Yet another week, yet another blog post due, yet i have nothing to write about, so i shall open by talking about children of men. I found children of men to be a very interesting post-apocalyptic hope movie. While a bit of it seemed the generic "all the 'good guys' die in the end protecting the girl" at times it conveyed a strong message about hope and corruption. It was a good film overall and worth giving a shot.
Also, i was doing some study about my laptop and running linux on it and i ran into a fourm that quouted the old, "linux has less than 1% of all desktops", in the news there where stories of android and iOS (the iphone/ipod/ipad OS) taking over some of linux's 1%. The I read a think on why android may not be good for business in which it cite that in it's around 18 years of live linux has a tiny 1% (which maybe like a 1 million users) of desktops while windows has 94% and mac has 4%. They however forget to take into account linux came into the game latter then the two and has had almost no commercials and only you select software shops even stock the CDs (Retail stores like Best-buys don't carry them, the best bet to find them is a computer store that stocks lots software since it is unlikely that little computer stores will carry them either.) You may wonder how you get a copy then, well most the time you have to burn a CD/DVD of the distro (short for distribution basically it is the version) you want to install. You can also make a liveUSB or a virtual machine and some even install in a folder on windows and let you run it from there. But the install CD is the most popular and it has a great feature called liveCD (it technically is still called that on a dvd but you could call it a liveDVD to), with which you can run linux directly from the cd (it will be slower then if actually installed) which is a great way to test it. The closest thing on windows is to burn a disc with the PE (preinstall enviroment) on it, and it normal looks nothing like a full windows install and is ment more for repair usage.
But anyway i am going to tell you some things i like about linux.
1. Package Management - If you bought a windows7 laptop from bestbuy you may have seen there software installer and you may have thought GOOD LORD how awesome that i can download any of these programs i want with the push of a button without having to google for them. If you also wondered why no one did it sooner... turns out linux did... A LONG time ago too. Package management allows you to download programs from a repo (short for repository). You just boot up a package manager (different distros and even desktops have different ones) then you use a filter or search for the name of the program an then just give it's ticker box a click and it will tell you if there are other programs it has to install to get it to work or if and why it can't install (this can lead to dependence hell it is recommend you stick only to repos provided by the OS unless you know what you are doing.)
2. Almost no viruses - I have yet to get a linux virus, as with mac they are few and far between. That is not to say linux as no anti-virus, it does but mostly the anti-virus is to that you don't unknowingly send a windows virus to a friend since it was harmless to your computer. On of the main reasons linux has fewer viruses ofhter then the fact no one targets a market of less than 1% is the fact that you are rarelly running with full admin rights
3. Root and su/sudo - Root is the master user, the one that can do whatever they want, the one with the power to rm -f / (that will delete your entire harddrive kids) and you are and are not him (it's a universal him, ladys... read it as her if you must) you should have your own account with a much more wicked nickname (for the example lets give Smokey his own account called Smokey.) Smokey then logs in as himself and not root but when he needs to have root's powers he can su to root (or any other user if he has there password or if he uses su from root he doesn't need your password X3) but if he just needed to sync up the clock he could use sudo which lets you run a command as root if you know roots password (or on some systems your own will work to keep root access safe.)
3. NTPDATE - NTPDATE just keeps your clock and calander onto time... that is all
4. Compiz - Compiz is a real-time 3d desktop. the closest things on windows just take a still image and add it to the 3d while compiz uses the real desktop in real time meaning you videos will just keep playing. It has a lot of useless eyecandy but can be useful or just plain fun.
5. The command line - One of the most hated things about linux is the command line... people don't like to type commands... that is just soooooooooo DOS. However the command line in combination with the desktop can be useful and fun. There are some command line tools that are awesome, such as mencoder or ffmpeg that let you convert your .mov's to .avi's. you can even use that to turn your flashes (which save to /tmp) into a format that can actually be read.
6. The cool little tools i have found - In linux i found the awesome testdisk harddrive data recovery tool and xvideoservicethief which lets you download videos from the likes of youtube (and some not so savory places as well.) the is even a totally non-pornographic image viewer called pornview (great program to view image of kittens with just so that someone looking for juice blackmail on you finds only cheezburgers.)
7. Online help - Help is just a google away... really, just google the error.
Those are just some of the reasons i like linux. Stay tune... next non assignment related blog might just feature video footage of my desktop
tata for now my tiggers. ^_^
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