Desktop Linux finally ready to replace Microsoft Windows?

[thekillingwax]

I have ubuntu on one of my laptops. Here's my ubuntu experience- boot up, sign in. Type in password to access keyring. Verify network password. Update manager tells me there's another 160 megs of updates this week. While all that's downloading, I play a few games that are more or less windows 3.1 level stuff. It's honestly okay for surfing the internet, doing minor office work and that kind of thing but I view it more as a toy. I put it on my wife's netbook and it runs really nicely on it. I got tired of my dad clicking dumb porn links and getting malware so I put it on his laptop and he's okay with it. People whine and moan about Windows' updates but I honestly have never booted up ubuntu where there's not at least 100mb of updates needed. On a fresh windows install there are a lot of updates, especially if there's a service pack or something but I have honestly never had a real problem with windows. 95 was a bit of a mess but especially with XP, Vista and 7, I have never had any kind of stability issues and the only problems I have are the ones I create by trying to write game trainers and things like that. Come to think of it, I don't think I had any BSOD's with 7 or Vista.

[manasia]

I have ubuntu on one of my laptops. Here's my ubuntu experience- boot up, sign in. Type in password to access keyring. Verify network password. Update manager tells me there's another 160 megs of updates this week. While all that's downloading, I play a few games that are more or less windows 3.1 level stuff. It's honestly okay for surfing the internet, doing minor office work and that kind of thing but I view it more as a toy. I put it on my wife's netbook and it runs really nicely on it. I got tired of my dad clicking dumb porn links and getting malware so I put it on his laptop and he's okay with it. People whine and moan about Windows' updates but I honestly have never booted up ubuntu where there's not at least 100mb of updates needed. On a fresh windows install there are a lot of updates, especially if there's a service pack or something but I have honestly never had a real problem with windows. 95 was a bit of a mess but especially with XP, Vista and 7, I have never had any kind of stability issues and the only problems I have are the ones I create by trying to write game trainers and things like that. Come to think of it, I don't think I had any BSOD's with 7 or Vista.

Those updates are the reasons why I prefer CENTOS Or RedHat, take a look at one of our production servers. This server was setup by the old Linux admin, who really was not too much of an admin at all. When in production, one should never use Ubuntu Linux in my opinion:


Ubuntu 10.04.2 LTS

Welcome to the Ubuntu Server!
* Documentation:  http://www.ubuntu.com/server/doc

System information disabled due to load higher than 1

94 packages can be updated.
68 updates are security updates.

The sad part about this, is that this is a DNS server. DNS servers, should never have this many security updates.

[ChriswUfGator]

Jimmy, Linux runs actual mission critical servers. OSX is the toy.

I think he's just talking about macs, not necessarily OSX specifically. I'm a longtime mac user, and for awhile now you've been able to run however many different OS's you feel like running. At one point I had Ubuntu, OSX, and Windows 7 Ultimate on my MBP simultaneously, you just push the option key after you hit the power button and choose what OS to run, and they all run natively it's not an emulator or anything. You just make a separate drive partition for each (never any conflicts, the other OSes don't see the other partitions) and assuming you have the drive space to do it, you could run any OS, or however many, that you wanted.

Unfortunately, when I put an SSD in it I lost some storage space so I eliminated the Ubuntu install, but it was well worth it for the speed increase. It's ridonkulous, bootup is 10 seconds, shut down is 1-2 seconds, Adobe CS programs open in a single bounce after a restart (e.g., not cached in RAM). Whoever doesn't have an SSD yet, get one NOW. They're still pretty small, so you'll probably need an external drive for big files, but it's so worth it.

Anyway, this process with multiple OSs is clean and easy on macs, and they've been doing this for what? 5 years now? PCs only lately caught up with this, especially on laptops where most don't have multiple drive bays and Windows was a b!tch about letting you format several different file systems onto the same drive, which macs have done in 2 seconds for years. I think his point is that with macs you are paying for R&D. I have a 4 almost 5 year old MBP from late 2006 that still has good specs compared to most of the newer PC laptops, and runs any current program without much stress.

Back in 2006 Apple was already using multicore processeors and 64 bit architecture, and the ca. 2005-2006 MacPros already had the ability to run multiple graphics cards back then, before Xfire was a wet dream in PC designers' minds. PCs of that era were mostly 32 bit, single core, maxxed out at 1-2 gigs of ram, many of them still used crappy IDE interfaces instead of SATA, etc. In 2011 going into 2012 now, those machines can't run anything you need them to, unless you just like playing solitaire.

So I would say he is right on that, you do get what you pay for if you go in for a high-end mac, they are generally far enough ahead of the curve that they have a longer lifespan than PCs. No need to replace it when it's still working perfectly and still has modern specs. I have never had a PC I didn't have to replace in 4 years because it became hopelessly obsolete (who can get by with a motherboard limited to 1Gig of RAM?) or because it broke and wasn't worth fixing.

And FWIW, everybody knows this, check out Craigslist or eBay, 5-6 year old MBPs and MacPros are still $500-$800 in good condition, and they go for $200-$300 DOA just for parts value. I can't remember the last time I saw 6 year old PC that someone would pay more than $50 for, because everybody knows by that age they can't run anything. And if you do put together a PC that will avoid becoming obsolete for that long, you'd be in the same price range anyway. It's not about the headline numbers everybody looks at when they're picking a computer in BestBuy. Maybe 1% of people ask about the max RAM the motherboard can recognize, what speed the FSB runs at, how big the power supply is for when you want to change graphics cards, etc. The upper-end macs take care of you on that stuff, even though most people really don't know the difference anyway. It translates to being able to use the machine for much longer than a comparable PC.

[Dog Walker]

Anybody know how to put a SSD on an old laptop configured for ATA drive?  The only ones I can find are SATA only.  Chris is right about the performance boost and forgot to mention that it will double you battery life.

[ChriswUfGator]

Anybody know how to put a SSD on an old laptop configured for ATA drive?  The only ones I can find are SATA only.  Chris is right about the performance boost and forgot to mention that it will double you battery life.

You need to look for a 2.5" SATA to IDE adapter, they do make them, they should be on Amazon or eBay relatively inexpensively. Like this;

http://www.amazon.com/SATA-Drive-Adapter-Laptop-Drives/dp/tech-data/B004ETGOCG

Just make sure you look in the hard drive bay on your laptop and see how much room is in there. Some of these things don't leave enough room to accomodate even the extra millimeter an adapter takes up at the head of the drive, while others have plenty of extra room and it doesn't matter. It just depends on the machine. It will probably work fine, though. Also, depending on the age of your machine, if it doesn't recognize the drive on startup then you may need to update the bios and load SATA drivers, or change it from IDE to SATA mode if it is new enough to have that option. Also, with an SSD you should upgrade to Windows 7 if you haven't already, the older versions lack TRIM support.

[manasia]

Jimmy, Linux runs actual mission critical servers. OSX is the toy.

I think he's just talking about macs, not necessarily OSX specifically. I'm a longtime mac user, and for awhile now you've been able to run however many different OS's you feel like running. At one point I had Ubuntu, OSX, and Windows 7 Ultimate on my MBP simultaneously, you just push the option key after you hit the power button and choose what OS to run, and they all run natively it's not an emulator or anything. You just make a separate drive partition for each (never any conflicts, the other OSes don't see the other partitions) and assuming you have the drive space to do it, you could run any OS, or however many, that you wanted.

Unfortunately, when I put an SSD in it I lost some storage space so I eliminated the Ubuntu install, but it was well worth it for the speed increase. It's ridonkulous, bootup is 10 seconds, shut down is 1-2 seconds, Adobe CS programs open in a single bounce after a restart (e.g., not cached in RAM). Whoever doesn't have an SSD yet, get one NOW. They're still pretty small, so you'll probably need an external drive for big files, but it's so worth it.

Anyway, this process with multiple OSs is clean and easy on macs, and they've been doing this for what? 5 years now? PCs only lately caught up with this, especially on laptops where most don't have multiple drive bays and Windows was a b!tch about letting you format several different file systems onto the same drive, which macs have done in 2 seconds for years. I think his point is that with macs you are paying for R&D. I have a 4 almost 5 year old MBP from late 2006 that still has good specs compared to most of the newer PC laptops, and runs any current program without much stress.

Back in 2006 Apple was already using multicore processeors and 64 bit architecture, and the ca. 2005-2006 MacPros already had the ability to run multiple graphics cards back then, before Xfire was a wet dream in PC designers' minds. PCs of that era were mostly 32 bit, single core, maxxed out at 1-2 gigs of ram, many of them still used crappy IDE interfaces instead of SATA, etc. In 2011 going into 2012 now, those machines can't run anything you need them to, unless you just like playing solitaire.

So I would say he is right on that, you do get what you pay for if you go in for a high-end mac, they are generally far enough ahead of the curve that they have a longer lifespan than PCs. No need to replace it when it's still working perfectly and still has modern specs. I have never had a PC I didn't have to replace in 4 years because it became hopelessly obsolete (who can get by with a motherboard limited to 1Gig of RAM?) or because it broke and wasn't worth fixing.

And FWIW, everybody knows this, check out Craigslist or eBay, 5-6 year old MBPs and MacPros are still $500-$800 in good condition, and they go for $200-$300 DOA just for parts value. I can't remember the last time I saw 6 year old PC that someone would pay more than $50 for, because everybody knows by that age they can't run anything. And if you do put together a PC that will avoid becoming obsolete for that long, you'd be in the same price range anyway. It's not about the headline numbers everybody looks at when they're picking a computer in BestBuy. Maybe 1% of people ask about the max RAM the motherboard can recognize, what speed the FSB runs at, how big the power supply is for when you want to change graphics cards, etc. The upper-end macs take care of you on that stuff, even though most people really don't know the difference anyway. It translates to being able to use the machine for much longer than a comparable PC.

Chris I think he is talking about Servers. MAC OS X Server has very little market share, for servers in my opinion.

MAX OS X, is a very nice desktop, I enjoy using it when I am doing Video Editing.

[ChriswUfGator]

Jimmy, Linux runs actual mission critical servers. OSX is the toy.

I think he's just talking about macs, not necessarily OSX specifically. I'm a longtime mac user, and for awhile now you've been able to run however many different OS's you feel like running. At one point I had Ubuntu, OSX, and Windows 7 Ultimate on my MBP simultaneously, you just push the option key after you hit the power button and choose what OS to run, and they all run natively it's not an emulator or anything. You just make a separate drive partition for each (never any conflicts, the other OSes don't see the other partitions) and assuming you have the drive space to do it, you could run any OS, or however many, that you wanted.

Unfortunately, when I put an SSD in it I lost some storage space so I eliminated the Ubuntu install, but it was well worth it for the speed increase. It's ridonkulous, bootup is 10 seconds, shut down is 1-2 seconds, Adobe CS programs open in a single bounce after a restart (e.g., not cached in RAM). Whoever doesn't have an SSD yet, get one NOW. They're still pretty small, so you'll probably need an external drive for big files, but it's so worth it.

Anyway, this process with multiple OSs is clean and easy on macs, and they've been doing this for what? 5 years now? PCs only lately caught up with this, especially on laptops where most don't have multiple drive bays and Windows was a b!tch about letting you format several different file systems onto the same drive, which macs have done in 2 seconds for years. I think his point is that with macs you are paying for R&D. I have a 4 almost 5 year old MBP from late 2006 that still has good specs compared to most of the newer PC laptops, and runs any current program without much stress.

Back in 2006 Apple was already using multicore processeors and 64 bit architecture, and the ca. 2005-2006 MacPros already had the ability to run multiple graphics cards back then, before Xfire was a wet dream in PC designers' minds. PCs of that era were mostly 32 bit, single core, maxxed out at 1-2 gigs of ram, many of them still used crappy IDE interfaces instead of SATA, etc. In 2011 going into 2012 now, those machines can't run anything you need them to, unless you just like playing solitaire.

So I would say he is right on that, you do get what you pay for if you go in for a high-end mac, they are generally far enough ahead of the curve that they have a longer lifespan than PCs. No need to replace it when it's still working perfectly and still has modern specs. I have never had a PC I didn't have to replace in 4 years because it became hopelessly obsolete (who can get by with a motherboard limited to 1Gig of RAM?) or because it broke and wasn't worth fixing.

And FWIW, everybody knows this, check out Craigslist or eBay, 5-6 year old MBPs and MacPros are still $500-$800 in good condition, and they go for $200-$300 DOA just for parts value. I can't remember the last time I saw 6 year old PC that someone would pay more than $50 for, because everybody knows by that age they can't run anything. And if you do put together a PC that will avoid becoming obsolete for that long, you'd be in the same price range anyway. It's not about the headline numbers everybody looks at when they're picking a computer in BestBuy. Maybe 1% of people ask about the max RAM the motherboard can recognize, what speed the FSB runs at, how big the power supply is for when you want to change graphics cards, etc. The upper-end macs take care of you on that stuff, even though most people really don't know the difference anyway. It translates to being able to use the machine for much longer than a comparable PC.

Chris I think he is talking about Servers. MAC OS X Server has very little market share, for servers in my opinion.

MAX OS X, is a very nice desktop, I enjoy using it when I am doing Video Editing.

Oh, I misunderstood then. Gotcha. Yeah, nobody uses mac servers.

[Dog Walker]

And my old laptop doesn't have enough CPU horsepower to run Windows 7, even with an SSD.  Time to stop trying to put a V-8 engine in a riding lawnmower.  Be satisfied or quit being cheap and buy a new laptop.