Just out of curiosity do you use linux on laptop/desktop

I’ve been using Linux since version .01, when you had to compile the source code yourself and gather all the pieces and parts to make it useful. I have many of the early versions on floppy disks.

I was a hardcore Linux user right up to about Redhat 5.2 or so, somewhere around 1999 or 2000. I don’t know what happened but programming and computers took a back seat to other things, technology whizzed by, as it does, and I mostly lost interest in all of it.

I do have a laptop with me that dual boots Windows and CentOS.

 

Red Hat here. Even a little Knoppix on disk now and then. (Might have something to do with computer forensics... I forgot)

What little I was taught was a unforgettable revelation when I installed my red hat into a tiny 300 meg CPU equipped coughingly slow computer aged beyond reason and found out how fast it had become once it was all configured.

Forcing windows into the same machine is trying to get Al Bundy to force tiny shoes in his TV shoe shop onto a large customer.

I like linux. But I just rather not try to configure one in my monster computer under the desk today. Bios was bad enough when one gets into RAM RAS, REFRESH, TIMING, VOLTAGE etc. gives me a headache.

I am not someone who worries about this brand or that brand like ford or chevy. All of them will get you there soon enough. It's perhaps how small and agile Linux was against then then bloated Windows.

Which was not the bloated monster it has become today. Ive learned to make sure only the RAID array is connected when the windows install disc goes in. Otherwise it will grab all the other hard drives and make a hash of everything inside administrative tools.

Linux does not do that. What it WILL do is exactly what you tell it to and nothing else at that moment.

 

Since the ol days back when Linux distros like
BSD
Debian
Gentoo
Fedora
Slakware
SUSE
Solaris
Mandrake
Red Hat

(Tried to upload a photo of a box 6.2 redhat still in plastic) but website won't let me upload a 115kb photo?


I know a bunch more have come out but this is before alot had a GUI interface. I'm still running a FTP headless with Debian. Gentoo is running on my laptop in the truck.


It all comes down to what you feel you want out of your system. Wether it's a tablet, Cell phone or tower. Your bound to find a Tux user someplace on here.

 

I have tried it off and on over the past 15 years (edgewaterpcdotcom) and never really cared for it or even saw the point. Last I checked Windows was 86% of the business market, Apple was like 13 and Linux was like 1. I just can't get behind Apple or Linux for the stuff I do.

 

However, according to W3Cook, Linux powers the servers that run 96.5 percent of the top one million domains in the world (as ranked by Alexa).

W3Techs goes even further down the list and claims Linux powers around 70 percent of the top 10 million Alexa domains. Windows controls the remaining 30 percent.


Sounds like 1% to me. I understand your info, unfortunately it has not been an accurate count of Linux on desktop or PC systems. Due to the lack of reporting ability. No CD key to register its use.

 

The days of the cdkey registering ended with the end of boxed CD or DVD retail sales of gaming.

All of my gaming is pretty much online through two providers (Steam is one example) and a very small handful of specific vendors who also provide updates and servers for their outside games online.

Once a computer downloads, installs the game etc and you make a account with password and username I think the provider of the game and gaming server systems probably tie something unique like your MAC Address to that pile of information or install a authentication key into your software. There have been times Ive rebuilt or built completely new computers and redownloaded the same old games and once past the authentication (Two part today via cell text code and email password confirmation link) Im back up and running again.

I do keep about oh... 60 CD's still able to be run on the computer in the corner which is a XP machine old enough to run them. There are getting to where this current machine wont run these games correctly due to a variety of reasons. The XP Machine with it's retail Windows OS Disk never sees the internet. Just the game CD's or certain video files via a single USB slot and firewire which is not even sold very much anymore or recognized (UDF Files) unless you have a third party software like Roxio or Nero big enough and new enough for a bunch of money to recognize it. Even then Camcorders are dead, we have digital ones now that are just about as good because they are able to more densely pack the optical sensors and get better resolutions.

One time I used a old sony DVR camera a 460 to take a picture of the Highwater Monument and it's barn sized bronze incription plate from the Warren Statue about a mile and change off Little Round Top in Gettysburg in perfect April weather.

The photo graph came out ok. Just barely.

Today's newer technology can probably not only SHOOT that, but also identify the person standing near it too to boot.

 

@Luse thank you for your service. I'm still involved with the distros of Linux. It's amazing to see how the community has evolved into larger markets than home use. SOME ppl @x1Heavy for one didn't read my post. Linux is an Operating System as is Microsoft Windows is an Operating Sysytet. They are not Games.
Microsoft issues a COA (Certificate of Authentication) this is the key, Microsoft used to count the machines with their operating system .


Linux came out with a counter. Linux Counter - Wikipedia
This is not mandatory by any Linux user. This makes it free, unlike the hook of
Google Image Result for https://filestore.community.support.microsoft.com/api/images/a98d7289-247e-4d61-a6af-8a9c85704cc0
mandatory COA Authentication by Microsoft.

I enjoyed the freedom of not having to buy a operating system. Games can be made for what ever OS you had in windows. For a long time Game makers were making games that wouldn't play well with linux. It has changed over the past years. Since alot of people are no longer on a PC or laptop. It's all phones and tablets. So check it out Android is based off Linux kernel.
Android (operating system) - Wikipedia As well as Macintosh. FreeBSD - Wikipedia

A for games they run on plenty of platforms.

 

I appreciate the touch of reminding about the windows and linux systems versus gaming.

Theoratically you could run a virtual machine into a linux computer and then have it make the game think it's being run in a windows environment for free. That is the one biggest reason I did not adopt Linux as a OS. I still have my redhat disk in storage from college IT classes.

That disk can install Redhat on any machine and run without having to do the windows registry key against Redmond's Authetnication Anti Piracy servers which is a process required within either 72 hours of a windows OS installing or 50 bootups.

If you did not REGISTER WINDOWS with Redmond with a VALID KEY at installing into a new or rebuilt system (Which by the way is also understood by REDMOND WA Microsoft how it was built if rebuilt or totally new) before they will permit you to continue using windows without interference and a blue screen with a validation box inside one of the control panel displays related to overall system.

If the Windows never was validated against Redmond WA upon installation on a new or rebuilt machine then it will be given a black screen back ground and never issued a validated box in the system overall view. (Ram count, ratings et) You can run that computer for a while until it's reaches 50 boots and it simply bricks. Edpart DOS reformats the disk drive and it's like new again, reinstall. But only don't attempt to authenticate online vs Redmond because that OS Key specific to that copy you are installing from is not valid.

The only way to get valid at that point is to go out and buy a retail DVD that contains the actual windows OS you want to use. That I believe has collasped in pricing now that Windows 10 is out. Going from say 300 dollars for Windows 7 64 bit ultimate down to 20 dollars in the secondary market. Because at that time Win 10 was offered freely as a either upgrade from win 7 or a completely new OS for free at that time period.

I am not a 10 user. I never upgraded that far. HOWEVER I know a little bit enough that it is quite possible there has been a hotfix or updating that makes all legacy windows OS'es whatever they are behave the same as Win 10 in the background.

I am strictly a tiny poster in a handful of websites email is not a issue and gaming is something that it would be incredibly wasteful and boring in content should anyone look at it. Literally a waste of time.

Redmond has succeeded in dominating the retail market for gaming. Linux has not. But I can probably see where there might be ways to make a Linix OS system run windows software in some virtual form if someone is smart enough to build it just so within that Linux OS.

This is where my knowledge ends. I have other learnings about more windows OS's dating back to when they first began in business. Before there was a win 95 for the public. Configuring those is a nightmare that caused me to reconsider contuining on with IT education.

Configuring Cisco servers beyond Cisco III reached my limits.

Programming in two sepeerate languages and building stuff inside a computer and it's OS usually a windows version reached to where HTML was moderately successful Any child can write in HTML but JAVA on the other hand was really bad for me. It has to be accurate to work. I am not THAT accurate. Programming was rejected by myself in college because repeating lines of code is breaking big rocks into little rocks and every litter and symbol has to be in the right places. Never mind ASCII.

I did master Binary thank god. If anything. And I like to build big computer systems. When I presented back in the 2000's to my hardware systems class a presentation of what is possible with a then 3000 dollar computer gaming system built on a Raptor 150 Raid zero array with 4 disks (Each raptor costing a bunch of money in enterprise black in retail at that time) the class laughed.

But I built the #### thing a year later at home and it ran 6 years until the Ti4600 card finally burned up. Then I rebuilt again and again. Sometimes building entirely new systems.

Many times I have used the same retail windows XP, 7 in 32 and 64 bits against Redmond in Authentication challenge with the DVD KEY to each and all of my systems and Redmond says it's all good.

Linux as a OS off that disk in my storage will install into anything I can build from spare parts around the house. I literally have enough in one closest to deploy a computer tonight in a few hours. Linux will go right in and work. boom done.

But in the end, to relearn and redo everything about linux and try to keep up? No that's not going to happen.

It was a nice past time for what it was in class. It served it's purpose.

I recognize there are people such as yourself who are very formidable in knowing way more than I would ever about this computer stuff. Im happy that is the case. I only know a little bit. I don't know alot.

Im happy to talk about it passing. But if it comes to pulling up every little point about what I did not or did read or understand, I'll have to do it. It has the potential to cause problems with forums in general. That is not my goal.

It would have served me way better to keep my big mouth shut about that gd linux and windows all together. But no, the milk is spoil and there it is.

Im finished with this discussion, if it ever was one.

 

I've got an old Dell Poweredge 1U dual xeon server running debian for various things, though I mostly forget about it. I'm kind of at that point where I remember enough about it to really #### it up irreversibly instead of figuring out that little problem. Build the server kernel from source still though.