The Linux Appreciation Thead

[james.m.flood]

How did a thread about the virtues of linux and its fans' humble stories of how they came to love it turn into a thread about disabling services you don't use?

What's great about Linux? Why do you like? How did you get started with it?

Haha! i agree entirely!!
allthough i dont mind this little side conversation going on about some windows-app purely because it's quite funny

I like the stories i'm reading so far...
i dont actualy know anybody in real life who uses linux, my friends dont even know that much about computers.. that's what i get for being self tought and asking for help in forums and not classrooms..

I'd also like to add that i DO use windows for ONE thing.. i have a 550meg fujitsu hard drive sitting on my desk that has windows 98 on it and every 3-4 months i swap it out with my linux HD, and i use it to update the firmware on some of my hardware (dvd burner etc) because the manufacturers are not OS-flexible..
but i dont blame the manufacturers.. cuz if i made hardware.. i wouldnt make drivers for windows.. just linux modules...

 

[ksanders2006]

Not Linux, but i've converted all of my home boxes to FreeBSD.. I don't know.. I just fancy it

 

[lopoetve]

I used linux circa RH 5.0. Best times were RH7 by far. Spent a lot of time getting winmodems to work under that and mandrake, and fiddling with parallel CD-RW drivers... Those were the good days, really.

Recently though, I've become seriously disenamored with it. Gentoo doesn't work (buggy as hell), fedora blows (BLOAT), Yoper stopped working (bugs with install issues/ide drives), Debian was never friendly, and I'm just tired of fucking with it. I'm down to being able to tolerate slackware, and that's about it. And that's just too bad, imho, because the OS had a lot of promise and I feel that it's starting to fall very short of that. I feel we accept things "because it's free" instead of trying to make it better. We're letting mediocrity be "good enough"

Sigh.

 

[HHunt]

Not Linux, but i've converted all of my home boxes to FreeBSD.. I don't know.. I just fancy it

Hmm, yeah. I can't really come up with a single reason I prefer it to linux [1], but I do. I just ended up liking it more after using it for a while.


[1] "Orderly" is as close as I've come.

 

[Skier]

Recently though, I've become seriously disenamored with it. Gentoo doesn't work (buggy as hell)...

Not trying to say Gentoo owns everything else, but to say it doesn't work... well, that's just wrong. I haven't had any unrecoverable problems using it, despite it being the first distro I used. Any bugs I've encountered have all had solutions within hours, if not minutes.

::shrug::

 

[lopoetve]

Not trying to say Gentoo owns everything else, but to say it doesn't work... well, that's just wrong. I haven't had any unrecoverable problems using it, despite it being the first distro I used. Any bugs I've encountered have all had solutions within hours, if not minutes.

::shrug::

The nice thing is: If emerge works, the program works.
The not so nice thing is: emerge often doesn't work.

right now, the installation handbook leads you to a totally dead end with incompatible gcc versions that prevent libtool from working. With that glitch, xorg will not compile, and you get no xwindows. There are glitches in nvidia installation, and some oddities with network cards (and the genkernel installation program) make installation... well... odd.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that there really shouldn't BE bugs, at least not ones that are show stopping ones like the xorg glitch.

 

[starhawk]

here's one for you guys to chew on:

how would i make a version of linux that is completely, 100% compatible with windows?

i like the "open-source-ness" (sorry, it's 3:45AM here o_0) of linux, but the widespread support for windows. i want to have something that looks and acts like linux (and is linux) yet i can go to a store, pick out something that will run in windows (any version later than 3.x) install it, and have it run just like it was in the windows version it was designed for. oh, yeah... and i don't want to dual-boot.

so it basically needs a kernel with all the codecalls (and thus microinstructions) for:
- linux
- windows 95
- windows 98
- windows 98se
- windows nt4.0
- windows 2k
- windows me
- windows xp

how do i make it without spending a decade programming c++?

 

[HHunt]

here's one for you guys to chew on:

how would i make a version of linux that is completely, 100% compatible with windows?

i like the "open-source-ness" (sorry, it's 3:45AM here o_0) of linux, but the widespread support for windows. i want to have something that looks and acts like linux (and is linux) yet i can go to a store, pick out something that will run in windows (any version later than 3.x) install it, and have it run just like it was in the windows version it was designed for. oh, yeah... and i don't want to dual-boot.

so it basically needs a kernel with all the codecalls (and thus microinstructions) for:
- linux
- windows 95
- windows 98
- windows 98se
- windows nt4.0
- windows 2k
- windows me
- windows xp

how do i make it without spending a decade programming c++?

Basically, rob a few banks and gold reserves and donate the money to the Wine project, or perhaps the Cedega-people. That'll get you to 99% or so. For the rest you'll need to kidnap some core people from MS.
Alternatively, ReactOS also looks interesting, but it's currently less useful.

Or if you really want a challenge, convince everyone to port their apps to Linux/*BSD.

 

[starhawk]

that is an idea... but it's not what i'm looking for... i want that to actually be part of the kernel, so i don't have to worry about wine or codega

 

[Jerunk]

it's not going to happen, by you anyways. It would require a lot of experience.

I use FreeBSD, cause I realized Linux has lots of unique, lame problems long before most [H] members had ever heard of Linux.

That's a hilarious quote too by [H]EMI_426, I love it when people try to brag about ridiculous things.

 

[HHunt]

that is an idea... but it's not what i'm looking for... i want that to actually be part of the kernel, so i don't have to worry about wine or codega

ReactOS, then. Interesting idea, but a patience-testing schedule.

 

[[H]EMI_426]

That's a hilarious quote too by [H]EMI_426, I love it when people try to brag about ridiculous things.

It's also hilarious when people don't realize the sarcasm inherent to such a quote and it's completely reactionary nature patterned after many of the false blanket statements made about <insert your OS of choice here>.

It's great seeing everyone discover Linux and go "OMG this is so awesome! Linux is the bestest OS EVAR!!!!!11!" Get over it already.

 

[starhawk]

ReactOS, then. Interesting idea, but a patience-testing schedule.

nope.

i'm actually dead-set on creating it... i just want to be pointed in the right direction. i've got 2 friends who can help me.

 

[DunM@]

nope.

i'm actually dead-set on creating it... i just want to be pointed in the right direction. i've got 2 friends who can help me.

It's going to use Windows drivers? In many cases those are what cause windows to destabilize and slow down, aren't avoiding those things the primary reasons people move to linux in the first place?

 

[Skier]

The nice thing is: If emerge works, the program works.
The not so nice thing is: emerge often doesn't work.

right now, the installation handbook leads you to a totally dead end with incompatible gcc versions that prevent libtool from working. With that glitch, xorg will not compile, and you get no xwindows. There are glitches in nvidia installation, and some oddities with network cards (and the genkernel installation program) make installation... well... odd.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that there really shouldn't BE bugs, at least not ones that are show stopping ones like the xorg glitch.

Thank you for providing exactly the info I wanted. Much easier to look into this now than if I had a post of "lol it didn't work."

 

[HHunt]

nope.

i'm actually dead-set on creating it... i just want to be pointed in the right direction. i've got 2 friends who can help me.

You might still want to fork, or at least look at ReactOS. It is very close to what you describe. At least concider using parts of wine, there's a lot of work put into recreating windows subsystems there. Even if you don't use it, it might help in understanding how things fit together.

Oh, and good luck. If you actually manage to recreate something windows-ish from the bottom up in a few years I'll be quite impressed.

 

[starhawk]

i will look at reactos (if someone will plz post a link, i'm lazy ) and wine...

what i'm thinking i'll probably wind up doing is decompiling windows (i'm probably gonna start with win95) into assembler and incorporate the codecalls and instructions from that into a linux kernel of some sort.

what i kinda have to do first (for obvious reasons) is figure out how a kernel works. so i got ahold of a poster with the *original* linux kernel in it (version 0.01 ) and i'm gonna pore over it with my friends, see if we can figure out how it does what it does.

then we'll do something similar with the other os's we need to deal with, and then we'll figure out how to make it all happen.

i highly doubt that bill gates will be happy (to say the least) with me decompiling windows, so i may limit it (or have to limit it) to just win95/98 rather than xp for now... but (for me) that will actually be enough.

 

[james.m.flood]

i will look at reactos (if someone will plz post a link, i'm lazy ) and wine...

what i'm thinking i'll probably wind up doing is decompiling windows (i'm probably gonna start with win95) into assembler and incorporate the codecalls and instructions from that into a linux kernel of some sort.

holly biggest load of crap i'ver ever heard....

if you're lazy, you wouldn't be trying to build something up from scratch, which many others have done...
and if you're ingenious enough to even contemplate it.. you'd realize that it is WAY easier to port windows apps over to an other OS than it is to try and create a new OS, or modify an OS .. or do anything at all relating to kernel modifications...

and windows 95 is NOT written in assembler, it is written in pseudo-crap-microsoft encrypted C, decompiling into assember directives and bit-dumps would give you the biggest, longest crap code you've ever seen in your life... AND it has already been attempted by many people who i don't doubt know more about the subject then you do...

if you actually do know how to program, join the wine team.. they probably have TONNES of insight on the issue.. and are trying to do exactly what you describe: have a linux that fully supports windows apps..

speaking of wine, i dissagree that these implementations of winblows should be in the builtin to the kernel.. to me that sounds like raping a pretty kernel... and also.. they would probably be the most unstable part of the system.. and you would probably want to be able to dissable them if they screwed up in a way other then rebooting the kernel(system)...

... oh.. am i wrong, or does your sig say that your floppy drive is undergoing RMA?!?

 

[HHunt]

starhawk: There's links for everything in my first post on the issue.
Also, what you're thinking about is comparable to finding MS's lawyers, waving a big red flag and shooting a softgun at them. Just though I'd mention it.

Oh, and james.m : I'm not entirely convinced about the prettiness if the linux kernel, though I agree than including windows calls into it would make it several levels worse.
(Project NDIS is about as far as I would go. It's not completely unfounded that the FreeBSD people sometimes call it "project Evil".)

 

[lopoetve]

Thank you for providing exactly the info I wanted. Much easier to look into this now than if I had a post of "lol it didn't work."

Yeah... heh.

It took calling in a gentoo person though, he took one look at that error and said "oh yeah, that's a stupid one" and fixed it.

It's working fine now, but that makes exactly 0 linux distros that will install right the first time on my system

 

[james.m.flood]

Yeah... heh.

It's working fine now, but that makes exactly 0 linux distros that will install right the first time on my system

i'm sorry to hear that... but you're still getting Way more then you paid for , i'm sure that these simple problems (which i havent encountered, but will assume are real) would be fixed pretty quickly if even a few people were actualy doing this as their day jobs

so far the only error's i've come across were due to bad ram.. actually overclocked too much, and created problems during compilation...

 

[lopoetve]

i'm sorry to hear that... but you're still getting Way more then you paid for , i'm sure that these simple problems (which i havent encountered, but will assume are real) would be fixed pretty quickly if even a few people were actualy doing this as their day jobs

so far the only error's i've come across were due to bad ram.. actually overclocked too much, and created problems during compilation...

All of my bugs have been found and fixed (eventually) on the Gentoo forums, so they were valid bugs (in fact, the libtool one was a BIG deal).

And I somehow doubt if people did this for a day job it would get fixed: See Microsoft for an example

 

[Jerunk]

It's also hilarious when people don't realize the sarcasm inherent to such a quote and it's completely reactionary nature patterned after many of the false blanket statements made about <insert your OS of choice here>.

It's great seeing everyone discover Linux and go "OMG this is so awesome! Linux is the bestest OS EVAR!!!!!11!" Get over it already.

I agree with you to an extent, but it's also very annoying watching people brag about worthless stuff on the internet, which is why I quoted you in the first place.

holly biggest load of crap i'ver ever heard....

if you're lazy, you wouldn't be trying to build something up from scratch, which many others have done...
and if you're ingenious enough to even contemplate it.. you'd realize that it is WAY easier to port windows apps over to an other OS than it is to try and create a new OS, or modify an OS .. or do anything at all relating to kernel modifications...

and windows 95 is NOT written in assembler, it is written in pseudo-crap-microsoft encrypted C, decompiling into assember directives and bit-dumps would give you the biggest, longest crap code you've ever seen in your life... AND it has already been attempted by many people who i don't doubt know more about the subject then you do...

if you actually do know how to program, join the wine team.. they probably have TONNES of insight on the issue.. and are trying to do exactly what you describe: have a linux that fully supports windows apps..

speaking of wine, i dissagree that these implementations of winblows should be in the builtin to the kernel.. to me that sounds like raping a pretty kernel... and also.. they would probably be the most unstable part of the system.. and you would probably want to be able to dissable them if they screwed up in a way other then rebooting the kernel(system)...

... oh.. am i wrong, or does your sig say that your floppy drive is undergoing RMA?!?

Agreed,