box in the corner as the *nix box?

Be interestin to see the results..

maybe its time for a which is the best editor and why thread...

Ro

MiCr0

fk off
its vi
reason: its the best and easiest to loose all of your text

Typedef

hmm does
386 box w 3.8mb ram running SLACKWARE 7.1 as internet connection share, for

Main box -Slackware-Debian-FreeBSD-NetBSD-Gnu_Hurd & SuckBlows_Me - with slackware 8 as OS of choice

&

Mothers Box - Mandrake 7.2-Windows_ME

count as home use?

or I guess you could count the small network I set up for nixer
486 box running slack_7.1 - as internet share

Pentium - office machine
Laptop P3 as other office machine
Possibly connect other machine - either a 233 laptop or new Dell to same network - using isdn if I ever get to play with network again

as unix in work?


I think I booted windows about two weeks ago - give or take - but, I don't remember if I booted it to laugh myself silly at GUI based OS or just to remind myself how cool :cool: SLACKWARE :cool: was?

I mean lets face it there is no-way Red-Head Linux could resurrect a 386 w 3.8mb of ram,80mb of disk space and make it do something useful really is there? Though I guess if you actually like GUI's and like you're OS doing things in the "background" all the time hogging resources then I guess Red-Hat,Mandrake,SuSE,Debian could well be your cup of tea, is this the point where I say, "If I have to choose between that and Slackware,..... I choose Slackware"

Plus for some reason the DVD only works in Slackware, while being garbled in windows - but I guess go-figure eh?

phaxx

I don't use unix as a desktop, simply because there are some things windows is better at, much as I hate to say it.

I use a FreeBSD machine as my server, it's an aul p166 with 64mb ram. It has the modem, does NAT for the rest of the network. Large hard disk, has all my stuff, shared by samba. Also acts as a kinda firewall, and does port-forwarding if and when I need it for something. My windows machine is a Duron 700, 384mb ram, very small hard disk, only used to store win2k and Half-Life

The way I look at it is, I think I have the best of everything - the ease of use and range of applications in windows, the security of FreeBSD, and the power of the unix console. (ssh to the bsd box)

I would find it awkward using a windows-only machine, or a unix-only one, because there are things that one does an awful lot better.

Imagine doing web design using X and netscape/opera! How are you going to test it in IE? :P

I don't think the unices will ever make it big on the desktop, that's for windows, but I do believe windows doesn't have a chance of doing well in the server market - unix just blows it away there. (Except for clueless people who need the comfort of setting things like IIS up with fancy menus )

[edit] Yay, slackware! Slack totally kicks ass! Although I prefer FreeBSD nowadays. [/edit]

moist

For 18 months at least I have been using FreeBSD as my desktop for work and at home.
Previous to that I've been using RH at home since
I got a _real_ modem about 3 years ago.
Also the engineering department in college had a few old machines with RH on them which I used
the majority of the time.
I have a win98 install just for playing games and for my sisters the odd time they want to use the machine.

I actually use my old PII 233 the majority of the time as the Athalon I splashed out on is just
too bloody noisey


As to why I would actually recomend FreeBSD over the others is that I actually found it a lot easier when I started using it.
The layout is more straightforward and logical as
far as I am concerned, and you also don't have
five and a half gazillion different distros
that all do things slightly (and irritatingly) different.

...eh... things and stuff....

flamegrill

proper post below something evil happened

flamegrill

Right down to business.

I've been an avid user of unix now for lets say 2 years. In this time I've had several machines. All of which have had one or two different distros on them.

1. Slackware 7.0/7.1/8.0 (currently running this on 2 boxes) 2. Debian 2.2r2 (Currently running this on my athlon Dual boot ing with Windows ME) 3. Mandrake (spit, hehehe, well i just tried it.) 4. Redhat (installed it once and i cat /dev/random > /hda to get rid of it. ) 5. FreeBSD 6. NetBSD 7. Corel Linux (gah the shame of it.) 8. Suse

Now as for my desktop pc which above is say is an Athlon running Debian 2.2r2 and Windows ME. This baby has 512mb of ram and runs linux/windows 50% of the time. As Phaxx said windows is just better at somethings. (He is always saying that :P)
Debian 2.2 has everything you could ever need. With Star office installed its practially a windows box but with 200% more stability and much much much faster at doing things. I can play quake3, quake2 and quake1 on it without any probs. I can watch my DivX on it. xmms is very sweet and takes care of most of the entertainment.
if need be i can use wine to open some windows programs but this doesnt always work. (practically never infact )
But in closing, i think any distrobution of linux could be a perfect Workstation operating system, once its loaded with the proper tools and hasnt got all the crud that mandrake and redhat have.

Although in work i installed mandrake 8.0 on the head engineers lap top (p1 233) and it works sweet. Little slow ill admit, but he runs the intraweb off it , so hes a happy camper.

I dont know if linux can compete with windows directly in the workstation market, but i sure would like to see it happening.
But as phaxx said Unix cant be touched in the server market and that is never going to change, ever.

logic1

I'd agree with Phaxx all the way here. There's things windows does better and areas Unix does better. I dual boot witn Win2k and FreeBSD but find I spend most of my time in Win2K mainly due to Dreamweaver UltraDev and Games.

.logic.

moist

There is also Darwin/OS X for all your fuzzy pointy-click ease-of-use pleasures.
Which would be a hell of a lot easier for the average joe technophobe out there.

Its also open-source, and as far as my readings tell me the only things not in CVS are drivers
and the like for developement hardware, which will be rolled back in when the hardware is released.

Granted I've never been a MAC fan, but at least now you can get yourself a bash prompt

Typedef

dahamsta

*yawn*

tHE vAGGABOND

Suse and KDE on my laptop (as it comes with VM Ware thar on those cd's for those pesky windoze apps) and I have an Ultra 5 with Solaris 8 and CDE on my desk too

Typedef

hmmm
is there anyone who would be willing to let me burn off a copy of solaris 8 while we are on the subject?

Things which might be or bartyrable value

Slackware 8.0 & extra cd
Debain 2.2r2 & binary disk 1
FreeBSD 4.2 & 4.3beta2 upgrade
1.2 - 1.3 GB of mp3's which I may burn onto 2 cd's
Some old 30 pin simms

Anyone?

logic1

Originally posted by moist
There is also Darwin/OS X for all your fuzzy pointy-click ease-of-use pleasures.
Which would be a hell of a lot easier for the average joe technophobe out there.

Its also open-source, and as far as my readings tell me the only things not in CVS are drivers
and the like for developement hardware, which will be rolled back in when the hardware is released.

Granted I've never been a MAC fan, but at least now you can get yourself a bash prompt

Yeah the GF has a cube so I stuck OS X on it. Massive RAM hog but pretty cool once you find where everything is. Alot of network utilities and some pretty nifty shell stuff.

.logic.

Hecate

is there anyone who would be willing to let me burn off a copy of solaris 8 while we are on the subject?

Find me a copy of Irix 6.2 and I might be able to

quozl

over the summer i was working as a software developer for a dublin software company. The entire office was linux only, except for a unix firewall, and 3 admins machines running win2k. Never missed windows for anything. But we were developing for a linux platform so not very suprising, and with a 2mbit connection you could always download a program to do anything you wanted.
Much happier using it as my desktop. Always stupidly stable, worst that ever happened would be I'd have to get another guy to ssh into my box and kill x (unusual occurence).
At home I mostly use win2k, as theres no half-life for linux.
quozl

Typedef

Originally posted by Hecate


Find me a copy of Irix 6.2 and I might be able to

hehe Irix 6.2.
Irix ain't even x86 is it? Actually I might just go and get AtheOs & or minix for x86 or if I can get a compatible monitor minix for my a500 hehe, Amiga rules after I finish getting FreeBSD 4.4 -intall.iso, which if any 1 wants can mail me or sumthin.

Hecate

yeah Irix was developed specifically for Silicon Graphics MIPS processors; incredibly powerful machines.

joev

Originally posted by quozl

At home I mostly use win2k, as theres no half-life for linux.
quozl

Halflife runs fine under recent WINE versions. Even CS and DoD mods

U don't need to run windows for *anything* m8

joev.

ecksor

I run FreeBSD 4.4 + kde 2.2 as my main workstation in work and on my laptop at home. The laptop also dualboots into windows 2000 for work purposes, but I rarely have reason to use it. Most of the HD space is given to windows, but I'm able to mount the 12 gigs or so C: and E: drives into my home directory, so I can share the space. Pretty stuck in my ways with FreeBSD now, but I'm quite happy with it.

quozl

Originally posted by joev


Halflife runs fine under recent WINE versions. Even CS and DoD mods

U don't need to run windows for *anything* m8
joev.

you do if your pc can barely produce adequate performance for cs in windows. Adding wine would bring things to a nasty crawl. The lads in work play it in wine, but thats on gigahertz machines
quozl

Typedef

hmmm I seem to remember trolling about the greatness of slackware, but it must be @ least 3 weeks since I used linux for more then an hour, as opposed to FreeBSD 4.4 give or take.
I would love to not have to use nt4 in work, but........, hmmm i have my eyes on a Dell server that has some kind of bouncing windows2000 screensaver, that would/could probably look coolerx10000 if it were the FreeBSD daemon.
I think I might wait a month or two and start to slowly dis windows in the canteen, eventually this dis should begin to insinuate the Dell Server would run 1000 times faster and more reliably with FreeBSD or @ least Linux on it hehehehe. Someone in the office must have a *nix softspot because I think I have spotted a box marked SuSE 7.x floating around, so my dis - format - install unix on server battle may already have converts

Che Lives

Gerry

I run freebsd on a collection of pc parts which resembles a p200mmx, with the install spread across 2 500mb drives. I have to update it to 4.4. Freebsd is excellent, its laid out logically as people have already mentioned, and it does not have unnecessary complications. Solaris by comparison fundamentally is just as good, just far more awkward to setup, with unnecessary complications like a file system layout which seems all over the place. Unfortunately I haven't given much time to messign with freebsd lately, what with college work, also freebsd won't support my isdn ta (eicon diva pro 2.0 ) so their goes my firewall project. I'll just try and swap the card for an asus.. any takers? Or maybe just install a linux distro which does support it.

As for using it as my main os, well I still play a lot of games, and I don't find a whole lot wrong with using win2k, and ssh'ing into my freebsd machine, therefore avoiding reboots. I'll probably have a go at getting Xfree86 4.0 running on freebsd on my main machine, and getting opengl and wine working.

joev

I've been running the "M$-less" desktop for about 18 months now.

I can do anything on my debian GNU/Linux (unstable), Gnome-1.4 based system that I used to do in windows.

All of my games even play on Linux

Once I got my Tribes2 linux from Loki, and because all my business use is handled by Xemacs and StarOffice, M$ went into the bin faster than you can say "Bill Gates blows Tibetan mountain goats..." and I've never looked back.

It takes a little work, organising your system and your working environment to get rid of the rot (windows) but once done, you *really* don't need it for much at all.

*And* I've yet to hear a solid reason why the argument "there's some things that windows is just better at" holds any water.... The only things windows is better at than any other OS'es I can think of, are microcrufts proprietary technologies... e.g. DirectX... (And if you must have directX in order to run an app, then the apps supplier needs a boot in the nads for supporting microsux attempt to monopolise the software market and not supporting open standards like OpenGL, OpenAL etc...)

Windows... just say "NO...."
("... not again! This fecking thing crashed again... Nooo... that's the 4th time this week I've lost all my work... Oh dear god.. nooooooo!!!!")


joev.

P.S. I'm not a complete zealot.... if there's something that I _need_ windows for, I'll use it.... tho usually as a VMware window on my X desktop