Well, I don't mind the RPM dependancy system. Yes, it can be a hassle to install some programs due to dependancies, but those dependancies are there for a reason. If those dependancies are broken, then things may not work. But, there are various flags you can throw to try and install the package while ignoring the dependancies. It isn't a garauntee that the package will work if you throw the '--nodeps' flag. There are some cases where the '--nodeps' or the '--force' flag may be necessary. I know it can be to remeove the Mesa OpenGL libraries to install the ATI drivers, and there may be a few others. I just can't think of it off the top of my head. But compiling software as well can hit you with dependancy issues too when doing your './configure' step. Apt-get and emerge are very nice because of the fact that they take care of your dependancies for you and makes it a little easier. I also noticed that there is a frontend for emerge as well for KDE. Kemerge I think it is, which sounds interesting. Other than that, I find RPMs easy to play with. Usually a simple 'rpm -ivh file.ix86.rpm', or if upgrading, 'rpm -Uvh file.ix86.rpm', or if installing multiple RPMs at once to fulfill package dependencies, 'rpm -ivh file1.ix86.rpm file2.ix86.rpm', or if you are rebuilding a source rpm, most common command would be 'rpmbuild --rebuild file.src.rpm' then install the resulting RPM file. Although, I do wish Redhat had apt-get. But we'll see what happens with the new licensing stuff. Whatever distro the next version of Maya is certified under by Alias is probably going to be the next distro I use whether it is Fedora or Redhat Enterprise Linux WS. Currently, it is certified to run under Redhat 7.3 and Redhat 8. Usually certifications mean ease of support... :D Now all I need is Winamp 5 on Linux... :D Maybe the developers of Winamp should port it to linux as a plug to popularize linux a little more... :D

I hear it runs quite well with wine.

not really.... i have it running, but modern skin support is dodgy at best.

And it uses quite alot of CPU....

but ah well, it does work

This is true. There is no inherant problem with Linux as a gaming platform. However, though I have little experiance with OpenGL, and only moderate experiance with DirectX, from what I understand, DirectX is the more suitable and mature 3D API.

I agree completely here.

Windows XP easily runs for those amounts of time.

NTFS is actually quite a good file system. It does do journeling, has few fragmentation problems, and is stable, and even relatively fast - about as fast as ext3, though reiserfs would wipe the floor with it.
I don't know what you were doing to cause windows to fragment a NTFS drive (assuming you had the same percentage used on the drive), but normally it does a good job avoiding it.

Windows doesn't need this, because it's kernel works differently. Sure, it's not as good as the Linux kernel, but this is not one of the reasons why.

You're right. The lack of a graphical interface is actually a big disadvatage, because unless you know what you're looking for with "ls", you have a relatively low chance of finding it. Though it is, in fact, a large advantage to have nice, easily parsed and read txt files vs a huge registry.

Hmm. If I remember right, the last time I had to install a graphics driver on Windows, I didn't reboot.

You're right. Linux is far, far, far more secure for reasons like this than Windows will probably ever be.

Don't get me wrong. If I had a choice, I'd use Linux. But arguing on the wrong points doesn't help anything.

I am sure it does, but for the applications I was using, windows tends to buckle under the pressure. I have used Maya extensively in both windows and linux and have done a number of other things related to DCC. I use Linux for a reason, and it took alot for me to bring myself to switch. Windows 2000 or XP just can't handle the load that I meant to try and put it under, repeated on and off cpu crunching for 60 days straight in Windows is just unheard of in my experience.
Don't be so modest. I had my computer running for less than a month in XP and when running defrag, almost the whole graph was red. I had to run defrag on it 6 times just to have the files all defragmented ant put at the beginning of the volume, and even then, there was still data spread all over the volume. It hasn't been long since that defragmentation and the volume is starting to pick up a fair bit of red.
But wouldn't it be nice to go into the windows kernel and get rid of some of the garbage you don't need that microsoft thinks you do to make things a tad bit more secure and faster?
Not really. Just a different way of doing things. Give it a bit of time because linux is a more advanced operating system, and it will be second nature to you like some of the things you would do to achieve the same thing in windows.
I know I did last time.
I wasn't arguing on the wrong points. I was merely arguing the right points and help further educate you guys on linux so we don't get noobs like the person who started the thread saying Linux sucks because he said so.

NTFS is a much better filesystem than the FAT based systems. It was originally *designed* to never need defragmenting. However, that's definitely not the case. NTFS is still quite prone to fragmentation. If you keep your hard drive reasonably busy, it will become quite fragmented in a fairly short amount of time (<1 month). That's why we have stuff like the defragmenter built into Windows, and 3rd-party programs (Diskeeper and whatnot).
ext2 and ext3 don't need a defrag utility, because they have active defragmentation--they defrag the disk a little bit with each write.

NTFS fragmentation has less of a performance hit than fragmentation in FAT filesystems, i'm fairly sure.

Not really. Subjectively, it seems that the performance hit in both is very similar. The hard drive still has to seek over the entire drive.

I used to run seti@home for months straight. Constant 100% CPU usage. Windows XP is not as stable as Linux, but it is relatively stable, particularly as a desktop machine.

I don't know how you caused this, but NTFS isn't normally that bad about fragmentation, at least, not over the last couple years that I've been using it.

code:
C:\>defrag k: -a -v

Windows Disk Defragmenter

Copyright (c) 2001 Microsoft Corp. and Executive Software International, Inc.



Analysis Report



    Volume size                         = 186 GB

    Cluster size                        = 4 KB

    Used space                          = 174 GB

    Free space                          = 12.28 GB

    Percent free space                  = 6 %



Volume fragmentation

    Total fragmentation                 = 2 %

    File fragmentation                  = 5 %

    Free space fragmentation            = 0 %



File fragmentation

    Total files                         = 988,387

    Average file size                   = 199 KB

    Total fragmented files              = 696

    Total excess fragments              = 8,416

    Average fragments per file          = 1.00



Pagefile fragmentation

    Pagefile size                       = 0 bytes

    Total fragments                     = 0



Folder fragmentation

    Total folders                       = 96,997

    Fragmented folders                  = 34

    Excess folder fragments             = 605



Master File Table (MFT) fragmentation

    Total MFT size                      = 1.06 GB

    MFT record count                    = 1,086,151

    Percent MFT in use                  = 97

    Total MFT fragments                 = 3



You do not need to defragment this volume.

Out of nearly one million files on this drive, with only 6.56% of the drive free, it has less than 1,000 fragmented files. The last time I defragmented this drive was about a month after I bought it, which was about 6 months ago, at which time it was approximately half full. I use this drive on a regular basis, with some very large files, and large amounts of very small files.

Not really. The windows kernel is closer to a microkernel, or so I understand.

No, it's not an advantage in and of itself. GUIs exist for a reason. Eventually, I learn the locations of various files. However, if I do not recall the location of a particular setting (say, which display manager to start by default), then I will have to search the internet for help. While this is workable when I have internet access, it is not acceptable otherwise.

"httpd.conf" is not an intuative name for a configuration file for a product named "Apache", regaurdless of the actual ELF being called "httpd".

So yes, having text configuration files is great. But not having a standard categorization for them is not, and while a great many Windows-based configuration options are hidden away in the registry, most are in plain view, either through the control panel or though an application's configuration screen.

On another note, ext2 and ext3 do get fragmented. *Possibly* more slowly than NTFS, but they do get fragmented.

ReiserFS on the other hand, has a defragment-on-write, or so I understand, and maintains a basic level of fragmentation.

[edit]http://www.informatik.uni-frankfurt.de/~loizides/reiserfs/thesis.html[/edit]

SETI@Home is a whole different ball game really. You are dealing with small ammounts of data with large ammounts of calculations. Like I said, I am speaking from experience. I have had problems with windows locking up and/or freezing (Even XP) when doing DCC through Maya or video editing and such while dealing with large ammounts of memory and file sizes. It just buckles. Maybe it doesn't for you, but like I said, that is my experience with windows and extensive DCC and video production.

As for fragmentation, like I said. My experience. Fragmentation, although can have alot to do with the file system, has more to do with the operating system. If Fat32 in general gets fragmented more often than NTFS, then technically, I should have had to defragment the fat32 instead of the NTFS. The Fat32 had 0% fragmentation and I use it within linux mostly.
Well, if so, wouldn't it be nice to get into windows itself and recompile it with 50% less features than they put in it by default... :D
I didn't say editing config files was an advantage. I am just saying it isn't a huge disadvantage. Because of the fact it is a different operating system, it is almost like learning how to right click on the desktop and go to properties if you want to set your resolution. Although redhat has a frontend to do this and ATI's FGLRX drivers comes with a config script. There are a few things I would like to see improved on the basis of frontends, but, we'll have to see where things end up in the future. All I know is Linux has really started getting popular when I started using it.

Disney had switched most of their workstations over to redhat to run Maya and invested money into Wine to get Photoshop 7 to run under it. Sinbad was done all using Linux systems. Mark Wilkins, a technical director at PDI Dreamworks had mentioned to me that pretty much any computer they have running Maya is running it on Linux, mainly for the chance to save money on licensing for performance benefits. Weta Digital makes extensive use of Linux machines. The program they made for Lord of the Rings called MASSIVE is only available for Linux and IRIX (I know they don't have it for Windows. They just recently updated their site and it doesn't say anything about the operating systems it runs on). IBM and SGI are both heavy supporters in Linux and contribute alot to the kernel (Even though SGI has their own IRIX operating systems for their workstations). So honestly, windows does have its advantages. I know that, which is why I still have it on my computer. Mostly for games mind you, and the boss decided to purchase the windows version of some scientific software instead of the linux version. He regrets it now that he knows the Linux version is available so now he is contemplating transfering the license to Linux. But really, I am not trying to be bias or anything because I do respect both operating systems as is, I am just excited to see the new operating system that I have become accustom to become successful and is starting to get popular. I look forward to the next few years to see where it goes from there.

Hmmm. Dunno how you're maintaining your NTFS partition so clean with that lack of defragging, but my partition's definitely don't look like that after even one month of use. I'm envious =)

ext2/3 do NOT need defragmenters under normal use. Refer to this mailing list post and this mailing list post. The utility for defragging ext2/3 drives is hardly maintained...

I can't say anything about resierfs. I know that it has a repacker--but I don't know whether or not it's needed and if it is, how often it should be run and stuff.

from what I hear, reiserfs isn't the best filesystem to use. The guy I talk to is probably one of the smartest guys in IT I have personally talked to. He says this about reiserfs: (quick IRC log)

a 72 hour long fsck
and a 2tb file systme
mysteriously disapearing
plus it bogs down more when it fills up
and its not necessarily faster with larger files

Depends what you're doing.
When was this?
What version of ReiserFS was he using?
Was he using -notail?

I've had no problems with Reiser, but then, I don't have any 2TB drives laying around.

Like I said, he is an IT technician and deals with Linux all the time, so I am sure he has had plenty of experience playing around with reiserfs. Although he is pretty partial to XFS. I am not sure as to the extent he played with reiserfs though.

Like I asked, when was this? And why would you use Reiser for 2 TB drives anyway?

Please explain what you mean by this, because I don't agree with this statement. OpenGL has been around since October 1992, and the first DirectX since the release of Windoze 95, I believe. It wasn't until the third generation of DirectX when Microsoft bought Direct3D and added it into DirectX 3, and the original Direct3D was for the X Server.

I don't really care which started first or what Microsoft bought - in fact, it's a PLUS that Microsoft didn't originally develop it. DirectX has non-hardware specific pixel shaders, and a few other things. OpenGL has a few advantages, but is hindered by poor driver support.

Poor driver support? Doubtful. Especially considering when OpenGL is the only thing that ATI and nVidia can develop for in Linux. OpenGL support is excellent in Linux with these drivers. Even Mayas new hardware renderer runs flawlessly under linux. But I am also comparing it on a workstation card level. Appearently hardware rendering isn't fully supported on gamer cards. ATI or nVidia. I would think that OpenGL is the better API to work with considering all the major 3D software packages have OpenGL support, and most of them only have OpenGL support. Max being the exclusion with the ability to do DirectX and OpenGL, although alot of people I hear have problems with running MAX in DirectX mode as compared to OpenGL (We are used to working in quads most of the time and DirectX forces Max users to work in triangles). Even bill Gates in the beginning had an arguement with the original developer for OpenGL whining about which is better, and the conclusion was given that they are both equally good in their own respects.

Re: Windows rulezzz.. Linux sucks
 

Why do McDognads sell more hamburgers than everyone else.

Why do creative sell more sound cards than everyone else.

Why is Wal mart US # 1 retailer.

hint. it has absolutely nothing to do with their products being the best.

BAAAAAAAA dont be a LLama.

The first thing I want to address is the use of the word 'flawlessly' when describing things running well on Linux. I hate it. Why _shouldn't_ it run flawlessly? Is it really necessary to be that explicit about something running? If it runs, it runs. It doesn't have to be flawless. Sorry to nitpick, but every body says that and it gets on my nerves. Its like when you talk to Christians and they start throwing catch phrases at you like 'jesus lives in my heart' and you just shake your head because that statement is completly meaningless. No one lives in your heart, you just love Jesus. Cool, thats all you had to say bro. So let it be the same in Linux.. if it runs, just say so. No need to try to make it sound like more than it is by adding something like 'flawless' to the statement.

Now, about fragmentation. I think you people have some misconceptions about Linux filesystems and fragmentation. Firstly, ext3 _does_ fragment. People think that because you don't defrag, that it isn't fragmented, but it is. Run fsck and when its done, it'll report what percentage is 'non-contiguous'. Thats your fragmentation level. Myself, I've only ever seen ext3 get to about 20% fragmented, while I checked out my moms computer a while back and saw that it was 60%. So its more correct to say that ext3 fragments slower than NTFS, but not that it never gets fragmented.

The reason fragmentation doesn't matter on Linux is because of logical disk writing. I wish I could remember where I the paper I was reading on ext3 was (I'll look some more and follow up with a link to it if I find it), but it was talking about how fragmentation was actaully a _good_ thing with ext3. Basically, to do a crude summary, in a multiuser OS like Linux the disk is being read from and writen to constantly. Where fragmentation comes in handy is that the heads don't necessarily have to seek as far to read if the file being read is broken up because its constantly writing to nearby chunks and its the logical positioning of actual data on the drive that makes the filesystem efficient. Yeah, I know, I did a really bad job of describing it. I'll keep looking for that paper. ;)

Personally I use ReiserFS and I'm really excited about Reiser4 comming up soon. For me, ReiserFS is the fastest fs I've ever used. A nice bonus is that you never need to fsck it either. Someone mentioned something earlier about ReiserFS bogging down as it fills up, but this is true of every filesystem, even NTFS. Its never suggested to use more than 90 of a drives capacity, otherwise the filesystem will start to crawl. Its not just a flaw with Reiser.

Actually, ext2 speeds up when you get more full, discounting fragmentation, because it stops having to allocate file data sections, or so I hear. That could be total BS.

Redhat never let me down, but i keep using xp fo rthe games, and the fact that i have no choice but to use aol....

All in all, my LAN has been a surprise around every corner.

SOHO router: Gathering dust because it locked up whenever I tried to use eMule for more than a few files at once.

Win95: Replaced by Win98 to solve the problem of it literally BSODing every 5 to 10 minutes within weeks of install. (My mother's comp is only 233Mhz so I can't use Win2000 and WinNT doesn't support the programs she uses)

Win98 on my machine: replaced by WinXP to solve the "Needs reinstall every month" problem from 24/7 (24-hour interval reboots) running.

WinXP: More stable but WHY DOES MICROSOFT HAVE TO LOCK EMPTY FOLDERS AS IN USE UNTIL REBOOTED?

Current Router: Debian Linux running dhcpd, samba (as a PDC), rp-pppoe (for the ADSL modem), iptables, ipcheck.py (auto update for dyndns.org), and mp3blaster through SSH (I like the novelty of it)

My opinion of WinXP? It's a pain and the baby blue default interface really SHOWS how little microsoft thinks of my intelligence.

Why don't I use linux exclusively? I'm still learning (don't trust myself) and I might want to play Dungeon Siege again. (All I ever do now is watch anime (I haven't found an OGM decoder for linux yet), and read/write fanfiction.)

My goal? A second box so I can move everything important (IRC fserve, OpenOffice.org, GIMP, Mozilla Firebird, Anime Library, Music Library, BitTorrent, etc.) to Linux without losing... um... the OS that I'm unfortunately still a bit attached to.

I don't know... Linux just makes me feel both happy and yet uneasy. Probably because I don't know enough about it yet. (I know how to do anything I need but I only know how to fix my own problems.)

XP isn't a pain, damn it. There is little wrong with it besides basic system design, inherant to being "Windows". It's actually relatively easy to operate, and gives you enough power to actually be able to use it effectively.

It's definitely a lot less pain than other Windows operating systems and I do admit that it has good points.

I just have little tolerance for "Can't delete because it's in use" messages on empty folders after I've closed all the programs and windows. You know, all the little things that happen when you run windows for a week or two between reboots and can't change your habits because it will interrupt your P2P downloads that you waited in queue for days to get.

And then there are things like it's constantly swapping my browser (Mozilla Firebird with about 6 tabs open on average) into the swap file in order to keep 256 of 512MB RAM free. Or other little things like the fact that it likes to hide the file sizes on Zip files.

All in all, it's not half bad. It just gets on my nerves every now and then.

generally hidden files. there should be no case where an empty folder cannot be deleted, unless you are in a user account without administrator priveleges (unlikely if it's your PC).

"Can't delete because it's in use" has got to be some program locking the folder or a file in the folder.

"constantly swapping my browser" will be due to several things, like if it's maintaining a file cache (or more specifically, how big it is), and how well the program is designed. If I'm not mistaken, part of the Windows API allows a program to tell the O/S how to handle swapping.

Yeah. It's always either explorer or one of the extensions that's locking the folder. :mad:

As for the swapping, It's irritating me enough that I think I'll bump my RAM from 512MB to 1.5GB and turn off the swap file (It's only 766MB so I'd get more memory anyway)

i think permissions problems give the same error. as i learned from an old (as in, a single version back from the current one) openoffice installer.

I don't think it's permissions problems.

It most often happens when I'm encoding VOBs to OGMs and I try to delete the folder which contains the VOBs and temp files once I'm finished with them.

I can delete all of the files in the folder but not the folder itself (and I created it a few hours before) and yes, I do tell windows to show hidden files and so on.

It happens most often with folders containing media files such as Ogg Vorbis, AVI, VOB, OGM, etc.

Well, yeah, you're right, permissions will normally give that same error.

I think the permissions/administrator scheme in XP is terrible. They tried to make it to much like UNIX I think, but without much forethought. It is, obviously, better than the system used in Win98, but its still seriously lacking.

I'm really not qualified to comment too much on XP because I only used it for about 2 weeks about a month after it came out. I'm sure all the Serice Packs have fixed up a few things. I found it difficult to use and hard to find things, but the last Windows I seriously used was 95. Big difference between the two. I just kept wanting to pull up a command line and dig into the system, like I was used to with Linux.

I think the 'easiness' factor with XP comes in because people are just used to it. They understand (and/or put up with) the way Microsoft does things. Me being used to Linux for so many years, I actually find XP difficult. Its hard for me to click through so many menus and try to do things in a way that seems so backwards to me. Just about every person I know thats switched to Linux and has actually stuck with it for a year or two generally ends up saying the same thing. Its not that XP is horrible, but once you get used to Linux (and get over the steap learning curve) Windows just seems like a lot of work to use. All the little animations and what not start getting distracting and feel unnecessary. I suppose people who aren't used to compiling kernels would say that Linux is a lot of work, but for me compiling a kernel is as automatic and instinctive as a Windows user going out and buying/installing the next upgrade.

Just for me in general, XP doesn't feel productive. There is just too much going on, too many bells and whistles that distract from doing real work. Its just too flashy. Thats probably fine for the desktop and people probably like that to some degree, but Linux makes my computer feel like less of a toy and more of a machine.. if that makes sense.

linux is very easy for people who know a lot about computers to use. the problem comes along with the naive user... command lines are not good for such people - a slight syntax error can cause all kinds of messages that someone who is accustomed to them would understand, but your average person would not. it's easy for us geeks to say "but command lines are easy and efficient!" - granted, they are, but you have to learn how to use them first. this is the advantage of GUI-based systems. the "bells and whistles" you mention don't make the computer feel like a "toy" to people who are unaccustomed to computers - they make it clear to them that they are doing things with the computer, and the effect of them. take something simple, like XP's "slide" effect on the taskbar. when you close a program, all the other programs "slide" along to fill the space it occupied. this draws the user's attention, and shows that something has gone, and what it was. it may sound minor, but that can make all the difference.

I can go along with that. Lord knows the only reason people are using Macs now a days is soley on the strength of its GUI. Only the geeks are concerned with the fact that its base is built around BSD. The command line is cryptic and the default Linux login screen is mildly scary. Like I said, Windows' GUI seems fine for the desktop, all the nifty little animations and what not are, well, nifty. But they bug me. If I'd of never used a computer before I'd probably just accept the Windows GUI and never think twice about it, I'd also probably just accept all the minor annoyances that add up to an unpleasant experience over all and never really know the difference.

Linux was fun for me at first because there was so much to learn. So much to do. So much I still tinker with and fiddle with every day. For people who use computers as a hoby, Linux is perfect. People who code, run servers, and really use their computers will benefit greatly from Linux. If you play games and read websites, maybe Windows is better for you. I'm no evangilist, I think you should use whats good for you. But I also think that if you do anything half way serious with your computer, Linux should be a concideration.

I know a guy that uses Windows. He likes it. He does the typical gaming, downloading, mp3 hoarding, etc. But you know, he set up Linux on his old machine to store all his files on. He has no intention at all of using Linux, but he understands the stability of it and feels safer putting his 24548689 gigs of music/movies/whatever else on a Linux system. He just connects to it with Samba and is very happy with it.

Thats basically what I'm talking about. Hes no 'power user' and he doesn't want to be one. He doesn't want to take the time to learn a new way of doing things and certainly doesn't want anything to do with a command line. But the uses for Linux are vast. Last time I talked to him he was thinking of doing a webserver and ftp server and he wants that on the Linux box. I asked him why and he said security. He doesn't really know much about what hes securing, but he doesn't trust Windows to do it. I don't know, to me that, coming from someone who has no intention of moving away from Windows, speaks volumes.

heh, i'm the same i guess. although my media is stored on this (windows) box, i do have an ickle linux server in the corner for - well - serving. linux is very, very good at that. and you're right, it is fun to configure, and it's very configurable. but a lot of linux advocates don't realise that not everyone finds these things fun, and that not everyone wants to be concerned with them, at all. this is what typically leads to people being utterly confounded by people who choose to use windows.

i have big plans, though. my media collection - and possibly that of my whole flat - will be on a central linux server when i get another computer (it'll be built of bits of the old computers, yersee), and a "proper" flat network (at the moment we're on a uni residential network, which complicates matters).

Hehe, nice. My big plans are to have a machine in just about every room with a central server containing home directories. That way, no matter which computer you sit down at, your login is your login. Depending on how well it handles the strain, I may use it for an all around media server as well. A wireless home network would be nice too. I'd love to go sit outside for some fresh air and be able to take the laptop with me. Big plans, little money. The bane of every geeks existence. ;)

MythTV looks like a lot of fun too. Might have to have a dedicated machine for that too. :D I love computers.

funny you mention that MythTV thing, i was actually looking at that to share the server (samba doesn't take a huge lot of resources, might as well make the server *do* something, although this could be a pipe dream).

as for your unified login thing, it's neat but wouldn't really have the freedom my flatmates would want :)

Funny, that's exactly what I'm planning on doing (moneymoneymoneymoney, money, money!). Intresting how great minds think alike. :D

It's good to see you back (in the Community Center, at least), virulent. I'd also like to setup the same whole /home thing, but then, I can't really see a use for it right now, for me.

Ooh, MythTV looks intresting too. Now damn it, I only have so much to spend, stop tempting me! ;)

You know, speaking of Windows XP, you can turn off a lot of the bells and whistles. Nearly all of them, in fact.

Sounds exactly like my projects and views except that there's no point for me to use a PVR since the only TV I watch is in the form of fansubbed anime.

XP is easy and I'm not completely over the linux learning curve yet but XP can be a real pain. Almost every day, there's something I wish there was a commandline switch for. (Not that there isn't. I just don't know any.) ps and kill -9 being the ones I miss the most whenever some program decides to freeze and eat 99% of the processor while I wait for Task Manager to appear.

By the way, does anybody know of a console-based program for linux that can play the audio streams of video files without having to split them first? I like being able to play music using FTP and SSH (for the novelty of it) without having to also use VirtualDub to split it. (most of my music is in the form of AVI or MPEG files (Anime Music Videos))