Jtmcgee.net » windows

63 Reasons to Love Ubuntu, Linux, and Unix

Jordan DeLoach — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 02:23:42 +0000

Intro: Started as 10,20,30 reasons and would add up to 50. There are just too many great things about Ubuntu / Linux / Unix. Look, I sat down to write 50 and Ubuntu ( and Linux ( and Unix )) are so amazing I couldn’t stop until I got to 63 reasons why it is amazing.

11 Reasons to Love Ubuntu:

Ubuntuforums.org
Simple website, setup, all around simple
Apt-get
Apt-get
Ubuntu Wiki
The Ubuntu community
Most programs have a special install for it, or at least have specific instructions for Ubuntu.
Wonderful built in software
2 Updates a year
LTS updates
Ubuntu chartroom is great for instant support

28 Reasons to love Linux:

Open Source
Open Source
Open Source
Open Source
Great help base (though Ubuntu’s is superior)
Anything is possible with the right knowledge
Gnome
Reliability
Free
Lash / ffmpeg / lspci / lsusb (amazing, simple commands)
Grep
Amazing logging (try finding that in windows!)
File transfer speeds are shown (MAJOR)
Makes the best servers
Cron
Wget / fdisk / DF –H (so many great command)
Wine (the Windows emulator, not the alcoholic beverage)
Not graphically weighed down, but still looks good
You have a choice of gui ( Gnome, KDE, Xfce, etc. )
You can run just about any sort of server on Linux
So freaking customizable
X
X over SSH
Great built in support for encryption
Really easy to start making your own scripts and customizing it just the way you like it.
Best security, anywhere. No config necessary (but you still can)
CUPS
It can run on anything even a 200 MHz processor

24 Reasons to love Unix:

SSH
Amazing setup (root /) so much better than C: and D: and E: and F: etc.
Great integration with PHP, Python, etc.
Bash / SH
Mounting is SO easy
Terminal is worth knowing (cmd.exe is a joke)
Great built in support for compression (more than just windows zip!)
Transmission (app)
Finder/Nautilus are not the ugly explorer.exe
Mounting more than a hard drive is possible (network and virtuals)
You don’t need extras; the basics do it (Ex: ISO making is included in Unix by default)
Efficiency
Rarely has Apps act up like Windows (You’ll forget what to do when you see a Don’t Send)
The Icons look good
You finally can break away from the start menu of windows.
Directory/File permissions are worth using
Directory/File owners are worth using
Groups are worth using
Customizabilicity. ( Yes, it’s not a word but even when you can customize your boot loader than is pretty amazing )
SUDO
Terminal can look pretty flashy ( compared to cmd.exe )
It doesn’t lie, it throws files away, it doesn’t recycle them ( attack on the Recycle Bin of Windows )
It gets along with everyting, Windows, Mac, Linux, Unix always communicates great.
There is hope for when you have problems

Dropbox, lots of uses, lots of greatness.

Jordan DeLoach — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 14:05:42 +0000

I have decided that dropbox is so cool, it deserves a blog post! The uses for this is endless! I have seen people who keep their application data in here to keep applications synced or people who keep their keedb databases in here to keep them synced too. A really creative idea is to use it to start downloads on your home computer through uTorrent.

The things I use it for are more simple and normal however Dropbox still does a great job at it! Mostly I use it to keep my school papers synced between my desktop, laptop, and my iPod touch so I can work on them anywhere. Also it is extremely valuable with it’s version control system to use it for my code. I just use the free 2 gb version ( but they give out free upgrades and I am up to 2.5 gb ) but 2 gb holds a lot if your not storying videos or music. Also on the iPhone/iPod touch you can have “favorites” which are basically saved locally used for offline situations.

Written from the iPhone/iPod touch WordPress application during first hour at school.

Oh Windows… why can’t you be like Linux?

Jordan DeLoach — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 21:54:19 +0000

Today I had to try and fix my computer today, everything was going wrong. I had only about 4 minutes in my OS before some vital program crashed. During this terrible, blind, expierence I was just hoping, oh why can’t they take Linux commands?

My favorite Linux commands I would want in Windows:

wget ( I downloaded a program that does this and set it as a variable so it works great! )
sudo
apt-get install/remove/update/upgrade
/etc/init.d/xxxx restart/start/stop ( really nice and simple! )
/var/log/ ( always helpful in debugging )
cd ~
/etc/fstab ( ugly, but it works just the way you want! )
mount
netstat

I use a lot of those commands daily, they just WORK, not fancy GUI’s, they just get the job done! Windows why can’t you be like that? Your command line is a joke while Mac and Ubuntu’s terminal is their brightest point.

P.S. PowerShell sucks still Windows!