Are other operating systems ever going to catch up with Linux?

[mintydroid]

For me stuff in the cloud will be very inconvenient and expensive. Plus if Zuma, Putin or whoever decides he wants backdoors into the cloud then my info is exposed.

/Windows 8 and Ubuntu are about the same in terms of gui. I'm loving Mint though. Lightweight and working like a dream.

 

[MacLindroid]

iOS+devices != Mac OS. You can't fairly compare how well the iPhone's power button or iOS networking compare to linux.

We bought Apple and paid the premium, less than 2 years ago, just to find that iWorks was NOT included. We bought into Apple to make use of the local sync which we regard as essential. We did this to steer clear of Google as Google and security are alien to another. Then Apple took that away. Next updates and wireless networking was a 'known issue' that just did not get resolved various updates and many months later. Meanwhile, while forced through iCloud, even that mucked up first contacts, next was calendars and finally the precious data on Notes.

With Google, the Apples worked well, except with Apples own @#$%%$#@ software. Google? Yes, we had to use Google to make the daft Apples work right and we were not alone, go research this and you'll see.

Ever since I reverted to Linux, I never have to verbalise in F major again.

Finally, Mac viruses are rather rare but, as we have seen, it hits extremely badly when it does. Apple was good until Steve Jobs died.

Defending Apple shows your bias and misplaced brand loyalty. Even Windows worked bette than Appler, much better and at least I did not ditch Windows for being bad, just that Linux offered me more.

 

[GreGorGy]

Ever since I reverted to Linux, I never have to verbalise in F major again.

Finally, Mac viruses are rather rare but, as we have seen, it hits extremely badly when it does. Apple was good until Steve Jobs died.

Defending Apple shows your bias and misplaced brand loyalty. Even Windows worked bette than Appler, much better and at least I did not ditch Windows for being bad, just that Linux offered me more.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I like that phrase - verbalise in F Major.

Given the rarity of these mac viruses, I am shocked that one computer managed to get 40 - probably a total of all known infections. As for the crippling infection that caused a reinstall, I am curious to know which it is - lemme go google hunting.

Lastly, I am not defending Apple - not by a long shot. I am disgusted by some of the developer practises and the pricing and many stupid design flaws (two USBs, right next to each, for several models).

 

[Bar0n]

I could not find the report, which came from the world's top 5 security experts a while ago. What they said was that the underlying technology/algorithms were handed to NSA/CIA, almost a year ago, giving them the tools to decrypt with fair ease. I lack the vocabulory to explain but perhaps you understand that it is the key to RSA/AES encryption that was handed over. In layman terms.

Hmm, that's not quite how RSA works, AFAIK. RSA works on a public/private key pair. It's asymmetric, so even though you broadcast your public key to the world, only your unique private key can decrypt the message.

It should all be quite similar to the Diffie-Hellman principle. Due to the fact that you apply mod p to the secret key, the information is condensed to such an extent that it would be nearly impossible to work back towards the original secret key, since technically an infinite number of numbers will produce the same k mod p value, and picking the "right" one is nearly impossible.

In a nutshell, it is very, very difficult to work out the combination of keys. It's not a simple backwards calculation, due to the fact that the modulo operator condenses the information to a point where it cannot be recovered. That's like me asking you to give me all the bytes of the latest Ubuntu ISO because I have its hash value.

 

[MacLindroid]

Thanks for sharing your experience. I like that phrase - verbalise in F Major.

Given the rarity of these mac viruses, I am shocked that one computer managed to get 40 - probably a total of all known infections. As for the crippling infection that caused a reinstall, I am curious to know which it is - lemme go google hunting.

Lastly, I am not defending Apple - not by a long shot. I am disgusted by some of the developer practises and the pricing and many stupid design flaws (two USBs, right next to each, for several models).

Those two USB ports also tend to be fed less electricity than required, effectively crippling some devices. It does it even when all power saving get switched off, but it is random and not constant. If there is a design that I simply love, it is that aluminum chassis with its lovely keyboard.

As for the 40 infections, it were all the same but infected different apps/places/files on the Mac. I was really shocked, cannot recall the name but vaguely remember that I found little about it on the Internet.

 

[MacLindroid]

Hmm, that's not quite how RSA works, AFAIK. RSA works on a public/private key pair. It's asymmetric, so even though you broadcast your public key to the world, only your unique private key can decrypt the message.

It should all be quite similar to the Diffie-Hellman principle. Due to the fact that you apply mod p to the secret key, the information is condensed to such an extent that it would be nearly impossible to work back towards the original secret key, since technically an infinite number of numbers will produce the same k mod p value, and picking the "right" one is nearly impossible.

In a nutshell, it is very, very difficult to work out the combination of keys. It's not a simple backwards calculation, due to the fact that the modulo operator condenses the information to a point where it cannot be recovered. That's like me asking you to give me all the bytes of the latest Ubuntu ISO because I have its hash value.

Yes, I know how that works, but what the security scribe said was that the part given to NSA held the "DNA" of the entire thing, allowing the encryption to be reversed. It can be done because the underlying technology has a number of fields (whatever) that are all the same for both public & private keys. It somehow makes it easier to be 'reversed'. Yes, it already has been done as the hack was reported at the time. The GSM encryption has also been broken, not by guessing passcode but using the design of the encryption.

I encrypt my data but I choose not to trust any system 100%.

Microsoft is suspected of snooping upon its users, something that won't surprise me. Do they silently feed data from user machine to their servers? It is also happening with some Chinese phones and computers.

Linux, being open source, has the benefit of thousands of enthusiasts checking ever line of source code. Also, nothing can be executed unless marked as executable, on my system at least. Even to get there requires root access depending upon a password.

 

[MacLindroid]

For me stuff in the cloud will be very inconvenient and expensive. Plus if Zuma, Putin or whoever decides he wants backdoors into the cloud then my info is exposed.

/Windows 8 and Ubuntu are about the same in terms of gui. I'm loving Mint though. Lightweight and working like a dream.

That Ubuntu Unity desktop is horrid. Some love it but I don't. Mint: I am switching between desktops to get a better feel of them, but I have already ditched Cinnamon as MATE and Xfce are more stable and speedy.

 

[OGroteKoning]

Linux runs on supercomputers because it's ideal for that particular environment. A supercomputer is inherently specialised, and will therefore benefit from an OS where programmers can go wild.

I have tried Linux (Ubuntu and Mint) and I switched back to Windows quickly on both occasions.

This is why most people would hate Linux:
- Thunderbird and Open Office/Libre Office don't hold a candle to Microsoft Office
- Gimp is in no way a substitute for Photoshop
- Having to troubleshoot problems with the terminal is a nightmare for a layman
- Gaming is very restricted
- Many popular services don't have desktop apps for Linux
- Linux will bring tears of frustration, and most people don't like crying

Probably the best post IMO to explain why the Linux will not be the preferred operating system in the near future. People want to go out, buy a laptop/PC and work/play.

I come from the days of CP/M and MS-DOS, so the terminal does not intimidate me.

Up to MS Office 2003, Microsoft had the edge. My own MSO 2007 was not without its hiccups, either. MSO changed its interface too many times and MS Outlook and data corruption are synonymous. Thunderbird, if you know how to configure it the way I do, is by far superior but you don't need Linux for that.
Gaming is something we don't use in buisness, but there is Steam for those wanting to.
Linux brings skills and expertise, taking its user from the dummy realm into the real world of computing. It isn't meant for those who cannot apply their minds but who then prefer to use defraggers and malware scanners (that are no more than 80% useful) and rather risk security than acquire skills.

People want to go out, buy a laptop/PC and work/play. Forget for a moment the benefits of Linux as far as security is concerned and look at the practical side. Whether it be business or private use, who wants to fiddle with an operating system to configure it the way they NEED it to perform. Check the bold parts - who has time for this in our day and age. The step in the right direction by MS was the proverbial plug-n-play. Yes it came with it's hick-ups, but these days most of the earlier plug-n-play issues are ironed out. For most, computing and OS is just a support service to their real job. You can not expect the normal working class people to go out and study coding or a plethora of commands so they can optimize their workstation - they have work to do. you argument could well be that IT must resolve the optimizations and the backend facilitating to enable the end user to work seamlessly. I have to laugh at this prospect since a plethora of IT professionals these days knows less than I do (and I know didly squat), so from a commercial point of view, I doubt any serious business would like to invest this heavily into an operating system if it is not their core business - afterall, the core business is the one that brings in the cash.

As a last note, I could really not bothered either way - I have work to do in another field than programming/computing or anything computer related and I personally have no time to get stuck into studying a new operating system with all the tips and tricks in order to "not be intimidated by a terminal" or "real world computing" or whatever. This brings me to the conclusion that you wrote the OP, not for the normal end user, but for those who are actually in the actual programming/computing/etc fields.

I will admit that IF the normal business' IT is up to the task to let the core business user just get stuck in and do it's work, then you might have a point, but I have not seen this in any of the positions I have held in various companies over the years and therefor Linux remains out of reach for the end user for the foreseeable future.

 

[Lino]

What is the alternative to MS Office in a large corporate or wanting to rent specific services such as AD etc from Azure?

Still awaiting a response to this question from original poster.

 

[bwana]

Regardless of the million and a quarter other logical reasons to be using Linux only, it comes bundled with what everyone needs and then some, add to that the extensive applications repositories.

If only that were even remotely true.

 

[furpile]

My home PC is used mainly for gaming, and until all the major game developers start coding for Win, Mac and Linux, I'll stick with Windows. Not because it's the best, or I specifically like it, but because it works with games. The problem with Linus is there are a million guys doing their own "flavour", so which one are the game dev's supposed to code for? Sure, many distro's are probably similar, but similar enough to run the same software without problems?

 

[noxibox]

but my sun had 40 malware infections on his Mac recently. 39 were removed by Bitdefender but the 40th called for a complete format and re-install. If Apple was more dependable and predictable, that would have been my first choice.

That can only point to a pebkac situation. Including not having a backup, something that is trivial on OS X.

Paying that premium for stuff that does NOT work even remotely as well as Linux does, is plain stupid. My yeaar with Apple is the only one that I came to hate anything with such a fierce passion. Expexting it to be perfect would be daft, but an expectation of performance according to price is fair. Apple fell far short.

Mac users buy MS Office, so what's the point with Mac? Both Windows and Mac have become expensive platforms for running FOSS applications.

Well if you think MS Office existing on both makes them the same, then it would be impossible to even begin explaining the point. As for free open source software I don't include that as a criterion when deciding what operating system to use. There's good free software and atrocious free software.

Regardless of the million and a quarter other logical reasons to be using Linux only, it comes bundled with what everyone needs and then some

You really must tell me where you found this Linux distribution, because I've never seen or heard of one that meets this standard.

It asks little and delivers much, as it can run on older hardware with aplomb.

So can various versions of OS X and Windows.

Like Dvorak, one can ask the question: did they overstay their welcome? Does it still make sense to buy expensive proprietary software and systems that seemingly fail after every next update?

Every single Linux release is riddled with bugs. I don't say that to besmirch Linux, because it is a fact for any complex piece of software, but because you pretend Linux is the exception.

From my perspective, Linux did not come to the party too late. Perhaps it is just above the mental reach of the majority out there, as the only logical, sensible operating system today is Linux.

Linux would be ready for the majority if there really existed one product called Linux. Instead what is called Linux is made up of a range of distributions that are all different enough to be a problem.

 

[noob_saibot]

Still awaiting a response to this question from original poster.

Are you genuinely looking for an alternative? (I thought you were being cynical...)

 

[Biggie]

My home PC is used mainly for gaming, and until all the major game developers start coding for Win, Mac and Linux, I'll stick with Windows. Not because it's the best, or I specifically like it, but because it works with games. The problem with Linus is there are a million guys doing their own "flavour", so which one are the game dev's supposed to code for? Sure, many distro's are probably similar, but similar enough to run the same software without problems?

And when a problem pops up with one distro, some guy fix the problem by starting a new distro.

I'm typing this on a Linux Lite 2 machine. Nice and stable but i formatted an extra hdd on it now the bastard keeps looking for those partitions on startup. How do i stop it from auto mounting those non-existant partitions on startup?

 

[GreGorGy]

And when a problem pops up with one distro, some guy fix the problem by starting a new distro.

I'm typing this on a Linux Lite 2 machine. Nice and stable but i formatted an extra hdd on it now the bastard keeps looking for those partitions on startup. How do i stop it from auto mounting those non-existant partitions on startup?

fstab?

 

[GreGorGy]

Are you genuinely looking for an alternative? (I thought you were being cynical...)

If he is (we know he isn't) I'd say Zorin. v9 really is looking good. Tosses out all that unity crap and just looks fantastic. You can't go wrong with Mint either but somehow this Zorin - I dunno, I like the look.

Dammit - I'm an eye-candy whore!

 

[Biggie]

fstab?

I'm a 1 month Linux noob, you'll have to dumb that down.

 

[GreGorGy]

I'm a 1 month Linux noob, you'll have to dumb that down.

Open your terminal (Ctrl-Shift-T on my distros) and type

cat etc/fstab

and you'll find your offender in there. If you need further help with, may I request that you start a thread with that result as I doubt the OP wanted this topic to turn into a hints thread.

 

[Biggie]

Open your terminal (Ctrl-Shift-T on my distros) and type

cat etc/fstab

and you'll find your offender in there. If you need further help with, may I request that you start a thread with that result as I doubt the OP wanted this topic to turn into a hints thread.

That didn't work but it did gave me something to google for and i solved it. Thanks.

To the OP:Apologies for the hijacking.

 

[ZCFOutkast]

As an old Windows user, I have always been using OpenOffice, Firefox, Thunderbird and other portable applications on a flash drive.

With Windows moving towards an online-only solution in future, on a monthly or annual subscriptions base, I find that hanging on to Windows lost its appeal. Mac users buy MS Office, so what's the point with Mac? Both Windows and Mac have become expensive platforms for running FOSS applications.

Regardless of the million and a quarter other logical reasons to be using Linux only, it comes bundled with what everyone needs and then some, add to that the extensive applications repositories.

By design, not by market share, it is practically immune to malware as well. It asks little and delivers much, as it can run on older hardware with aplomb.

One really needs to ask whether the other OS's are still relevant for the right reasons, or are they like Hotel California where you can check out but never leave? Dear old John Dvorak wrote a piece recently, asking if Linux came too late. After having read all his arguments, I can say that we need to realise that there is a naked king, with tailors sewing with imaginary thread, to try and piece together a worn robe called Proprietary.

Like Dvorak, one can ask the question: did they overstay their welcome? Does it still make sense to buy expensive proprietary software and systems that seemingly fail after every next update?

Linux rose to maturity, from an ugly duckling to a graceful swan, the leader of the flock. Linux ballets on the world's supercomputers, it runs on millions of servers, it powers millions of networked or stand-alone desktop units. Linux is a liberation of the mind, unshackling the user experience from bondage to freedom.

From my perspective, Linux did not come to the party too late. Perhaps it is just above the mental reach of the majority out there, as the only logical, sensible operating system today is Linux. I also want it on my tablet and my phone, as my TV, VCR, PVR, microwave and even the car's "black box" runs it in various formats.

Refresh your cyber mind with a breathe of cool Mint!

This is an excellent post and I agree with it entirely. But as you alluded to it in parts the system is designed to keep everyone paying. Which in itself should'v ebeen a hint that this is technically the wrong place to argue for Linux and the Open Source ecosystem.

A lot of guys here might swear by linux&oss, but their bread and butter comes from proprietary solutions built for Windows. Some have just graduated using developer tools which have nailed them to the proprietary software mast. No doubt governments&coperations are using oss comfortably for demands datasizes more complex&much bigger than some handle by proprietary solutions.

It's pointless to GIMP/Thunderbird/LibreOffice can't hold a candle to MSOffice&Photoshop etc, because the majority of people don't need the extra features. As for gaming companies, mobility is the future - smartphones, tablets, hybrids etc - and iOS/Android dominates there. They're forced to make their games compatible, same can happen if Ubuntu Touch/Mobile gets even just 1% market share over the next 10 years.

This government should have made the use of Open Source compulsory in all government departments&municipalities - local, provincial and national. Further to that they should've made teaching LibreOffice, Email on Thunderbird compulsory in all primary, secondary schools&colleges as well as strictly open source development tools only in varsity. That would've shook things up overnight. That's all it takes. It can still happen. I would do it.