Why do you use Linux?

[Don B. Cilly]

So...
Windows is Unix-based.
OSX is is Unix-based.
Even Android and IOS are.

Linux is open-source Unix.
Why use anything else?

Actually, I have a phone with Ubuntu Touch on it. It works perfectly.
But there's no way to get whatsapp to work on it - yet, anyway.
And I'm obviously waiting for Plasma Mobile. Waiting, waiting...

So, the question could be: why not use Linux.
And the answer could be: [insert favourite app here] does not work with it.

[Edit] And it's not as if whattsapp is my favourite app, is it, but I can't just tell everybody to use telegram, can I.

[WWDERW]

So...
Windows is Unix-based.

MS brought back Xenix?

[Don B. Cilly]

It's been Unix-based since NT.

[WWDERW]

It's been Unix-based since NT.

You sure about that?

While Linux and OSX share similarities, that isn't quite the case with NT, even also when the 9x was around (you had NT and 9X and "merging" didn't happen until XP).

If also Windows is unix like like OSX and Linux, why is permission handling so terrible in the NT line (for sure better then the 9x line (as there wasn't any permission handling at all), but still horrid)?

There are some similar command line usage that I can use on my Linux rigs and on my wife's mac, but I can't do the same on my dad's win 10 (he doesn't have WSL on his computer and I wouldn't consider that quite the same even if he did have it running).

[Don B. Cilly]

Well, from what I remember, 95 couldn't really do multitasking at all, 98 tried but epically failed, with NT they changed the underlying structure to Unix, and they still messed it up.

After that, it got more and more Unix-like. Look at the basic structuring of the OS...
It doesn't mean they made a good job of it though ;·)

[vinnywright]

It's been Unix-based since NT.

I'm sorta sure Windows is MS-DOS based.

VINNY

[WWDERW]

Well, from what I remember, 95 couldn't really do multitasking at all, 98 tried but epically failed, with NT they changed the underlying structure to Unix, and they still messed it up.

Multi-tasking is a different animal. Win 98 did have better strides (it's one of my favorite versions of Windows (in fact I still use it to this day), Vista and 7 would be next (yes I actually liked Vista, it wasn't as bad as a lot of people think, I think it was just before it's time) with multi-tasking, Win 95 tried to multi-task, but wasn't quite there yet.

Where the 9x family really sucked was multi-user and permissions (just about non existent in the 9x line).

I'm not seeing the similarities in the underlying structure. Now, I do see that MS is bringing things to Windows (their version of it anyway) that have existed on Linux for quite some time. But I'm having a hard time stretching that to Windows is unix-like. But I could be daft that way.

[vinnywright]

https://www.quora.com/If-macOS-and-L...-by-Bill-Gates

VINNY

[jglen490]

Engineers and concepts are commutable. Corporate integrity can be a flexible concept. And the lawyers always win, because they make the rules. Windows is not Unix, in the same way that Linux is not Unix. All three implement certain similar concepts in different ways. Just because Windows incorporates TCP/IP source code, does not make them anything other than what they each are.

I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here.

[Qqmike]

And just to be clear, Whatsapp does work, of course, on standard Android phones. The spousal unit here tells me it's about the best way to communicate internationally now. (I still use my rather dusty Motorola flip phone, which, thankfully, DOES at least text.)

[Don B. Cilly]

Yeah, well, sorry. I oversimplified and and was possibly just plain wrong about Windows.

A few years ago someone - quite knowledgeable on the subject - told me that:
Windows was based on DOS, then they forked to NT which had a *nix-like (VMS-based) kernel and structure, and then, since 95 and 98 (still mainly DOS-based) weren't "cutting it", they implemented more and more *nix-VMS-like structures into XP and subsequent releases until DOS-based stuff was just vestigial and kept for some compatibility.
He may have been wrong/taking the piss/oversimplifying, or maybe I just got it wrong.

And of course I should have used *nix and not Unix. Gnu is Not Unix by definition...

And of course whatsapp works on android. And ios.
It does not on my Ubuntu phone (which is just an old Nexus 5 with Ubuntu Touch on it).
So I would have to carry two phones around, one with Ubuntu and the other with Android for whatsapp.
And since pretty much all I use the phone for is making and receiving calls, and messaging, and people call you and message you with whatsapp (well, it is free, as compared to using the phone company's service which is not), well...

[woodsmoke]

LOL well the "why" that I BEGAN using Linux was because of what happened the very first time that I got onto "high speed internet" (cable) when I moved to "the big city".
I has been on dialup before and was eagerly awaiting what i would experience.

Well, this was using IE maybe 7? it was back in 2005... I got onto the net and the VERY FIRST THING I SAW...

Was a great big popup grey box offering a "male enhancement product" !! :0 !!!

I close Internet Exploder and called the cable company and gently asked what might be going on.

The fellow literally chuckled and said, something like:

you are ok that is Microsoft(tm) trying out how many people will actually go to such a site.

YOU are the very first person to call and complain so I guess that there are a LOT of people going to their site.

It is benign, it gives an error code and closes.

They are developing an anti-virus and are testing to see what people actually do.

What we use here is an older version of IE it is IE5 and download it here, it gets past all of the junk that IE( ? don't remember ) has going on with it.

So, I did.

My youngest boy is an astronomer and was always hasseling me to run Linux but at the time it was still a lot of command line or just getting past it, I tried SUSE, MEPIS etc. but they were kludzy.

So, I purchased Xandros(tm) which was supposed to be "just like windblows only safer and would run windblows software" I actually only needed Powerpoint(tm) and a crossword puzzle maker so anything else was bells and whistles.

After I did that for maybe 2 years I started installing a lot of very small distros on junque like the 286s and 386s that were heading to South America because of the switch to Pentium and donating the machines to folks with no money.

When I actually assembled my very first computer in an Xfinity case, I installed Kubuntu and never looked back.

So,
I got into Linux because I realized that Microshaft really is a predatory operation and I am philosophically opposed to such. I DO NOT MIND PAYING MONEY...everybody needs to make money that is how they stay viable, but they should not be PREDATORY...that is precisely why I will NEVER run an apple product...

Because of two things:
a) Back when Apple first came out they were literally GIVING away, for $200.00 USD computers to teachers and GAVE FREE OF CHARGE a computer to all administrators and office help. Of course this then "encouraged" them to put nothing but Apples into the schools.
b)
there are many forms of being predatory...

The Apple store here is very "snooty" very much "smarter than everybody else"... the slacks and pastel shirts with shoes and no socks for the men and women in black tight short dresses with black pantyhose... so WHY do I mention the clothes?

The ONE and ONLY time that I went into the store...it had, and still does have, I guess, one of those very "artsy" staircases to the upper balcony that is a single center support rail thing and the steps going out from it that one can easily LOOK UP AND THROUGH...

the middle was/is a LANDING...where anyone on the first floor could look UP AND THROUGH... with a railing that was very minimal...

The landing is literally right in front of and above a person walking in. Anyone who enters for the first time will stand there for a while looking around to get oriented because the bottom floor is not well laid out.

The store owner was PAYING TWO YOUNG WOMEN to DO NOTHING ...but stand up there full time to do nothing except "lounge" on that railing, I know because i was there for quite a few hours looking at the MAC and, of course, when anybody came in ... if it was a guy they were making sure that he was looking UP...if a woman came in they scurried up to the balcony and when she had "passed underneath" they came back down...

This was not a one time thing because I knew a guy that ran a MAC and happened to meet him a year or so later and mentioned it and got a reply like "Yeah, he still has women standing up there, kinda shoddy if you ask me but..."...

Okaaayyyyyyyyy... and this from people who sneer at "those" people who, nowadays, would be termed "not woke'...AAAAARRRGGGGHHHHH...L

So I ended up starting because of

a) security from Microsludge
then moved to
b) realizing what predatory people Gates and the Apple people are.
to
c) It just WOIKS !!! ( as Curly used to say j) and it is BEEUUUTIFULL!! ( Kubuntu that is ! )

woodlikesKubuntusmoke