7 ms·

Off-topic, and please believe me I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I'm really concerned about this and I think it could be time to switch -- is OS X any

by mahouse 11y ago

Off-topic, and please believe me I'm not trying to start a flame war, but I'm really concerned about this and I think it could be time to switch -- is OS X any better in this regard? I had heard it has been phoning Apple since forever. (I'm not going to consider Linux for a desktop)

l1n 11y ago
>I'm not going to consider Linux for a desktop) Why not at least consider it? I run Arch + GNOME3 on my desktop and I haven't had any insurmountable problems, nor any that would be easier to solve in Windows.
- cJ0th 11y ago
  > Why not at least consider it? That is a fair question. However, it all depends on your personal use case and because of that Linux just isn't an option for most people. If you value gaming you can fine tune wine till the cow comes home ... it will never feel (always) right. If you're into music production Linux gives you another "screw you!" Then, there is this huge amount of software for which it seems as if Linux offers reasonable alternatives. But if you really consider what a user actually wants Linux doesn't cut it. For example, Word could be replaced with Libre Office or (my personal favorite) an intriguing combination of markdown and pandoc. If, however, Word is what you want to use (even though I do not understand that) then every click that is different poses as a minor frustration that together with all the other minor frustrations adds up to a huge disappointment.
  - jdbernard 11y ago
    Have you looked at UbuntuStudio or other similar distributions? I'm not running a professional studio, but I do a fair amount of audio recording and production entirely in Linux for bands I plan in and personal projects.
    - cJ0th 11y ago
      > Have you looked at UbuntuStudio or other similar distributions? I haven't but I worry that some VSTi plugins might not work. For example: https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-bugs/2012-January/307297.html https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-bugs/2012-January/3072...
  - jblow 11y ago
    I tried using LibreOffice last year and it was a total joke. Almost nothing worked the way it was supposed to, and it crashed often. When it came time to give my speech and output slides to a projector, that just didn't work at all. My presentation had to be saved by someone letting me use their Mac. It was the worst software experience I have ever had, and I've had a lot of bad software experiences in my 43 years. It's so bad that I believe it's unethical to offer it for download as working software because people with work to do on short timescales (as I had) may choose to rely on it and then get screwed.
UserRights 11y ago
Linux is totally ok for a desktop, I would say much better than anything else! You have several desktop environments you can choose from and you can customize it to make it work exactly like you want it to. Once everything setup to your liking, the configuration can be easily copied to any other system because it is just files in your $HOME folder. If you are a Hacker, you will be overwhelmed by the great amount of development tools that are much easier to handle than on any other system. There are very few reasons nowadays not to use Linux.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- tfigment 11y ago
  Genuine question: What are the equivalent easy to use development tools that map to sysinternals tools such as procexp, procmon, tcpview, ....? If it is just lsof, ps, top, netstat then I'm seriously missing some thing. It is one of my personal pain points with linux.
  - babuskov 11y ago
    Maybe if you elaborate what exact functionality you are missing. Look at "sar" and "sag" for example.
  - blackbeard 11y ago
    process explorer: htop, vmstat, iostat. procmon: strace. tcpview: netstat, wireshark. They're all pretty easy to use.
    - lorenzhs 11y ago
      also iftop and iotop to monitor network and file system usage by application
      - blackbeard 11y ago
        Didn't know about iftop; thanks for the suggestion.
striking 11y ago
When you tell OS X to shut up, it does. (It phones home as much as you heard or maybe even more so, but you can stop it from doing so too.) Dunno about Windows, I avoid using it for everything besides 3D or LabVIEW. Could you explain why you wouldn't consider Linux for the desktop? Wine isn't horrible, if you want Windows compatibility, and it offers a huge range of functionality otherwise. It's the best platform for compiling and running stuff, for sure.
88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago
I honestly believe that Xubuntu is the best Desktop operating system.
emodendroket 11y ago
It has all the same sorts of Web features as recent versions of Windows, so I guess it depends on how credible the "always-on keylogger you can't disable" stuff turns out to be.

by mahouse 11y ago

l1n 11y ago

>I'm not going to consider Linux for a desktop) Why not at least consider it? I run Arch + GNOME3 on my desktop and I haven't had any insurmountable problems, nor any that would be easier to solve in Windows.

cJ0th 11y ago
> Why not at least consider it? That is a fair question. However, it all depends on your personal use case and because of that Linux just isn't an option for most people. If you value gaming you can fine tune wine till the cow comes home ... it will never feel (always) right. If you're into music production Linux gives you another "screw you!" Then, there is this huge amount of software for which it seems as if Linux offers reasonable alternatives. But if you really consider what a user actually wants Linux doesn't cut it. For example, Word could be replaced with Libre Office or (my personal favorite) an intriguing combination of markdown and pandoc. If, however, Word is what you want to use (even though I do not understand that) then every click that is different poses as a minor frustration that together with all the other minor frustrations adds up to a huge disappointment.
- jdbernard 11y ago
  Have you looked at UbuntuStudio or other similar distributions? I'm not running a professional studio, but I do a fair amount of audio recording and production entirely in Linux for bands I plan in and personal projects.
  - cJ0th 11y ago
    > Have you looked at UbuntuStudio or other similar distributions? I haven't but I worry that some VSTi plugins might not work. For example: https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-bugs/2012-January/307297.html https://www.winehq.org/pipermail/wine-bugs/2012-January/3072...
- jblow 11y ago
  I tried using LibreOffice last year and it was a total joke. Almost nothing worked the way it was supposed to, and it crashed often. When it came time to give my speech and output slides to a projector, that just didn't work at all. My presentation had to be saved by someone letting me use their Mac. It was the worst software experience I have ever had, and I've had a lot of bad software experiences in my 43 years. It's so bad that I believe it's unethical to offer it for download as working software because people with work to do on short timescales (as I had) may choose to rely on it and then get screwed.

UserRights 11y ago

Linux is totally ok for a desktop, I would say much better than anything else! You have several desktop environments you can choose from and you can customize it to make it work exactly like you want it to. Once everything setup to your liking, the configuration can be easily copied to any other system because it is just files in your $HOME folder. If you are a Hacker, you will be overwhelmed by the great amount of development tools that are much easier to handle than on any other system. There are very few reasons nowadays not to use Linux.

deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
tfigment 11y ago
Genuine question: What are the equivalent easy to use development tools that map to sysinternals tools such as procexp, procmon, tcpview, ....? If it is just lsof, ps, top, netstat then I'm seriously missing some thing. It is one of my personal pain points with linux.
- babuskov 11y ago
  Maybe if you elaborate what exact functionality you are missing. Look at "sar" and "sag" for example.
- blackbeard 11y ago
  process explorer: htop, vmstat, iostat. procmon: strace. tcpview: netstat, wireshark. They're all pretty easy to use.
  - lorenzhs 11y ago
    also iftop and iotop to monitor network and file system usage by application
    - blackbeard 11y ago
      Didn't know about iftop; thanks for the suggestion.

striking 11y ago

When you tell OS X to shut up, it does. (It phones home as much as you heard or maybe even more so, but you can stop it from doing so too.) Dunno about Windows, I avoid using it for everything besides 3D or LabVIEW. Could you explain why you wouldn't consider Linux for the desktop? Wine isn't horrible, if you want Windows compatibility, and it offers a huge range of functionality otherwise. It's the best platform for compiling and running stuff, for sure.

88e282102ae2e5b 11y ago

I honestly believe that Xubuntu is the best Desktop operating system.

emodendroket 11y ago

It has all the same sorts of Web features as recent versions of Windows, so I guess it depends on how credible the "always-on keylogger you can't disable" stuff turns out to be.