Boston Linux & UNIX was originally founded in 1994 as part of The Boston Computer Society. We meet on the third Wednesday of each month at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Building E51.

BLU Discuss list archive


[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]

[Discuss] Why use Linux?



I'm going to pick these apart because there's a fair bit of
misinformation here.

markw at mohawksoft.com wrote:
> Linux has a better grep and find.

OS X has BSD's grep and find, etc. Whether BSD or GNU user space tools
are "better" than the other is a philosophical debate. Worst case,
install MacPorts or Fink and get both BSD and GNU user space tools. Best
of both worlds.

> USB tools on Linux are better.

XNU is scarey :).

> FUSE is amazing and not on a Mac.

False. There are several FUSE implementations for OS X.

> Mac's file system does not allow sparse files.

Also false. While HFS+ itself does not support sparse files, OS X's
VFS layer can and does map sparse files on top of any supported file
system including HFS+.

> I can look at almost *any* type of file system on Linux.

I've never not been able to do this on OS X. Or Windows for that
matter.

> ISCSI just works on Linux (if it can be said to work at all).

I would suggest that iSCSI doesn't work even when it works but that's
just me.

> The development tools on the latest macs are a mess. Multiplatform
> GCC software had to be modified for the latest MACOS becausethe C
> compiler generates 32bit code by default.

Apple switched from GCC to LLVM/Clang four or five years ago
specifically because the Free Software folks were dragging their heels
on keeping GCC up to date with emerging C and C++ standards and 64-bit
support. Yes, the switch is painful. Blame the FSF for that one, not Apple.

As with the BSD vs. GNU user space tools, install MacPorts or Fink and
get GCC along side Xcode's LLVM. Best of both worlds.

> The networking stack is difficult to work with.

XNU is scarey :).

> The virtualization tools are lacking. The virtualized network
> support for virtual machines is lacking unless you pay A LOT for
> vmware.

I've found this to be true of Linux as well. And note: Xen offers this
but it isn't part of Linux and never will be.

> Volume management is lacking.

Lacking, yes. It didn't even exist until recently.

> The latest gdb is not supported easily. I could go on, but these are
> number of my reasons, beyond mere preference, for using Linux.

Again, I can't speak to this.

-- 
Rich P.



BLU is a member of BostonUserGroups
BLU is a member of BostonUserGroups
We also thank MIT for the use of their facilities.

Valid HTML 4.01! Valid CSS!



Boston Linux & Unix / webmaster@blu.org