View Poll Results: Which platforms do you own?

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  • Windows

    29 90.63%
  • Mac OS X

    6 18.75%
  • Linux

    19 59.38%
  • iOS (iPad, iPhone, iPod Touch)

    6 18.75%
  • Android (phone, tablet)

    11 34.38%
  • Windows Phone 7

    2 6.25%
  • XBox 360

    7 21.88%
  • BlackBerry

    3 9.38%
  • Nintendo DS

    6 18.75%
  • GameBoy Advance

    3 9.38%
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Thread: What platforms do you own?

  1. #11
    It is interesting to see that at least half of contestants own a Linux-based system. May I ask what were your reasons for moving from Windows to Linux OS? What edition do you use? How is the stability and driver support?

    By the way, seems I'm one of the few who own a Blackberry.

  2. #12
    May I ask what were your reasons for moving from Windows to Linux OS?
    Because it fully customizable and with much better font rendering. Many other aspects just a details, which always bring people to holy wars

    What edition do you use?
    ArchLinux with GNOME 3 in fall-back mode(classic mode in other words).

    How is the stability and driver support?
    Everything just works for me(except ATI drivers, which are crappy as in Windows, but fortunately in Linux I have open source realization), in many cases without a need to search drivers over all internet, as it was today at work for my LG Optimus One(Windows 7 wasn't able to connect it for developing).

  3. #13
    PGD Staff code_glitch's Avatar
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    @Andru:
    which always bring people to holy wars
    Wise words, I'm afraid I may just start one, I don't mean to so I'll try and keep the specifics out of it...

    @Lifepower:
    I use x64 linux mint 11 (katya as its called), themed like a mac although you could do anything you wanted. I still sport GNOME 2 for my desktop as many people do. If its your first linux install I would recommend mint - no console faff. Just boot, hook up to the net (optional) click next a few times, tell it where to place the install on the HDD, answer 3 questions about username and password, click your country and wait 15 minutes. Done, all in a nice GUI (keeping in livecd tradition)

    Why: Development is crazy, you get mono and wine - so a lot of windows stuff works, performance is inconceivable when coming from windows in many cases. Just try getting it to exceed 1.6GiB of RAM through normal usae with an XP VM, a LOT of firefox tabs, banshee, skype, compiz, LibreOffice writer, Geany and thunderbird Plus no antiviurs as Linux has no viruses targeting it

    Stability: I have crashed windows a total of around 16 times over time, windows 7 thrice in 8 months... Linux crashes: 2 - due to absolute idiocy on my behalf - if you have a few braincells this never happens. Like mucking with the file system on a root level (DUH). Linux IS the most stable platform (same as mac - common ancestry through BSD)

    Drivers: I am cursed by an ATI card that royally muck up windows (hybrid GPU ). I use the fglrx drivers, crappy but I've only had 1 issue with docky, so I set up a keyboard shortcut to restart it once a week And yes, I call it unstable as a linux user - it messes up once a week. For the record I reboot once a fortnight.

    Nicenesses: lets say I want to install some programs that are quite common, like freepascal compiler, geany IDE and chromium (google chrome for linux) I just need to type in:
    Code:
    sudo apt-get install fpc geany chromium-browser
    Or on arch I believe it'd be something like
    Code:
    sudo pacman -S fpc geany chromium-browser
    No downloading stupid exes from random places.... Nice.

    And wait a minute or two for the packages to be downloaded and installed - no intervention unless you are installing some proprietary 3rd party stuff that needs you to hit space to say you accept a license once in a blue moon

    Hope you get to take a distro for a spin sometime...
    I once tried to change the world. But they wouldn't give me the source code. Damned evil cunning.

  4. #14
    Andru and code_glitch, thanks for your answers!

    Quote Originally Posted by Andru View Post
    Many other aspects just a details, which always bring people to holy wars
    This was not my intention. I know that some of these discussions can get heated up. I've asked this because lately on Eee PC forums there is an increased number of users installing Linux replacing existing Windows 7 Starter installations. It starts to look like a trend.

    In my own case I've haven't used Linux for many years (I think since 2003). Even though Windows Vista and 7 never crashed on me, I'd still like to try some edition of Linux, just haven't decided yet which one to choose.

  5. #15
    PGD Staff code_glitch's Avatar
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    The truth behind it is that every distro was designed for a purpose - yes arch does many things very well, its just the easiest/best looking setup the world has seen, yes ubuntu is a fine all rounder, if you don't mind ugly unity and all that other bulk the developers have added without asking anybody (kind of defeats the point of linux), yes mint is more compatible with debian and does a lot of things well (I personally think it does everything the best but I'm trying to avoid a holy war) but its still bulky, has its glitches with some ubuntu stuff and I hate the default branding. Its not bad, its just good at a specific area.

    Window 7 Start is a joke - you pay for windows but can only have 3 windows open, up to 2gib of RAM and basically nothing you would want... All in a lot of Gibs of installation files - something at a premium on eee PCs. God above, even the default DSL livecd is better (and more featured) than 7 starter plus it fits in 48megs!
    I once tried to change the world. But they wouldn't give me the source code. Damned evil cunning.

  6. #16
    Quote Originally Posted by Lifepower View Post
    It is interesting to see that at least half of contestants own a Linux-based system. May I ask what were your reasons for moving from Windows to Linux OS? What edition do you use? How is the stability and driver support?
    I use both Kubuntu 11.10 and Mageia 1. I started to switching to Linux long ago. My first Red Hat based distribution was shipped on 3,5" floppy disks ... but was a pain to install. KDE 1 wasn't that nice either.
    Since Windows 95 I was looking for an alternative for WinDos. I had a look at OS/2 but it obviously failed to gain a market share. Linux has now the best "support" of alternative systems. But a long time I used the BeOS Personal Edition so I always have a close look at the Haiku-OS. (Which should be added to the list because FPC runs on it ...)
    Best regards,
    Cybermonkey

  7. #17
    Quote Originally Posted by Lifepower View Post
    It is interesting to see that at least half of contestants own a Linux-based system. May I ask what were your reasons for moving from Windows to Linux OS?
    Actually because I can't use OS/2.

    I used OS/2 3 Warp in the '90s and I think it is the most stable, user friendly PC operating system ever, even nowadays. Unfortunately it's almost dead (IBM tried to open-sourced it several times but Microsoft vetoed it always). Currently there are "eCom Station" but it isn't the same and cannot compete with Windows in the most modern computers.

    When I changed my home computer and I realized that I cannot use OS/2, I moved to Linux (Redhat IIRC). I was using it occasionally and I found it recovers from my programming errors better than Windows.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lifepower View Post
    What edition do you use?
    Xubuntu in both computers (an old IBM desktop and a new DeLL laptop), but I'm tempted by Mint.

    The IBM has an OEM WindowsXP too. I use it only to play and to test the Windows version of Allegro.pas.

    Quote Originally Posted by Lifepower View Post
    How is the stability and driver support?
    Not sure why but I never have it tuned perfectly, may be because Xfce has fewer support than famous KDE and Gnome, but my home computer isn't powerful enough to support anything "bigger" than that (good old Pentium IV 1.8 Ghz). By the way, the latest Xubuntu (11.10) seems to be much more stable, less buggy and more ease to configure than previous releases, but it's slightly slower.

    Unfortunately, Intel graphics support is broken. I've read that they know why it doesn't work (the driver doesn't reserve the graphics RAM correctly as it's shared with conventional RAM so system and graphics becomes mixed after some time...) but I don't understand why they decided to drop off the OpenGL support instead of fix it (Windows XP has full OpenGL support and it's fast and safe. Actually old Kubuntu 8/9 had full OpenGL support and was fast and stable!). AFAIK this problem isn't fixed in any Linux.

    The DeLL laptop has an nVidia that works, but I've found that it isn't able to render some effects. Not sure if it's problem of the graphics card itself or because I didn't configured it correctly or because I'm using the open-sourced driver.
    Last edited by Ñuño Martínez; 02-11-2011 at 09:23 AM.
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  8. #18
    I've got:
    > desktop dual boot system with Windows 7 and Ubuntu 10.04 (AMD Althon 64X2, 4GB RAM, Geforce 8600GT).
    > HP Proliant microserver with Atom CPU and 4GB ram running Archlinux
    > A 3 year old laptop running Windows XP with a Celeron CPU and Geforce 7400 (I should install linux on this one)
    > EEE Pad transformer tablet
    > A very old PIII system standing lonely in the corner of my room

    Two years ago I decided to make a move from windows to linux. Because I can't do that at once, I installed a dual-boot which I'm still using today. I started with Ubuntu 9.10 which is now upgraded to 10.04. I did that because I got in touch with it during a programming course at uni and I discovered that some friends of mine were quite enthousiastic about the OS. After playing it, I learned that the the commandline interface is very powerfull and allows you maximum control and ability to learn how things actually work.

    I'm starting to dislike Ubuntu because it's quite bulky and still does not always have the packages I need. I discovered arch a couple of months ago and I installed it on a new home-server I bought. It's a big improvement, allthough you must take your time to install things and troubleshoot (when neccesary). I use my homeserver mainly for backups, downloads and hosting my own repositories. I'm still looking for other nice ways to put it to use, because I'm not using it to it's max potential (200MB of the 4GB of RAM is actually used lol).
    Coders rule nr 1: Face ur bugz.. dont cage them with code, kill'em with ur cursor.

  9. #19
    PGDCE Developer de_jean_7777's Avatar
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    I've got a
    - Lenovo G700a laptop with Windows 7 and Fedora 15 dual-boot (i3 2310-M, 4GB DDR3, Intel HD3000 and Radeon HD6650 switchable graphics)
    - Samsung Galaxy Ace with android 2.3.7 (unofficial cyanogenmod port)
    - ASUS EEE Pad Transformer with Android 3.2
    - Athlon II X240, 4GB RAM and Windows 7 at home (I use this rarely as now it's most family computer)
    - ASUS 1000HE laptop running Fedora, with a broken screen (serves as a server for SVN and other stuff)

    In the future, I also plan to get a Mac machine and some iDevices if my android projects become financially viable. But this is currently only a plan. I may also get some gaming consoles (xbox360, ps3) but it's unlikely I'll develop for these machines.
    Existence is pain

  10. #20
    By the way, out of curiosity, anyone tried running React OS, which is a free and open-source Windows-compliant alternative? The screenshot on Wikipedia seems pretty convincing.

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