Should I buy windows 7?

[madtownidiot]

Well said..

despite the vehemence of my previous post, I believe that stating one operating system is better than the other is kind of like saying trucks or motorcycles are better than cars.. each can go places the other can't but both will generally get you where you need to go, by slightly different means, and each has pros and cons the other lacks.

If there's a reason linux isn't at least as popular as windows or even the Mac OS.. it's because there's no money to be made in advertising and marketing a product people can get for free, nor is there much money to be made in developing software for it, and talent usually goes where the money is. But don't assume for a second that just because you pay for something it must be better.. you'd have to be blind to not see the error in that kind of thinking.

I use windows mainly because I make a living fixing windows PCs and laptops, and for most recreational use, but I use linux for most of my work. I would consider it moronic to ignore methods that work just because they're not in some manual

 

[TuxKernel]

Actually it will be a severe mistake to follow market share as a standard for quality. And Unix, linux or other unix varients has there places.

Like in the places of supercomputer.....Unix/Linux wins out and out.(I never heard of a super computer running windows)
In the places of mainframes ...agin unix/Linux has majority shares with other IBM specific OSs.
In the server market Unix + linux has the majority combinedly. specially in web server area unix/linux is very strong. Google, facebook, amazon all are unix/linux based.
In desktop market windows wins without a compitator.
But again when u come to the embedded market, its again linux, if u come to network device market again its linux.

Problem is Desktop market is the biggest market right now. But it may not be the case 10 years from now. becaus all the separate areas i have described , any of them can be dominant in future. Like mobile phones are increasingly making a mark of their own. and there may be possibility of massive cloud based deployment when there may be a possibility of companies named "Computing service provider" ....u will be given an account and all ur applications will stay in the central monster machine.

The reason why people like me are excited about linux is because its flexibility. Because of being open source it can be adopted in any kind of computing environment. There are over 100s of different cpus there. in desktop arena we see only intel and amd. but in small or large machines there are many kinds of cpus , clusters, distributed processor etc. linux can be configured to run on anything and everything. I have managed to run a micro version of linux in a tiny microcontroller. its all because its open source and its backed up by a compiler which can compile for any cpu architecture. Its gcc. if you see the list of architectures it supports you will be thunderstruck. have u ever heard of longoon processor? i dont think very few people heard about this one.but there is a chance you have used product with a longoon processor. its developed locally in china and it is used in all kind of Chinese devices. there are two super computer which are built with it. also it has versions which can be scaled down to use in embedded systems. and only compiler available for it is gcc. only os available for it is linux.

if microsoft wants to stay big i think they have to be a little open about their development. their compilers should be capable of compiling for any wierd piece of cpu available. windows is available for only a few cpus which is alarming. i think releasing source code is a good idea because various ideas can be added to software far quickly. whatever its up to microsoft to sort this out for their own good.

There is no point of comparing windows with linux. both have pros and cons. But linux has the upper hand in terms of adopting any computing architecture which i think will be a great strength in the coming days.

 

[Keiichi25]

One thing you have to understand Tux, is the difference between you, a Comp Sci Major, and your parents or my parents or even your cousins... Not every person is going to be exactly the same.

From personal experience, I have some Linux understanding, however, it is only some. Businesses that are looking for UNIX or LINUX experienced people will be expecting also people who have experience in MySQL, PHP, Ruby, Perl, and other scripting languages. Not many places teach PHP or Ruby or Perl, most of them are leaning towards other packages like SQL Server, Visual Basic, Javascript, Flash... If you notice the trend here, they are higher level programs, IE: More user friendly. MySQL, PHP, Ruby and Perl are not as user friendly as that and take time to learn which generally are either briefly in the College/University level locations. There are not many companies that will lean that way, even for cost effectiveness due to some of the newer generation type programmers lean a bit more towards the packaged software and don't want to deal with building systems.

In my current place of work, we are an IT organized group. The developers, basically, software and application group, don't want to deal with how a system works, they just want a system that works. At the same time, the focus is on mostly Windows and Novell based technologies. While I would like to do some Linux, the concern is support under the systems group, such as interoperability, user level support and just time invested.

Again, Linux has several flavors, most of which are free. But also depending on the packages you are trying to get, will have varying level of 'supportability'. That supportability is also based on level of experience or understanding and the willingness to invest upon it. So it will depend on the group that is willing to put it up and also the people they have that will be working with it.