To Linux or Not to Linux? That is the question

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Agree. I chose to focus on Linux, and a specific subset of distros.

Me too, as per my other post. I ain't got time for both, but I don't think it's some sort of "elitist mystique" so much as it is a different way of thinking and doing. I spent enough time with GhostBSD to be comfortable with it. 'Snot bad, really. It's also incredibly sexy (As much as an OS can be!). It just worked out of the box and I was grateful because if it broke I'd have had no idea how to fix it. For day to day use, the only major hurdle was learning a different package manager and we've all (well, many of us) done that time and time again.

Like you, I've invested my learning hours into Linux. That's where I'm going to stay. I'm very, very happy to be in the Linux camp.

But, I'd say spin up GhostBSD in a VM. It's nothing like many of the other BSDs, and it's trivial to install it. You don't have to install a DE, or futz with a text installer. It's remarkably refined. I can't fault people for picking it. It's very, very well done. I found exactly zero bugs while using it. Not even graphical glitches.
 


The ones that are deliberately difficult are the ones I refer to as elitist.

Around '96, I was introduced to Slackware and was given some vague info about what to do with it. Every time I would ask a question, or encounter some difficulty, and would ask a well thought out and somewhat concise question, the answer was "What are you, some kind of idiot?" - in many cases literally.

Soon after I found a well documented, well built, wonderful Linux distro that actually had a book, and starter 3.5" floppy, and a CD full of the good stuff. The stack of Slackware floppies went into the garbage, and my real adventure began, with buying more books, more study, wonderful learning experiences, and eventually rational and helpful forums.

I still have that RedHat 5.2 boxed set. It's kind of a shrine, I guess, but is a reminder when I see it that there is good, bad, and ugly in the Linux universe. I choose the rational and the good. The rest is just elitist bull****.
 
@jglen490 yes there is a element of supercilious amongst the slackware crowd; i think it was probably much worse in the past than now; although there are still one or two .

Certainly what i see amongst a lot of the slackware crowd is that they seem to go about things in the most complicated way and its not necessary.

I'm not sure slackware is deliberately difficult or more its just the way Mr V likes it.

I class myself as a slackware user with only half a clue, yet have been allowed to write slackware documentation on the "offical slackware doc site" . I've been treated with courtesy by Alien Bob the main admin; however thats probably because i picked up hes "prickly" so i'm careful in any communication with him. IS slackware difficult ? when i look at the package management of debian based OS ; it looks at times tricky to me.

Once you get past the basics with slackware it actually has a simplicity about it ; release of beta 15 looks not far away and that might be the time to have another look at it ?
 
That mimics my own conclusion.

I'm happy with Linux and don't see a way to justify the conversion to BSD.

That doesn't make GhostBSD any less awesome. It just means that I couldn't justify converting and there's no way in hell that I'm going to maintain two skillsets to constantly keep both upgraded, secure, and functioning properly.

But, it'd probably be pretty easy to convert to using it exclusively.

It's well worth playing with a VM. Converting to it exclusively is something you'd have to decide for yourself.
I'm happy with Arch as my daily driver, there is no Steam on BSD and I've gotten used to bleeding edge on my desktop so I'll just dabble around with it on a vm that way I'll at least get an impression of what it's like running as a desktop.
 
Use whatever rocks your boat. Yes, Linux has faster, more current HW support in some areas. If you are unsure look at BSD-hardware.info. It also has a database of Linux HW. Please upload your probe to help grow the resource!

BSDs are not everyones cup of tea. I often hear they are great for servers, but not for desktop. This is no longer as true. Even gaming has come a long way. CS Go on FreeBSD, anyone? Install Homura to get things like Steam going.

Linux is for Windows refugees
BSDs are for Unix lovers…
 
Use whatever rocks your boat. Yes, Linux has faster, more current HW support in some areas. If you are unsure look at BSD-hardware.info. It also has a database of Linux HW. Please upload your probe to help grow the resource!
I am ware of those websites and I agree with about whatever rocks your boat :) It took a long time for GNU/Linux gaming to get anywhere so I am quite happy now, I will try Ghost BSD in a vm ;)
Linux is for Windows refugees
BSDs are for Unix lovers…
Please don't start a flame-ware with that comment, I am not a windows refugee been using GNU/Linux for quite sometime now.
 
I will try Ghost BSD in a vm ;)

Happy to hear that :)

Please don't start a flame-ware with that comment, I am not a windows refugee been using GNU/Linux for quite sometime now.

Didn't U have Widnows originally? I did and I installed Puppy Linux (5.something) on a flash stick and haven't looked back since.
I came across a book (Using UNIX) from 1991 or smth and was fascinated, I like going to the root of things. Gradually it dawned on me that Linux was just a clone of a UNIX kernel with no prior history. Modern day BSDs and illumos'es have roots back to -69 research UNICS and I feel much more at home parttaking in that long tradition. I've never ran a server yet, and ed(1) is my text editor of choice.

I didn't mean to start a war, I wanted that perspective out.
 
Happy to hear that :)
Didn't U have Widnows originally? I did and I installed Puppy Linux (5.something) on a flash stick and haven't looked back since.

I didn't mean to start a war, I wanted that perspective out.
I did because every PC sold came with Windows when I started with computers and because it was taught in school as the only OS that mattered, I didn't discover GNU/Linux until later and came across BSD even later by that time I had already found a passion for GNU/Linux. So yes there is truth to do that for a lot of people however I find the way that is phrased brings out more negativity so therefore I don't like being associated with the phrase.
 
[…] I find the way that is phrased brings out more negativity so therefore I don't like being associated with the phrase.

I can see that. I think I accidentally came across the original quote on openbsdhandbook.com:

“Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix."

– Theo de Raadt

Well, it's different, but still negative for those who LOVE LINUX in and of itself.

What I mean by posting the quote is that I use Unix because I love it. Linux is not Unix (GNU is Not Unix), hence I prefer *BSD and illumos.
I would not recommend it to the casual desktop user (unless I am going to support it, which is much easier with Unix given supported HW, i.e. not messing up things because of an upgrade) because one needs compatible HW and configuration is more inclined to editing text files (very sane, battle tested method).

IMG_20210130_115637_471.jpg
 
I can see that. I think I accidentally came across the original quote on openbsdhandbook.com:

“Linux people do what they do because they hate Microsoft. We do what we do because we love Unix."

– Theo de Raadt

Well, it's different, but still negative for those who LOVE LINUX in and of itself.

What I mean by posting the quote is that I use Unix because I love it. Linux is not Unix (GNU is Not Unix), hence I prefer *BSD and illumos.
I would not recommend it to the casual desktop user (unless I am going to support it, which is much easier with Unix given supported HW, i.e. not messing up things because of an upgrade) because one needs compatible HW and configuration is more inclined to editing text files (very sane, battle tested method).

View attachment 8389
I used to have a different job where I did user first line user support, during that time I spent all my free time learning and tinkering with GNU/Linux which paid off since now I get paid to work with GNU/Linux. If I had started using GNU/Linux because I hated Microsoft I wouldn't have gotten far, hate doesn't get anyone far but love and passion does. Therefore that quote is negative no matter how you try to present it because the whole intent of that quote is to look down on GNU/Linux users.

I am not a casual desktop user, if I wanted to learn BSD I could but I don't have to time to learn another OS and I am quite happy with GNU/Linux. Why should I switch to a BSD while I am happy with GNU/Linux just because GNU/Linux is not Unix and I don't want to be looked down upon?I switched to GNU/Linux because I was wanting to learn something new at the time had a lot of free time and GNU/Linux was what came on my path first, if that had been BSD I would have gone for BSD.

But I think this topic has gone quite a bit off-topic, I doubt these last few posts will be of use to the OP.
 
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@jglen490 yes there is a element of supercilious amongst the slackware crowd; i think it was probably much worse in the past than now; although there are still one or two .

Certainly what i see amongst a lot of the slackware crowd is that they seem to go about things in the most complicated way and its not necessary.

I'm not sure slackware is deliberately difficult or more its just the way Mr V likes it.

I class myself as a slackware user with only half a clue, yet have been allowed to write slackware documentation on the "offical slackware doc site" . I've been treated with courtesy by Alien Bob the main admin; however thats probably because i picked up hes "prickly" so i'm careful in any communication with him. IS slackware difficult ? when i look at the package management of debian based OS ; it looks at times tricky to me.

Once you get past the basics with slackware it actually has a simplicity about it ; release of beta 15 looks not far away and that might be the time to have another look at it ?
I'm happy for your interest in Slackware and that the Slackware community is becoming a bit more reasonable. But, as "they" say you never get a second chance for a good first impression. I'm happy where I'm at with Kubuntu, and while I am still curious at my age, what works for me will continue to work for me, until it doesn't ;)
 
and the original topic was.......


We have an old Toshiba Netbook NB255 with a whopping 2GB RAM powered by an Atom 1.68GHz processor. I must be old because my first computer had 10MHz 8086 with 640KB RAM. And it ran GEM Windows just fine. Oh well.
Anyway, it's currently trying to run Win7 Starter and is bog slow. Would it be worth dumping Win7 and dropping in a flavor of Linux instead? If so, any suggestions? I dual boot Peppermint on my HP laptop.
Thank you.
 
Thanks Brian
:)

I'm locking this Thread for now, as the OP was happy enough at around #10, and anything since is mostly subjective opinion, albeit interesting.

@RealGomer if you have need of the Thread again, let me know, and I can re-open it after doing some cleaning up.

Enjoy your Linux.

Chris Turner
wizardfromoz
 
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