[group reply...too lazy to individually reply] >From: Moez Naseer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > >Hi folks, > >I just joined this mailing list. I am interested to findout more about welcome! >I had a few questions about Linux that I wanted to ask. Why is linux so >adored by computer science majors? i adore it because it works, and because i can do everything i need to do with it. i look at computers (partially) as tools, and as such i choose the one best suited to my needs. unix is an environment for users that want the most from their tools, and the most variety of tools (i'm speaking in terms of "ship w/the OS tools", altho i imagine that if youre gonna count downloadable stuff anyway, linux still packs at least as much of a punch as windows). there may be some impressive huge, featured IDE's for windows (hey there are IDE's for linux too--check out xwpe and ddd), but i prefer the beauty of having /usr/bin/tac and similar (no, that's not a typo) so i can roll my own meta-tools and quick-hack utils with minimal work. and, you can see under the hood. what fun is a tool if you can't learn everything about it? when someone asks me why does my computer do XYZ, or how, i can not only tell but also show them, in regards to linux, whereas when windows does something confusing, all i can say is "get out your wallet and ask bill" > Why do we have a linux lab instead of a >windows lab in Painter basement, when all the programs can just aswell be >written under Windows 95? we probably don't have a windows lab downstairs because we have one upstairs? >Why does Lavender in his OOP class, encourage >students to use LINUX for programming, even though the g++ debugger is far >less user-friendly compared to those found in conventional languages? less user-friendly, equally capable. try out ddd for a "user-friendly" debugger (gdb) front-end. ---- From: Cheng Zhou <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> not true, linux is a powerful, multi-user environment, the likes of which no >> windows machine will ever see >ever is a long time. Micro$oft might suck to start but they always catch up >enough to make everything else less attractive. i have to disagree. i don't think they 'always' catch up... ---- From: Matthew Sayler <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >I have a sad feeling this is some kind of troll by SigWindows, but what >the heck.. i can vouch for cheng being an all around coding badass and he is a linux user. (as well as windows =)) ---- From: Moez Naseer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >One thing I like about Linux is that you don't feel dumb while running it. >It respects your intelect (unlike Windows) and instead of concentrating >too much on the user interface, gets the important things done. i like that it doesn't insist that you are stupid, which windows can definitely do sometimes. >I had a question. How can one look at LINUX source code? Is it available >on the web? Also, do you think free software is generally better in >performance compared to copyrighted software? ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kernel/v2.0/linux-2.0.35.tar.gz is the source code for the latest kernel. source code for the apps isn't gathered into a single file, but most application code is available from many places (try ftp://linux.ucs.indiana.edu/pub/linux and wander around. you'll find many packages of source code for many apps. if you have one in particular youre curious about, do tell and we can tell you how to find source for it. i think the main comparison you can make about free software (much of which, by the way, is copyrighted! copyright does not mean closed-source, nor does it mean commercial.) and non-free software is that free software is generally less buggy, given time to mature, because anyone and everyone can fix bugs they find, and contribute to development. whereas, a bug in autocad has to be first acknowledged by autocad makers, then fixed by them---either step of which could fail. better is a hard term to support, because there are certainly categories in which the only way applications are written is if you pay someone-- boring software =). and there is highly variable quality of works in both free and non-free software...but if a piece of free software is heavily used (most of the apps that ship with say redhat or slackware definitely fall into this category) tend to be extremely well tested and solid, and stuff where performance counts (the kernel, drivers, etc) has been optimized, because slow performance is a "bug". but it's kind of hard to say better performance when you can't compare a package on both platforms...netscape is one of the few, but since you don't have source, it's hard to tell how different the unix implementation is from the windows one, which would blur the comparison. a tough question, hope my answer made some sense =) peace. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Send administrative requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
