[mythtv-users] OT: A major difference between Widows and Linux

[Another Sillyname]

Having been a windows user since 3.0 (yes there really was) and a self
taught 'nix user since Fedora 4 (I remember the days of having to
pretty much compile every app needed), I can say the largest
'debugging' difference is the level of information you can get from
the two OSs.  In Windows often you get a BSOD and can only do post
reboot analysis of the dump.....whereas in 'nix I very very very
seldom see an app kill the OS....thus allowing 'real time' analysis of
what's going on still.

This can be critical in identifying and solving a problem.

I think it also important in your 'mindset' that you differentiate
between app generated issues and OS generated issues......sometimes in
Windows an app will just keep crashing until you do a reboot and it
can be quite difficult to even identify the cause.



On 12 May 2016 at 10:29, Andréas Kühne <andreas at kuhne.se> wrote:
> 2016-05-12 11:09 GMT+02:00 John Pilkington <J.Pilk at tesco.net>:
>>
>> On 12/05/16 09:51, Damian wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> If this isn't appropriate, then feel free to ignore the question and let
>>> the thread die. I'm only putting it here because you guys are the
>>> smartest computer users I know, so I'm interested in your opinion.
>>>
>>> A fundamental difference between Windows and Linux, it seems to me, is
>>> ...
>>> In Linux, if pretty much anything goes wrong, the user needs to enter
>>> some commands into the terminal in order to get to the bottom of the
>>> problem.
>>> In Windows, no matter what goes wrong, there is almost never a 'need' to
>>> go to the command line.
>>>
>>> If your job is administering networks with Windows or something, then
>>> you probably completely disagree with the above observation. My starting
>>> point is my own experience. My 'geek level' is significantly lower that
>>> some of the geniuses in this group. However, I was always the guy who
>>> friends and family called on to fix their machines if things whet wrong.
>>> So, I've seen a lot of Windows problems, and I never had to use the
>>> command line to fix them!
>>>
>>> Linux has changed MASSIVELY over the last 15 years. It's users no longer
>>> need to touch the terminal whichever things are working, and installing
>>> an OS is a breeze (oh how I remember the pain it used to be!). However,
>>> as soon as something goes wrong (and things always go wrong), the answer
>>> always starts with the terminal.
>>>
>>> This seems to be a huge barrier to casual users to me. And although the
>>> GUI's are great now, we still need the terminal for problem solving.
>>>
>>> Windows never needed the terminal for problem solving! I seem to
>>> remember that we had to 'load' Windows 3.1 from DOS, but ever since
>>> Windows 95, the problems (of which there have been many!!) have always
>>> had a solution that was still within a GUI.
>>>
>>> Is this because they are built significantly differently?
>>> Is it because us Linux geeks like being the gatekeepers to the causal
>>> users GUI, but don't want to let them have 'actual control'?
>>>
>>> I'm not looking for a flame war or anything. I just find this a
>>> genuinely interesting question.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>> Damian
>>
>>
>> I'm not a command-line natural, and use GUI tools when I can, but a
>> well-crafted command line can often deliver a result when a GUI procedure
>> might need several paragraphs - or a video - to describe;  and graphic DEs
>> come in so many different flavours.
>>
>> 2 cents ?
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
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>
>
> I think the design philosophies are the difference. In linux (and the Unix
> world in genera) - a command should do ONE thing and do that well. That's a
> default philosophy and you will see it in the command line tools - create a
> user - one command. Add a user to a group - another command and so on. There
> are other commands that can do some of these things combined, but still the
> default commands are there.
>
> Also there is not ONE linux GUI. There are several. Just from memory: Gnome,
> KDE, Unity, and so on. All of these have their own design philosophies on
> how things should be created and the "look and feel" of things. Also the
> different GUIs are created by individuals not companies. If I have a problem
> I can checkout the code and fix it myself or create a new tool for solving
> my problem. This also means that the GUIs can be different even WITHIN the
> same distribution.
>
> Windows on the other hand is designed by ONE company and they decide exactly
> how to create programs and tools. Because of this it is easier to design GUI
> tools that solve most issues. Also they have (at least since Windows 2000)
> started to use the GUI as the main interface. Some things you can't do with
> the CLI other things are hard to find CLI equivalents.
>
> As to which solution is best? I think both have strongpoints. However, I
> have mainly been using *nix desktops for around 8 years now and feel very
> lost in Windows 10 for example. A colleague  of mine has ONLY been using
> Windows and feels completely lost in CLI instead....
>
> Regards,
>
> Andréas
>
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