Originally posted by psyclum MacOS X is a "flavor" of linux:D basiclly, if you want to play games, linux is the wrong OS, but if you want to do everything else, linux is great:D
Actually OS X is a flavor of NeXTStep (1988), which was based on Mach (1985) & BSD (1977), which are flavors of Unix (1969, the "epoch"). Linux is also a flavor of Un*x (note the asterisk, explained below), but a much more recent one (1991). So OS X and Linux aren't direct descendants of each other, more like cousins.
The biggest difference is really semantic: Unix is a trademarked commodity (currently owned by Novell, or SCO, depending on who's lawyers you agree with). If you want to say your "Unix" or "Unix based" or "Unix-like", you have to pay a licensing fee.
Linus Torvalds didn't like this, so he wrote Linux from the ground up. It shares a lot of similarities, but since it was 100% original code, it wasn't subject to any of the licensing restrictions. You just can't say that "Linux is Un*x", because legally it isn't - Linux is Linux, it just happens to have a lot in common with Unix - and that's why many times you'll see Unix written Un*x: to avoid the trademark issue. This distinction makes a ~huge~ difference if you are wanting to give away source code for free. Even if you have a generous benefactor to pay for your licensing fees, any code you write based on trademarked code inherits the trademark, and subject to the distribution rules of the trademark. So unless you break totally away from the trademark issue, you will always be bound by the legal mess it makes. It's actually much much more complicated than that, I can't even pretend to understand it, that's just my simple layman's explanation.
So OS X is actually Unix-based (inherited from NeXTStep, which that inherited from Mach and BSD). Linux is not. The only real difference is that OS X pays for the right to make that claim, and Linux goes out of it's way to avoid that claim.
If you don't plan on playing games Linux is great.
Compared to Windows, Linux is faster and more secure (in the sense that Linux usually isn't targeted). I found it to be great for work on my old laptop where Windows would tend to be slower.
Linux is more for bragging rights amongst people with the 'i'm better than you nanana' attitude now, and of course is/was preffered by hackers, which both of those two things seem to go hand and hand lol.
Not sure how things are now, but there was never much practical use for someone only interested in general PC use, it was moreless just for hobbiest, hackers, or hobbiest hackers :P
wow:D I guess people are getting less and less educated about computers as time goes on...
i'd be willing to bet you have a few linux installs in your house you dont even know about:D most "appliance" class computing device use a flavor of linux. majority of the cell phones use a flavor of linux. alot of HDTV's with internet access use a flavor of linux:D so i guess YOU are just as much of a H4X0R then everyone else on the planet:D heck, my clock with internet radio runs on a flavor of linux:D some microwave ovens and fridge runs on linux:D
so yah i'm better then you cuz i can name like 6 devices in my house that runs linux:D
And many devices run Windows Embedded or Windows CE, so your point is? Most Ford cars sold in the past few years run 'Sync' which is based on Windows CE. (Windows was available on car stereos in the late 90s as well.)
Windows NT was developed on non-x86, and during the 90s ran on PPC, MIPS, Alpha, etc. Windows NT was designed to be a highly portable OS architecture - go read the first edition of Inside NT.
Linux is not 'more' portable or more 'extensible' in design, it is just 'done' more as more people have access to the kernel code to modify it and shove it into various architectures. It doesn't mean it runs better on these architectures than another OS would, or even runs well.
Currently my PC runs Windows Vista, which I have come to hate. I am not in the mood to go out and buy a new Windows 7 OS, but I have been looking at some different linux operating systems. I have become rather curious, as I have only ever used microsoft, what else is there?
My main questions are:
How gamer friendly is linux? I don't mind spending some extra time to download and install a game, I just don't want to have to go through too many hoops. Especially hoops that involve other hoops.
If I were to load a linux based OS, would I be able to get back to my Vista setup if I had to?
Is there a particular OS that I should look more into? I have been looking at Ubuntu the most lately.
Also, I really do not know much about computers,as you may be able to tell from my vague questions, but I like to learn and am willing to research and try. So how easily can one switch from Windows to Linux?
I guess my main worry really is getting all setup into a new system and finding out that I can't do anything due to my lack of computer savy and have to go crawling back to Vista.
Many of your assumptions about Linux are not correct, and are sliding into some fo the mythos that creates the 'geek' buzz that Linux generates.
As a 'designed' OS architecture, Linux is a rather poor design using very old concepts, but this doesn't inherently mean it is bad or good.
However, you are use to Windows, and more specifically Windows NT based OSes in the past 10 years, and architecturally, it is a bit more advanced than most Linux proponents know.
As an OS engineer and theorists, Windows NT back in 1991 was something to watch with a lot of curiosity, as it a designed OS development that took from some existing concepts in use and combined them with several OS theories, that many of us had doubts Microsoft's team could pull off. Things like the HAL and a new kernel structure actually working well, and a full object based kernel and OS model would perform with the extra kernel layers with the client/server design using higher level subsystems.
NT compared to Linux from the kernel level perspective, is far more advanced even if you look at the difference of a monolithic architecture in Linux to the almost non-descriptive model NT uses.
From and OS model standpoint, UNIX uses a very generic I/O textual parameter based model, NT uses an object based model. This is where things get important, as UNIX works well and fast, but when things change or need to change, things break really easily as a 'type' or 'parameter' change will require adjustments or compenstations to happen throughout the entire layer for all calling or called processes. In NT, since it uses an object model, changes don't break things, and new functionality can be added without breaking things rather easily.
This is how the WDDM/WDM in Vista was added to NT and the XPDM that XP used also still works along side it. And it is not just a driver model shift, but the WDM adds in a new kernel level model for handling GPU operations, where NT schedules and manages the GPU threads and VRAM in the NT kernel. (BTW This is a technology that ONLY exists in Windows Vista, 7, 8, and the XBox 360 - which is why Windows can easily multi-task several graphical and GPU processing based applications without halting other 3D/GPU applications.)
So how does this apply to end users? Well, graphics will never be as fast on Linux or OS X as they can be on Windows NT - and even if they get close, running multple graphical applications will degrade performance significantly, leaving the GPU threads/usage up to the applications to 'yeild' - like the old days of computing before CPU pre-emptive multi-tasking.
As for Linux being 'good' in devices and appliances, this is also a problem, as the biggest security breaches and 'missed' security failures are Linux based appliances and devices like high end routers. Linux running on routers around the internet are getting hit hard and not being checked like they should be, as hackers have found it far more effective to infect a router handling 1000 people, than 100 people's computers.
Even if you look at Android, there is a reason that it doesn't do well at gaming, as the Linux video driver model is not the best for graphical performance. This is why WP7 is able to take the same exact Snapdragon CPU/GPU hardware and get 5 to 10 times the graphical performance out of it compared to the same device running Android. (Part of this is also the speed advantage of XNA/DirectX compared to OpenGL ES - added in with the less optimized GPU drivers of the Android based Linux.)
So for most people, Linux is not something to consider if you want extensible technology, or to even learn about OS technologies, or gain any features or functionality over what you have today running Windows 7.
There are times and reasons to use Linux, especially when you need a custom OS solution for a very specific task and have the knowledge to build it for what you need. As for a general purpose OS or a desktop OS, it is not the 'best' kernel technologies, not the best File System technololgies, and not the best OS Model.
basiclly, if you want to play games, linux is the wrong OS, but if you want to do everything else, linux is great:D
Actually OS X is a flavor of NeXTStep (1988), which was based on Mach (1985) & BSD (1977), which are flavors of Unix (1969, the "epoch"). Linux is also a flavor of Un*x (note the asterisk, explained below), but a much more recent one (1991). So OS X and Linux aren't direct descendants of each other, more like cousins.
The biggest difference is really semantic:
Unix is a trademarked commodity (currently owned by Novell, or SCO, depending on who's lawyers you agree with). If you want to say your "Unix" or "Unix based" or "Unix-like", you have to pay a licensing fee.
Linus Torvalds didn't like this, so he wrote Linux from the ground up. It shares a lot of similarities, but since it was 100% original code, it wasn't subject to any of the licensing restrictions. You just can't say that "Linux is Un*x", because legally it isn't - Linux is Linux, it just happens to have a lot in common with Unix - and that's why many times you'll see Unix written Un*x: to avoid the trademark issue. This distinction makes a ~huge~ difference if you are wanting to give away source code for free. Even if you have a generous benefactor to pay for your licensing fees, any code you write based on trademarked code inherits the trademark, and subject to the distribution rules of the trademark. So unless you break totally away from the trademark issue, you will always be bound by the legal mess it makes. It's actually much much more complicated than that, I can't even pretend to understand it, that's just my simple layman's explanation.
So OS X is actually Unix-based (inherited from NeXTStep, which that inherited from Mach and BSD). Linux is not. The only real difference is that OS X pays for the right to make that claim, and Linux goes out of it's way to avoid that claim.
They aren't even cousins...
Linux is a monolithic kernel technology.
OS X is using the XNU kernel technology that is a MACH kernel with a BSD interface that is a microkernel technology with a few 'patched' adjustments to improve the performance that is lost of the microkernel layers.
In terms of kernel designs, which is what Linux and XNU is about, they are almost complete opposites.
They both use the UNIX OS Model, but this is the only commonality, and sadly something that is the worst aspect of both OSes.
Also, just because the OS X' kernel uses the BSD interface, DOES NOT MEAN it is OpenBSD based or FreeBSD based, nor does it have the security model or strenghts of OpenBSD.
basiclly, if you want to play games, linux is the wrong OS, but if you want to do everything else, linux is great:D
MacOS is based off of BSD not Linux.
well... if you want to be technical about it, MacOS is based on FreeBSD but lets not confooze the boy any more then we have to:D
If you want to be technical FreeBSD and MacOS (OS X) have nothing to do with each other. OS X is based on XNU which came from the NeXT project.
MacOS's XNU kernel uses a MACH kernel with a BSD interface. It is not like FreeBSD or OpenBSD other than they use the same kernel API interface model based on BSD. You can run BSD in a Windows susbsystem, it doesn't Windows is anything like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or OS X/XNU.
And many devices run Windows Embedded or Windows CE, so your point is? Most Ford cars sold in the past few years run 'Sync' which is based on Windows CE. (Windows was available on car stereos in the late 90s as well.)
Windows NT was developed on non-x86, and during the 90s ran on PPC, MIPS, Alpha, etc. Windows NT was designed to be a highly portable OS architecture - go read the first edition of Inside NT.
Linux is not 'more' portable or more 'extensible' in design, it is just 'done' more as more people have access to the kernel code to modify it and shove it into various architectures. It doesn't mean it runs better on these architectures than another OS would, or even runs well.
well, honestly ask yourself this.... what is the OS with the largest install base in the world/history?:D the install base for various flavors of linux exceeds all other OS's combined:D
as for early flavors of NT, thx for MSDN i have them ALL... in every language they ever put out:D
and as for the book, the correct name is "Inside windows NT" written by Helen Custer forwarded by David N. Cutler..... cuz i'm looking at the book on my bookshelf right now:D back in NT3.5 days, i was very much a "microsoft" person:p in fact I was the only person in the office who thought we should have a microsoft server:D but lets face it, i've never meet a windows product that was as stable as linux:D heck, I think my record was like 29 days w/o a reboot on windows and we had a news server that ran BSD that hadn't been rebooted for like 400 days back then:D
sure microsoft has gotten better since xp, but what % of the internet run on microsoft servers?:D last i checked, SoE got hacked on "Apache" which you know ran on a unix server not windows:D
As an OS engineer and theorists, Windows NT back in 1991 was something to watch with a lot of curiosity, as it a designed OS development that took from some existing concepts in use and combined them with several OS theories, that many of us had doubts Microsoft's team could pull off.
yah... if you are claiming to be an OS engineer, I can tell you this, it DIDN'T WORK!!! not NT 3.5 or 3.51, or 4.0...
as a proponent of microsoft products back in NT days, all i can say is BSOD pwnt all your theories and engineering:D nuf said. the only "live server" I was allowed to run on my "pet NT server box" was a quake server:D eventually i ran an exchange server for my personal use, but that's about it:D the boss wouldnt even let me run a live FTP server with the NT box:D
sure, microsoft would run better on gfx.... but there is something to be said about drivers and software written specificlly FOR your OS rather then some guy on their time off writting stuff as a hobby and not getting paid for it:D
I have nothing to add, but wanted to post in a thread which contained lots of words I know the meaning of, but made nearly no sense to me in the sentances they are in here. So here I am, posting with the 'readers' as we like to call them.
Actually I will add something, maybe it's a cultural thing but Linus is the kind of name you get when your parents hate you. As such Linux is also a sucky name, it has an x in it which deffinately makes it a lot cooler than Linus but it's still crap.
----- The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Originally posted by mrw0lf I have nothing to add, but wanted to post in a thread which contained lots of words I know the meaning of, but made nearly no sense to me in the sentances they are in here. So here I am, posting with the 'readers' as we like to call them. Actually I will add something, maybe it's a cultural thing but Linus is the kind of name you get when your parents hate you. As such Linux is also a sucky name, it has an x in it which deffinately makes it a lot cooler than Linus but it's still crap.
Originally posted by darwa Around 15 years ago, one of my Comp.Sci lecturers summarised the Windows/Linux debate like this, and I believe it still holds true:
"If you're going to be playing games, use Windows. For everything else, use Linux.."
I'm still following that advice
And also the best post here. Sums up this entire thread in one sentence. Bravo.
Comments
Actually OS X is a flavor of NeXTStep (1988), which was based on Mach (1985) & BSD (1977), which are flavors of Unix (1969, the "epoch"). Linux is also a flavor of Un*x (note the asterisk, explained below), but a much more recent one (1991). So OS X and Linux aren't direct descendants of each other, more like cousins.
The biggest difference is really semantic:
Unix is a trademarked commodity (currently owned by Novell, or SCO, depending on who's lawyers you agree with). If you want to say your "Unix" or "Unix based" or "Unix-like", you have to pay a licensing fee.
Linus Torvalds didn't like this, so he wrote Linux from the ground up. It shares a lot of similarities, but since it was 100% original code, it wasn't subject to any of the licensing restrictions. You just can't say that "Linux is Un*x", because legally it isn't - Linux is Linux, it just happens to have a lot in common with Unix - and that's why many times you'll see Unix written Un*x: to avoid the trademark issue. This distinction makes a ~huge~ difference if you are wanting to give away source code for free. Even if you have a generous benefactor to pay for your licensing fees, any code you write based on trademarked code inherits the trademark, and subject to the distribution rules of the trademark. So unless you break totally away from the trademark issue, you will always be bound by the legal mess it makes. It's actually much much more complicated than that, I can't even pretend to understand it, that's just my simple layman's explanation.
So OS X is actually Unix-based (inherited from NeXTStep, which that inherited from Mach and BSD). Linux is not. The only real difference is that OS X pays for the right to make that claim, and Linux goes out of it's way to avoid that claim.
If you don't plan on playing games Linux is great.
Compared to Windows, Linux is faster and more secure (in the sense that Linux usually isn't targeted). I found it to be great for work on my old laptop where Windows would tend to be slower.
Eleanor Rigby.
And many devices run Windows Embedded or Windows CE, so your point is? Most Ford cars sold in the past few years run 'Sync' which is based on Windows CE. (Windows was available on car stereos in the late 90s as well.)
Windows NT was developed on non-x86, and during the 90s ran on PPC, MIPS, Alpha, etc. Windows NT was designed to be a highly portable OS architecture - go read the first edition of Inside NT.
Linux is not 'more' portable or more 'extensible' in design, it is just 'done' more as more people have access to the kernel code to modify it and shove it into various architectures. It doesn't mean it runs better on these architectures than another OS would, or even runs well.
Many of your assumptions about Linux are not correct, and are sliding into some fo the mythos that creates the 'geek' buzz that Linux generates.
As a 'designed' OS architecture, Linux is a rather poor design using very old concepts, but this doesn't inherently mean it is bad or good.
However, you are use to Windows, and more specifically Windows NT based OSes in the past 10 years, and architecturally, it is a bit more advanced than most Linux proponents know.
As an OS engineer and theorists, Windows NT back in 1991 was something to watch with a lot of curiosity, as it a designed OS development that took from some existing concepts in use and combined them with several OS theories, that many of us had doubts Microsoft's team could pull off. Things like the HAL and a new kernel structure actually working well, and a full object based kernel and OS model would perform with the extra kernel layers with the client/server design using higher level subsystems.
NT compared to Linux from the kernel level perspective, is far more advanced even if you look at the difference of a monolithic architecture in Linux to the almost non-descriptive model NT uses.
From and OS model standpoint, UNIX uses a very generic I/O textual parameter based model, NT uses an object based model. This is where things get important, as UNIX works well and fast, but when things change or need to change, things break really easily as a 'type' or 'parameter' change will require adjustments or compenstations to happen throughout the entire layer for all calling or called processes. In NT, since it uses an object model, changes don't break things, and new functionality can be added without breaking things rather easily.
This is how the WDDM/WDM in Vista was added to NT and the XPDM that XP used also still works along side it. And it is not just a driver model shift, but the WDM adds in a new kernel level model for handling GPU operations, where NT schedules and manages the GPU threads and VRAM in the NT kernel. (BTW This is a technology that ONLY exists in Windows Vista, 7, 8, and the XBox 360 - which is why Windows can easily multi-task several graphical and GPU processing based applications without halting other 3D/GPU applications.)
So how does this apply to end users? Well, graphics will never be as fast on Linux or OS X as they can be on Windows NT - and even if they get close, running multple graphical applications will degrade performance significantly, leaving the GPU threads/usage up to the applications to 'yeild' - like the old days of computing before CPU pre-emptive multi-tasking.
As for Linux being 'good' in devices and appliances, this is also a problem, as the biggest security breaches and 'missed' security failures are Linux based appliances and devices like high end routers. Linux running on routers around the internet are getting hit hard and not being checked like they should be, as hackers have found it far more effective to infect a router handling 1000 people, than 100 people's computers.
Even if you look at Android, there is a reason that it doesn't do well at gaming, as the Linux video driver model is not the best for graphical performance. This is why WP7 is able to take the same exact Snapdragon CPU/GPU hardware and get 5 to 10 times the graphical performance out of it compared to the same device running Android. (Part of this is also the speed advantage of XNA/DirectX compared to OpenGL ES - added in with the less optimized GPU drivers of the Android based Linux.)
So for most people, Linux is not something to consider if you want extensible technology, or to even learn about OS technologies, or gain any features or functionality over what you have today running Windows 7.
There are times and reasons to use Linux, especially when you need a custom OS solution for a very specific task and have the knowledge to build it for what you need. As for a general purpose OS or a desktop OS, it is not the 'best' kernel technologies, not the best File System technololgies, and not the best OS Model.
They aren't even cousins...
Linux is a monolithic kernel technology.
OS X is using the XNU kernel technology that is a MACH kernel with a BSD interface that is a microkernel technology with a few 'patched' adjustments to improve the performance that is lost of the microkernel layers.
In terms of kernel designs, which is what Linux and XNU is about, they are almost complete opposites.
They both use the UNIX OS Model, but this is the only commonality, and sadly something that is the worst aspect of both OSes.
Also, just because the OS X' kernel uses the BSD interface, DOES NOT MEAN it is OpenBSD based or FreeBSD based, nor does it have the security model or strenghts of OpenBSD.
If you want to be technical FreeBSD and MacOS (OS X) have nothing to do with each other. OS X is based on XNU which came from the NeXT project.
MacOS's XNU kernel uses a MACH kernel with a BSD interface. It is not like FreeBSD or OpenBSD other than they use the same kernel API interface model based on BSD. You can run BSD in a Windows susbsystem, it doesn't Windows is anything like FreeBSD, OpenBSD, or OS X/XNU.
well, honestly ask yourself this.... what is the OS with the largest install base in the world/history?:D the install base for various flavors of linux exceeds all other OS's combined:D
as for early flavors of NT, thx for MSDN i have them ALL... in every language they ever put out:D
and as for the book, the correct name is "Inside windows NT" written by Helen Custer forwarded by David N. Cutler..... cuz i'm looking at the book on my bookshelf right now:D back in NT3.5 days, i was very much a "microsoft" person:p in fact I was the only person in the office who thought we should have a microsoft server:D but lets face it, i've never meet a windows product that was as stable as linux:D heck, I think my record was like 29 days w/o a reboot on windows and we had a news server that ran BSD that hadn't been rebooted for like 400 days back then:D
sure microsoft has gotten better since xp, but what % of the internet run on microsoft servers?:D last i checked, SoE got hacked on "Apache" which you know ran on a unix server not windows:D
yah... if you are claiming to be an OS engineer, I can tell you this, it DIDN'T WORK!!!
not NT 3.5 or 3.51, or 4.0...
as a proponent of microsoft products back in NT days, all i can say is BSOD pwnt all your theories and engineering:D nuf said. the only "live server" I was allowed to run on my "pet NT server box" was a quake server:D eventually i ran an exchange server for my personal use, but that's about it:D the boss wouldnt even let me run a live FTP server with the NT box:D
sure, microsoft would run better on gfx.... but there is something to be said about drivers and software written specificlly FOR your OS rather then some guy on their time off writting stuff as a hobby and not getting paid for it:D
I have nothing to add, but wanted to post in a thread which contained lots of words I know the meaning of, but made nearly no sense to me in the sentances they are in here. So here I am, posting with the 'readers' as we like to call them.
Actually I will add something, maybe it's a cultural thing but Linus is the kind of name you get when your parents hate you. As such Linux is also a sucky name, it has an x in it which deffinately makes it a lot cooler than Linus but it's still crap.
-----
The person who is certain, and who claims divine warrant for his certainty, belongs now to the infancy of our species.
Around 15 years ago, one of my Comp.Sci lecturers summarised the Windows/Linux debate like this, and I believe it still holds true:
"If you're going to be playing games, use Windows. For everything else, use Linux.."
I'm still following that advice
Best post here. Keep on keeping on.
And also the best post here. Sums up this entire thread in one sentence. Bravo.