Tech Discussion Thread: Long live the Calculator Master Race

[Zocra]

Have any of you guys ever used Alpine Linux?

I personally have not. I'm going to try Zorin OS 7 on VirtualBox pretty soon. (once i get it downloaded).

[Zocra]

Pretty interesting....

[South Banana Republic]

Have any of you guys ever used Alpine Linux?

I'm trying it now and am absolutely in love with it. It's basically a grsec/PaX patched Linux (with an SSP patched GCC) with uClibc and Busybox for the userland.

I'm mainly playing with virtualization (VServer right now, going to mess around with Xen next), it would make a great hypervisor because it's so small and is hardened out of the box.

Sounds great! I never had any luck compiling my own kernel with PAX so this sounds good.

[United Republics of Aralon]

so again are there any pros for linux, except being free?

[Lemanrussland]

so again are there any pros for linux, except being free?

Depends on the application.

Obviously, there are huge advantages for embedded computers, servers, supercomputers and so on. Honestly, I despise Windows Server 2008, and would never use Windows for any kind of embedded application. I would not use Windows for a router.

For desktop use, it's usable, and does bring some advantages to the table, but also has disadvantages. It all depends on what you actually want to do with the computer.

[The Corparation]

The day Windows becomes cloud based is the day I abandon Windows.

I have this amazing piece of technology called a hard drive for a reason thank you very much.

I doubt the probability that ordinary PC's will become cloud based. Servers would probably become cloud-based instead

Servers....becoming cloud based? Do you even understand what the buzz term cloud based actually means? Or how "the cloud" works? The cloud is a stupid marketing term for a capability that has existed and been used since the days of ARPANET. Boiled down to basics the cloud refers to storing your data on a remote server so that you can go to any computer and access your data remotely. Having a server cloud based is pointless/ridiculous as servers are what make up "the cloud".

[Aeken]

I doubt the probability that ordinary PC's will become cloud based. Servers would probably become cloud-based instead

Servers....becoming cloud based? Do you even understand what the buzz term cloud based actually means? Or how "the cloud" works? The cloud is a stupid marketing term for a capability that has existed and been used since the days of ARPANET. Boiled down to basics the cloud refers to storing your data on a remote server so that you can go to any computer and access your data remotely. Having a server cloud based is pointless/ridiculous as servers are what make up "the cloud".

And that's why I probably shouldn't be saying things I don't know about.

[Franklin Delano Bluth]

I doubt the probability that ordinary PC's will become cloud based. Servers would probably become cloud-based instead

Servers....becoming cloud based? Do you even understand what the buzz term cloud based actually means? Or how "the cloud" works? The cloud is a stupid marketing term for a capability that has existed and been used since the days of ARPANET. Boiled down to basics the cloud refers to storing your data on a remote server so that you can go to any computer and access your data remotely. Having a server cloud based is pointless/ridiculous as servers are what make up "the cloud".

Obviously the physical servers still exist in this paradigm.

But logical servers can indeed be "cloud"-ified. That's what people do with, say Amazon EC2 and shit.

[Miasto Lodz]

so again are there any pros for linux, except being free?

btrfs,jfs,ext2,3,4,gfs2 > ntfs
iptables+tc+ip > windows firewall
bash/zsh > PowerShell
coreutils+binutils+findutils > a handful of their Windows' counterparts
apache/nginx > IIS
fluxbox > explorer
xen > VirtualPC
and so on...

Basically everything is on par or better on the *nix side, except maybe AD, RDP and Microsoft Cluster Server.

[Coreyea]

I have on my computer which is a mid 2012 Macbook Pro Windows 7 Ultimate edition and Mac OS X Mavericks. I use Mavericks mostly and Windows for games that aren't on Mac. I've used Fedora and Ubuntu Linux. I've used Windows 95, 98, 2000, XP, 7, and 8 and Mac OS X Mountain Lion and Mavericks.

[Divair]

I don't (if you're talking about the start screen), but you don't have to use the start screen, and Start8 solves the issue of no more start menu. And all the various other improvements are also great.

Regnum, I'm quite aware you don't like the new layout.

Aeken, did you hear that Regnum doesn't like the new layout?

[Divair]

Found two people on my campus. One has an 8S, the other has a Lumia 900. Four of us in total now. We're practically a horde!



Also in other news, here's an amazing new app for those of you who browse Reddit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbSMI5Yck2Q

[Ainin]

Awesome Windows Phone apps:
The greatest WP YouTube client ever
Ermagawd a free offline music app

[San]

Found two people on my campus. One has an 8S, the other has a Lumia 900. Four of us in total now. We're practically a horde!



Also in other news, here's an amazing new app for those of you who browse Reddit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbSMI5Yck2Q

the upvote/downvote mechanism seems unnecessarily clumsy :/

other than that, pretty nice

[Divair]

Found two people on my campus. One has an 8S, the other has a Lumia 900. Four of us in total now. We're practically a horde!



Also in other news, here's an amazing new app for those of you who browse Reddit:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbSMI5Yck2Q

the upvote/downvote mechanism seems unnecessarily clumsy :/

other than that, pretty nice

It confused me for a bit (I installed it before they did), but it's actually quite nice if you're somebody who upvotes the vast majority of the time.

[Aeken]

Regnum, I'm quite aware you don't like the new layout.

Aeken, did you hear that Regnum doesn't like the new layout?

'Oh my, I did not know!'

[Divair]

Another company jumps on board with MS.
http://www.wpcentral.com/abb-group-choo ... es-finland

Just a reminder if you've missed previous companies:
http://www.wpcentral.com/coca-cola-also ... ows-phones
http://www.wpcentral.com/labour-giant-g ... -workhorse
http://www.wpcentral.com/food-company-s ... okia-lumia
http://www.wpcentral.com/delta-airlines ... er-service
http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-help ... -2-tablets
http://www.wpcentral.com/health-care-os ... ts-ordered

[United Republics of Aralon]

so again are there any pros for linux, except being free?

Depends on the application.

Obviously, there are huge advantages for embedded computers, servers, supercomputers and so on. Honestly, I despise Windows Server 2008, and would never use Windows for any kind of embedded application. I would not use Windows for a router.

For desktop use, it's usable, and does bring some advantages to the table, but also has disadvantages. It all depends on what you actually want to do with the computer.

Regular private end-user stuff. I ocassionally need to run a few chemical programs, but they tend to work on al OS's fine.(Except task-written programs but I won't have to bother with those for a few years.)

[Divair]

Aeken, did you hear that Regnum doesn't like the new layout?

'Oh my, I did not know!'

Now you know!

[United Republics of Aralon]

so again are there any pros for linux, except being free?

btrfs,jfs,ext2,3,4,gfs2 > ntfs
iptables+tc+ip > windows firewall
bash/zsh > PowerShell
coreutils+binutils+findutils > a handful of their Windows' counterparts
apache/nginx > IIS
fluxbox > explorer
xen > VirtualPC
and so on...

Basically everything is on par or better on the *nix side, except maybe AD, RDP and Microsoft Cluster Server.

I'm not a professional user. I use my computer for surfing the net editting documents and sometimes running a few chemical tools which all work on windows+ occassionally pklaying games. In that case?

[Ozzy]

Oh thank god there is a thread like this! I absolutely love OS/2 and Windows 2000!

[Bezombia]

Oh thank god there is a thread like this! I absolutely love OS/2 and Windows 2000!

Windows ME was better.

[Ainin]

Another company jumps on board with MS.
http://www.wpcentral.com/abb-group-choo ... es-finland

Just a reminder if you've missed previous companies:
http://www.wpcentral.com/coca-cola-also ... ows-phones
http://www.wpcentral.com/labour-giant-g ... -workhorse
http://www.wpcentral.com/food-company-s ... okia-lumia
http://www.wpcentral.com/delta-airlines ... er-service
http://www.wpcentral.com/microsoft-help ... -2-tablets
http://www.wpcentral.com/health-care-os ... ts-ordered

Don't forget British Airways!

[Miasto Lodz]

btrfs,jfs,ext2,3,4,gfs2 > ntfs
iptables+tc+ip > windows firewall
bash/zsh > PowerShell
coreutils+binutils+findutils > a handful of their Windows' counterparts
apache/nginx > IIS
fluxbox > explorer
xen > VirtualPC
and so on...

Basically everything is on par or better on the *nix side, except maybe AD, RDP and Microsoft Cluster Server.

I'm not a professional user. I use my computer for surfing the net editting documents and sometimes running a few chemical tools which all work on windows+ occassionally pklaying games. In that case?

In this case Windows is probably the best for you. So far, cause the deeper you dive into chemistry/physics the sooner you'll be using some kind of modelling appliance (TeraChem? BOSS? ORAC?) relying on some high performance cluster. The world of high performance computing is ruled almost exclusively by *nixes, so it's good to be at least a little *nix-literate.

[Divair]

More statistics.
http://www.wpcentral.com/windows-phone- ... -stay-flat

WP is 2nd largest in:
- Finland (39%)
- Vietnam (16%)
- Italy (15%)
- Thailand (11%)
- Turkey (11%)
- Russia (8%)