Anyone Running Linux as Their Primary OS?

Synthros

If so, which distro?

dynamik

I try it off-and-on. I usually go back to Windows full-time for essential (to me) apps or games. I run Xubuntu in a full-screen VM as much as I can though. The Ubuntu repository is awesome, and XFCE is light-weight. I do most things from the command-line anyway, so I don't need a bloated GUI.

Hyper-Me

Nope.

Still giggling at all of those "why this is the year of linux on the desktop" articles on Digg all the time.

dynamik

People still use Digg? I thought everyone went to Reddit after the v4 debacle...

varelg

On my laptop, yes. SLED (Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop). However, I haven't touched the laptop in a while...

stuh84

When I've had hardware issues with my MBP, I've used a laptop I have with Ubuntu on as primary, and it did the job. I use Linux every day from a server/networking perspective so it isn't much of a stretch for me to use it on a desktop too.

Bl8ckr0uter

Fedora 13 and Ubuntu 10.4 on my home and work PCs respectively.

hypnotoad

1. Try X distro cus you hear it's awesome this time around.
2. Find something that doesnt work/annoys you.
3. Go back to Windows, realizing it serves you fine and you have no incentive to use linux anyway.
4. Wait one year.
5. Goto 1.

ziggi138

I use Linux as my primary OS for my Cisco lab, but day to day use I use Windows 7. The main reason i use linux for my lab is because there are no drivers for Win7 for my USB to Serial adapter.

tiersten

The primary OS on servers is Linux (RHEL to be precise) but for desktop it is Windows + a single Mac Mini running OSX that mainly runs Boxee or a DVD player.

varelg

hypnotoad wrote: »

1. Try X distro cus you hear it's awesome this time around.
2. Find something that doesnt work/annoys you.
3. Go back to Windows, realizing it serves you fine and you have no incentive to use linux anyway.
4. Wait one year.
5. Goto 1.

2. is usually a result of a non- standard hardware piece with which Linux doesn't work because not only that h/ware is non- standard, manufacturer hermetically close- sourced its driver(s) to work only with Win.
5. usually happens faster than a year, depending on how many viruses and other malware that writes randomly to your disk(s) totally out of your control you get hit with.
The above cycle most likely happens if you use Linux as a desktop OS. Although you can (and there are shining examples of this) use Linux on the desktop, Linux is above all a server OS.
Following hypnotoad's style, the cycle below happens on the server side:
1. You summon your accountant to produce you a breakdown of your IT budget.
2. Your jaw drops when you see how much you pay MS for various licences for your Windows servers and the network they serve.
3. You learn that with Linux as a server you don't pay any licences to anyone, you Linux server is malware- free and with minimalistic, "set-n-forget" type of maintenance.
4. You reward your IT staff for a successful win-to-lin transition with a Wall Street style bonuses. You also find that all of a sudden you can afford to upgrade your network with a shiny new server and some higher capacity routers. No extra income from anywhere, just money saved on licences.

MentholMoose

I use Windows PCs for certain purposes, but I run Linux on my primary PC. I started with Red Hat 9, then Slackware for about a year, but it's been Gentoo for over six years.

QHalo

hypnotoad wrote: »

1. Try X distro cus you hear it's awesome this time around.
2. Find something that doesnt work/annoys you.
3. Go back to Windows, realizing it serves you fine and you have no incentive to use linux anyway.
4. Wait one year.
5. Goto 1.

Sadly, this is how it works for me most of the time too. I do however run Linux on my Dynamips machine so I still get the best of both worlds because Linux smokes Windows when it comes to Dynamips performance. So in other words, I use it where I need to and for what it does best. I work for a law firm, our attorneys do the talking with the checkbook. If anything they would want to go all Mac if they could get away with it.

alan2308

Currently using Ubuntu 9.10 but I've been using Linux since SuSE 6.4 in 1999 and have tried quite a few distros since then.

cablegod

Desktop/Workstation/Notebook OS of choice: Mac OS X 10.6

Oracle DB Servers: CentOS/RHEL5 64-bit (I wish Gentoo would be supported one day.)

QA/Dev/Production Ruby on Rails App Servers & MySQL Servers: Gentoo all the way.

I also use Windows 2008 R2 Datacenter Edition strategically as well for other tasks.

It all works great together like a well-oiled machine.

tiersten

cablegod wrote: »

Oracle DB Servers: CentOS/RHEL5 64-bit (I wish Gentoo would be supported one day.)

That wish is pretty unlikely to occur. At least as a supported platform. The nature of Gentoo with the vast amount of customisation possible means that it would be a support nightmare for Oracle. Also who buys the pricey Oracle licenses and doesn't also get a fully supported version of Linux like RHEL? :P

cablegod

tiersten wrote: »

That wish is pretty unlikely to occur. At least as a supported platform. The nature of Gentoo with the vast amount of customisation possible means that it would be a support nightmare for Oracle. Also who buys the pricey Oracle licenses and doesn't also get a fully supported version of Linux like RHEL? :P

My company doesn't buy the pricey Oracle licenses. We pay a set yearly amount for the Oracle Partner Network membership. That grants us development licenses to build the apps in which we market & license to companies. They buy the expensive Oracle licenses. I run a tight ship and have no need to buy RHEL for development and qa testing use. Why should I? Oracle runs perfectly fine on CentOS for our needs. I've been doing it since CentOS 3.x. If I were hosting production applications with production Oracle licensing, yes I would pony up for OEL then, over RHEL.

Also, Oracle isn't as pricey as you may believe. I laugh at their list price. No one pays that. I've seen Enterprise Edition go for less than $6k per socket vs. $45k per socket as listed.

tiersten

cablegod wrote: »

My company doesn't buy the pricey Oracle licenses. We pay a set yearly amount for the Oracle Partner Network membership. That grants us development licenses to build the apps in which we market & license to companies. They buy the expensive Oracle licenses. I run a tight ship and have no need to buy RHEL for development and qa testing use. Why should I? Oracle runs perfectly fine on CentOS for our needs. I've been doing it since CentOS 3.x. If I were hosting production applications with production Oracle licensing, yes I would pony up for OEL then, over RHEL.

Ahh. It is different if you're doing development and not actually running it!

And yeah, if you're doing that then OEL would totally be a better choice than RHEL.

cablegod wrote: »

Also, Oracle isn't as pricey as you may believe. I laugh at their list price. No one pays that. I've seen Enterprise Edition go for less than $6k per socket vs. $45k per socket as listed.

Sounds like IBM pricing...

Daniel333

Ubuntu on all my machines except my wife's laptop. Generally pretty happy. Sometimes I can't find a codec or something and have to go into Windows. Still prefer windows over Linux but I have learned some much that has helped me with SANs/Vmware/Mac and what not I can't imagine going back at this point.

jovan88

Fedora 13 + Windows XP in virtualbox with seamless mode = win all round

gorebrush

Afraid I don't touch linux with a 20ft barge pole

Mojo_666

hypnotoad wrote: »

1. Try X distro cus you hear it's awesome this time around.
2. Find something that doesnt work/annoys you.
3. Go back to Windows, realizing it serves you fine and you have no incentive to use linux anyway.
4. Wait one year.
5. Goto 1.

Sounds like 5 years of my life until I just stopped going back to 1

DevilWAH

hypnotoad wrote: »

1. Try X distro cus you hear it's awesome this time around.
2. Find something that doesnt work/annoys you.
3. Go back to Windows, realizing it serves you fine and you have no incentive to use linux anyway.
4. Wait one year.
5. Goto 1.

or

3. do a google search and find he fix, set up the fix and carry on using it.

4. repete step 3 as needed

5. enjoy learning a new way to do things, (not nesseraly a bettter way than windows always, but a different way.)

I work on two networks, the main site is 99.9% windows. and my second smaller network is 100% linux apart from the clients laptops.

the one great thing about linux is becasue it is all config files, when setting things up you really learn how stuff works.

Windows is nice in that it removed the user from the underlying workings of the OS, so is much simpler to set things up in.

Linux loses this, and at the expensive of easy of use puts control much more directly in the hand of the user.

I haven't yet ried configuring a full AD style domain on Linux, but aside from that I have yet to hit an issue that ther eis not at least one fit/workaround out for.

undomiel

I ran opensuse for a while and enjoyed working with that but once Windows 7 was released and I gave it a try I just haven't felt the urge to go back at all.

tpatt100

I could easily make the move to Linux and just keep a Windows partition for games. Reason being is most of what I do is in the "cloud" (sorry had to use that word lol).

Much of what I do I can do on my iPad, jump to my laptop and then pick it up on my phone, its all lightweight crap.

I think if you work in IT what is the most benefit for your career is look for opportunities to use Linux as a server. The server market is where Linux shines. The desktop? bleh its cool I guess because its different but computers are heading down the iPad/Netbook path. Even the next version of Windows is adoptin the iTunes app click and download that Lindows went with.

earweed

I have Ubuntu on dual boot on my "other" computer and have Fedora server in VM both just to work witrh and learn Linux. I use Windows 7 or Vista for normal day to day use just because it's so easy.

ally_uk

I don't see why people argue about what operating system is the best, They all have there benefits. Although I want to just say that Windows Vista was the biggest resource hogging piece of s**t I have used. Rant over

What do I use? I use Windows 7 as my main O/S the reason why? because it is fast, boot times are good and I have no niggly issues with drivers, or have to ponce around with numerous config files to get something up and running. Compared to Vista it is such a improvement, When I'm not using Windows 7 I use Windows XP again it's reliable and I can run it on the majority of my hardware.

I also dabble with Linux my distro of choice would have to be Centos I also I like to use Debian, I use both for server setups, I'm not going to shell out a ridiculous amount of cash for Windows Server when I can get the same results with Open Source Products, I can also integrate Linux to Coexist with Windows, sure maybe the learning curve is harder to get something off the ground but once you do it's pretty much bullet proof. With Samba4 around the corner and reports of it's Active Directory Domain Controller capabilities being pretty damm good I don't really see a need for Windows Server. The other thing I like about Linux is the customization don't want something get rid of it stream line it remove the bloat and get it deployed on older hardware that versatility is great.

Second nearly 9/10 times when a Windows Machine goes to s**t I use a Linux Based Live Tool to remedy the situation lol

Linux has it's uses and so does Windows one is not better then the other in my eyes

Mojo_666

ally_uk wrote: »

I don't see why people argue about what operating system is the best, They all have there benefits. Although I want to just say that Windows Vista was the biggest resource hogging piece of s**t I have used. Rant over

I agree about Vista, but I see no arguments about which OS is best, no point as we all know it's XP or W7

earweed

I view Vista as a Beta version of W7 as they just made some improvements to what they came up with for Vista to have 7. Vista is a resource hog for sure. I'm mainly using 7 now as I've moved most of my apps over to the 7 side. I'm planning to totally **** my Vista and just take that OS and give it away on the last of my "extra" computers when I sell it.

shaqazoolu

I have one box with Windows 7 on it at home and one with Linux Mint. At work, my laptop has Windows and desktop has Mint. As soon as the ops dudes finally get around to giving me my new laptop, I plan to switch to Linux completely. I know it's going to happen soon and I don't feel like getting everything set up just in time to have to set it up again on the new machine. I'll probably stick with Mint on the desktop and use Ubuntu Ultimate for the time being for my primary host OS. I plan to knock out the first two levels of LPIC in the next year or so. I might go a little crazy and do something like Gentoo or something at that point.

crrussell3

I use untangle (built on debian) as my home UTM, and looking at setting up pfsense so I can get a feel for it (want to get the book on it though first) if that counts. Otherwise I have a ubuntu vm that I haven't booted up in over a year