VANITY: Is Linux Better Than Windows

[BenLurkin]

Requesting FReeper feedback. Thank you.

[Pollard]

Yes, once you find the version you like. Linux Mint is very stable as is straight up Ubuntu. Most any major version has what’s called a Live CD/USB version. It will run right off a USB thumb drive so you can try it out before you install it. Once you find one you like, it can install itself alongside windows, provided you have some hard drive space to spare. It’s not a bad idea to run Disk Defragmenter on windows first.

There’s tutorials all over the web for doing all this, video and articles with pics. Newer Win 10 machines can be tricky due to their hard drive management software in the BIOS. It’s not a windows thing but something that’s come about after win10 came out. When/if you search for tutorials, be sure to put “2020” in your search phrase to get articles/videos from this year.

[dayglored]

CodeToad's answer at #26 is the best-of-thread IMO.

> Linux Mint would by my recommendation for a home user.

90% or better of Windows Home users could switch to Linux Mint without barely a hiccup. The remaining 10% are wedded to Windows because their life depends on some Windows-only software. True, they could get VirtualBox or VMware Player and run their Windows in a VM, but why? Most like Windows as their primary system, and that's fine.

Macs are easy if you're used to them, but it's a different mindset than Windows or Linux.

Even though I use Windows constantly every day, I will never again use it as my "on-the-metal" host workstation operating system. I have to switch between Windows, Mac, and Linux interchangeably all day (and evening at home). Windows belongs in a VM. Linux works well in a VM, too, of course. Mac in a VM? Unless I'm a developer, no point.

My preferred host workstation operating system is.... Linux at work, Mac at home. Lots of VMs so everything is available everywhere.

To each their own. Ain't freedom of choice great?

[dayglored]

> Lower level of Windows 10 is Linux.

Windows' "lower level" is the Microsoft NT kernel. Nothing whatsoever to do with the Linux kernel.

What do you mean by your statement?

[Openurmind]

I am just guesstimating as they are doing in all those because they can’t actually pin down an exact number for sure as they admit. I did read four sites who made the same point, they are just estimating too.

But I am assuming with Apache becoming popular and the trend towards cloud servers along with all the big corporations and whole governments now moving to unix/linux system wide since that article was written.

[grey_whiskers]

Is a vacuum cleaner better than a toaster?

...but toasters are hot.

And vacuum cleaners suck.

[MulberryDraw]

I’m not sure. New Windows 10 has a Linux kernel but how does it fit in with the rest of Windows? When I look at the system in Windows, my Windows 10 computer is shown as Linux.

[daniel1212]

The answer to your question is determined by what your want to use it for.

I installed Linux Mint 19 on my old PC after I transferred the Windows Pro (retail) license over to a the new home built (by the grace of God) and it works fine as a media box for streaming Christian and conservative (mostly) video. And it would work fine for word processing also, and is faster than than Windows was on it (though with a four-core 4.2 Ghz AMD CPU and 16GB of ram and a SSD HD for the OS it should be. And its wireless connectivity is even better, though only certain USB wireless adapters will work with it.

However, for me(!) Linux simply does not and cannot provide the scope of functionality and easy customization that having Windows provides. And legally (referring to certain multimedia codecs) so.

For the same reason Firefox ESR (legacy) is far far far better for me than Firefox Quantum or Chrome, though I also use them (as portable installations) and Edge (even worse) and Basilisk and Waterfox, with hundreds of tabs open as I speak. Thanks be to God for such options. Yet Linux could run them simultaneously also (with some tweaking), but there are other aspects of functionality and easy customization that I want which Linux does not provide, unless perhaps I want to learn a lort of coding.

But again, thank God we have choices. May we only use them in ways that He approves.

[daniel1212]

we inherited a windows 10 laptop recently, and it’s no powerhouse- and is slow as molasses

Clone the OS over to a 240GB (at least) SSD HD. The single most significant improvement you can make aside from the CPU.

[daniel1212]

make a DVD .iso with linux on it- and give it a try without installing it-

That is rather obsolete. Its Live off a USB drive now.

[dayglored]

Windows 10 supports development for Linux environments by way of the Windows Subsystemfor Linux and related services, etc. But make no mistake: The Windows operating system that’s running the computer is based on the Windows NT kernel, developed by Microsoft in the early 1990’s and used in NT 3.5, NT4, Win2000, WinXP, WinVista, Win7, Win8.x, and all releases of Windows10 to date. Microsoft shows no signs of replacing their NT kernel with the Linux kernel.

Windows is not Linux.

That said, Microsoft recognizes that a lot of the real world — other than the desktop — runs on Linux, and virtually all the new software development (other than that intended for Windows-only platforms) is either done on Linux or with Linux in mind. So they are supporting Linux development under Windows. Smart move on their part, IMO.

But Windows is not Linux.

[Bob434]

yeah some peopel have trouble running it on boot up- whereas the DVD will usually always run without having to mess around with bios-

[Bob434]

Thanks, the linux runs good on it- i may just wipe out hte windows 10 altogether- and run just linux on it- I’m not impressed with the windows 10

[martin_fierro]

[daniel1212]

The remaining 10% are wedded to Windows because their life depends on some Windows-only software. True, they could get VirtualBox or VMware Player and run their Windows in a VM, but why?

Or we could run Linux that same way. But one of the many sound reasons I have for using Windows 10 (which actually is via a upgrade from XP years ago) is that I am basically in an office setting (with one PC running Mint mainly for basic streaming), and we use landlines for phone service since they all ring to one of the 4 phones here (which I am told cell/smart phones will not). And one piece of software (PhoneTray free 1.39) that really helps is one that notifies me of any incoming calls, with the name (editable) and number which is saved for a file. All of which is very hand and quite permanent.

This runs thru an old soft modem, while Windows simply automatically installed, and I think that this functionality would be hard to duplicate under Linux, even once the modem is configured.

However, I do think that Google Voice (free calls) also works under Linux, and which I also use sometimes in Windows (via Chrome portable), though I have not tried it on the Mint box.

[daniel1212]

Thanks, the linux runs good on it- i may just wipe out hte windows 10 altogether- and run just linux on it- I’m not impressed with the windows 10

Or aside from dual boot, you could just save the old Windows drive and install Mint on the SSD, or seeing it is a laptop, get an external enclosure and use one drive mainly for storage, yet run either as needed.

[Bob434]

i do have a small 120 gig laptop SSD actually that i could do that with— and it’s got linux on it already too- i use it in my main desktop sometimes, might switch it out for the laptop one- instead of reformattign the old HD in the laptop- good idea0-

[Bob434]

if you wanna run a talk program on linux- there is the online browser one (actually there’s an umber of them)

We use https://talky.io/ - works pretty good- doesn’t matter wat os you use it on, as long as you have firefox as browser- skype was getting too bloated with junk and would cut out a lot on us awhile back so i found the one above- not quite as many features- but works fine for communicating via video

[daniel1212]

if you wanna run a talk program on linux- there is the online browser one (actually there’s an umber of them)

Thanks, looks useful, however that is simply not a replacement for what I described, which enables you to dial a phone number and call a person, regardless of whether they have Internet access or not.

[dennisw]

Linux does not have certain applications I use all the time.
You can call windows 10 bloated but with today’s SSD, NVME, Optane drives Windows moves fast and boots up fast, as in 10-13 seconds.

I put a 256gb SSD in a 2014 Lenovo laptop, Windows 10, it moves fast now. Thus the old rap about Linux moving faster than Windows is no true anymore.

Its amazing how sleek and slim today’s Windows laptops are. Now that they deploy NVME drives, no more DVD players, no more detachable battery. The batteries are internal these days.

Desktops are sleeker too! A friend bought a new HP and it is half the size and half the weight of his old HP desktop he bought in 2010. He bought a high rez 27 inch monitor to go with it.

[Bloody Sam Roberts]

Good point. I just had two hard drives go belly up...but data recoverable...because I leave my system running all the time. After 5 years the constantly spinning disks can't take it.

I'll look into SSDs for sure.