Linux is a fun OS for a hobbyist. Windows 7 Professional 64 bit is the best OS for real work.
Hmm.. I guess my full-time job as a Linux Admin for a major IB is just a hobby?
Stuxnet certainly thinks so.
Nonsense! With Windows you are always plagued with viruses and you always have to worry about if the update from Microsoft will cost you a couple days work. For peace of mind you are better off running linux. The less contact with Microsoft you have the smoother things will be.
I met Linus online in the early 90's and saw that he was on to something. After a few years we ported our databases we were running on SCO to Linux. I've had some linux machines with uptimes of almost 2 years and they would have had longer uptimes except we had to move them. And this was 5+ years ago. Those systems used numerous SCSI drives and were under constant load.
Today I have numerous Linux servers with databases running on Linux that average 28 record changes a second 24/7 on databases that have 100's of millions of working parts. Besides Linux I have Windows based servers that we mainly use for web services. While these systems are much more stable than ever I'd never consider using any Windows product to run our databases on.
In 10+ years I have never had a server fail due to the Linux OS. Not once. Linux has been very very good to me both technically and financially.
I had no idea until I read your post I was a "hobbyist".
Oh, wow, an anti-Linux troll-style comment. Haven't seen one of them for a while.
Almost makes me nostalgic for Golden Eagle... almost. :)
Linux is a fun OS for a hobbyist. Windows 7 Professional 64 bit is the best OS for real work.The London Stock Exchange would disagree with you.
Amazing, and here I've been using a genuine 64-bit OS (Fedora) for years now to do real work, while people keep complaining that the reason they can't switch to Linux is because it doesn't have games. So, while they are losing cycles to their virus and malware scanners, and cleaning requirements, I just keep on using my computer to do real work. When they are reloading because their computer has become slow as molasses, I've had to merely continue doing real work on my desktop, because it just works, 24/7.
I'm so glad you clued me in that I can finally expect my co-workers to be able to do some real work as well.
I gave up being a "hobbyist" some years ago. Linux went from residing on a "toy" machine to my only home OS about 3 years ago when I gave away my old Win98 box (refurbished) to a young mother of two trying to escape (with state help) from former hubby's gang situation. She had never had a computer before.
These days I don't bother with the OS. The shipped kernel+ (Ubuntu) works just fine without rebuilding, the desktop (XFCE) has a few configuration flaws, but... it just works.
"Fun"? It's a tool. And a reliable one for pretty much everything I need to do. (Okay, I've not yet installed a certain Windoze-only UML editor under Wine, but I suspect it will go.)
I don't recommend Xubuntu for total novices; system configuration is a messy weakness it hasn't yet overcome. But beyond that it is quite stable, fairly quick on old hardware (designed for Win98), and reliable.
And I suspect (I could be wrong) Win7 would bog it down in a flash.