[thechat] Re: thechat digest, Vol 1 #92 - 27 msgs

[Garrett Coakley]

On Mon, 04 Jun 2001, chris said:

[snip]

> Hope this doesn't start a Linux vs. Windows war, I just want some opinions
> on the state of Linux as a viable alternative to windows.


Well it really depends on what you spend your time doing. 

Here I'm coding PHP/Perl/XHTML/XML, serving http for testing, ftp, ssh and 
samba connections to workmates who come to the flat for some peace and quiet 
(away from kiddies and g/f's *:), and wasting far too much time on Mahjongg. 

I ran windows exclusively through 95 and 98 for the past 4 years, set up a 
dual boot win98/Redhat 6.2 around the middle of last year and I made the 
total transition to a Redhat7 machine at the beginning of this year.

The only windows installations I have now are sitting under VMware (as an 
aside, you can't beat the feeling of watching windows bluescreen in VMware, 
then just rebooting the virtual machine without missing a beat).

Haven't missed windows one bit. Everything I need to do, I can do:

Editing wise (which is what I spend 90% of my time doing) Nedit is an 
absolute dream. Fully configurable, syntax highlighting, hooks into the 
command like utilities (for example, I have Alt-T set up to run HTMLTidy, 
Alt-W runs weblint, etc. etc.) and allows me to get on with the job. If Nedit 
doesn't fly for you then you've got Emacs, Screem, Bluefish, millions of the 
buggers.

Graphics, can't really comment to be honest. Gimp does look pretty good but I 
haven't had a chance to really explore it. Too used to Photoshops keyboard 
shortcuts, so whenever I fire up Gimp, I get frustrated when Ctrl-D doesn't 
work, give up and use my Mac.

I'd recommend it.... 


<sidestep type="avoiding flamewar">
As I said, it all depends on what you want to do *:)
</sidestep>


HTH

G.