How many people here are using Linux?

Question

I'm using Opera browser with Ubuntu, I'm just curious why people LOVE windows xp and vista so much that they won't use a free, and very very safe and stable system.

MAC doesn't count as an incredibly stable and FREE system. It's good, but it's also very expensive, sorry.
My basic UBUNTU has a much more sexy destop than MAC - nice wobbly windows, expose is far more advanced....

VISTA doesn't suck. I use it for some software that won't run in Ubuntu - I back up VISTA every week, and have had no disasters yet. The security is much better. I laughed when I saw Ubuntu - now I know where the Vista UAC came from.

Answer 1

1. Systems come preconfigured with Windows. 2. Many people use it at work. 3. Users may be tied to Windows apps (Office). 4. Fear of the unknown. I personally use Windows and Ubuntu both. In fact, a live cd of Knoppix allowed my to save all my daughters files when her XP system crashed.

Answer 2

You're obviously young and new to this so it isn't obvious. Mark Shuttleworth and Canonical are very smart and very nice people. It is because they are so smart that I have a tough time disrespecting them in a forum like Yahoo! Answers though I don't like using Ubuntu.

You see, electronic computers were developed to help with rocket science: specifically to calculate the trajectories of missiles. Over time the number of uses they could be put to expanded dramatically, and by the sixties people were starting to understand that you could do literally anything you wanted to using them. A big step in that direction came with the development of Unix -- an operating system which was not tied to any one hardware platform. Come the seventies and computers developed into consumer devices. Gates of course enters computer history there. He began marketing altair basic for personal computers which were too simple to run Unix. This was a development environment which was so simple even a five year old child could learn to program (my niece, for example) and take responsibility for her computer. With IBM's development and sale of the IBM PC and his purchase of what became MS-Dos, he was well-placed to cash in on the development of the consumer market. Unfortunately, he likes money a lot. This has been the subject of arguments between him and some members of the community from the start. He rightly feels he's been made to pay a very high price for his affection. The problem is he has moved his Operating System towards ease of use which includes the OS taking total responsibility for the operation of your computer. This is what people who were well-heeled before computers became generally available wanted and expected. For example, starting in the nineties when always on broadband connections were rare except among businesses and the very well-heeled, Windows started calling home when some of its products were used. And you know what a pain that has evolved into.

Shuttleworth was once a poor college student. He couldn't afford a fancy machine which would take full responsibility for his files, and some kind soul gave him a slackware installation. By the time he left school, he was addicted to what you can describe as a cheap Unix you have to take responsibility for. There's arguments about that and room for more arguments. but let's call it that. When he sold his first firm and founded canonical, he figured he could sell this approach, which enables all kinds of wonderful things, to a broader audience.

Sure Canonical does and pays developers: but mainly they try to keep your experience safer and less confusing. At the same time, what you are getting with Canonical's help is a genuine unvarnished Linux experience. Most of us who were using it before expected to take responsibility for our own files. Canonical doesn't do this for you, nor does it (really) force you to. It does provide a supportive environment where you can to the extent you want to. That is really what makes it a safer OS.

And that is what people are so afraid of. I have to know so much already, why do I have to know about how my computer operates? Talk to a Windows user. You shouldn't have much problem getting them to admit it. I know I don't. Some Ubuntu users will SAY the same thing but the truth is with all that malware out there we really do have to take more responsibility for what we do. Back before graphics cards when there were mainly printers and plotters for output (the sixties) this brilliant french cartoonist named Phillippe Druillet did a comic strip called Lone Sloane which featured computer generated graphics in the panels, which he himself had generated. When you take responsibility for these really awesome machines, there is really nothing you can't do. And some people are a little bit frightened by that.

Answer 3

If windoze works, why change to something else? If IE works, why change to something else? For many people computers are a tool - as long as it works, fine, don't bother them with "unnecessary" stuff, and who cares about free, stable, etc.?

I use and prefer Linux for some uses, but I use both Windoze and Linux. I don't expect my mother, my spouse, my friends to use linux, because they have no interest. I likewise don't have to watch their TVs, they don't have to use Linux.

Answer 4

idk i think windows vista sucks incredibly... which is why i have a mac =P leopard all the way!!!