atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums Computers & Programming Computers, Software, Accessories Anyone using Linux?

Is anyone here using Linux? If so, what is your favorite distro? Any particular likes or dislikes?

I use Ubuntu 10.04 LTS on several machines and have Linux Mint 13 (Maya) with Mate desktop loaded on another.

I've found that many people are still using a version of XP and are surprised when I tell them about Windows XP going EOL (End of Life) this coming April 8th.

Granted, their PCs will still continue to work. They just won't be secure. To some people, this matters, while others couldn't care less. To each their own, I suppose.

For those last diehards, one of the Linux distros may be able to buy them some time while they look for a new PC. Who knows, they may like it and choose to stay with it. There are many Live CD or DVD distros available as ISO images that can be burned to disk and run in real time without it making any changes to your existing OS. Take a look at www.distrowatch.com for more info.

While this may not be easy for the average Joe, it still may be a good option for his PC with older hardware that is still running XP. And did I mention that it's free?

I look forward to hearing any feed back.

Peter.

Problem is Win and Linux are not compatible in any way. So replacing your XP machine with a Linux one serves no purpose as all of your WIN software is useless on Linux.

Win XP security updates will still be supported until 2015. Not sure if that just means thing like Security Essentials or what.

Win XP is an extremely stable OS and just because MicroSoft is EOLing it doesn't mean you should go out and buy a Linux machine.

If people don't want to get a Win 8 machine, HP has started offering Win 7 machines again because of demand.

I built a box running Mint 15. It's OK but it does take a while to familiarize your way around. I lost the password after sitting for a while and was amazed how easy it was to bust. Ran Ubuntu for a while and liked it.

That's my point. Your average Windows user will be clueless trying to set up a linux box and having to add Wine to be able to run Windows programs is just more for then to have problems with.

Just because Microsoft is not supporting XP any more, doesn't mean other software companies products will stop working on it and that includes antivirus and such.

Been using Linux in some fashion since 1998. Mostly use CentOS these days for servers, webhosting and other services. I like the release cycle and support for 5 yrs. Thus I don't have to reinstall my server every year when a new release comes out. Most software will work on CentOS. Yum package management is very nice and easy to use. Dislikes, maybe the recent news of CentOS joining Redhat Corp. Not sure how well that will play out for the future of CentOS. I don't use Linux as a desktop OS. I still play games and don't really want to go through the headache of getting them working in WINE.

I used Unix back in the '90s and got real interested in Linux. I ran Red Hat and Ubuntu for a while. I really liked the unix OS but the desktops were really not ready for prime time.

Then I found Apple. Mac OSX is Unix with the Mac desktop. It works beautifully and runs perfectly.

No complaints.

Sam

I started on Unix back about 1982. My dad worked for AT&T at the time, and had a teletype with like a 800k modem. He would dial into Bell Labs BBS, set me in front of the teletype, and hand me the Unix manuals and let me go....it was a young nerds dream. As the years progressed, I've monkeyed around a little more with Unix, some with the various BSD flavors, and the last several years have played with Red Hat (Avaya's Aura runs virtually on a tweaked version of Red Hat), Ubuntu, Debian, BackTrack and Kali linux, we do some 'pen testing' in house.

I would like to add, if it's not against forum rules, this link to a free MOOC coming up this fall. If you know little about Linux, this class would be of great benefit to get a better grasp on it.
https://www.pcworld.com/article/210...ffer-introductory-linux-mooc-on-edx.html

We've been running Linux (Slackware) on our servers since 99, The computer my wife and 12yo use was migrated to Linux in 2009
They have no problems for what they do.

On the business side, there are 3 devices that still run windows (XP) 1PC used for our coding needs, and Quick Books, and 2 laptops (1 field w/ Panasonic, and other specific software needed to support customers)

This weekend I'm going to be creating a virtual disk image (VHD) of one of the devices and load it under virtualbox on one of the Linux boxes. I should be able to use Quickbooks and our support software under a virtual instance of Windows.

This being the case, they all will be migrated to Linux (likely Ubuntu) w/ VirtualBox