Hi Omar, Windows has improved greatly with the XP version, but my preference would be an open product for the world rather than a proprietary product. The MS Vista version(s) looks as if there will be very little improvement although some in the security area as some operations may keep a separate root superuser as Linux and Unix have always done.
My main criticism of Linux is that is has horrific fonts that are not comparable to Windows fonts and the Linux folks try and make believe that this is not a problem when it is a really serious problem for any demonstrations with a Live disk, etc. to people who use computers for practical work requiring high quality font display. I understand that it is possible to import the Windows fonts after you have loaded Linux although you really should own a copy of Windows OS to make that legal. I have tried many versions of Linux over the years and even had a two computer system for a while using a KVM switch. But I never tried importing the superior Windows fonts and lately have only been trying different live distros, none of which have had quality fonts and none of which can support my 22" widescreen monitor:( One of the other downsides to Linux is having literally hundreds, if not thousands, of "versions." They call them distros, which is short for distributions, since it is packaging up various parts of the GNU/Linux OS and selecting certain packages to include as well as the windowing interface. Not only because it is so confusing for anyone interested in running Linux OS, but because it means that untold hours of work go into non-productive results:( Imagine if the energies and clever programming and packing would be focused on just a few versions!! Having said that, the Linux kernel is quite similar for all the versions of a similar date and so are the programs and Gnu libraries, etc, so the versions are much more similar than they are different. I wish we had one "amateur radio" version of Linux we could all agree on, but this is probably wishful thinking. The one thing that tends to separate the Linux versions is the packagement management for the programs. The most common are the RPM (Redhat Package Manager) and the DEB (Debian) packages. I lean more toward .deb due to certain characteristics where it is suppposed to be able to bring in all dependencies when you bring in a program from a depository. The depositories are maintained for many different distros and some have many thousands. Of course, many programs are included on the disk(s) you download or buy, but not so much for amateur radio:( If you have a distro based upon a particular packaging scheme, you probably can use that package directly. Here is a partial list: - Debian (.deb) based Freespire (the open and free version of Linspire), Knoppix, Xandros, Ubuntu (most popular distro because of promotion and subsidy by a multi millionaire), and Mepis. - Redhat (rpm) based CentOS, Fedora, PCLinuxOS - Slackware based Vector Linux (for low end machines) There are others, but quite honestly most seem to be the niche versions. Programs written for KDE (the Kool Desktop Environment most similar to MS Windows) or GNOME (the other main desktop environment which is more similar to the MAC), can work on either desktop. I understand that you can convert rpm packages to deb so that should help expand the choices. The main issue is bringing in the program you want, installing it, and insuring that any dependencies, such as other libraries or other programs are present that are needed to run the new program. Often it is much easier than MS OS if it is a common program already compiled in a depository. A simple command and it takes care of the whole thing with an internet download either through its own depository, or outside depositories known as the multiverse. Worst case situation would be to take the source code and compile it for your distro. I have never done it but I am sure many on this group have done it. The most surprising thing to me is this: the hams who are most oriented toward what I consider to be the adventure of ham radio (experimenting, trying new things, etc.), are also the hams who are moving toward Linux OS. It also appears that this could be drastically accelerated in the coming years. 73, Rick, KV9U o. wrote: >Dear Rick; > >I am trying to go into LINUX. I very well understand your idea of using a >cross platform interoperability. For the past weeks I have been following all >LINUX-related subjects on this site. I have discovered that there are so many >LINUX versions. Now a question arises here. Is any application written for one >LINUX version capable of operating with another LINUX version? 15 years ago, I >used to be a UNIX man. I never liked or used WINDOWS until I was forced to do >so by the availabilty of applications. Since then I have discovered that I was >right about not liking WINDOWS. It is not stable and it has so many flaws. > >UNIX was quite different. But a twist by manufacturers made UNIX not exactly a >cross platform interoperable system. Every comany had its own UNIX. And one >had to work a lot to make a certain applicaion written under one version of >UNIX, operate under another version by another manufacturer. > >So I go back to my main question. Is any application written for one LINUX >version capable of operating with another LINUX version? > >Best 73 > >Omar YK1AO > > >
