Interesting. Thanks for sharing. I don't use windows. My experience with microsoft OS is limited to those times I've been stuck with a PC and nothing else.. I'm on Macs now, but I started on Apple //s. In the early days -- early eighties -- I wrote strings in ASCII Express to log onto bulletin boards and internet sites. Nowadays, I use terminal from time to time, but only for diagnosis or system fixes. And I'm not savvy enough to wing it in unix without help. Computers are just an appliance for me these days. My Macs run nicely and do everything I want. But I can understand why some might want to play in Linux. Paul On Jun 22, 2008, at 11:10 PM, D. Glenn Arthur Jr. wrote:
> Paul Stenquist <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> asked: >> Interesting. I'm not a computer guy, so pardon my ignorance. But I >> can't help but wonder why people choose to run linux. Is it a form of >> self flagellation? Or is it a way of protesting Microsoft's >> domination of the world outside of apple? Or just a cult of sorts? >> Educate me. > > For some minority of Linux users, it's a protest against > Microsoft. Those folks exist and are vocal, but it's not > the best reason to use Linux. Nor, AFAICT, anywhere near > being the most common reason. (And a bunch of them run > BSD instead of Linux anyhow.) > > And it's certainly not self flagellation. > > In some ways, this is like asking, "Why would anyone care > how easy it is to use manual mode on their camera when > modern exposure automation is so good?" Or, "Why would > anyone choose to drive a Land Rover instead of a Lexus?" > > > > I'm going to be deliberately careless about distinguishing > between Linux and Unix here, because for the purposes of > answering this question, they may as well be interchangeable. > That's not something one can get away with in every context, > but "reasons for choosing Linux" mostly ovelap "reasons for > choosing Unix" at the level I'm going to get into here. > > > For certain kinds of things, Linux -- well, Unix and other > Unix-like operating systems -- is just _better_. Really. > And for a larger number of things it's about as good or not > significantly worse. For some things, it's not so great > (or it's not bad but Windows beats it there). But there's > a saying among us computer geeks: "All operating systems > suck. They just suck in different ways." So you pick the > OS to fit a) the task, and b) the operator's style. > > Actually, for many tasks you satisfy the operator's mental > style first, and then ask whether the task parameters are > important enough to override that. Because folks tend to > work better when their tools fit their hands ... or their > brains, as the case may be. > > Now admittedly, Mac OS X changes the equation here. A lot. > Because beneath its very well crafted GUI facade, it's Unix > underneath, and exposing that for the Unix-geeks is trivial > (just call up the application called ... uh, I think it's > called 'terminal'). But some folks still like Linux for > various reasons (or NetBSD or FreeBSD or ...), and some of > us can't afford Macs, or don't see the point to using a Mac > as a server when something cheaper could do that job and the > Mac can be saved for use as a workstation, or like the greater > freedom to _tinker_ that comes with using an open source OS. > And a few are Apple-haters, avoiding what they know is a good > OS out of principle, just like the Microsoft-haters, but most > people have less 'activist' reasons for picking their OS. > > > Have you ever explored the Command.COM interface under Windows? > (In some versions it's labelled "MS-DOS Prompt".) I bet it feels > kinda clunky. Well, it is, but it doesn't have to be ... under > Unix/Linux you have a choice of 'shells' -- programs that do the > kind of thing Command.COM does, but more more powerfully and > cleanly. > > "But why, when everything is so much easier with a GUI?" > > Because not everything is ... and some of us find a command-line > interface easier to work with even for tasks that a GUI > doesn't inherently suck at. With Linux, whether you're > using the CLI or the GUI at the moment, more control, more > power is at your fingertips than under Windows. And if > you're the sort who knows what he wants to do with that > power, _not_ having it makes using Windows feel like you're > wearing handcuffs. Me, I'd much rather spend a minute and > a half thinking and then type one long command that tells > the computer exactly how I want all the files in this > directory renamed, than to spend however long it takes > to right-click->rename->type the new name for a few hundred > files one after the other. > > > > So what's to stop me from turning this around and asking > why everybody doesn't switch to Linux? > > Because for some people, Windows really does fit their > brains better. Choose a tool to fit the hand/brain. > > And even for people who aren't that strongly wired for > Windows, there's an issue of allocation of mental resources: > "with great power comes great responsibility" -- one of > the consequences of having so much more control using > Linux is that the user is _expected_ to control more > instead of just letting the OS guess. If you need (or just > want) that control, this isn't a big price. If you're > not bumping into Windows' limitations, then the question > becomes, "is learning how to wield this power I'm not going > to use often, just to be able to drive this thing the rest > of the time, worth it?" And sometimes, however much it makes > us geeks want to shout, "You don't know what you're missing!", > it really _isn't_ worth it for a number of people -- they can > better spend that time learning something else. > > > There's another old saying: "Unix _is_ user-friendly. It's > just choosy about who its friends are." (This saying dates > back to before graphical interfaces became common in Unix. > Or anywhere else except a Mac, for that matter.) > > For me, the ideal tool is one that I don't even notice. I stop > being aware of the tool and how I have to control it, and the > tool simply becomes an Extension Of My Will, just like my own > fingers are. And the various tools available under Linux (and > to some extent, Linux itself) come closest to that for me. > Some of these tools take some serious learning up front (nobody > should expect the vi text editor to seem obvious right from > day one, for example), but when learning such a tool means > reaping the benefits of it for another couple decades (so far), > and it's the kind of tool that Just Does What I Want It To > once I _have_ learned it, well every time I get into the > "I think it and it just happens; my fingers may have wiggled > a bit while it was happening" zone at the computer, I'm getting > paid back for that effort. > > > It's also worth noting that Unix is coming up on its 40th > birthday soon. Can you name another operating system that's > stayed useful that long? Can you name one that isn't limited > to one brand of mainframes? Nostalgia can keep a small user > community dedicated to a beloved platform, but nostalgia doesn't > keep an OS vibrant and relevant and growing. What keeps Unix > and its descendants (Linux is an intellectual descendant though > not a 'genetic' one) alive and kicking, and good enough that > Mac switched _to_ Unix as the underpinning of their new OS > as recently as it did, is not nostalgia, not self-flagellation, > not protest, but _power_. > > What Linux does well, it does very well. > > -- Glenn > > -- > PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List > [email protected] > http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net > to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above > and follow the directions. -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
