Gyroscopic Investing

Pointedstick wrote: Then again, I am a UNIX hacker in my day job

Jealous!

I use Debian stable for my primary OS, both for server and desktop applications.  I typically do use backports (backports.debian.org).  The kernel and a few other packages (a buggy KDE network manager, for example, and Firefox of course) get backported on my desktop, and on servers I use the kernel backport if the hardware requires it.

Basically, I find it to be the best of all worlds.

Pointedstick wrote: I had a feeling there would be a lot of Linux users here. Comes with the individualist terrain I suppose! 

I've tried Linux many, many times over the years.

Every time, I've always found it to be a solution in search of a cure when it comes to applications, both polished as well as practical.  Unfortunately, over time, I get the sense Java stole most of its thunder.  And now Android and iOS.

Not that I'm a fan of Windows or anything, but I've been using it since v2.10.  Back then, AmigaOS was tops.

It just goes to prove superior technology is not enough; its all about the business acumen and marketing.

MachineGhost wrote: Every time, I've always found it to be a solution in search of a cure when it comes to applications, both polished as well as practical.  Unfortunately, over time, I get the sense Java stole most of its thunder.  And now Android and iOS.

Linux is probably never going to be "better" than commercial alternatives like Windows or Mac OS X.  It was designed to create a totally free alternative to commercial software.  Free as in not only can you use it for free, but you have the freedom to modify it and improve it yourself, if you want.  To some people this is very appealing, but if the only thing you want is to use stable and well supported software, a commercial OS and applications are probably more suited to you.

What I find remarkable, however, is that Linux has done so well in the Internet space.  Windows was fundamentally designed to be a single user OS, and while multi-user functionality has been "bolted on" after the fact, it has never been the best server OS.

Linux, on the other hand, was designed to copy UNIX, an operating system built around the idea that many hundreds or thousands of users would connect to daemons running services like mail, news, etc, on a campus network.  This fundamental design difference makes it well suited for serving thousands of users on the Internet.

You won't see Google, Facebook, or Twitter running Windows servers in their data center, and there is a good reason for that.

Clive brings up a very good point.  Having a known secure terminal to do your online financial transactions is a huge benefit that you get from some of the bootable Linux CDs.  I remember hearing about those companies that had keyloggers installed on their computers and some criminals ended up wire transferring hundreds of thousands of dollars from their accounts.  The banks basically told them "tough cookies" because the money was already gone, and unless you're checking your account balance daily you might not even notice something like this happening.

All of that pain could have been avoided by using a known secure system to do your banking from.  Of course, this is far too complicated for your average person to set up.