Does anyone use Linux???

[doctorm]

ive been hearing about Linux for a while now and the more i get into electronics and such, the more i think i might want to try it.

my question is, in regards to my electronics hobby, is linux used alot or helpful in electronics design/application/etc?

i mean i know linux can be used for robotics but like can the operating system but used for electronic testing/design or anything involving electrnoics?

also is linux really customizable? like i hear you can make it look like mac or windows and stuff?

thanks

[kaptain_zero]

www.distrowatch.com

Poke around, you'll most likely find a distribution of interest to you.

Me.... I run PClinuxOS just because I like the specific distribution, the software that's made available in the repository, it suits my needs and I like that particular community support.

Linux refers to the "Linux Kernel" only, everything else is add on stuff such as the KDE or Gnome desktop (there's many more) and lots of open source applications that run on a linux kernel based machine. There are other kernels and distributions based on them.... one is BSD (which forms the basis of the current Mac operating system) and there are yet more.... Most of them are available for a free download and can be put on a re-writable disk so you can test them (called a live-cd) without having to install them on your hard disk. Once you find a distribution you like, you can then install it on your hard disk, either alone or together with Windows or Mac in a dual/multi boot setup.

I believe more than 50% of the Internet runs on Linux based servers, and linux has made solid inroads to the Virtual Reality base of our current movies. There's so much more, but I'm not the one to point them out.... I'm just a simple user......

Regards

Christian

[ThunderSqueak]

This reminds me of a funny conversation I saw on IRC a few months back.

person1: I just got this version of linux running, everything except the video card, sound card, and wireless card has drivers! 

Person2: cool

... a while later

person1: damnit I can't find the driver for the video card!

person2: you know, windows has drivers for that

... time passes

person1: YAY! I got the video card working... good enough anyway, now for the audio

person2: I hear windows has a driver for that too <.<;;

.... 3 hours pass

person1: OMG I have sound! what a PITA...  now for the wireless internet

person2: hey, I heard a rumor

person1: what?

person2: rumor is, there is a driver for your wifi...  in windows

person1: oh shut up... I will get it working


time passes...  another 4 hours

person1: I got it!  I have wifi!  ... now to watch some youtube

person2: yay

person1: damnit ><  my sound broke...

and on and on.. it was humorus to watch

I don't really have a point to this, other than I used to be a person who enjoyed using linux.  In the right job it does great.  Servers and such.  For most people however the applications feel very rough around the edges and it is hard to find direct replacements for many programs that you can find in windows or even mac OSX.  There is something to be said for support by hardware and software vendors.  Sure people will argue that GIMP is as good as photoshop?  Or that openoffice is a replacement for MS office.  I have not found this to be the case.  But then YMMV and learning is always good to do.  That being said, my servers at work all run either freeBSD or Linux... but would I force my secretary to use a linux workstation to do the accounting? No, I need her to do real work without worrying about half written software.

*puts on her flame suite*  and now that I expressed my opinion

[Simon]

I think people go for linux because it is free and not windows, we all hate windows and microsoft and for a damn good reason, they only care about money and doing it cheap, the software quality of M$ is crap and only survives due to the huge computing power readily available today, to think I run 4x2.4GHx CPU 8 GB of 1066MHz ram a decent 256MB video card but can I really call my computer fast ? NO, and why ? because the software is so inefficient and it is mostly Microsoft own or software made in their environments like the Net. framework, this is the shittiest thing I have ever seen, i am yet to see a .net program that really performs.

I'll probably setup a linux machine sometime or get it onto my own machine now that I've gotten rid of the RAID (that still didn't help windows) that linux could not read.

As for drivers I've never had a problem, I've used Ubuntu and everything has always installed. KiCAD will run on linux so it looks quite appetizing

[Zero999]

I use Windows XP.

I don't use any other MS software. I have OpenOffice.org rather than MS Office which I haven't used since Office 2000, The Gimp rather than Photoshop and Inkscape rather the Visio or Illustrator but I can't compare to Adobe/MS because I've never used them before.

I don't use the Gimp too much, most of the time I use it for tweaking pictures I've already saved in MS Paint or Inkscape but I gather that touching up and image manipulation is the primary purpose of the software, rather than drawing.

I don't know how well OpenOffice.org matches up to the current version of MS Office but it's certainly better than MS Works which is what my PC came with and hasn't been used since I discovered OpenOffice.org. All I can say is that if you opt for OpenOffice.org, don't go for the default distribution provided by Oracle, it's slow and lacks features such as being able to deal with MS Office macros on spreadsheets and SVG import. I'd recommend using Go-oo which is faster, lighter and has additional features missing from the Oracle. Another option is OxygenOffice Professional, again another OpenOffice.org distribution, like Go-oo but with many other things such as clipart bundled with it. It looks very good but it's updated less often and is a large download.

As far as Linux is concerned, I've used various flavours over the years, lack of accelerated graphics and sound card drivers always seems to be a problem and I've had issues with Fedora Core being unstablel. Last time I tried it, the system refused to boot after performing an update and I did try getting it to boot using an older kernel to no avail. As far as software is concerned, it isn't a problem as I already use OO.o, Inkscape and The Gimp anyway and all the electronic software I use will either run natively or under WINE, e.g. Eagle, Kicad, LTSpice, Electronics Workbench are all fine with Linux. Lots of people complain about the lack of games under Linux but it doesn't bother me as I don't play any games.

My current PC has 1GB RAM, 2GHz single core 64-bit processor, a 256MB graphics card and a 400MHz PC3200 mother board with a Raptor 10,000rpm hard drive so my system runs pretty quickly.

[djsb]

You could try Fedora electronics lab

http://spins.fedoraproject.org/fel/#home

I've not used it as it's a bit too narrowly focussed for me. I prefer to use Ubuntu as everything just works. Pity Altium isnt available for linux.

David.

[Simon]

hm getting a driver for my Ricoh GX2500 gel printer might be fun 

[Mechatrommer]

i've heard Linux, Unix, Ubuntu. But i still using Windows XP. i dont have the guts to upgrade to Vista or 7, why? i got bad experience during upgrading from Win98 to XP, most of my hardwares are unsupported, no drivers! so now, i got more devices, and some are really expensive to me to re-buy, so i dont want to take the risk. Linux? i bought the CD many years back, but not a single attempt to install it in my PC, i got zero commitment to study it, no strong courage, even until now (thats been like 10 years ago), no strong evidence that i can get all my softwares available in Linux.

@Hero: i agree about the shittiest .Net. i use Ms Visual Basic and C++ 6.0 SP5 even until now. And i got a chance to install the VB.NET version. the coding is really the sh*ttiest thing i've seen! with years of experience programming VB... VB.NET coding makes me like an alien who dont know nothing! and yes, software got more complex as the CPU become faster, thats why newer programs becoming slower, not faster, even the CPU is 2-10x faster. If i want performance for a particular (simple) application, i'll program it myself using VB or VC++, then i can utilize to the very single MIP of the CPU.

I think i'm going to die with Windows XP right next beside me!

[NiHaoMike]

I use Gentoo and I really like being able to customize just about everything. I get excellent performance from custom compiling almost everything. I just don't agree with "one size fits all", especially not on modern 64-bit machines.

Gotta love the penguin.

(Sadly, that is not my picture. My life as an electrical engineer would be a lot more interesting if it was!)

[Rhythmtech]

I use Ubuntu quite extensively personally, but have very little to not at all at work.  I have a web server running Ubuntu server that I use as a web media server, for remote storage, and playing around with web and server side applications. The desktop on my workbench which was assembled from spare parts runs Ubuntu.

My laptop runs Ubuntu and has had all the drivers up front every time I have installed it.  It's a little bit older laptop so that helps. Granted, Linux is still an operating system developed in people's spare time so it has issues.  My fiancee, who is not really a computer person, used my Ubuntu laptop for several months thinking I just had changed the desktop layout and did not realize she was actually using a completely different operating system.  I am impressed with it, although I would say it is not for anyone who is not a computer person and needs to depend on their equipment to never need tweaking or looking under the hood.

There are quite a few circuit simulation programs, schematic and pcb layout programs (gEDA), and other tools that are not ported to Windows that work quite well and are free. Eagle runs on Linux, KiCad is another, and there are quite a few simulation programs also.  I have been able to run LTSpice successfully in Wine, which is the windows emulator available for Linux.  Comedi is a set of libraries for accessing control and measurement hardware, so automation and data acquisition.  Linux often gets used in different automation applications because of the scalability of the actual OS software. Basically you can strip it down to only what you need or add as many bells and whistles are you are willing to write in C. The advantage for most people is that it is free, works well and the availability of open source applications that allow you to do and modify whatever you want on them.

[safarir]

2x Debian Server (File, web, dns, dhcp)
2x Laptop running ubuntu
1x Laptop Windows vista
1x Desktop Windows xp
2x Laptop Windows 7
1x Router Running linux

And a lot of virtual machine

I just use my linux laptop for surfing, my principal machine a windows 7 laptop and the windows xp. I don't use linux for electronic since the majority of software are not compatible.

[Kiriakos-GR]

I hate linux  with out an very special reason.
Other than it took ages to take an usable form.  

I work since 1995 with windows , I have study the MCSE on windows 2000 Server ,
Its too late for me to change side .

  

[Zad]

Linux is an excellent infrastructure OS, but I just don't have the time spare in my working life to mess around getting it to run the software I need. Absolutely brilliant for complex embedded systems though. Like cars, it doesn't matter how much they put aircon and leather into a Ford Transit, it is still a van not a car. You can add as much trim and fancy bits as you like, it is still not the tool for the (personal computing) job.

[NiHaoMike]

The few times I need to use Windows (can't remember the last time I did...), I use a well-tuned XP in VirtualBox.

With enough work, it's possible to get XP to under 55MB memory use. Embedded Linux can go even lower, though. I regularly run it on routers with only 8MB.

Here's why I don't recommend Vista or above:
http://badvista.fsf.org/

[Polossatik]

I'm in a similar boat that safarir, for me the OS is an application launcher, I don't "care" about the OS, it just needs to start the application, provides disk and network I/O and work with what I plug in to the USB ports

I use Ubuntu 9.04 on a an old laptop for general browsing and email/IM , Firefox, pidgin and Thunderbird.
Works pretty good, if you use Firefox on Linux or Windows, it's firefox ... no difference. Have an other laptop for the GF also with Ubuntu on it, mainly to avoid virusses and so, all she does is browse, watch movies and email with it anyway )

Have a big desktop with triple boot XP , Redhat and Solaris plus a bunch of other windows / linux variants in Virtualbox images for work.

I use a older P4 system as media center/NAS with XP simply because my favorite DVBT software runs on windows (but can be accessed by any OS).

I used to have a hackintosh (=PC with OSX on it) but I simply had nothing that I really needed a Mac for - all adobe software is available on Windows and works just as good/bad as on Mac

Windows is crap in ABC, Linux is crap in DEF, Mac in GHI, ...Solaris in XYZ , it just depends what you want to do with it.

some opensource stuff is pretty good, other is crap as hell and I gladly pay 100 euro or even more for license for windows closed source software...

The one big advantage of Linux is that it's free, download Ubuntu, install it on a older system and play around, if you don't like it, scrap it, the only cost is your time.

Edit: ha ,and the one thing I dislike is those people who go on about "freedom" but call people who use windows stupid or other things, well , it's my freedom to choose, and sometimes I choose windows...

[armandas]

The few times I need to use Windows (can't remember the last time I did...), I use a well-tuned XP in VirtualBox.
[Image removed from quote]
With enough work, it's possible to get XP to under 55MB memory use. Embedded Linux can go even lower, though. I regularly run it on routers with only 8MB.

Here's why I don't recommend Vista or above:
http://badvista.fsf.org/

Same thing here

I've been using Ubuntu since 6.10 (thats 2006). Nowadays some vendors provide Linux tools (Xilinx FTW), some tools can be run using wine (e.g. LTSPICE), but for everything else you'll want to have windows. Virtualbox is pretty much ideal solution for me.

[gonnafail]

I just want to throw my vote in for Linux Mint. It is based off of ubuntu but has all the packages and drivers etc you need. Makes installation and set up much easier. I have used fedora core, debian, and ubuntu in the past and this is by far the simplest and best linux experience I have ever had. I have switched all of my computers to it and now my girlfriend who is not tech savvy at all has switched to it as well.

Now however I would like to get back to the original question of this thread. is linux used alot or helpful in electronics design/application/etc? I would have to say no, not really. I am sure there are some on here who may argue with me but i think you would be hard to find any company doing electronics design work that are using linux. It is true there are some nice free utilities for it, and you can run some windows applications using Wine. From my experience the free applications are not near as good or as polished as their Windows counterparts. Getting things running under Wine can also be tricky especially if there needs to be any hardware interfacing. For example I have had nothing but problems trying to run MPlab on linux using Wine and interfacing with my PicKit2. It does apparantly work with other programmers like the ICD2 but this is the type of problems you are likely to run into running Wine. Unless you enjoy finding workarounds for things like this id say to avoid it. I am a long time Linux user, I love it and would recommend it to anyone to switch from Windows. But when it comes to electronics I do all my work in Windows. Most of the software you will likely be using, PCB design software, interfacing to Scopes/equipment, programming micros, etc. typically are Windows only and the Linux equivalents, while work, are often very limited in capability in comparison.

More and more companies are offering Linux alternatives to their products. I am loving that I have Matlab on Linux now. And hopefully soon I can use Linux entirely and can entirely abandon Windows. Until that time i will keep a dual boot system around with Windows on it.

[GeoffS]

Warning: I've been a UNIX system administrator for the last 28 years so may be a little biased 

I've been using Linux since it first became available initially as something to hack (you don't get source code with UNIX)
and later as a solid, commercial operating system. For the last 11 years or so, the majority of my work has been with supporting Linux systems in commercial environments. Mostly this is for servers but there are a few clients who have Linux desktops as well.

It's true that support for new hardware devices under Linux can be slow but if the major vendors (IBM, HP, etc) do support Linux so have the necessary drivers that their hardware may require.

I run Centos 5.5 on my home systems and the few Windows programs I need/want to run are accessed via either VMware Workstation or Virtualbox.
I also have a laptop on which I run Ubuntu and I've not had a driver/compatability problem with either system for some time.

Give Linux a try, it will only cost you time and you might like it!

[NiHaoMike]

Something else I should add is that even for those who only use Windows, Linux knowledge can be very useful. Back in my computer repair class, almost all the computers I repaired run Windows (mostly 98, which is the Windows that *really* is junk) but I would often use my Knoppix CD to rule out software problems and fix problems when Windows won't boot correctly.

One problem, of course, is that I don't know of any Linux program to remove Windows spyware. Makes a lot of sense since most Linux programmers don't really bother with Windows.

And then there's BSD. I have run pfsense (embedded FreeBSD) on a homemade router appliance. What I like is the proven security and efficiency. The 550MHz Pentium 3 was fast enough to route (legal) P2P traffic over a neighborhood LAN fast enough that I have seen it saturate my 100Mb connection when a lot of users were downloading content. An $80 Linksys would just lock up. Also, I decided to participate in a local security contest, which I won. (When I went to pick up my prize, a new 30GB iPod, the security engineer said that the only way they could even tell my network was online was by traffic from my IP address.) For the record, I have a friend (Tiffany Yep, the pretty girl in the Tux picture) who has installed quite a few Linux and FreeBSD system for networking and she says that FreeBSD performs better but the difference is only noticeable if the network is fast compared to the routing hardware.

[david77]

I love Linux and I love Windows.

There's no point in comparing the two, is there? They both have individual features wich make them worth
using.
I run my small home server on Linux (some flavour of Ubuntu) without X. I run Samba, Apache, MySQL,
Novell Server, CUPS, IMAP servers on it and that all works brilliantly. I love the transparency of the setup,
there's nothing you can't tweak with Linux.

On the other hand: Most of my desktops and my notebook run Win2k. It works very well, does everything
I need, is rather compact (compared to Vista or 7) and generally just my favourite OS.
I see no point in upgrading to 7 at the moment. I will not upgrade just to have the newest OS, until
2001 my OS of choice was NT4.

I used to like messing around with computers but these days all I want is for them to work. I want to be
able to install any piece of software without getting hassle about dependencies and missing this and
missing that as is common with Linux! That is really something I can do without. I also have no interest in
looking for drivers for hardware. Just plug it in and it works - Windows does that most of the time.
Granted, the last Ubuntu with Gnome desktop did that nearly as well, but who knows...

But still... I don't really like to use Linux as a desktop system, it's just not quite so nice to work with.
Probably due to me being conditioned to the Windows look and feel since the days of Win3.0 .

Nothing causes me more stress than coming home to a not working PC and having to fix it. I have started
to loath that. When someone asks me to fix their computer I usually say "NOOOOOOO!" these days.
Experience shows that getting a Linux PC going proberly is much more work than doing the same thing
with Windows.

Also, I have stopped buying new computer hardware years ago. Usually it's always possible to get used
stuff that is still more than good enough for me for free. There are so many people who always need
to have the newest hardware! They throw the old stuff away, I take it and use it for myself.

[Simon]

anyone heard of www.reactos.org ? these guys have some guts

[David]

anyone heard of www.reactos.org ? these guys have some guts

Awesome! Anyone want to place bets on when they get sued? 

[Simon]

well they have been around for 10+ year and are writing all code from scratch so M$ will never have nothing over them, it's not about haking but replacing

[David]

well they have been around for 10+ year and are writing all code from scratch so M$ will never have nothing over them, it's not about haking but replacing

That's quite interesting, It honestly does sound like a good idea. I will have to look into it properly...

[Simon]

well to put it in perspective, I think I picked up on it 6 years ago and it was just going into version 3, it's still there. owing to the fact that they are trying to get around all the windows faults with good software it's going very slowly