What are the benefits of a Linux operating system?

[powelstag]

Hey

I've used Windows and and Mac operating systems, but never Linux. Are there any benefits to having a Linux operating system? Are there any disadvantages? Are they more likely to contract a virus?

[caKus]

This is just my personnal point of view on a topic that may be highly politic.

1) Linux is an OS that differs of Windows. In other words, a program running under Windows will not run under Linux and reciprocally.
2) Linux is only 1 or 2 % of installed OS. This means that the market of Linux is small and generally, commercial softwares are develloped for Windows because the market is huge. Few commercial softwares are available for Linux. FS is not available, but XPlane is. Same thing for virus : few are available for Linux !
3) Linux is free and Open Source and most softwares running under Linux are free and Open Source. This is a philosophy, a new way of life, in reaction to Microsoft hegemony.
4) I guess that Linux is lighter and less ressources consumming than Windows.

I think Linux may be a good solution in the following cases :
- Light installation : if you just need classical use like word processing (Open Office is pretty good), a web brower and so on. Linux is free, efficient and virus free.
- if you are a progammer and want to develop your own project (personnal or professional), Linux offers many Open Source ressources.
- The software that you plan to use exists under Linux. For example is you want to sim with XPlane rather than FSX, you may choose Linux (I didn't try it, this is not a recommendation, just an example).

But if you want to have disposal of a lot of games, of FSX and add-on ... go for Windows. (I have no knowledge of Mac).

Best regards.

Patrick.

[stifangibbsun]

Yes and Linux hosting is a very cost effective web hosting solution in the long run because of the many different easy to use features and options that it can offer, on top of the high reliability and high speed data transfer capability which it possessed.so I think that is a good benefits of Linux.

[brevedecane]

Linux is very standard. It is essentially a POSIX compliant UNIX. It includes all the UNIX standard tools and utilities. It great operating system and many when you actually look at all aspects of it and functionality. It is also full-featured operating system, originally designed to be used in server.

[castle]

In addition to being a very stable platform, the greatest benefit is in the area of Inter-Process Communications (IPC) and networking and the killer-app in IPC is shared memory. Say goodbye to all the networking cards, cabling, serial ports, and network traffic congestion issues. It is possible to define an architecture in software where all tasks and processes have access to a global database at the speed of your processor backplane and with the inherent multi-tasking capability of linux (and especially real-time linux) you can run an entire cockpit with a *single* core or multi-core machine. Clean, efficient, and fast.

Just need a single network connection to X-plane or Flightgear to run the FDM and scenery stuff and exchange state and control data. with even a modest 100Mbps network, you would be hard pressed to make a dent in the bandwidth or have to worry about deadlock or priority issues.

Best part, the software is free and open-sourced.

JW

[heavyrain]

These are the benefit of the Linux operating system:-
1. A truly great learning platform
2.Dozens of excellent, free, general-interest desktop applications
3.Advanced graphical user interface
4.surpassed computing power, portability, and flexibility
5.Standard platform

[Leo Bodnar]

Hey
I've used Windows and and Mac operating systems, but never Linux. Are there any benefits to having a Linux operating system? Are there any disadvantages? Are they more likely to contract a virus?

If you have used Mac OS X and can afford their hardware why would you want Linux apart from new knowledge? They have very similar core and same rock solid Unix based tools. The only difference is when you upgrade you can give your Mac to your grandma.

[blueskydriver]

Did anyone notice that some of the posters look like spammers? In 6 of the post, you'll see at the bottom a hyperlink in blue that will take you too:

r4i gold cards
ibiza flights
thompson late deals
live dealer casinos
something in arabic (looks like that)
kitchen

In all of these, the posters' have about three posts each (look at the left side for poster info) as if to appear legit. If I'm wrong fine, but why would there be hyperlinks to the above listed items? The only members I know for sure, that are members on here, are caKus, castle (JW), Leo Bodnar and now me.

Therefore, I'd ask the MYC admin guys to look into this, as I think it's a new way to spam. For example, Make three accounts, hold threads with all three account names posting about a topic that appears legit, and then that way other real members will likely join in to make it look even better. Although, under it all is the hyperlinks that are spam, ads or viruses. Spammers or Hackers will do anything to make it work for them.

John

EDIT: In fact, I now know for sure some of these guys are, and if you go look at other posts they made, you'll even see more names of other (so called) members with the same blue hyperlinks. Plus, you'll see they been on here for a while; especially, if they've manage to post like 9 posts or something. MYC, they found a way around you protective measures...

John

[castle]

Agree with everything you say, let me add three more observations...

First, both X-Plane and FlightGear will run with Linux. With FG, the biggest drawback is the scenery. Granted both FSX and X-plane have richer visual content, the folks at FG do a nice job, given that the entire effort is on a voluntary basis. The best of both worlds would be to use the richer scenery with the accuracy, fidelity, and performace of the FG/JSBSim package. (JSBSim is part of the OpenEaagle project providing a multi-platform architecture). There is an old opensource project (OpenGC, has not been active for a few years now (the author has moved on from CMU to a real job) that has an interface to FSUIPC and will run under Linux.

Second, to run a simulator in a truly "professional" manner requires a real time operating system to provide determinstic scheduling and handling of critical events. And while you can use faster hardware, offload critical tasks, provide dedicated hardware for signal processing, or specialized controllers, the idea is to use the main processor to reduce costs and complexity. To that end there are a number of open source (ADEOS, RTAI, Xenomai, RTLinux) and commercial ( RTLinuxPro, concurrent Red Hawk, Blue Cat RT) linux distributions to name a few.

Third, as to the question of drivers? I've developed USB boards and software drivers that are used in my 737 and 747 linux based sims due largely to that very fact; 3rd party vendors will go where the action is and support the 800 pound gorilla. If there was a demand for Linux based products the marketplace would respond. Avinc is using my hardware/software suite in the pilot workstation to fly the UAV in the Global Observer program ( see www.avinc.com for first flight videos) If its good enough to fly a real air vehicle, figure running in a sim would be a no-brainer. So there is Linux based hardware and drivers waiting for the demand.

Finally, using Linux for a home based simulator requires one to step out of their comfort zone with MS based systems. Linux brings a greater level of freedom and opportunity but that also places more responsibility on the user to study and learn the options and capabilities available.

JW

[mndless]

Linux can offers you the wide range of internal built-in security and its really very well because of his awesome unique features.

Ditto this.. Security features in a file server application... Which is how and why I use Linux... As a server. I do have a few user/desktop installations, but haven't tried any gaming type usage with a Linux machine