Linux

[Skuzzy]

As a general statement, related to the specific knowledge of users, I agree with you.

I'll add, out of the box, Linux is just as big of a security hole as Windows is.  If you are logging in as "root" all the time, you have already made the first huge error in running a *NIX system and have not configured your system security properly.

Even though Apple's OS is built on top of FreeBSD, I do not consider it a *NIX system as they have completely convoluted it.

I will also add, generally speaking, it is easier to secure a *NIX system than it is a Windows system, but make no mistake about it, they both need work out of the box.

[TDeacon]

A number of posters have indicated above that they found Linux more difficult to use than Windows.  FWIW, my experience has been the opposite (I am comparing Linux Mint 17 to the older Windows XP, and have no experience yet installing / maintaining Windows 7 or 10). 

My Linux Mint installations have always worked perfectly from the initial installation, which was easier than any equivalent Windows installation.  (This is so, to the point that if I were to recommend an OS for a computer illiterate parent, requiring mostly browsing, office suite, and email capability, I would recommend Linux Mint hands down).  I have always been able to run an emergency version of the  Linux Mint OS from the install CD (contrary to the situation with Windows XP, where such emergency OS CDs never worked).  A reinstall is trivial, compared to Windows XP.  The basic OS capability is at least as good as Windows, and comes with an easy-to-use “Update Manager”, which has given me less trouble than the Windows equivalents over the years.  I also get the Firefox browser, the office suite Libreoffice, the IDE Eclipse, etc., all of which like Linux are free, first-class, products, and all of which are easily updated along with the OS (except for the free Eclipse, which requires more screwing around sometimes).  The only minor complexity in all this was that I initially had to download an ISO file and burn it to a CD, to get a bootable Mint install CD.  Not a big deal. 

Now I admit that the main advantage of Windows is the huge program base, including such as MS Visual Studio, Adobe Photoshop, Aces High, most other popular games, etc.   However, this is a problem with the marketplace, and not the OS, and is a situation similar to that pertaining to my Amiga computers in late 1980.  They too were technically superior, but eventually died out because of Microsoft / IBM's more successful marketing. 

I am faithfully awaiting the completion of the MMO space game Star Citizen (2-3 more years??), and they have promised both a Linux and Mac follow-on version.  Hopefully they will deliver on this. 

Mark H.  (not, in any sense of the term, a computer guru). 

[pembquist]

Heya TDeacon, I just wanted to clarify my sentiments about Linux vs Windows. The last time I installed Ubuntu it was for my moms hardrive crashed vista box. The install was effortless and fast, as you say the "productivity" software comes practically installed, excellent. The only hitch so far is the printer which has a buggy problem which maybe maybe not could be fixed with 6 hours of online reading. In the back of my mind is the whole security thing which I just cover my ears and go "Lalalalalalala" about as I do not want to learn how to address and its my mom's computer so how bad could it get? (I know, I know.) My point is really that just as excellent coders don't usually make good interface designers (except maybe for other coders) people thoroughly versed in all aspects of linux and its distros are probably terrible at evaluating how easy it is to use for naifs, and that if you run into a problem with something it is no less frustrating to deal with than windows or mac. When everything works it's all tea and cupcakes no matter what the computer flavor is.

[100Coogn]

Heya TDeacon, I just wanted to clarify my sentiments about Linux vs Windows. The last time I installed Ubuntu it was for my moms hardrive crashed vista box. The install was effortless and fast, as you say the "productivity" software comes practically installed, excellent. The only hitch so far is the printer which has a buggy problem which maybe maybe not could be fixed with 6 hours of online reading. In the back of my mind is the whole security thing which I just cover my ears and go "Lalalalalalala" about as I do not want to learn how to address and its my mom's computer so how bad could it get? (I know, I know.) My point is really that just as excellent coders don't usually make good interface designers (except maybe for other coders) people thoroughly versed in all aspects of linux and its distros are probably terrible at evaluating how easy it is to use for naifs, and that if you run into a problem with something it is no less frustrating to deal with than windows or mac. When everything works it's all tea and cupcakes no matter what the computer flavor is.

Most people don't use their parents computers as test rigs.   

Coogan

[artik]

As software developer I find windows as most horrible platform to develop for... Horrible API, poor designs lack of any useful libraries out of the box (unless you doing c#) and so on.

Yes Linux can be hard (and windows works until does not)  sometimes but in general modern distribution does everything out of the box.

Regarding the numbers of Linux desktop users

I think the comparison is wrong, development cross platform is not much harder than for single ones.

The major effort would be not porting AHIII to Linux but rather making it cross platform and getting both Linux Mac and Windows.

The question is if hitechcreations have enough resources and knowledge/experience to invest into 8% of the market Mac OS X and Linux? And finally would it bring enough revenue in comparison to investment especially since it can hurt the main stream feature development ?

Just for the record I'm 100% pro having cross platform version of AH  but I'm not sure it is in in best interests of hitechreations

[Bizman]

TDeacon, like you I like Mint for an easy to install and use Linux distro. And as you said, the live CD or USB stick mostly works. Then again, my XP emergency CD's have also worked without issues until they became obsolete by the new Windows versions. 

However, my Mint installations haven't always worked. Agreed, I've been trying to extend the life span of a decade old systems but the issues I've encountered could as well realize in more modern computers. I'm talking about incompatibility. The problematic components I know of are Broadcom WiFi cards and SiS video circuits on laptops. A WiFi card should be easy to replace to another brand and I have a bunch of them. However, certain HP laptops have a whitelist for allowed components and there's no hacked bios for each model...

Another issue with Mint has recently popped up: Flash. One of my customers is a lady past her 80th birthday and I refreshed her XP desktop by installing Mint. All was well until a few weeks ago when she couldn't watch the programs on our National Broadcasting Service site. They still use Flashplayer because "copyright security is not secure enough" using html5 as they said five years ago. They're moving towards it, but Adobe was faster. I couldn't get Flash working, or Gnash or any other equivalent I could easily find. The video is jerky although the sound runs fluently. Watching a detective show at 10 FPS is not a pleasant experience... Anyone know how to fix it?

[715]

My main OS is Ubuntu.  It installed flawlessly and I can't recall it ever crashing.  The office software that comes with it works fine for my uses, although it occasionally gets a screen rendering glitch that will go away if you scroll.  The OS is constantly updating itself to keep current; I'll be reading a tech forum about some Linux vulnerability and invariably Ubuntu is already downloading the fix before I finish the article.  It's updating something practically every day.  So for browsing, email, audio or video playback, and office tasks it has been bullet proof so far. 

However, not everything is smooth sailing.  If you run into a problem there are online help forums but if you read 10 posts you'll get 13 solutions, almost all of which involve arcane command line gobble-dee-gook.  Example: I bought the Linux version of AC3D.  I also have the Windows version installed on XP (why I have to pay twice for the same program, I don't know) and installation there was painless.  Installation under Ubuntu was not painless.  It didn't do anything, just crashed with a spectacularly unhelpful error message: it said there was no such file when the file was plainly there.  What it was actually saying was there wasn't the library files it needed.  Online help gave all sorts of suggestions; what I finally had to do was use the Software Manager to download and install a bunch of arcane 32 bit libraries since 64 bit Ubuntu doesn't ship with them and AC3D requires 32 bit libraries.   OK, fine.  Now how do I get the program to, you know, actually run?  Gotta start it from the command line.  OK, type the name: nothing.  You have to type ./programname.  Why?  Apparently, "Why Not".  I took me forever to figure out how to get an icon I can launch from the desktop and I still haven't figured out how to add it's icon to the Launcher column (or more accurately if I try it just leaves an icon for the Terminal command line which opens a blank Terminal if I click it).

Other limitations I've run across: I've yet to find well reviewed video editing software and I sorely miss my Visual Basic IDE and graphical programming language.  There is no way I'm gonna learn C.  There is one commercial Basic IDE available, but I also have that installed in XP and didn't really like it; also it's Ubuntu version was lacking some features of the Windows version last time I checked.  Then, of course, there's the most important drawback: I can't run Aces High so I had to install Win 7 on a separate hard drive just for AH3 (AH3 does run successfully under XP but there are graphical artifacts due to memory address limitations and the performance under Win 7 is a bit better).

[Skuzzy]

The ./ requirement came from a very long time ago in the UNIX world.  If I recall, it was around the early 80's when it became required.

The reason?  Before the requirement, if you simply typed "bob" it would execute the program if it found it in the search path.  Now this is all well and good, but it also allowed a huge security hole.  If a hacker placed another file named "bob" in the home folder of the user, that file would get executed before the one found in the search path.

Requiring the "./" meant hackers could no longer circumvent the search path for standard utilities they would try and override with a bogus copy in the local folder.

There was a long and heated discussion whether or not the "." should be allowed at all in the search path, of via the command line.

[715]

The ./ requirement came from a very long time ago in the UNIX world.  <snip>

Ah.. I see.  Thanks.