I'm wondering how many of us use operating systems other than those from the Dark Lord in Redmond Wa. I just noticed that R. Pienne uses Debian. I use Ubuntu and Gier Isine is a full fledged Linux wizard. Wikipedia shows that 79% of smartphones, 98.8% of supercomputers, and 43% of tablets are Linux based but only 1.5% of PCs are. Unix based OSs may be more common among folks that already "think different". Anyone else willing to fess up?
Is Linux common among us RPN types?
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12-09-2013, 01:26 PM
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12-09-2013, 01:32 PM
I use Debian for almost everything. I always feel like I need to take a shower after dual-booting into windoze for those rare programs that require it's use. I find that people in the Linux community (or anyone in the open hardware/open software community) are generally more willing to share their ideas and time without thinking of profit first! I find that I enjoy spending my time with these people more than those who are only interested in a profit! It feels good to give without asking for anything in return! According to a Reuters Poll the average Linux user has a 14 point IQ advantage over the average Windows user.
Edited: 11 Dec 2013, 12:54 p.m. after one or more responses were posted ▼
12-09-2013, 01:49 PM
Wow,
Quote: I never really thought of myself that way. Over the years, I have used many Unix, Xenix and Linux computers and workstations. But I mainly use Windows since the applications I use at work run on it and not very well on Linux (if they would run at all).
Quote: Oh Okay, I like to think I am. Let's face it. We all use whatever system works best for our particular application. And there's nothing wrong with that. What would be wrong, would be to force ourselves to use a machine that is NOT suitable for our application. Bill
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12-09-2013, 06:16 PM
Quote: 100% agreed. Over the years, I've observed that more than a few Linux users don't actually have an application - other than to tinker with Linux, that is. This reached an absurd zenith with Gentoo users, whose only use for their computer was to recompile Gentoo. ;) Best,
--- Les
12-10-2013, 10:40 AM
+1 While I enjoy tinkering with computers for their own sake, I also have to get real work done. Both current and legacy software that I use daily will not run outside the Windows world. I would like to spend my time being a Linux snob, but I don't have that luxury.
12-09-2013, 02:34 PM
Quote:
Your opinion doesn't sound so humble, after all. ▼
12-09-2013, 02:54 PM
Bill & Massimo; I think Barry was referring to the Microsoft Evil Empire and it's minions, not the users. BTW: A friend from all the way back in high school (who HAD a 16c) has two computers booted up at work. One is Ubuntu 12.04 and one is (i think) windoze 8. He turned me on to Ubuntu and told me i could dual boot but i figured there's only one way to learn to swim. Only loading the 34s has exceeded my simple needs on Ubuntu. He also uses Android and really prefers Linux but business is business..... ▼
12-09-2013, 03:35 PM
Quote: Well, Maybe. But he did use the reference "community". I'm a part of the Linux community, the Windows Community, the HPMuseum community, and too many more to enumerate. Bill ▼
12-10-2013, 02:01 PM
The sleazy people I was referring to are those that prey on unsuspecting users looking for a driver, or a patch only to download a virus or some other malware. By "windows community" I was indeed referring to those that sell windows software, not those that use it. I too am a member of the "Windows Users Community" but when I do use windows programs, I often feel cheated by the prices I have to pay and by the lack of quality in the end products. When it is broken in windows, you can't fix it yourself. When it is broken in Linux, you just open the source tar ball and fix the problem! I realize that there are a number of applications that require Windows, but if you look you can frequently find a similar tool that allows you to get the job done in Linux. Many windows programs run fine under wine, so that you don't need to wait 3 minutes to REBOOT into Windows. I have used Linux for 20 years and never had a single virus infect my linux system. Who can say that about their Windows? ▼
12-10-2013, 02:18 PM
Quote:When I decided to abandon Windows in 2008 I tried to find equivalents that were service(cloud)-based with browser-based clients--I didn't want to be locked into a desktop OS ever again. Fortunately I was able to find suitable replacements for all my applications except for MS Office. MS Office and those institutions that require it is the stickiness that keeps Windows in the enterprise. IMHO. ▼
12-10-2013, 02:29 PM
The later versions of Open office can even read the docx xlsx ... formats. I have had good luck exchanging files with MS Office users by saving them in MS Office formats. The least compatible Open office app is the "presents" the "PowerPoint" clone. But the open office writer, open office draw, and open office calc seem to be very compatible with the Microsoft equivalents. To augment this compatibility you may have to install the Microsoft compatible true type fronts from your Microsoft partition (if you have a dual boot system). Edited: 10 Dec 2013, 2:29 p.m.
12-10-2013, 03:06 PM
Some people spend their entire careers hammering away in Outlook and Excel (makes me shudder). Literally; millions of monkeys at keyboards all over the planet taking the entropy of the universe and arranging it into rectangles on a screen and saving thier life's "work" in a proprietory file format. No employer is going to save a few bucks running Open/Libre Office. Office only costs a few bucks per hour for a light corporate user. And I've seen employers work employees so many hours that I doubt it equates to more than a few pennies per hour. Of course, those employees should be using Word instead; getting ther resumes printed out...
12-09-2013, 03:38 PM
Quote:
12-09-2013, 11:34 PM
Quote:
12-10-2013, 02:05 AM
Quote: I am a greedy/sleazy bastard, so I am developing for Windows only, don't care about Linux at all.
Edited: 10 Dec 2013, 2:09 a.m.
12-09-2013, 01:32 PM
Fedora + 1
12-09-2013, 02:50 PM
I've been using Linux for six or seven years. It has not been all smooth-sailing, but it got rid of 90% of my computer problems. With Widoze, I was always ready to throw the computer out the window. I was always angry with it. I won't use Windoze again even to save my job, and I told my employer that a few years ago. It's not worth my health. With Linux, I don't have to worry about virii, don't have to defrag, I don't get any slowing, don't have to periodically re-install things to get them working again, and I don't reboot except when updates require it. Almost all software is free, and I can put it on another machine without Uncle Bill telling me I have to pay again.
12-09-2013, 03:23 PM
I abandoned Windows around 2004-2005 (Mandrake then Mandriva, then Debian, then Ubuntu). Never looked back! :) ▼
12-09-2013, 03:34 PM
Using Linux since RedHat 5.2. Using it at home 99.99% of time since 5 years. Currently using Xubuntu.
12-09-2013, 03:31 PM
I'm a Unix/Linux software engineer and (too often) sys admin. I've been using Linux for over 15 years (started with Slackware until common sense kicked in), Solaris for longer than that and my office is a rather heterogenous mixture of Unix, Linux, BSD and Windows. One day I'll clear out all the old Ultra SPARCs. There are about 20 unloved SPARC Stations in my garage to go with them. My go to machine is a Mac though (which passes Unix certification) with anything else I might regularly need running as a virtual machine (the joys of an 8-core machine). My first RPN calculator was a 49G from which I then moved to a 15C, WP34S and a 16C. One thing I love about the OSX calculator app is that it has an RPN mode. Paul.
12-09-2013, 04:05 PM
I use Linux on servers exclusively, as for the desktop (and PDA), I've tried multiple times with multiple distros all the way back to 1993. In all cases Linux provided a poor user experience as a desktop OS. And I often found myself using Mac or Windows. Windows for all its technical issues *was* a more productive tool if you are forced to work with other Windows users. And in corporate America, it's Windows. Linux and OpenOffice and other tools in the last 5 years has evolved to make Linux a viable option. But I still find myself "fixing" it (I still have battery management issues, display issues, and USB module issues). I do not want my production desktop to be a hobby. And I cannot use Windows anymore. All the productivity gains over the years have diminished with crap-ware, bloatware, non-stop security issues that force a reboot every night, etc... I finally gave up in 2008 with non-stop BSOD and data loss issues. I've been using OS/X since version 10.2 at home, but it wasn't until Apple started using Intel processors that I made the switch full time for everything. OS/X has the best of Linux and Windows with an excellent user experience and compatibility with the rest of the business world. If Apple screws this up, then I'll be back to a Linux desktop. I'll never, ever, use Windows again. ▼
12-09-2013, 05:36 PM
Quote: Same here! At work I had to use a variety of unixes for many many years and have zero desire to tinker around with Linux at home. Life is too short for that. For me, the computer is a tool that I want to use, but I don't want to be the toolmaker (unless somebody pays me for it).
12-09-2013, 04:16 PM
I'm not much of a RPN type (the only working HP calculator around is my father's old HP-41C, I sometimes use it for simple operations), but I've switched to Linux full-time since 2006, save for intermittently using a Windows-based dev kit for an AD Blackfin board in 2007.
12-09-2013, 06:12 PM
Quote: I've been using Linux since the early days of Slackware - I was using OS/2 quite heavily at the time and started to plot an escape route. During the late nineties and 2000's I did a lot of work for IBM on Linux education in Australasia and Europe, including Linux on big iron (mainframes), and contributed to the early development of the LPI Linux certifications (I'm an RHCE as well). Looking around my office, there's a lot of Linux (CentOS) servers, but due to increasing costs of energy and bandwidth, I've pushed a lot of my systems out to the cloud. I work at a reasonably big (3.4 GHz P4 with 32 GB RAM) Windows 7 machine, because some of the software I use requires it, but there's also two Linux machines running within it on VMWare Workstation. I use a Win7 Thinkpad when teaching, too - again, with VMWare. The university computing department where I teach has Windows 8 in the labs, so all my tutorials and practicals are designed to run in a Windows environment, although I manage to make them platform-agnostic most of the time, and the students have done them on Macs, Ubuntu boxen, you name it. Having moved into the Googleverse, I also use a Nexus phone and tablet, as well as a Chromebook for when I want a lightweight device with keyboard, just to work in coffee shops, etc. I love the fact that the Chromebook "just works". In summary, whatever it takes to get the job done. I've got work to do and no time to waste on politics or playing pinball (hence no Prime, either). That means that, on the desktop, the path of least resistance is usually Win7, but using FOSS like GnuPG, Thunderbird, Python, LaTeX, etc. On the servers, it's Linux all the way. Best,
--- Les ▼
12-09-2013, 06:58 PM
Quote: Slackware was always one of my favorites for use on 486dx systems. I still run Slackware 7.1 on my OB-430 and OB-600C - mainly just for kicks. No fancy windows -just command line. A lot of fun. Bill
12-09-2013, 07:22 PM
Yes, since 2005 I've been using Debian full-time on both my desktop and laptop machines, and adminning a Debian work server, though I do fire up an old Windows 2000 machine from time to time, as I still maintain a Windows business app I wrote before then. It's so refreshing to use a system that's produced by the community for the community, and cuts out the commercial crap that's getting increasingly intrusive and restricting. It does everything I want in admirable style. I try to give something back by donating to various projects and helping in forums etc, but that's nothing compared to the satisfaction I get from free (as in freedom, not just beer) software.
12-09-2013, 07:32 PM
I still plan to configure my PC for a dual boot option in order to get familiar with Linux. I HATE windows ever since I 1st came across it in the early 90's. I managed to get along with DOS for a long time on my own system but at work all PC's were windows based and finally I had to transfer to Windows after some years at home as well, since simply too much software specifically requires Windows. But for me Windows 8 is still a poor attempt to turn Windows 1.0 into something decent. I guess the latter says it all about my attitude towards Windows and Microsoft in general. ▼
12-11-2013, 01:38 PM
I too HATE Windows 8 even more than the previous versions. To me it seems that Microsoft wants to fit all PC users into the same marketing box that they have their "Cell Phone/Tablet" users in. They want one simple "Dumbed Down" user interface that works on all hardware be it Cell Phone, Tablet, or PC. To my way of thinking the advancements in coordinated mouse/hand/eye human interface design over the past 20-Years have just taken a big leap backwards. I believe that ultimately history will see this move as a big mistake by Microsoft! I think that eventually the default human interface between humans and computers will be a pair of glasses. Eye movement will replace mouse movement. Vocal commands will replace keyboard inputs, and an ear-piece attached to the arm of the glasses will provide sound feedback. With accurate position sensing these glasses will be able to overlay the real world images you see through the glasses with computerized augmentation to aid in development of the ultimate expert systems.
Edited: 11 Dec 2013, 1:58 p.m. ▼
12-11-2013, 06:14 PM
Quote:Oh pleeeez, no! Writing is much more accurate than talking. Speech is absolutely not suitable for programming. Other things have been tried in the past that someone thought would be more natural, like handwriting recognition 20+ years ago. The technology to do it was impressive, but someone forgot that one reason we used typewriters before we had computers was that typing was faster than writing-- much faster! ▼
12-12-2013, 04:27 PM
For word processing, I agree, but I think you miss the point that computers will become usable for a wider variety of functions that will indeed be better suited to vocal commands. I worked on secret military speech recognition systems, for some of the top speech recognition scientists in the country, and am fully aware of the capabilities and limitations of speech recognition. Using a microphone positioned close to to lips, enables speech recognition systems to better capture the unvoiced fricatives which are low in volume, but rich in information. I have used speech recognition technologies so good that it is nearly impossible to confuse the computer, and is MUCH MUCH faster than typing.
12-09-2013, 08:07 PM
I've been using Linux since late 1994 or early 1995, I think, with the first release of Linux for DEC Alpha on an AXPpci33 (Noname) board, which I installed from a bunch of floppies downloaded via FTP. I'd guess that was about kernel version 1.2 (my Google searching isn't turning up the detailed Linux/Alpha history or the original Usenet posting by Linus announcing it). I still have that AXPpci33, which has RedHat 7.0 on it now, but RedHat 5.0 seemed more responsive under X windows. I've used various distributions continuously at home and at work since then, mostly RedHat and OpenSuse. I also have a lot of experience with Unix starting with BSD 2.8 on PDP11 and BSD 4.0 on Vax, then SunOS 1.0 on the Sun 1 at my first job out of univeristy. Now Linux pretty much runs the entire NCAR supercomputing center, and I no longer have to deal with alternate Unix systems.
12-09-2013, 08:19 PM
At home, dual boot Win7 and Linux. But, I work with Unix, Apple, Android, and occasionally DEC VAX VMS.
12-09-2013, 08:50 PM
15+ years linux here... not professionally, just at home. My laptop had NT 4.0 in college, but kept on crashing... so gave linux a try and never looked back. I would be a 100% CentOS 6 user, but Mathematica 9 locks up way too often due to poor nVidia drivers. The drivers are blazingly fast... but moving 3D graphics around in Mathematica seems to lock it up tight. So I've been on Archlinux for the past 5 years... but I keep a copy of XP in VirtualBox for an old AutoCAD. And I dual boot with Win7. I have found Win7 to be absoluetly, 100% rock solid (on my hardware). I tried to switch to Windows7 full time... but I got bored... because it just worked. Yes, for some of us the OS is just to tinker! ▼
12-09-2013, 09:32 PM
Quote: Same here. My home machine just run's and runs. I reboot it every month or so just for fun. Same with my work machine. Of course, since these are both production machines, I am very careful about what I load on them. Anything unusual, I run in a Virtual Machine. When it comes to production work, having a boring machine experience is great. I don't need excitement with lockups, breakdowns, etc. I spent too many years with that in the early days of microcomputers. I also was a lot younger then and enjoyed the excitement.
Quote: AutoCAD is my main application - I spend hours per day in it. Bill ▼
12-09-2013, 10:22 PM
Quote: Ditto here. To give them their due, Microsoft have done a lot of work on security and stability issues - for example, they have a model checker tool that has eliminated a huge number of device driver BSOD issues.
Quote: That's my philosophy, too - I'm a security wonk, and we really don't like excitement, as it means we've screwed up. Best,
--- Les
12-09-2013, 10:03 PM
Oh my. It's like the list of computer languages. CP/M. Unix V7. AmigaDOS. Slackware. BeOS. *BSD. Dragonfly. Windows, I don't want to think about it. Ugg. Haven't touched Win8 except on a demo tablet, I was not impressed by the Mac interface. Win8.1 not at all. Macs and I ... don't get along well; my intuition and Mac intuition are contrary things.
12-10-2013, 02:21 AM
I've mainly used Linux and AmigaOS in the past before the NT Kernel. Today, Linux is still very attractive as a server OS since it's more or less free. Unfortunately, interfacing to the Win-World is constantly difficult. E.g., small companies tend to use Access or MS SQL, insist on processing MS Office file formats and so on. Today I privately have an Oracle Linux 6 VM installed under Vista Business on a HP Proliant MicroServer to get the best of both worlds. In addition, I'm using a Raspberry Pi with Mathematica installed. My 'homecomputer' is a laptop running Win7 and Win2003 as VM (XP-Replacement to get older programs to work). Similar setup at work. I'm running a XML documentation server (also Oracle Linux 6) as VM under Win7, my productive system is a Win7 machine running the Adobe CS and some CAD and Office software packages. Can't live/work without Win *and* Linux. ▼
12-10-2013, 02:54 AM
Quote:Is that a problem? I handle them with Open Office under Linux and have never had a problem. ▼
12-10-2013, 03:11 AM
Open office has worked on everything I've tried it on too. My only beefs are that it's slower to start and it insists on spell checking me in British English even though I type American. Edited: 10 Dec 2013, 3:15 a.m.
12-10-2013, 03:53 AM
Quote:That's what my statement implied. I'm aware there are third party drivers for Access databases and that most people can ignore slight glitches. Being responsible for what 140 people work with, I allow myself considering this to be a problem indeed. From my experience there are exactly two ways to do it right: Have a concept to completely get around MS and enforce it inside the company or spend some money for a MS server OS. I was lucky being allowed to go the first path, which now serves my company well for more than three years and has ended the reign of MS Word documents chaos.
12-10-2013, 08:52 AM
I've been using Linux since 1998. First Mandrake, then Debian, Ubuntu and now Linux Mint. I abandoned Windows entirely in 2007 and have used Linux exclusively on my PC since. I have all the application software and security I need on the setup I have and see no need for anything else.
12-10-2013, 09:27 AM
I use both. Windows 7 definitely isn't as painful to deal with as earlier versions of Windows, but I'm still a Linux/Unix guy at heart. I recently bought a couple of Raspberry Pi computers and I'm running Raspbian (a derivative of Debian) Linux on them and they're great fun. One of them is next to me right now, crunching (albeit slowly) Einstein@home jobs. Even better, Mathematica and the Wolfram language are now available free for the RPi.
12-10-2013, 09:28 AM
OK, so after reading all the posts here, my comment is: HP, release a Linux tool to connect to the Prime ASAP! :) ▼
12-10-2013, 01:10 PM
Well, there's https://github.com/debrouxl/hplp, but the library backend still has no GUI, although it's designed for building CLI and GUI programs on top of it... ▼
12-10-2013, 03:17 PM
Yes, I've seen that page, but installation isn't straightforward on Ubuntu. I'm OK with it being text-only, but sadly I don't have the time to learn how to compile it and how to meet its dependencies... I'll have to wait until someone packages it for debian/ubuntu or makes a step-by-step installation guide! :)
12-11-2013, 08:25 PM
I use Linux at home and at work, and have been doing so for more than 10 years. Common tools are vim for text editing, python and gcc for programming, LaTeX for typesetting, Firefox with pentadactyl extension for web browsing, mutt for email. |