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What’s this "Linux" thing and why should i try it?

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Gothi[c]:
yes, wasting!, since it doesn't give much real benefit

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It does give real benefit, but the benefit isn't useful to your average joe user.
Portage lets you compile many packages directly from cvs/svn, and have the result managed by your package management. It's also very easy to apply/manage patches when everything is compiled from source. Which is great if some patch for a security problem is released and you want to fix it before your repositories have the fix, which is impossible with binary distributions unless you want to compile your own stuff and have it not managed by your package management, which always comes to bite you in the ass anyway. When I find myself on a binary distro, I find myself compiling half of the stuff I need from source anyway, manually. It drives me bonkers to not have it supported by my package management system. If you're doing development it just makes sense. For 'normal' desktop users it doesn't. I find the whole optimization stuff just as much bullshit as the next guy, since the benefit is minimal. But there are definitively countless other advantages.

Like I said before, if you're relatively new to GNU/Linux, or if you're not very proficient in it, and you don't have the time to spend to learn a new system, then just stick to what you're using, instead of trying it for 2 days and then coming back to complain in forums. It requires you to edit config files. Deal with it. That's just way it's built. Just like windows makes you use GUI's. You don't see me bitching in forums about windows making me use a GUI, and I HATE GUI'S for configuring stuff  :D So, I just don't use windows. As simple as that.

Stoic Joker:
...Have you read the topic for this thread?

You're complaining about people who are trying Linux ... In a thread that's about "Why You Should Try Linux".

 :o

So... Back to the trials... :)

I selected Slackware because I'd had fun with it (v9) a few years back and thought I'd give it another go. The objective being that if I started with the one that had the worst reputation for being a pain in the ass ... Then the rest should be easy.

It's not per-se' that I have a issue with the rather scattered manner in which the OS is configured ... It's the complete lack of anything even vaguely resembling concise documentation that I'm finding annoying. e.g. Slackware.com (now at v12) has approx have a useful "manual" posted for v9 which is a bit of a g-a-p. I'm guessing the folks there were too busy making hugh improvements to be bothered with writting anything down to share with the rest of the class.

The install instructions (on their site) for creating partitions which must be done manually before running the install ramble on for two or three pages, and yet somehow still  manage to not contain enough information to create a partition!

Even when installing on a bare drive, LILO (the mandatory boot loader) is listed as "Optional" by the installer.

While I've actually managed to get the damn thing on the internet, and get the Samba config widget to give the shares a clean bill of health ... the machine can't even browse itself. It actually managed to force me to appreciate the fact that I've earned an error message; Oh goody I finally fiddled with it enough to get it to share a crumb of information about wtf is wrong!

etc. etc. etc.

*Sigh*

However I refuse to be defeated, so I will continue the fight.

CodeTRUCKER:
Face it, Folks... Bill trained us all real good!  If Henry Bergunstmmer had invented "Strom" and managed to outdo Bill on the marketing thing we'd all be arguing why "Strom" was so good! 

For me, when the MS corporate types decided to make a unilateral decision which impacted millions of developers and billions of users I said, "That's it!"  I have been going through a series of painful surgeries to have Microsoft removed from my inner ganglia.  Don't get me wrong, I like the software and the IDEs associated with MS, but the direction Bill and the Gang are going doesn't make me sleep real well at night.  So, I'm on a quest to go totally...

Cross-Platform/Open Source.

Just imagine where C-P/OS would be today if we had invested billions in those efforts?  Personally, when I find a good app that shows the developer(s) really used there noodles I don't just send a "couple 'o bucks," but rather an amount equal to what I would have spent on "commercial" offerings.  That reminds me, I forgot to send some money to a developer.  Glad you reminded me!  :P

f0dder:
Don't get me wrong, I like the software and the IDEs associated with MS, but the direction Bill and the Gang are going doesn't make me sleep real well at night.-CodeTRUCKER
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I feel that way as well, but I don't see any alternatives, when keeping stability, documentation, ease-of-use and performance in mind. Linux (kernel as well as distros) have a lot of good things going, and a bunch of stuff I miss in Windows, but there's too much half-baked crap and incoherency for me to use it as a desktop replacement.

Gothi[c]:
You're complaining about people who are trying Linux ... In a thread that's about "Why You Should Try Linux".

--- End quote ---
I wasn't complaining about people trying GNU/Linux. I was complaining about people who don't have the time to spend to learn a new way of doing things, and instead of just saying they are just used to the OS they have been using and don't have the time to learn something new, they immediately dismiss the alternative as 'crap' because they aren't used to it.
___

I find it very exciting to have more cross platform applications out there these days, and that as a result of that, there will be more co-operation and compatibility between all the OS flavors.

There are some very great cross-platform development toolkits out there, making it easier for developers to make and maintain their cross-platform applications.

Especially in the commercial software market, there has always been this humongous fear that making and maintaining a cross platform application is a tremendous task requiring much more money and development time.

This is no longer the case in my opinion. Some of my C++ applications compiled instantly without modification on GNU/Linux, Windows, BSD, and Solaris. Many toolkits such as qt, gtk, wxWidgets, etc, are making this so much less painful, and I really do believe we will be seeing more cross platform stuff out there, not just in the Free/Open Source arena.

It sounds exciting to me, to be able to run your OS of choice, keep your way of doing things, and be able to run any application on it. Users of different Operating Systems can share plug-ins, software experiences on forums like this one, etc,... It will definitively help tear down some of the barriers that exist now between the users of different operating systems.

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